purchased in 1995, the documents must have reflected how many units were in this building? >> i never questioned it. it was always 4 units. i never looked to be honest with you. i have got four everything. i have got enough garages, street parking. >> you have four parking spaces? >> three garages and two driveway. >> plus miles of street parking which no one ever parked on it. >> thank you. >> i would like to remind everybody that whether the error of use

of discretion. >> my question commissioners, is how, if there was four kitchens in this unit when it was built and it was overlooked, how would they be able to prove that because the reports are indicating that it's always been a two family home. how would you substantiate that. >> if it quacks like a duck, it must be a duck. >> sometimes. >> but legally it can't be four 4 units. >> legally it can't but if it was inspected and passed as four 4 units. >> i don't think it was. it was inspected and found as two 2 units. >> well, it was inspected and passed. what the formal documentation shows, however, everything is only 2 units. if you look at these drawings, the

original drawings reflect 2 units. two kitchens. i don't know. >> a motion? >> what is the standard? >> you must determine in order to over turn that the zoning administrator errored in applying the code. >> which zoning administrator? in '78? >> the one that submitted the letter of it's appeal or he abused his discretion in making that determination. >> neither the current zoning administrator or the deputy? okay. zoning administrator ever met spencer

steel. >> but frank has. [ laughter ] >> absent of clear documentation that would indicate that it was a 4-unit. i don't see how we can come to a conclusion that the za errored in his decision. >> the problem, yes, that is the problem. but the core larry is that you look at the floor plate and it's large. 28 something like that. but you are talking about a floor plate that is approximately 1500 square feet or a little bit more. it's a fairly substantial size. the original drawings show it's all storage down below. and it specifically states in there not to be occupied. i don't know what

happened, what timeframe. >> we can all remember. we were most of us are here in '78. it was a crazy building time as it is now. '76, '77, '78, it was all out of control. diamond area came up at that time. but i don't see the error on this zoning administrator's determination. >> the thing that's confusing me and i'm reacting to the body language of the engineer representing the appellant, is that the difference between 2 units occupancy as 2 units and two families and every time that the zoning administrator or

assistant zoning administrator talked about the 2 units as approved versus two occupancy by two families, that really wasn't clarified in our conversation here tonight which could be -- a major issue. so i would like to have a little bit more clarification on the difference between occupancy by two families versus approval of two units.2 units. >> scott left you a fun one, huh? >> i will try to address this a little bit further because a lot of these documents are dbi and they also used the term two family. in this situation, on those job cards and certificate of occupancy, it's interchangeable with

the unit. that is the purpose of the terminology. whether the difference that i was pointing out that the appellant point out there were actually four families living in this structure. they were actually four separate families. they had 2 units and each unit had a granny flat. for us it was a density control related to how many units. similarly joe can elaborate for occupancy reasons, the number of units is more heavily weighed and more of a trigger for the codes than the number of families. so the definition of family is not really a relevant issue in this situation. >> also, the size of the unit is not the issue, either. >> correct. our range is sizes. >> if they choose to pursue

legalization of a third unit, it could entail two of the floors. >> correct. >> thank you. >> i for one am inclined to uphold the za. >> i'm in the same place at this point. >> i'm leaning that way also. >> for those of us who weren't around in '78. >> in san francisco? [ laughter ] >> i could have gotten away with that. how does that happen. those photos show the kitchen. this woman has lived in this place. >> the building is something as not per

plans has nothing to do with 1978. it has everything to do with somehow either it was approved or knowingly approved. that happens all over the very often and not very often in san francisco. >> are we saying the inspectors approved it? >> they signed off on the inspection cards. i don't know that they approved it. >> they might have looked the other way. >> or they might not have looked. >> then the people living there relied on that wink or nod or what they did do or didn't do. >> i think the people who built it knew what they were doing. the issue is not that. i'm not looking at that to put

blame. >> i'm not either. i'm trying to understand this. >> it's the purpose of housing. >> i'm not trying to assess blame. >> hold on a second. i'm not trying to assess blame. i'm just trying to understand this because it affects these folks here. >> there is some sort of discrepancy. >> right, and under our standard we don't look at that discrepancy of where the burden falls on the people affected by it. >> probably a fair statement. >> if what happened was illegal, then under the law, we would say they have no vested interest in illegal

permit and that's the law clearly and that's always been our position. no vested right and no vested interest in a legal permit. the court has seen this as having a very important fundamental purpose and all zoning -- permits should be in accordance with the zoning rules. we don't look at how this affects the unfortunate receiver. >> any permit issued in error is not a valid permit. >> thank you. >> sorry, mr. duffy. >> commissioners, joe duffy, dbi. we can be talking about a building built last year. it doesn't matter what year it was. we have a building permitted as a 2-unit building. we give a

certificate of final completion as a 2-unit building. i wasn't around in the 70s in san francisco but i would imagine the inspector hopefully saw 2 units and didn't turn and eye to that. it's not the first time we have signed off on a building and we got a complaint that it's not right and we go back. it happens quite on. >> 70s was a business time. >> we have to put up the permit on what it was for and what it was signed off as. what happened after the sign off. i don't know maybe something else happened. i would like to think the inspector gave a permit for 2-unit instead of four. after this, anything could happen. in my experience that has happened. it's happening right now. so when you are gone, when the

building inspector is gone and you want to change something, that's on you. it doesn't make it legal, but it's on you then. and if someone files a complaint then we investigate that and we may find there is something wrong. but you have documentation on what was permitted and signed off. that's all i can tell you. >> do you have a last comment? >> i thought it would be helpful to give you the specific language in the inspection notes when planning department staff inspected the unit in december of 1978 which i was barely around anywhere at that time. i was not here then either, but these inspectors were and they specifically stated in their inspection report that there were only two dwelling units

although wet bars were on the ground below and can be easily converted. that's why the letter follow-up on that to the property owners said that the inspection found there were only 2 units. and para phrasing it should stay that way because you can only have 2 units. so we weren't there. none of us knows exactly what it was like when you got a certificate of occupancy but all the documentation in our case states that a certificate of occupancy and immediately after inspection by department of building inspection and staff there were two dwelling units. >> which we see all the time. we see wet bars with spaces in between them. >> this is why we have the room matrix now when you are developing these ground floors we try to ensure

that they would not easily face ilitate two 2 units. >> i would like to make a motion to deny the appeal and uphold the lod on the grounds that the zoning administrator did not error in his discretion. >> thank you. >> there is a motion on the floor from the vice-president to uphold this letter of determination on the bases that the zoning administrator did not error or abuse his discretion. on that motion, commissioner fung, aye, lazarus, aye, commissioner wilson? aye, commissioner swig? aye.

thank you, the vote is 5-0. the zoning administrator order is upheld on that bases. >> president lazarus there is no further business but i would ask that we stay for a photo. >> we are adjourned for a photo. [ meeting is adjourned ]

>> i get to ask what i want to ask [laughter] and i told them that it would be okay when we we get through with that so i don't want to prolong this because we have a lot that we want to cover in a short period of time. the ground rules that you will hear about i'll tell you about when they come out and we'll dive right into it. they do not know what i'm going to ask them. they only know the different categories that we looked at and then i get to decide which ones that i want to pull off and i'll tell you that when they come out and i'll tell you the ground rules that i'm going to give them and then i was planning to get out right at at 5 o'clock so i could try to get over to the game right before 6 o'clock [laughter] but traffic and transportation

is probably one of the issues that i'm going to touch on with them [laughter] but it's unclear how i'm going to make that happen but i will test them to see which one is the most powerful and that will be the one where he or she can tell me how to get a a police escort over to the game [laughter] mayor libby schaff give her a hand give him a hand and mayor ed lee, give him a hand. [applause]. >> okay. welcome. all right. >> thank you. >> do you see that, they waited until i sat down. we're off to a great start. so just very quick on the ground rules we're going to have a very

engaging conversation. i love the framework that was offered to me and thoughts i have around it. the ground rules are very simple, the first one is we're going to ask you to keep your answers that thoughtful and the second ground rule is no talking point answers so if you all hear the talking point answers try to give me a sign, talking point, and the third one a test i personally use all the time when my communications ask me to give them a quote i call this a blah-blah blah test [laughter] and this is the honest truth and we're going to ask that you not in anyway way give us a blah-blah blah answer [laughter] as i'm on stage [laughter] and i was going to offer that if anyone

wants to leave right now [laughter] you can you can do that. okay. so i have several categories but i'll tell you the three that i'm going to try to hone in on just so the audience knows i have housing transportation, the economy, technology, drought, public safety policing and then mental health all right? so there's a lot. here's the three that we're going to dive in on -- housing, transportation and public safety and you will see how this comes together. so to get tart to get started, just in case these aren't the three you wanted me to talk about -- so for each of you what is the top issue in each of your cities that's on your

mind? how do you view that in the context of your cities and the region? let's start first with mayor schaff. >> well i would say in oakland safety is the top issue and my approach to it is a real holistic and community driven approach and yes in oakland we need more cops that's for sure but we need them to do better policing and that's community based policing and evidence is demonstrating that it's needed to be effective and proven prevention and strategies and addressing the root causes of crime and as a health professional the social determinates of health, we need better jobs and economic security and we need much better educational outcomes for our kids -- is that

blah-blah blah? >> no, you passed [applause]. . >> she definitely set the bar. let's see what happens next. [laughter]. >> the number one priority is dealing with the baseball team [laughter]. >> oh, come on. we're all friends here. [laughter] tough crowd. you know, libby is right at the intersection of crime prevention and broadening opportunities is really where i think we need to be focussed and we've been spending a lot of time and resources on efforts around for example expanding teen job opportunities for for kids in impacted neighborhoods and expanding after school programs. we know this is obviously great and

expanding opportunities for these kids but also know it's a proven strategy for reducing crime. >> excellent mayor lee? >> thank you be rna rd housing that's my number one focus and within that very complex multilevel word, is all this strata that we need to pay attention to particularly workforce housing and that's something we haven't paid attention to and all these employers here to the extent of the success you have felt here in san francisco and throughout the region we can't build it fast enough and i have a plan -- 30 ,000 units of both public housing workforce housing, low income housing as well and we're going to guarantee that it's going to be 33 percent affordable to middle to low income 50 percent to

middle income but we can't build it fast enough we've got some old things that all three of us have suffered from we have complained to each other about how slow state credits get pushed out, how it's not the highest priority for a lot of financial institutions and we've had to muster up many sources of funding for affordable housing and now we're on a pace of figuring it out and we're well on our way and i know that housing isn't just to build and rebuild, we also have to stabilize neighborhoods and present speculation from occurring to wholesale buildings for people who have built their lives in the city and we have to have a multifacetted approach and we're really going to work on the

homelessness issue in the next 5 years and really glad to hear that the homeless population does move around the entire bay area. >> great so let's go let's go to the housing theme more directly and before i i do that, let me ask everybody to congratulate mayor mercado and there was an announcement made in fact today you hit the one million mark. >> yes somehow we hit a million again and i think we hit it five or or 6 years ago and keep bouncing around and keep announcing it every year [laughter] it's a little odd it's a little bit like having a card ash i a kardashian reality show you know they are living there but nobody pays attention [laughter]. >> very well very well. let's talk about housing. so on one hand we're all

extremely pleased from the business community healthcare community, the overall economy that things are looking up in california a lot of jobs and a lot of demands. i happen to lead an organization, i have over 200, 000 employees i have a lot of people wanting to come to california to work and guess what they say? i don't think i can afford to live in california or i have to live so far outside of the immediate work cite in which i'm being recruited into i'm not sure i want that kind of lifestyle that i spend one, two, 2 1/2 or 3 hours a day communitying back and forth to work so it compacts everything, how we recruit people people to the bay area, how we keep people in the

bay area, how we pay wages in the bay area and so like you said mayor lee it is a very complex problem and on the other side of the equation you have a lot of other things you have neighbors who feel that we should have no more homes in certain areas that you have maximized the space in the bay area and people like me who have a resident condo in san francisco and i don't want my view blocked so [laughter] but something has to give. so how do the three of you think about the housing crisis? it's not just from your city's perspective but across the board as a regional perspective as a regional challenge, i will tell you as an organization who spends a lot of money building stuff i have to pay certain wages

regardless of the geography even though the structural is very different from owning a house in san francisco or oakland or pleasanton so the rates to get construction for all of those areas is a common denominator and dive into that what are you doing and where should we we go from here. >> to talk about a region issue i like to think that our affordable housing was something that made your workforce possible and you know last year the big talk about oakland was the the brooklyn ification and this year there's a there's a new theory this twin cities theory where we're reliant on one another and i like that

awareness because it's important because our residents don't all work within our municipal boundaries and because people are now discovering oakland we are the second fastest rising rents in the country not the bay area but the country like i said the constructions costs are the same but so that's been our challenge and we're very clear to address the affordability crisis and it is a crisis, we have got to build more housing and we've got to do other things too like i say we can't arrest ourselves out of a crime problem we can not build our way out of an affordability problem we don't have enough time or money to build all the housing we need to make the impact we need as as

quickly as we need to make it so we've got to do all of that and we can't be afraid of new construction. >> i agree with libby. you know, you are looking at three mayors that are strongly aligned on this issue there's no question the big cities carry the heavy load in the bay area and i think what we need to do regionally to encourage the suburbs to look forward to housing their own and there's an awful lot of communities [applause] for example along the peninsula where they are employing lots of people coming from large cities and come great distances and we know that doesn't do anything to reduce the emissions or traffic or anything else so i think we need to start thinking more about

how we can encourage and prod our suburban communities to get involved in the construction business san jose permitted almost five 5,000 units last year and these cities are consistently pushing the envelope to try to get more housing and in downtown san jose there's there's 1600 units in construction and another thousand right after that and we'll keep doing it but we got to all do it together. >> very good. >> and san francisco as well i totally agree we're trying to be as creative and i think that creativity also can be affected in the public private partnerships and i would love the speed of developers matched with the passion that we have to help teachers and nurses and