tv [untitled] November 26, 2013 3:30pm-4:01pm PST
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the completion of the condo, the spirit and intention of allowing a deferral for low-income residents is that 16 thousand dollars is an extreme hardship for my mom and i, she's l*f living mostly on social security, i'm only working part time. we have a mortgage on third place on our property we can't refinance, and we have an interest on our morbacker mortgage, we don't have an extra 16 thousand dollars, if you would be willing to extend the payment for low-income residents who have received a deferral to the completion of condo conversion, we'd be elt jibl to refinance at a much better rate, we're stuck at 6%, so if we could do it at the completion of condo conversion, we could refinance and it would not be so much of a financial hardship to pay that 16 thousand fee, that would be very helpful. i did communicate with mr.
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malma and he suggested i bring it up and that the board sr. that amendment. thank you. >> based on what the appellant has asked, i have a question now for the deputy city attorney, while many of us find what the appellant has asked to be quite sympathetic, under the law that we've passed is that what is in front of us from a jurisdictional standpoint is that we can only consider reductions or adjustments or waivers of the fee if we find that there hasn't been a nexus between the impact of the dwomment in the amount of the fee charged. i'm not sure whether we have discretion beyond that. if i could ask that question to the city attorney? >> john from the city attorney's office, yes, that's correct. the matter before the board today is just the waiver or reduction based on the standard that you indicated. er i think the appellant was making a general request to the board of supervisors that if a board member were interested in sponsoring legislation that would make an amendment to the
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fee deferral provisions to allow for a later time, that that is something that she would like to see if possible. >> okay. colleagues, any further discussion? is there a motion in this matter? or do i need to come down and make a motion. supervisor kim? >> thank you, i just wanted to -- this is items 19, 20 and 21, i want to clarify this is 273-29th street? >> correct. >> on the matter that we heard last week. >> yes. >> i'll make a motion to move forward with item number 19 and to table 20 and 21. >> so, supervisor kim has made a motion to deny the appeal and table items 20 and 21. is there a second to that?
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seconded by supervisor campos, additional discussion, supervisor wiener? >> i'm not going the repeat the argument that is i made at the last hearing, i will not be supporting this motion. i think that, you know, this shows once again, first of all, in terms of all of the really awful stereotyping that we heard during the whole tic legislative process, trying to broad bush tic has speculators and other terms showing that once again that is not accurate. we have now our second appeal in a row from a low-income household, and so tenants are extremely diverse ranging from extraordinarily poor to middle income and upper income, the same is true of tic owners. i won't repeat the rational that i articulated last time.
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i do think that this appeal points to perhaps the desirability of having more flexibility in the fee deferral. i know it's not part -- we can't do that as part of this appeal in term of deferring the fee and the law is pretty clear about the extent to which the department of public works can grant a fee deferral, but we've heard the argument in the last appeal and i think in this appeal as well that if someone is condo converting, they can then -- the value of their property increases and they could use some of their principal in that property to take out money and pay the fee, but as the appellant has articulated, that's not necessarily the case until the condo conversion happens, you may not be able to refinance at all, so i do think that it may make sense to have more
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flexibility in the fee deferral process. i also am realistic about how the last legislative process relating to the condo conversion went and i'm not particularly optimistic that any common sense changes like that would go easily, but i'm the e certainly optimist. . er supervisor campos? >> i don't want to repeat the arguments that have been made. i think that sympathetic at the appellant is, at the end of the day, the role that we play here is to interpret the law that this body passed and the law is very clear that there has to be a nexus between the fee and the impact of the development, so i think that to subjecting that somehow we can do anything beyond that is really not an accurate description of what our role is, and i personally think that in the en, it's not a good thing for an appellant to come before a body arguing something that in the end is
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not within the confines of what the law allows, and i think that creates a sense of false hope and i don't think it's fair to an appellant to go through a process that ultimately doesn't really lend itself to do what is being promised it could do. that's not the reality of what the law says, and if we want to change the law, then let's change the law, but i don't think it's fair to go through this process when we know that the law does not allow us to do what we're claiming it can do. >> unless there's any further discussion, colleagues, supervisor kim has a motion in front of us, madam clerk, call the roll. >> on the motion to approve item 19, table 20, 21, supervisor breed, breed, aye. supervisor campos, aye. supervisor chiu, chiu, aye. supervisor cohen? cohen, aye. soupz soar farrell, no, supervisor k*im, aye. supervisor mar, aye.
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supervisor tang, aye. supervisor wiener, no. supervisor yee, aye. supervisor avalos, aye. there are 9 aye and is 2 knows's, the motion is approved to deny the appeal. >> item 22 through 25 compromise the public hearing of persons interested in the appeal of application of condominium conversion fee for a property located at 124-5th avenue, apartment number 2 and items 26 through 29 compromise the public hearing of persons interested in the appeal for a reduction of the condominium conversion fee for apartment number 5. item 23 is the motion denying the appeal for apartment number 2. items 24 and 25 st motion approving the appeal and the motion directing the preparation of findings for apartment number 2 and items 27 is the motion denying the
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appeal for apartment number 5 and items 28 and 29 is the motion approving the appeal for apartment 5. >> colleagues, as we have stated with the last several appeals in this matter, our standard again is we can only reduce adjuster waived the fees if we find there's any relationship or nexus between the develop sxment the fees charged and the appellants need to find substantial evidence to support the appeal. each of the appellants shall have up to 10 minutes to present their case, city departments will have up to 20 minutes to present their analysis, members of the public supporting the application shall have two minutes and the appellants should have 3 minutes of rebuttal, unless there are any initial comments why don't we hear from the
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appellants. so, the parties to this appeal, if you are here, please step up and, sir, you have up to 10 minutes. if you could please identify which apartment you're appealing. >> apartment number 5, 124-5th avenue, apartment number 5, and i didn't come up with a nexus report because it would probably have cost me more money. my whole thing is the hardship. i've been living up in [inaudible] for the last three years, i've been going to school and i have not had a job for the last three years since i've been in school. since i've been out of school, i have not found a job yet. in order to pay for this, i pretty much had to liquidate by 401k plan, i couldn't borrow any money from a bank because i haven't had a job for the last three years so i had to
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liquidate by 401 plan, i don't know how it's going to affect my taxes for next year, also the new health insurance law, i aoep not so sure how it will affect that. i was in hopes to get some money back to put into an ira in hopes to bring my income down for the year, but again, this is pretty much just a hardship case. >> thank you very much, any questions to the appellant, supervisor farrell? >> thanks for being here today. a quick question for you. have you talked to our department of public works? i know there's a question about a fee waiver. to be clear, that's what you're asking for? >> right, they did ask me about the deferral and i said no, i was going for the waiver or the reduction. >> okay, let me ask you a question then.
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in the alternative though, we can go through this process and we will right now with the waiver application. again, no one's prejudging anything here, given the way that things are going, i think it's doubtful. is a deferral something -- i would like to be as helpful as i can to ensure whatever we can do within the confines of how people sloet in the law that we do it for you, so is a deferral -- if the fee waiver doesn't happen, is it something we can help facilitate? >> well, the fee's already been paid. i guess i don't know if i got a deferral, then i could put some money into an ira to hopefully help my tax situation for next year and also the health insurance law for next year. that makes my income level for next year in applying for health insurance, but yeah, it would be something i would vefrmgly have to pay anyway down the road. i guess a deferral would kind of help but with the hardship i
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was kind of looking for, you know, a reduction or, you know, a waiver and i really didn't want to hire anybody to figure this out for me. this is kind of complicated for me to understand the whole nexus and the property value of whether it's worth going through the condominium conversion or not. >> i understand that, okay, thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you, any other questions to the appellant? okay. thank you very much, sir. let me ask for the second appellant, if that individual's here. sir, do you know, is your neighbor here today? >> [inaudible]. >> okay, so again, just calling for anyone to represent the second appellant. supervisor breed? >> thank you. i just wanted to let the appellant know as well as my
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colleagues know, i at roll call will be introducing legislation to this particular hiccup in our tic process and also exploring the opportunity to address the issue of what the appellant of 124-5th avenue mentioned in terms of the deferral, so the deferral resolution is something that i'm going to be working on and will not be able to propose today, but today, i'm proposing legislation that will address the issue around the nexus and hardship, so i wanted to put that out there to my colleagues so that we are not continuing to bring appellants here without the ability to help and support them in any way possible, so i just wanted to let you all know that. >> thank you, supervisor breed, and i'm happy to help co-sponsor that. why don't we now hear from city
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staff on this set of appeals. before we do that, let us make sure that there are no members of the public that wish to speak in support of the appellants. seeing none, let's now go to city staff. >> good afternoon, mr. president, members of the board of supervisors, i am gg whit lee with the community development, you've heard my presentation several times now so i'll be very brief. the appellant is not challenging the economic nexus which is the basis for the board to waive, reduce or adjust the fee level. the law requires the appellant do so to show an absence of any reasonable relationships between the impact of the condominium conversion and the fee. you have the memo before you that our office prepared with
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the detailed analysis of this particular case and you've heard clearly from the appellant, so i'm available for any questions and that concludes my remarks. >> colleagues, any questions to city staff? thank you for that brief presentation. why don't we now hear from member of the public that wish to speak in support of the fees. seeing none, why don't we now hear for the one individual who was here representing himself as an appellant, sir, do you wish to provide any final rebuttal? to the gentleman from apartment number 5? is that a no? okay, so there is no rebuttal. and with that, colleagues, unless there are any final questions at this time, this hearing has been held and is filed. this matter is now in the andover the board, supervisor farrell? >> thank you, president chiu.
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and i want to thank dpw for going through this process and for the appellant for coming forward in my district, just more than anything, i think to continue this consistency sake, understand that this is not going to be a winning vote, but i think to me, this is the law of unintended consequences, again, we have someone who's in a more dire economic situation and in particular because this is a six unit tic building being kind of quasi forced to convert where they are no longer eligible for the process, these are exactly the people i believe we need to support. i realize there's not the general sentiment here on the board but i will be supporting the resident from district 2 and so but given that, maybe someone else can make the motion because i know it's not going to be a winner here today. >> okay, is there someone who could make the motion?
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supervisor breed? >> okay, let me just make sure we're at the right place. this is item number 27, correct? >> it is both item 23 through 25 as well as items 27 through -- i'm sorry, you're right. >> they're mixed a little bit. >> they're mixed, items 23-25 is related to apartment number 2 and items 27 through 29 are related to apartment number 5. >> sorry. so, i would like to make a motion to move item 19, table item 20 and 21 -- >> supervisor breed, i think we've already resolved that. the motion i believe you're thinking of making is move item 23 to deny the appeal with
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regards to apartment 2. table 24 and 25 and then move item 27 to deny the appeal for apartment number 5, and then table item number 28 and 29. >> okay, sorry. because on the screen, it's different and up here, it's different, so i would like to make a motion to move item 23, table item 24 and 25, move item 27, table item 28 and 29. >> supervisor breed just made a motion, seconded by supervisor campos. any discussion? none. so, colleagues, unless there's any further comment, let's take a roll call vote on supervisor breed's motion. >> supervisor brao*ed? >> aye. >> breed, aye, supervisor campos, aye f, supervisor chiu, chiu, aye.
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supervisor cohen, aye. supervisor farrell? >> no. >> farrell, no. supervisor kim, aye, supervisor mar, aye. supervisor tang, aye. supervisor wiener, no, supervisor yee, aye, supervisor avalos, aye. there are 9 ayes and two no's. >> the motion is denying both of the appeals are passed and the only thing i will just say colleague, i'm hoping we're not going to see additional appeals of this until supervisor breed's legislation moves forward but of course folks are free to file what they wish. with that, why don't we now go to roll call for introductions, madam clerk. >> yes, mr. president, supervisor breed is first to introduce new items. >> thank you, today i'm introducing an amendment to the tic bypass legislation that the board passed earlier this year and the in the past couple of months, we've seen a number of appeals of the conversion,
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bypass fee and these appeals have by in large been solely on the basis of financial hardship, regardless of how sympathetic the appeals are, there is no obl gases of the law for a fee waiver, the board can simply not do it, part 3196.4j1 of the subdivision code say that is a project applicant may appeal to the board of supervisors for reduction, adjustment or waiver of the requirements based upon the absence of any reasonable relationship or nexus between the impact of the development and the amount of the fee charged. in other words, the appellant must refute the 2011 nexus report done on behalf of the city by ketha martin and associates and this is a steep climb and with only one possible exception, no appellant has ever tried, so we had three appellants today that do not even address the only
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legal basis on which we grant a waiver. to continue holding markings for such appeals is not only a misuse of city resources, it is a waste of the appellant's time. it is giving them a false impression, the notion that we may provide a waiver which we legally are prohibited from providing, so i think it would be in everyone's best interest, the appellant's and the city to make the appeal process more clear and more in line with the sledge slaying's intent, my amendment will allow the city attorney to vet appeals and address those that do not address the nex suggestion by the impact of development in the amount of the fides charged which is again the only basis for an appeal in the law, i have added language ensuring that any supervisor can overrule the clerk and request the appeal be calendared, so i think this is the fairest way to address this particular situation. the other thing that i plan to do after hearing as i said the young lady that came before us
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would was here last week for her hearing is that we definitely also need to make the changes in order to address the is eye around -- issue around the hardship so for those who need a deferral for the condo conversion fee can have that deferral in a time as such that it will meet their needs so that when they have an opportunity to refinance, then they can possibly afford to pay the fee back, so that's my legislation, so far, i have supervisor campos and supervisor chiu who have asked to be added as a co-sponsor and so i'm looking forward to getting this legislation passed as quickly as possible. the other two things that i wanted to mention today was i know i had mentioned in the past when we took the park legislation vote which i'm sure none of us want to be reminded
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ofz, that i would be introducing graffiti legislation soon, and i just wanted to let you all know that i'm currently working on it and sorting out the language to make sure that there is clarity around the language for the legislation before it's introduced, but i'm looking forward to bringing that to you hopefully in the next couple of weeks. and last but not least, i know we're all anxious to get home for thanksgiving and enjoy turkey and all the dressings, but on thursday, we have an amazing game that's going to happen because galileo high school will be probably, more than likely, they'll be belting lincoln high skal at kizar stadium this thursday which is a tradition in our high schools in san francisco is turkey day. when i was at galileo high school, we went every single year and just last week, we beat lowell in order to get to
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turkey day, but that's just how it goes, galileo is a great football team, a great school and we'll be at turkey day with lincoln at thursday at 11 a.m., so before you get all full and watch football and eat and get tired, come out and support our great football students that play this thursday at 11:00 a.m. >> thank you, supervisor breed. supervisor campos? >> thank you very much, madam clerk. happy thanksgiving to everyone. i have a couple of items today. the first item is an accept and expend ordinance that we're introducing on behalf of the public defender's office to support grant funding from the juvenile accountability block grant program which partially funds an attorney and in the public defender's office that works with community based organizations and alternatives and out of home placement for youth and we're proud to introduce that. the second item is simply to
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note that you know, tomorrow will be a very significant day in san francisco. it will be the 35th anniversary of the assassination of mayor mosconi and supervisor harvey milk, it is amazing to think that 35 years have passed but i think it's very important for us as we're nearing the 35th anniversary to take a moment today to remember the memory of mayor mosconi and supervisor milk, and as an openly gay man, i know that supervisor milk sacrificed his life to protect people like me to be able to be themselves in this city and it's sad in a way that history's repeating himself because at the time of harvey
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milk, the state of california was dealing with the initiative that was trying to force gay teachers out of classrooms in california and now we have an effort that is once again targeting the lgbt community and specifically the transgender community ref rend dumb that if it gets on the ballot and succeeds will take basic rights away from transgender young people in our public schools, but i think that in the memory of harvey milk that we need to rededicate ourselves to the struggle for equality and i know that harvey milk is very much a presence in this board not only because, you know, his bust is right outside this chamber but i think the memory of his sacrifice is with us, so it's been 35 years, but we will never forget. >> thank you, supervisor campos?
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president chiu? >> thank you, colleagues, today i'm introducing a legislation to propose that we legalize existing in laws throughout the city. we all know at this time we are in midst of an affordability crisis with shying rockets eviction rate and is working families are being pushed out and for decades, san francisco has had a shadow economy involving technically legal inlaw units between world war ii and 1960, there were 20 to 30 thousand in-laws were built, today it'sest mated there are 30 to 40 thousand technically illegal inlaw units, who lives in these in-laws? we know the individuals who live in them are tenants who are typically immigrants, seniors, families and there is a disproportionately high number of children as well as some of our city's lowest
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income and longest term residents. they live in very affordable units but lack tenant rights. a study in district 11 showed that 45% of residents and in-laws don't even have written leases with their landlords. for many year, there have been significant calls for legalization, inlaw secondary units are simple and cost effective methods of increasing our cost effective supply, organizations from spur to the housing action coalition and tenant organizations have encouraged our city to consider legalization, but unfortunately, we have had a don't ask, don't tell policy, we have turned a blind eye to inlaw policies, it has eliminated an average of 100 in-laws each year. what i'm proposing today is that we adopt a voluntary
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policy in the city to allow for the legalization of in-laws, we allow owners to voluntarily approach the city to legalize one existing inlaw unit without an additional permit. in my legislation, it would waive local planning rules that don't deal with safety, so an owner would not need to meet additional open space requirements, there would not be a need to add additional parking ask there would not be a change in zoning. my legislation does not waive building code rules that relate to state life safety requirements, so requirements for fire, plumbing, electrical exits and entrances. the purpose for this legislation is to bring tens of thousands of housing units in legal affordable housing, to address the affordable crisis, to activate vacant units that have been kept off the market. the second purpose of this legislation is to protect tenants bho have lived for
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decades without tenant protections and leases in in-laws and in units that should be safer. my legislation would protect rent control status for these tenants, would not allow cost pass-throughs from landlords to tenants for mayor capital improvement, would not allow for subdivisions and would establish a relocation process and a reimbursement process for tenants if construction is necessary there a currently technically legal inlaw. the third category of folks that this helps are home owners. we know that property values will increase when you are able to legalize these units. this legislation will help to reduce planning and zoning obstacles to legislation, the sledge lacing also only charges a nominal administrative fee to an owner to legalize to ma
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