that i have been wrongly forced to deal with the circumstances that i just don't feel are fit in the situation and obviously, you have all heard at length the details, but in my mind, the fact this they brought in based on the report that the city provide and they have gone ahead and they have approved that structure and it is a beautiful building now, and they have done nothing but improve and act in all of the right ways, that they should be penalized for this confusion, whether it is a 3 r report or all of these details. when they get their original permit to proceed with construction or demolition or whoever you look at it, that should be the green light to go ahead and you can'ts like i say, hold any of that against the actual start. and so, i encourage you guys all to please support the appeal tonight and thanks for your time. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> next speaker.

>> my name is evan clutter, and i lived in san francisco for the better part of 40 years. and i am a home owner. and i am familiar with the specifics of this case. and i recently did work on my home and i had a girl come into our family. and made space for her. and this is a really scary for me. and if the permits that i sought and i paid for were revoked and that would have a devastating effect to me. and i am afraid for the precedent that this case might set. it is clear from hearing what happened tonight, a mistake was made by the city. and the permit holders and the owners should not bear me liability for that reason. and i support the appeal for the revocation request. thank you. >> thank you.

>> any other public comment. >> hi, my name is greg hansen and thank you for allowing me to speak. and i wanted to just address a couple of items that need to be daylighted, if you will. several issues, i was the tenant in 2825 a and i came before the board of appeals on the 21st of march. 2012. and after i had received a 60-day notice of termination of the tency, and then it was posted on the front door. and it was, that is consistent with a job card dated january 18th, requests an application to remove an illegal dwelling. on the 20th of january, 2012, the building was sold.

and on the 24th of january, the permit was approved to renew the illegal dwelling and on 30th of january, the 60 day termination was taken to my front door. and i approached the board of appeals and i indicated that i had a lease, a 5-year lease that was provisioned by a will and trust, that the bernice of 2012 will and trust and it was, and it was the provisions upon the date of her death for five years. and which extended through may of 2012. >> the grant deed that was given to the catholic church had when she could not have bequithed the home to the catholic church indicated the property to being 2825, a,

2827, and a peeled to the owners, that i had no reasons to believe that this was an illegal unit and in fact. the person who made the illegal unit were the same people that bequithed the building to the trust. there was a request. and i am a legal resident and i have all of the documentation to prove that i don't think that this is the venue which i will choose to do that. the tax records also quote three unit and in fact, when we were a realty was selling the building, i will just stop there, i think that the record... well, i think that the record will show and i am going to ask that you not allow

those who choose to declare units that are legal to be illegal, act on their own without working with the planning department. and remove legal tenants like myself, and learn in the unit and appropriately and the sellbility on the second and third or fourth of june as a single family dwelling. now. >> you are out of town. >> let the record speak. >> thank you very much. >> >> is there any other public comment? please step forward. >> my name is john (inaudible) and i live at 2829 baker's street. my property i share a yard with mr. shlarps property. and i have a couple of concerns, i mean, like some of the other people that have spoken, i am sort of beside myself here, because we all rely on 3 r reports on what the

building department tell us and i hope that some day to improve the property and it is a very old house and i don't know what i would do if i actually got a building permit and spent hundreds of thousands of dollars improving my property, or perhaps even getting a construction loan to find out at the last minute that someone feels that perhaps that the permit was erroneously issue and they were going to revoke the permit and i would ask you to consider the equities of this case and it is grocery unfair and i would also ask you to consider the fact that a motive or a certificate of final completing, in itself is not evidence of the legality of the third unit it just means that someone was able to convince someone to sign-off on work done, but there is no evidence that has been presented that the unit was actually legally created and i think that the people from dbi and planning have actually said that there is no evidence and

there is no permits or anything like this. so i would also suggest that the motion that the permit was erroneously issued is not correct. it was issued based on all available evidence the public, is entitled, to rely on that evidence, that sen entitled to rely on the representations made by the planning department and the dbi, and tens of thousands of home owners in the city rely on that and lenders rely on that and many parties rely on that and the whole system becomes unraveled if we create a precedent here. and any way, thank you for your time. and your consideration. >> thank you. >> any other public comment? >> okay, you have had your time for public comment. is there anyone else that would like to speak? >> okay, i see none, so will start with the rebuttal.. three

minutes. >> thank you. i know that it is getting late and you have been very patient with this one. i think that last public speaker kind of hit the nail on the head and the first thing is that the evidence that resulted in the change in the 3 r report is not conclusive and it does not justify taking the action that was taken and that is why we contend that it is an abuse of discretion and we have a single document that will raise as many questions that it will answer. and there is no one around to verify who did this and why they could not spell grenwich correctly. and this, you cannot make out what the address is and it is not consistent with the certificate of occupancy and the deed does not make reference to this 2823, address. and so there is a number of different sources of information that we are relied upon a buyer of property or someone undertaking a project could not be more diligent to try to confirm that that is exactly what they intend to do

is take a two unit building with an illegal unit and bring it back into compliance with the law and remodel it for the first time in over 70 years. and so again when they say that the permit was issued erroneously i don't think that there is evidence to make that conclusion, i would understand why anyone would take pause after receiving the certificate of final completing. when the gentleman from dbi was here there was nothing conclusive here, this was provided by the tenant and no reason why he did not provide it during the appeal or a year ago, but it raises questions, without the actual permits, that no one can produce and no one has seen as the speaker suggested, there is no evidence that this was done legally. and that there is a legal third unit. >> and one of the commissioners also said, you know, there is people admitting that the permit is error, and one of the focus has to be whose error is it? >> and this idea of forcing the people to go through a 317

process, is an exercise or an expensive exercise in futility given that the unit is taken down but to force them to go through that process and until they do, not have a certificate of final completing, prevents them from refinancing the loan on the property and changing title on the property and taking their equity out of the property we know that to be a very lengthy process and i just don't think that it is in anybody's best interest to force an exercise in futility. again, because the evidence conclusive was not and was not verify able or by any other source or the changes to the property and constitutes a use of discretion and the damage that would be wroth on the permit holders who could not have wrong doing and it would be immense and everyone can expect that it will not get resolved and the residents have

uncertainty of what to do when undertaking projects. >> i have a question. part of your recommendations is based on the questions about the validity of the new 3 r report. if that question did not exist and if in fact it looked to be a completely valid 3 r report, what would you recommend to be the course of action? >> i think that you still have a big problem with detrimental reliance that the information that was provided and again, not just in the original 3 r report but by the testimony in a public hearing by two representatives of the city. and from the department of planning and the department of building inspection. and this board entertained and heard the jurisdiction request which i seen on the video was on the permits of the appeal and turned that down and sided with the permit holder and based on all of these different confirmations of the characterization of the building, they spent the hundreds of thousands of dollars to be denied the

certificate of final completion and i think in that situation you have to grant this appeal. that is not our situation and our situation what we have is, and that is confusing but what it sounds like is this tenant, the former tenant, out of nowhere, produces a document that no city employee uncovered. when prevenlted or providing the previous 3 r report and provides it to planning and the planning does not know what to make of it completely and provide it to building inspection and so they testified that we got the cfc from planning so we changed the 3 r report and planning says we got a new 3 r report and so we suspended the permits. >> okay. but this is not evidence to do all of those things. >> counselor? >> yes, sir. >> when this issue came up, you must have reached the history. what have you found? >> yes, that no one has a copy of the permit referenced by the certificate of final completion and until that recent change to

the 3 r report no search of the records demonstrates any records that legalize the third unit. >> did you find the original permit for this building? >> always since we have had the initial one and we had the permit in 1938 and designates it as a two unit building. >> but you did not find the original permit? >> right. >> okay. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> okay. >> and thank you, mr. sanchez. >> scott sanchez planning department and i will be brief and i want to address a bit about the history of the 1970 cfc and why that and how we came upon that and so we had received a complaint in early june that they had illegal emerged to a single family dwelling and i don't know who made that complaint but we received that complaint. at the end of june, i received an e-mail from mr. hansen who

said that he had evidence that is was legally a three unit building and initially i took this with a grain of salt because i did not see anything in the records that indicated that this was a three unit building and i was expecting to receive something from pg&e saying that there were three meters here which we would say conclusive of the legality of the unit. but what i received and early july was this cfc and the permit of occupancy and i was quite frankly shocked to see that because that is the gold standard. i mean that is essentially the birth certificate of a building and that is the most important document to have and so the fact that this existed was that i was shocked and didn't, i mean i didn't know what to make of it and i didn't know honestly how it was found earlier and so i forwarded that to the department of the building inspection and i asked mr. hansen, who he received and

who received those. >> i don't know why this document was not either found by the building department earlier or found by mr. hansen earlier and i think that he claimed earlier that there was evidence that this was a legally a three unit building time of the jurisdiction request and early on it would have been quite honestly easier to resolve all of this and i never received any evidence to my knowledge and the other documents received any evidence that this was legally a three unit building. until the end of june or early july, that it is my understanding now that that was the days before they were to issue the final inspection on the permit. but again this was all information that we can say that we have the revised three hour report that was based upon

the 1970 cfc and it was dated 1971, and yesterday, i have not seen any of the underlying building permit from 1970, and i don't know... what vehicle that was but at the time, in 1970, three units would have been allowed and so there was nothing that really seemed questionable. and you know, issues like maybe... and if there was a permit subsequent to that and removed the unit but there was no evidence of this cfc. at the time if they were adding a dwelling unit and they came after 1955 they would be required to provide a parking space for that unit. and again we have the cfc and the 3 r report and that is what we base our decision on thank you. >> >> there are a couple of references that ened up as a single family dwelling that was allege and what is the out come. >> they filed it and that was

kind of restarted in early june. and dbi, i think that we received, like the complaint on june fifth and they investigated on june 6th and determined that they had done the work beyond the scope of the per permit and they submited in late june and then maybe, that was basically to bring it back to what was my understanding to what was authorized under the previous permit that reconfigured so that there were two units in the building that the upper two units and the two flats were merged and the lower one of those was essentially relocated to the basement level and so that was my understanding to the out come of the investigation. >> it was not a violation and it did appeared that they had merged it into one? >> yes. that was again another factor weighing in our consideration of making this decision on the revocation and having the hearing properly before the board of appeals. >> are you aware of how far

they took or excuse me, let me rephrase that, are you aware of what extent of work beyond the scope of the permit? >> i don't have those details and maybe that permit holder can address that, and i know with dbi and i don't know if matters of openings and closings. >> you know, this, i am sorry. >> this cfc there is that addresses or not quite, and not quite, right, if this i am not sure whether that the allegable number or not it looks like it is 2821. >> i think that that is one of the points raised by the appellant and kind of questioning the validity of that cfc. but again, you know, we received this information. >> and initial, i know is there a 2821 next door?

>> no. so the property is 2805 to 2807. >> from what i saw on the record it was not close and again the appellant can address that. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> anything further? >> does the board have questions? >> department of building inspection and regarding the notice of violation, which was issued on june the 11th, 2013, it was a construction dw not file the approved permit application number and it did not provide a separation between the unit one and two, and the field inspector had issued the correction notice, and we need to followed the approved plans and obtain the revisions for the unit and so it was pretty standard correction and it was not a notice of violation that

involved any penaltis for exceeding the scope and it was a deviation from the approved plans and they subsequently filed the revision. >> there was an opening and you mentioned earlier a fire door. >> but there was an opening between the two upper floors and the ground floor. >> yes. >> the actual note is going to obtain a permit and opening of the interior stairway to reflect the issue application and 2012 and 04, 18, 8561 and additional plumbing and electrical permits required as well. >> commissioners, the matter is yours. >> we will go ahead and start. >> so. as my daytime job is a realtor,

we rely heavily on the 3 r report. and in the short time that i have been a realtor, the 3 r report has gone from 48 dollars to 162 dollars in 15 years. and contrary to mr. greco's statement, the 3 hour report from a month to five weeks right now. and we rely heavily on the 3 r report and even though there is an error and omission statement that is given along with the 3 r, i find that there is, or that there is error on the planning department and the building department that, i mean they were given the specific direction that they followed and you know, dollar wise, whether they are doing a spec home or whether they are actually living on the property, you know, the information that we give our clients and we have done and we

do our due diligence on our behalf and there has to be some you know, some truth to that, and you have to be able to hold on to the information that you get from the 3 r department and in this particular case was followed up by representatives from the city and county reassuring that position. and so on this particular case, i would you know, i am at a loss, i mean i think that the repercussions and if we make them put, a third unit back in it is absolutely agregious >> there was an alternative regarding the 317, that ultimately if it worked and it would allow them to to the building; is that correct? >> scott sanchez planning department, the loss of the dwelling unit would be through a application which would be a

public hearing before the planning department and a 30 day notice, and it could be filed and there would be a hearing and mandatory discretion hearing of the planning commission and we would evaluate the fact on the section 317 for the merger of a dwelling unit and again, based upon the initial review of this, of the 5 criteria it will meet at least three maybe four of the criteria and we typically recommend approval, if it meets three of the criteria and that is again, speculative and we need to have the application and a hearing and there would be the commission's decision ultimately but that is the process. >> if they file that tomorrow how long under the best of circumstances would that take? >> we would do our best to insure that it was processed as quickly as possible but it is a hearing before the planning commission and there is a 30 day public notice and the process like this and it is not

going to be resolved probably within three months. >> thank you. >> you know, the timing is quite interesting, on this entire process with the information showed up and the things occurred. and it occurred very quickly. and the question, however, is back to the same issues that we would face when we looked at situations where people want to either increase the number of units or decrease the number of units and show appropriate documentation. >> and it is interesting in terms of the timing, and not necessarily of what these things show up but in terms of how the real estate market has changed. and my first time on this board, everybody wanted more

units. and they wanted to squeeze units out of their existing and they would go back, you know, whether it was reverse or the utilities, and now it appears that the larger the units the better and remarkable it is. and the and i agree that the question of reliance is probably a foremost in my mind. they, at the time of purchase, they had it sxwh should rely on that and i am prepare to over rule the zoning administrator

and to eliminate the suspension. >> i would add a couple of things shs the reliance issue is big, and 18 month lag is just too long, i just don't see and i think that it would be a terrible precedent to set for san francisco and for property owners for the real estate market. and also, i am not, i am not convinced that it was a rent controlled unit, even if it was, any error in removing it should be bourne by the city and not by the property owner and in this case, i think really illustrates a value of our function here in having a public hearing and hearing all of the evidence, so i would also be in favor of over turning the revocation. i don't think that it was an abuse of discretion, i think that it was an error in that the documentation of the 1973

unit classification of this building, i don't think is conclusive and so i would say that, you know, we should over turn the revocation not because it was an abuse of discretion but because it was issued in error. >> so how would that work. >> if we over turn it and i mean if we over turn that, does that mean that the 3 r will revert to the previous status? >> i believe that is the case, yes. >> and the current permit. >> scott sanchez planning department. >> we would be revoking the request that we issued to dbi and reinstate the permits and currently the 3 r report says that the three units and the other would the internal question for dbi of how to resolve that and however, i believe that there may be and maybe there is going to be a

ctc issued for one of the permits that has been revoked and 23 that cfc for the revoked permit would then supercede the cfc, from the 3 unit building. >> and so, dbi issues a cfc for one of the permits that is subject to revocation that would over rule the 3 r report and that would show the two family dwelling. >> and should we condition it then? >> and maybe, he could speak to whether or not there will be a cfc issued on one of the permits that is subject to the revocation and if they were to needed to file a subsequent permit that would issue or confer a cfc. >> well, they would still need to go through the final inspections and so the issue is that the elimination of the revocation and the suspension and then the normal procedure will be ongoing. >> and so that is why, at this point, i am prepared to

depending on whether there is four votes. and to over rule the zoning administrator on the basis that the revocation was done in error. and that i should leave it at that. >> i don't know if you might want to base it on it on relying on the 1970, cfc. >> that will be my motion, yeah. >> did you want to make a comment? >> anthony graco department of building inspection. and the (inaudible) would be reinstated and active again will proceed through the normal inspection process and we will issue final inspection completion job cards, certain projects in our chapter one administrative code indicate those particular types of

projects and permits that do receive the certificate of final completion and occupancy and not every job gets one, a typical bath or remodel will not get one and horizontal additions or seismic up grades and changes in use and changes of occupancy and so if in this case there is no change of use or occupancy there is still two units and then we will, our department will look administratively again, at reissuing the 3 r based on this board's determination and we will discuss with our director and actually we are going to take whether we will do that based on the determination tonight or the subsequent permits as they proceed. >> okay. >> yeah, i mean that it seems to me that it has to be clarified that at if at some point the building sells again, we have a report that is issued with the units and if the determination tonight is that permit is going to be reinstated and the ca