lawyers, architects, god knows what. what can i do? >> well, we will probably tell you as a commission. i think what you can do is probably if you cannot afford to keep the building, you have to look at that yourself. commissioner clinch: any questions, commissioners? commissioner mar? commissioner mar: i know you were not the original owner or builder of this building, but even when you bought it -- as i am here sitting in the seat as a landlord, i am and property owner in san francisco as well. unfortunately, it is very popular in this town for realtors to go out there, and these units are unwarranted. honestly, when i talk to other

property owners, that should send up some radar. unwarranted means illegal. unfortunately, our market, you could sell a car that you are not supposed to drive, but if you buy that car and it is illegal to drive, you cannot drive it. the highway patrol will stop you, and the dmv will not give your registration. that is the catch-22 we're stuck in. did you ever question the realtor what "unwarranted" means? you are not buying a four-unit building. you bought a two-unit building. >> you could call me naive, and will not question that. it is the only unit i ever bought. i have never gone through this before. now, knowing what i know now, if i heard that, of course i would not get into it. i am pay utilities for the entire building.

and you know pg&e charges four times as much. i do not know if you know, because of the tier system, they act like it is only one person using that power when it is really three units and the common areas, and i have to pay all of it. my bills are over $700 a month for just this one little building. i wanted solar panels. i could not get solar panels. this has put me in a horrible -- it has been my worst headache and my worst nightmare, and this building absolutely love. i have never loved anything as much as i love owning this building and living in it and taking care of it the way that i have. it has put me on the horns of such a dilemma. truthfully, there is a housing crunch in the city. twitter is hiring. we are bringing in all these people at entry-level salaries,

which is great. i am all in favor of that, but what they are looking for is little ground-floor units under -- to thousand dollars a month in a great neighborhoods in beautiful buildings, transit accessible, like mine. the more you force people to destroy these kinds of units, nobody benefits. this is what i do not understand. home owners cannot afford to stay in their homes. tenants cannot afford to find places to live. i had four dozen calls in, like, a week when i put up an ad for the last apartment. there is an enormous demand for exactly this kind of housing. i understand the position that you are in where you are concerned about safety and have the ability. i personally think with my building, there has been a vendetta against me by a few individuals that have absolutely nothing to do with these issues. i think that my building is probably one of the safest buildings in san francisco.

i think those concerns are way overblown, which is why i'm saying there needs to be a legislative remedy to this. it is the only way that i can see. it is not just me. it is a huge problem, and just by singling me out because people complain about me, even if it is over the top complaints, you are not really addressing this systemically, which is why i have gone to the board. i am prepared to go further. i will go to the mayor and do whatever i needed to get the ball rolling on this. clearly it is something the city needs to address. it is not getting addressed in a room like this, and i am not blaming this on you in any way. i understand you are the middle man and you are not responsible for any of this, but it is a really serious -- to me, and she is a very serious issue. commissioner clinch: commissioner walker: here. i had a couple of -- commissioner clinch: thank you.

commissioner walker: i had a couple questions. they are both 1-room units? how much rent are people paying? >> i have to include utilities, so it is just under $2,000. commissioner walker: if you spend the money would need to spend to legalize units, how much would you have to get for those units? >> i do not know. commissioner walker: you have not done the math on it? >> i have gotten estimates. it could be $250,000. i could spend the rest of my life recovering that. commissioner walker: my question if you have done the math is how much it would cost to legalize and how much rent he would have to get in order to recoup your costs. >> i had a contractor friend -- i have had unofficial -- it could cost $250,000. i have had architects come in. commissioner walker: i would like to hear from staff about what we could do with this

situation. i am actually sympathetic to the issue of, you know, prioritizing code enforcement and how we do that if it is based solely on complaints and whether a landlord is a bad actor. i am not sure that you are, and i would like to hear more about what has happened in the process to get us to that point. i do think that there is a legitimate public policy issue here. we have 350,000 units in san francisco. we have upwards of 50,000 that are illegal. that is just a ballpark estimate. i live in a neighborhood where pretty much everyone has an illegal unit. it is a political third rail in san francisco, so i do think that we need to get a handle on this issue. i am not sure that through an abatement appeal that is the way

to do it. but i do think that we need to, as a body, explorer -- explore what staff is recommending. i did your rosemary say a couple of things i would like to hear more about in terms of the kinds of permits you could get to allow you to start exploring how to fix some of these issues. i do trust rosemary and the guidance that the department can offer you. i do not think that it is something that -- we are not going to solve the issue of the illegal units during this appeal, but i do think that the department is here to help and guide you through our permitting process so that you can get this legal issue better resolved. >> can i just say one more thing? the ceiling height just got legalized. it was 7.5 feet, and maya understanding was at the beginning of the year, they

lowered it to 7 feet, so now my regulation -- so now it fits regulation. not because i did anything. but because the law changed. >> this will be for bottle. >> i can tell you that personally, since i have been with the city and county of san francisco, i have been dealing with this illegal unit issue for many years. the commissioner's comments are very well taken. problem in this case is since the property owner has not filed a permit or gotten plans -- if you look at the figures, you can clearly see that although she is alleging the units have been here since 1906, we have records of construction much more reason than that.

as you holding the hearing, i did set out to check, and the report clearly shows at the time she bought the building, the seller gave her a report that clearly showed it was a two-unit building. she may not have understood that, but the problem is by not filing a building permit or at least getting a set of plans, the discussion of whether she could even approve this with the planning department cannot go for it because that process has not been initiated. so i will tell you that it is very rare to have one of these cases go all the way up to appeal and had an owner never file even a permit. had a permit been filed, we probably would not have gone forward with the hearing because we would have allowed the process to go through so that that could be analyzed. she talked about a couple of things -- smoke detectors -- from the way she described those, she was talking about battery smoke detectors. as a four-unit or two additional

occupancy, she would need hard wired units. these are the types of things that when you go from a two- family dwellings to four-and a building, these other types of things that are not there. as the senior inspector indicated, we do not have building permits or electrical plumbing permits for all the work that was done to create these units. although i think she should be commended for getting a permit to deal with the dry rot, why not get a permit to start this discussion and explore this? even with the set of plans, she will have a lot more information. she will sit down with that. we could have a set of plans. she could talk to the planning department. without that, you really cannot go forward to be able to give her more advice. we have taken photos. those are in your report, but these are some of the things that even if illegal units were legalized, we would still need this information. we would need a set of plans. we would need a permit to

correct the record or whatever. that is what we would recommend that she do so that we can explore this even further. commissioner walker: this has been an issue that we have dealt with and several supervisors in the past have tried to deal with. it is a third rail, and we have yet to put something forward as far as a discussion about legalizing because of soi am alo displaced tenants. we do not go out of our way to find these buildings, and many of us know where they are. and the inspector going around -- they are easy to see. we do not go after them. in this case, it has been a history of tenant complaints, and that is the thing that really concerns me. up to and including losing

power, losing the ability to keep, and withholding security deposits. those are all things that make it less -- i am less sensitive in those areas and less compassionate because i think that it feels like not only are the illegal units, but tenants are being taken advantage of. i appreciate that this is a challenging situation. this has been happening since 2008, and there is no movement. i do not think there is any excuse for it. >> could we hear every bottle and maybe then public,? >> three-minute rebuttal. >> none of the current tenants are complaining, and there has

not been a loss of power. i have very high wattage light bulbs, and they are left over from the last owner, who lived in this illegal units, by the way. the guy who sold me the building. that is where he lived. it took me a while to realize that that is why the pieces were falling, and a swap them out and never had a problem with the power. that was at least six years ago. people complain as they are leaving because they spilled something on the rug, and i ask them to either fix it or pay for it, and they do not want to. they look for a weakness in me, and this is a really, really obvious weakness at this point because it snowballed. anybody can look now. it is too? of a mouse away, and you can see i have a record. if anybody is trying to take advantage of me, it is very easy for them to do, and i can

tell you it is totally irrelevant to the condition of these units. i wish i had these people here. i know this is a he said/she said, but they are very good at manipulating and convincing people that they are the ones being victimized, but nothing could be further from the truth. the people who have called and complain have either been on their way out, mad about having to make legal deductions in their security deposit to fix damage they did to the unit, or the people upstairs who just were on a vendetta against me and were looking for any possible means of traction. and they found a really good one with these illegal units, and they did not even live there. and they were bending over backwards to find ways in their luxury $4,000 a month we'll apartment upstairs that they could get me in trouble for something that had nothing to do with them. so i am really sorry if i give

that impression. i am an extremely conscientious landlord. taking advantage of tenants is the last thing on our i would want to do. i go into the red every single month on the money you're sorry spending on my building. i have owned it for nine years and never once made a profit. every dime i take from these people in red eye plow right back into the building in the shape of improvements, and it is a gorgeous property. i am proud to live here and proud to own it, and i really wish that this issue was not hanging over my head like this. it has literally driven me crazy. i will do whatever. i'll get the permits. i will get the plans. i cannot afford it right now, but if there is a step i can take to deflect this, i'll gladly do it. i am irresponsible person. i am trying to be responsible. i am sorry i have people at to get me or whatever.

>> i do have a witness. commissioner clinch: do we have any public,? -- any public comment? >> good morning. i am a tenant at the property. i have been there for six years. i do want to say in regards to the he said/she said, i am very sympathetic with my landlady because she is telling the truth. there were people who moved out and did serious damage to the floors. it went through small claims and it would actually up in a higher court, and ms. roberts won that, and those people were very upset. she uses the security deposit for its intended use, which was to repair the floors that they damage.

i can attest to that. i took the photos of the damage done. so i am very aware of all that. commissioner walker, the person who called you has called someone in practically every department in the city. it is not because of ms. roberts' behavior. it is because the person has nothing better to do. person call and complain that i had beaten him on the premises. i am a lifelong, nonviolent quaker. it is ridiculous. when the same person called and said she was drunk and disorderly, the police showed up and could see she was not. this is the person you are dealing with. this is where it is coming from -- a vindictive tenant.

he basically looked up everyone who ever had a complaint and then came up with this whole narrative. "she takes the money away." this is the nicest place i have lived in san francisco. the illegal units on the ground floor -- they have been there a while. there is nothing wrong with them. there is no danger there as far as i can tell, and i have been there. i am not an expert. i am not a contractor. i am not an inspector, but every time she has found that something is wrong, she works to fix it. >> are you in the upper two units or the basement? this alleged attended making the complaint, -- the alleged intended making the complaint, i the still there? >> no, they are gone.

one had a job, and the other stayed home and made phone calls on end. >> i had a question if that is okay. what is the cost of pulling the permit to get moving in a diffe? >> was the first part of your question? >> costs. >> it depends upon what the property owner wishes to do and perhaps deputy director sweeney might want to address that further. >> the fees are based on the amount of the permit itself. if staff ascertains that the cost of legalizing the unit -- if the cost of construction was $50,000, $75,000, $100,000, it would be in, on ms. roberts to

file a building permit -- it would be incumbent on ms. roberts to file a building permit, and based on the price would be the permit. >> in this case, she would have to go to planning first, right? >> she would put it in the building department, and we would reroute to planning. >> question on that regard -- can you have an r1 building in that neighborhood? >> that is something for planning. building does not weigh in on this. >> again, if the zoning would not permit the legalization of four units, maybe it would permit the legalization of three, or establishing a floor of occupancy, where she could have individuals who are boarders. i believe the last individual is an occupant in the unit.

she could maybe have that as an opportunity. >> any other questions, commissioners? any other public,? -- any other public comment? commissioner walker: this has been going on since 2008. i would prefer that this go through the process of legalizing what could happen, but i believe that the order of of bateman as appropriate, so i would tend to put the order of abatement and did a per -- give a period of time to complete that to either legalize them or get rid of them. i would also like to deal with the tenants that continue to get moved around by this.

if there is a notice of violation on these units, there should not be people of them. they should not continue to rent them. -- there should not be people in them. i would like to make a motion that we uphold the order o a few months to go through the process, whatever seems reasonable to the deputy director. >> perhaps something as much as six months, given the complexity of the process? >> yes, but i pulled the order of abatement. >> if i could, maybe we could give her 30 days to fill out a permit application with plans for 60 days, and then she can have four years to think about it. perhaps six months to get plan approval. it is up to you, but i would shorten the time frame. >> excuse me -- you mean 30 days

to file a permit and six months to submit the plans?

>> the plans have to come with the permit. >> that is what i thought you said. my feeling -- i do not think 30 days will be sufficient enough to get plans for this. i do not even think 60 days. but let's get back to this -- i understand the situation. i am sorry you are in the situation. this two things wrong that our inspectors found.