>>. >> and from the planning department, we have scott sanchez, acting deputy zoning administrator. natalia -- aaron starr, manager of legislative affairs. also, we have deputy city attorney peter bodonic who will be assisting the board: >> people affiliated with these parties must include their comments within these seven or

three minute periods. members or public who are not affiliated with the parties have three minutes to address the board, no rebuttal. to assist the board with the accurate preparation of minutes, you are asked but not required to submit a speaker card located to the left side of the podium before you speak. this meeting is broadcast live on sfgovtv cable channel 78 and will be rebroadcast fridays at 6:00 on channel 26. the video is available on wrur website. can also be ordered from sfgovtv.org. now, we will swear in or affirm any person who wishes to testify. if you wish to testimony at any

of tonight's proceedings, and you wish the board to give your testimony evidentiary weight, please stand if you are able and say i answer or affirm. okay. commissioners, we have one housekeeping item. item number seven has been withdrawn. this is peal -- appeal 18-159. this item has been withdrawn and will not be heard. so we will now move onto item number 1, which is general public comment. this is an opportunity for anyone who would like to speak on a matter within the board's jurisdiction but that is not on tonight's calendar. is there anyone here for general public comment? okay. we will move onto item number two, commissioner comments and

questions. commissioners? okay. we will now move onto item number three, the adoption of the minutes. before you for discussion and possible adoption are the minutes of the january 23, 2019 board meeting. >> president fung: any corrections to the minutes? >> commissioner lazarus: move to adopt. >> clerk: okay. we have a motion to adopt from commissioner lazarus the minutes of the board meeting of january 23, 2019. [roll call] >> clerk: okay. the minutes are adopted 4-0. we will now move onto item four. this is a special item and informational presentation from the planning department staff outlining the city's accessory dwelling unit program and brief discussion of proposed legislation. this is board file 18-1156, amending the a.d.u. program. thank you all for coming down to educate us.

>> thank you. marselle boudreaux, planning department. i'll kick off and just give you an overview of the program and where it stands as far as where property owners can add units on their property, and then, after that, my colleague will talk to you about some procedures and process improvements, and then, veronica florez will give you legislative review. this will be brief, so if you have questions following your presentation, we'll be happy to answer questions. i do have some handouts of the presentation that might be helpful as we're going through. i don't know how to get them to you. >> president fung: provide them to gary. >> so current status, where we are at the moment in the city

is that accessory dwelling units are permitted in most of the city. so if there is a permit that permits residential use and the building has an established residential unit, an a.d.u. is approved. that is where we are generally. since 2013, we have thought about the accessory dwelling units as two different programs. the one on the left, the waiver program is a program that we've had kind of in effect since 2014 which became citywide in 2016, which is our waiver program, where property owners can receive administrative exceptions from the planning code to add one or more units to their property. since 2017, probably summer, the city adopted the state law,

so we adopted our local version of state law, which allows single-family homes to add one unit as long as everything is code compliant. so that's kind of the overview, so when we really talk to the public, what we're referencing today is our waiver and no waiver program. so just give you a brief highlight, our waiver and waiver exception programs. additions are now permitted to incorporate the a.d.u. a.d.u.s are generally created from under utilized within the ground and basement floor, up to 25% of a unit or habitable space can also be converted to the unit. there are a few exceptions here. number of a.d.u.s varies. i have a more detailed slide on the next slide, and we can talk more about that. depends on how many units exist.

if a -- if an a.d.u. is added to a building is rent controlled, and any waivers or granted, then the a.d.u. or a.d.u.s is going to be subject to rent control. again, the whole purpose baked into the planning code are some administrative exceptions which are kind of outlined in that box. and lastly within the legislation are some wait times related to certain types of evictions, and so there are -- depending on the type of eviction outlined, there are certain wait times. again, depending on how many units exist on the lot, there are one less than what's to be added to the property. as long as it can fit within all of the code requirements, planning, building, fire, etc. so the last program -- or

second program is our no waiver program, and so this one's a little simpler. single-family home can add one unit. the a.d.u. can be created from any portion of the existing home or from an existing structure on the lot. the a.d.u.s are permitted within any kind of addition on the lot, and currently that does require notice on our code. the a.d.u. can be rented because we are asked that quite frequently, and the unit may be subjected to some components of the rent ordinance, not to rent control, but some components of the rent ordinance. so this is my last slide, and so this is just to say that once the owner can determine where and how many units are going to be added to the lot which is really kind of the first step, then, there are other agencies, codes, and requirements that are then

reviewed, and this just outlines some of the different requirements, different agencies, and it kind of highlights some of the equivalencies, local equivalencies that building have, and some of the different departments that have worked together. so i'm going to kick it over to my colleague, natalia, who will talk a little bit more about some of the multiagency work that we've been doing. thank you. >> good evening, commissioners. i'll briefly outline some of the resources and procedures that are related to accessory dwelling units. as a response to the mayor's executive directive regarding a.d.u.s, which was released last year, the mayor in collaboration with other city agencies is testing out a stream lined review for all a.d.u.s. this differs from our sort of

regular linear process that we regularly review permits, and this was implemented as a response to the mayor's executive directives. other improvements are multiagency a.d.u. check list, optional meetings with planning, d.b.i., and fire, and continued availability of dedicated a.d.u. staff from all city agencies at public counters. the flow chat on this slide -- chart on this slide briefly outlines the process required by the city before constructing a.d.u. the a.d.u. hand box that you see on this slide discusses all the planning, fire and building components and offers typical conditions in san francisco. this handbook is a great guide for owners and building professionals to gain some common ground when discussing

technical items. and on this slide, you can see the screening form, and this was in response to public input. the department of building inspection, in collaboration with planning, updated the screening form to include an owner affidavit section related to housing services. this stemmed from a balanced approach to increase the city's housing supply and protection of existing tenants. neither d.b.i. nor planning retains purview over the components of housing services. the rent board can offer guidelines to tenants and landlords when a reduction in housing services is contemplated. i will hand this off to my colleague, remember an can, who will outline the -- veronica, who will outline the procedures. >> good evening, commissioners. before getting into the details

of the proposed ordinance before us, here is a quick snapshot of the evolution of a.d.u.s. so what simply started as a pilot program in the castro in 2014 has become the robust program that we have today. we have the two a.d.u. programs that staff had described earlier. a.d.u.s are now allowed citywide, and there's more flexibility to add a.d.u.s, including through additions to existing buildings. the proposed legislation builds on these efforts to expand opportunities to add a.d.u.s and also streamlines the review process. the ordinance will allow a.d.u.s in proposed buildings for both the waiver and no waiver programs. so this means we now have the opportunity to add a.d.u.s to new construction buildings.

the ordinance also introduces changes specifically to the no waiver program. again, these are the a.d.u.s in single-family homes that are fully client with the planning code. tonight, i wanted to focus on some of the changes that will impact your review. the first change is that all a.d.u.s under the no waiver program will be ministerial. previously, only the a.d.u.s that met all of the criteria under this program are not ministerial. so the a.d.u.s that did have expansions required, neighborhood notification which were subject to discretionary review or had the option for discretionary review. we no longer have that path or avenue, so if there are any appeals, it will appear before this board.

the second change that pertains to you is that all permits filed on a.d.u. projects in the no waiver program will be need to heard by this board within ten to 30 days of the appeal filing. additionally, this board may not entertain a motion for a rehearing on said appeals. we are here to get your feedback on said changes, and we will also be taking this in front of planning commission on february 14. if you have any major concerns or comments, we encourage you to submit the comments directly to the board of supervisors per the memo sent to you on december 5, 2018. thank you, and we are available to answer any questions. >> i've got a question. >> president fung: wait. did she say she was done? >> i know recently, the city

was not issued any building permits in regards to ellis act a building, but that was recently litigated. >> hi. marselle boudreaux. within this recent round of legislative amendments, there will be an inclusion to remove the ellis act as a prohibition against adding an a.d.u. to the property. >> so if one has done an ellis act, you'd still be able to do an a.d.u. >> conducting ellis act on the property is no longer a prohibition against adding an a.d.u. >> okay. and next question was during recently -- the a.d.u. program had quite a queue because fire had not agreed on a lot of stuff that was done. can you tell me how that was done? >> i can speak to process improvements generally. so let me pull up a slide real

quick. >> okay. >> sorry. i have to read this off the screen. as natalia did note, there's also been action related to streamlining overall for the building permits. one of those is kind of parallel processing and kind of concurrent review by all of the agencies where we also issue a combined -- >> well i was just asking -- sorry to interrupt you. i know a lot of a.d.u.s was held up because fire was holding them up, so i don't

know the backlog. >> sorry. i know when the local equivalency was released. >> commissioner honda: okay. and the city is umm canning on-line with the state a.d.u. program -- >> okay. just a minute. >> marselle boudreaux. as far as we're aware, there has not been any change in the statement on rear cottages. it is permitting them in existing detached auxiliary structures or is it allows folks who build new structures and propose them to be a.d.u.s. >> so -- veronica florez, planning department staff. so the ordinance allows for the a.d.u.s in new construction, so

this is actually a big shift and a big opportunity that we have now. >> so if someone did want to build a rear yard a.d.u. that was in the buildable area, they would be able to do so in an auxiliary detached structure in their building. >> within the buildable area. >> okay. thank you. >> i guess i have a question about the window of peal. i'm just curious why this would allow some cases to jump over other cases. >> commissioner honda: boy, we're getting everybody. >> my understanding is that the sponsor of this ordinance chose to shorten the time for your consideration of the appeal in order to help the city meet the required 120-daytime line f ti

the city to act on the statewide a.d.u. application. the city is under a lot of stress to process and approve or disapprove these permit applications in four months, and so that's the motivation behind shortening your timeline. >> so we're at the tail end of that shortened process. >> you are. >> okay. >> president fung: i have some general questions and specific questi questions. first, did the planning department analyze or determine which areas of san francisco would be the greatest source of a.d.u.s? >> hi. marselle boudreaux.

would you mind repeating your question. i missed the end part of that. >> president fung: did the department either analyze or determine which areas of our city they have the potentially greatest number of a.d.u.s. >> the planning department recently reprojected the overall number of a.d.u.s that would be potentially added citywide over the 20-year span as we generally look at most kind of planned areas and their housing production. however, as far as current citywide planning group, we looked at residentially zoned lots. >> president fung: okay.

back in the mid90's, there was a proposal to legalize additional units, especially in the sunset and richmond for the rooms down, you know, that were an extra unit that wouldn't have been allowed in a single-family zone. during the course of that proposal and the discussion, issue raised in terms of environmental review as to whether that review would support the density change and parking requirements, etc., etc. were those environmental type of questions answered as part of the department's environmental review for this program? >> the legislative analysis for

a.d.u.s was analyzed under the california environment cal quality act. there was an addendum to the housing element that was prepared. >> president fung: and what did it find in terms of parking demand? >> yfrl, i don't have those details, but i do know it was analyzed according to the requirements of ceqa. i don't have those details, unfortunately. there's something we could look into more detail for you fung fung then lfung -- >> president fung: >> then let me go to a more technical question. we had a case where light and exposure for a regular unit is 25 feet minimum, but the a.d.u.s allow 15 feet. how was that to be determined to satisfy light and air. >> sure.

i actually have a slide -- a bonus slide. >> she knew you were going to ask. >> president fung: maybe the question's been there before. >> i wanted to pare down my presentations in case it got too detailed. so on the presentation, it does talk about what our exposure to the planning code is. exposure is our requirement for access to natural light. as many people may know, the building code has a different or other requirement for access to light that can be met for potentially different ways. picking >> president fung: as you know, we primarily deal with neighbor-to-neighbor disputed. >> it used to be that the open area that the glazing for the room could face onto an area that was no less than 15 feet by 15 feet horizontal.

it was reduced last year to what's on the slide. so that's been in effect since end of last year. so these -- and i'm sorry. i forget your question. can you repeat your question. so i mean the -- >> president fung: yeah. let me repeat it. >> thank you. >> president fung: if the planning cede exposure's 25 feet, before a.d.u.s -- planning code exposure's 25 feet, before a.d.u.s, it's 15 feet. how did the author determine that 15 feet was adequate exposure requirement? >> the -- the department and the analysis -- this happened a little before my life, to be completely honest, but the analysis was done that, you know, looking at existing conditions and looking at other requirements for glazing that these units would still create

quality, and i have some. >> commissioner honda: bring in the ringer. >> thank you. scott sanchez, planning department. i was involved in these discussions at the time. first, it was done through a legislative process at the planning commission and the board of supervisors about what dimensions would be adequate for light and air. second, i think the 10-foot metric originally came up because under the planning code, you could have exposure that meets the planning code requirements that's only 15 feet, 15 by 25, because under code, you can have a code compliant yard that's shorter. finding that even through that process, we still found units that were less than 15 did i 15, just through our review of projects as they came in that

were still -- because we're seeing projects on a case-by-case basis. we're seeing some with less than that amount that in our opinion are still providing adequate light and air, so the requirement was reduced further. i would still note it's still a discretionary act to grant that waiver. so not every substandard exposure that is meeting the requirements of the code would be granted. there could be facts there. they'll lead us to believe that even meeting that dimensional requirement would be adequate. >> president fung: very subjective. that's my last question. >> i have one last question following on commissioner lazarus's question speaking to our workload or caseload. so the only ones that would be coming to us in ten or 30 days are the no-waiver program, and

the a.d.u.s that require a waiver would not be coming before this body or can you just explain the difference so we understand what to expect? >> veronica florez, planning department. so the single-family homes are fully code compliant, so only appeals on said projects would appear before this board. all fortunate other a.d.u.s in the waiver program would still have our current existing process where they have the -- where there's opportunity for a discretionary review to be heard and determined by the planning commission. >> president fung: i'm sorry. i had a last question. how many a.d.u. applications do we have in the pipeline, and how many have been approved to

date? >> i don't have the most up to date numbers. i know there's something like 900 from the planning department. >> president fung: last i heard from planning department, it was 600, but that's increased. do you know how many were proved? >> i don't have that number unfortunately. >> president fung: has it increased at this point? >> i don't have the number with me, unfortunately. >> do you have a knowledge of how many would you in this no waiver program? just from the volume that you see, were you opening up a whole new realm that wasn't previously available to people or just we're boosting up the no waiver program that already exists. >> sure. so last summer, planning prepared our tracking and monitoring report, so that's required per our -- the legislation, and it -- when i ran the numbers, we found that about 12% of all filings had

been single-family homes proposing to add one unit, and so, i mean, that could be a variety of reasons. the legislation, you know, was starting to come into play at the local level, more opportunities, you know, in the legislation, making it easier for owners to actually add the unit, so i think that every opportunity that there is to help stream line or make the process easier as well as thinking through and thank you for allowing me to speak, taking opportunities to create more user friendly public facing tools would just help that number increase is what we think. >> thank you. >> commissioner honda: i think scott has the number. >> i think the -- if i have the correct number, this is from

january 2019, there have been 1,008 participation screening forms submitted for this program. there have been 236 permits issued, 60 permits that have been approved and are waiting to be picked up. total number of actual a.d.u.s created using the program, 648 units is the number that i have here. but you know, we can -- there's a regular report coming from d.b.i., and if it's interesting to this board of appeals, we can try to present that regularly. >> president fung: can you clarify something. you said 600-something units created? the number of permits doesn't correlate to that very well. >> yeah.

maybe we can get more clarification from d.b.i. >> president fung: that's fair, but i'd be interested to have the department issue a memo to the board, if you will, on numbers just to give us an idea of what magnitude we're dealing with. >> yeah, because i think the d.b.i. has a reporting that they do, so we can ask them to forward that information to the board. >> president fung: that would be great. thank you very much. >> clerk: is there any public comment on this special item? seeing none, thank you very much for coming down today. we will now move onto item number five. this is peal number 18-157, joshua klipp versus san francisco public works bureau of urban forestry. subject property is 2465 vanness avenue, appealing the issuance on january 26, 2028 to bruce bauman, for planting, maintenance or sidewalk trees.

this is permit number 781669, and we'll hear from the appellant first. mr. klipp, you have seven minutes. >> thank you. and before we start, i'm just wondering if the commissioners have received the brief that i submitted. >> president fung: yes. >> okay. and i don't know if anything else was submitted. i didn't receive anything else. was there anything else submitted to the board? >> commissioner honda: you're the only one that supplied a brief. >> okay. i'll just go over kind of briefly what i laid out in p pretty excruciating detail in my brief. this all began in a hearing on september 24 of last year.

i protested an application by webcor, which is the sponsor of a project at the corner of smith and union to remove two healthy sycamore london planes. that appeal was ultimately issued. i filed an appeal to that. the board issued a suspension on the permit, and after that, the trees were cut down the next day any way. so just a little bit of history here. this project sponsor went through many hoops to get the permits for this project, and in getting those permits promised not only san francisco agencies but also san francisco residents that these trees would not be removed. i would also point out that these trees being located on

vanness were evaluated as part of the vanness bus rapid transit project and were specifically exempted and saved from that project, and that was very lengthy review of the trees along this corner and ultimately nearly 100 trees were taken out as a result of that, but these two were specifically preserved. after receiving all of the permits that webcor needed for this project, subsequent to that, they went ahead and applied to the department of urban forestry to take them out any way. webcor then supplied a letter concerning mostly general construction issues like loading in and general safety, staging, things like this, that would probably for a project of manager of webcor's expertise have been predictable. ultimately, as you know, we all

kind of know how that turned out, that the permit was issued, and my point is -- well, as you -- i don't want to just sort of keep going over my brief, but essentially, that the -- the city failed to do its job here, and i'm not speaking to the bureau of urban forestry, i'm speaking to public works in the evaluation of this application. webcor's reasons sort of kept growing and growing, they kept changing it until at the removal hearing, then came this, well now, we have prefabricated panels that we need to load in, and so that was introduced for the first time at that hearing. so without really going overall of the history of these trees at this location, public works gave them the permit. i'll just skip ahead to my request here. again, i've already gone into excruciating detail in my brief. i don't want to belabor the

point, but my request here is until webcor goes back and is doing with the public at this site, i would request the board suspend all of the permits that it has. going to the public and telling the public what you intend to do with the property is part of the process. getting buy-in from stakeholders and the community, and webcor did not do that. additionally, the bureau of urban forestry is staffed with really great arborists who are not engineers, who did not understand what webcor was asking here, and the reason they asked for it. i layout that i ask for all essential permits be revoked,

and they start from the beginning. that the director of public works order as only he can the pursuant of all criminal, civil penalties. i've also laid out a request for planting requirements, additional fine, and finally, paying me back because i had to pay $300 and another $300 to make 11 copies of the brief that i submitted to all of you. and basically, what is my -- my remedy here has been denied because the trees were taken out already. so thank you. >> commissioner honda: thank you. >> clerk: thank you. is the permit holder here? mr. bell, anybody from webcor? okay. so we will move onto the department. bureau of urban forestry.

clip cl klipp baumbauman . >> so when trees are removed without a permit, obviously, what that does to our ordinance is it really subverts the public trust and the ability of public works to protect, enhance, and grow the urban forest. and what we'll try to do is present some information from public works' perspective. as mr. klipp outlined, there was a hearing. and what i thought i would do

is read the difficultiresultin from public works which repeats some of the information behind the director and hearing officer to overturn or staff level denial and approve the application for removal. so the general findings, the buff representative presents an overview of the project. the applicant, joe bell, webcor detail builders presented information about the logistics and scaffolding and staging and crane pick points for precast wall panels. he expressed at the hearing that the tree encroached on the staging space and would need to be significantly cutback.

the wall panels would need to be lifted over the trees and get tangled in the branchs, presenting a hazard to pedestrians and drivers. the project sponsor explained that he regrets any need to remove the trees, but that the safety is a priority in trying to work around the existing trees may not be feasible. a member of the public, joshua klipp testified against the proposed removals stating that removal of street trees should be treated as a matter of approval and not when the project is under construction. recommendation, given the safety concerns with constructing the project around existing trees, the recommendations to overturn the denial and allow the trees to be removed, if there is a practical way to significantly trim back the trees and

construct the project, such option should be considered by the contractor. all of the replacement trees and trees required to be planted due to construction along both frontages of the property will be a minimum of 36-inch box sized trees. that was the decision that public works issued that was the subject of the appeal. regarding -- there's a -- the bigger picture issue for sure is projects are required to go through planning. the moment trees are involved, let's say you're going to propose a new driveway and curb cut, and there's a tree in the way. actually, a few years ago, you could get a permit from mana building to do that. now projects have to go to us early and say what are they going to do? are they going to work around the trees or what are the conflicts? in this case, we do hear the

concerns not only of mr. klipp but other tree advocates as well, friends of the urban forest, the urban forestry council. we want concern to come up when the public is being told by the project. i would peal the project when something is going on with the street trees because that's the most direct way pedestrians interact with the physical environment around the building. we're aware of that issue, and you know ultimately, i don't have the hearing officer or the director before you to say okay, what's the reasoning? the reasoning here is as laid out. safety was a concern. we get that this is an 11th-hour request for removal, right? we don't want to hear this late in the game that they have panels that are prefab, and that's how this whole thing is designed, and now they can't

swing them in place. there may be other things that come up. they may not realize that b.r.t. vanness is not going to allow them to take a lane, they had to move a bus stop, so we do completely hear the frustration. it's really that mr. klipp is speaking for all the advocates in the city. our base in lieu fee if we have not investigated the tree, is not much. it's $2,031 per tree. because we evaluated the trees as part of the application, we were able to review the photos and conduct an appraised value. so instead of $4,062 total, the appraised value of both trees came out to $10,150. that was a fine that our

administrative penalties allow us to issue and and that was the fine that was issued. the applicant of 60 days to appeal the fine. the fine was issued on december 18. and they have until february 18 to appeal the fine. so far, they have not filed an appeal, but i will be following up with the applicant. if that fine is appealed, that's another opportunity for the public to be involved with that. i do believe the urban forestry council's considering an order that the department uphold the complete fine. that's an overall recap of what has occurred here from our perspective. i think there'll be plenty of time for follow-up questions, but just wanted to present to you how we saw this happen from our perspective. we're trying to work with mr.

klipp on a number of other advocacy issues, but i'm not saying that to dismiss his appeal. we're not happy to be here in this setting, in this environment. it's not the way we want to discuss these issues after trees have been removed. thank you. >> commissioner honda: i have a question. i have several. am i missing something, so this came before this body, right? >> this was not before board of appeals. it was slated to come before. >> commissioner honda: looking at the very detailed brief, this was a condition of -- when they went for their c.u., this was part of the condition, that the streetscape remain the same, so they violated their condition of use. the other thing is that, you know, has the department ever seen a protection plan put in place because these developers

evidently have no regard to our process, they didn't file a brief, so evidently, they're not asking for permission, they're just begging for forgiveness. >> this does come up before the hearing. there's a lot of dialogue with our inspector, sarah stacey saying, you want protection, but -- >> commissioner honda: so did you see any or did not see any? >> i do not believe tree protection was installed but i don't know the status of the hearing. >> commissioner honda: because i believe part of their conditional use in approving the permit was protecting the trees. >> the ordinance even separate from anything planning

requires, public works ordinance requires tree protection measures to be taken at any time construction related activities occur in the public right-of-way. >> commissioner honda: okay. thank you. >> president fung: is this an administrative fine or an inlieu fee? >> this is also a fine. but when we don't know the appraised value, we didn't l t legitimately do an appraised value of the tree from a photo. one other question i didn't touch in my seven minutes was criminal and civil code penalties. one of our reasons for using the administrative code is we

have full control over that. for criminal and civil penalties, we need to involve the city attorney's office. we are looking into that with this case in mind, but -- and it sounds like a copout. we just don't have the relationships. it's like you go to the police and say a tree's been damaged. there's all these issues that are going on, and street trees aren't seen as this serious thing. we know it's serious, so we are working with the city attorney to say hey, this is in our code. can we stop work on it. >> president fung: okay. that's what you folks can do. what this board can do is nothing to do with the fines. >> i understand. >> president fung: we're dealing with the replacement as a condition of the permit, right? that's what this board with do, right? >> correct. i just wanted the board to know that we're aware of the civil and civil penalties.

fu>> president fung: but that' on your department. >> correct. >> commissioner honda: when the director overturned the decision, should that decision have been appealable? >> the decision was appealable. so -- >> clerk: can i clarify, it wasn't appealed in a timely manner. >> commissioner honda: exactly, so the project sponsor, as per the brief, they had a deadline to appeal by a certain day, and they missed that deadline by quite a number of time, right? >> correct. one thing that occurred with this case -- it's not the cleanest case, although our superintendent feels strongly that the bottom line is if your permit is revoked, it's revoked, even if you weren't expecting that to occur, public works needs clean summing up. we've always had clean decisions from our director's

office, but the charter permit says all decisions are appealable. this permit was the subject of a hearing on september 24, but the resulting decision, we don't necessarily reference the permit number. that's a real mistake. it created the confusion that led to mr. klipp's ability to have a second appeal window. because what we had was a resulting public works decision that was appealable for 15 days. and then, after that, we issued the permit. so the appellant was able to say, when did you issue your permit? several days. well, i'm going to appeal that. it's something that public works have already tightened up. we already review it had with the city attorney's office to make sure this language is tighter so we don't create this issue in the future. the bottom line is we issued a permit that was appealed within

15 days and was suspended by board of appeals. >> commissioner honda: last question. i'm not sure if i have support with this, but have you ever heard -- does this body have the ability to have them replace these trees in kind? because to me, it's absolutely blatant. >> president fung: i think you should ask that of our city attorney. >> i don't know the answer to that question. >> commissioner honda: they took down a 30-foot tree. do we, as the board of appeals, have the ability to put that back up there? we're evidently going through a new process -- >> we do say, you've got to replace in kind, so one thing is we will -- if the applicant appeals the fine is another discussion point. it's a good question. the trees are removed -- the -- the permit itself is still

under review at this point. you -- you could require a condition of -- >> commissioner honda: they haven't followed the rules so far, so to me, something else needs to be done. this isn't a mickey mouse company where this is their first job. i see their signs all over the city. this was a deliberate attempt to fool me, the department, and this board. >> i apologize. i saw mr. klipp's brief, and i should have gotten some answers before tonight. >> commissioner honda: thank you. >> clerk: do we have any public comment on this item? seeing none, we will go onto rebuttal time. mr. klipp, you have three minutes. >> thank you. it's pretty disappointing that

nobody from building inspection who issued the permit or project sponsor is not here before this board. i appreciate mr. buck's explanation on the process. i would note on the board of appeals website, there's a list of appeals, i would presume that a company as experienced as webcor would understand that it needs a permit, not just a decision to do some work. so that's another point that i made in my brief where the project sponsor wrote back and said, this project was approved weeks ago. well. i'm not sure how that would be true if there was no permit. regarding the process, i agree that the process here is flawed, but i would also point out that webcor was very clear

about what it intended to do about those trees from the beginning to the public and city agencies. i would point out that maybe penalties for trees aren't seen as the police department, but in this case, it wasn't just a tree that came down, it was a citizen's right to appeal that was also violated. finally, i would point out that the chair of the urban forestry council and the executive director has submitted a letter to this board saying please don't reduce the fine, and i would say that is a minimum that the city would do is to not reduce a $10,000 fine that amounts to nothing for a company as big as webcor, but also noting the processes here, and that the permits were issued to webcor in reliance to promises that it made to the

city and the public. do you have any questions for me? >> i just wanted to clarify something for you. the subject before us is the tree permit. so while you have an interest in the other permits, those are not legally before us, so we can't do anything else on any other permit except the one related to this project. >> i would urge the board to take another look at article 16, taking a look at other permits when tree plans have not been submitted. >> clerk: thank you. mr. buck, anything further? >> chris buck, bureau of urban forestry. i would say that we are working to clear up the distinction between resulting decisions and the permit itself. the permit application was clearly the subject of the appeal. we can clean that up. we already have a draft on how

that's going to look so that in the resulting decision, we reference the permit. we will issue a temporary permit that actually says it's appealable. public work doesn't issue permits to itself, so when we're issuing decisions about trees that we've initiated the removal of, we're going to reference in a way that clarifies the appeal process. i feel like that's something that would have helped here is just -- it would have been a great relief if webcor did not remove the trees without a permit so we could actually have a discussion about the trees. when that permit was suspended, one of the things -- i assumed these trees would remain. and i figured, you know what? i'm going to have to explain to the director why there's some second appeal window. the city attorney's going to have questions, so i started getting ready for that.

already, let me create this timeline, let me write up what we're doing. a couple years ago, we talked about the same issue. we started implementing a few of these improvements with reference to the permit and the resulting decision. there was a little bit of backsliding on my part, and unfortunately in this setting, mr. klipp's looking at the language, and it says, you know, resulting permits and decisions are appealable, so i don't in any way feel that it's not fair to the developer. the permit was appealed, they should have stopped and not removed the trees. regarding the maximum size replacement, i need to look into that. i don't know if that's something where we -- this is uncharted territory for me, personally, our department where the subject -- you know, it's like a house that's been razed, right? that house is not coming back.

if this permit is truly with this commission now, then, we can still talk about the conditions of removal that occurred without a permit. that's -- that's mostly it. thank you. >> commissioner honda: is there currently a notice of violation on the property? >> no, there's no notice telling them to cease work or we have one administrative fine that's directed to them. >> commissioner honda: so there wouldn't be an n.o.v. for the tree removal? >> it is our version of the n.o.v.

essentially, the illustrative fee is our n.o.v. we have that power at the very end of the project. that's not going to do much right now. >> commissioner honda: it will when they want to try to clear up their loans. >> again, it's -- we're eight months or a year from that. >> commissioner honda: okay. and do you have an idea how old and how tall roughly the trees were? >> yes. the trees, they were somewhere in the range of 10 inches in diameter and 13 inches in diameter. the trees were about 25 feet tall. it's true that they were earmarked to be retained when we evaluated all the