colleagu colleagues? any public comment on this item? >> i just want to say that maybe until we figure that out if people can ask what they want before setting up the fund. you do oversee through the budget process $1.2 billion. so if there is something that a commissioner would want to have, you can do it through my work plan or -- so, you know, while we're figuring it out, i want to make sure that i'm responsive to anything that you feel is a priority that we put the adequate resources in there. >> commissioner courtney: thank you, harlan. commissioners? any public comment? hearing none, meeting is adjourned. light for our city a

streets illuminating our ideas and values starting in 2016 the san francisco public utilities commission is xhoefl that light with new led with the did i audits for better light for streets and pedestrian and they're even better for this vitally lasting longer and consuming up to 50 percent less energy upgrading takes thirty minutes remove the old street light and repeat 18 thousand 5 hundred times while our street lights

will be improving the clean energy will remain the same every san francisco street light is powder by 100 percent godfathers hetch hetchy power in one simple word serious as day turns good afternoon, everyone, my name is naomi kelly and i'm the city add straight to be. thank you for joining us here at the marine memorial. i'm pleased to share the summary of recommendations from the tall building's safety strategy. this was a report that was commissioned by our late mayor edwin lee. who asked myself and the

director of the department of the emergency management to work with outside consultants to help us preview our existing tall buildings in san francisco. copies of the summary and the recommendations and summaries are available here and will be postponed online at one san francisco.org/resilience/sf. it's a pioneering effort by the city of san francisco is the first of its kind in this nation. and it represents 14 months of city wide collaboration with the san francisco tall building stock. having this information available is a huge step forward and our ability to think collectively and proactively as a city about the seismic safety and the resilience of our tall buildings in the implications of

their surround be neighborhoods. here today, we have with -- we just came from a tall building panel discussion and discuss our strategies with us today is professor greg deerloin and a member of the applied technology council. he is an author of the study many of we also have mary ellen carole the director of the department of emergency management and angus carty and oohed like to bring up professor to discuss a little bit about the recommendations in this report. >> thank you. i've been working on a team with the applied technology council with the team of other academics and technical engineers to develop this. there's 16 recommendations in our plan. i won't a at the present time to go through all of them. a few of the high points, first to get a handle on the issues with tall buildings, we

initiated developing a data base of how many tall buildings are there in san francisco. what are their occupancy and about what types of materials were they built out of. depending on the age and materials of the buildings, we learned things through subsequent earthquakes. with concrete structure and in 1994 north ridge earthquake and l.a. we learned about fracture issues with frames. in the existing building inventory of tall buildings there's many of those tall steel moment frame buildings in the city. so from that, we developed recommendations and some of these are related to what we can do better on new buildings and there's some related to putting more pre and there are looking at tall buildings and recognizing current building codes just to protect life

safety of a building. they don't address recovery. thinking that tall buildings, especially those that are residential, are housing increasing number of people on the city and offices. on tall buildings, who we think of upping the seismic design requirements to address the issues of recovery to reduce the risk of damage and down time of the buildings. we also have a number of issues that are related to what you can do before an earthquake to address the existing building stock. one of these is looking back at the types of buildings that these welded steel moment frames that were damaged in the north ridge earthquake, the earthquake occurred years before that here in san francisco and there's never been a systematic reassessment of those buildings. some of the connection fracture was not obvious. there's a start to look at the existing problem to go back and recommending to.

there are things on existing get a better handle on older buildings that may have deficiencies that are the trigger the building code can use to. when major buildings change hands, that might be a time to do an assessment of it and there's a major new tenant lease or something like that. there some of the recommendations for the new buildings and building eveners and commercial owners have insurance or other financial capital where when there's damage they'll be prepared to repair their buildings for their own ache and collectively for the community and liking and recognizing the stressors after earthquakes and the set of recommendations is looking at what we can do and anticipating

inspections after the earthquake. and of course, california the city of san francisco emphasized a lot doing post earthquake buildings inspections, training people and getting volunteered lined up and so fourth but are there issues to tall buildings or systems that can be more proactive. san francisco has pioneered a system program building occupancy program that is voluntary that any building owners can lineup ahead of time and do studies and inspect and recover and to exercise that board program and run a field exercise and think about if it should be required or some version of it be pride for some, tall buildings or gone back to existing ones. there's a number of sort of recommendations on being better prepared to following an earthquake and to inspect tall buildings and if there's damage to tall building and sometimes

that can trigger larger assessment and retro fits and to again, reassess whether those triggers in the building code and how they apply to the inventory of tall buildings that exist there now and also the steel frames, concrete building and they're specialized guidelines that have been developed over the years to inspect those to make sure that they're part of the program here. finally, our last set of recommendations is to continue to enhance this data base of tall buildings with more buildings and with also getting more information, different types of information on the buildings and in fact, then to use that to look at a plan for dense parts of districts three and six with low rise and just to kind of go through and anticipate what some of the issues might be better prepared for those issues. that's a snapshot of those 16 recommendations.

>> are there any questions? we'll open up for q and a. >> yes. >> so, there were 156 tall buildings, why now? and why not before now? >> well, i'll just say this, san francisco has had one of the most -- some of the most stringent building codes in the country. there's been and we always are looking at how do we improve those codes? just saying that in what was different now is that we're looking at existing buildings. we're always moving forward in improving our code for new buildings. now we're going to go back and look at existing buildings and see what can we do to go back and make those more resilient. not just making sure that we can get out after a major disaster. but now that more and more people in this area, what can we do to make sure everyone stays

in place. >> two years ago, when there was a huge attention to tall buildings. as a result, we want to make sure there's trust in government. the trust in our regulators and we want to make sure we do it in a transparent and un bias way and that's why we asked the -- that's why mayor lee asked us to reach out to some of the academics and engineers who weren't conflicted and worked on some of these tall buildings in the downtown san francisco area. they helped us with our review of our existing building codes. and see what we can do to even go above and beyond what we already do. and again, just look at the resilience. we would like to stay in san francisco when the next one, the next big one hits or anything else and so we want to make sure that we're able to stay and live here in san francisco. and be a safe place for our residents and tourists and

visitors. >> thank you for the question. also, i'm one of the authors of the study. i have a team. so, this type of fractures that occurred in the 1994 north ridge earthquake, occurred in a time of welded steel program popular for buildings of various rights uheights. from the 1970s up to the northridge earthquake. that was the type of construction used throughout, especially the western u.s. it would effect los angeles,

seattle, oakland. it's not unique to san francisco. that would have occurred in all of these cities. i think this is kind of one of the first efforts i think to really look back and start to address and be proactive about starting to look more carefully at assessing those buildings. i would emphasize, you hear in the news and l.a. has an ordinance on the book for non ductal concrete buildings the level of risk in those is much, much higher than what we expect in the welded steel moment frames. it's reasonable that it wasn't on the top of the list but now, because of the large inventory of them here to be proactive looking at them is why now? >> is there a priority? how do you prioritize it? there were 15 major recommendations. what are the priorities with the top? are you going to enact them all

at once? >> let me turn it back to naomi. in our report that you have there, we listed the end, out of those 16 recommendations, short, medium and long-term. we didn't feel we could prioritize them. they're all important. the short, medium and long-term, we prioritized in terms of which were low-hanging fluid that you. the others would be long-term. we provided that input to the city. in terms of priorities, my sense is that needs to be a continuing discussion amongst agencies. >> sure, we can. but i have another question over here. >> what about buildings going down --

>> we did look at that. that was a question we got. so a few things. first, in the building inventory, we tried to identify of the existing 156 buildings what foundation types they have and we have to look at the numbers but out of that 156, there's three or four that have the drilled shafts that go to bedrock. we point out in our reports, one of our recommendations is to for a group to put together an administrative bulletin or information sheet to take the best practice in geo technical engineering and the foundation design is less pre descriptive in the building code. it's to try to get the best practice from the geo technical engineering community and others to kind of agree on that and for the city to have kind of a incorporate that they're building code or to have that as

an administrative bulletin. part of that answer you would get from every geo technical foundation engineer is whether or not a foundation goes to bedrock is building-specific. it's very site specific. so while in the popular press, it might say every building should do that there's no reason to do that. it would be a number one a waste of resources to do that every case and there's also even in more environmental impacts when you are going down to those depths. >> don. most of the -- out of those 156, except for three or four, some of them are on shallow foundations, map foundations that might be on rock or shallow stand layers and some of them are on pile foundations with the mat. >> are they the most vulnerable? >> going through the site exploration, i mean, geo technical engineers and this is

not around san francisco and around the world. this is something geo technical engineers focus on. what's the best foundation type. there's important cost implications in performances so the community at large does a good job on it. what our recommendation does is helps san francisco and the building department here have their own set of a little bit more pre descriptive or requirements on good perhaps that will building departments look at that. >> yeah. well, the current building code requirements, these are two in san francisco and across the u.s., it's based on a national standard. it says that under an expected earthquake, which is sort of the one we assessed in the studies we did, that buildings can drift

two percent. that means that under this very large earthquake, if you had a story height that was 100 inches, two inches. and under more severe quakes it's more. that's a level where it damages the non structural components. interior partisan walls. curtain walls. they are designed to accommodate that drift and not lose the facade but drop it off. it could cause leakage problems. one of our recommendations is to revisit that and to think about tightening it up. part of why we do that for tall buildings too, because of a variety of design constraints we did a survey of many of the tall building that's have been until the in san francisco, los angeles, seattle and other cities, and many of the buildings don't approach or don't typically push that maximum limit of that 2%. some of them are close to one or one and a half percent. we're asking look at that and if

that could improve the recovery of these buildings to think about imposing that, here in san francisco, it's along the lines of these initiatives to have functional recovery or recovery based or occupancy and it's going in that direction. not yet. when we bantered around, it might be a number of one or one and a half percent instead of the two. but that is something i think, our recommendation is really in san francisco it has a long history of this is to bring together groups of engineers, structure engineers to really talk about that and sort through the issues and come up with a consensus on what a good number it would be. >> all new buildings are safe.

all existing buildings are. all the recommendations are important. the example of puerto rico, you know, we've been reading about in the news media how the biggest loss of life in puerto rico from the hurricane was not during the hurricane but it was the slow recovery for the year after it. part of our recommendations here so to make sure the areas of california can recover better so people get emergency care and all those things. there's not a direct relationship between any of these and say lives. >> i think from our perspective, and the recommendations that apply to emergency management and response, are around accelerating our ability and resources to do assessments.

so we can determine the extent of damage. again, we expect that, as the professor states, we don't expect to have complete failure of these buildings. our bigger concern, probably is the longer term recovery and when we can get people back in the residentses and businesses back up so we're looking at that from that perspective. it will take a lot of resources to get engineers to do the type of assessments we need. and then we're looking at -- we've committed to putting together a financial, a specific financial district response plan because there's some, with all these buildings there's a unique environment and particular challenges that will have as far as that goes. so working with building owners and businesses residential and neighborhoods in these areas to look at longer term recovery and

immediate response. >> i really wouldn't add anymore to that many of this is the type of thing that keeps us awake at night. how we can get better at this. the program we have in place we're evolved and trying to improve that. we have a program we're trying to influence new building owners to participate. it will help us and the recovery. getting people back into their buildings quicker and sooner. this is the thing we're always evolving and trying to improve on. >> that was a great question. anybody else want to answer?

[laughter] >> in terms of how it was founded, it's an interesting story. the day after the north ridge earthquake, you didn't read about this in the headlines and the fact it was different ways. it was one building i know that had residual draft. other ended on broading to inspect those in a couple of those and they looked into the connection and spotted some of these fractures and there was one building under construction where the connections were exposed so that is how it was found. and then that -- you know, it became, it was so obvious in the few that was found, if you look at newspaper articles a time a month or two after the earthquake they said and if we want a year later it was 100 buildings after they had a proactive inspection program. that's how it was found. it was due to a combination of design and detailing practices and how they connection details that were used and the weld medals and the welding processes and since that time, the steel industry has stepped up and have

much more stringent requirements on those types of systems and in terms of of what can be done, some of these building have been retro fit and meaning that that would involve going in and removing and replacing the weld medal. it's augmenting with braces or viscuk dampers. i think one of the questions is like how do you start that process if you have a building that is vintage, there's actually inspection protocols and one of our recommendation snow squalls to bring those forward into make more known in the city. they are statistical based. if you have a building of that vintage you open up and look at connections and if you see damage, look at a few more. at some point, if you don't see damage, you are reasoning you don't have that problem. >> well, in our data base and we focus on buildings and the number is about 60 or 70.

i have been asked that question. now there's many buildings, that's 240 feet. there's many other steel frame buildings below that. one of our recommendations, for the city to require an inspection of steel frame buildings that existed in 1989, would trigger that, which could be -- how that's crafted whether it's all buildings or the taller buildings is remains to be seen. i don't know the number for all the steel buildings in the city. >> all right. well, i do know that the city, along with the department of building inspection, the department of emergency management, my office and our board of supervisors and mayor look forward to this report and start implementing the recommendations. thank you very much for being here today.

>> a way of life in san francisco. when the next major quake hits, the city hopes a new law requiring seismic upgrades to five story buildings will help keep more residents safe and sound. tell me a little about the soft story program. what is it? >> it's a program the mayor signed into law about a year and a half ago and the whole idea behind it was to help homeowners strengthen buildings so that they would not collapse. >> did you the soft story

program apply to all buildings or building that were built in a certain time frame? >> it only applies to buildings built in the time frame of 1978 and earlier. it's aimed at wood framed buildings that are three or more stories and five or more units. but the openings at the garage level and the street level aren't supported in many buildings. and without the support during a major earthquake, they are expected to pancake and flatten ~. many of the buildings in this program are under rent control so it's to everybody's advantage to do the work and make sure they protect their investment and their tenant. >> notices have gone out to more than 6,000 owners of potentially at-risk properties but fewer than one-third have responded and thousands might miss an important deadline in september to tell the city what they plan to do.

let's talk worst case scenario. what happens in a collapse? >> buildings have the tendency of rolling over. the first soft story walls lean over and the building collapse. in an earthquake the building is a total loss. >> can you describe what kind of strengthening is involved in the retrofit? >> one of the basic concepts, you want to think of this building kind of like rubber band and the upper three floor are very rigid box and the garage is a very flexible element. in an earthquake the garage will have a tendency to rollover. you have to rubber band analogy that the first floor is a very tough but flexible rubber band such that you never drive force he to the upper floors. where all your damage goes into controlled element like plywood or steel frame. >> so, here we are actually inside of a soft story building. can we talk a little about what kinds of repairs property

owners might expect? >> it's a very simple process. we deliberately tried to keep it that way. so, what's involved is plywood, which when you install it and make a wall as we have done here already, then you cover it with this gypsum material. this adds some flexibility so that during the earthquake you'll get movement but not collapse. and that gets strengthened even more when we go over to the steel frame to support the upper floor. >> so, potentially the wood and the steel -- it sounds like a fairly straightforward process takes your odds of collapse from one in 4 to one in 30? >> that's exactly right. that's why we're hoping that people will move quickly and make this happen. >> great. let's take a look. so, let's talk steel frames. tell me what we have going on

here. >> well, we have a steel frame here. there are two of these and they go up to the lower floor and there is a beam that go across, basically a box that is much stiffer and stronger. ~ goes so that during the earthquake the upper floor will not collapse down on this story. it can be done in about two weeks' time. voila, you're done. easy. >> for more information on how to get your building earthquake ready, >> good morning. today is wednesday, september 19th, 2018. this is a regular meeting of the abatement and appeals board. i would like to remind everyone to turn off all electronic devices. the first item on the agenda is

roll call. [ roll call ] >> we have a quorum. and the next item is item b. will all parties giving testimony today please stand and raise your right hand. do you swear the testimony you're about to give is the truth to the best of your knowledge. thank you. you may be seated. just for everyone's information, the way that the abatement appeals board will work is the department will present its case first, then the appellant. each side has seven minutes to present their case. then there will be public comment. each member of the pub has three minutes to speak. lastly, there's rebuttal time of

three minutes each for the department and appellant. >> approval of minutes. the meeting held on august 2018. >> next item is item d. case 6849386 pier street. action requested by appellant.

>> we have multiple complaints, phone calls from this property, stating that since 2010 there's nothing that's been done in this property. it was a cottage that has basically almost deteriorated, multiple dry rot issues. violation 2010 to correct the unsafe condition, which requires that notice. the owner had a building permit,

but later we found out that all those permits that were obtained, basically the building was rebuilt. there's planning, zoning approval. we started getting the phone call. hey, this was exceeded, can you guys come out. we went out, issued a notice of violation for what we saw there. we couldn't get access to the property, but we got access to the neighbor's property, and we could see it. some of the permits ask for the work or the property to be repaired in kind, but, again, those permits never went through planning. it wasn't routed to planning. there are we wrote a notice to violation.

staff is recommended to uphold the abatement and impose the cost. >> any questions? >> no, not at this point. >> okay. no questions for you. thank you so much. someone like to come forward? thank you. good morning. the levinson family. mr. levinson is stuck in traffic. he's coming from the parking garage. over time, as you've heard about, the property became dilapidated. he was ordered to repair the structure. he did get permits, hired the contractor. the contractor went out and did the work and unfortunately found

dry rot and removed more of the structure than was supposed to without the owner's knowledge or instructions to do that. the owner is in a very unfortunate position that the contractor has put him in but diligently trying to fix the problem. at this point, we have this new nov because more was removed from the structure than was supposed to be. so we have filed applications with planning department for conditional use permit and a variance because it's in the rear yard. that's been, i will say, difficult dealing with the planning process. it's taken longer than we wanted it to. we're diligently pursuing it and i think we're approaching the end of the process now. we just received notices back from the planner who's reviewing the applications. i think the last thing he's asked for is a couple of edits to the site plan, and then i think we're going to have a hearing date shortly.

so, you know, i appreciate everyone's patience on this. we are doing everything we can. the goal from the owner is to save what is a naturally affordable housing unit. it's a small dwelling unit that's been here forever and ever. we're going through, i think, more hassle in the permitting process than we would if they had just wanted to get rid of it. they're trying to save it. so we appreciate your interest in this. we would be grateful for more time to finish the process. what is there now will require substantial change to respect the neighbors wishes to see less of the structure. so that's what we've gone through with planning, modifying the plans. pes coivich, the structural engineer is here as well.

i will turn the microphone over to him. >> so planning has determined if the building was torn down. they're requiring an additional use hearing for permission after the fact to tear it down, and we've been instructed since there's a natural affordable housing unit there, that as part of the condition to tear it down, you have to put it back. so planning has been very diligent to make sure whatever goes back is respectful to the neighbors. there was an issue about what got build was taller, and so a lot of this has been making sure that whatever goes back is as small as possible to return a unit. there was parking back there underneath the unit, so the parking is on the second floor, and then underneath. most of the unit is being put on the ground floor, and we're having to deal with the moisture issue of the soil. planning has reviewed the plans. they're now willing to move forward with some additional

comments on dimension. when this started in 2010, the owner could have removed the unit, but he didn't. he wanted to keep it. we're trying to keep it. plannings wants to keep it. i'm sure everyone wants to keep as much affordable housing as we can. we've been brought in. we were not the original people there. >> relatively recently. >> right. and we want to get a unit back. that's what is being asked for, put a unit back as part of the condition. and it's in the rear. i've been out to what is built. it's framed. i'm not worried about the safety of the building. it may not be there with my new plans, but i'm not worried about the safety of that building. >> commissioner walk sneer? >> i know it's hard to estimate the time frame, but can you estimate the time frame of the process for the hearing and building, assuming that there is

a -- >> well, planning has given me three comments they want to check some dimensional issues. that should happen within this week or next. i can get that and resubmit it. we're now, instead of submitting a brand new permit, they want to reuse the 2015 permit and the 2015 variance, so we've got to figure out a way to take my drawings and insert it into the 2015, which is some conversation about the exact location. i would expect by next week planning should have whatever they need to move forward to schedule cu. they're going to reuse the previous paperwork by the other consultants, which should be fine to schedule a planning. i would believe planning would want to move this forward because they're not happy about what happened, but they want the unit back now, which is what we're trying to do. >> thank you. >> i would expect a couple of months for the hearing. >> well, to get a hearing date.

>> yeah. >> i think planning is currently scheduling hearings several months out. if there's a continuance of the hearing, which often happens at planning, then, you know, hopefully six months, we'll start to finish. the request would be for a continuance here for a year but we're happy to come back so you're updated through the process. the risk here is if fines are imposed under the order of abatement, that starts to tip the economics to where it's just cheaper and financially feasible to abandon the project and demolish it there, but we don't want to do that. that's why we were requesting if you can give us at least some continuance and hold those fines in abay so it's not tipping against affordable housing. >> got it. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> thanks for the drawings.

>> can you tell me what was the 2015 permit application for? what were you trying to do? i have a follow-up question with that. >> it was to fix the dry rot. >> i'm not even trying to excuse it. >> that's what the -- i mean, that's what's solicited in the permit data, but what was the appellant applying for? the initial notice of violations for the dilapidated building, they obtained permits in 2010 and, i believe, 2012 to repair that structure. began construction and then removed too much. >> and started rebuilding beyond

scope. >> so what was the rebuild? >> i believe that's true. i will double-check the permitting records. >> then my follow-up -- [ off microphone ] >> my follow-up question is: what was the state of the building at that time? what were you doing? was there work going on? did it stop? what happened? >> the building was in pretty bad condition. 2010? >> 2015. was anyone working on it. >> they were building. the departments got involved, and it stopped. when it stopped, it was basically framed. i believe i was at a planning commission hearing where it was taller than it was supposed to be also. >> so it has been like that since? >> yes, it's been like that the last couple of years, trying to figure it out. >> that's what i was trying to figure out. thank you.

>> are you required to sprinkle the units in the back? >> that has not been brought up yet because i'm still at the planning department, but that may be a requirement of the building as a new structure because it's more than 75 feet from the street. >> yep. all new buildings have to be sprinklered per the code. just to give you a heads-up, you probably want to jump on that right upfront before you go farther down this road because that's a real problem right now. i'm not sure you're going to have enough costs to sprinkle to the back. >> water won't talk to you until you have something to show them. i worry about that too there are systems i've done where there's fire -- for single family homes, a water tank of a

certain size -- a holding tank of a certain size, so you would have to run the line down there. i'm going to take a wild guess that's what we're going to be looking at. we've done that on single family homes. >> okay. well, that's an option i never heard before. >> it's about bringing in supply is about $50,000. the system is about 30. it's not cheap, but when you have a problem getting water, this is a possibility, particularly if you have low pressure. >> that's good. >> yeah. so if we're talking time and schedule here, i really think you need to jump on that and factor that in here. i think that's going to be one of the biggest above and beyond all the others you have. >> thank you. >> how many square feet was it original original originally. >> it was on the second floor. there were exterior stairs to get to that, which planning doesn't want. i think it was 25 feet by 20. so about 500 square feet. it wasn't very large.

we're putting it on the first floor. the problem is there's a section of the ground floor and i can't solve the moisture issue. we're making that area kind of storage. we're going to put one bedroom on the second floor pulled in from the sides for respect of the neighbors. so by the time it's done, it will be roughly the same size of habitable to habitable. it wasn't very big. it's a naturally affordable unit. >> thank you. >> to answer commissioner lee's question, the 2015 permit number 201509096439, the cope of work is to comply with n.o.v. 3109999 and rear building and 201211144171 for reconstruction of the rear building. replace all rot in stud walls. second floor framing with new members. they're trying to cover that

work that had been done by the contractor. >> okay. any other questions? >> thank you. >> nice package, by the way. >> rebuttal? >> this is example of why we want pre-inspections. >> rebuttal by the department, please. >> we'll have to do public comment first. any public comment on this item? seeing none, department rebuttal? >> the issue with this case is it's been sitting there since 2010. there's also an abatement and appeals decision in 2012 to shore the building up. and so this is a good example of serial permitting where they get these permits and that permit,

there was a revision to that permit in the same year. revision to clarify and structure information, removal of deteriorated roof, second-floor framing, stud walls, and replace them per approval. and that is the permit that never got routed to planning. that basically gave them the idea they could remove the whole frame. it would have been a lot easier for them to work with the housing inspector, even get the building inspector involved. we have a system for emergency demolition purposes. one of the plans, they actually attach pictures to it. it's in file. it shows some of the walls in really bad shape. so that would have been the option. right now, we have a case eight years, and yet we still have phone calls complaining, calling yous y us and saying, hey, why is the department sitting on this case. >> what is the nature of fines and assessments? >> to be honest, it's been

minimal. we tried to work with the owner. we put a fee and $15,000 worth of work. so we tried to work with the owner on this. right now, it's all -- if he wants to get the permit and the monthly fees plus the final bill. >> so we're talking about how much again, approximately? >> a few thousand dollars. >> so we're not -- >> yeah. okay. >> commissioner mccarthy? >> yes, these projects, a few thousand dollars here and there add up. i do respectfully agree with you on the term. i don't see it as serial permitting because they didn't have to do this in the first place. this could have been removed. they were trying to preserve housing. there's no gain trying to cheat the system. that's one of the problems we're having here right now, you know, this 317.

we're trying to change this whole operation code and demolition because they exceed the permit -- we're going through a whole re-education with everything on that. i see that falling into that category as well. i think there's been good outreach now, particularliily p the here today. i think we're preserving housing. this is case in point of going what we have to do. if we can somehow support our commissioners and defer this, i do respect what you're trying to do, and it's your job to follow through with the permits, and i'm not trying to undermine that, but we have a good case where we can work with the particular appellant at this stage, if that's possible. >> any comments from other commissioners? okay. i think that we're all of a mind that we want affordable housing preserved in this city and as commissioner mccarthy just

brought up, you know, this is part of a much larger problem that we're experiencing. you know, the illegal demolition issue is one of the most sensitive issues that's going on in the city, and in one sense we're working to see that our standards and planning standards are more aligned. hope fly, we'll have clearer direction for you so we can go forward with that a little bit better. i believe we need rebuttal from the client at this point. >> if you read the notice, we didn't consider this an unlawful demo. you ke see how long it's taken. so we are trying to work with the owner. we've been trying to work with the owner. >> thank you.

>> ryan patterson. i want to be clear. we're not trying to excuse what the previous team did in terms of processing here and what the contractor did. it's hard to understand why they went through all of that process, but at this point, pat and i and the rest of the team are trying to do everything we can to fix the problem and get this housing restored. i want to thank dbi. i think they've been very diligent in staying on top of. this we don't fault them for this process either. just so you know what we've done, we brought in an architectural preservationist to restore it to the type of previous construction. we've gone through a whole long process. i think we're just about to the end of it.

>> if there's anything we can do, we'll be happy to do it. >> commissioner walker? >> i think it's laudable that there's an attempt to preserve this as affordable housing, but there was clear violations presented by the staff in the initial -- i believe it's appropriate for a motion to uphold the order of abatement, assess fees to the current date. hold in advance for a year and give this time to play out and hopefully encourage moving forward with replacing this housing. i think there's acknowledgment

on both sides that there was problems in the beginning. there's all sorts of things that are not followed in this case. i move to uphold the order of abatement, assess fees to current date, waive fees, as possible, going forward, and hold an advance for one year. >> would you want a six-month follow-up? >> it would be good to have an update periodically. yes, my attorney wants to advise me. >> i'm with the attorney's office. i wanted to make sure you provide a basis for your motion. >> the motion is it's clear that the initial demolition and work

beyond scope in rebuilding the building was without appropriate approval from planning. so this is a violation of both the legal demolition and building beyond scope. >> in terms of rescheduling this, are you contemplating just hearing from the parties about status? the board would not be able to take further action on the case once you decide it now. >> i think it's just informational. i mean, clearly, if we're giving you a year to do it, at a year this goes into effect. >> can i just restate the motion? >> please. >> the motion by commissioner walker is uphold abatement, impose the assessment of cost to and waive any costs going forward as possible. hold the order of abatement in advance for a period of one year from today's date. >> correct. >> and the basis for that motion

would be what you stated earlier that essentially the abatement order was properly issued. >> great. >> do i have a second? >> second. >> okay. >> there's a motion and a second. i will do a roll call vote. [ voting ] >> motion carries unanimously. abatement. e. continued appeal: order of abatement 1. case no. 6848: 780 post street owner of record & appellant: st. francis terrace llc, 1201 fulton street, san

francisco, ca 94117 and david lagomarsino, 1201 fulton street, san francisco, ca 94117-1507 action requested by appellant: re-inspection by senior alan davison and reversal of the order of abatement. testimony, deliberation and possible action to uphold, modify or reverse the order of abatement. >> good morning. the acting chief housing inspector, andrew clarks, declined to appear, so normally we would have our, the person who supervised this case come, which is senior housing inspector alan davidson. he's not at the office today. we asked him to come last time too, and he was out of the office that day as well. so i'm here before you this morning. case history at 780 post street, case began in january where we found a problem with the elevator. and we went over this at the last hearing. the case went to director's hearing, and that was approved by senior housing inspector alan

davidson as well. the owner was given a continuance of that hearing. the case was reheard. the owner was given additional time. the order of abatement was finally determined to be issued in june, and then this appeal was filed. one of the issues that came up last time was regarding cal osha. that's the regulatory body for elevators in california. here's a copy of the permit for this elevator. it shows that it expired in january of 2016. almost three years ago. >> november, i think. >> november, yeah.

you are right. thank you. and then the next -- what happens then is cal osha sends a letter to the owner. it says the application is being proce processed. it says the expired permit is considered valid by the state until an inspector can be dispatched to the inspection that's currently due. >> and is that the letter for this particular elevator or is it standard? >> it looks standard. >> so we assume they have complied? >> they said they complied. it shows you cal osha, even though it's been two years with an expired permit, and they're still not looking at this elevator yet. also at the last hearing, people were talking a little bit about

signage, about how many people were going to be on the elevator, which could create problems in levelling the elevator. this sign was up all year. so this sign was currently up there even when we had the last hearing, and we're still having these problems. we don't always go deeply into this history of every case that comes before you. but since there were so many questions last time, we decided -- i had my staff look this up. it's hard to see because it's very small, but each line here represents a case at this building. it has a history of elevator cases. one, two, three, four, five, six, and they began 12 years ago. so this has been a