dy should have with their own environment, which is to leave where they are living, leave that unsafe environment, and say i choose to be somewhere safer. you can make your money but i don't have to be part of it. but what these permit holders did was insist that 11 residents innocently who have no profit stake at all in this project would be forced to remain there while they are doing their work. it's abhorrent and i think this board must in good conscience

revoke, suspend or cancel the current permit. thank you so much. >> mr. bornstein. >> thank you very much. i am obviously here on behalf of the permit holder. as you are likely familiar, mr. bruno was here two weeks ago where he sought to appeal a previous permit of the permit holder and you rightfully, i thought, in good conscience denied his appeal. nevertheless we know that next week we're going to have a rehearing on that. i mention that because i believe mr. bruno is the only person of the so-called 11

people he claims are somehow victims that have ever raised a complaint and the board is aware of the person the last time who he referenced the last time was very grateful for the work. unfortunately mr. bruno is engaged in what we consider to be a campaign of what we consider to be obstruction and harassment. mr. bruno does not live in the building that is subject to these permits. mr. bruno alleges lead but he acknowledges he has no proof of lead paint. the only misstake that was made in the issuance of the first permit was my client mistakenly listed the wrong address, but was corrected in a subsequent permit. my client was a lead certified, the contractor, who is a lead certified contractor, make ready, inc., gabe santos will talk and will, as he is sworn under penalty of perjury, claim that he issued and sent out proper notices throughout the actual block and lot and that he complied with the requirements of the lead rules and regulations. interestingly, the only person who has made incessant complaints to the department of building inspections has been mr. bruno no one else has made complaints to the building inspector and it is our claim someone is removing those signs and there after calling the

department of building inspection and i will call upon mr. santos. >> good evening, gabe santos, make ready. i think the board might understand about the confusion of the permits for the different addresses. i just chicken scratched a little piece of paper here to kind of show where our confusion was. where we have 472 -- i'm still confused -- 472 union right here, when we initially got this project we had assumed that all 4 buildings were 472 union. so where we're talking about 7 and 9 today, one of my colleagues had pulled the permit and he put 472 union, unit 7 and unit no. 9. we weren't aware that that had happened until after the first

complaint that said we were working without a permit. we then went down to the building department and corrected the permits for all three units, two in this unit, 7 and 9 and then one other here at 15 nobles no. 2. all those addresses have been corrected. at the time we pulled the first permit, lead notice signs were put up everywhere in compliance with the building department. we got to give adjacent notice to adjacent buildings, exterior of the working building, note iss to each one of the tenants inside of the building. those notices were all posted on each front door, entrance, exit and on the adjacent building. when we got the first complaint about working without

lead, dennis yee was contacted, i had a conversation with him and told him the notices were out. by the time i talked to him, the 15 permit had been suspended but the 7 and 9 permit had not been suspended and we started work on those

two units. we had submitted new plans so we requested a new permit because we were submitting plans for 7 and 9 because we were having so much trouble with 15 nobles, those plans were submitted as well, but we were working in the unit, everything that was on our original permit for the two units, then we submitted the full set of plans. on the building department right now they are showing two open permits for each one of the units, 7 and 9 nobles. the girls in the office have not submitted and it's our loss because the permit will, i believe mr. duffy can state the permit will eventually just expire. the one that was pulled incorrectly. as far as mr. yee coming out a second time and writing us a notice, that was because he was called the second time and he came out. i met him out there that time and i went to his office, made an appointment, said i'll be out there tomorrow morning with you. we went out there and he noit usd -- noticed at all the spots they were supposed to be noticed, they were noticed correctly. it was a couple days after that that the board got the letter and we had some stop work again. the pictures that are shown, that was just trash bags that were in there. there was no demolition of any of the walls that were in those bags that were taken. i don't even know how those pictures got taken because that was in a garage that nobody has access to except for us. it's not a common garage, it's a single car garage that's for us only and whoever rents the unit no. 9.

the paint chips that were on the sidewalk, there was one paint chip as you saw in the picture, that mr. yee has also showed me the same picture. we went out there and we noticed the building right across from nobles alley had scaffolding and they were scraping right across the alley we don't know where it came from, we don't believe it was our chip, we didn't remove anything through the nobles alley, everything went out through the other side. >> what about the nov's. >> i'm done at the building department almost every day pulling permits and doing what i have to do down there and i

ran into robert that day. one of them is for working without a permit. so we had the permit, it was a confusion of the -- excuse me. this one was work that was working on a suspended permit. that was on the 23rd. we weren't even notified until the 25th of the month that our permit had been suspended on 7 and 9. we had no idea that it even affected mr. bruno, and that's when we found out about that. so there's two of them that were a little redundant that were working without a permit or suspended permit, still in unit 7 and 9 nobles. >> have these been abated? >> i have not, well, i don't think anybody has been done, i don't think, until you guys come to a conclusion on the permits because nobody's going out there to inspect anything. >> so there's no work being done? >> no, ma'am. the last day we worked out there i believe was

february 25th and i think that may have been even the same day that we were out there with mr. yee, i'm not sure, i don't know if mr. duffy has the paperwork, but when dennis yee signed off the complaint on the lead abatement that everything is complied there was no evidence -- and might i also add even when dennis did his inspection on the lead abatement or on his initial call, he came out and stated on his initial complaint that everything was covered in plastic and there was no signs of dust on the first initial inspection. when he came out the second time is when he took the picture of the chip. >> you don't take pictures of your posting? >> i do now, by recommendation of mr. yee for situations just like this. it was told to me stories of people taking down signs. i can't say who or what but i know we posted the sign.

it's a standard practice for us. >> i have a question. so is antonia sweet living trust the actual owner of the property? >> that's a little confusing for me. i had a colleague pull these building permits. my runners don't always have the information, they may ask the gal down there on the first floor in intake and they will pull up the computer and give an address or the owner's name and fill in the permit. when you get upstairs to pay it seems like it's a different system because i've experienced the same thing when i did my permits when i pulled the ones with the plans, the last --. >> hold on a second. when you go from the first floor to the third floor to the fifth floor, if it's not your prompt you need an authorization letter signed by the owner. so the only way you can pull the permit is with a signed authorization letter and maybe i'll check with the department if that's correct or not, but if you are not the owner you

need a signed authorization. so if the permit was pulled under antonia sweet, that means antonia sweet living trust had to sign an authorization letter. is that correct? >> no. we're contracted by building owners, property managers, and they are all authorized to give us verbal -- they give us written -- we're able to walk in. but when we got up to the fifth floor, i don't know that this permit that mr. bornstein has will show it, but on the first floor they showed us one thing and that's what's shown on the pink copy, but on the receipt that's printed out it has berkowicz trust. maybe that's inefficiency maybe on our part by putting the wrong name on but if we went to two different floors in the

building department they gave us two different names but when we paid is says berkowicz trust. that pink paper is nothing without that. >> perfect, i think you answered my question. thank you. >> no, that's your time. >> was there any additional time for mr. bornstein? >> no problem, i just want to end by saying, look, we just -- just so you have a flavor of what's happening, 3 weeks ago we got permission to proceed with the permit and only two days later we got the request for a rehearing. then we have this hearing. we've been a continued situation of having all of our attempts to renovate, alter, a building that 2 of the units are vacant simply to effectuate renovations has been delayed

for months and we simply ask that at this point in time you allow us to proceed. thank you. >> mr. duffy. >> good evening, commissioners, joe duffy, dbi firstly i'd like to welcome commissioner swig to the board of appeals on behalf of dbi, wish him all the best. i'll be honest, the two permits under appeal, first maybe they got off on the wrong foot. hopefully we haven't talked about actually what work is being done in the unit so i'll go ahead and read out the permit application number, 20150128220, it's a revision to permit issued in january for layout changes for kitchen and bath remodel. the permit was,

it's a form 8 over the current permit on 12th of permit 2015, went to ntic, went to the fifth floor, building plan check, mechanical and issued at central permit on the same day. the permit got suspended on february 23, 2015. the other permit is another revision to a permit, layout changes for kitchen and bathroom remodel. again over the counter on the same day, suspended on february 23rd per the notice of suspension from the board of appeals. i want to address the notices of violation. firstly, on february 25th, 2015, inspector par did go to the property and issue a notice of violation saying that both permits under

appeal have been suspended and all work is to cease by order of the board of appeals pending resolution of the appeal. all work is to cease pending the hearing and the hearing is scheduled for april 8, 2015. so that was two days after the suspension. i did hear the gentleman say that the permits were suspended on the 23rd and they hadn't got word through to them that they had been suspended. i do know that the board calls permit holders on the same day so i'm not sure if there was a breakdown, but certainly two days later they were told to stop and as far as i know they did stop at that time. that notice of violation is still in effect until resolution of this hearing. the lead paint issue, i had a little trouble finding the violation because actually under 15 nobles alley and it appears this property has a lot

of addresses based on the start, the first permit was 472 union, which is the wrong address. and this happens a lot in apartment buildings with block and lots and stuff like that, but anyway, that notice of violation is still in effect. it was issued by inspector yee, he's a housing inspector. and what i did have was just -- i'm reading it off the i pad here so i don't have an actual paper copy with me. on the 25th of february, 2015, inspector yee met with marc bruno the potential disturbance of lead-based paint was not noted on the posted sign nor any of the san francisco building code were met. met with construction staff and advised them that proper notification was not met, gave them a second copy of

the notice of violation and were advised that a copy would be sent to the contractor. we were issued a stop work notice to the property on the day before. so we do have a couple of notices of violation. i think either i've heard claims that there was signs taken down, but i think they need to do a better job, obviously, with some of the photos with the chip of paint or whatever, no matter if it's a project across the street and if you're working on a small street like nobles alley you would want to be watching what you are doing. the work itself, it's kitchen and bathroom work, typical small remodel of apartments. so from a work point of view, i don't think there's any issue on what's happening under the permits. obviously in what manner they do their

notifications and how they go forward is the question. with that i'm available for any questions from the board. >> i thought i heard you bring up that there is at least 3 nov's. >> two, i think i said. >> two? the apellant, he said there were five. >> there are open -- there's closed complaints and there was a lot of complaints. i checked that this evening. i think that happened the last time as well. it is hard to find them under all of these addresses. i don't have anything, i can check that for you during my time, maybe the next time i'll have that for you, i can check on the i pad for 7 nobles and 9 nobles but there might be other ones under different addresses in the same complex, but i don't have anything for 7 or 9 that i'm aware of tonight. but

i will check for you before i come back up again. >> i have a question, mr. duffy. as far as you know is there only one complainant from those addresses? >> i believe so yes. i believe so. i think going on the suspended permit, if someone is still working on a suspended permit it's usually the apellant that's calling, they are the ones that requested the suspension and they are the ones that notice that the work is still going on. then on the housing complaint obviously mr. bruno met with the housing inspector so i assume he's the complain apblt in that one. it hasn't come on my radar and i am the senior inspector for the area, i haven't severd any emails or phone calls from anyone else down there, but that's not to say that there isn't but i haven't heard of any. on the ownership of the permit, i think commissioner

honda i'll just clarify that. a general contractor can pull a permit without permission from owners, we don't require that. so if this gentleman is a registered contractor that's how he gets around that. if you go in for a friend to pull a permit and you're not the owner, there is a requirement that you bring in authorization to obtain the permit, but a general contractor gets that and that's one of the benefits of being a general contractor, you can pull a permit without all of that notification. >> thank you for clearing that up. >> no, it's okay. >> how about the owner name changes? >> well, the city assessor, it's funny, on property profile, i was actually in the assessor's office yesterday and i overheard a conversation. there's a lapse in time when a property changes hands for the current owner to get on to that. i'm not sure if that happened in this case but i thought i'd mention it and i have seen it at dbi, we do have access to property profile, it's called. you can look it up and see an owner -- now i've

seen it taking up to a year for that to be reflected in the property profile on the assessor's data base, so maybe that's what happened in this case. but we certainly expect the correct information to be on the permit application, be it the phone number, be it the owner information, it's got to all be on there, definitely, you know? and the notification requirements are pretty clear for the lead-based paint in the san francisco building code under chapter 34 and they have to be met and we expect them to be doing this type of work. so we can't turn back the clock here but certainly, and i know that before work was to resume if at all they would probably need to redo that maybe or something like that. we'd definitely have to involve -- they'd have to do a better job, it seems. >> thank you. >> is there public comment on

this item? seeing no public comment and mr. bruno, you have rebuttal. correct. yes. >> did somebody leave this here? i don't want to take their work. let me comment about why it's dangerous to not have people who are honest about who the owner is and how they notify people doing building work. here's why it's dangerous. this photo, which i showed you earlier of the garbage bags which are filled with lead-based material, perhaps it was denied, we don't know. maybe it's flamable material.

but i do know, because i've lived there for 3 years and i'm going to read you letters from others in this case, the contractor is completely wrong that this is not a public area. this is the only area that everybody in the apartment buildings, all 11 people who are there, have the key to. but he wouldn't know that because he's doing 25 or 35 or two projects -- i don't know how many projects he's doing and it's none of my business, just like it's not his business how i choose and the other tenants whose letters i'm going to read, live our lives. we don't care how they choose to profit from this building. it's not their business how we choose to leave the business to avoid lead-based paint. why is this a public area and why is he wrong about the garage? this is the only area we can turn our circuit breakers off. therefore we all have a key to this garage. this is a public area , not private. the idea of notices being

given, if they really gave notice on the building, the proper notice, why would they have this, which mr. yee, the city's inspector, took on the 26th? why would this notice even be there? this notice which i have better pictures of, if you ask me i can tell you, this is the entire text of a notice. why would a city, a for-profit group spend the time putting up notices all over the place and there are pictures of it on the walls, that don't say anything. this is consistent with mr. yee's complaint that notices were put up without reference to the correct code section, without reference to the lead-based paint, without any warning that there would be lead-based paint? what person would be idiotic enough to take down such a notice that is meaningless? this note is is what they put up. it says make ready, that's the company involved. that's the permit holder. yes, these are the notices they put up until i complained and no, i never did, nor would i, take down a notice put up by the city and county or anybody

else. absurd notion. the reason i'm here and i'm allowed to do this and i'm brave enough, perhaps, to do this or brazen enough to do this, and i'll show you this, i have gotten a 20 year lease in this building. and i fought for that lease and i was requested by the current new owner, maury herskovich, to rewrite the old lease because until this lease was written, he was not able to purchase the building. so in september of this prior year, september of 2014, my lease was rewritten and as you can see in the yellow, it says until september 30 of 2034. so, yeah, i don't feel i can be easily evicted and the otsd tenants in our building do. let me read one, and i'm happy to read all three letters if there's time, this is a person who lives next door to me and has lived there many years also and is vulnerable to eviction because many of us, me, who

lived there 30 years, paid very low rent. it's not my fault i pay low rent, i just lived there for a long time. she was a police officer for the treasurery department her entire life. this letter is for marc bruno who has helped guide tenants through working with a new owner. the entire time he has spent on this project while the building has been for sale has been invaluable and crucial to all of us tenants. marc's legal research was all done pro bono at his own time. after a year, the tenants, we feel like we have finally secure contracts with the new building owner, mr. herskovich and we will not be evicted, we hope. our sense of relief is overwhelming. marc also was very careful and

diligent to make sure mr. herman baker, whose beach office on the first floor on the adjacent building, also owned by mr. herskovich, was returned carefully to his aeplt after his water heater blew up and he had to move out temporarily. i hope the new building owner and we tenants can get along. pauline craig. i also have a letter from another person on the first floor of this building that says marc, thank you for your thoughtfulness and concern for all of us tenants by making the transition easier most of os for being the rock and support during these terrifying times of uncertainty. that's what it's like to be a tenant in san francisco today. we can read the newspapers. i can't force people here. they are older than i am and i'm 55. i mean it's the nature of life that as you get older you are very vulnerable and some of the people who are older are the ones who have great rents.

that's just a coincidence of life. the people writing these letters are great people. the person who wrote the third letter is living directly below the work being done. without your kindness and inclusiveness we would be really stuck. thanks for all you did last year on the building making it possible for us to stay and of course know what is going on. you are the best. these people are supportive of this and finally mr. yee called all these people, the tenants in the building, and discovered they had not ever received notices and they still haven't. thank you so much for your time, board members. i'm happy to answer any questions if you have any. thank you. >> mr. bornstein. >> just a couple notes. so the three letters that he suggests are tenants in support of this appeal have nothing to

do with the appeal. this is the type of conduct that we have seen repeatedly by mr. bruno we would ask that you empathize with the owner, support their work to renovate a building so that we can place tenants inside the building. another important point that you've seen is that while mr. bruno at times feigns ignorance of who the ownership is, he references mr. herskovich as the current owner and he is well aware that antonia sweet was the former owner and as was intimidated previously, the previous owner was based on a hiccup on the computer between the previous owner and the new owner. the new owner is herskovich trust and that's what we are proceeding on. i want to bring back mr.

santos that the notification he references in that photograph is what pre-work notification. that notification that was posted has nothing to do with the notifications that were posted warning people of the presence of potential lead at the premises. >> that is correct, gabe santos. that notice we put out the minute we start talking with the building owners and will start work eventually. we always throw those signs up there, something simple, to know there's more work forthcoming, more notices forthcoming, we put our phone numbers out there. we have 30 trucks around the city, we put our phone numbers on everything. we are available to anybody who has a concern or a question. one thing about mr. duffy,