>> good evening and welcome to the september 12, 2012 meeting of the san francisco board of appeals. the presiding officers this evening is board president chris fong who is joined by

arcelia hurtado who was sworn in for a second term and also commissioner ann lazarus, president chris hwang will be absent, we have one vacancy on the board and pursuant to the charter, the board may hold a meeting when there was a vacancy, the board may overrule the action of a department by a vote of three members, four votes are not required to overrule a departmental action. to my left is deputy city attorney robert bryan, he will be providing the board with any legal advice this evening, we also joined by our legal assistant, he's at the controls and i'm cynthia, we have representatives throughout the departments who have cases before the board, joseph duf fi, senior building inspector is here representing the

building inspection department, we're also joined by carla short, urban forester representing the department of public works. if you would at this time go over the board's meeting guidelines and conduct the swearing-in process. >> the board requests that you turn off all phones and pagers so they will not disturb the proceedings, please carry on conversations in the hallway, appellants, permit holdings and department representatives have 7 minutes to present their case and is three minutes for rebuttals, people affiliated with these parties must include their comments within the 7 or 3 minute periods, members of the public who are not affiliated with the parties have up to 3 minutes each to address the board but no rebuttals. so assist the board in minutes, members of the public who wish to speak on an item are asked

but not required to submit a speaker card when you come up to the podium. speaker cards and pens 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 a rehearing or rules or hearing schedules, please speak to board staff on a break or after the meeting, the board of appeals office is located at 1650 mission street, room 304, this meeting is broadcast live on san francisco government television, sfgtv, cable channel 78 and dvd's of this meeting are available for purchase directly from sfgtv. thank you for your attention, at this point in time, we'll conduct our swearing-in process, if you intend to

testify at any of tonight's hearings and wish the board to give your board evidentiary weight, raise your right hand and say i do after you've been sworn in or affirmed. excuse me, please note that any member of the public may speak without taking this oath pursuant to the rights under the sunshine ordinance in the administrative code. thank you. do you solemnly swear or affirm that the testimony you will give will be the whole truth and nothing but the truth. >> we have one housekeeping ie them morning, the appellant in item number 8, appeal number 12-085 a letter of determination nor a proposed cannabis dispensary has requested a continuance and a

zoning administrator has agreed to bring them to the board october 24, 2012 calendar. >> okay, we have a motion. >> okay, is there any public comment on this motion to continue? okay, seeing none, if you could call the roll, please. commissioner lazarus, did you make that motion, i missed it. okay, thank you. >> on that motion from commissioner lazarus to reschedule item 8, 12-085 to october 24, the vice-president is absent, president wong? >> aye. >> commissioner hurtado. >> aye. >> the vote is 3-0 and that matter is rescheduled to

october 24. >> is there anyone who wishes to speak on an item not on our calendar this evening? seeing none, we'll move to item number 2 is commissioner comments and questions, commissioners? >> the only comment is we're pleased to have commissioner hurtado back on with us and are happy that you were able to make another commitment to serving on our board. >> thank you, it's my pleasure. >> is there any public comment on this item? okay, seeing none, we'll move on to item number 3 which is the consideration of the board meeting minutes for august 22, 2012. >> i move to adopt, unless we have -- >> okay, moved motion to adopt. >> thank you, is there any public comment on the minutes? seeing none, then if you could call the roll, please. >> on that motion from the

president to adopt the august 22, 2012 minutes, the vice-president is absent, commissioner hurtado. >> aye. >> commissioner lazarus? >> aye. >> the vote is 3-0, those minutes are adopted. >> okay, then we'll move on to our addendum item starting with item 4 ao, which is a rehearing request, the subject property is at 2853-2857 broderick street, the boerpd received a letter from kate polevoi requesting a rehearing of appeal number 12-056 which was decide on the board on 2012. at the time, there was 4-1 to deny the appeal and uphold the permit. permit holder inger conrad and it's to raise the building, new

curb cuts, commissioner, i understand the parties have reached an agreement in this case and would like to present a plan of action for your consideration, whoever would like to step up or maybe both of you at once, thank you. and before we move forward with this, know that commissioner lazarus was not here when this matter was originally heard but i understand you've had the opportunity to view the video and are prepared to participate tonight. >> yes. >> thank you. >> good evening board, john on behalf of the permit holder, we are happy to tell you we have come to an agreement on this matter. we have agreed to a new set of plans and we're here to jointly ask you to grant the rehearing request, hopefully schedule it for what i believe is your next meeting on the 19th, with we hope we can get it in next week, we will submit the agreed

upon plans and then at the rehearing, we will be requesting that you amend the permit pursuant to those plans that we adopt, so we're here for any questions that you have and like i said, the next hearing that we have, the rehearing should be very short, it's going to be a matter of adopting those plans so we hope that we could get it moved to the 19th of september. thank you. >> i'm [inaudible] on behalf of kate polevoi, we have reached an excellent agreement and we are happy about it and we hope that you will work with us, so they can get their project started as soon as possible and we can get that job done, so we have an excellent result. >> that's what we like to hear. >> thank you. >> is there any departmental comment? okay, is there any public comment. seeing none, then commissioners, the matter is

before you. >> the 19th is okay with you? okay, so i would make a motion to continue the matter to september 19th that's requested for the rehearing. >> it's actually the motion would be to grant the request and we have set the rehearing date for september 19th. >> i thought we were resubmitting plans. >> the procedural posture that we're in right now would require that we rehear the case even if it's to deal with a settlement, so the motion would be to grant the rehearing. >> on that motion from commissioner hurtado to grant this rehearing request and set the rehearing for next week, september 19th. on that motion to grant and schedule the rehearing, the vice-president is absent, president fung? >> aye. >> and commissioner lazarus?

>> aye. >> the rehearing request is grant and had the rehearing shall be heard next week, september 19th, thank you. >> thank you. >> moving on then to item 4b which is a jurisdiction request, the subject property is at 280 union street, the board received a letter from john and teresa votruba, requestors, asking that board take jurisdiction over bpa number 2010/09/08/0424 which was issued march 17, 2011. the appeal period ended on april 1, 2011 and the jurisdiction request was filed on august 8, 2012. the permit holder is bushra ska*n, it is to comply with november number 201031519, legalized existing 3/4 hour fire rated windows with quick response type sprinkler head, close on the property line, and we will start with the

requestors. you have three minutes. >> okay, good evening and thank you very much for allowing me to speak. my name is teresa votruba, i'm the building manager at the adjacent property which is 218 union street, i have here if you could take a quick look at it a copy of the assessor's information about addresses uilding at 218 union street. at 218 union these things would have been referred to you in your packet by ms. khan and i also would like to bring to your attention my e-mail address, if you can see it here, this doesn't seem to work as well as i thought it

would. in the overhead, i have an e-mail address of jvotrub without the a on it at yahoo.com and if you refer to exhibits 3 and 4 in your packet, these -- >> [inaudible]. >> i want the bottom part. i didn't know it was such a small screen, alright. i only have three minutes. >> i will pause it for you. >> i would like to point to a timeline and that timeline will be referred to for about the next few minutes. december, 2009, there was a

foreclosure at 280 union, the next door condominium to mine. on january 18th of 2010, i saw a real estate signage announcing the sale of this foreclosure property. on january 19th, i contacted the department, the building department violation unit through the internet and i followed up on january 21 with inspector donald duf fi. from january 22 to february 20, i was overseas with my younger son's graduation from came bridge. when i returned, i continued to call mr. duf fi because nothing appeared about this violation on the internet that i could find and i thought, well, i'm just not looking in the right place, but he confirmed that he hadn't done anything about it

and this series of events took place up until april. by may 20th, he finally sent the violation off and by then, there was a new buyer, mrs. bushra khan, now, what happened in the process of all of this, mr. donald duf fi got tired of hearing from me and i felt like i was bothering him, we were having a discussion about the archives and about the legalization of these windows, and -- okay, can i keep going? >> please. >> well, if you keep going here to the very end, i guess i'm -- alright, well, throughout this period of time that we were given an opportunity to understand what was going on next door, there was no

communication pr the building department, there was no communication from anyone. >> you know, you were having some technical difficulties, if you have a few more comments -- >> can i give you all a copy of the timeline because what it shows is that we were never given any kind of information that would have led us to believe that there was a building permit being authorized and that the historic planning commission had met to decide this matter that gravely affected our roof deck which is a common roof deck used by 7 families and it doesn't appear in the permit application. her application is very faulty in terms of adequacy. >> i would like to see the timeline, i think that would be helpful to see. >> alright.

>> we need to make sure to give a copy to the permit holder as well. >> we can share. >> thank you. >> you need to give a copy to dr. khan so she understands. we'll take our time. >> now, if i could just make one small comment. >> your time is now up. >> no, just so you understand the document that you have --

the asterisks are the things that are building department related, anything that's in parentheses and underlined is something that happened with dr. khan that i was never made aware of and had no reason to know anything about and the personal -- >> i'm accepting this document as a courtesy, it should have been in your packet, in your submission, so thank you. >> you can hear from dr. khan now. >> okay, good afternoon and thank you for your time. i appreciate your time, i myself traveled from london to attend this meeting, quite a lot of energy and anyway, just, you're going to speak with people from the city and

they're going to -- you can consult them about the legality of the permit, but i can provide very briefly if i may some context. i bought the property in march, 2010 so, about 2 and a half years and the first thing i got was i got a notice of violation. i consulted -- the inspector came and visited my property a couple of times and after that, he advised that i needed to get or submit proper paper work in order to get the windows legalized so this took a process of about 6 months and i hired a professional architect who was similar with the city laws, who is similar with all the procedures and knew the area and got the permit legalized -- got the windows -- got the permit. after i got the permit, i consulted my neighbor personally, called them and

talked to mrs. votruba and explained the situation, i said i'd like to meet up, and then i explained that the windows aren't legal and they need to remove the windows they had blocked, and anyway, i followed that with an e-mail. i got no response. i followed that with two letters, i got no response, and after that when i -- in my letter, i said if i don't hear from you within two weeks, i will assume that i can remove my windows, the blocking. i did not hear anything. i'm not here by the way in this country. i'm abroad in london and i got the windows were unblocked and the response -- and afterwards through all of it sort of in a normal and mature approach would be to discuss the matter with me, come back to me, what

i got was the neighbors, the requestors came and shouted, yelled, boarded my whole sidings, the deck is about -- just about 1/3 and my whole siding is [inaudible] feet, came and boarded with illegal material, completely blocked the four windows, three of them are not even looking at the deck, the two windows, the bathroom windows are really the only light that provide -- they are the only windows that provide light to my bathroom, my window, shouting, yelling at a 4 year-old kid, well, i think i haven't got time, but a lot of accusations and things and i personally would like to say that it's not just costing time and energy and dealing with this with a professional way and a mature way, it's also costing me health and my inability for me to perform my

normal responsibilities, i request the board to deny this request. it's been way above 18 months, i've got a legal permit. >> thank you, your time is up. >> thank you. >> mr. sanchez? >> thank you. good evening, president hwang and board of appeals and planning department, so just briefly, there's no neighborhood notification under the planning code that's required for the subject building code application, the subject application was filed in 2010, there was a certificate of appropriateness filed in october of 2010, that was heard by the historic preservation commission in january of 2011, and it was approved by the planning department in february of 2011, the permit was issued in march of 2011 and given a final inspection shortly thereafter,

a certificate of appropriateness does not have neighborhood notification requirements at the time that we reviewed this application at the hearing before the planning commission, there was no notice requirement. it was simply just something that would appear on the agenda and that was a consent item and it was approved on consent. the approval has a three year limit to it so they have to get their building permit within three years which obviously they've done. beginning in august of 2011, we did as a matter of policy increase the notification requirements and we started doing mailed notice and that was because at the time, the city, the board of supervisors, the hpc, the planning commission were developing new revised articles 10 and 11 to reflect prop j which created the historic preservation commission. as part of this process and st creation of these ordinances were over several years, we increased the notification requirements and the ordinance. the ordinance was not effective until june of this year but

last august by matter of policy, we had increased the notification requirements, so but to be clear, this was issued, it was heard by the hpc, approved by the planning department, it was issued and received its final inspection all prior to the implementation of the new policies regarding notification and the property line windows would not trigger other implication, so there's no notice required for any of the review of this permit and that's all, i'm available for any questions, thank you. >> mr. duf fi? >> good evening, commissioners. the building department did receive a complaint on the 21 of january, 2010, and we wrote a notice of violation on the 20th of may, 2010 basically that there was some windows put

-- there was windows, property line windows that had shown to be not part of the original construction and our building inspector, donald duf fi did write them up for putting in the windows without a permit and they subsequently obtained a building permit and got the permit signed off on the 21st of march, 2011. the permit was to comply with the notice of violation to legalize the three-quarter r windows and it would have had to comply with ab009 which is in the san francisco building code basically you agreed to -- you would lose those windows if someone wanted to build in front of them and there's some other requirements in that as well, and you have to get it

signed and stuff, a notarized document, so if anyone has any questions, i would be willing to answer them, but that's basically the history of the notice of violation and the subsequent permit. >> thank you. is there any public comment on this item? okay, seeing none, then commissioners, the matter is submitted.

>> so, i guess i'll start. i really -- given that there was no notice requirement initially for this work, i mean, i guess i fail to see a reason to grant the jurisdiction request. i don't see extraordinary circumstances and i didn't hear the requestor explain what about the circumstances would merit a jurisdiction request,

so i guess that's kind of where i stand and i'm trying to see if there is anything here and i just -- i don't see it. i don't know if my fellow commissioners feel differently. >> i think the standard relates to -- requires the showing of error on the part of the city and that was not sufficiently proved to us today in my view and for that reason, i would be inclined to deny the request. >> i would agree with that conclusion as well. >> i concur. >> okay, i'm going to move to deny the request. >> with you're ready, call the roll, please. >> we have a motion from the president to deny this jurisdiction request, on that

motion, vice-president fung is absent. commissioner hurtado. >> aye. >> commissioner lazarus. >> aye. >> the vote is 3-0, this jurisdiction request is denied and no new appeal period shall be created. >> okay, thank you. >> calling item 4c which is a rehearing request, the subject property is at the beach shall lay athletic fields in golden gate park. the board received a letter from katherine pow ward agent for golden gate park preservation alliance requesting rehearing of appeal number 12-073 decided august 1, 2012. at that time, the board voted 34-0-1 to deny the appeal and uphold the coastal zone permit with factual find advising ceqa findings as read into the record, the permit holder is the recreation & park depa