rent board not necessarily for the board of appeals this is will involve the neighboring unit needs to excuse me. needs to you know go basically settle on a rent compensation for the loss of this storage slash between spaces that exists under the bathroom in unit 10 and extends into her unit 9 that's something we're going to have to negotiate and probably are a mediation with the rent board we've tried in the past to offer sliegsz to the tenant in unit 9 every time we've tried to do that the tenant in unit 9 asked for further rent rescues and asking for more square footage

you can't walk on the space where the bed is it's essentially storage from the bed overnight and from the trendline so wombs we're not pursuing on eviction or merger the units the unit will be under rent control and we're not taking away electricity or hot water or assess everything is remaining in place the lease remains in place we're trying to do the safe the safe code compliant manner and do the right thing by approaching dbi before we're doing any work and in conclusion i want to read a couple of prepared statements one addresses unit 11 that is occupied by victoria she'll not be affected her requester for a

reasonable accomodation was granted she's been told in writing more than one that her unit will not be alternated with the efficient design for unit 10 she has no skin to appeal the permit and her circumstances shouldn't be appealed we're not effecting her unit we've stated this in writing multiple times we're only talking about the lowering of the bathroom floor for unit 9 and read two more things the peered for the reduction of the rent to account for the loss of storage we've served tenant 9 a notice which is for reducing the rent according is not yet gone into

focus but heard my spit kern the amount of rent reduction will be resolved after the rent board hears the severance so finally appellant stacey miller is properly trying to get the board of appeals to disallow a modification to her unit because she's a tenant you, however, the rent board explicitly allows modifications to rent controlled and the san francisco rent ordinance permits the alteration to unit 9 contemplated and there's a severe of the spates from a tenant because the owner intend to make capital improvements is to the property thank you. >> i have a few questions so during our ownership took place in 2011 correct.

>> correct. >> and since then out of the 11 units you how many of the units have you taken storage space from prior. >> two. >> so you're taking spois space from one unit so the units that you did they became vacant and you removed the space from the vacant unit or the adjacent unit. >> because of the raised floor so there's a slideer that tenants use as a storage. >> as previously a murphy bed. >> a trend dell bed that slides underneath it so that space you can't stand open that space it's only a sliding of the storage so lower the floor on the other units being renovated that slideer was taken away so the

bathroom - our folks have preempted two units. >> thank you. >> thank you mr. sanchez okay. >> thank you scott sanchez planning department i mean, i'll be brief the application was not routed to the planning department and no plans associated with the permit, however, i reviewed the scope of the permits statistics on the permit application it will not as i understand the facts the scope will not constitute a merger under the section 17 i want to say for the boards information i think mostly the rent board issues so joe duffey can address the other matters.

>> mr. duffy (laughter). >> commissioners on the building permit 2014031 apartment one the renovation of the bedroom all walls removed and plumbing needed and the bathroom by a 6 foot kitchen 8 by 9 permit was for the kitchen and bathroom remodeled permit it got approved on august 14th are 13, 2014 i believe some don't guess work has started i know that the building inspector has been out to the site i've spoken to him donald duffey i didn't go out there i was interested in going out there i've not seen n this type of condition in san

francisco by then again in san francisco we with the orderly buildings there's things that are a little bit unusual not saying things are up to code older buildings have an irish aspect this is one that has an unusual circumstance so it's unusual the part of the floor and the gentleman that owns the property spoke i guess he bought the building in 2011 and peterson if i was the building inspector i'll give you my take if i went out there for a kitchen and bathroom remodel and say the floor being lowered and it effected another unit i'd like to see a set of drawings you need to show your removing a part of a unit and you'll have

to frame a wail for that space goes into the other unit this will be shown by a drawing not only on the kitchen and bathroom remold he said he had some finding of dbi i don't know what the understanding is he didn't provide a document and maybe we did a preapplication by i'm not sure where the agreement comes from and the kitchen and bathroom permits if you are just replacing about cabinet and electrical and plumbing and not removing walls we generally give those with the plans ems their simple permits there was one thing on august 18, 2014, i guess the owner contacted the senior building inspector mr. duffey he wrote a correction notice referencing the permit and i

guess the owner asked for code sections on what the 2014 or 2013 building bowed what ask for so in response inspector duffey wrote a correction notice it is not brief as well i'll read it because it's pretty important minimum ceiling height and kitchen and bathroom not less than 7 feet i believe it is 6 foot 10 and the heights should be 7 inches and the depth 11 inches and shall be a land on each side of the door and a wall separating the unit should be fair and the pay attention and horizontal assembly not less than - signed donald duffey we

do give people information on codes that's an unusual case i'm willing to answer questions. >> you're sure there's no drawings. >> no drawings not that i know of. >> and i lore of. >> i have that with me here form 8 no i don't think there's any drawings is the lore of the floor to achieve the proper ceiling height isn't that correct. >> that's what they're saying they're not at 7 feet if you're building a bathroom today you need 7 feet minimum. >> what's the obligation when the unit becomes vacant to bring to code and that's a very good question it's the - and the

planning code it talked about building structures you need to do a lot of work to bring this up to code in those older building we come across this if people want to upgrade their building and have a bathroom that has an unusual condition we'll needed to rip this out to get that and if the owner wants to do it they could get away with basically changing out the plumbing function terrors without lower the floor if the building was like that if every one of those units has those types of continues with the bed under the wall i don't know what year the building was constructed by 70 or 80 years old you'll not ask him to bring every bathroom up to code but

it's not a bad idea to do that. >> and the prior discussion about a bathroom you mentioned the kitchen and that's the permit what it was the work in the kitchen. >> probably changing out the cabinets. >> no religions to the other issue. >> this is about the bathroom from what i read. >> thank you. >> okay. >> so those original conditions were sivenl approved so their grandfathered in no one is making you make the improvements at this point; is that correct. >> no. we're not if this building was built like this we'll assume whatever way in 70 or 90 or one hundred years old it might not after the earthquake but we're bound by

this and we can't make them change the whole building even though i see doors that swing over steps it's not a perfect condition but again, if you go into a little like this urge you to see a hundred things wrong. >> the owner stayed they did the work on two previous units is there a history and shouldn't there been drawings because it's structural; right? >> i'll call it for earth but i mean i don't have have the permit history i can look it up again, i spoke about that earlier if i was the building inspector and you're changing the floor framing and doing something to block a wall i need a drawing there's a drawing in the brief but i'm not sure i

don't think that was a drawing for that work. >> okay. thank you. >> any public comment on this item? please step forward. >> my name is la jolla did care i'm a friend of the stacey i'm glad somebody brathd of drawings which i made one this is actually, the drawing that of stacey's unit stacey was one of the two studios in the building so it's kind of a special case but moving the between dell bed she'll loss a chunk of her bedroom this is go obviously she

can remove it during the day and have guests over but she's losing that functionality completely you hope you can reject the permit or dbi can consider you know giving leeway for this unit given it has been like that for years. >> do you have the approximate square footage of the unit. >> yes. it is actually, i know this one living room is 12 and a half by 11 and a half feet there's the kitchen and the bathroom so - and okay. thank you. >> is there any additional public comment seeing none, then we have 3 minutes of rebuttal for the appellant to share. >> 3 minutes total.

>> is it possible to do a noise at one and a half minutes. >> there's a timer. >> there were questions regarding whether this type of work was done that before and two other units effected by the space reduced were one bedroom apartment no other studios have been effected when w you have a one bedroom apartment moving a torrential dell bed is not a big deal the living room is one hundred square feet and it is incredib crucial but as i said there's a safe law that preempts san francisco rents or rent board

only decides on the rented reduction and i repeatedly told the landlord i'm not interested in a rent reduction i'm losing in a living room only interested in keeping the space the building is built in 1910 and there's other units that have the same elevated floors and there's never been a complaint will be inconvenience and for as for the correction notice as commissioner president lazarus pointed out the main issue is that the ceiling and currently the ceiling is 83 inch and needs to be 84 inches and only one

inch difference the floor lowered just one inch is already met that requirement for the ceiling it's not cajole o comfortable for that removing 10 percent of my living room space and 20 percent is the square footage that a regular bed takes about 29 square feet that's 20 percent from one hundred and 44 secret in the living room i can't put the bed into a bathroom or the kitchen. >> one the kitchen effects my unit that's a concern and two the landlord made a bunch of claims and hadn't provide architecture documentation to support his claims of building in h in his dimensions and 3 the

landlord urban dated letter of october 17th which he only provided after a request that i priority a week before and only gave after i severed a brief on him that's the note a document i can take to 0 judge and say yes. you can enforce that and another thing it is not an in kind permit and 4 and 5 storage space this is not storage space but part of my living room we're talking about or living room plus sleeping area not a separate storage unit that applies to the rent board. >> i'm sorry your time is up. >> i'll ask a question so the permit holder has stated there's no effect work being begun u define in our unit; is that correct. >> he said that but we've heard

on different occasions people have come here saying things changed once the permit is issued the permit has been issued and i was willing to brau withdraw my appeal but with the caveat i'll be allowed to come back here to stop the process and have the building permit stopped or withdrawn if there was an impact on my unit i was told that once the building permit is approved i am not allowed to come back here and this is my only one chance. >> okay. thank you. >> that's why i'm here today to enforce my rights under the law. >> okay. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you

we can hear from the permit holder 3 minutes of rebuttal. >> you want this on the overhead now. >> yes. >> i want to she was i've spent plenty of attorney's fees on this we're not doing a single thing on 11 i'm not sure how to say this i have e-mails and no work is being done as far as the bathroom is done that effects unit 9 it comes down to a safety issue to have steps you have to

walk up into a bathroom coming down a bathroom you see in this picture right here it is you have to lower our head and duck as your coming out of the bathroom is not safe so you know there's several issues that are effected here it's not just the - so it's that's the cave it where the storage slash bed encompassed we're not enabling square footage or moving walls an existing floor there so, yes, the ceiling height is below the code we weren't one hundred percent sure we're going to be

doing the work until dbi came to us i asked them i want to ask what you think about the bathroom stairs they said well, it may not be code we decided as a ownership we would lower that bathroom it's the right thing to do and the safe thing to do going in and out of the bathroom and going up steps is not practical we've pulled electrical permits and we're also you know we're reducing any potential hazard so going forward if this bathroom should stay and you know hopefully in insurance should someone get hurt they'll say you brought this unit up to code why was it not brought up to code fully we're not doing any other work

on the building only this unit and upgrading it for electrical and porsche any structural work so just then to go back to unit 9 there was a request for a rent reduction this is not a 20 percent loss of square footage only 5 percent i've got it in my documents and insurance for it so there was a request are for the exorbitant amount of cost reduction and i asked her to take a rent reduction because i wasn't offering a 20 percent they wanted this to go to the board of appeals before the rent board to discuss a potential rent reduction. >> okay. thank you since you have no drawings what

is the intent are you lower the bathroom floor all the way to the main floor? or are you just - >> we can't we have once you lower it just a little bit you have to lower it to the same level as the rest of the apartment because the cavity under there. >> are youlogically it to the other floor. >> to the west of the the same floor height as the rest of the apartment yes. >> and when you did the work prior inspecting didn't ask for drawings. >> we hey we don't have formal drawings i actually have a layout i've done architecture drawings in the whole building. >> okay i mean eventually when you purposed the building in 2011 we

were aware of unusual bathroom situation correct. >> i didn't see that before we bought it so if the circumstances would come up we would improve and make the unite safer we're all for that this is a private asset we own and we're basically doing the right thing it is strange right now to have to walk into a unit and pay market rents. >> i understand bylaw but there was vefrnt the condition. >> as we got an vacancy - and thank you very much. >> okay. thank you mr. duffy do you have anything further?

>> i just listening to both sites we're talking about lowering a floor and removing framing there's importing and exporting nothing in the permit to do that only to remodel a kitchen and bathroom if this gentleman wants to lower a floor i'm the senior building inspector i'll ask the building inspector to write a revision permit to get the lore of the floor to the rest of the unit there's nothing in the permit to do that there 0 needed to be drawings he can remodel his project but he needs to show this on drawings i don't know whether i can go ahead and have a look at it there's seems like maybe you know the whole thing

about bringing things up to you're bringing everything up to code that's an easy thing to say but hard to do i get it he wants to do that and you know maybe there's a little bit of work needs to be done i don't know if they can in this person's apartment put in a murphy bed or something to tilt up against the wall if they sleep on this is there any way to adjust the wall to create a pull down bed not to lower the floor again, we could do that on a separate permit you know but certainly i don't think where the lore the floor would be included in this permit if there's not plans. >> would that be a notice of violation and we wouldn't do

that maybe a correction notice they have a building permit they only want to do something you know it requires additional drawings so the only way to do that is get another permit it is called a renovation permit and they having may have gotten away with it for other permits we give our building inspectors latitude but this wouldn't be this crucial if the tenant next door hadn't exclaimed about it we would obviously not be here but right thing to do is a set of drawings is required because we have someone that's not happy about it that's where i come from. >> it's confusing if you look at the appellants brief they show a plan on the bam my first

impression they were looking at some minor alterations of the bathroom by it became clear they were moving that raised platform. >> so there's stairs going up to it, it's 20 inches it is a little bit of work you know, i commend him for trying to. it's a good idea definitely a good idea but had you have someone urging that space for another unit i've not seen that personally but old buildings have a lot of old you know unusual situations and yeah. >> so the existence of that condition wouldn't necessarily defer you from permitting the lore of the floor? >> no, it wouldn't do that arrest. >> for the public