>> good evening. welcome to the meeting of the board of appeals. the board president is kendall goh. to my left is the deputy city attorney. she will provide the board with any legal advice. i am the board executive director. in the front row we are joined by representatives from some of the city departments you will be hearing from this evening. the senior planner and assistant to the zoning administrator. next is the building inspector. he is joined by the acting chief inspector tony greco. mr. pinelli will not be here.

there is one housekeeping item. president goh has canceled next week's meeting. the next meeting is september 14, 2011. at this time, if you could please go over the meeting guidelines and conduct the swearing-in process. >> the board requests you turn off all phones and pagers so there will not disturb the proceedings. please carry on conversations in the hallway. the board's rules of presentations are as follows. permit holders and part representatives each have seven minutes to present their cases and three minutes for a bottle. -- rebuttal. members of the public who are not affiliated with the party have up to three minutes each to address the board and over a bottle. to assist the board in the accurate preparation of minutes, members who wish to speak on an item on the board's agenda are

asked but not required to submit a speaker card or business card to board staff when you come up to speak at the podium. speaker cards and pans are available on the left side of the podium. the board also welcomes your comments and suggestions. there are customer satisfaction survey forms on the left side of the podium as well. if you have questions about requesting rehearing, or rules, or hearing schedules, please speak to staff during the break or after the meeting or call the office tomorrow. it is located between vani.n.s. avenue and -- van ness avenue. thank you for your attention. we will conduct the swearing-in process.

if you intend to testify in any of tonight's hearings and wish to have the board give your testimony evidentiary weight, please stand and raise your right hand and say i do after you have been sworn in or for. please note any member of the public may speak without taking a know pursuant to the rights under the sunshine ordinance. thank you. >>do you solemnly swear or affim the testimony will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? thank you. >> thank you. calling item one, public comment. is there any member of the public who would like to speak on an item that is not on to its calendar? seeing none, we will move to item no. 2. commissioners? item three. the adoption of minutes. the board meeting minutes of

august 10, 2011. >> i will move the adoption. >> is there any public comment on the minutes? please call the roll. >> on that motion from the president, to adopt the august 10 minutes, commissioner fung. >> aye. >> commissioner garcia. >> aye. >> commissioner hwang, aye. commissioner peterson. >> aye. >> next item. appealing the imposition of penalty on may 12, 2011 for construction work done without a permit -- a permit. public hearing was held on june 29, 2011. the matter was continued to allow the president to participate in the final vote.

at the last hearing, commissioner fung reduce the penalty from nine times to five times the permit fee based on the fact the fee was -- the work was minor. dbi expended significant forces -- resources to amend the manner. president goh, you have indicated you would like to move back into deliberations, is that correct? >> [gavel] >> president chiu: good afternoon, welcome to the san francisco board of supervisors meeting f[gavel] >> i would also support a motion to reduce to five times based on the fact that the work was minor and the appellant might have believed it was abated. the department having expended

energy to investigate the issue, this is why i would not support it. do you want to renew your motion? >> reduce the penalty to five times. >> based on the reasons stated previously? [gavel] president goh: yes. >> we have a motion to reduce the fee. on the basis that the work was minor and the appellant might have believed the penalty had been abated. is that correct? >> also the dbi had expended significant resources. >> on the motion, president goh. president goh: aye.

cthe appeal is granted and the penalty is reduced to five times the regular. >> thank you. we will move on to item 5. appeal no. 11-084. the subject property is at 536 golden gate ave. appealing the imposition of penalty on june 1, 2011. plumbing work done without a permit. application pp 2011/06/01/556. we will start with the appellant. >> the evening. -- good evening.

i am leaving the space unoccupied. upon taking possession of the space last year, we did minor remodeling including painting, a changing lighting fixtures and so on. included in the scope of the work was limited amount of plumbing work that needed to be changed out. we repositioned a water heater and subsequently had to rework some gas lines and while we were in the basement we noticed a couple of the pipes were arrested. pipes that connected to our bathroom -- to the toilet and such. i enlisted the help of some family members that have some handyman experience. i did not feel the need to get a licensed plumber. i wanted to save some money and have the work done by some family members. the work was done. unknowingly, i did not realize i needed to obtain a permit to do the work. the work was done -- performed

and completed in june of last year. a few months later, my landlord had to hire a licensed plumber to replace a bunch of sewage lines and when the plumbing inspector came in to sign off on that work, noticed some additional work was done. and we proceeded to get cited for the work we have performed a few months prior. to make a long story short, after receiving the citation, we took the necessary steps and came to the dbi and applied for the permits and pay the penalties. we took the corrective measures to get the work done by a licensed plumber. we have a final inspection and passed the inspection. i am here today in hopes of appealing the penalty which comes out to $2,799.

hoping that i can get that fee reduced to the maximum amount of reduction based on the fact that i did not know any better. we are a small business owner. i thought i was doing minor corrective work. upon knowing of our mistake we took care bed and applied for the necessary permits and i would like to basically say that it is in the past and we have taken care of it. that is it. >> you mentioned the fact that your landlord -- you're the owner of this property. >> i am leaving the space. the landlord is somebody else. i am leaving wilrestaurant space within the building. >> you are the landlord. >> i am not the landlord. i am leaving the space. -- leasing the space. >> for myfor my landlord.

>> i am confused. >> me and my father are leasing a restaurant space at 536 golden gate. we are leasing from an llc. we are not the landlords. >> or the honor? >> we're not the owner. >> why does it siccone owner -- tollneco-owner. >> you mentioned you hired a licensed plumber. what did that person do? did they have to redo some of the work? >> when we were cited, it was noted that some of the work was done incorrectly. we had to hire a licensed plumber to take the corrective measures and do the work properly. to install some pipes properly. >> what was the problem with the

pipes you had done? >> we attach them without proper -- attached to them without proper ventilation. i do not know the exact procedure. the citation mentioned there was improper ventilation and there was some traps that were done improperly. >> you are the one who had to pay the penalty, not the honor? >> correct. ok. i will ask mr. duthie about that. >> thank you. -- i will ask mr. duffy about that. >> thank you. >> good evening. i spoke earlier with the chief putting -- plumbing inspector. he wants to keep the penalty at nine times. some of the reasons are -- this

was filled observation which -- failed observation. they saw during inspection of a building, sinks without traps, toward the front, plumbing supplies were thrown and new gas and water pipes were installed without permit. and there was no access to the restaurant upstairs. on august 19, 2010, the first notice of violation was issued. and on december 13, 2010, the second notice was sent. and on december 16, 2010, a final warning was sen.

on december 29, 2010, we referred it to code enforcement as there had been no response from the person who got the notice of violation. it was received by code enforcement and it went to a director's hearing. the case did get continued. and that was in may 2011. in june 2011 it was a plumbing permit. the proper inspections were given and the case has been debated. -- abated. the penalties i believe are [unintelligible] >whoever applies for the plumbing permit, that penalty would be assessed.

that was probably a licensed plumber. this was done in the restaurant. all this worked -- the plumbing permits could be at -- obtained by a licensed plumber. it could not be obtained by the lessee or the homeowner. any kind of pervert -- permit like this. >> the licensed plumber is the one who pays a fine? >> they could pass that on to whoever they are doing the work for. which is pretty normal. he could pass these on to the client. >> what specifically factors into the decision by your department to ask for the full nine times penalty? >> mr. pinelli stated that it

is work in the restaurant. it was a significant amount of work. they did not know they needed a permit. if you are doing this type of work in your own home, you would need a plumbing permit. you need a permit for this type of work. it is -- it did take them quite a few months to get to -- in touch with us. there was a first and second notice of violation, a final warning letter. someone was on notice we were trying to get a plumbing permit to take care of the problem and it seemed to be ignored by whoever got the violation. it would have been quite a bit of staff time as well. serving and posting these notices. >> thank you. >> mr. duffy, to clarify a couple of points. the notice went to the lessee. this gentleman.

>> i am assuming that it did. it would have been on the address. i am not sure who it got handed to. >> is it a mailing or posting? >> i assume it was given whenever the inspector was there. he probably wrote it and gave it to whoever was there. >> there was a posting, wasn't there? >> we post when it gets to code enforcement. we do not always post notices of violation on the front of the property. if there is someone there to get it, we give it to them. we did post for hearings and something like that. that is part of code enforcement. >> is the -- when you say it is a significant amount of work, it is contrary to what the palin said. when he was doing a little bit of repair work. >> i am reading of the inspectors notes of what he saw.

it seemed to be supplies, floor drains and tpipes without traps. >> was that related to the other permit? >> the violation was in august. it could have been. possibly. that would be a question for the other party. >> are you finished? could you talk about abs plumbing, that is prohibited in the city of san francisco? >> that is a plastic pipe. we would be using cast-iron four lat. -- for that. ford drains. -- for drains. >> drain pipes and stuff like

that. abs would not be the proper type of piping to use per code in san francisco. >> that traps and the things you mentioned, those are things that i licensed plumbing contractor would note to install their. >> that is right. the proper way to do this is to get your plumbing permit and get a licensed plumber and do the work. you are not going to get a plumbing permit off our department to do the work unless it is a licensed plumber that gets the permit. >> if you were a homeowner doing some small repair work, you could pull permit yourself. >> for certain types of plumbing work. athat is only in single family residences. it would not be multiple units. >> thank you. >> is there any public comment

on this item? will move into rebuttal -- we will move into rebuttal. you have three minutes. >> i do not deny that the work was in fact done by us. a testament to what the gentleman just mentioned. the fact we had not what was going on. we were trying to save some money and get the work done ourselves. we know better now. for everything from here on out we would use a licensed contractor or plumber on an as needed basis. the amount of work was limited to the back part of the restroom. however, the citation mentioned a lot more work. we inadvertently were cited for stuff that was done by a previous tenant as well. that was something that was brought up between the landlord and myself. that was a big point of argument

between the landlord and myself because i was trying to explain to her that we should not be held accountable for a lot of the work that was done by a previous tenant. a lot of that ultimately got addressed between myself and the landlord. as far as the timeline and why it took so long, it was a matter of miscommunication. when the citations were posted at our business, we had access to those but during those days we were not at the restaurant during the daytime. we were not there at all business hours. we were doing work sparingly. we were doing the work after hours as well. again, we were in their painting and so on and so forth. we did not receive anything in the mail. a lot of the correspondence was done directly with the landlord and the landlord was in china for an extended time so we did not get the information from her. unfortunately, it went from

being the first citation went to a second and third and eventually ended up in the hands of code enforcement. eventually, despite the fact it took as long as it did, despite the fact it went through all the various steps, eventually when we were cited and we were in a situation where we had no choice, when we got the absolute paperwork, we took care of it. we got a licensed plumber to come in and replaced the work that was done. we spend it -- we ended up spending more money to fix the mistakes we made at the offset. a lesson to be learned. we could have gone this route the first way and we would have spent a lot of time and administrative powers and money as well. mistakes were made. we apologize. we took the corrective measures. i would like to get some of this

money back. we could definitely use it. >> the penalty you pay is based on the work that had to be done correctly in addition to work that had been done by a former tenant. >> correct. >> we spend upwards of $400 initially. and then when we -- that was when we did the work. we illegally did the work. we have to take the corrective measures and we spent upwards of $6,000 with a licensed plumber and in addition, we have to spend the 2007 hundred $99 for the penalty and we had to apply for permits and i do not remember the exact amount. it was upwards of $600. we spent close to $10,000 just

to rectify this and that is why i am here going through the appeals process hoping we can get some portion of that back and reapply it towards the business. >> have you read the least to see that you are responsible for all these expenses? what role is your landlord -- landlady, what role is she playing if the work was done prior to your tenancy? she>> if we took care of the citation and pay the penalties and applied for the permit and if we pass inspection, that would be good enough. we had an understanding with the landlord. if we did all we needed to do, and the citation was debated, that would be the end of the discussion as far as i was concerned. >> as far as it was concerned? >> as far as the citation was

concern. >> what role is the landlord playing in all this? >> that work we have not done. that part of the restaurant has not been addressed. >> the penalty you are paying is not based on the prior work because you have not got the permit for that yet. the nine times work you had done. >> exactly. it is for the work we did. fy vice president gar vice president garcia: thank you. >> you said there was a posting. you and the people and your staff did see the notice of violation. >> there is a little bit of confusion. >> did you see the notice of the violation? >> the first one. i did. >> go ahead. >> a little bit of confusion

regarding how our business addresses laid out. we are located at 536 golden gate ave. and the space adjacent to ours is 544 golden gate ave. the permanent address for the building is 544 golden gate ave. our landlord, the llc is 544 golden gate avenue associates. when there is mailings that take place, sometimes instead of being sent to a said 536, they are sent to 544. there are not any tenants at 544. there was a builder-developer that was taking up the office space at 544. they are doing construction on the new pc building across the street. when they left a lot of the mail was being forwarded from 544 to

our landlord's home address. there is a lot of lead time between that. that, coupled with the fact that our landlord was that of the country attending to some family matters, made it so that there was a lot of miscommunication. mailings never made it to me. never were in my possession until significantly later down the road. the initial citation to place in august of last year. i did not get access to the second or third violation until january. we had some issues between the landlord trying to figure out who was responsible for what. eventually, additional time lapsed and it ended up in the hands of code enforcement. >> what did you think when you saw the first notice of violation? >> that i need to figure out how much of