myself. >> it will create a hardship for me and i live modestly and i live in a studio apartment and i have been there two years and i live with my partner who is a nurse and works for the va. and i am a little shocked and dismayed that i have characterized this as a single family home or sneaky or unjustly trying to enrich myself. it is clear from my record that is inconsistent with who i am and my record. i would suggest that you consider the following that within hours of my filing my brief i was approached with a settlement amount of 6 figure settlement amount from the tenant saying that he would move out if i paid him that amount of money. i don't have that amount of money, it is not an out come that i can afford.

i realize that this is very emotional. i too have emotions around it. i have my own medical conditions. and limitations, but do not believe that they are relevant for this and i prefer to keep them private. i want to resolve this issue. in a manner that gives me a clean title. i bought this building and as it turns out following the investigation that was done, the title is not clean. i want to make sure that gets cleared up. >> and i think that is it. thank you for your consideration. >> thank you commissioners. my name is pat buscovich and i was introduced earlier in a

left handed compliment. >> in 1906, a permit was issued for a house, i believe, i don't know, i am pretty sure. ... >> okay, i will tell you in a second. i am not positive, i am 99 percent positive. there was an earthquake and fire and all of the records burned and don't exist. the next record that the building department uses at microfilm and i am there every day for about a half hour it is the water department record. this record which was not shown to you when they gave you the water department records, i called up and got it over the phone and said i might as well bring it in so i went there two days ago and picked it up. it is for a single family house in 1907. s that is what was there in 1907 and you can confirm that with the address, this is another record that is used, it is a primary source record. the legal address of this

building is 227 douglass, you can see other addresses when you have multiple units have you multiple addresses you look at the code and i pulled out the 1949 code which is a key date that they were going to fix this building that is this code. and this, well it is there, you can't see it, but it says, in 1949, you must have an address for every unit. so they could have fixed it in 49. but here is what happened. 1906, the earthquake burns the record and there is a moratorium for reconstruction and they finish the building and get a water department record. m 1923 they get a permit to add a private garage to a cottage, in 1923, during world war ii, i think that they boot leged in a unit. my mom lived in a unit two blocks away when she came out

here in 39 and they boot leged in something. >> booed leged. they snug it in and they did a lot of that during the war in what they aoe they did in 1943 is come down and get address permits and you can come back in 45 and legalize the units. okay? there is no address permits because we actually have the map that shows all of the legal addresses. so in 1949, the owner builder, this is the legal address there is only one. the owner builder mr. grady comes in and pulls a permit for two units legal, two units existing, only one address and calls it a dry rot permit. and let's repair front. and it is a dry rot on the front steps and the city signs off, comes out, and basically says, nice try. it is not a world war ii

grandpa fathered unit based in on a address it is a single family dwelling and it says 5 r residential run story plus basement one family dwelling. i went in there again today to double check with patty who is in charge of microfilm to go over this process. this cfc is the birth certificate of the building. it is everything. it is everything that i deal with the building department, cfcs control unless there is a subsequent cfc. so, and there were other ways that you could have fixed this. it could have come in later, there was rap, urban renewal and these are problems that i deal with every day that legalize units and nobody did it n1980 comes along and the owner comes in and pulls a bunch of dirty permits. he pulls a permit, there is great drawings on file where they got a permit for the first

floor to add a bathroom. there is a dwelling down there now. but they got it with an over the counter permit to add a bathroom. you can't do that any more. planning prohiblt hibts it because people sneak? the units. in 1980 they went to the water department to get extra service for a third unit that is there now and i believe based the discussions with the former pg&e person to the two meters, the gas and the electric meters were all put in 1980, illegally. 1999, there is a permit, to do some work and they are saying that there are three units there. none of these permits matter, you can walk in today and you can say that you have two units on a permit and they will issue it, it is only when you get above three they say wait a second we must check the record. so the key point is and the

assess soar says it too. the key record is the 49 cfc. 2012, the client hires me and says that i want you to look at my building. now, i was the president of the structural engineers when the soft story program started in 1995. i was the president of the applied technology council when we wrote the city soft story ordinance, i know what a soft story building looks like and we brought the building inspector out and it is all glass. the back wall of this building is totally glass and it needs a steel frame. the problem is if i walk in today and file for a permit for a three unit building, and you can ask the inspector this, the people on the first floor will kick it back because that is what is there now, there are three kitchens they will kick it back and say pat you are wrong, they can look up the cfc on-line and they will say that it is a single family house, so you cannot get a permit on this building right now unless if

you say three, they will say wrong and correct it down to one. there is 15,000 letters going out in the next three months for all of the buildings that are soft story buildings, this guy got ahead of the curve, a lot of clients wanting to get ahead of the curve, why would you want to be in the pack of the people retrofiting your building so you can do it now. the defense of why would someone fix a dangerous condition? because he is living on the third floor and he is going to ride the building down if he does not fix it. the primary issue is the certificate of final completion and that word final is paramount. for 68 years there is a precedent that a cfc is unrefutable unless you can find an error in it. i have done three cfcs where i have corrected. the last one i did is someone got a notice of violation for illegal construction and the contractor put down one unit and the city signed off and

novs they issued a cfc for a single family house, two units in it. we corrected the record. and said that was a mistake. beyond that, cfcs are never corrected. they are never over turned. now, i went out is and visited the building, you have three kitchens, two meters, and one address. something is wrong. i pulled all of the records. that is a house. okay? i live in the neighborhood. i can walk to the house. it is a house. i pulled all of the records. i went to talk to the person in charge of microfilm repeated times, she is in charge of the issue ans of cfcs i invited her out. do you want to come out come out. the record is so clear. it is a legal family single house and they declined and said we don't need to come out, that cfc is so crystal clear it

is a legal house. i pulled and then i asked for a three-r report which is required for planning. and i finished and i took the seismic drawings that i was working on and deleted the frame there is a complete set here and i went back in and i had multiple meetings with the inspectors and i think that i went to planning a couple of times i think that i talked to the district inspect or and i brought in pictures and repeatedly had discussions with them and they all said that it is clearly a single legal, we have legal units but it is a legal single family house with a bunch of boot leged in units. there is no permit, if you look at the original 3 r that goes from one to two. if there is no original permit to build, then you look at the water department records which is clear a single family house. so, i pulled the set of drawings, they are here. they have never looked at them,

which is just mind bogle, thing that they have been out to the building we are talking on the first floor, there is a legal bathroom, it is on the 1980 drawings and then an illegal kitchen and we are taking out the kitchen and putting in the laundry room, on the third floor where my client lives, there is an illegal kitchen we are taking these out and put ng a wet bar. these are numerous conversations with the senior people at the building department. on the sponsor store he has two partition doors that i can show them to you. and here probably the best. this is the entrance foyer i am sorry that they are confusing, but as you walk into a classic 1906 kind of awardian house you go passed the front door and there is a set of stairs here, and those are the stairs going up, and this is the door into

the dining room and this is the door into the double parlor there are locks on them, we are going to take the locks off that is the entire scope of the work, there is no other demolition of walls or anything. i had an argument with the district inspect or when i put down $3,000. he said that you are not doing anything and you are taking out two stoves and they dropped down the value, so there is no major disruption and you are taking a single family house on three levels and taking out two stoves, putting in a wet bar because i don't want to yank out the plumbing because if you take out a stove you have to put the plumbing back and in the basement, we are going to yank out the kitchen there and put in a washer dryer and that is pretty much it. so when i got the permit issued, i immediately told my client to let the tenants know, three days after we got the permit we let them know. 14 days later, they appealed

the permit and never looked at the drawings. and i said how long were these drawings sitting at microfilm for someone to look at? >> six weeks. they are not there now, but they are there for six weeks. i reached out to the attorney saying, do you want to talk about this? do you want to understand? i got ten minutes of are you an authorized, turned out that is code for, can you give us some money, i didn't get that until i reached out to andrew and said this is over my head and i am missing something and it was green mail. i have a brief and i have brought the district inspect or out today and i don't need to tell you what they have seen, the 1980 permit snuck in the unit and that is where the meters showed up and a water department meter is not a legal document and the key issue is the 1949 permit and the issue if you want to go down the path of messes with messing with

cfcs, you are opening up a pandora's box of everyone else coming here and saying i don't like my cfc, i want to have two units or i want to with one unit. the policy of the building department as long as i have been practicing for 34 years is the cfc is a birth certificate to a building, thank you. >> questions? >> the work that you described i did not hear anything related to seismic issues. >> in the back of the building is all glass. so at the front floor, the first level, kind of want to be confusing, because historically that first level was called the basement and we counted stories differently up to 85. but the back of the building at the first level is all glass, you can ask the inspector it is all class and we need to add a one story frame but i am not commingling the kitchen with the frame. they are separate issues and i

cannot file the permit because right now if i filed it they would reject the permit saying that you don't have three units you have one and correct the record and i would end up with a permit for one unit. >> just to clarify. we can't file this for the seismic work until the legal use of the building is squared away that is the second phase of work. the tenants will have rights at that point if they think that will be disruptive to them. which it may be. >> only on the first floor. >> as a legal... attorney for the permit holder, as a legal matter. the beginning and the end of the analysis is with the certificate of final completion in my view. if there is a permit after 1949 to change the use of this building from a single family to something more than a single family, the burden is on the appellant who is challenging the certificate of final

completion and three hour issued by the city. the burden is on the appellant to produce that information to you. i think that there was an admission before you that there is no such permit what that means is that there is no ability to make a finding that the building is anything other than what the seeing is saying which is a single family dwelling. we are not evicting anyone, if you can't to condition the issue ans on there not be an eviction of mr. hyman i think that my client is okay with that. my client is leaving the property and mr. hyman is getting to stay, it is difficult for me to understand how he has a legitimate objection, there may be rent increases and the change of the legal status of the rent control issues but that is nothing that this board has control over, that is an issue of state law. that the state legislature has

decided and determine. this building actually has been exempt from rent control as a single family dwelling and we are bringing it into the legal status he will be allowed to remain and we are willing to enter into the stimulations that make that clear. there is not going to be any disruption with his tentcy, based upon the representations and simply put, the arguments made by counsel that we somehow need another engineer to come in in order to justify this are irrelevant. the first of all there are three lawyers here on behalf of this, why is there not an, engineer here, they could have brought it in to say that he was wrong on the evaluation of seismic. if there were three attorneys there could have been engineer brought in to rebut mr. buscovih's unrebutted testimony

that there needs to be work on the property as well as the property owners view that he needs to upgrade the building. >> appellant has not met its burden of producing evidence of a permit to add a kitchen or to add a... that would allow this certificate of final completion to be overlooked and over turned by this board. i ask that you talk to the building inspector who was out there today and can report to you the evidence that will establish this is a single family dwelling. >> i have a question. so you say that the sh you state that the permit holder is not a way to sircumvent eviction of a protected tenant. >> he is not a protected tenant. he has been there for five years and you have to in possession for ten years. mr. hyman is not a protected tenant and not an effort to

circumvent. >> and he is willing to give a lease in the new building. >> i didn't say that i said that he was willing to agree not to evict the new tenant. >> okay. >> i swear that i heard that. so no questions, that is fine. >> he actually currently has a rental agreement and he is a month to month and he has been there for five years and paying more than $2,000 in rent. $2500 in rent he is not a long-term tenant at least in terms of my tent antsies my client is the one that is being displaced from the home not the tenant. >> and when your client purchased this property in 1998, i believe. >> yes. >> what was the discloser regarding the building when he purchased it. >> he thought that he was buying three and he had a claim against the realtors and probably against the seller of the property given that there

was probably improper disclosure. so what you are saying is that you are aware that he bought it as a three unit building and that was not a disclosure that was given at the time. but that disclosure and again the changes in hess permits does not justify the city changing the legal use of the property which is the issue before you folks today. >> okay. >> the fact that there was improper disclosure thought that he had a three unit does not change it from the city's perspective which the role that you folks are playing. >> we can hear from the department now, mr. sanchez. >> thank you, scott sanchez, the matter of the subject property, 227 douglass street this will allow for up to two dwelling units on the property, previously was located in an r2 zoning district that would allow two units from 1950 to

1978. the planning department does generally rely on the 3-hour report to the record that is generated by the department of building inspection in the case where we find that there is a gross, error in that and we have had one of those cases before you. i have reviewed the records and i don't see any evidence that contradicts the 3-hour that is would be a single family dwelling although it could contain two units. there is a cfc from 1949 showing it as a single family. the planning code requirements for residential parking began in 1955 and had a dwelling unit been added after 1955 they would have been required to provide a parking space that requirement did actually change in 2011. so now if they sought to legalize the second unit they would not need the second off street parking space they would

just have to comply with the open space and it appears that they probably would. i don't think that it would be much of an issue to legalize the unit here. the san born map does show two units on it but that is not legal use with the property. the appropriate use of the property does seem to be as a single family dwelling. so that is all my comments the planning code 317 does not apply here and neither does the loss of dwelling units or section 311 for notification because they are correcting a violation on the property. >> if they were to add the unit we would do notification and i am available for questions >> thank you, mr. duffy. >> commissioners, i feel like i have a lot to say but maybe i

should see if the people have questions. there is a lot been said and a lot of pain from both sides here. the permit history is mixed. i think i agree with mr. boscavich i believe if i was doing what i called the unit clarification where the properties are unknown and we get handed all of the paperwork and we generally do start with that spring valley water department it is a accurate record. we do rely on it a lot to try to start especially something that is over 100 years old and i have i think that you saw the document that it says, one family. the 1923 permit, i believe was it talks about a cottage. i did not see a permit to go from one to two or two to three. i did see the permits where they came into the building department coming to existing

to proposed to and the building department gave them permits and did inspections and gave them a permit for three units one time and we got the property city access soars. he referenced a permit that was something to install a service of some water or gas and we do not recognize that as a permit. and the meters don't come into play either for the building department on establishing the number of units. you can have a couple of meters on one unit and, but, it is it is an r3 r report as a single family dwelling and i am available for any questions. if it was 3 units, housing inspection would have it on their books and they don't have. there is no housing inspection done on to for the three units. >> i am not sure if anybody has

any questions for me >> housing inspection would have done... >> it would do their bi annual. >> or anything over 2 units? >> yeah. >> three or more, do it for the apartments. >> and i did walk through the building today and mr. boscavich and mr. zaches were there and from me i just has the one number, 227. some of you probably see that a lot in the city though, and it is not a big building from the outside. it is just, you know, and when you go into the building you walk up the stairs you go into the hallway in of door in front of you and locks on both doors and then you go up the stairs and there is another door with a lock on it. it does not strike you as a three unit building. i did not get into the appellant's apartment today. that unit... i called it an

apartment. everyone refers to it as units that does not legalize it. >> i got a question, at the same time, i mean, we look at it and it is a single family dwelling. such as a lot of units from san francisco when the rich men in sunset that we know have non-warranted. so more of a question or a statement is that when you purchased the full five on 26th avenue with the non-warranted rooms down, and you rented and you rent them as rooms, the whole time, now it is convenient for it not to be a rentable unit when you want it to be. i mean, so, i don't know, i am trying to get a question.

>> take us through the process to change it from a single family to two units. you would have to go through the planning and the parking is an issue, just because someone puts a kitchen in there it does not make a legal unit. unless you have the building permit to do so. i really what probably annoys me and everybody is that the unit changes on building permits and someone puts in three we give them a permit for three, i wish that it was better or it should be clear are and this is going back 70 or 80 years ago, it is very difficult, but and then when the people are living there a long time and the gentleman buys it, i don't know if i would have wanted maybe the commissioner if you had walked it you may would have disagreed being a realtor and it is hard to believe that it is three units but he probably bought

the property and whether he knew or not. but it is what it is. but the building permit wise, i do in the see a permit to go from one to two, or two to three or three back to one. it is jumbeled. >> is there any public comment on this item? >> okay, seeing none, we will start with the rebuttal with the appellants. >> i first wanted to clarify something. there is an issue of protected status for tenants who have been there for five years in our catastrophickly ill and that would mean having a life threatening disease and mr. hyman having hiv certainly does qualify for that. i also wanted to clarify that

on february 5th, mr. zaches called me to discuss settlement and asked my client to make an offer. a couple of days later i sent him an e-mail stating that my client want to stay where the unit rent controlled without being evicted but he would consider making an offer. this was very difficult for my client to make such an offer and i also told him why doesn't his client make us an offer and mr. zaches refused and insisted that we make an offer. and again it was over after ten days that my client put forth an offer it was not 6 figures. and i do believe that they are trying to settle and work it out and i don't think that this should be a part of it, but i