construction which alters two thirds or more of the interior elements. san francisco building code 103(a).3.2, this hear re is an example of a demolition where the scope was exceeded back in 2006. it was deemed to be an unlawful demoby dbi. the picture on your left shows the building two years later in 2008, and again, the picture on the right shows how it was in october 2017. now, i drove by there last week just to see if it had progressed any, and it's pretty much still like the picture in the slide shows of the october 2017 picture. in regard to these projects, when -- when they're abandoned, we receive a lot of complaints. the initial complaint is about

exceeding the scope of demo, but when there's no activity and no progress towards moving forward with the work at the site, we get the complaints about blight on the neighborhoods, the impact on the neighbors, we get the complaints about graffiti, which you can see the graffiti in the picture. roof drainage becomes a problem because they usually tarp these buildings, and god only knows where the water's going to shed. is it going to go on the neighbor's property? going back to the tarp, the tarps are flapping in the breeze, and this is another complaint. this is what we end up with. unauthorized demolition, dbi and planning work together to resolve complaints of unpermitted work. penalties are one part of this process. unauthorized work and work beyond the permitted scope, the current process is dbi performs

a site inspection, confirms work beyond the scope of the permit or work without permit, knows the violation issued, stop work. the site is secured and weatherized. by weatherized, i mean whatever components of the wood frame building remain, they're required to be weatherized for their preservation or potential preservation. design team then usually visits dbi for direction. permit holder is advised to contact the planning department for next steps. that's typically new permit application with plans, and they're back into their review wheel house. in regard to penalties and fees, the dbi portion of this is the stop work order is issued on the project and it's routed to planning for next steps. the specific penalties, penalties for exceeding the scope of the work are based on

table 110(a) and table 1(a) k of the san francisco building code, and the penalty is two times the issuance fee for work exceeding the scope of the permit. the penalty for when no permit exists is nine times the permit issuance fee. now, monetary penalties are typically small because the evaluation of demolition work is not very great because it's just a few guys going in there and taking down walls or whatever they're doing, and hopefully it's not what they shouldn't be doing. but the penalties are typically small. code enforcement fees, however, and orders of abatement and assessments bring the penalties up substantially, and then we're into the thousands of dollars. but the code enforcement effort is only of course if they're not being proactive and engaging in the process of trying to get the necessary permit and get back on track

with whatever it is they need to do, engaging the planning department and ourselves and so forth. we can have a referral to the city attorney's office for possible litigation and possible penalties. the unlawful demolition order prohibits the project to proceed unless they put the building back in the same -- to the same envelope and the same as it was before. so i'm going to turn this planning portion over to liz and go back to one more slide before i finish up. thank you. >> sure. thanks pat. so on the planning side of the penalties and fee equation as pat mentioned, our goal is to seek compliance, not to be punitive, and that's really the code language in the planning code is setup as it relates to the enforcement. so in a perfect world, as soon as the issue has been brought to the building department's attention, the applicant comes in, they file a permit to

correct, and that is immediately routed over to the planning department. our first job is to assess where are we? is this deviation and scope of work under or over that tantamount to demolition threshold? plenty of projects are significantly under that threshold, and in those instances, we would review it, verify, and we would sign off, they would move forward and continue with construction. in those instances where they are right up to the wire on being under that threshold and this work now pushes them over that threshold. this is where we really get into a tough situation mt. planning department. in both situations, we would then tell and let dbi know that work needs to stop. they need to file a conditional use authorization, and thee they need to go through the planning commission process, which can add somewhere in the ballpark of fou

very

scope of demolition. that would be helpful so we could at least at plan review stage see exactly what it is being removed and what's being kept. so that's a discussion that -- that's probably being had. refer structural addenda to planning for review. give the planning department a chance to see what additional work is being proposed on the

addendum to the site permit. evaluate addenda with site permit to ensure consistency and feasibility. and i think one of the big ones here is require site inspection by dbi at start of work to review permit and site conditions for vertical additions with evaluation of more than $150,000. i'm available for questions when liz finishes her part of the presentation. thank you, commissioners. >> thanks. so just one last slide here. basically to wrap things up, we want to acknowledge this is a tough topic with no easy solution. we've been down this road before, and i think it's very timely for us to take a step back and look at new solutions to this problem with a legislative fix. i think we all have a tendency

to jump into the technical solutions, and before we do that, we all really feel we need to take a step back and take a look at this and establish a real policy objective. from our experience there are three main points of contention that tend to get recirculated around the issues of demolition, and those are issues of neighborhood character, issues of affo affordability and issues related to upgrading our housing stock both from affordability standpoint and safety. we really need to unpack each of these top particulars. they mean different things to different shake holders, and we need to gain consensus what are we trying to solve around those three. lastly we need to have one shared definition for the city and not have these bifurcated codes between two different departments with the city. so thank you for bearing with us. there's a lot of technical information in that

presentation, but we want to make sure you know what we're dealing with as professionals in the field every day. we're here to answer any questions or comments you might have, and we're looking forward to getting your thoughts and directions on where to go for the next steps. >> president hillis: thank you. we will open this up first to public comment and then we'll have commissioner comments and questions, and i've got a number of speaker cards, but all are welcome to speak. you'll lineup on the screen side of the room. mr. wittig, you're first. nancy, rose, spike, kathleen, and anastasia. [ inaudible ] >> president hillis: we'll go three minutes is our typical. all right. mr. wittig. >> hello. my name is george wittig. i'm the president of the

coalition for san francisco neighborhoods. thank you for having this joint hearing. the issue before you today are what the community has been wrestling with and brought to you for years. we believe that you've seen enough, and it's time now for the community and the commission to come together to fix those problems. this endeavor requires one legislation regarding definition of demolition; two, implementation; three, enforcement. the community is inviting you to join us in pushing for all three categories of those above fixes. legislation regarding definition of demolition, there should be a new definition for demolition, and it has to be clear, easily calculable,

quantitative, measurable and live in both building codes. what currently exists in section 317 of the planning code is formulaic but not easily calculable. number two, implementation. whatever we've done in the past has been open to interpretation and hardly bulletproof, as prior speakers can attest to. this requires specificity so that our building inspectors and planners know what their roles are. the planning and building departments are public agencies, and as such, we expect them to be accountable to the public. the roles and responsibilities of the two departments might be delineated enough for projects

that go perplans, but when a developer misrepresents the plans or goes beyond the scope of the permit, which of the departments is taking charge of these issues to rectify them? planners may think it's not their job to fix plans that are not accurate. enforcement -- this is my own personal one because i have felt for a long time planning has dropped the ball on enforcement and says well, we'll go to building inspection. well, when you look at building inspection, building inspection's rules are so vague, they're subject to almost any interpretation whatsoever. so you have a situation i see where neither agency is able to really work with the other.

>> secretary ionin: thank you, mr. witting. >> president hillis: thank you, mr. witting. >> hi. good morning. i don't know if you read what was in the packet that i sent. i sent to you a packet, but you know, there were those e-mails back from january 2015, and i didn't intend those to say, like, oh, my god, this has been going on forever, 'cause it has been, but this -- no one's really responsible. i feel responsible because i didn't push more for the planning commission to adjust the numerical calculations and the democalcs. that could have been helpful in the 317, but maybe not based on what miss waddie presented this morning because of how tricky they are. you have the groupings. maybe if they are all ors, that would be good, but it's still

arcane. with all respect to the good people, who thought one definition of demolition would solve the problem, i respectfully agree. clear-cut demos, flat lotting, demos like that that now skirt the rules, demos that don't skirt the rules under the now tantamount to demolition. if you look back in 2007, the reason for tantamount to demolition, the reason was to avoid people doing things in alterations. if the goal was to preserve housing and prevent demolition of sound, relatively affordable housing, the city needs two definitions as i outlined in my handout which it in your packets: one for planning and one for building, but both staff need to be able to use both definitions as needed. a revised tantamount definition must be understood by neighbors, by all city staff, reviewing a project and by

enforcement, and it must be one that can allow for reasonable alterations. as i said, that was the original intent of section 317, to prevent demolitions while allowing for reasonable alterations. prior to 317, you had one definition. is that what you want to go back to? why did you spend nearly eight years coming up with section 317? rewrite section 317. do not get rid of it. fun amount it doesn't matter if building material is replaced or windows are counted. that should only matter in repairration or strict remodel of a property. please keep two separate definitions. the one as it is currently in the building code and write a new, improved one for the

planning code for tantamount to demolition as i first suggested in it october 2016 and both departments coordinate use as needed, and here's what i wrote in 2016, and on the back are the projects since i wrote the memo in 2015 that i think you ought to look at. >> president hillis: thank you. >> should be enough for all of you. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. >> good morning. my name is paul webber, and i'm a resident of north beach. i have some general comments and then process comments. first of all, both departments must have a common definition of demolition, and have a common time for demolition permitting. the activities of b.i. should be in furtherance of a common definition, the details which were explained today should be solving for x, and x should be

a common definition. b.i. should monitor a ground to see that the project on the ground matches the application and shut it down for variations. permit complications including plans should be submitted under penalty of perjury. deviations should be met with severe penalties and not serial permits. the definition of demolitions should be formulaic not qualitative and be objective, easy to apply and simple to understand, so as to leave no selective judgment in the hands of reviewers. periodic on-site reports should be submitted to inspectors or senior management under penalty of perjury as the project commences p. now as to the process, for seeking a conditional use permit from

planning for mergers, conversions or demolitions, the application review criteria must be changed. currently, they are called considerations, which are a number of different sets of factors, depending upon the authority being sought, with no direction as to what to do with those considerations. it just says thou shalt consider these, up to a size 20, but it doesn't say what you should do with them. these considerations should be converted to findings based upon substantial evidence, meaning that they must be met, not just considered. and these will need to be hashed out, i'm sure. not all considerations should be fining, but then should be eliminated, but the following should be in all cases included as findings, and if they cannot be made, the permit should not be granted.

the project is in compliance in all material respects while relevant design guidelines or other controls, and there should be no demolition of any existing unit which is autopsied by a tenant or with a five year look back meaning if the tenant has occupied the building for the past five years, that would be a building that is not eligible for demolition. thank you very much. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, please, miss courtney. >> good morning, commissioners, and many thanks for having this meeting. kathleen courtney, russian hill commission. 15 years a project was proposed on russian hill to add a fourth story to a 35'3" story building with six rent controlled units. the building was built in 1917. the plan called for the removal of 4 feet, and then construction for an additional

9 feet for a total of 40 feet. when the neighborhood asked how they could verify that the building could be built within the 40 foot height limit, the project sponsor said that they had as built plans, and they extrapolated from the as built plans. the city planner did not request the as built plans or any verification of the metric. when we appealed the process, the director of planning who was then acting as the planning commission did not request as built plans and did not request any verification of the metrics. we appealed further, and there was no request for as built plans or any metrics, so one evening, a neighbor jumped from one building to the proposed project, lowered a ball of twine to a third neighbor on the sidewalk. we took the ball of twine to the then director of the department of building inspection, who sent chief inspector carla johnson out to

measure the building, and carla's report that neither the structural nor the architectural plans showed a building that could be built within the 40 foot height limit. so his credit then senior planner jonas ionin wrote to the russian hill commission in august 2005 and said thank you for your persistence in creating an accurate record of events. shortly thereafter, the building was sold, the new property owners lowered the building 18 inches in order to add the additional foot. neither the developer who authorized the fraudulent plans nor the architect who performed the fraudulent plans was penalized or fined, and i got

three nails in three of my tires in this situation. in 2005, peskin advised members of the rhda, quote, be vigilant in assisting city government to uncover any misrepresentation in applications for construction projects and to assist government officials to require all construction projects comply with the planning and zoning codes. that's the reason we're here today. we have to do something. it's not working. thank you very much. >> president hillis: thank you, miss courtney. >> good morning. i'm anastasai yanopolous, and i live in noe valley. it's been over three years since the building and planning commission met, and it's high time we discuss this topic. and i suggest before you leave today, you commit to the next -- a date for the next

joint hearing. there's so many issues to be discussed between the two of you and demolition is only one. okay. i've read the supervisor peskin's letter to you all. i hope you've read it, and you said there's been a lack of will to do anything about this. so we have to light a fire under you to do something about this problem angus mccarthy, when i went before your commission a couple years ago to request something be done, you said, well this isn't a really big problem. i get a lot of calls, but there aren't really a lot of unlawful demolitions happening, and i big to differ, and so do many members of the public who have come here today. first of all, you've got a building code and a planning code with two different definitions. you've got bad actors who

misrepresent their plans. who's checking them when they first come in to see that what they're saying, oh, this is what we're going to build, even in the case of an edu that came before the appeals board? he misrepresented, and what they said was oh, i think a site visit is required here. why aren't there site visits to check? why are you just relying on a checked box that there are no tenants in the building? why aren't the planners and the inspectors doing due diligence? this is really important. let's get it straight from the start. then, the as built -- the what is actually represented on the plans and what comes out are two different things, and in the process, a building is built that's nonconforming and

who makes off like a bandit? the project sponsor. there's going to be a will, and there's got to be one definition. i agree with paul webber. he's got lots and lots of good points that you need to focus on, and i agree that this legislation for demolition is something that has to become law. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you very much. next speaker, please, miss wilson. >> good morning. i'm usually not here in the morning 'cause you always start at 1:00, but any way, i am very interested in this topic because first person came up or second person who came up said there's section 317, and now it was worked on for years, and

now we have two definitions, one for building and one for planning. if we started one definition at planning and it wasn't working, and you made another one, and it wasn't working, it seems like if you have one or two, it doesn't matter. so it seems like we're back at square one, what is the definition. miss waddie was very good at sorting out the definition of demolition at planning, which is is falls on the building official. now, i don't know what that means. does it mean the on call duty official of tuesday, wednesday or thursday? i don't know but any way that's demolition at billions. then you've got planning, and it was the formula that miss waddie mentioned. that was one portion of 317. under 317, overhead please, you also have article ten. so that's the text of article ten, and it has a different formula for article ten buildings. so those are measurements, but

we're not talking about. it wasn't mentioned in here. but i also have a question because there's something that we see here:ed code and there's something that the public doesn't see, and what the public doesn't see is what happens with staff, and how they determine these things? i don't know how they determine these things? what kind of list do they operate from? it's hidden from the public. we need to come up with something. if it's a list, is it going to be a check list. if it's going to be a formula or an equation -- what happens it you put a bunch of walls in and then when you take them out to make this expansionsive open modern space then you've got to have the beams in to take the load. then, someone comes in and says oh, i'm going to divide this

up. does someone come back and check on all the walls that they're putting in to see what happens to the load? t what about the administration code, and the green code? then you've got department of public works. what do you do with that? they don't have a commission. and then, for historic, how do you determine when it's a historic? what happens with category b buildings that aren't historic, so there are you go. you hope you solve there, and there you go. >> president hillis: thank you. >> good morning, commissioners. jeremy schab of schab leigh architects. i want to thank everybody here for being here because this is an important topic. i guess my main consideration i want everybody to be talking

about today is what is the goal of all these democalculations and what are we trying to -- you know, what's our end goal? are we trying to preserve neighborhood character, affordability or are we trying to create a lot of process that works towards those goals without ultimately reaching that? so i know the planning department and the building department had been working on a floor area ratio calculation, which i believe is the simplest and purest way of reaching what we want to reach, of having somewhat affordable homes and also reflecting the neighborhood design guidelines. if we spent all our time as architects working on calculations, and then it turns out during a site visitor site inspection, the actual scope of the work has to change, then we end up with a serial permit, which is not what anyone wants to do, either, so i think if we admit that yeah, some neighborhoods like noe valley

or something should be limited to three stories, then let's just go ahead and say that, instead of just coaching it in we can only add x percent to a building or we can only add the front bay of a building. it's not helping if we're just going to piece meal one building at a time and every stud. so i just want to keep in mind what the end goal is here. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. mr. bosskovich. >> president hillis: you know, we didn't have general public comment on this, too. now's a good time, too, because we didn't have general public comment on this. >> okay. i'll try to do this in three minutes. what is being discussed today is much more than 317 and 103. it's about two critical departments working together with the public trust. way more than what we're talking about, and if you don't understand it, you're missing a lot of things going on right

now. why do i care? i was born here. my dad was a steel worker. he could afford to live in the city as a steel worker. my mom was a see's candy lady. we lived in kind of bad rent controlled housing, but we lived here. the thing that concerns me is the kids can't afford to live here. i'm housing six kids in housing that i own. it's hard, but it's a privilege because i get to see them grow up. what is 317's goal? i thought it was to preserve affordable housing. it doesn't work. it doesn't. i'm a civil engineer. i'm out there, i see it. we haven't killed someone, but one of these days, a part of the building hung up in the air as a remodel is going to drop on somebody and kill them. we've got to start-up on a new approach to 317.

maybe you want to demoit and put an edu unit in. we've got to rethink this. 103 of the building code, that was there in the 80's. judy borgen wrote it. it was for richmond specials. people were coming in with an over the counter pink, no plans, and they said they were going to remodel the kitchen. they tore that building down and all that was left was the kitchen. that is what 103 was written for. so now, to apply that to drawings that are prepared and they exceed those percentages, which to be honest, the percentages in 103 make no sense, to apply that to a set of drawings is insane. and in 1999, almost 19 years ago, there was a committee i was on, along with mccormick,

we rewrote this. so this issue has been here almost 20 years to rewrite. we need to come up with a better way to do this. and i think we just need to fundamentally start over on the tcp goals, the planning goals of what you guys are trying to do and restart over on what building department wants to do have have a coordinated issue between the two departments. some of the common sense things that have been brought up, and i want to thank patrick o'rearcan and liz waddie, this is not a great issue because there's a lot of controversy here, but we've got to have a preissuance inspection by the building department. no one gets a permit until the building inspector walks the site. the architect and engineer has got to sign any drawing showing what you're going to tear down. >> secretary ionin: thank you, mr. boskovich.

>> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good morning. commissioners. my name is mary fere 2 ti, and i own 655 bolingeer street. my property was damaged due to people demonstrating a total disregard for the san francisco building department process. hopefully by implementing clearer and stronger language, this type of practice will cease to exist. in my experience with the building department since 2009, i have come to learn that the building and planning departments do not effectively communicate and have a different set of standards. this defect has created a window for people who wish to be dishonest. penalties for violations are not clear and lack substance, they lack means of enforcement and clear consequences. when i brought my concerns of misrepresentation to the building department's attention, i was dismissed or told to hire an attorney.

i would like to make four suggestions: one, a liaison department be implemented to improve communication between the building and planning department to ensure they are on the same page. two. whenever a proposed project requires removal of any part of the building, it must first go to the planning, calculations made, and require a 311 notice. if the job requires additional removal of the building, the plans must be sent back to the planning department, and the process will begin again. calculations were never done with 655 alvarado street. three. to discourage deception, any square footage gained by the illegal demolition shall be multiplied by two, and the proposed project shall be reduced by that total figure, along with no build, no transfer or sale of the property for five years. this will prevent any financial gain from an illegal demolition. four. if damages occur to the

adjacent property as a result of a 3307.1 violation, the project sponsor is to be responsible for the repair of all damages made to the adjacent property and incur an additional ten-year liability of any future damages resulting from the negligence. this will encourage the projecttor to comply and notify the adjacent property owner in writing and possibly hire a company to inspect the adjacent property prior to a. no one notified me of any alteration to next to my building. can i trust that you can come together and fix the problem and allow the residents of the san francisco chance to begin to regain confidence in the san francisco building department and prove that the system can work? i sure hope so. it's worth a try.

thank you for your time. >> president hillis: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good morning. and i appreciate the time to be able to address you people. i'm not prepared. i didn't even know about this hearing until a day or two ago. i'm just a member of the unwashed masses. my name is tom schueneman. i'm at 1639 washington street. i won't go through the whole story, but three years of fighting ellis act evictions. in the past three months or so, we have dealt with the owner of our property, and i have no idea if what he's doing is up to code or not. i assume it is because there's all the property paperwork on the building. however, i get no information from him. he has -- what the -- information i have got from his people has been misleading at

best. i have everything i know about the building department, planning department, i have been on a fast track trying to learn myself. i have had to dig up the plans myself to find out what's going on. i've prompted two inspections to the property and it's kind of a yeah, it's fine. no explanation. so coming from my perspective, somebody's going through this right now. as i left my building this morning, the decibel was over 90 db. i'm a writer. i work from home. it's hard to work under those conditions. they have replaced peers, punched out the back wall, indicated they were going to put in landscaping, and just dug up the yard and put construction materials in here. i guess that's okay. what's the problem is people in our situation have no idea what's going on. i would love to trust the dbi,

and i have to. i have no choice. this is the public speaking to you, so i hope that whatever you can do to make living in san francisco tolerable again, that would be appreciated. thank you very much. >> president hillis: next speaker, please. >> overhead, please. good morning. my name is jerry duratler. i commend the building and planning commissions for agreeing to hold a joint meeting to discuss the development of a citywide definition of demolition. it is my hope the final definition will include the following three attributes: a definition of demolition that eliminates the economic incentive for unpermitted

demolition. implementation of penalties and fines that are in effect a deterrent to unpermitted demolition. and three, a demolition definition that is clearly and easily enforceable. revision of the existing code definitions of demolition will not address the problem unless the code is supported with adequate code enforcement. a discussion of code enforcement is not on today's agenda, and it should be. lack of code enforcement on recent projects where this is irrefutable evidence where a home has been demolished should be reviewed by both commissions. i encourage the planning commission to schedule a meeting in future commission meetings. lack of code enforcement is also a problem with heritage homes in san francisco. the home at 49 hopkins avenue,

in the overhead, was demolished. it was designed by acclaimed modern architect richard newtra. a calculation is not required to determine the home was demolished. a complaint was filed, a notice of violation was not issued. the planning department and dbi failed to protect the architectural portion of san francisco. unpermitted demolitions and weak code enforcement has undermined the confidence in the planning and building inspection departments and commissions. implementing public reporting

that improves both transparency and accountability is needed to regain the public's confidence. thank you very much. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, please, and i'll call a couple other names: lees, ozzy, ryan, and gary. >> good morning. i'm nancy wharfel. supervisor peskin eloquently speaks for me on requesting reforms. i wish to heartily support his proposal to conduct advanced site inspections, to perform preissuance inspection of the physical aspects of a project. this is critical to getting some honest assessment of projects that are going to be built and to be able to determine beforehand if work is going on beyond the scope of work in the permit. you need to determine the truthfulness of a thing called

existing conditions. i love that term. you can invent 15 stories as existing on a one-story house, but if you don't go out, you'll never know that, and it can be built subrosa. so i would like to be sure when you have these physical inspections, people should understand that you should not be fooling the building department or the planning department with what really is there. also, i would like to suggest that such early inspections may curtail the way developers hide their illegal demolition behind 8 foot tall plywood walls built to keep out the prying eyes of neighbors and visits from city official does, who then only leave -- this is my favor -- the quote, a while you were out notice to please contact us when you return. how insulting is that, to leave

a piece of paper on a plywood fence? when obviously the building behind it is gone. this is over the top. pardon me. so when you have work to repair, stairs, or add a bathroom, something like that does not require wall-to-wall walls. that should be a big heads up to everybody. commissioners, you have a serious credibility problem in upholding your own respective codes and laws. please keep us in the public involved in the resolution of this important issue in defining demolition so that the future of affordable housing in san francisco is now going to be preserved with your help. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. miss miss conn. >> hi, commissioners. great to see you all sitting at the same place. as the public, i just wish that i could get in one place where

all the enforcement is between planning and building. the planning map, the little pink one, has little icons, which have complainted. the public, we're your partners. we depend on you. but you hear the complaints by us reporting. commissioner walk and i a couple three years ago sent a couple dozen of pdr violations. all we did was walk our neighborhood and wrote down what's on will tthe mailboxes. we sent that in, never heard back three years later. so we had a map 2020 meeting the other day, and i represent folks in the mission at united to save the mission. and we are asking, inside

internal documents that you have at planning, that tina tam at the enforcement department has. every two weeks, it's updated, and that's how she assigns which inspector is going to go for which complaint. but i've asked for two months for a copy of this under freedom of information, and for some reason, i can't get it. they want to clean it up, they want to take out the frivolous complaints. i'm not asking them to do that. i can figure that out myself. but imagine tina's department at planning and whoever your equivalent department head in building had one spreadsheet that showed where all the complaints are and didn't it require an unpaid volunteer on the public to click on a map for each and every address. i'm asking for a spreadsheet. i think that in itself with a status report and clickable lync links. everything should be on-line,

but not by each individual address. it should be a cumulative, this is where -- such as the development pipeline list is on-line. every quarter it's updated, and i know where to go to see where every building project is in the city listed either sortable by alphabet, by address, by zip code, whatever i want. this is what i want for the public. i'm an ethical builder -- hopefully, i am one. in new york city, when i wanted to buy a building and update it, i had to get ten years of tenant records and get a sign off by the housing department to show that all of those tenants were not illegally evicted. we could do that here. in oakland where i built a building, i had to have the building inspector come before i broke ground come to verify what my architect verified with a wet stamp is real. they don't trust us in oakland and new york.

why do they trust the developers here. >> president hillis: next speaker, please. >> jennifer fever with the san francisco tenants' union. we've contacted you several times to express our concerns for tenants. we are seeing their units being disturbed by decisions made by both of those departments. we're seeing permitted issued that are going to affect the tenants' ability to stay in place. we're seeing dbi inex-speaks that are failing to catch out conducted outside of scope of permits. we're told that violations of the rent ordinance are not your business and that if a tenant has a concern they can get a private attorney to address how they feel wronged. i just don't understand this attitude. we urge both departments to sit down with the at strif law judge of the rent board to learn the rent ordinance, to learn what just cause is. invite some tenant attorneys so you understand what the courts are saying.

you cannot simply trust owners to do the right thing. they're using renovations as the latest eviction trick. tenants are umm canning and finding that their apartments have totally gutted and they have nowhere to move back. so you can't just push it off onto tenants to hire expensive lawyers to deal with expensive conflicts. it wastes everyone's money, it wastes the owner's money to spend money on architect plans that aren't going to pan out because they violate just cause. so i want to echo paul webber's ideas about disclosure of tenant issues going back five years and also insisting on truth under penalty of perjury. i would also hate to see it, i love the adu legislation and seismic, but maybe a moratorium on that because it's not working. this is the latest ruse to get rid of tenants, and i don't

know what to do anymore other than just keep sending you guys e-mails. thank. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. teresa flandrick with senior and disability action as well as with the north beach committee. i am so pleased that we are having this joint meeting today. that gives me hope because there are so many problems. and of course representing seniors, i am seeing them losing their laundry facilities under the guise of well, we are doing this edu, which it is, but you can't take away a use that people have had access to and is part of this lease. for seniors to remain and age in place at the same time that some laundromats are being demolished or permanently closed. it's a livable city.

we need to focus on that. i echo paul webbers comments on solutions. because i recognize the owner of a certain building, it would be really good to recognize if there could be a flag for you as planners and as dbi to those who are bad actors, i like to call them shouchmucks, but some under the guise of affordable housing l.l.c. who has proceeded to ellis act or harass every single person out of their home on north beach needs to be flagged. the problems that tom is dealing with in terms of he does not know what is allowed, what is allowed, hence, do not receive notices. so again to flag the bad

actors, it's pretty easy when they're serial evictors. we have the mapping antiproject, which has access to all of that. i'm sure you can create all of that for planning when you know there have been these schmucks who have done many things illegally, gone beyond the scope, that there is a way to get a handle on this. and i'm just so glad that you are going to work together. i hope this is only the beginning and that we'll see some real action, some real things put into place. thank you so much. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, miss rommer. >> good morning, commissioners. lisa frommer from liberty hill. i'd like to thank you for holding this joint hearing and

beginning to end the illicit and uncoordinated practices that can no longer be ignored. our current building frenzy has resulted in the demolition of way too many historic buildings and these actions were largely preventible. when historic buildings are gone, they're gone. the ornamentation, for example from the facade of 38 liberty that was supposed to be used for restoration was found in the dumpster. so again, this points to oversight and inspection problems. most of us are here today and have come together as a citywide community to offer workable solutions to this long-standing problem of legal demolitions. while single voices have raised concerns, it's our collective neighborhood voices that provide the majority consensus.

that's a little bit different. i'd like to define demolition. your interpreter framework needs to be replaced with a clearly understood, easily calculated and quantitative definition. it cannot be qualitative. that means subject ticive, and that's the very problem that's led to so many illegal definitions. inspectors and planners need this to distinguish a demolish from a remodel. using these criteria, both section 317 and the planning code and 103 in the building code should be rewritten into a definition that everyone can easily use, understand, and leaves no room for interpretation by either agency. demolitions also affect tenant protections. currently, neither planning nor building keeps an inventory of tenant occupied units.

it would be good if that was worked on. i recommend that no residential building can be demolished if it's currently occupied or was previously occupied by tenants for the past five years. an occupancy needs to be checked prior to permit applications. we hope that effective changes will result in a process that all of us can begin to trust. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good morning, commissioners. my name is gary weiss. i recently discussed with a senior planner a question i've had about plans getting approved for remodels. in the case of 17 temple street, the existing 129 year one story building would not have been able to support multiple additional floors, and yet plans were approved knowing that ultimately, the building would need to be replaced to an extent that would exceed

acceptable nondemolition levels. two-by-fours would be replaced by two by sixes, waterproofed wood would need to replace nonwaterproof. he said that planning's guidelines don't consider what dbi may determine needs to be removed during construction. the roof was removed because stories were being added. the floor was removed because excavation was taking place. the rear and front were removed because they were expanding horizontally in both directions. of the small portions of north and south walls that remoained one was removed a wall later. i spoke with joe duffy about this, but he was positive it wasn't being demolished. i spoke with cory teague who assured that enough of the joists would remain so as not to qualify tantamount to demolition. when i showed a picture showing that brand-new two by sixes were in place, he was still

convinced they were really there. he also said that some walls were removed would be returned in some cases. i said that until they do, without knowing for sure that they would be returned, wouldn't it currently be considered tantamount to demolition? he then said that the original walls don't really need to be put back, just a familiar simile of them. i asked him if his determination was following the intent of section 317. his response in probably not. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good morning, commissioner. aussie rom with neighborhood council. for years now you've been hearing for various members of the public, neighborhood associations about various --

[ inaudible ] >> today, you heard from the community again. it's time now for action, a decisive action that involves a three pronged approach to this problem. we need definitions that define demolitions in simple, concise, quantitative and measurable terms that are the same in both plans and building code. what constitutes a demolition, be it tantamount to demolition in planning code or what is considered a destruction of a home in the building code should be the same. i completely understand the explanations of the senior dbi inspectors about the need for retrofitting, the need for putting insulations, fireproofing, that was all valid. my question to you is when plans arrive at the planning department to upgrade, remodel, add another floor to

100-year-old victorian, what should the planning department do? you actually think this is possible without receipt o-- retrofitting, without insulation? so what should we do in that case? building a home is a concise and math matcally driven activity. there's certainly no reason to have a definition of what demolition is, for it to be qualitative. there's no reason for a builder to say we have an addition and it is a horizontal addition. what about demolishing a building entirely? that is a demolition. then there are issues of implementation and enforcement. we need the building and planning department to know what their responsibilities are to avoid