our recommendations in making it clear in the code and making it easier for the staff to understand. we said that this recommendation would not change the intent of the legislation or the effect of the legislation, so they still require a conditional use authorization for business and professional service use, they have not provided evidence that they are a financial service use. nothing close. i mean the names could keep changing but nothing has been able to evidence that. the name on the lease is vocal point. i mean they could call themselves a financial advisor but they don't meet the definition of financial use and request that the board deny the permit so that they can pursue the conditional use authorization. thank you. >> thank you. >> anything further? >> okay. commissioners, now the matter is submitted. >> well commissioners, i think

that we would like the record to be as clear as possible. which is why i would suggest a continuance, whether they can prove it or not. so that is the record is quite clear. and i think that there is many of us who would seriously support a small business in our city. i think that there are certain things that could be done to help them. there are agencies that provide both technical and regulatory support for small business and when they are set up in san francisco. they should have availed themselves of that, that is neither here or there, we are dealing with a fairly specific code section and i would be inclined to continue this to allow further research and documentation to be provided to all partys.

>> i concur with the commissioner fung. and as your neighbor, i live in the district and i actually drove by this building twice today. and as a small business owner from that district for over 20 years, i also was understanding as a landlord you are a small business owner yourself. but, there is some very specific things that have been outlined here that unfortunately need to be followed and i believe that some clarity would be great, so a continuance would be a great service. on a side note, you have a great location. and i believe that this becomes a problem, i am sure that another business would love to be on the corner of 26th and terevelle. >> i know that is sounds to me more, or most everyone perhaps,

other than myself, is interested in a continuance and i am quite skeptical given the... i think that what is my concern is a continued moving target on what the name of this entity is and at the same time, i do think that there is some sufficient lack of clarity issues being raised in this manner or make me uncomfortable where there isn't. i think that enough opportunity to really understand what we are looking at here. even though again, i will state again, for the record that i am skeptical that there is going to be sufficient evidence to establish that it will meet or will not require a conditional use but that this entity. whatever it is. will not require it. >> okay, i move to continue

this to madam director, what do you think? april, is our next opening, with... it would be, we added to april tenth? >> yeah. >> the 17th. >> is april 17th work? >> mr. williams? >> >> would you like to specify the length of the briefing and the timing and the subject matter. >> they can present a brief up to five pages in length.

>> do i want to have to subject on the conditional use and the nature of the business? >> i would like it to focus on whether that leasee conforms to financial services. >> and my recommendation would be to have the permit holder briefed first and then have the appellant and the department respond. so the permit holder could be i am not sure how much time in advance. >> could i limit how much time they get when they come back? >> do you want to discuss that with the president. >> could i limit how much time they get when they come back? other than just now?

>> we continue they could be offered the full seven minutes per case which is four cases. >> the hearings have been held and closed. it is a discretionary matter. we have heard a lot tonight. >> so i am thinking then that the permit holder's brief would be due, two thursdays prior to the hearing and the appellant and the department's brief one thursday prior. okay? >> okay. >> okay. >> okay, we have a motion then, from commissioner fung to continue all four matters to april 17th. public hearing have been held and closed. >> and so to allow the time for the permit holder to submit this additional information pursuant to the board's comments. permit holder update brief is

due two thursdays prior and appellant and zoning due one thursday prior. >> five pages, no more than five pages per party. >> on that motion, to continue, president hwang? >> aye. >> thank you. >> commissioner hurtado is absent. >> vice president lazarus. >> aye. >> and commissioner honda. >> aye. >> the vote is 4-0 and these are continued to april 17th, thank you. >> okay, we will call the last set of appeals together, this is item 9 a 9 b and 9 qappeal number 12-161, 162, and 163. all are filed by half had. yman against the department of building inspection with the planning department approvele. the first and all are in relation to 227 douglass street. the first is appealing the issue ans on december 7 to tank

mehul permit to alter a building voluntary removal of kitchens levels 1 and 3 and revert level one to utility room and permit 8011207 with washer dryer level three wet bar. and the other is to remove the kitchens on floors 1 and 3 and add laundry to first floor and wet bar to third floor and the third is a plumbing permit to remove the unapproved kitchens on floors 1 and 3 and restore the property to sfd and add laundry to first floor and add wet bar to third floor. we. we will start with the appellant's attorney. >> he asked me to do a second swearing in because he came after the start. >> is that okay with the president? >> sure. >> anyone else who came in after the 5:00 p.m. start? >> okay.

>> go you sol emily swear that the testimony that you ever about to give will be the truth the whole truth and nothing the trug? >> we are still up for the appellant's attorney to step up to the microphone and begin the prepttation. >> thank you. >> good evening, my name is avita sharm a i am the attorney for ralph hyman i have with me as co-counsel, brett glad stone. i would like to start by saying sha the issue ans of these permits is an attempt by the landlord to evict a disabled tenant who is hiv positive from a rent controlled unit to circumvent the eviction laws and the merger process for units through a dubeous claim of some need to perform seismic

work. mr. hyman hired brett gladstone to do research of the permit history of this building, what he found was that there were no novs issued for seismic work for this building. s there were no permits for seismic work issued for this building. and that city records are very mixed in showing whether this building is a single family home or two units. enough so that without some encouragement by the owner, to show others, to would list the number of units as unknown which three reports have been increasingly done and the city policy makers encouraged the department of building

inspection not to incentivize, where the permits are not clear by reducing the number of units on a three-hour report. instead the department of building inspection referred the owner to the planning department to make the mergers the official way when the records are not 100 percent clear. this is not surprising given that the building is zoned for two units and when mr. hyman rented his unit the building consisted of three rental units all being rented to tenants. >> i would like to ask mr. hyman to give a statement about how this merger will effect him.

>> hello. my name is ralph hyman and i have been hiv positive for over 20 years and i have lived at 227 douglass since june of 2007 i have the flexibility in my job because of my condition and the side effects of other health conditions resulting from that forces me to work at home and i go home when i need to due to fatigue. moving two effect my life, with an increased financial burden it would be hard for me financially to find a similar living situation especially i have a service dog. and would create stress in finding a new place and i have the inbility to actually do the move physically. although, the permits do not

involve my units, this would need to be extensive work around me including the moving of walls and stairs, and since i often work at home, i would have not be able to live through this work. the landlord told me that i would have to vacate during this construction period and given my unit would be part of a single family home my unit would no longer exist and even if the landlord permitted me to move back in i could not afford the rent, especially of single family homes do not have rent increase limitations so if the landlord let me move back in, i probably would have to move back out because of financial situation and my health condition. thank you. >> in his opposition, the owner claims that this merger will not effect mr. hyman's unit.

this is not the case. what is going on is that the owner expects to merge his 800 square feet unit with mr. hyman's unit. i have viewed mr. hyman's unit and the outside of the property and to do such a merger would require the moving of walls and the moving of a staircase. if the units are merged and this becomes a single family home, it will lose its rent controlled status under the rent ordinance. mr. hyman would be subject to a rent increase without limitation that he could not afford. his rent could be or could go as high as $10,000, maybe more.

in addition, if this building were to become a single family home, mr. hyman would be... a owner move in eviction. protection tenants in multiunits could not be evict but single family homes are exempt from that requirement. in addition, it is difficult for an owner who lives in the same building as the tenant to do an owner move in eviction due to the good faith requirements of the rent ordinance as it seems suspicious, why is the owner trying to move into the tenant's unit when he already occupies a unit in the same building? >> the owner claims that he has no intention to evict mr. hyman.

however we don't think that this is the case. his attorney has insin you ated that if he was successful with the board of appeal his client will initiate the ellis act. in any event, if this were to become a single family home, mr. hyman's unit would seize to exist as a separate unit, and if he is evicted due to the work, the landlord has no requirement to let him back in because his unit ceases to exist. if he let's him back in the client could increase the rent by any amount and has insin you ated that he would do that and pass on the cost of the renovation. and we recommend that there be an independent consultant such as a staff member of the

department of building inspection to look to see if the building needs seismic work and if such intentive work is need and then they could give a notice of violation for the work to be done. >> some of the opposition has stated some facts which i think are relevant to the issues beforehand and they are not true. i do have with me declarations and evidence refuting those facts. it is just that if this board would like to see them, however, they are not pertinent to the issue at hand and with that, i would like to pass this to my co-counsel, brett gladstone. >> no these were new ones. >> brett, glad-stone, i would like to introduce melissa vancrum of my office.

first of all, i appear here many times in the position of mr. sank's representing an owner, defending a change in a 3-hour report and i have been on both sides of this and nothing that i am going to say should therefore imp une, you know, his good faith efforts as an attorney to respect his client. i have also at least a dozen times represented my clients with pat buscovich and i asked that he be hired and again he is a very good engineer and i am not going to imp une the integrity of the statement in his affidavit that there is a seismic problem. all that i will tell you is that engineering, and the conclusions as to whether there is a seismic problem is not a science. many engineers can say different things. it depends on what they look at, and it depends on whether

they have done destructive testing or whether they have just looked and given conclusions. i agree, that when someone who is not well, who is low income person has at stake the home that he has lived in for a very, very long time, it really deserves to have some other opinion. and that can come from the department of building inspection, clearly, the department of building inspection did not think that there was a danger that mr. duffy went out there and did not ask if a notice of violation be filed and there is no need to be seismic work. there are ways to do the work without do the extensive work that being suggested by one engineer. other engineers could feel differently. so, i ask that at the very least, if not turning, or turning us down, you at least ask that that kind of more

independent judgment be obtained. now let me talk about the problems with this permit. which you have before you. i am looking at the permit issued in december of 2012, obtained by pat buscovich he may have gotten his information wrong from several sources. first of all, the description of work, is wrong. it is not surprising since the description of work was wrong that the planning department approved it. let me first tell you what planning department said in the box on the second page of the permit at land. approve to eliminate all work done without a permit. and i will talk about adding a kitchen to a building that already has one. and then the planning department says, it is an existing single family home, it is not. they were mistaken and had they gone out there, they would have seen what it is. again, it says, existing single

family home to i am having trouble reading it. it says, a permit application existing single family home, revision no change in use of the permit no change of use no help me out here. no... what is that word? >> sorry. no other work for this application. so the work that was declared on the first page, that planning department pointed out and it said no other work is very simple amount of work and it is not true. the amount of work will include ripping out a lot of walls and making holes between ceilings to create stairwells that were not there and were never there but the applicant describes the scope of the work as voluntary,

no he says voluntary is not compelled by seismic dangers, he puts down removal of kitchen. see attached plans. revert level one to utility room, it sounds like they are just doing some minor work at that level. and then it says level three, wet bar, makes it sound like they are removing a wet bar. that is nowhere near the amount of work that has to be done to convert this building which is rented out as three units into a single family home. not surprising that the planning department wrote what they wrote. i would also like to point out that i would like to put on the

additional water meter and so if you hear someone said that there were no permits to additional kitchens or meters that is absolutely wrong. i will ask that it be put on the overhead. >> we have to be a little bit suspicious here. we have a landlord who has accepted rents for three units for a very, very long time. he actually filed a permit in 1999, which you will see in a minute, melissa, in which he puts down that there exists three units. he has been receiving rent from three units why all of a sudden does he want to take this down to a single family home? well, i think that you have heard some of the reasonss from my co-counsel and then he stretches his credibility by stating that he does not intend it live there when it is a single family home he intends to have my client a low-paying

tenant occupying the single family home that stretches his credibility and all of the work and all of the money. i ask as a matter of equity that you consider the fact that this landlord has been accepting rents for a very, very long time and has been filing permits and stating that he has three units as existing and all of a sudden now, has decided that he has already lived in a single family home that the records were always wrong that permits were never submitted to create a second kitchen or anything like that. i think that it is very, very suspicious. now, mr. duffy will tell you correctly that in order to create a second unit, it is the official position of the building department that a permit has to have on it a permit in the past in the existing use box and proposed box that says two. and that the existing use box not discuss what is there but it discusses what is legally

there. and in fact, there is no such permit in the record. and i grant you, that definitely makes it look like this building was never officially changed in dbi records to be a two-unit building or a three-unit building. but i also ask you to take into account that that policy of the building department is a policy that is only been in place for the last ten years. i have been doing this for 30 years, maybe it has been in place a little bit more than that. but, it is only been in recent years as it should be that the building department has taken the position that you have to see a permit with the existing unit with proposed use two for a building to be officially a two-unit building. i ask you to look at the intent of what the applicant was which was clearly to create three units and to keep three units and to accept rent from three

units and only now trying to reduce it to a single family home. >> the three-hour report, well, it is not unusual for the building department to issue a three-hour report when it is not given all of the facts, i don't think that it looked at the fact that the permit was submitted by the applicant himself for a second kitchen and second water meter several times. i don't think that the building department paid attention to the fact that a great deal of work needed to be done, to determine whether the representations are correct as to the scope of work. i wonder if the person in the 3 r department to whom he went,

had he done a site visit would have agreed with the scope of work. i doubt that the planning department had they done a site visit would have agreed with the scope of work. they cannot do site visits for everything and i don't blame them. i would also like to point out that my clients for many years have had to go through the troubles of going to the planning department for merger applications, it is a lot of time, it is fees, it could take four months and the planning commission could decide to turn down a unit merger very easily and because they have a policy of trying to keep every unit no matter how big or how small, but especially the small ones in the rental market. we believe that this was an attempt to go around the planning department to go around the planning commission,

to the building department makes the mistakes and the planning department makes the mistakes and m sanchez indicated that a mistake was made on the previous case. it is only when it is given the right information it does a much better job. if you are not going to disapprove this permit tonight, i certainly ask that you grant a continuance to allow an independent party to look at whether a seismic retrofit is needed and i ask that you ask the building department to take another look at the permit history. i ask that you ask the property owner to come forward and explain to you why he himself saw and abstained a permit to add a unit by adding a second kitchen and two kinds of utility meters? one moment.

>> and finally to repeat a lot of seismic work could be done without a unit merger and i have had to do it for my property myself and with that, i will sit down and be available for questions. thank you very much. >> i have a question just for clarification, you referenced this ten-year-old policy. i don't really follow what you were saying. >> sure. >> the policy where there must be some documentation of an existing use being... >> yeah. what i meant was ten or 15 years it was not at the start of my career that the building department takes the position that it will only issue a three-hour report showing two units if either the building was originally built for two