cheri a reasonable approach would be that, aside from some constitutional issue having to do with section 315, which was in place when this permit was granted, it seems as though a covenant was entered into, a contract. there is no suggestion that there has been misrepresentation of fraud or any of the normal things that would end a contract. that aside, it is an exercise and i have enjoyed reading about it. the most compelling argument for me is that i accept more the city's argument about statute of limitations than i do the appellant. when you read into why the 90- day exists, and i love the word

profit to -- proftitude was part of it. i am from the business world. this is business. it has to do with real estate. aside from any other argument, i think that the statute of limitations is right. >> i agree that the constitutional arguments were interesting. i think the design of counsel raises some interesting arguments there is also the counter of legal principles and i think eight years after the fact, as far as our limited

powers would be governing our decision, matters for constitutionality reside elsewhere. i would not want to repeat everything that my fellow commissioners just stated, but i think the most compelling argument, also, is the statute of limitations and the city attorney's position is more compelling, more persuasive. >> i agree with what has been said. is there a motion? commissioner fung: i moved to uphold the zoning administrator and. >> that would be as well as the 90-day appellant? >> that would be my motion.

>> we have a motion from commissioner on -- fung. on the basis of the 90-day statute of limitations. on that motion, president goh: aye. vice president garcia: aye. commissioner fung: aye. commissioner hwang: aye. commissioner peterson: aye, >> president goh, should recall the last item in. protesting the issuance on 40-50 lancing street. the permit to alter a building

which was to demolish and remove existing would form work or shoring at the north end of the building and. we will start by mr. -- we will start with mr. buscovich. actually, if you could wait for a commissioner to return, we will begin momentarily. vice president garcia: did you want to go to the bathroom? we will wait. i am assuming that is ok with madam president. president goh: that's fine.

>> please go ahead. you have seven minutes. >> i will not be seven minutes. maybe other people will talk. the owners of my client's building are here. thank you very much. in a past life in the 1980's, i did wait too much shoring and underpinning and then i would want to do in my life. it is a shoring project. i have long since passed from

that life, but i am familiar with the issues of underpinning. a little bit of history -- our project has had shoring and underpinning done on it. there is a permit to do work on their side of the property line, but they have underpinned our building under a permit. that altered our deck. they talked about tearing the deck in the back down. along the side property line, they altered our debt and done a temporary shoring. the current debt is the only way in for the tenant. it is along the canal supported all of this form work. my brief comment is that it appears their work crosses the property line, because they are talking about doing work the was permited on a permit the was filed on our property.

i have gone out and look at the front deck. there is you about an authorized agent -- the junius brief comments that this work does not cross the property line. we are not expecting the stability of the deck, which is concerning me, because they mention a six-foot vertical wall. are they taking down 6 feet? and that they are the authorized agent. we had a conversation in the hall. it will make a clarification about their position. i do not need to make comments about it. but my response is, i have no idea the scope of the work. the scope of the work is a citation from the city that says damage to the property at my client's property, the

contractor did not finish the work and left debris on our side of the property. the permit says to demolish and remove the existing would perform -- wood form and comply with another current. that is for my property. how they can pull a permit to work on my property is beyond me. what they need to do, the entire scope of this issue, this is a pretty complicated issue, they need to prepare plans and show what they are doing. they also need to do a survey to see if they're on their side of the property or our side of the property. the junius break might be right. i cannot tell but i do this for a living. the building department cannot

tell because the citation says to take stock off of my property. i have looked at the drawing that is the base citation that the underpinning is on my client's property. to be perfectly blunt, both properties should have been cited, not just theirs. they both should have been cited. the reality is, the current debt is not stable. i have prepared plans to fix the deck. but i cannot fix the deck with surcharging their building, because now have been -- that have built a basement beneath my building, has been resolved. i am asking the board to direct the applicant to prepare plans so that we all know what the scope of the work is. to do a service that make shores -- that makes sure their work is on their side writ it is not possible because the permit for my side, then come back to the

board and let everyone see what their permit is. the current permit -- complies with violation for work done on my property. we need to fix the deck. i cannot fix the deck if they figure out what they're doing. i need to get a firewall issue resolved. that is part of the problem. there is a simple fix, and $50,000 for two decks. it is an extremely complicated fix if i have to drill case on its -- caissons. we have asked their permission to do a surcharge and we have not gotten a response. we have asked them about the fire wall and have not gotten a response. we have a rent control unit. we have no idea what they're doing. they need to prepare plans so we

can all see what they are doing. they need to come back here with something better than, comply with the violation that was filed to the wrong address. these people own the building. that owned the building for years. there is a retired police officer who lives there. he is in a rent control space and he is a family friend. we want to get this thing fixed. if you have any questions, we would be happy to answer it. it is a pretty straightforward case of someone needing to prepare something. they did the underpinning with very complex drawings. you cannot yank this out without being concerned about stability. there is no reference from any engineer who has any experience in underpinning. we do not want to destabilize this house. thank you. vice president garcia: did you want to speak before?

>> i just wanted to say thank- you. i really nervous. this has been going on -- i am body of frazier -- claudia frazier. i inherited this from my dad when he passed away. i am grateful that my tenant has been patient, because we have tried to work with them and things just have not been very truthful. we never gotten to the point where we have to hire an attorney. i just want my tenant happy, i want the place safe. the promises that they made to my father, i want them to take care of things they said there would take care of and i'm asking for your help on that. thank you.

>> in the respondents brief, you refer to some unreasonable demands made by the appellant. >> i want to be careful commenting about confidential settlement agreements and having them reprinted. the big issue i have is that i know what the value of their deck is. it is the same value as mine. the big issue is that if the deck was taken down and i replacing it, it is a firewall issue. if i can get away from the firewall issue, i would say a tremendous amount of money. i ask the question, can i surcharge your basement wall? i could get another large check of money and make this a lot simpler. i have not approached planning because the surcharge issue is a huge issue. if i have to drill caissons for

a silly deck, it is out of control. but a neighbor cannot surcharge the basement wall. that is the issue of making this simple. i have asked the question and have gotten no response. >> there was an issue raised about your appellant. not allowing access. >> there are issues of access that are there. to be perfectly blunt, when planning comes out and takes a lot -- they did not finish the building. they need to come onto our property to finish the building. they did not finish. i do not know how dbi signed off. they did not fulfil the planning regulations. they want to come onto our property to finish our building. the last time they came on, they tore down the back deck and walked away. and the sliding door is still open. if you walk out of the sliding door, you drop to your feet and

break your neck. we brought in an independent contractor, i told them the numbers over the phone of what is going to take. the big ticket for these numbers are firewall and caisson. we are reticent about letting them come back on the property until this issue gets resolved. commissioner fung: if you are asking for a resolution from the board, three of those issues were not in your brief. the fire wall was not, the surcharge issue was not -- >> those are my issues. commissioner fung: but you are asking the board for a resolution. why were they not in the brief? >> their permit was a separate issue. i cannot do my permit for this. when we file our permits, which you have to file for the right address, i could not put my issues on their permit. their permit is filed for 50

i will have to file a separate permit. i am sorry for the misunderstanding. president goh: we can hear from the permit holder now. >> good evening president goh and members of the board. i am with the law firm of rubin and junius in san francisco. i appreciate your time tonight. he made a few statements that i think miss characterized the status quo of the project and what has been happening over the past few years. first of all, the permit that we are talking about is a permit to remove some pieces of wood that remain on 15 guy place property.

the person who called in to the -- who called in the complaint as a means to leverage, we do not know that for sure, but we were simply trying to respond to the notice of violation. he says that there are some shoring issues, the debt is not stable, the whole thing will come crashing down if we do not -- if we allow this permit to proceed. a couple of points about that -- if you look at the notice of violation, and the underlying permit, and you have a copy of the notice of violation. that is attached as exhibit f to my brief. it talks about -- pardon me. it refers to the two by four wall constructed at the rear side without a permit current there was a permit for the underpinning.

the two by four wall was part of the shore information that was done when the project was originally underpinned. i have a copy of an e-mail from the department of building inspection. if i may submit copies to the board. they confirm there are no shoring issues at hand. i refer you to the department of building inspection. they confirmed that to me by e- mail that only talked about removal of some pieces of wood. absolutely. in terms of the history, some of the complaints he mentioned about the damage to the property, damage to the decks, there was an agreement in place with her father, the prior owner, a license agreement to allow access to the property. there was an underpinning agreement signed. a long series of negotiations with the prior owner. $40,000 was paid to the owner to

do the work necessary to construct the project. the developer did not come on and start ripping out? without permission. this was fully negotiated. if you have copies of those agreements in your materials. the existing side and rear decks were illegally attached to the old building at 50 lancing street. they had to be removed to do the construction. the development team put up temporary shoring in order to keep the debt in place. the intent was, once the project was finished, we would come in, talk, figure out what needs to be done, and build to a new deck. we will do a bunch of work that we do not even have to do. and you will see copies of letters are attached to my brief that show a series of negotiations over the years. something was mentioned about confidential discussions. those are my letters. i authorized to show you them. we said we would do all the work

for them, just let us onto the property. we will give you insurance and what we need to do to make -- to fix the debt -- the deck. those offers speak for themselves. they rejected them to. a few of the appellants arguments i wanted to address -- in terms of the authorization, there was a slight typo in my brief. i want to point you to the fact that 50 lansing is a condominium project and is covered by the homeowners association. the authorizing manager for the board has letters attached as exit g -- exhibit g.

i have heard from him 10 or 15 times saying that the board is anxious to get this issue resolved, that the notice of violation dealt with, and also we would like to paint the side of the building but we cannot. that is the last finishing part of the was mentioned a moment ago. we cannot take it because we do not have access. the intent was, as part of our final work on the deck, we would obtain access to pay the side of the building. in terms of the permit and stating the proper address, the building code is clear that you do not need separate permits because there is no -- because separate base structures are not involved. the permit has both addresses on a. again, it is simply going in to remove some pieces of wood that are no longer doing anything, just sitting there on the property.

it seems silly that we are here arguing about a permit to remove some pieces of wood. that is what we are doing. all the prior work, the construction and underpinning work, that was authorized by the prior owner. there was nothing inappropriate done. agreements have attached to your brief period in terms of the new work, the request for information, we talked a year and a half ago about a possible settlement and ways we could resolve this issue. a cash consideration, getting work done. i am still trying to find out answers to his questions. i have asked for it -- ask for copies of their estimates for construction work which i have not received. that is not the issue here. we are talking about a single permit. we're not going to go on the owner's property without permission. this permit does not give us the right to do that. we need their permission or need

to get their permission to go on to the property. your time is being used as leverage for settlement negotiations rather than to deal with a legitimate building permits issued. i am happy to answer any questions. >> you wanted with the e-mail you were speaking about on the overhead, you could put it there, reference it, and it could be on the record. >> thank you. this is my first opportunity to appear before you, so thank you for that. commissioner fung: do you concur with him that the pieces of what you want to remove are on 15 guy st's property and. >> we missed was some years. there may be a few inches on a 50 lansing, but the majority is on 15 guy st.

for your reference, the entire issue came up because a notice of violation was filed. >> thank you. >> thank you. president goh: mr. duffy. >> good evening, commissioners. joseph duffey. reading the brief, this has been going on for quite a few years. i see a building permit simply to remove some boards or shoring if you want to call it that. they should of been taken out when the building was finished.

if access is provided, but i'm not sure if that was the case or not. all i see is a building permit simply to take those pieces of wood from that area. the complaint was there was damage to the property. the contractor did not finish the work. he left debris among the underpinning at the back. the notice of violation preferences a two by four wall. i am a little bit confused from reading that. i do not know what that means. i'm just reading through the brief as well. i will be available for any questions if you have them. vice president garcia: what is the second one that's violation monitoring -- what does that mean? >> i do not know.

vice president garcia: had you go from looking at this to all this involves is removing some what it? how'd you get to that? >> the contractor did not finish the work, left debris and underpinning on the back. sometimes if you're building a building and cannot get in next door, you have to move on. but you really should not -- you need to work together with the neighbors to try to get this piece of wood out of there. agreement states that it needs to be removed. as you all know, in san francisco, when there is an existing building, sometimes decks rest on a neighbor's property. all of a sudden, someone decides it wants to demolish the building. something needs to be sorted

out. we do need to see a building permit to support this deck. we definitely need that. the other question is the permit being on the wrong address. it is connected to the building at 40 lansing, then i would say that the permit is on the proper address. if it encroaches on to that other property, maybe it is a simple issue. from our point of view, if that forming is connected to the wall of lansing st., the permit is properly issued.

>> is that the kind of thing dbi would go out and see it? do a visit and take a look? >> we could do that. definitely. sometimes it is hard to tell if it is 1 inch, if we are talking about 1 inch, it is really hard to tell. vice president garcia: you said something about a permit the being to be pulled for the deck. is that for 15 guy or 40 lansing? >> 15 guy. we almost got there but we did not get there. just the last part. if it is a it deck repair, i do not know if it is a firewall issue? but it looks to be in bad condition based on what i saw in the breeze. it may need to be rebuilt completely.

>> i believe that 15 guy could authorize 40 lansing to file for the permit and take care of the deck. vice president garcia: all fully 15 guy will allow 50 lansing on the property. if they decide they do not want to, what happens? >> it will have to go to court and get some sort of order to do that. that is a problem for us. if the other side says they are not letting them on the property, a civil issue comes into play. that happens a lot. getting the forms out of their is not a safety hazard. they