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tv   [untitled]    August 31, 2012 5:37pm-6:07pm PDT

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of additional access, and i say it for whatever reason we do out reach, it kept many people out. i would like to say there are a couple of issues, and i would like to see the appeal of held. one is they have connected the ada accessible route to the no. 10 bus on washington street. this is problematic. they require the side entrances be connected to public transit. it is not a wheelchair accessible on washington street. buses cannot let people off on the sidewalk. there are no sidewalk ramps. the person would have to wheel into the street to get to the entrance.
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we brought this up with mary, and she basically said what went on in the park was her business. what is outside in t is not. i am disabled. there is no point of having accessible teachers inside if people cannot get to the park. the no. 1 bus would have been a great alternative. it runs all the time. they have got bulldozers. they could make it more compliant. they could have two joint together. they were told they were not to change the size, the shape, anything about these in order for it to comply with a categorical exemption. these things are being changed. the summit is being cut into and taken away, which is not reversible act, in order to put
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in a much larger maintenance facility, and i believe it is a violation of standards and they were mandated to follow in order to get a categorical exemption. therefore, the permits are in violation of what they were supposed to do. thank you. >> next speaker please. and why i have a few brief comments. i reviewed -- >> i have a few brief comments. i reviewed the introductions, and what is most disturbing is there seems to be a conflict between facts. when the brief says this is a fact, and another says this is the fact that is in conflict. i am satisfied at a brief that was filed by the recreation and parks department has much more
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credibility than the so-called facts presented in the appellants degrees. it does not make any sense. i live across the street from the park. i am also an architect, and i am familiar with the project process of many agencies all over the bay area, and when i read things saying what they say, like the light and dark colored tables and the bus stations, if you are familiar with the building code of san francisco, there is nothing that requires that the reaganite i think there is something about the limit and definition of the project -- and requires that. i think there is something about limit and definition and the appropriate response -- there is nothing that says you have to have light or dark colored tables, so when i read statements like that, it
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suggests to me the appellant does not understand or even read the building code but would rather make statements about what she believes the code should say or would like it to say. access to the site is not in the building code, so i find the appellants brief does not have any credibility, and i urge the commission to deny the appeal and get this project built. >> you care to state your name for the record? >> my name is linus. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> my name is jeffrey miller. i am the landscape architect the park hired to design the playground, and i would like to address the 80 a review of that
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facility -- the ada review of that process as well as the overall -- you are shaking your head. >> i am wondering if you are an employee of the rec and park department or an adviser. >> i was hired to design the playground by the friends of lafayette park. not park and rec, but our work was coordinated. >> that is all i need to know. >> through that process, we went through and ada review with mr. jensen, who was very careful about looking at our plans, which is unnatural -- none natural design for the park. it is going to be an unusual redesign for the park. he was there a excited as were
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other folks in the presentation. it was interesting how his review brought up several things about accessibility that were incorporated in our plans that we were happy to do so. the park and recreation commission thought very highly of the overall scheme and the playground design in particular. the design was vetted through numerous meetings that were announced in the neighborhood and held at a neighborhood facility. i think everything was done to outreach to neighbors. good from my point of view, a project of this source i have been involved in in the past, and other public parks, buena vista park, lafayette park, and
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other projects i have been involved with, there is always a degree of disagreement in these parks canno, and i think we areg last vestiges of disagreement with lafayette park. i would encourage you to set aside a disagreement, what the project go ahead. there has been quite a lot of process put in the park. it is going to be a great facility, and i do not see a reason to hold it up at this point. >> next speaker. >> i live at 1900. i am not a member of friends of lafayette park, but i am a neighbor of that region. i oversee the park. i have lived there for 10 years,
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and i am upset. my family is upset. we are pissed that is part of what we love to visit, that we have our dogs play at, that i walked through is like this. it is not right that one person can put a stop to this. the city has done everything right. friends of lafayette park has done everything right. i give notice. and whenever there is a cleanup, it gets sent to my apartment. i also own apartments in washington, d.c. i used to work for the federal government. i am back in the bay area. whenever there is anything happening, and notification about where my apartment is located and of reaching me, so if somebody who lives in -- ends
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of reaching me, so if somebody lives in chicago, i guarantee they would receive notification. if they did not receive it, that is their fault. it is not fair for the whole community to be impacted. i want my park back. i want a project to begin. every day there is one guy watering the othedirt. my heart bleeds for the city because my tax dollars are going to waste. i do not know how much money is lost every day because nothing is being done for the park. it is an embarrassment. it is just an inert and one person that is watering it. -- it is just dirt and one person watering it. give us our park back. we do not want a pile of dirt. >> is there any more public comment? seeing none, we will move into
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rebuttal. you have three minutes of rebuttal. >> thank you for your time. there is a lot of concern about the delay i have caused with his permit appeal, and anyone that knows and knows that it only stops work related to the permit. let's look at what was going on before the appeal. here is the daily reports from july 5, and what happened that day? two operating engineers work for 32 hours.
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a laborer and his friend work for a total of 16 hours. two four men work and three carpenters. our total number of employees on that day was 68, 11. another day we have one engineer who worked for eight hours, and four labor received put in an eight hour day. -- four laborers each put in an eight hour day. what we know is that rec and park posted a sign saying there would be a closer to one of the dog areas that would remain open for two weeks while they worked on plumbing. it has been over a month. and they are not done. delays have nothing to do with this permits. this has to do with soil conditions they did not test for, and now they are dealing with them, and they have got a
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delay. now i have asked you to pay attention to one important piece of information. i do not happened to have a historian in my back pocket, but i did meet richards, and while standing there looking at some photos he obtained, we looked and noticed this is from the house. how important, and how required to be preserved under federal law is this? what are we going to do when we go with bulldozers and find what you can see with your own eyes, and we did it up to put pavement down, and we cannot start the project? let's take a look of the concept and what was to happen. there was only going to be pavement here. here is what i was pointing out to you.
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this is actually asphalts that marks the carriage turnaround that is so historic plea important. as for concern about transportation, let me cite building code 1134 bee 2.1, whih does require the closest of transportation stop, 3 feet from the entrance to the party protected and use for access for people who want to come to the park. i am asking for work but has not been done properly to be taken care of our youth -- by you to make sure the project continues safely in a way that you are seeing and that it is done properly in a way that will last
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for years to come. good >> could you please read? >> under the building codes it says when there is a structural repair or addition, the following habiliments must be made accessible. of primary entrance to the building or exterior area that is being altered. of primary path of travel to the specific area of alterations, and now including a path to travel to the entry point at the public right of way that is closest suit transportation, a path of trouble to transportation, a designated parking, and identifying an additional sign aage.
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>> thank you. i just wanted a provision. perhaps i would like to take the opportunity to respond. the first being the discovery of what appears to be a remnant of the holiday house of the summit. we were not aware that is out of sight, but that does not mean we do not care. good when archaeological resources are discovered on the site, we protected. we contact the city's archaeological on staff. we asked him to a value if the restores, identify, and give us directions -- to evaluate
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resources, identify, and give us directions. we are working to develop an approach to either retain it or some other measure to record it prior to demolition. we do have a protocol in place for dealing with those kinds of things. that was the last item i wanted to address. there are two bus stops flanking the park, one on washington street and one on sacramento st.. of bus stops we connect to his is compliant with the code, and kevin jensen has signed off on it. if you are familiar with lafayette park, you know that
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due to topographical issues, certain locations, the southernmost block, there is 20 feet, so to make that an entrance would have extreme impact on the site. and we would have to build guardrails 300 or 400 feet in length in order to make five and accessible entrance. good -- to make it an acceptable entrance. the bus stop itself, whether it reaches is not in our ability. and we do hope that muni makes buses success of bove -- accessible, but it does meet the code to my understanding, and i do have representative if you have a question. good thank you -- >> thank you.
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those are not as accessible, is that right? >> correct. certain areas are accessible, but the majority of streets do not meet uthe 5% requirement for travel. >> thank you. mr. sanchez. >> just one point in response to the appellants. they pointed out the driveway path, and it is my understanding it is not subject to the permit before you for approval this evening, and the work within does comply to the review that was granted to it, and they may want to confirm that, but that
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is my understanding. >> the matter is submitted. >> mr. sanchez, i do not know which of you are going to answer this question. can you address the concern there was serial permitting? >> i think it is death from the department of building inspection. i did check today, and there are a couple of different permits approved. there was one issue, and this one has been suspended, but it is probably better, makes more sense to may be applied under
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separate permits. may be planning is going to uphold because they have to go through further review, so if you want to get your project started, i see it all the time. people whose blood permits on different scopes of work. if -- people split permits on different scopes of work. i would not call four permits an unusual. >> there is enough for the project. >> there could be three or four reasons. i would not be sure, but sometimes if you have to go through planning and they say, we are going to go through further review on that. if you have a lot of work, it is probably better to split that up. i do not think there is anything sneaky. it is probably just clever to do that.
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>> there was a concern raised about lack of documentation on the inspection, and you talk about adding a special inspection. i would like you to talk a little more about that. >> when the permit is issued, special inspections are supposed to be added right before the permit is issued. i think tonight someone showed the special inspection sheet. we have informed them that is not part of the documents, but it is ok to get them out now. but it does happen occasionally. when you go to the job and you see something that requires a special inspection that is not added, get them in the system. it does happen. it is an oversight sometimes,
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but they are told all the time to look into this. i think we caught if. -- it. it is something that is going to be taken care of by dbi, and our inspector is probably going to be in the cite one or two times a week, and we generally deal with someone on site, and we would review work that is ongoing such asset compression f soil. we will look for daily reports from staff, and we are inspecting any other stocuff wih regards to the plans like steel or foundation. but i would guarantee the inspections will be done from this point forward.
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and by far as i understand, the permit was approved and issued an -- >> as i understand it a permit was approved and issued. it was not taken to the site. what is the practical affect of that? it is not as if the permit had been held up for approved -- or not approved? >> it had been approved in march. there was an oversight with park and rec that got a knowledge that they did not pick it up. the plans were already seen and approved. someone did not pay to pick up a permanenit and get it in the st. >> there was no impact on the project? >> i think there was some work that got done because of the issue of the permit. >> having signed off on it?
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>> it is not something we encourage. we prefer people to get it, and it helped, because of the process had not been done right, 15 days might have been gone. in how the appeal because the permit did not get issued -- it helped the appeal because the permit did not get issued until july. if it had been done right this should have been issued around the start of march. >> technically, until it is actually issued, it is not a permit. >> exactly, it is a permit application but not a permit. >> the complete review had already occurred. it was ready to be issued in march. >> it had gone through the
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planning department, and the other departments were still going through the review with a different city agencies with other permits. >> thanks. >> ready? >> yes. the permit holders brief wrote it down, and i am in agreement with how they broke it down into three major components of the appeal, and i am in agreement that certain planning issues that have been raised on the environmental phase and the project review basis is not appealable to this particular
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body in general. it is always interesting. there is a little bit of a gray area in terms of what has been entitled in planning versus what becomes part of of building permit. in general i wouldn't agree that many issues -- i would agree that many issues are best addressed in a different form than this particular body. the other issue relates to the building permit itself, and the third deals with 88 issues that were raised region -- with ada issues that were raised. it is extremely difficult.
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based upon what i saw in the document and read, i am in concurrence they are in conformance with ada code in specific code and in determination. the last part dealing with the permit itself i think is a little more cloudy because work was started without a permit, and if they picked it up in march, this would have happened already. therefore there would be no impact on construction. i would not quite call it oversight, but it has very
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little impact on the nature of the appeal itself and the nature of construction. special inspections are going to occur with elements that have not been touched yet, so i do not see it having any impact. therefore, i am in support of upholding the permanenit. >> i would echo those comments. i think it is good to have this process. i think it is frustrating for a community that wants to have this go forward, but that is why we are here. i think the concerns need to be heard. tonight i wanted to be satisfied that the issue was resolved and
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that is a non issue. and there were other concerns raised about the work done without the technical compliance. i am not concerned, given that it is a non-material, an issue that has no impact on the work other than delaying the work through this appeal as well as the site of special inspection, so my inclination would be to uphold a permit. >> i agree with fellow commissioners. i do not have anything else sudato add other than to say i m also very glad we have this forum and that people are able to participate, and i would encourage the community to continue to be actively involved and something that is so special to the neighborhood and has brought such a passionate new points on all sides, and i encourage you