>> good morning, today is wednesday april 17, 2013. this is a meeting of the abatement appeals board. i would like to remind everyone to please turn off electronic devices. the first item on the agenda is roll call. clinch, melgar,

mccray, mccarthy, lee, walker is excused. we have a quorum and the next item is b. do you swear the testimony you are about to give is to the best of your knowledge? you maybe seated. next item on agenda is approval of minutes. discussion and possible action to adopt the minutes for the meeting held on december 19, 2013 and february 20, 2013. >> move to prove. second. >> is there any public comment on the minutes? seeing none, all in favor. >> ayes. >> the minutes have passed

unanimously. >> item d discussion and possible action to adopt a rule regarding requests for continuances that conforms to san francisco building code 105 a, 2.6. >> i would like to discuss the proposed language. i was wondering if it was possible to take out the process of having the secretary grant the continuance and just have the president grant it. would it officially come from the president? >> it's up to you what the rule

looks like. if you can discuss it and propose a different language and the majority of you have to vote for it. you can scratch it out, edit it and move that that be the rule to be adopted. the benefit of the rule as written is which, as i think i mentioned is the rule that the building inspection commission uses. to allow a request in writing to be an approved by the secretary and the secretary and the president is that you all don't have to shown up. everyone doesn't have to show up when most is in agreement when the continuance is signed. it's every continuance has to come before the full commission. there are

many more times. >> i'm saying the secretary should be in communication with the president when setting the agenda. wouldn't it be the president to grant the continuance and not the secretary? >> the request usually comes in and can be granted with the approval of the president. correct me if i am wrong, i think logistically the request come to you and i would anticipate having was happened in the past that you would call, if the department has no objection then you would call commissioner clinch and if he's okay with it, then mr. sweeney would grant the request. but it's a department objected or commissioner clinch said no, then the person would have to come before the full commission to request the continuance.

>> how about if i suggest the language saying granted by aab president through the aab secretary. just to make it clear. >> that's referring to sweeney. >> okay. >> okay. i'm sorry. i thought it was son ya. >> no. it would take the department to concur on the request and president clinch to be okay with it and then secretary sweeney would tell the party, yes you have your continuance. >> is that language favorable to you? >> can i motion that? >> you want to read that back to us? >> the motion would be to adopt

the rule regarding request for continuances that respond to building code 1.5 a 2.6 >> i will read the whole thing. at the request of any party the abatement appeals board may grant one good continuance cause shown at the time of the hearing. such hearing shall not exceed 60 days. this is the time that i was proposing we change. i'm going to read what i propose. upon written request of advance of the hearing such request maybe granted by the aab president through the aab secretary. and the concurrence

of all parties to their po's and the head of the department which rendered the challenge decision or his or her designated representative. a request to continuance by the head of department which renders the challenged decisions granted only with the approval of the majority of the members at the public hearing on the matter. the second half means that if one of the parties disagrees with the continuance it comes before the entire board. >> i'm fine with that. did you have any enforcement hang ups on that >> i think it's going to operate in the same way with the exception that, i just want to make sure the party wouldn't be calling the president

directly. the benefit of working through the secretary is the request comes through the secretary and the secretary calls commissioner clinch and if commissioner clinch is okay with it and the party concur, the secretary, sweeney can grant it. that may logistically work out better. >> actually rather protect president clinch and have it go through the secretary. with his full approval so the control would still stay with the president. but, i like the idea of a staff doing the administrative work that, you know. >> i like that. >> it has the benefit and that's how basically we've been operating. the only change from practice is to pull in the language of building code

section 105a. 2.6 to conform with the building code in that one continuance for good cause can be granted and it can't exceed 60 days. that's the change from how you have been operating is my understanding. >> to clarify, do you feel it's better clarity the way it's written or? >> i will leave it up to the board how we feel. >> i personally think it reads fine like it is. i would make a motion that we approve it as it is. >> all right. second. >> public comment? >> any public comment on this item? >> i have a question. mr. mar. i don't have any problems with the way it's written. i just have a question in terms of the

notice that's given for the request because what's happened in the past, the person that asked for the continuance didn't give enough notice which means we already put it on the agenda which means it was public and that if any neighbors or somebody wanted to come and speak, they didn't get enough notice that we had granted a continuance. are we going to have a requirement that somehow the notice part is also taken into consideration. i don't mind granting the continuance as instead but there is some responsibility so we don't post it and all of a sudden we change the agenda and people either show up and not get to be heard or they don't make plans to show up at the following. >> once it's agendaized, we shouldn't grant it. >> i think the rule is the

responsibility. if it comes in at the 11th and it's communicated to you, commissioner clinch, then presumably the reasons may come and it maybe on the agenda but someone might have had a major medical emergency where they really can't attend and that can be communicated and it's up to president clinch at that point. but, i would guess in practice, whatever the reasons would be communicated and could be taken into consideration with in particular with respect to 11th hour request. i think you do want to give yourself some flexibility to accommodate that kind of thing and i would be has hesitant to put a rule that would not allow for that

flexibility. keeping in mind in practice that one could see through someone trying to take advantage of the system. if there is no reason, that rises to the level of a real last minute emergency, then presumably the department would object and the president would say, no. this rule allows for that flexibility. >> miss -- has a comment. >> thank you, my question with the director's hearing and it's granted and someone may want to give testimony and they can't come back. if it's on the agenda, to at least take testimony from someone who may not have the opportunity to come back, then i think your situation is resolved. >> thank you. >> okay. >> if we have that

understanding, i think we'll be fine. >> there is a motion and a second. i'm going to call the roll call vote. president clinch, yes, melgar, yes, mar, yes, mccray, yes, mccarthy, yes, lee yes. motion passes. case no. 6775.

>> as a long history of not being propagated. it's a rovl revolving door of violation to get the owner and the agents to get the hotel to run properly. the thing is that there is other building permits out to do work on this property. my colleague will speak very eloquently about that. but the concern is that this is a large hotel. it is a building of 78 guest rooms, 49 residential, while others are approximately maybe 20-30. the size of a

large apartment building or mid size residential hotel. the problem is they have been at this for a while. they started to do renovations and they didn't have permits, yet when the housing inspect or was out there in late february, some of those rooms have not been finished to allow the residents to live in those very bad conditions. let me give you a brief explanation as to why this is in this condition and we ask you that this not be granted because of the revolving door. so much the notice of violation has somewhat stepped into the shoe of operating this hotel which is not a good way to do

business. we actually did a room to room inspection of this building not along ago and that was in september of 2010. it has several violations. we were able to post that particular violation in july of 2011. about 9 or 10 months later we go back which is april of 2012. that resulted in a notice of violation in may of last year, 15 page notice of violation. as you can see generally when we company room to room inspections, it's a message to the property owner that you need to be doing something different as far as the operation to the hotel. that message is not getting to the property owner or the operator. we understand they have changed

operator. that's been a while. 10-12 months later and we have not seen any changes to the conditions of the people living in this building. that is the concern. from that stand we feel very strongly about this that the question for additional time should not be given. that an order of abatement should be placed on the property and that we encourage them to move forward but they need to do so in a way they are operating the building and doing it on a needs basis. i can show you photos. it's the type of where these conditions painting over sprinkler heads. the room here may have been renovated but not all the rooms have been and not one person in the last year or so where all

of these renovations have occurred, as i said, the last in expectation we did, he looked at some renovated rooms. they weren't finished. we need much more substantial progress in the right areas. not a flurry of activity where it's not addressing the living conditions of the people in the building. that is our concern. thank you. >> a point of reference. >> next speaker? >> good morning. my name is

rich strap. i'm the lawyer representing the ownership. she's entirely correct that this building has had a very bad history. i would like to give a very quick overview of the context of the work that's being done and then introduce the contractor that is in the process of doing the work as well as mr. noelke. the history of this building is that it was under a 20-year lease with a prior operator which ended january of last year. it was a mess. the task force inspection of a year ago documents the condition in which the property was left by the end of the previous operator who at the end of his lease chose not to

make any upgrades of any kind whatsoever. as soon as the owners took possession a year ago january, a new lessee was brought in, who is present here today as well as two representative of the owner as well as mr. noelke who is their consultant and new work commenced last year, but after the task force inspection because it was concluded that there were so many problems that instead of simply going around and doing a band aid fix on this or that room, it became clear that a complete remodel of the whole building was needed. that is under way and because it's under way and it's about 1/3 done and about 1/3 of the $600,000 cost is spent. why we are here asking for more

time. essentially i have much of the documents before you is part of the old bad news. but there is, and this is simply a chart to try to show in a graphic way the green and red, the green having been completed. the red still to be done, but the point is there are numerous categories here that go far beyond the scope of the original and this chart goes on and on. it's way too much detail for me to go into the detail, but simply to note that what we have is a 4-phase process that is under way as to the tenants and there are 24 occupants. 24 rooms that are occupied. all the rest