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tv   [untitled]    November 28, 2013 1:00pm-1:31pm PST

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>> item 17 is a resolution approving the issuance of tax exempt obligations by the association of bay area governments finance authority for a non-profit corporations in an aggregate principal amount not to exceed 4 million 500 thousand to finance and refinance. >> same house, incall, this resolution is adopted. item 18. >> this is to resolution declaring the intent of city and county of san francisco to reimburse certain expenditures from proceeds of future bonded indebtedness authorizing the director of the mayor's office of housing and community dwomment. >> in-house incall, this resolution is adopted. >> colleagues we don't have any 2:30 special orders today, i would like to get through all of the committee reports and then go through our 3:00 p.m. special items, >> item 30 was considered by the rules committee at a
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regular committee on september 21 and sent to the committee, it's to appoint mr. harlan kelly junior as a four year term. >> colleagues, in-house, incall, this resolution is adopted. item 31. >> item 31, item 31-33 were considered by the land use and economic development committee at a regular meeting on monday november 25, item 31 was recommended as a amended by the same title, sent to the board as a committee boardbacker report, it's to amend the administrative planning code to receive assistance under all affordable housing programs ministered or funded by the city including the san francisco redevelopment agency by certain tenants being evicted under the ellison act. >> president chiu? >> colleagues, i know many of us have been working on a number of ideas and proposals to address our current affordability crisis with
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skyrocket evictions and many working families that are at risk of being driven out of san francisco, i want to thank my co-sponsors for the legislation that we are considering today to help tenants due to the ellis act. the ellis act has been interpreted broadly to allow landlords to evict tenants to go out of the rental business, but we have seen a sharp increase in ellis act findings, a number of months back, the eviction of the leaf family in the heart of my district, two seniors and their adult daughter who had been evicted out of their home of 30 year, when i started speaking to the leaf family, i think we all realized that while we could not necessarily stop ellis act evictions at least at the local level, we all started thinking about things we could do to assist our most vulnerable residents from getting pushed
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out of their homes. this would allow tenants who have occupied their apartments for more than 10 years and have received an ellis act eviction notice or tenants would are disabled or have life threatening illness and have occupied their apartments for more than 5 years to receive priority in affordable housing projects funded and ministered by the county of san francisco. i want to thank housing and community development who would be charged by ministering this program. the priorities would be potentially used for up to 20% of units in new developments, the priority could only be used once and not repeated and it would expire after 3 years if it's not used for existing projects or expire after 6 years for unused development. tenants must still meet project eligibility requirements such as income or age. i believe and i think colleagues, many of us will agree that we need this measure to keep rez densest who have no
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other means from minding permanent housing from becoming homeless and it is our goal the city is doing everything we can to noted allow residents to fall through the cracks. i want to take a moment and thank the tenant advocates who worked with my aid, the chinatown community development center. >> supervisor cohen? >> thank you very much, through the chair to supervisor chiu. i just want to make sure i'm understanding this correctly. this ordinance would create a preference -- >> a priority for the affordable housing waiting list. >> so, how are you determining who gets priority? >> so, it would be first come, first serve, you would have to meet the qualifications that i had just described, so in other
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words, if you need to have received an ellis act eviction notice and have lived in your apartment for either 10 years or lived in your apartment for 5 years or e ver have a life threatening illness or disability and if you qualify for that and also meet the project eligibility requirements for various affordable housing projects that would require certain income or age requirements, you would be eligible for this priority. >> so, question. what if you're a section 8 voucher and you're in a home and the owner wants to ellis evict you out, how does this ordinance k*fr if at all section 8 vouchers. >> so the fact that you have a section 8 voucher is not relevant to that determination, so if you are ellis acted, you would get a priority placed in
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line, now if you were already in that line potentially because of having a voucher or some other housing program that you're el vibl for, you could be moved up to the front of that line with this legislation. >> perfect, that's exactly my question, so i want to make sure you're prioritizing seniors, disabled and folks with life threatening illnesses. how are you determining -- how do you determine what's a life threatening illness. >> that is defined in the statute, i had a discussion about this at the committee, the rent board would help to make this determination but it is defined in the statute itself. there is also a reference to an amendment we made to refer to other sections of the administrative code referring to disabilities z. >> okay. thank you very much. >> thank you. colleagues, do we need a roll call vote on this, can we take this in-house in call? this ordinance passes on first item. >> n*x item. >> item 32 a a resolution to
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approve the construction o f a cafe in the west garden of the academy of sciences in golden gate park. >> supervisor mar? >> thank you, president chiu, i want to acknowledge that it's been a pleasure working on this, the staff of the california academy of science and is we have with this the general manager and kevin, monalele that have been wonderful to work with. the academy of sciences is beginning tomorrow, it is the season for science exhibit, but this is a project that is a low profiled structure which includes a cafe, it isn't really an expansion of the site but replacement of a temporary structure with a perm nept and attractive building, it allows us to see this sculpture that's hanging like floating like a cloud above it, it's called where land meets the sea and it will be much more visible with this new structure. the project will enrich the
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experience hosting the academy which lists countless families, not only from district 1 but throughout the city, i want to thank the land use submit tee for its unanimous support of this. i'll be out there tomorrow for the opening oftys the season for science exhibits, and i wanted to thank kevin and ike for this whole project, i urge your support. >> can we take this item in-house incall. this resolution is adopted. >> item number 33 is an ordinance to amend the transportation code to clarify the definition for parking meter to include electronic pay station and is change the time limit for parking for inoperable or broken parking meters for the time permitted to parking meter and approve the findings. er >> without objection, this item passes, and with that, madam clerk, why don't we go to our 3:00 special orders related to
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the various condo conversion fee appeals. >> items 19 through 21 ropes a special order at 3:00 p.m. for appeal for waiver reduction at 273-a, 19th street, item 20 and 21 is the motion approving the appeal and item 21 is for the appropriation of findings, the public comment really required under the government code and the administrative code was met at the november 19th meeting. >> okay. so, colleagues, on today's calendar, we have appeals of the application of the condo conversion fees for two properties, actually for a number of properties, the standards for these appeals are as follows, the board of supervisors may reduce, adjust or waive the fees if it finds that there is not a relationship or a nexus between the impact of development and the amount of the fees charged,
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the applicants bear the burden of proof to substantiate the appeal with support of technical information. i propose we conduct the hearing as follows, first, each of the two appellants shall have up to 10 minutes to present their cases for appeals of the condo conversion fees, next we'll maer from members of the public that wish to a support the appeals who can speak for up to two minutes, then the mayor's housing, 20 minutes because we have two different appellants who can present for up to a total of 20 minutes as well, and then the appellants should have three minutes each for rebuttal. so, unless there's any discussion?
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okay, madam clerk has reminded me, we have three appeals today, one was continued from last week which is what we have called and then i started talking about the procedure for the remainder of the appeals. why don't we take that first appeal first related to 273a-29th street, i know we had city staff talking to the appellant talking if they were able to resolve this matter. can we maer from city staff on this matter. one of you please speak.
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>> john nalan from the city attorney's office. at the conclusion of last week's hearing, the department of public works contacted the appellant and offered to her the deferral process. there is -- and dpw has been in contact with her. there is a check that dpw has to refund the fee at this point and then i'll collect it until the map is ready to be reported. she's not picked up the check yet. >> so, we're waiting for her to make arrangements with dpw to pick up the check. >> okay, so my understanding is that this has been resolved in a way that the appellant has found satisfactory? >> i believe so. we did contact her to ask if she wanted to continue this appeal before the board of
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supervisors or whether the fee deferral was satisfactory, and she did not respond one way or the other. >> okay, i understand, is the appellant here? if you want to please step up and let us know your perspective of the appeal. we wanted to provide a little time for you to speak to our city departments. >> thank you so much and thank you for your prompt giving us a refund in order to -- what i would like the request is that in order to -- it would be most helpful if the board would consider amending when the repayment should happen to be ideally the sale of the condo but if that's not agreeable, at 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
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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. malma and he suggested i bring it up and that the board sr. that amendment. thank you. >> based on what the appellant
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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 fee deferral provisions to allow for a later time, that that is something that she would like to see if possible.
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>> 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? seconded by supervisor campos, additional discussion, supervisor wiener? >> i'm not going the repeat the argument that is i made at the
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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. i do think that this appeal points to perhaps the desirability of having more
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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 flexibility in the fee deferral process. i also am realistic about how the last legislative process
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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 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
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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. supervisor tang, aye. supervisor wiener, no. supervisor yee, aye. supervisor avalos, aye.
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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 appeal for apartment number 5 and items 28 and 29 is the motion approving the appeal for
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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 appellants. so, the parties to this appeal, if you are here, please step up
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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 liquidate by 401 plan, i don't know how it's going to affect my taxes for next year, also
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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. in the alternative though, we can go through this process and we will right now with the waiver application. again, no one's prejudging
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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 was kind of looking for, you know, a reduction or, you know, a waiver and i really didn't
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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 colleagues know, i at roll call will be introducing legislation to this particular hiccup in
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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 staff on this set of appeals.
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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 the detailed analysis of this particular case and you've heard clearly from the
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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. and i want to thank dpw for going through this process and for the appellant for coming forward in my district, just
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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? supervisor breed? >> okay, let me just make sure we're at the