today is wednesday, november 21st. this is a meeting of the abatement appeals board. i would like to remind everyone to please turn off all electronic devices. the first item on the agenda is roll call. president clinch? >> here. >> vice president melgar is excused. commissioner lee? >> here. >> commissioner mar? >> here. >> commissioner mccarthy? >> here. >> commissioner [speaker not understood]? >> present. >> [speaker not understood]. >> present. >> we have a quorum. item number b is the oath. all those persons giving testimony today please stand and raise your right hand? do you swear that the testimony you are about to give is the truth to the best of your knowledge? yes. >> thank you.

item number c is approval of the minutes, discussion and possible action to adopt the minutes for the meeting held on september 19th, 2012. >> move to approve. >> second. >> okay. all those in favor? >> aye. >> okay. i'm sorry, do we have any public comment on these minutes? did someone have any public comment on the minutes? okay. the minutes are approved. we can now move on to item d, new appeals, orders of abatement, case no. one is case no. 6765, 118 taylor street. the owner of record is laleh

zelinsky revoc, a revocable trust, 172 golden gate avenue. i'd like to remind everyone that the department has 7 minutes to present its case, then the appellant has 7 minutes. then we will have three minutes for rebuttal and discussion and public comment. so, we have [speaker not understood] first. >> thank you, members of the board. good morning. this particular property was built in 1906 and is a residential hotel. it has 63 guest rooms, residential, 25 are [speaker not understood] falls within the hotel conversion ordinance. it is classified as a residential hotel. the issue here before you today for this building, it has three floors of occupancy over commercial. and i'd like to show you a photo that is [inaudible].

so, while we're waiting for the picture to show up on the screen, the issue before you today is that there is a provision in chapter 5 of the san francisco housing code which is retroactive. that requires a minimum number of public or common abating facilities and sanitation facilities per floor. this particular provision has been, as it is today, in the housing code since 1995, and it has been reaffirmed by this -- by the building inspection commission and the board of supervisors over the years. the history on this is it used to be that these public

bathrooms had gender labels for men and women. and the code was changed back in 1994, 1995 because the city saw that there was a greater demand for men in these rooms and yet there were women in the residential hotel that didn't have any bathrooms. so, the code was changed to a schedule that requires at least two of these facilities, a water closet, a bathing facility and sink if the laboratory sinkses aren't in the rooms, tub shower, tub shower combination. at least two for every floor of occupancy that has two to 20 rooms. and from 21 to 30 it goes up to 3 and, 4 and 5 as we go in increments of 10. in this situation for this particular building we've got 19 guest rooms on the first floor, 22 guest rooms on the second, 22 on the third. so, of that, there are some private bathrooms. the first has 8, the second two have 9.

you essentially have at least 11 guest rooms with no bathrooms on the first floor of occupancy and 13 on the second two. so, obviously this falls within the 2 to 20 range so you need at least 2. now, what i'm going to show you next is a schematic. i want you to focus on the area where [inaudible]. this is actually taken off of the hotel's emergency plan. so, it will due to show you what's going on. this is typical of all the floors. as you can see we have the water closets and there is the one shower room. that is typical for all of these. and they need a minimum of [inaudible]. now, it is irrelevant to this code section that this building was built in 1906. it may or may not have had these because the board of supervisors and the commission and the mayor have determined that the minimum standard given the occupancy load of this building is a minimum of two. the housing code has the

authority under local law and under state and [speaker not understood] statutes to be able to be retroactive. and indeed there is a whole list of retroactive provisions and this code section is one. they're listed in chapter 2 of the housing code. and indeed the inaugural structural engineer on this commission had, when we were going through changes, had each of those descriptions of what those sections are listed. so, this is on there. it is retroactive. all other buildings built at this time also were required to put this in and there may be a handful of properties out there that for some reason we haven't seen that they're not in compliance in this particular instance. our code enforcement outreach program, one of our vendors, ben ing, actually brought this to our attention. we went out, took a look at it, saw they were in violation, wrote a notice of violation. we have done the typical process here that is required by code, the notice of violation goes to the property owner.

and on-site we're dealing with the lessee. as far as trying to work with them it see what are the solutions, in this instance because there are private bathrooms in some of these rooms, one of the options that they have is to make one of those rooms -- to take that particular bathroom or shower and create access into the public hallway and that would require a building permit. that's what the notice of [speaker not understood] said. now, some of these rooms are occupied. as i found from discussions with my field inspectors, there is a transient nature to the occupancy of this building. and, so, as such, some of these rooms that have the vacant bathrooms are going to come up for vacancy. and, so, then the property owner would have the opportunity to do this. we need to give the property owner time to work this out, but we strongly feel that the two -- a minimum of two bathrooms, that that is the minimum as far as health and safety and there's really no equivalent for a bathing facility.

so, from that standpoint there is really not an equivalency here. what you essentially have happen, a person would have to go up to the floors above and compete with everybody else trying to use that one shower. the other thing to consider is that of all the items that the housing division and the building inspection department get as far as complaints and residential hotels, problems with the bathrooms, not being properly maintained or being available is constant. so, that is the other reason why you need at least two because inevitably you have one down. for whatever reason. so, in a situation like that, if this shower is down and everybody is competing, everybody in the rest of the hotel is competing for two showers. and you're looking at quite a few of them. so, if there are any questions, i'm happy to answer them. and i also believe there are some people from outreach [speaker not understood] the

building to speak today. >> great. >> can we do the public comment first or can we ask questions of rosemary now? >> you can ask questions. >> rosemary, i have a question for you. >> sure. >> this was passed in 1995. i know it was a long time ago, but was there a timeline the properties had to comply with the ordinance when it was passed? >> i'm glad you asked. i wasn't the chief at the time, but i was asked to write the [inaudible]. when we first did the first schedule, we were actually had -- it was more than two. so, we realized there were way too many buildings out of compliance. it was dropped down to what the city felt at the time was the absolute minimum. and we worked with the property owners on that. so, we didn't write notices of violation initially. we gave them the opportunity to, as rooms became vacant or whatever, to be able to put these in. and, so, pretty much everybody has complied with that. as i said, buildings that were built at a similar time.

and in this instance we're more than happy since it's come to our attention, to give the property owner time, but we do have people living in this building. they're competing for three showers. it needs to be reasonable. >> it sounds like there wasn't a time allowance -- >> there were. >> commissioner mar. >> i wanted to know how long is this violation been in effect? >> well [speaker not understood] you have in front of you? >> yes. >> it was issued august of this year. so, now, what you have is a situation where [speaker not understood] the property owner to go away before you. you are sitting in the shoes of what would be the hearing -- the director's representative. >> rosemary, i have a question. if the nov was issued in august, when was the first time our department found out about it?

was the complaint -- >> generally as we do inspectionses, we would see that these situations occur, one of the things i'd like to show you is that in your packet you can see some photos of some of the doors. and as you walk by, unless those doors were open, the garbage room may have been [speaker not understood]. so, in this particular instance it came to our attention that they were not in compliance when we wrote the notice of violation in august. >> the date -- so, our department found out about this in august? >> that's when we wrote the notice of violation, yes. >> okay. >> as i said, when you walk down the hall, if the doors are closed, there is not a specific complaint about that. we would not necessarily have known. but pretty much there may be a handful out there that may not be in compliance because a lot of these buildings we've done room to room inspections and, so, we found them out and worked with the property owners to bring them into compliance. so, this is one of those instances where the current

enforcement outreach program is crucial to help us in these situations. keep in mind also -- and i'm not saying that's the case here, but generally when we saw the requirement, usually there is alteration without permit. so, that affects the situation as well. but there's no evidence of that here. >> through the chair, sorry, i have a question. so that i understand this, traditionally, why wasn't [speaker not understood]? is it your experience that they want to have a hearing -- >> there is a provision in chapter 1a of the san francisco building code that allows a property owner, when they get a notice of violation and we schedule them for a director's hearing, or if they wish they can ask that that be waived and come directly to you. and we receive that request in writing from the property owner's representative, mr. karnilowicz. >> is this hotel operated by the owner or is it a leased hotel? >> i believe there is a lessee inr.

-- involved. [speaker not understood] has been the lessee in the past. so, on the notice of violation is issued to the property owner, on-site [speaker not understood] we're having a discussion about what the possible options are with the lessee if that's who is in control of the property as far as what their options are. so, we communicate with both. >> but who would go to the hearing, for example, if there was a hearing? >> if it's the property owner or lessee's representative. i believe mr. karnilowicz could clarify that for you. >> okay. so, we don't have the lessee or we don't have the owner here with us today, we just have a representative? >> i believe -- is the owner here? just his representative. >> okay, thank you. >> okay. are we ready for the appellant? good morning, commissioners. i represent the lessee of the

hotel as was said a little while ago. this building was built back in 1906. i tried to find the original codes for it which i couldn't find from records management. i think it's [speaker not understood] permit. it didn't even say how many rooms there were in the hotel. i think you folks probably are aware most of these hotels were for traveling salesmen, they weren't meant to be lived in. so, they never really had all the facilities a usual hotel would have. [speaker not understood] travel for a day, a week, whatever, would move on. and, so, the current floor plan is the same as the floor plan from day one when it was built. i can't argue with the fact [speaker not understood] came through and this requirement. i do know a lot of these hotels -- i work frequently with the owners of these hotels. it's not unusual to see hotels that do not have the two bathrooms that she said.

and currently this hotel does have -- many of the rooms do have private bathrooms and [speaker not understood] two toilets and a shower. we're asking for an exemption from this because we feel this hotel was built, the floor plan hasn't changed. it's not much different from many residential hotels in the area. so, that's our position. it would take away the private bathrooms from people that have them right now, and that would be something that those [speaker not understood] would object to and possibly file a claim with the rent board and prevent us from doing that. so, that's our position at this time. >> time for questions. commissioner walker? >> thank you. should one of these next time become one of the private rooms that have a bathroom, should

one of those become available, is the owner willing to convert that to public access? ms. walker -- commissioner walker, i think we would have to do that. quite frankly, [speaker not understood] i believe it's going to come out of his pocket, not the owner's pocket. and we'd like to see if we can avoid doing that. as you know it's nice to have a room that has a bathroom, better quality of life for those who have it. on the other hand you have a room that doesn't have [speaker not understood]. >> i hear you. thank you. [speaker not understood]. >> any other questions? >> it's kind of related. 25 of the rooms are tourist hotel rooms. so, there's quite a bit of turn over there because they're not staying there very often, very long at all, right?

do those tourist rooms have private bathrooms, some of them? commissioner mar, it's how the hotels were set up. when they came up with this s-r-o audience, from what i believe is what the city did their room to room hotels and asked people, how many rooms are occupied by people more than 30 days and how many are not? that's how they came up with tourist rooms and residential rooms. primarily these hotels are not run as tourist hotels. they're really run as residential hotels. it's pretty hard to rent out rooms in these residential hotels to tourists because the clientele that are there. and, so, that's not usually how it's done. >> but there are tourists in some of those rooms? not really, no. >> okay, thank you. >> other questions? time for public comment or rebuttal first?

do rebuttal? okay. do you want to do rebuttal? >> no. >> no. any public comment? >> public comment is three minutes. hi. we're doing like a mini presentation, but we'll be quick. so, my name is [speaker not understood] and i'm an organizing coordinator for city center [speaker not understood] by the huntington clinic. we work with -- we are funded with dbi to work with dbi inspectors and have issues with the tenderloin and south of market. what i'll do is briefly give the framework of what we do, and my coworker here is going to talk about specific issues in [speaker not understood] hotel and we have tenants who are going to address the issue. so, what we do is we have

tenant outreach program. we have tenants who become [speaker not understood] and they do [speaker not understood], talk to tenants about tenant rights, how to address an issue. what we do is [speaker not understood] issue in one particular building, we try to have a tenant meeting where we can address the issue, we can figure out what are the different issues [speaker not understood]. we try to send a letter to the landlord and say, here, we found these issues. we would like you to work on these issues. we give them [speaker not understood], 7 days, 14 days to figure out how to work and receive any [speaker not understood] from the landlord to fix the issue. landlord or lessee to fix the issue. if they don't then we call dbi inspector out and we work with [speaker not understood]. work with dbi inspector or talk with the landlord directly. so, we are like the go between.

we are like the folks that come to us in order to address the issue. so, we've done this with welfare. that's what we do here with some of my coworkers and also from the tenants how this is going. thanks. hi, good morning, appeal board. my name is ben. i work with [speaker not understood]. we are with the organizing department at [speaker not understood] and i am the program coordinator for the code enforcement program. adjust mentioned like how we got involved with the building. to provide you with a framework of how we were working with tenants, i want to give you some common issues that we face on a daily basis or tenants face on a daily basis. so, just to give you some quick facts. so, there has been a -- so, within the last two years, we've been dating back to 2010.

so, from 2010 to present there's about 29 novs that have been issued to the work field. and there's about 9 that are still -- there are 9 issued this year. about 10 novs in 2011 and 9novs in 2010. total complaints filed is about 49 complaints. * and the majority of the complaints that were filed were based on habitability and issues that were identified as a housing code violation. so, some issues concivility of no heat in the building, broken or inoperable windows, missing or no smoke detectors in the rooms, broken doorknobs or broken locks. holes in the walls. major, major pests and infestation not limited to bed bugs, mice, cockroaches. there's also leaks underneath bathroom sinks, broken sinks, electrical outlet issues, of course elevator in the building

consistently breaks down. as mentioned, the latest violation is the inadequate public sanitary facilities for the hotel and, of course, not to mention that there's no uniform visitor policy [speaker not understood] common areas. also want to point out there were two major inspections done by dbi. one was a room by room inspection conducted by inspector [speaker not understood] back in december of 2010. and another recent one inspection that was conducted by inspector hearing closely with the city attorney side, that was issued this year in june. both novs are active. of course my recommendation is to actually deny this appeal, that the landlord has in froth of you and of course to move this for abatement. good morning, my name is [speaker not understood] and i'm an organizer at the tenderloin housing district. i want to give a more detailed insight regarding the issue of

access in these buildings, especially the war field. it is extremely difficult to access. tenant organizers, community organizers who go inside the building -- i was greeted with hostility when i requested to meet with the tenants. the management's usually response is, get out of here. it is worth thinking about the fact if organizers are treat this had way, how much more the tenants who are uneducated about their rights are are being treated. we can see tenants are not present or not that many of them at least. the lack of preps is the proof of the fact that our efforts for outreach were not successful. we organizers have gone ourselves to speak with tenants. each time we are denied access and asked to get out of the building. the tenants at the war 1850s are on fixed income and most of them are on ssi or iga. they are afraid to come out and speak against the managers because they will be evicted. a specific example, just the other day i was waiting outside

to speak to as many tenants as -- whom i could talk to because i was not allowed to go inside. when i was speak tog one of the tenants, they said let's go somewhere they can't see us because i'm afraid if they see me talking to someone from the collaborative they are going to -- they won't, you know, they're going to treat us differently. and i asked and they said, they don't open the door for us when we want to go in and they're denied visitors. you can see they're clearly fearful. and also i wanted to bring a specific issue regarding a room which i had seen, i had the opportunity to see before i was kicked out. it's room number 220 which had a ceiling that was falling off. could i put the picture right here? i know it's not clear because it's kind of [speaker not understood], but this is the ceiling here. that's the ceiling.

>> could you pass it around? sure, i can pass it around here. here you go. this is a picture with broken window. and the [speaker not understood]. and then this is the trash -- yeah, [speaker not understood]. and then this is just a very small example of some of the rodent infestation which is very common in the building. and, in fact, it's not an isolated incident for people who are living there. to conclude this, we have given the operators ample opportunities to collaborate

with us by inviting them to resolve the issue for the tenants along with us, writing letters, requesting [speaker not understood], they have not cooperated. we are requesting you to deny the appeal and move forward with the order of abatement. thank you. >> thank you. hi, my name is denise marney. i'm a peer counselor at the collaborative. which means when tenants come in and they're afraid to talk to people of authority, they can talk to a peer, somebody who lives in the tenderloin and knows what they're going through. with people like us, there's about 10 of us. i've been dealing with it 2-1/2 years and i've talked with numerous tenants from the war field. * many of them no longer come to the collaborative because they've left the building because they can't get their needs met. habitability as you heard is increasingly a problem. in june i saw a tenant who is here today, arthur gray, who

came in and wanted to get a life line telephone. so, we provide low-income telephone services for tenants. and most hotels in the area have a phone jack in the rooms. arthur's room didn't have a phone jack. typically what we do is write a letter requesting that a phone jack be installed with ample time. this was in june. arthur doesn't have a phone jack in his room so he doesn't have a right to contact a doctor. he can't call 911 if he has a crisis. and with numerous visits -- i think i've been there three or four times, i've twice been denied access to the building and twice the manager told me that, yes, at&t is on the way and they'll be here today or tomorrow. so, constantly staving off this, not seeing it as a necessity,v not seeing it as a person's right to have a phone jack. i'm here to say whatever your power is in making sure this place is habitable, these people need their habitability rights taken care of. thanks. >> thank you.

* good morning. my name is spayctionv. -- [speaker not understood]. i'm a tenant at the war field hotel. even though we have the bathrooms, we don't have one -- we only got one tub. it is filthy. bed bugs still. we have a lot of roaches. our privacy is denied, you know. we don't have no access. if somebody comes up, they'll say, he's not here, she's not there, right. okay. they should have a phone down in the lobby to call upstairs. we're denied our privacy to come up there. and they're very, very rude. you know, if you said -- i didn't have a bathroom. i have aids.

i asked for a bathroom. my doctor wrote a thing for me to have a bathroom. [speaker not understood]. vertical, too. i'm denied a bathroom. it's very difficult in the building and it's very -- it's filthy. that's what it is. and the environment period is ugly. bathrooms, the shower heads, okay, i have got tb, right, and the shower heads don't have no shower heads in the bathroom. you know. it's just straight water. i'm like that, you know. it's off and on. and when they do do water construction thing, they don't post and say, hey, the water is going to be cut of