>> thank you. >> congratulations. so congratulations to our candidates and does anyone want to say anything sonya >> thank you everyone. that's all i want to say. sarah do you have anything? >> thanks. thank you very much commissioners for this award and just want to thank you director for mainly for this award and thank you to all my colleagues

to have - for having voted for me. and thank you. the model for nominating me for this award >> sonya you're not quite off the hook. >> thank you everyone i really appreciate it (clapping.) >> well sonya you want to say a few more. >> no. >> i'm very glad it was you i think you and i started together and weaponry trying to figure out everything and you've done an amazing job and making sure we're all our everyday collections and needs were taken care of. >> thank you everyone. is there any public comment on

this item? seeing none, item 5 discussion and update the dbi staffing on market street. come on up. i want to kind of as our fellow commissioners and pretty sure everybody this has been an agenda that's been played out in the newspapers so i've had the privilege of sitting out in a couple of meetings. i know the staff is working hard. to bill if you could and can couple of a commissioners want to be brought up to speed >> i put in our packets a summary of the steps the meeting had a cross section of dbi senior staff that will deal with the building issues.

this building has both residential and commercial office uses. the current owner has actually begun some evictions and some people have accepted the relocation funding that the owners have offered. we spoke to the owners about a week ago and invited them back for one more effort to walk them through the steps that would enable them to legal lists the residential unit and keep people in the building. once we knew that certain fire safety and building safety issues had been addressed. they agreed yesterday to a walk through thought building which is golden going to take place tomorrow afternoon at the 8 o'clock.

most of the staff that participated including our senior electrical chief and someone from the fire department and someone from planning and jeff from our plan review staff who has worked with people especially on using that administrative bullet. it's a local equality thing that allows us to address the light and air issues that the code has specific requirements on. so this give us a little bit more flexibility. we pointed out out to the owner if they want to do a preapplication he meeting for the designer and the architect then we can memorialize in writing the steps and a

hopefully be able to save a number if not all of the remaining residential units. say we are still talking. >> thank you for updating us. i want to thank the director for really i think we're going out of our way to try to work with the owner of this building to protect the occupancy. i've heard from the housing rights committee that is one of our folks that work with code enforcement outreach and tenants in the building and are very interested. there was a misunderstanding so i would ask when they get here

even if we're on a different topic to hear from them. this is an ongoing problem in this city especially right now. real estate prices are going up and tenants are being evicted. we go through this periodically because san francisco as we all know is a wonderful city but this is a really, really important issue and i really applaud our department for being creative in hoping to work with the owner of this building to encourage not evicting the current tenants or changing the occupancy. i'm be looking at the a b notice

i notice you're putting in the work we've had sort of i would say not successful history of trying to accommodate artists and protecting folks in the building. we in the 80s came up with the work ordinance that was supposed to let artists have studios and provide affordable space for people to do their work and live in. for many reasons it didn't work it was being misused and played upon and jefferson created important evictions. we need to proceed very cautiously and make sure we're

doing what that was intended to do. the work ordinance was as opposed to preserve liveable space for people to live and work in the same areas and not have to pay exorbitant prices. so one of the things that was a failure was the fact there was no attention to affordability. i know we don't have that under our that you are view but we hopefully, will tread carefully as we go through this process. i'd love to be updated on a regular basis as commissioners. it's a really important issue preserving is existing spaces it is most affordable way to keep those spaces rather than new

construction. i just want to point out tommy is the gentleman that's been working with the tenants and may be able to answer some of your questions. tommy i hate to bring you up but do you want to update us >> give me one second we'll use the proper formality here. >> sorry and it's best that all the commissioners get their questions out. >> so i think staff has begun above and beyond and i'm so glad that, you know, we have been perceived as the problem solving staff. so my worry was about the messaging and the media because it was a thing oh, we're

evicting all these tenants because of dbis rules. that's not the case. in that part of the story was not out there. it feeds that perception among folks considering whether they're going to swastika in or not. i'm wondering if we have a strategy foretelling the story of what happened here. and have this sort of be a template for other folks who could, you know, bring their buildings up to snuff and provide affordable housing >> good morning commissioner. i'm tom huey director of the building inspection and first of all, regarding those jobs we asked the owner since april

this. first of all, we never charged them a penny. even yesterday the meeting the inspection coming up on, you know, we want to be resolving the issue before we talk about the money. >> but the - it's proved a loss of job but we go through those

and make sure those items we follow but also need to work closely with the planning regarding this. but we don't call up we call an accessory use >> yeah. i just had a question. and maybe two questions. one is that i know some of those life works when they came on line some reason done illegal and if planning approved it as a residential unit then wasn't it incumbent upon the owner tattoo bring it up to code. i want to be flexible with the owner and not let them off the hook.

every owner will say it's too expensive and put it on the tenants. well, they were collecting rent all those years it wasn't too expensive to collect rent. if you're renting a plays out then our code says it's supposed to be liveable. that's my question if it was done illegal than someone in planning approved it for residential use and why are reciting here or wasn't it done legally. we say illegal conversion than again my thing was he was collecting rent all those years for illegal use and now he's saying i can't afford to put in

windows or egress or whatever i'm not sympathetic >> i hear you. i think that you have the situation where there's illegal occupancy. we hear a lot of cases where people get complainants lodged and oh, we're going to have to evict the tenant. what we are doing and i believe this is the exact right thing to do is to be creative about how we can help the owner encourage the owner, let the owner know how to legal lists it. in the case of buildings your allowed to use a hybrid approach and in this case we have the

main use of after the studios or office and you have assessor residential it's a good policy to have our department work with all the different inspections to try to apply the code to the building to help the owner legal lists it as residential. i mean, that's - that would be my hope in this, you know, and my priority is to protect the uses. in that it's a commercial building there are roadblocks not the least of parking and open space, you know, all the things that are residential. so the assessor use provision in the code was the libel task force we had a decade ago recommended to the work ordinance and it specifically

deals with existing buildings and have the access appeals when we have the access issues and they can't comply with the sdblt sowed. it's a challenge and that's what i was saying before we need to be mindful of the pitfalls of the previous conversation and hopefully support our department in finding solutions to protect affordable housing and workspace. you know, it's not that i sdrau with you >> i want to point out we as a body this is complicated stuff. up holding the code is first and foremost but having affordable

housing and preserving the residential values and adding to it. i think if i could go back to my question. it worries me once the story gets out and gets repeated i'm wondering what our strategy is >> that's a good question. i poke with the examining reporter and the chronicle reporters and they didn't came back us. i will say that in both cases i made it clear to the reporters that the department didn't do evictions we're responsible for enforcing the code was this building save enough for residents because based on a visit about a week ago there

were a lot of questions about fire safety and a strictly letters if there had been a fire in this building i think it is fair to say we have issues to be addressed. we say a good reason to revisit the building and have another look to see particularly the electrical permitting in that building it was done more than 10 years ago so our electrical group spiksz inspection wants to look at the code and the best safety practices are being done we can tell a reporter our side of the story but they don't have to report that message and they choose not to. i'd be happy to put together a

letter we could send to the politicians and put that on the record to say we're taking the steps and why our concern about the building safety >> just to kind of hitch on that that the damage that's done. for me the big thing i i was on vacation and i picked up the chronicle pr there's two things that resonate with me. you can go into the department and get your information and choose to do with that information as you choose. now my understanding is this particular owner knew what the a b 005 option was given. so my understanding is he knew that for example, the air and a light issue was a fixable

situation because as commissioner you walker said this was legislation drawn up to address that issue but the whole article was because we couldn't get air and a light into the building they had to evict everyone and that bothsz me. we're working hard we're not in the business to evicting folks. and this is really a huge case for us. where we did the right thing many, many years ago. one of the deputies said they might have had meetings last year and the owner was given the same information. so i'm a little bit concerned about how this played out and the train has left the station. a lot of the tenants have decided to leave.

i'm afraid we're in a situation where the owner is saying well, this is the eviction notices are out. i kind of want to go public and i know we visited smoking gun someone from the rent board >> i had no response. >> yeah, but there are people from the building so we'll hear from them and randy was the - there was only one piece of paper that addressed the issue. the real big thing is we've got to get our side of the story out there. because as a stand i identification talking to a few people and you're starting to evict artists it's so frustrating to hear that.

this is a very big and important situation we've got to correct this and do what we. so as a commissioner we're all on board to do whatever it takes to work you with you. and the directors and deputy directors have laid out the case and as somebody from contradiction we're not talking about a lot of things to get this up to code. commissioner walker and i would like to ask tommy do you, you know, you know - could you give us a status on how many tenants have left. i'm curious to know >> the tenants are walking in right now we have a wonderful group of tenants. sorry we were all late but we

had a misunderstanding. a few of the tenants have left by not a whole lot of tenants have left. i was contacted by the tenant and we immediately went in and started to organize the tenants and said they had the right to fight and they started knocking on doors and encouraging each other to stay and a fight. we have a meeting and we you filled in their rights and as much as & we knew about dbi although that kept changing. i got all the information i could. i want to add here 1067 is in the same situation as 1049.

there's a code violation against 1067 for illegal use of residential space but my fear is we could be looking something although i hope the landlord has learned >> who initiated the practice. >> i understand there was a call. the complaints start in 07. the owner evicted a tenant and then the tenant didn't pay the rent and then claimed to their department and started the process >> okay. thank you. what we'll do is go to public comment >> thank you perfect. >> first speaker mr. shaw. >> thank you randy shaw. i think this is the first time i've spoken to this commission

in 8 years. i missed the vote for tom as the director but you've proven from the last week's events i commend the commission for the wise decision because we've already seen in the last two weeks is the collaborative leadership style so if we had a few directors.org ago a defy who knew everything but tom is working with the directors. to get to the essence of where this is going - and i appreciate president menacing the article implicit laid out the realty and the truth. i'll say why we look at the chronicle it was a saturday and a 3 day weekend much of the public didn't read the article

so the public knows your dinner table in exchange the public may not have been as aware of this. where it's going to come down to the evictions are going to come down to permit. and if we stop is it at the board of appeals it will not psyched. tommy mentioned about the other buildings you know when the tenants were saying - yesterday he says yeah, i'm i'm going to go ahead and keep going. maybe supervisor kim and i didn't you think this by them but there may be a need for more to your memory for any change on market street so if something is

passed we can keep everything in more thank you. and that may keep everything the same. the mayor might consider if we're going to have this elaborate process by an owner who is not honest i'm disappointed he wants to do the right thing and now, clearly the wrong thing he's notes trustworthy and not cooperate and collaborative. i'm wondering director huey can't there be a more thank you. it just freeze things so we can figure out this thing to preserve those housing units in commercial buildings. so i want to throw that out for supervisor kim and others to consider >> thank you. >> sorry randy only one question. the other aspect of this if you

- if everybody was to keep their unit and the improvements were done what would happen to the rent >> you raise a good question if the owner went out and a got a new tendency the building would have to be exempted so do a tear change of the occupancy or the preferred is not to issue an occupancy and let it go. and then we avoid the problem. and, of course, as units become vacant if the owner is really getting the right advise i do believe there's more profits made in residential sites than commercial. there's a lot of competition

taylor has a inhabitant hub 3 people in a space. it's a behalf building there's no way that 10349 taylor is going to compete and we'll not issue a new joint tenant occupancy every can anybody answer the question if we were to consider a moratorium >> a moratorium may not be the vehicle because primarily the use is commercial. >> so i think a better approach would be to attach the moratorium to any displacement because of up grads or something. you have to be careful because

the legal use it commercial ice. there's some legal residents in the buildings so he has to get a permit to withdraw the use. so a moratorium would prevent any housing use on that one stretch of market street. once you try to, you know, because it's a permit to change the land use issue it's something again, i didn't realize until today about the owner and their plans. did i realize no matter how government and helpful to be successful he wants to be a win lose or a lose-lose >> okay. thank you mr. shay. >> thank you. next spe