good evening. welcome to the january 8, 2020 meeting of the board of appeals. president swig willen joined by vice president lazarus and we expect commissioner santacana. brad russe will provide the board with needed legal advice. at the controls is the process clerk and the student intern. i'm julie rosenberg, the board

executive director. we will be joined by the representatives from the city department with cases before the board. in front is scott sanchez representing the planning commission. we have joseph duffy, representing the department of building inspection. and we expect nicholas with the public works bureau of street use and mapping and chris, urban forester with the bureau of urban forestry. the board requests that you turn off or silence all phones and other electronic devices. please carry on conversations in the hallway. the rules of presentation, appellants are given 7 minutes to present the case. people affiliated with the parties must give their comments within the 3 and 7-minute period. members not affiliated have up

to three minutes to address the board. for rehearing request, the parties get three minutes each with no rebuttal. to assist the board in the accurate preparation of minutes, you're asked to submit a speaker card. speaker cards are available on the left side of the podium. four votes are necessary to grant an appeal. if you have questions about requesting a rehearing, please speak to board staff during a break or after the meeting or call or visit the board office. we're this meeting is broadcast live on sfgovtv and will be broadcast on fridays at 4:00 p.m. the video is available on the website and can be downloaded. now we'll swear and affirm all those who intend to testify. please note that any member of the public may speak without

taking an oath. if you intend to testify at any of the proceedings and wish the to have the board give your testimony weight, please say i do after you've been sworn or affirmed. you do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth. please be seated. this is an opportunity for anyone who would like to speak on a matter that is not on tonight's calendar. we have a speaker. >> hi, i'm georgia. on june 15, 2019, the board considered two appeals from immediately adjacent neighbors for an alteration project at 463 duncan street. the alteration permit included expansion into the rear yard and 11-feet deep full lot. the project was approved at the planning commission on december 26, 2018, in part because it's a

second unit, despite the issue raised by one of the requesters as to the viability and livability of this second subterranean unit. after, when the plans were granted to dbi for further review, it was discovered that second subterranean unit did not comply with the building code. there was no legal egress for the sleeping rooms. two of the three bedrooms were relabelled as nonsleeping rooms making a one-bedroom unit with three dens at the new address of 461 duncan. after the testimony at the board's june 15, 2019 hearing, the board voted 5-0 that this subterranean unit at 461 duncan must include a minimum of two bedrooms. during the june hearing, the staff discussed either passageway or a reconfiguration to create legal bedrooms in that subterranean unit.

during deliberation, president swig initiated discussion of a continuance so the board could review the decision, but the consensus was this would delay the project. here's the revision. may have the overhead? so this is the subterranean unit. and here's the bedroom. and here's the bedroom. and that's the office. this is -- the other bedrooms are over there. what they did, they put ladders in the light wells. so two metal ladders have been added to the light well. one is eight feet and leads to the narrow roof which leads to the first level deck outside the master bedroom of the upper unit. the second 10-foot ladder leads to a landing outside of another bedroom window. the special conditions permit was issued this week, monday, january 6, seven months after the hearing.

because the project is two units, the revision was not reviewed by the fire department sector -- [bell ringing] -- and there are apparently no sprinkler requirements. these ladders are a poor solution. it would have been good for the board to weigh in on the revision, just as it would have been good if the planning commission had been aware of the egress issue when the project was before them. just so you can see, this is the project sponsor's rendering. here's the roof. there is the window. there is the light well. they come -- [bell ringing] -- and >> thank you. thank you. we need to keep the doorway clear. there are seats in front here. or if you can line up on the other side. we have an overflow room in room 421. any other general public comment this evening? okay. yes?

>> i've lived near 24th street -- >> ma'am, you'll have an opportunity for comments on 24th street. this is general, for items not on the agenda. seeing none, we move on to item number 2. >> first of all, happy new year. congratulations to the mayor on her swearing in as well as a going friend paul as sheriff. >> i also wanted to raise commissioners that dr. sent a reply e-mail regarding the please updated memo and the health effect of wireless permits. just for the record, this is not on the agenda, but i wanted to convey this information to you that they're still working -- he said they're still working on the report and in addition to reviewing the literature, he was given a large volume of documents from concerned

persons. it's taking longer than anticipated. he needed peer review from the california department of public health. >> my response to that is we, at least from my point of view and i don't know if we need to agendaize this, but we appreciate his response and we look forward to the fulfillment of our request for an updated document of the 2010 report from san francisco public health on the impact of all the telecommunications equipment that is floating around our world. >> thank you. any other commissioner comments? any public comment on the item? seeing none. move on. okay. sorry. >> good evening. welcome back. dear doctor, this weather

confirms our telephone conversation regarding at&t. i called in pain with my 5g induced pain. the sudden realization that six months had passed for the board of health to assess the safety of 5g further increased by feelings of desperation. it became clearer that you are dawdling when you wanted to take 5g measurements in my house and neighborhood with a meter that cannot measure 5g. i have learned that 5g is intermittent and a probe meter only measures the average, not the highest output. the probe will arrive months from now and serve no purpose. i informed you that an antenna replaced by 5g will further

saturate the city with this harmful frequency. i stated you had enough information and the symptoms that are currently being reported, most alarmingly regarding children with nose and ear bleeds, migraines and insomnia. it was a doctor and director from the health department. you're here to protect the public from an emerging public health emergency. you expressed a concern stating that 5g was a health hazard with any modifications. i responded that president swig did in fact task you as a licensed m.d. employed by the san francisco health department to make those kinds of decisions if appropriate. the legality of restricting our modifying 5g should be determined by the city attorney. but is not within your scope of practice. i still believe you have integrity to do what is right for the people of san francisco, but you must not prolong your

decision. i now have an ongoing migraine, december 26. two days after the last one. life with my symptoms is not sustainable. i'm a recent breast cancer survive. to the present, i had a migraine yesterday and the day before. the ringing was so loud i could barely hear. it was bad enough i had a fantasy of wanting to be put on an iceberg and float away. and 5g is just the tip of the iceberg. i informed a past client who wanted to resume therapy that she should begin shortly because i do not know how long i will be continuing my practice. >> folks, are you hear for the 24th street item? because we have an overflow room, number 421. if you could move to that area, we have a couple of open seats. we need that doorway open for fire egress. the overflow room is teleize

vised. we have a couple of other items before 24th. >> i recommend we limit standing since we're going to get to that item in an hour and a half i would guesstimate. and so for -- sorry. so are we. >> hopefully, there will be less. i understand the parties want to continue it,ut they do need to address the board and the board needs to take a vote. sir, you'll have your time to address the item. the agenda was published last friday. notice was sent out. at this point, i need the doorway clear. if you can move to room 421. >> president swig: for your comfort and those of everyone in the room. i recommend there is no standing room allowed and we clear the doorway. that's not our law, it's the fire department law. we'll wait until everybody finds

a seat or alternative seating. >> is there any other general public comment? okay, so we're going to move on to item number 3. this is adoption of the minutes. commissioners? before you for discussion are the minutes of the december 4, 2019 board meeting. >> president swig: commissioners, comments? any motion? >> move to adopt is submitted. >> we have a motion from vice president lazarus to adopt the minutes as submitted. is there any public comment on that motion? seeing none, on that motion, commissioner santacana? honda? tanner? swig? so that motion carries 5-0 and the minutes are adopted. we're now moving on to item number 4. this is the rehearing request for appeal number 19-110. the subject property at 301 pine

street, the empire group is requesting rehearing of appeal number 19-110 decided november 20, 2019. at that time upon motion by commissioner tanner, the board voted 3-1-1. commissioner honda dissented and president swig absent to deny the appeal and up hold the permit. the determination holder is san francisco hometown creamery. it's the sale of ice cream and waffle cones on mondays, wednesday and fridays. this is permit number 18mf f0113. >> president swig: i was not absent, but recused myself on a conflict due to property ownership. as a continuation of that, i will see you after this is resolved. thank you. >> thank you. we'll wait for president swig to exit the room.

>> thank you. you can proceed, please. >> commissioners, i'm on behalf of the empire group. one of the many reasons for challenging this permit is enforcing the facilities from operating within 75 feet of a brick-and-mortar restaurant. they suggest that the only entrance is not street-facing. that's not true. further, it was stated that earth bar does not qualify for the 75-foot exception, that is also not accurate. today is to request a full rehearing before the board. the rehearing is warranted for three reasons, all of which have not been discussed. for several votes seemed influence by ambiguous regulation. there were significant confusion by the board in all parties on how to measure the 75 feet and it's unjust to apply that standard without clarity. d.p.w. suggested that the front

door is not the primary entrance to the restaurant. again, it is the only entrance to the restaurant. i'll refer to the exhibit here. overhead, please. here you'll see the door to the 301 pine street door, the area where the restaurant lounge area begins immediately as you walk into the door. overall, it's injustice to allow the permit to move forward without discussion. the hearing could have been continued have that. second, we have new evidence to present. we provided new measurements in the brief and no one could have expected to have at the time of the hearing through due diligence. if you measure 75 feet from the curb, the distance is 36 feet to the door. the distance to the food service area along the curb is 67 feet. to confirm, the measurement diagonally, the distance from the truck to the primary entrance is 51 feet 3 inches.

dpw has not provided any new measurements, but state that our measurements do not accurately reflect. we need more time to discuss and get everyone on the same page and help the board make an informed decision. the board should know we've tried to reach a compromised solution before the november 20th hearing and in active discussions with d.p.w. to pursue a move to the other side of pine street. also, while advertising and signage requirements are not stated in the regulations or order, we are working to increase the existing signage now we know this is an issue. this is not the same as westfield mall. this is a permit application for a food truck that is 51 feet from the primary entrance to a restaurant. there are no signage requirements. we're working to acquire that. when you walk in the door, the restaurant is right there. it should be as simple as that. the 75-foot rule should apply

here. we would appreciate a new hearing. we could use the time to settle. you have the power to give us that time. thank you for your time this evening. >> thank you. we will now hear from mr. hille, the agent for the permit-holder. good evening, speaking on behalf of san francisco's hometown creamery. the appellant has not satisfied any of the criteria for a rehearing. in the brief, they claim to have been caught off guard by what they needed to present arguing the 75-foot provision. however, in our brief we challenged the application of the 75-foot provision asserted by the appellant. we interpreted our outline of

the interpretation from where the distance rule applied, putting the appellant on notice to provide whatever measurements they felt relevant. lack of due diligence is stated in the rule of the board of appeal to be grounds to deny a rehearing request. no new or different material facts have arisen. all the claims we hashed by the appellant and arguments to support their assertions were available two months leading up to the hearing date. ice cream served in the public right of way, three days a week, for four hours, does not constitute a case of manifest injustice has occurred. the strategy of big business is and groups with unlimited resources to utilize delay tactics and methods of intimidation, to pressure small businesses with less resources is not new.

we trust that the board did not condone bullying, intimidation or the due process. i would like to state that due to the fact that the measurements we saw were not accurate provided by the appellant, i went into the building to take pictures and do measurements myself and i was told it was private property and that i had to leave. that is all for us. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. we'll now hear from the department. mr. persky? >> hi, san francisco public works. no comments, but available if you have questions. >> thank you. is there any public comment on this item? seeing none, commissioners, this matter is submitted. >> i'm sorry. i'm sorry, madame chair. at the prior hearing, i was the

only vote that was against issuing the permit. in this particular case, manifest injust is a really high bar. i see no reason -- i see no manifest injustice and the information presented was available at the prior hearing and would personally deny the request for the rehearing. >> any other comments. >> commissioner tanner: i agree. i don't see why the measurements could not have been foreseeably provided. i didn't see the diagonal provided in the brief. maybe i missed it. so continuing to not provide the information. i don't see how the commission could or should rehear the case. >> that would be my motion. >> so we have a motion from commissioner honda to deny the request on the basis that there is no manifest injustice.

okay. on that motion, commissioner santaca santaca santacana. the request is denied 4-0. we are now moving on to item number 5. let's get president swig. we are now moving on to item number 5. this is the rehearing request for appeal number 19-090. the subject property at 2736 broderick street, roxanne stachon is requesting rehearing. decided november 20, 2019. at that time upon motion by vice president lazarus, the board voted 5-0 to deny the appeal based on the basis that the permit was properly issued and because the permit is no longer

required for a puc pole. the determination holder is ex tenet systems. this is permit number 19wr-0024. we'll hear from ms. stachon first. >> good evening, president swig and members of the board. thank you for having me here again. i was here on november 20th repealing a wireless permit. the focus of my appeal was compliance by the department of public health and we had quite a bit of discussion around the public health report, the orientation of the proposed antenna and there was much public comment on the matter. after that discussion, ultimately, my appeal was unfortunately denied. however, in the next agenda item, there was appeal of another wireless antenna on green street.

coincidently, this location is right around the corner from my house. the appellants presented a similar argument. the item also had extensive public comment by the same commenters as my appeal. and one of the appellants referenced the site in front of my residence as part of the concern and confusion. after hearing this discussion on the green street appeal, the board voted to hold the appeal in abay yans, the same memorandum that is mentioned this evening. to deny my appeal is arbitrary and inconsistent. as i outline, i feel it meets the standard of manifest

injustice, direct, obvious and very observable unfairness. i'm here to correct the unfairness by making a modest request. i am asking that you continue the hearing on my rehearing until the d.p.h. issues its updated report. i'm asking for the benefit of the d.p.h. work to be considered equally for my appeal as it is for my neighbor's appeal. while it is an option, i'm not asking that the are ereheari erehearing -- rehearing request to be granted tonight, but to provide my appeal with the same treatment as 2735 green street. it is very important to note that the department of public works in their written brief for tonight does not oppose this request to continue my request. as stated in their brief, public works does not oppose appellants' request to continue the hearing until after d.p.h.

issues their updated report. i do appreciate the conclusion drawn in their brief tonight. thank you for your time and consideration on this matter. >> president swig: thank you. >> we will now hear from the permit-holder. >> hi, good evening. thanks again for the opportunity to speak tonight. as i was preparing for the rehearing request, i found myself going in circles. it's a very semantic argument surrounding what is extraordinary, what is material and what is not. as you just heard at the hearing on november 20th, there were two similar items that resulted in different decisions. the claim has been made that resulted in manifest injustice for the appeal that was denied. unfortunately, in my opinion, if there is a manifest injustice it's the other way around. the appeal that was held in abeyance was done so as a result of the quick that this board made to the department of public health granted some time ago

that they have yet to respond to. however, public health initial memo and any revisions made to it are not prerequisites for finding that it meets the standards. we have demonstrated that time and again. so, i guess my question is, was your decision to do something different with the next appeal material? i think it's relevant in that they were similar applications. is it material and germane to this application? would a new hearing result in something different? i don't think so. because we have demonstrated can compliance with the fcc standards. the department of public health has reviewed the site conditions specific to this proposal and

determined it would fall well within the fcc limits. so widespread and sweeping statements in 2010, 2020, doesn't have impact on whether or not we demonstrated we will comply. and i believe that the rehearing request should be denied as a result of that. i am happy to answer any questions. >> president swig: thank you. >> thank you. okay, we'll hear from the department. >> good evening. public works. no comment, but i am available for any questions. >> president swig: question would be, does your department have an issue with continuing the rehearing request? >> as outlined in the brief, we do not object to this. >> thank you. >> mr. sanchez? any public comment on the item? no public comment. okay. so commissioners, this matter is submitted.

>> i've always said the danger of setting a precedent is that you'll be held accountable for it. we did set a precedent immediately thereafter that hearing. there is no doubt about that. and i also feel that continuing this item as requested by the appellant will not cause harm in the community because the community is the appellant and her neighbors. so i would mind continuing this item -- wouldn't mind continuing this item until we get closer to the same terms and conditions we presented on the other referred to item on that evening. and i don't know what the date might be, but let's call it april 1st. >> president swig: so, somewhat in agreement with the president. i don't believe that it would cause a precedence. i do believe that in order of fairness, that with the

similarity in cases, and that the department does not have any issue with continuing the rehearing, i would also go along with that. >> i have a question. question permit-holder. >> i believe that under the new regulations, this permit request is actually moot. is that accurate? >> yes. it's accurate. applications to install facilities on public utilities commission poles do not require permits through the department of public works any longer. >> what is the practical effect of this whole hearing process on your ability to install the unit? >> that's a good question. and frankly, it's not one that i pushed in my interactions with you or the appellant because i wanted the merits of the case to be heard rather than some technicality. so to be honest, i don't know. we have a license to install

something on the puc property. believe that allows us to install regardless of whether we have a permit, but i have to -- i might even defer to mr. russy to answer that question. i believe that is a legal question. i believe we still maintain the right to install a fa silt on that -- facility on that pole. >> as i said before, it was removed the permit requirement for puc poles. that's as much as i can say. >> so our risk if we continue it doesn't matter anyway. so if we were to continue it, there is really no impact on anything whatsoever? >> i think the other piece is, for me, again, that while i appreciate asking for the update from dph as was pointed out, that's not going to impact our rulings on those permits which are legitimately before us. so i don't see the point of continuing it.

>> i would disagree with you only in that by continuing it, we maintain the same standard we set for the decision we made on the very next item on that evening. so i would make a motion to continue it. and if that action is ultimately rendered useless, so be it. if it has merit, then we've held to the standard that we set two hearings later, or one hearing later. that would be my only disagreement with you. i would like to make a motion to continue it. >> any comments from any other commissioners prior? >> i tend to agree with vice president lazarus that the effect of this is -- there is not really any effect it would seem to our knowledge. and to continue to hold it on

the ground that we need this report from the department of public health, while i do hope to hear back from the department, it's not something we can consider in terms of the fcc and the regulations that govern. it is something we took upon ourselves because we want to be better educated and the members of the public before us are constantly asking that question so we want to be better informed and have the public better informed on that item. so i would not support the rehearing. >> not support the continuance >> that does that. >> takes three for a continuance. >> i would not support a continuance either. i pressure the appellant's presentation and i see the point that you're making, but i was uncomfortable with the continuance in the other case in the first place because i think we all agree the law is clear,

regardless of what the department of public health says we cannot prevent, for several reasons including the fact that there are new rules with licensing, we cannot prevent this from going forward so there is no point in dragging this out. >> it doesn't look we have enough votes to continue it. is there another motion on the table. >> the only other motion, it's not going to get supported, is to uphold the appeal. i think deny the appeal. >> deny the request. >> deny the request. >> on the basis? >> your motion. i'd rather not. >> let someone else make the motion. >> go ahead. >> i move to deny the requested on the grounds that the necessary showing wasn't made and it would not result in manifest injustice. >> okay. so we have a motion from commissioner santacana to deny the rehearing request on the

basis that there was not the requisite show offing manifest injustice. on that motion, lazarus aye. honda no. tanner aye. swig no. >> okay, so that motion carries with three votes. 3-2. so the request is denied. we are now moving on to item number 6a and 6b. they'll be heard together. these are appeal numbers 19-120, 19-129. pamela denbesten versus department of building inspection. the second permit has planning department approval. the 19-120, the subject property is 324 peralta avenue. they're appealing the issuance on october 15 to jordan miller of alteration permit, internal

bracing for the underpinning of 326 peralta avenue. this is reference number 2019-96115697. and the permit number at issue is 2019-07176168. and for appeal number 19en 129, they're appealing the issuance on november 6, 2019 to jordan miller, revision to permit 201712227300, property line wall to be relocated one foot to the south. this is permit number 201911056401. >> i need to disclose i'm a partner in a project that has hired the law firm. their appearance before this hearing -- this body this evening will have no effect on my decision. >> thank you. okay, so we'll hear from the

appellants first. we're combining the time, so you have 14 minutes. >> welcome, counselor. >> thank you. good evening president and commissioners on behalf of the appellant pamela denbesten. this is an interesting case. there are issues involved of privacy, noise impacts, but also fundamental concerns regarding where is the property line and what exactly has been proposed to fit into the available space? as you'll see, what has been proposed doesn't actually fit the lot that is available. i'd like to first ask my client pamela denbesten to introduce herself and explain what her concerns are and how we got to this point. and then i'll explain regarding the property line and very serious fire safety concerns. thank you. >> good evening, president swig and board members.

my name is pamela denbesten. i live at 303 montcalm street next door to the project. i'm here today because my neighbors misled me in discussions of the impact of their project on my property. they have taken advantage of my goodwill and trust with half truths. and it is -- as it is currently designed, their renovation will impact both my privacy and personal well-being. when my neighbors proposed the project, i raised two key concerns. that it not negatively impact my privacy or create additional noise. i told them many times how easily i can hear noise and conversations from their existing first floor balcony and through any open window as the sound is funneled from their uphill property into my downhill property in a sort of sound tunnel from their property to mine.

let me see -- >> overhead, please, thank you. >> so this, i guess it's a little -- thank you. so this is -- this is my home. and this is the property we're talking about. they're uphill from me and where the sound travels directly from their property to mine. so they repeatedly assured me they appreciate and shared this concern and told me their plans would not negatively compromise my property or add noise. our first in-person discussion was when i met with jordan and sasha in their home in 2017. at my request as i was not able to attend the bernal heights

planning meeting. jordan has printed out architectural plans. i asked him to explain the plans to me, i said i am not an architect and i emphasized my concerns related to privacy. he walked me to their windows and said they would be keeping the windows and as i could see, my privacy is protected by trees and bamboo from mine and my neighbor's yard. i agreed and felt greatly relieved. what he did not tell me, they were adding windows and a balcony on my property line. if he had, it would be obvious that the location of that windows and balcony could severely compromise my privacy and noise. they continued to assure me that they would address my concerns. and then in 2018, they e-mailed me saying they wanted a minor change.

i didn't understand the location of the wall or why it was needed, but again it wanted to be supportive so i agreed to the change. i don't see the wall drawn in the plans, and i bring it up now because i no longer trust them and i want to be assured that the plans will be built as drawn without the referenced support wall. in the fall of 2019, sasha let me know they needed to talk with me and asked me to meet them. when we met, jordan informed me they had gotten a survey which showed their planned construction was one foot on the property. he had documents with him that said were an easement agreement and asked me to sign them. i said i wasn't comfortable doing this on the spot and asked if he had told the other neighbors. he said he hadn't as this wouldn't concern them, which further added to my discomfort. jordan then continued to pressure me by repeated e-mails over the next week to sign the easement and a red light finally

went off that trust in my neighbors might not be founded. i asked an architect to look at the plans and found that contrary to what the neighbors told me, there were windows that would look into my property, including my property and anyone on the deck would the sliding doors open, would project additional noise down to my house. i would have a great loss of privacy in my house or yard. in hearing this, i was shocked and i felt betrayed. what my architect told me went against all of jordan and sasha's continued assurances about their project and undermined my trust. so to illustrate what i have said, i'm going to show you a couple of printouts. so in this first printout, you can see the current outline of the south wall of their house.

and then in this second one, you can see the remodel. this is the location of the windows that they had -- in the first -- that they had shown me in the first walk through. so then on this third picture, i show a red rectangle demarcating the approximate location of the windows and balcony in relation to the current building. the fourth picture is taken from my bedroom window. and it's a view -- and the view from -- and the view from these windows and balcony into my bedroom, i have again demarcated

this by a red rectangle. this final picture is taken from inside my kitchen, inside one of my double french doors. and shows that, again, previously, where there were no windows here -- and i had privacy, they're now putting these windows and balcony directly above looking into my home. so i've expressed these concerns to my neighbors. i reached out repeatedly to propose options. although my neighbors have filed new plans showing their building being pulled back by a foot. the property line is incorrectly depicted which my attorney will speak further about. my neighbors have are ehhed -- have refused to respond.

therefore, i have no choice but to file these appeals. in regard to the property line, which my attorney will speak more to, and secondly in the design which compromises the privacy that my neighbors had promised to maintain. i ask the board of appeals to require my neighbors to redraw the plans with the correct location of the property line. require number two, require that the new windows looking into my property be replaced with frosted windows similar orr smaller than those proposed in 2017 and remove the balcony that is again, overlooking the property line. i thank you for listening to and considering these requests. >> thank you. >> thank you, commissioners. so, as you see, part of the issue here is one of privacy and

noise intrusion and what we see is a neighbor having been misled into not voicing this concern to a public forum sooner. the other serious part of this is what are they proposing within a lot of fixed width, that doesn't fit there. so please -- the project sponsor commissioned a survey with property lines. project here. and my client's property is here. so it's adjacent to the appellant's property they're proposing to build here. and if we zoom in, you see this is a fixed width of course. it's the property line. it's 25 feet long. they are proposing construction, of course, within that site.

and if we look at the size here, that's 23 foot, 10 inch, plus one foot on that side. two inches shy of 25 feet. makes sense. but we look back to the survey. their own survey. there is a one-foot encroachment from the house next door. so on the south side, this house encroaches over the property line by .99 feet. and that means they don't have 25 feet to build in. they have 24 feet. so if we look back at their construction, how did they feet 25 feet in a 24-foot envelope? either they're going to be shifting it over back toward my client by a foot. or they're somehow shrinking the project by a foot in a way that will not match these plans. or who knows what else? but it certainly didn't going to

match what they proposed here. and if we do an overlay, you can see clearly what the problem is. so this is their proposed first floor plan. line up the overlay, and you can see that encroachment from the other neighbor on the other side is on top of their proposed construction. so why does it matter? maybe they just pull back a foot, the permits before you today are in large part because they realized there was a property line problem. the plans they had filed previously were going to go over and use my client's land so they showed up, and said, why don't you sign this easement so we can use your land? she was at first trusting and then alarmed by the pressure to sign the document.

the real impact here is this side fronting on my client's property. you have egress corridor that must be a certain width. you have windows along the egress corridor and along the newly proposed popout. those windows can't be that close to the property line. if they're moving it over by a foot because of the encroachment of one foot on the other side, they're suddenly too close to the property line. you can't have the windows. and the windows are what my client is concerned about. your egress corridor is also too narrow. while they might try to get equivalency to use the backyard as area of refuge, that could only theoretically work for the rear bedroom. you have a bedroom here that does not front on the rear yard. it relies on the egress corridor. so this is, think, i charityably

to say a big question. i think more accurately, it is a big problem and poses a life-safety risk. this is a fire safety issue. that's the reason we don't have windows this close to the property line. the reason there is egress corridors that are a certain width. my client's primary concern is the windows are looking into the bedroom, into the house. so we'd like the windows not to be added especially this sliding glass door. but it's a real problem. our request to the board is, please remove the windows. i think the building department will have something to say about this. and may have real concerns about how they're proposing this and the fact that the plans don't match reality. but our request to you, please reduce the windows. frost them, remove the sliding glass door, remove the balcony. thank you very much. >> mr. patterson. >> i believe in the brief, how

far are you windows? 45 feet away, or 54 feet? >> from -- >> from your client's property to the window? >> let's look at the survey. it's a significant distance, but the distance at issue here is not -- >> i know that. but the question i had how far is the windows from the back of the property, sir? >> so our lot is 100 feet deep. i'm not sure exactly how far into the lot our house extends. but it's certainly farther than the couple of feet from the other property line that is at issue. >> commissioner honda: thank you. >> thank you. going to hear from the permit-holder. >> hi, i'm jordan miller, the permit-holder. >> you can raise the mic, you're kind of tall. >> you have 14 minutes. >> i'm going to hand over most

of the time to mark. but i do want to say that i'm very hurt by pamela's representation, or misrepresentation of our conversation. the diagram she put up superimposing the existing with the addition was actually one of the diagrams i gave her on our onsite meeting. i made that diagram myself. i'm happy to send to it the board after to show you the date on it. we also had that diagram prepared for the neighborhood pre-application. unfortunately, the neighbor on the bernal heights review board couldn't make it tonight. i made every effort to inform pam shared plans in advance of our meeting with her so she could review them. i was explicit about the addition of windows and discussed how raising the sill

height would create the privacy she desired. and that desire for privacy is mutual. the -- yeah, and i'll leave it at that. thank you. here's mark. >> good evening, commissioners, mark loper. on behalf of jordan and sasha and their two kids, one of whom -- both of them are still here, on behalf of their entire family. i think as everybody can tell from appellants' presentation, in our brief, the last few months have been quite difficult. jordan and sasha moved their family out of their one-bedroom house in anticipation of starting construction and have been in limbo after they volunteered a property line issue to the appellant. they're relieved to have a chance to resolve this.

these appeals should be denied for three reasons. first, the project does not cause adverse impacts to the appellant's property. next, appellant was made ware of the project as proposed and jordan and sasha had been constantly open about the development over the years. and finally, appellant's issues are unrelated. one of the underpinning on a different property they didn't talk about at all and the other about making the project smaller. i'm going to address each in order. if i could have sfgovtv go to the computer, please. the project and more importantly, it's 165 square foot deck and three-panelled windows facing north will not cause adverse noise or privacy impacts. the two buildings are 40-60 feet from each other based on our best measurements. this is significantly further than those neighboring properties in san francisco. it is more representative of

suburban or peedmont than the typical pattern of the properties we see here. the appellant's claims about light, noise and privacy are not as pronounced as others in the city. the product has been designed to maximize quiet for other neighbors. jordan and sasha's new home is two stories over basement. instead of adding three stories, they're adding one story and converting a basement into a family room. the house fits a kitchen, family room, dining room, into 2100 square feet. a very modest house for a growing family of four. it will not cause undue noise. single pinned windows and uninflated rolls will be replaced with sheet rock. and fixed double pane fire windows on the first story.

it will also raise the deck, kitchen and breakfast areas up one story, orienting noise away from her backyard and ground floor and increasing the distance from jordan and sasha's deck to appellant's home. the second story of the building, with the kitchen and deck, will be located above the roof line of the appellant's property. noise should disperse before it reaching two levels down. several design features address the privacy concerns. starting with the distance between jordan and sasha house and appellant's. this is the view looking out straight from the approved second level. you can see the tip of appellant's roof in the foreground. these views show the current view -- sight line from my

clients' property into appellant's ground floor kitchen, compared to the picture on the far right which shows from the approved deck, which is further away and frankly, a lot harder to see into those windows. other features including existing landscaping. landscaping proposed on the balcony which based on the height is proposed to be about three feet in height, will further reduce the view into appellant's property. window changes on the first level, which replaced one large window with three smaller windows and a popout that is further reducing the view from the kitchen. jordan and sasha's project was reviewed and approved by the bernal heights review board

which said they took careful considerations into the guidelines. the neighbor on the other side, whose support letters are included in the packet, and will be most affected by the project, said they made the design changes she requested. the project also complies with city-wide design guidelines on rear yard expansions. it includes setbacks on the second floor. open railings on the upper deck. window that break the line of sight into appellant's property. going to the second reason why these appeals should be denied. jordan and sasha consistently made appellant aware of the deck and north-facing windows. as you heard in november, 2017, jordan and sasha had the

appellant over to their house and before that had provided her with an 11 by 17 set of plans. they solicited the appellant's feedback and discussed shade, sound and privacy. jordan showed a diagram of sun angle and discussed how a flat roof on the second story would create just three and a half more shade than the existing roof. finally, the three of them went out onto sasha back deck to discuss the view from the second story. they offered her a step stool to get a sense of the view, but she declined, saying she understood. appellant did make a request asking for the first floor windows to be raised. jordan and sasha accommodated this request on the spot. in may of 2018, jordan and sasha let the appellant know that the

review would be coming. the plans are in the packet and they clearly show the deck and north-facing windows. in july of 2018, they reached out talking about a design change that show the deck and windows. appellant wrote that the change looked fine. she appreciated jordan and sasha's sensitivity and communication and she was sure the house would be beautiful. to recap, appellant received plans and images of the deck on three occasions. she never asked for the deck to be removed or to eliminate any windows until october of this year. it is too late and not fair to jordan and sasha to demand these changes now. and that takes us to the last reason why this appeal should be denied. the appellant is asking the board take action on something unrelated to the two permits on appeal. for context, here is a photo

showing the area between jordan and sasha's current house and a fence. on the other side of which is appellant's backyard. in practice, and by use, this fence has been the assumed property line between the two properties for decades. jordan, sasha and their architect were diligent about mapping the property line to be consistent with the pattern of occupancy throughout the entire block. this included 1905 sanborn map, 1914 map, 1948 aerial photograph, which shows the fence and 1970s photo from the assessor's office which also shows the fence. the revision permit makes the project smaller. it decreases -- it increases the distance between the appellant's home and the project. it also maintains the current ground floor setback as jordan

and sasha told appellant it would. it's hard to understand what pulling the project back by one foot causes. if you want to get into the weeds, though, the survey is preliminary and has not yet been recorded. as we just demonstrated, the pattern of occupancy does not match the survey. which the surveyor acknowledged in the survey itself. property lines in san francisco are not always clear and this is a prime example. i can also just point out that i expect you will hear from mr. duffy that the door on the second floor, that is proposed to be open, will need to be nonoperable. so i would just point out that door is going to need to be nonoperable, which is something that you heard the appellant ask for. i think that's important to keep in mind. more to the point, my client shares this property line issue with the appellant.

they did not go out and commission a new survey. they are not pursuing civil remedies. and they did not hide it and move forward with construction. they did the right thing. the neighborly thing. and they told the appellant. perhaps they were overly optimistic in thinking that the appellant would want to work with them to call spade to spade allow the project to be built. when she didn't want to -- and further there were no documents distributed or anything like that, no demands to enter into an easement agreement -- when appellant did not want to enter into any agreement, jordan and sasha made the project smaller so there was no question it wouldn't encroach. and i can show you mr. patterson did a good job of trying to confuse everybody, but i can show you a diagram that quite clearly shows the project in the revision permit fits within the assumed property line or the property line depicted on the

preliminary survey. so to summarize, the project does not cause undue noise or privacy impacts. appellant was made aware of it for years and is using jordan and sasha's openness to undo it. for a project that does not cross into her property. each of those alone is grounds for the appeal to be denied. we ask you to let jordan and sasha and their family move forward and build their family home in peace. i want to use the last minute to show you the diagram i was talking about. i'm going to switch over. this is the revision permit. this is the first floor which contains the popout. the width of the first floor is

23 feet and 10 centimeters. -- or 10 inches, which is less than 24 feet. take your time and we're available for any questions. >> commissioner honda: i have a question. after reading the brief, i do commend the transparency of the permit-holder to the appellant as evident in all the e-mails that were provided in the brief. but as opposing counsel suggested, how are you fitting -- you have 23 and 10 and you have another foot, so that's 24-10, but your lot because of the encroachment on the neighboring property, you don't have a full 25-foot lot. >> right, it's a 24 -- you can >> commissioner honda: you can keep a diagram on the overhead so maybe you can explain that. because right now what you're proposing is near 25, yet you have 24. so i'm trying to --

>> right. so it's a very good question. let's think about it in terms of the uphill property lines of the southern property line. and then the downhill property. overhead, please. thank you. so we've got the north property line which goes downhill, southern property line which is uphill. not only did this diagram assume that we would set back a foot, but we're using the northern property line as the encroachment point. so meaning, this diagram already shows the building starting one foot onto our property line. >> commissioner honda: thank you. >> to make it simple, we have 24 feet to build in, assuming the

property line is correct in the survey. we show that we only build 23-10 wide. so we're two inches inside of the 24-foot lot we have. >> commissioner honda: i thought there was another one-foot setback from the property line. >> right. that's what i'm getting at. this as designed shows the project built already if one foot into our property. >> commissioner honda: i think there is time in the rebuttal and the department will probably clarify some of that. >> sure, thank you. >> thank you. we'll now hear from the planning department. >> commissioner honda: just a comment, it was good that you caught this prior to construction because it would have been a really big mess after. >> thank you, happy new year, president swig and members of the board. >> i got to say this, fear the beard. >> thank you very much. so i'll be brief in the presentation. the subject property at 324 peralta is rh-1 bernal heights.

the issue is two separate permits. the first deals with internal bracing or underpinning which i have not heard issues raised on appeal and that's not planning matter anyway. the second is a revision permit that seeks to reduce the size of the building from a previous application, building permit application, 201712227300 was submitted in december of 2017, underwent neighborhood notification pursuant to section 311 between may 29 and june 28, 2018 during that time no requests were filed. what you have seen raised in the appeal tonight, the issue is about the deck and the windows, all of those features were present in the plans that underwent the section 311 neighborhood notification. again, there was no discretionary review filed on that. the permit reduces the

encroachment over the property line which were identified and raised here. so the building is moving further away from the appellant based on the permit that is before you tonight. the building permit was issued on december 6, 2018 and no appeals was brought of that permit. again, they've given you the history. they discovered a possible issue with the property line to be conservative, they are not extending, they're bringing it back by one foot. i've seen the dimensions that they have proposed there and i think, appreciate the appellant's arguments, but i think it's like the definition of fuzzy math. what they're proposing actually does fit within their property, even with the worst-case scenario that they're assuming. so the project is completely code compliant. what we identified today and this is raised -- i reviewed the plans with one of the staff architects to get feedback on the application of the

residential design guidelines and they noted that if the property line is actually one foot over from what is shown on the plans, because bear in mind, the revision plans that you have before you, don't have what could be argued as the correct property lines because they're using what they had originally assessed as the property lines. they don't have a final survey yet. they're playing it safe and bringing it back in one foot to spare from what they had always assumed the property line to be. so even if the property line is one foot over, they're covered because they're bringing it in. that said, that reduces the dimension from the potential property line, the theoretical property line, that is only 30 inches from the property line to where their sliding door is. that kind of narrow catwalk along the side facing the appellant's property, that is 30 inches. because of that, that slider, that is along the side of the property line facing the

appellant's property, can't be operable under the building code. so that would need to be fixed. and we understand the appellant's issues, privacy, potential light pollution, those are concerns that are taken seriously ant reason we have guidelines, something like this is a close call. but given the distance, which i measured using some topography, it's about 45 feet from the nearest wall on the property. given that dimension which is wider than many streets we have in san francisco. it was found to be acceptable. so they do need to make a change which could be addressed through a special conditions permit. ensuring that all the windows on that side property line meet all building code requirements for fire safety. windows that are operable within three feet be changed to be

fixed. that is the only change that needs to be made to this permit. but i'm available for questions. and hopefully, i didn't confuse you more. >> nope, that clarified things. >> the property line is a nonissue? >> because they're playing it safe and they're being conservative and setting it back in, so it does not seem to be an issue. the only issue is the implication on the sliding door -- >> which is not a property line issue. thank you very much. >> thank you. we'll now hear from the department of building inspection. welcome, senior inspector duffy. >> happy new year. joe duffy, dbi. you heard some of the issues raised there. i will just go over briefly the permits again. just to let you know that they were reviewed by our department.

one of them is for internal underpinning for 326 peralta avenue. and really happy to see this, because a lot of times this board, even in my life, we end up having underpinning issues when the construction starts. these guys look to be getting ahead of it here, taking care of the neighbor's property. that tells me something good about it. that we have the permit in place before hand, even though it's under appeal. there isn't much about this, it's more to do with the property line issue. but i wanted to mention that. the property line issue, we did discuss it in the hall before the hearing with the architect and the owners. the drawings -- i had some notes here, the property line has to be 100% determined before construction starts because if that's not right, we're going to be dealing with during construction of, the contractor, whoever is going to be doing the

work is going to be dealing with because we're going to be getting complaints on it. i ask them to get the accurate property line and survey so we know. i think they have acknowledged that the openings on the sidewall and the property line wall are within three feet of the property line. so the california building code tells you that from 0-3 feet openings are not permitted. san francisco building code then, and we deal with this many times, allows you to install minimum 45 openings on the property line within three feet if you use our administrative 009, which means you have to document that the windows are being put in. if anyone builds up against them, you lose the right to the windows. on the drawings there are discrepancies on the second floor openings, they're going to have to be 45-openings if they

want to keep them. it's not just a matter of having a nonoperable door, it's actually a 45 minimum window width with a metal frame. it's got to be documented properly on our administrative bulletin 009. the architect can do that at dbi. so that's really all that i had. everything else is, as i say, i did check inspection history. i didn't see inspections on the permit. i'm available for any questions. >> president swig: so the 45 fire rated window is going to add a significant cost to the project. i know that's three or four times the original stuff. i think you had 11 more minutes if you'd like to use them. >> well, actually you brought up

a point. they could move in the wall six inches. with the new property line they're going to be maybe 30 -- the wall is going to be 30 inches and the code gets them as well. if you go to -- if they go to three feet or more, the actual code says you can only have 25% of openings on the wall. so they might want to keep the fixed openings and there is a view. that'swa we do in -- what we do in san francisco. >> and they're pretty common. you see them all the time in new buildings. the cost would be a question for them. but -- i think the architect needs to get the property line right on the drawings and at the site and then change the plans to reflect that they meet ab009. >> one last question, if the permit holders had not done a property line survey and proceeded with their permit, would there have been an issue?

>> yes absolutely. because if during construction we find that the openings on the second floor had been constructed within three feet of the property line, we would have looked for them to be closed up. it would have been a violation of the code. it's really good they're doing this before they start. >> agree. >> is there any public comment on the item? oka okay. >> senior inspector duffy is correct. the issues is the distance from the property line to the windows. their survey may show 2.67, which is 2 feet 8 inches, which is 32 inches. you need to be 36 inches. there is some existing windows,

but when they're adding the third floor, they're going to have to deal with either the windows have to be rated nonoperable, or they have to shift the building back three inches. the current drawings show the building is 42 inches. so they need to clean up what that distance is in a revision permit or something with the board to get the drawing right. they can do that on the third floor by shifting the building back or making all those windows nonoperable fire rated. where the bigger challenge is on the first floor bedroom. that's a rescue window. that has to be operable. and according to their own survey, that window is 2'8". they've done , the building department should look at the dimensionses and make sure they'll meet the 25% allowable

and solve the 32-inch separation from the property line to the third floor, second floor. and the key challenge is the rescue window on the property line, which is only 32 inches away. that cannot be fixed fire rated. that has to be operable. >> question, sir. so you appeared before this body on a regular basis. you're an expert on windows? >> i'm an expert on the building code and fire separation and the requirement of windows on the property line, yes. and i'm a licensed -- allowed to practice land surveying in the state of california. >> just verifying it because you're before the body giving expert advice. >> yes, practicing for 40 years. i would say i'm an expert. >> windows, okay. >> thank you. is there any other public comment? seeing none, we move on to rebuttal. mr. patterson, you have six minutes.

>> thank you, commissioners. first i want to point out, my client is not opposed to honest expansion of this house. as you've been seen throughout the correspondence, she has supported the project and the space for the growing family. the issue she's concerned about is the privacy impact of the particular features of the proposal. i don't fault them for getting a survey done, or for having a lot line issue. they assumed the fence was the lot line. happens all the time. i don't fault them for that. but when you have a survey prepared and prepared by a skilled surveyor, what i don't understand is why you wouldn't take the survey and adjust the plans to match? so if the survey shows -- on the

overhead here -- the survey shows a one-foot encroachment on this side. why not account for the encroachment? they're filing a revision permit to adjust the property line on the other side. they're adjusting this side over here. and all this discussion has been well they're pulling it back a foot, but they're pulling it back from this side? >> can you shift it, we can't see? no, out and then perfect. >> let me show you the survey again. on the survey, you can see the encroachment is on this side from the building next door by about one foot. the permit is to pull back from the property line. but they're pulling back from this side. it's the wrong side. so they keep saying well they have one foot of wiggle room here in case they ever decide to finalize the survey, which is questionable in itself, but the

wiggle room is on the wrong side. so i would also note that under the building code, they only get six inches for field adjustment. they're talking about a one-foot difference. we have not heard from their design professional. i believe their engineer is here. maybe they could speak to how they're moving the building one foot with a six-inch allowable adjustment. this still doesn't add up. i appreciate mr. sanchez and mr. duffy's comments. it's been acknowledged that the plans are not correct, property line is not properly shown in the plans. and the windows as a result cannot be built as proposed. so the concerns that voiced are real. fix the plans. are they planning on shifting the building over to my client's property so they don't have sufficient space over here?

30 inches plus 12? and their egress corridor. if they're shifting by a foot in that direction, they don't have enough space. that has to be solved. again, the survey being preliminary, i don't see any reason they wouldn't have had that finalized. i deal in your veies for these type of issues regularly. the only reason i can think of that you don't get the survey finalized and keep it preliminary, you don't want it recorded on title so people know what is going on. that's not how this process is supposed to work. and i would encourage the board to ensure it's fixed. lastly, to bring it back to the privacy concern. these windows that they're talking about adding, there are a number of them. and they do create a privacy impact in my client's home.

you saw they're going to be looking from this balcony down into her kitchen, her bedroom, her yard. throughout her home from a higher vantage point, which is more significant privacy impact. i appreciate they're talking now about making this fixed window instead of a sliding door, but if that's the case, why do they need a balcony. it's shallow anyway. the brief said they wanted to put plants on it. let's eliminate the privacy impact. if the sliding door is changed to match the window next to it, it's less impact. it would be frosted. dramatic improvement. they wouldn't be sitting inside looking into her bedroom. i thank you for your time. i think my client may have had something to add as well. >> i just wanted to make it clear that from the beginning i wanted to support jordan and

sasha in their renovations. i saw them as really nice neighbors. i'm planning on being in san francisco for years to come. and i assume they are, so being good neighbors is very important. i tried to do everything i felt that there were issues with other neighbors. i wanted to not be that neighbor that caused problems. and so just again, my only request was the -- >> you have 30 seconds. -- was the privacy and sound. so my simple request is by adjusting these windows as was just mentioned, that will take care of my concerns. i'm sorry that all the other issues came up, but that is what happened when we looked further following my issues. >> i have a question, ma'am. were you aware of the discretionary review process

that is available to you through the planning commission. >> you weren't aware there was a way to make discretionary review to have the project reviewed? and you dispute the testimony that permit-holder provided you with information regarding discretionary review? >> no, i wasn't aware. i probably should have figured all this out, but i wasn't aware. >> did you receive the notification that is provided to tell ow d, you of the permit. >> the only thing i recall getting was the original notice that was going to be presented in the bernal heights library and i was out of town. it was after that meeting i requested to go to their house and talk to them. >> similar question. maybe your counselor might want to help. is there anything different in the 311 notification and what is

presented here today, other than the building is shrinking? >> i would have to go back and check. i think there was a change to one of the windows, if i remember correctly. i'm sure they're designed professionals could correct me. the major change is this permit is adjust the project vis-a-vis the property line. >> thank you, counselor. same question. can i have the opposing counselor or permit-holder. i'm sorry. can you come to the podium, please. >> hi, jordan miller. this is our design professional. the architect. >> welcome. i'm the architect and will be happy to answer your questions. >> can you speak into the microphone. and if you could identify yourself. >> my name is bobby sue hood. i'm an architect and principal with hood miller associates. i help write the original design review guidelines. and have been dedicated to

observing them through my career. >> so, ma'am, the question here is, on the 311 notification that went out regarding the project, has what -- are there -- >> there was one minor change. >> from the 311, we actually reduced the window size. 311 was a five-panel door and on the revision permit, we have a three-panel door and a window with a 32-inch sill. so we did make the windows smaller since the 311. by our own choice. >> okay, thank you. that's it. >> and thank you. >> i wanted -- >> thank you. >> ma'am, the time is -- >> thank you. is there -- can you shut the doors, please? thank you. and so, now we will hear from the permit-holder. >> so the appellant, unfortunately, has the geometry backwards in this.

let me just draw on the plan on the overhead if you could switch that where the lot ambiguity is so we can all be clear on it. so you see --oes this zoom in? anyway, there is a one-foot here. that is one foot clear -- >> just for the audience, can you depict where the appellant's property is located. >> it's located in that direction about 45 feet. [please stand by] [please stand by]

calle amankindra schari . >> just a few points about the

survey. a lot of haze made over the survey. jordan reached out to the surveyor before the surveyor reached the preliminary survey, so we didn't know where the property line was going to be on the preliminary survey. so the question is why didn't we file another revision permit? because it would take us another 2.5 or three months to get back here. i think you can hear from my clients that they just want to move forward with their lives and build their home, and they

don't want to invite further delay. and filing another revision permit rather than coming to this board and talking through the conditions would involve delay and would involve my clients having to rent a different place and stay away from their family home and prevent it from being constructed for just that much longer. i'd also like to point out in terms of the emergency egress, the basement level is the ground level, and there is a passageway on the basement level. the project that jordan and sasha are comfortable with the following, that they follow ab 009, that the survey be recorded and that survey be reflected on the plans. and then finally, that the door

that was proposed to be operable be nonprobable. so ab 009 would be complying with all the fire safety issues. >> could you repeat that again? >> yes. that the project sponsor will follow ab 009 and will work with the department to make sure ab 009 compliant; that as part of that, that jordan and sasha are willing to make a major concession to the appellant, which is that the door, the operable door that looks out west -- north ward, they will -- they will get rid of that and have it be a nonoperable window, and that the property line, as you heard, will be recorded shortly. thank you, and we're available for any questions. >> thank you. >> clerk: thank you. we will now hear from the planning department. nothing further? how about the department of

building inspection? >> commissioners, joe duffy, d.b.i. just to clarify in the public comment, they will need a window, and if there's an existing window and it's closer to the property line, we generally don't make them do anything that. but if there's one created, there's a little bit of confusion with that being brought up. with the other items that need cleaned up with the nick and the open's solid fire billet, and the bedroom issue may need to be addressed. the exit code requirement forr for single-family dwellings, we are typically concerned with

egress and life safety, and i don't think that is an impact in this case because of the single-family dwelling, but again, i would like the architect to address all of the issues with d.b.i. if we're moving in that direction. thank you. >> inspector duffy, one question. if we were to condition it, what would you like to see conditions? i mean, to remove the nonoperative door, meet with ab 009. the property line be recorded, and normal drawings and survey points at the site, and also to address any egress requirements for bedrooms. >> okay. thank you. >> it was just good tonight that we have the drawings -- or the approved plans tonight.

i don't know how they got in the appellant's brief. if we have that requirement for all the parties, it would make it a lot easier. >> easy, mr. duffy. >> mr. duffy, can i ask you a quick question? we've talked about surveys here before. you don't typically ask applicants to record a survey before issuing a permit? >> no. and because of the confusion on this one, i've advised them to do so before they do the drawings because the accurate property lines need to be on the site and survey points. we don't normally require that because it's supposed to be on there. >> the property line requirements. >> yes. >> okay. i see it. >> the property lines drawn on the plans must be correct.

they're not just there yet. >> my concern, just so you understand, we talked about precedent earlier tonight, i don't want to create a precedence where anybody who raises a property line dispute gets a condition of a survey being done. i don't think that's how this work or it should work, and i think that property line disputes belong in court and not here, but i guess they've offered to do it, and for that reason alone, i'd be okay with it. >> i agree 100%, because it's not something we want either. thanks for bringing that up. >> clerk: thank you. commissioners, these matters are submitted. we'll have to hear them separately because they're two separate appeals. >> may i ask a question? we don't -- haven't heard a word about the first motion. i'm happy to make a motion to

deny the permappeal on the bas that the permit was properly issued. >> clerk: okay. we have a motion from vice president lazarus to deny the appeal on 19-120 on the basis the permit was properly issued. on that motion -- [roll call] >> clerk: okay. so that appeal is denied, and now we're addressing appeal 19-129. >> so understanding that this process is extremely difficult in san francisco with notification, mailings, deadlines to be -- to be filed,

it's hard when people get stuff in the mail and they may or may not understand it. but for the folks out there, when this type of project occurs, there's neighborhood notification. that's a notification indicating and telling you what your rights are as an adjoining neighbor as well as submitting the plans for the prospective project at which time any of the neighbors or anyone has the ability to go to the planning commission and have what's called a discretionary review. at which point, after that discretionary review is done, and you're still not happy, you potentially end up at the board of appeals. in this particular case, that first process was skipped completely, and now that the permit holder is at the nearing portion of their project completion or being able to start construction, it's kind of like they want a do-over. and unfortunately, that's not

really how this system particularly works. going through the brief, it was kind of difficult because literally, there was two different stories from the appellant's side as well as from the permit side, so it was hard to determine what was really what until we got some public comment as well as instructions from the department. in this particular case -- and we see a lot of cases -- these permit holders, in my opinion, were exemplary -- whatever. >> exemplary. >> they really reached out and showed clarity in their project with -- and that's not just their word, it was submitted in the brief. in this particular case, there's an error that they found. i think if they had not found that, this project would have been built, and there would have been litigation or extenuating circumstances thereafter. as my vice president mentioned and we denied the first one is

the first one wasn't even brought up on this particular case. the plans that were set up were the same plans, and if anything, the plans have been reduced, and as per senior inspector partner, the plans are moving back from the appellant's property. so i see no reason to deny this permit at this point or to accept the appeal. and of course, i would recommend that we would condition the permit as per what the department recommends. >> that's your motion? >> clerk: grant the appeal -- >> grant the appeal and condition the motion. sorry. it was a three-week vacation. >> anybody? >> no further questions -- no further comment. >> clerk: in terms of what the department recommends from inspector duffy, i didn't hear your terms of the egress

requirement -- >> ab 009. >> clerk: well, that's for the windows. >> anything within 3 feet of property must comply with ab 009 san francisco building code and any building code requirements for bedroom egress must be must. >> clerk: okay. >> and then as commissioner san san santacana, should we condition that on that point? >> we will leave that to their discretion on construction because it would be foolish not to. >> thank you for bringing that. >> clerk: so you would not require the survey to be on the plans or recorded? >> correct. correct. >> clerk: okay. so we have a motion from commissioner honda to grant the appeal 19-129 and issue the permit on the condition that it be revised to require that the windows on the side property

line comply with ab 009 and that the sliding door is nonoperable, and further that the bedroom egress is code compliant. and this would be on what basis? >> sorry. before that, even though the survey does not need to be recorded prior to the motion, the correct property lines do need to be shown. so maybe once they do record it, it's part of the revised plans. so i just want to make sure that we're requiring that per the survey, they have to have all the property lines there. >> yeah, i would agree with that. >> clerk: okay. that's an additional requirement. how would you prefer that be shown? they submit their plans, as well? >> they submit plans with the correct property lines. >> clerk: okay. and on what basis are you making this motion, commissioner honda?

>> that the project is code compliant and just to -- to correct the condition that's presented with the building shrinking. >> clerk: okay. so on that motion -- [roll call] [gavel]. >> clerk: welcome back to the january 8, 2020 meeting of the board of appeals. we are now on item 7 a, b, c, and d. these are appeal numbers 19097, 19099, 19100, and 19101. the appellants are joshan klipp, zach karnazes, calle 24

latino district, and we also have kindra scharich. and they are appealing the issuance on october 26, 2019 to san francisco department of public urban forestry. the replacement tree size will be both 24 and 36-inch box-size trees, depending on available size and species availability. the replacement trees and necessary sidewalk repairs shall occur within three months after the repairs and removal occur. addresses range from 2700 through the 3200 blocks of 24 street. this is order 201771, and as a preliminary matter, i understand, although i have not confirmed with the appellant,

mr. karnazes, that the parties have agreed to continue item to march 11, 2020. is that the case? are the appellants present? can they come forward? and mr. buck, will you come forward, as well, please? okay. we can just stop. mr. klipp, i understand you would like to move this. >> i agree, but i would like to have an opportunity to make a statement. >> clerk: okay. you'll have an opportunity, but i just want to get confirm from everyone. >> i'm kindra scharich, and i do agree with the continuance,

as well. >> good evening. i represent calle 24 and we've agreed to the continuance, as well. >> chris buck, department of urban forestry, and the department also agrees to the continuance. >> clerk: okay. and if you could make room for mr. karnazes, please, so he can address the board. so mr. karnazes is the appellant for 19-099. >> hi. i would like to make a statement as mr. klipp has said, as well. if we can decide and agree on a statement that my statement can be, i have a lot of disabilities, and it was very difficult to prepare the things that i prepared for today, and i would like to share some of them. and if we can agree on a time -- >> clerk: and you can make a

three-minute statement. do you agree with the continuance or not? >> can i share seven minutes? >> clerk: at this point, no. we're just entertaining the continuance, so the board -- if it's not continued, then we will proceed with the cases as scheduled previously. >> okay. i just -- i apologize. i'm new to this process, and so i'm trying to understand. if i agree to this, can i make a three-minute statement? does the public get a chance to comment on this item, as well? >> clerk: they will have an opportunity to comment. it will be limited in time, given the volume -- well, it depends. first off, the board has to vote on whether to continue it, but there will be an opportunity for public comment. i also understand that supervisor ronen's aide is

present, and supervisor ronen has arranged for a room. if it's continued, they urge that discussions continue between the members of the public, members of the department of public works, and the supervisor's office. but if you would like to make a statement regarding this continuance, you can at this point. >> okay. i apologize. i'm still trying to understand this process because we have a room full of people that have taken time from their families and their life. i just want to be clear, will they have an opportunity to make a statement to the board in a limited time -- okay. they will not. >> clerk: well, there will be public comment, but it will be limited in time. i understand the parties may work a settlement. the plan that may be in front of the board may be different at a later date. depending on how the commissioners vote, if they do

vote to continue it, then we will not be having a full-blown hearing, so their statements at this point would likely be premature, but of course they can say what they want. >> in public comment? >> clerk: right, but we would be limiting it to one minute. >> so one minute for each person? >> clerk: yes. >> okay. so i'd like to go after someone because i have to get my papers. >> good evening, board. about 50 years ago, somebody chose to plant trees on this street, and they chose ficus because they're determined, much like the people who live

there today. regardless what you think about ficus, you should realize that what we do today will matter 50 years from now. that we shouldn't just be making decisions what's best for us today, but making decisions based on what's best for us today, tomorrow and after that. we should be thinking about doing right by this community today but also our children and our children's children. unfortunately that's not what's currently happening because in the same year our county officials declare we're in a climate emergency, we lost over 2500 trees. the same year our supervisors declare we must sequester carbon, we fail to plant as many trees as we removed. 50 years ago, the board made a mistake, and they're asking to

make it right. our own commission on the environment recognized that the region suffers from air pollution and air pollution-related illness, and trees are a critical element of the mission community's health. the problem is even with everything we know, that the environment is collapsing, that the mission is disproportionately affected. even with all of this information, we're still making decisions the same way we did 50 years ago. we're setting up ourselves or disaster and future generations for disaster. to that end, i want to recognize that supervisor ronen has taken a bold step and for the first time i am aware of in san francisco history, asking the department of urban forestry and department of public works to come together and to come up with innovative

strategies to mitigate these impacts and how communities across san francisco can impact the environment to make our city a more beautiful and resilient place. on behalf of myself and my community of tree advocates across san francisco, i wholeheartedly agree to this proposal and offer myself as a resource to the city, the community, and the supervisor's office to assist in this effort. [applause] >> thank you. >> clerk: thank you. >> we ask that the audience not respond to any of the presentations, please. >> clerk: mr. karnazes, would you like to address three minutes? and we are addressing the continuance at this point. >> hi.

thank you. i really want to thank everyone out here today that came out and took time away from their lives to be here. i think it's really silly that appellants get more of a say in this process because this is of course a huge community effort and a huge community issue. however, i would like to point out a couple of things. there are multiple issues here, and one of the things is that disabled people have been completely excluded from the so-called community notification of what is happening with these trees. i was here on january 23, 2019 in front of you and in front of chris buck, and i asked for an on-line database that disabled people could have access to so that we could know what was happening with our city trees. when will we have the public, a public map of which trees in our city of being removed, especially for those with disabilities who cannot just make a perimeter of our

neighborhoods when we're sick in bed? when will they stop wasting our taxpayer money and our personal time away from our jobs and our families to fight for trees that make the city beautiful? chris buck that was present ignored all of that, continued to ignore that for months and months and months and months, actually held hearings for these trees in june 2019 and had a meeting apparently at the hospital in march of 2019. none of this was posted on-line and made accessible to disabled person despite my repeated requests. i made requests over e-mail multiple days, and it was not until i found this appeal, all of a sudden, wow, look at that. we have an on-line database now of which trees are going to be removed. i find that really problematic. why does it make disabled people to have to come up and write, you know, what is it?

a nine-page appellant brief to try to get the city to comply with the americans with disabilities act? the americans with disabilities act is not vague on this. title 2, 8.2000 states a public entity must review his policies apolicies -- its policies and practices to determine if they accommodate people are disabilities. i think this department completely failed to do that, even with the repeated notices that i gave. i am still waiting for notices from half a dozen e-mails that i've sent to the department that continues to ignore my disability request. i just ask for a response, yes or no. we will do that, we won't do that. think fail to respond to me, and i think it's a tragic way for the department to be responding and interacting with the public. >> clerk: thank you. we'll now hear from mr.

arguello. >> good evening, members of the board. carlos bocanegra on behalf of calle 24. the department failed to take significant steps to determine the cultural significance of these trees, despite the comments they received from the communities of the restoration process that was initiated in the 1970s and 80s. the department of public works attempted to remove these trees diminishes and cu diminishes the community. these trees are an important

material development of the community. for nearly 40 years, these trees have been an identity marker, rivaling la rambla in barcelona, spain. these trees are part of the community and the identity. they contribute to the district's quality and walk of life, hold up and celebrate our holiday lights, something to walk under and protection from the summer sun. we ask that we provide the community ownership in this process a study and review, that they get to participate and decide who is going to be doing the reviewing to make sure that we do have a neutral third party reviewing these trees as we go through and make sure that we give the community the respect that it deserves.

[applause] >> clerk: thank you. please. we will now permit kindra scharich. >> thank you. does the overhead work at all? >> and just face it as you're facing yourself. >> okay. can i zoom in? oh, i see. okay. so i had prepared it on my laptop, but i don't think i can connect it here, so my name is kindra scharich. i'm very happy for the opportunity to address you tonight. i am here as a very concerned citizen and also as a resident of the 24 street corridor. i became aware of the war on ficus when i came back from vacation and saw that two trees

are been removed. it was one on either end, and i was shocked not only how it changed the entire atmosphere of the block but also, as you can see. this is before the ficus tree on the corner was removed. and that provided tremendous shat to all of t shade to all the residents who lived in the building above. after it was removed, there was direct sun light then that occupies that space every day of the year almost except when we have cloudy days, and the temperature in my apartment increased vastly. this is the direct sun light that now beats into my unit. it's not even the unit where the tree was removed, it's the unit to the side of that. so i was shocked by this impact. and then, i started seeing the

noticed for -- at that time, it was 70-something trees being removed, and now we have almost 50 trees that are slated to be removed in a five-block area. it's essentially destroying the entire canopy of our neighborhood. and i started wondering, why are we even arguing this? it's a funny thing. if somebody came to you and said, we're going to come into your neighborhood and remove all the trees? you would say, you're crazy. why with you doing that? i tell people, they're going to remove the equivalent of ten ficus trees per block, and they go no, that's outrage. it feels like a direct assault on our community, it feels like a direct assault on our neighborhood. i can't overstate how traumatic

this is for us, the prospect of this is for our neighborhood. so i would like to see a continuance on this matter so that we can investigate really innovative ideas to save our trees in san francisco. it's critical. i would say that i just came from hawaii, and there are many trees that are in disrepair and all kinds of things, and they've created structures to support those trees. hawaii has shown what their values are around those trees, like, we are going to work to support the trees, and we need to do the same in san francisco. >> thank you. >> thank you. [applause] >> clerk: okay. so we are now moving onto public comment, which is limited to one minute, and it is -- supervisor ronen's legislative aide here? i don't want to mispronounce your last name.

if you'd like to address the public comment portion. >> yeah. so -- so briefly, i had the opportunity to speak with a lot of folks here in the community earlier. i'm very, very grateful for everyone's commitment and ded indication and partnership and continuing to find innovative and creative solutions to protect as many of these trees as possible. as you heard, these are valuable cultural assets for this community, and on behalf of supervisor ronen's office, we're committed to facilitate conversation with the community, and with the department of public works to make sure you all make a truly informed decision, but also to make sure that we've exhausted every possible option that we can to protect these trees that are so valuable to the

community. >> clerk: thank you. and so is there a room available after? >> yes. we did reserve room 278. it's an a.d.a.-accessible floor. we'd like to continue the conversation there, and also chris buck has committed to being there, as well. >> i have a question. do you have a sense of what process you see happening over the next couple of months that's going to try to come to some different decision? >> sure, yeah. so one piece that we're really excited to continue to push forward is in partnership with d.p.w. and the department on the environment is having some focused study on the environmental impacts of the tree removal, so that is not necessarily a required element of this decision, but we feel that given the importance of this as you can see to the

community, given the fact that the mission district disproportionately feels the effects of pollution and all the effects from that, it is truly necessary to have that to understand the potential health impacts and implications on the environment and on the residents that really depends on the trees in this corridor. so that's a key piece of information that we hope to work on and to bring back to this board to have a full breadth of information on which to base this decision. on top of that, there are decisions that we've had the opportunity to talk with duff about. for example, replacement of trees on 24 street, and that's a really exciting opportunity, to make sure there's treeing on 24th street, not just on the corridor. so there are really key elements of this that i think that we can develop a little bit further and bring back

before the board, and we think the time allotted in the continuance would really serve that end. >> so do you see your office sort of continuing to coordinate these meetings, and i assume there will be continued public input after whatever happens tonight? >> absolutely. we're wholly committed to facilitating this conversation as best we can and working with the department and working with the community and advocates here to again identify these alternatives to ensure that we're presenting you with a community comprehensive plan that has available input and we can all have some consensus on a path forward. >> and if you got to two months from now, and we're not quite there, would you feel comfortable asking for additional time, rather than bringing something back that may not have full endorsement? >> yeah. we want to take as much time as we have in this process. this is up to you and members of this body, but we want to make sure we make this decision once and make it right. to do so, we need the adequate

time to make sure that we're turning every stone over and getting all the information that we need to make this really informed decision. >> so i, too, would like to reiterate my thank you to supervisor ronen's staff and to you for participating in this. >> absolutely. >> as we see, there is a lot of concerned people before us this morning. everyone has a voice, everyone would like to be heard, and we become the dart board, unfortunately, but this board has shown in the past that we're the tree stewards, and we care very much about the trees here in san francisco. and the fact that the supervisor is involved with the community that is going to do some outreach prior to coming before this body, because generally, we hear why are you doing this? and yet, we care, as well. seeing the trees on 24 street, the one disappeared in front of the church, that block looks complete different. i can't imagine walking down the parade as i've done for many years, down 24 street without any trees. i mean, i'm already fainting by

the time we get to mission. so down 24 is kind of a cool corridor, so again, really appreciate the involvement from supervisor ronen, and thank you. >> it's our pleasure. >> may i ask, so that we don't misrepresent what the public's effectiveness is in front of this body, we really are not hearing this case tonight if we choose to delay the proceedings, so it would be my understanding, and i want you to confirm this that when you take this group into room 278, did you say, that really is the preliminary hearing tonight. that is really where the public will have their opportunity to come up with -- >> voice their concerns. >> their most important concerns on this. >> no. i wouldn't want to short change a member of the public that

feels passionate about this. >> no. what i want to clarify is if we're going in a direction of moving this to another date, that really, any testimony by the public in front of this body, not that it's not important, i don't want to diminish it, but we're not hearing anything if we've already gotten the consensus from the appellants that we're going to move it forward, we don't know what we're talking about. >> i'm sorry to interrupt, mr. president, but the comments should be directed to the continuance. as you go into a debate with the public and get into it deeply, which this case, as my director indicated, could come back in a different form, and hopefully, we'll see some reform that has public involvement that people will be satisfied on, hopefully, both sides, which is -- i always tell everybody when they come here, everybody's equally mad,

both sides. so our job is tasked with things that are very important. i grew up eating roosevelt tamales and all that stuff -- the original owner, not the ones that are there now. >> they know. they know. thank you. >> all right. so thank you very much. does the public here understand that the comments really are to be addressed in regards to the continuance and not to the body that we love the trees, we want the trees. that is a forum that we're going to hold later. and the reason -- this is beneficial for everyone, because now that the public has some involvement, the department is here. he's here voluntarily, there's no handcuffs or chains on him at this point, he's going to hear everybody's, everyone's input, and hopefully, we'll be able to address this in a better way two months down the road. and i love the trees, as well. sorry to interrupt you, mr. president. >> no, thank you for your

clarification. anything else? >> that's all i have. >> thank you. thank you very much. i want to reiterate, we very much appreciate the supervisor's involvement. we appreciate the forum that you're providing on this matter. we look forward to hearing the hearing on the subject, but hopefully, you'll resolve the issue on the forth coming public hearings that you have. >> clerk: is there any public comment on the continuance issue? >> okay. please come forward. >> if everybody would like to -- >> clerk: it's addressing the continuance. [inaudible] >> clerk: okay. at this point, we're having --

>> with regard to the continuance, does this -- will the continuance also affect the hayes street and other decisions? can there be a moratorium on any tree removals on these fields -- would this apply to all those or just 24 street? >> just this particular purpose. >> even if that process were to reveal certain fundamental flaws in the ficus tree removal in general? >> correct. we hear them all. even though there's been such debate over the removal of ficuses, and there's been such a slow down of the removal of ficuses, is because of this body. >> we are asking for an overall -- >> clerk: okay. you can talk to them about

that. what the board is focused on is the 24 street trees. >> okay. thank you very much for your time. to any others, it is purely focused on the 24 street trees, i would hope that somehow there would be some consideration for other neighborhoods, if possible. otherwise, tree sitters organize. >> and to the gentleman in the back, you can speak to anyone that's here. you can speak to whatever you want. if you want to sing the star spangled banner if you want. >> if you can fit it in one minute. >> but the thing is that this is basically on the continuance, and you're going to have another opportunity. i apologize to everyone that's

>> those of 120-year-old granite curbs that have been destroyed all together. >> next speaker. >> can you put your name on a speaker card. >> my name is sandra and i'm born and raised in san francisco. the comment you made about the real work being done after this, i have a sick son at home. i'm not going to be at that meeting after this so i'm going to say now hopefully goes to everybody in this room. being born and raised in the mission district and those trees are everything. for us in the mission, it's those fake a trees. we love those trees. those trees watch me grow up. my grandma died and d.j.

document inowe got killed in front of one of those trees and last but not least, my brother who was homeless just pass we had on the streets of san francisco last year and he was sleeping under one of those fica trees. we hold value and sentiment for those trees. let me let new on our culture. when you go back to our country in latin america, it's all about the trees. every single town has trees that are central to that town. it's not even plants. it's the trees. so please, do everything you can to save these trees. no compromise. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> if we have continue outbursts. >> you filed the appeal on behalf -- >> this is time for public comment. >> i can give it up to other

folks, that's fine. >> next speaker, please. >> i was hoping he was going to say something i wanted to say. >> my name is louise and we've been residents from the mission district since 1971 and we've lived around 24th street. before in '71 there was no trees and now there's trees. we live on the third floor above all the trees. our rooftop has a beautiful line of trees going all the way to st. peters' church. just saying thank you again for hearing this and not, you know, giving a blind ear or a deaf ear to this. it's very important for all of us, i'm here, i don't represent only myself but maybe other people, we own a business in 24th and follow so man folsom f4 years and i speak with people who see the ribbons around the trees and they say how does this madness even get attention. why would anybody think of cutting these beautiful trees down. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you.

next speaker, please. >> >> welcome. matthew, president of san francisco forest alliance and we intervene and all types of mastery removal projects in the city. whether through recreation park district, department of public works or m.t.a. where there's street improvement projects. we support this continuous and the hope that this coming process will come to a resolution and that this board can accept the recommendation 0 so thank you very much for listening to everyone. >> thank you. next person, please. >> welcome, michael or john? >> john. >> good evening, commissioners. my name is john nolte.

san francisco international city and how does this hearing on trees look internationally? we have climate change and in australia is in fire and china used drilling instead of fireworks to celebrate the new years this year. the annual risk for individual killing of being killed by a tree is 1/10 million and so, lastly, so, there's over 7,000 signatures online on these trees and i think we should continue a plan for the 24th street corridor and also to plant trees in the immediate vicinity to elected other years. >> thank you say hi to your twin brother. >> is there any other public

comment. i realize i didn't give mr. buck an opportunity. did you want to? >> i wanted to ask if i could make a one minute general related comment not related to the trees? >> >> people can say what they want but you are wasting your time in terms of the opportunity to speak with supervisor ronen's office. that room is available. i don't know how long if everyone speaks here on the substance of the appeal which they are entitled to but then that takes away from the process. >> for myself to make one minute general public comment unrelated to the trees, could i have one minute of your time is all i'm asking. >> we don't do this and you are asking us to make exceptions. >> you are an appellant so you cannot make general public comment. thank you. so mr. buck, did you want to address --

>> good evening, commissioners and the community chris buck. just be very brief. public works agrees to the request for a continuance. we do so reluctantly. these trees were identified based on their structural condition and many cases over all decline. we must reiterate our concern for public safety based on our assessment of these trees. we do not take the removal of any street trees lightly. while we did significant outreach with supervisors' office and the community before even starting the formal removal notification process, we also understand and do appreciate the supervisors eady sire to work further with the community and public works. so again thank you for the opportunity to continue. >> thank you mr. buck. >> commissioners, the matter of the continuance is submitted. >> commissioners. >> i would support a continuance so that there is more public involvement to march 11th.

>> march 11th. >> so you make a motion? >> that's my motion. >> ok. we have a motion from commissioner honda to continue these appeals to march 112,020th. so that the public has an opportunity to participate in the process. on that motion. [roll call] so that motion carries 5-0. thank you. and so this concludes the hearing and i encourage you all to go to room 278. thank you, very much for your patients. >> i really appreciate it and our board appreciates it. the fact that not all 100 people got up to speak and then to meet somewhere else. so thank you very much. [applause]

[gavel]. >> clerk: welcome back to the january 8, 2020 meeting of the board of appeals. we are now on item 7 a, b, c, and d. these are appeal numbers 19097, 19099, 19100, and 19101. the appellants are joshan klipp, zach karnazes, calle 24 latino district, and we also

have kindra scharich. and they are appealing the issuance on october 26, 2019 to san francisco department of public urban forestry. the replacement tree size will be both 24 and 36-inch box-size trees, depending on available size and species availability. the replacement trees and necessary sidewalk repairs shall occur within three months after the repairs and removal occur. addresses range from 2700 through the 3200 blocks of 24 street. this is order 201771, and as a preliminary matter, i understand, although i have not confirmed with the appellant, mr. karnazes, that the parties have agreed to continue item to

march 11, 2020. is that the case? are the appellants present? can they come forward? and mr. buck, will you come forward, as well, please? okay. we can just stop. mr. klipp, i understand you would like to move this. >> i agree, but i would like to have an opportunity to make a statement. >> clerk: okay. you'll have an opportunity, but i just want to get confirm from everyone. >> i'm kindra scharich, and i do agree with the continuance, as well. >> good evening. i represent calle 24 and we've

agreed to the continuance, as well. >> chris buck, department of urban forestry, and the department also agrees to the continuance. >> clerk: okay. and if you could make room for mr. karnazes, please, so he can address the board. so mr. karnazes is the appellant for 19-099. >> hi. i would like to make a statement as mr. klipp has said, as well. if we can decide and agree on a statement that my statement can be, i have a lot of disabilities, and it was very difficult to prepare the things that i prepared for today, and i would like to share some of them. and if we can agree on a time -- >> clerk: and you can make a three-minute statement.

do you agree with the continuance or not? >> can i share seven minutes? >> clerk: at this point, no. we're just entertaining the continuance, so the board -- if it's not continued, then we will proceed with the cases as scheduled previously. >> okay. i just -- i apologize. i'm new to this process, and so i'm trying to understand. if i agree to this, can i make a three-minute statement? does the public get a chance to comment on this item, as well? >> clerk: they will have an opportunity to comment. it will be limited in time, given the volume -- well, it depends. first off, the board has to vote on whether to continue it, but there will be an opportunity for public comment. i also understand that supervisor ronen's aide is present, and supervisor ronen has arranged for a room.

if it's continued, they urge that discussions continue between the members of the public, members of the department of public works, and the supervisor's office. but if you would like to make a statement regarding this continuance, you can at this point. >> okay. i apologize. i'm still trying to understand this process because we have a room full of people that have taken time from their families and their life. i just want to be clear, will they have an opportunity to make a statement to the board in a limited time -- okay. they will not. >> clerk: well, there will be public comment, but it will be limited in time. i understand the parties may work a settlement. the plan that may be in front of the board may be different at a later date. depending on how the commissioners vote, if they do vote to continue it, then we will not be having a full-blown

hearing, so their statements at this point would likely be premature, but of course they can say what they want. >> in public comment? >> clerk: right, but we would be limiting it to one minute. >> so one minute for each person? >> clerk: yes. >> okay. so i'd like to go after someone because i have to get my papers. >> good evening, board. about 50 years ago, somebody chose to plant trees on this street, and they chose ficus because they're determined, much like the people who live there today. regardless what you think about ficus, you should realize that

what we do today will matter 50 years from now. that we shouldn't just be making decisions what's best for us today, but making decisions based on what's best for us today, tomorrow and after that. we should be thinking about doing right by this community today but also our children and our children's children. unfortunately that's not what's currently happening because in the same year our county officials declare we're in a climate emergency, we lost over 2500 trees. the same year our supervisors declare we must sequester carbon, we fail to plant as many trees as we removed. 50 years ago, the board made a mistake, and they're asking to make it right. our own commission on the environment recognized that the

region suffers from air pollution and air pollution-related illness, and trees are a critical element of the mission community's health. the problem is even with everything we know, that the environment is collapsing, that the mission is disproportionately affected. even with all of this information, we're still making decisions the same way we did 50 years ago. we're setting up ourselves or disaster and future generations for disaster. to that end, i want to recognize that supervisor ronen has taken a bold step and for the first time i am aware of in san francisco history, asking the department of urban forestry and department of public works to come together and to come up with innovative strategies to mitigate these impacts and how communities

across san francisco can impact the environment to make our city a more beautiful and resilient place. on behalf of myself and my community of tree advocates across san francisco, i wholeheartedly agree to this proposal and offer myself as a resource to the city, the community, and the supervisor's office to assist in this effort. [applause] >> thank you. >> clerk: thank you. >> we ask that the audience not respond to any of the presentations, please. >> clerk: mr. karnazes, would you like to address three minutes? and we are addressing the continuance at this point. >> hi. thank you. i really want to thank everyone out here today that came out and took time away from their lives to be here.

i think it's really silly that appellants get more of a say in this process because this is of course a huge community effort and a huge community issue. however, i would like to point out a couple of things. there are multiple issues here, and one of the things is that disabled people have been completely excluded from the so-called community notification of what is happening with these trees. i was here on january 23, 2019 in front of you and in front of chris buck, and i asked for an on-line database that disabled people could have access to so that we could know what was happening with our city trees. when will we have the public, a public map of which trees in our city of being removed, especially for those with disabilities who cannot just make a perimeter of our neighborhoods when we're sick

in bed? when will they stop wasting our taxpayer money and our personal time away from our jobs and our families to fight for trees that make the city beautiful? chris buck that was present ignored all of that, continued to ignore that for months and months and months and months, actually held hearings for these trees in june 2019 and had a meeting apparently at the hospital in march of 2019. none of this was posted on-line and made accessible to disabled person despite my repeated requests. i made requests over e-mail multiple days, and it was not until i found this appeal, all of a sudden, wow, look at that. we have an on-line database now of which trees are going to be removed. i find that really problematic. why does it make disabled people to have to come up and write, you know, what is it? a nine-page appellant brief to try to get the city to comply with the americans with

disabilities act? the americans with disabilities act is not vague on this. title 2, 8.2000 states a public entity must review his policies apolicies -- its policies and practices to determine if they accommodate people are disabilities. i think this department completely failed to do that, even with the repeated notices that i gave. i am still waiting for notices from half a dozen e-mails that i've sent to the department that continues to ignore my disability request. i just ask for a response, yes or no. we will do that, we won't do that. think fail to respond to me, and i think it's a tragic way for the department to be responding and interacting with the public. >> clerk: thank you. we'll now hear from mr. arguello. >> good evening, members of the

board. carlos bocanegra on behalf of calle 24. the department failed to take significant steps to determine the cultural significance of these trees, despite the comments they received from the communities of the restoration process that was initiated in the 1970s and 80s. the department of public works attempted to remove these trees diminishes and cu diminishes the community. these trees are an important material development of the community. for nearly 40 years, these trees have been an identity

marker, rivaling la rambla in barcelona, spain. these trees are part of the community and the identity. they contribute to the district's quality and walk of life, hold up and celebrate our holiday lights, something to walk under and protection from the summer sun. we ask that we provide the community ownership in this process a study and review, that they get to participate and decide who is going to be doing the reviewing to make sure that we do have a neutral third party reviewing these trees as we go through and make sure that we give the community the respect that it deserves. [applause] >> clerk: thank you. please. we will now permit kindra

scharich. >> thank you. does the overhead work at all? >> and just face it as y're facing yourself. >> okay. can i zoom in? oh, i see. okay. so i had prepared it on my laptop, but i don't think i can connect it here, so my name is kindra scharich. i'm very happy for the opportunity to address you tonight. i am here as a very concerned citizen and also as a resident of the 24 street corridor. i became aware of the war on ficus when i came back from vacation and saw that two trees are been removed. it was one on either end, and i was shocked not only how it

changed the entire atmosphere of the block but also, as you can see. this is before the ficus tree on the corner was removed. and that provided tremendous shat to all of t shade to all the residents who lived in the building above. after it was removed, there was direct sun light then that occupies that space every day of the year almost except when we have cloudy days, and the temperature in my apartment increased vastly. this is the direct sun light that now beats into my unit. it's not even the unit where the tree was removed, it's the unit to the side of that. so i was shocked by this impact. and then, i started seeing the noticed for -- at that time, it

was 70-something trees being removed, and now we have almost 50 trees that are slated to be removed in a five-block area. it's essentially destroying the entire canopy of our neighborhood. and i started wondering, why are we even arguing this? it's a funny thing. if somebody came to you and said, we're going to come into your neighborhood and remove all the trees? you would say, you're crazy. why with you doing that? i tell people, they're going to remove the equivalent of ten ficus trees per block, and they go no, that's outrage. it feels like a direct assault on our community, it feels like a direct assault on our neighborhood. i can't overstate how traumatic this is for us, the prospect of this is for our neighborhood. so i would like to see a

continuance on this matter so that we can investigate really innovative ideas to save our trees in san francisco. it's critical. i would say that i just came from hawaii, and there are many trees that are in disrepair and all kinds of things, and they've created structures to support those trees. hawaii has shown what their values are around those trees, like, we are going to work to support the trees, and we need to do the same in san francisco. >> thank you. >> thank you. [applause] >> clerk: okay. so we are now moving onto public comment, which is limited to one minute, and it is -- supervisor ronen's legislative aide here? i don't want to mispronounce your last name. if you'd like to address the

public comment portion. >> yeah. so -- so briefly, i had the opportunity to speak with a lot of folks here in the community earlier. i'm very, very grateful for everyone's commitment and ded indication and partnership and continuing to find innovative and creative solutions to protect as many of these trees as possible. as you heard, these are valuable cultural assets for this community, and on behalf of supervisor ronen's office, we're committed to facilitate conversation with the community, and with the department of public works to make sure you all make a truly informed decision, but also to make sure that we've exhausted every possible option that we can to protect these trees that are so valuable to the community. >> clerk: thank you. and so is there a room available after?

>> yes. we did reserve room 278. it's an a.d.a.-accessible floor. we'd like to continue the conversation there, and also chris buck has committed to being there, as well. >> i have a question. do you have a sense of what process you see happening over the next couple of months that's going to try to come to some different decision? >> sure, yeah. so one piece that we're really excited to continue to push forward is in partnership with d.p.w. and the department on the environment is having some focused study on the environmental impacts of the tree removal, so that is not necessarily a required element of this decision, but we feel that given the importance of this as you can see to the community, given the fact that the mission district disproportionately feels the

effects of pollution and all the effects from that, it is truly necessary to have that to understand the potential health impacts and implications on the environment and on the residents that really depends on the trees in this corridor. so that's a key piece of information that we hope to work on and to bring back to this board to have a full breadth of information on which to base this decision. on top of that, there are decisions that we've had the opportunity to talk with duff about. for example, replacement of trees on 24 street, and that's a really exciting opportunity, to make sure there's treeing on 24th street, not just on the corridor. so there are really key elements of this that i think that we can develop a little bit further and bring back before the board, and we think the time allotted in the continuance would really serve that end. >> so do you see your office

sort of continuing to coordinate these meetings, and i assume there will be continued public input after whatever happens tonight? >> absolutely. we're wholly committed to facilitating this conversation as best we can and working with the department and working with the community and advocates here to again identify these alternatives to ensure that we're presenting you with a community comprehensive plan that has available input and we can all have some consensus on a path forward. >> and if you got to two months from now, and we're not quite there, would you feel comfortable asking for additional time, rather than bringing something back that may not have full endorsement? >> yeah. we want to take as much time as we have in this process. this is up to you and members of this body, but we want to make sure we make this decision once and make it right. to do so, we need the adequate time to make sure that we're turning every stone over and

getting all the information that we need to make this really informed decision. >> so i, too, would like to reiterate my thank you to supervisor ronen's staff and to you for participating in this. >> absolutely. >> as we see, there is a lot of concerned people before us this morning. everyone has a voice, everyone would like to be heard, and we become the dart board, unfortunately, but this board has shown in the past that we're the tree stewards, and we care very much about the trees here in san francisco. and the fact that the supervisor is involved with the community that is going to do some outreach prior to coming before this body, because generally, we hear why are you doing this? and yet, we care, as well. seeing the trees on 24 street, the one disappeared in front of the church, that block looks complete different. i can't imagine walking down the parade as i've done for many years, down 24 street without any trees. i mean, i'm already fainting by the time we get to mission. so down 24 is kind of a cool

corridor, so again, really appreciate the involvement from supervisor ronen, and thank you. >> it's our pleasure. >> may i ask, so that we don't misrepresent what the public's effectiveness is in front of this body, we really are not hearing this case tonight if we choose to delay the proceedings, so it would be my understanding, and i want you to confirm this that when you take this group into room 278, did you say, that really is the preliminary hearing tonight. that is really where the public will have their opportunity to come up with -- >> voice their concerns. >> their most important concerns on this. >> no. i wouldn't want to short change a member of the public that feels passionate about this.

>> no. what i want to clarify is if we're going in a direction of moving this to another date, that really, any testimony by the public in front of this body, not that it's not important, i don't want to diminish it, but we're not hearing anything if we've already gotten the consensus from the appellants that we're going to move it forward, we don't know what we're talking about. >> i'm sorry to interrupt, mr. president, but the comments should be directed to the continuance. as you go into a debate with the public and get into it deeply, which this case, as my director indicated, could come back in a different form, and hopefully, we'll see some reform that has public involvement that people will be satisfied on, hopefully, both sides, which is -- i always tell everybody when they come here, everybody's equally mad, both sides. so our job is tasked with things that are very important.

i grew up eating roosevelt tamales and all that stuff -- the original owner, not the ones that are there now. >> they know. they know. thank you. >> all right. so thank you very much. does the public here understand that the comments really are to be addressed in regards to the continuance and not to the body that we love the trees, we want the trees. that is a forum that we're going to hold later. and the reason -- this is beneficial for everyone, because now that the public has some involvement, the department is here. he's here voluntarily, there's no handcuffs or chains on him at this point, he's going to hear everybody's, everyone's input, and hopefully, we'll be able to address this in a better way two months down the road. and i love the trees, as well. sorry to interrupt you, mr. president. >> no, thank you for your clarification. anything else? >> that's all i have. >> thank you.

thank you very much. i want to reiterate, we very much appreciate the supervisor's involvement. we appreciate the forum that you're providing on this matter. we look forward to hearing the hearing on the subject, but hopefully, you'll resolve the issue on the forth coming public hearings that you have. >> clerk: is there any public comment on the continuance issue? >> okay. please come forward. >> if everybody would like to -- >> clerk: it's addressing the continuance. [inaudible] >> clerk: okay. at this point, we're having -- >> with regard to the continuance, does this -- will the continuance also affect the

hayes street and other decisions? can there be a moratorium on any tree removals on these fields -- would this apply to all those or just 24 street? >> just this particular purpose. >> even if that process were to reveal certain fundamental flaws in the ficus tree removal in general? >> correct. we hear them all. even though there's been such debate over the removal of ficuses, and there's been such a slow down of the removal of ficuses, is because of this body. >> we are asking for an overall -- >> clerk: okay. you can talk to them about that. what the board is focused on is the 24 street trees. >> okay.

thank you very much for your time. to any others, it is purely focused on the 24 street trees, i would hope that somehow there would be some consideration for other neighborhoods, if possible. otherwise, tree sitters organize. >> and to the gentleman in the back, you can speak to anyone that's here. you can speak to whatever you want. if you want to sing the star spangled banner if you want. >> if you can fit it in one minute. >> but the thing is that this is basically on the continuance, and you're going to have another opportunity. i apologize to everyone that's

>> those of 120-year-old granite curbs that have been destroyed all together. >> next speaker. >> can you put your name on a speaker card. >> my name is sandra and i'm born and raised in san francisco. the comment you made about the real work being done after this, i have a sick son at home. i'm not going to be at that meeting after this so i'm going to say now hopefully goes to everybody in this room. being born and raised in the mission district and those trees are everything. for us in the mission, it's those fake a trees. we love those trees. those trees watch me grow up. my grandma died and d.j.

document inowe got killed in front of one of those trees and last but not least, my brother who was homeless just pass we had on the streets of san francisco last year and he was sleeping under one of those fica trees. we hold value and sentiment for those trees. let me let new on our culture. when you go back to our country in latin america, it's all about the trees. every single town has trees that are central to that town. it's not even plants. it's the trees. so please, do everything you can to save these trees. no compromise. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> if we have continue outbursts. >> you filed the appeal on behalf -- >> this is time for public comment. >> i can give it up to other folks, that's fine. >> next speaker, please. >> i was hoping he was going to

say something i wanted to say. >> my name is louise and we've been residents from the mission district since 1971 and we've lived around 24th street. before in '71 there was no trees and now there's trees. we live on the third floor above all the trees. our rooftop has a beautiful line of trees going all the way to st. peters' church. just saying thank you again for hearing this and not, you know, giving a blind ear or a deaf ear to this. it's very important for all of us, i'm here, i don't represent only myself but maybe other people, we own a business in 24th and follow so man folsom f4 years and i speak with people who see the ribbons around the trees and they say how does this madness even get attention. why would anybody think of cutting these beautiful trees down. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please.

>> >> welcome. matthew, president of san francisco forest alliance and we intervene and all types of mastery removal projects in the city. whether through recreation park district, department of public works or m.t.a. where there's street improvement projects. we support this continuous and the hope that this coming process will come to a resolution and that this board can accept the recommendation 0 so thank you very much for listening to everyone. >> thank you. next person, please. >> welcome, michael or john? >> john. >> good evening, commissioners. my name is john nolte. san francisco international city and how does this hearing on

trees look internationally? we have climate change and in australia is in fire and china used drilling instead of fireworks to celebrate the new years this year. the annual risk for individual killing of being killed by a tree is 1/10 million and so, lastly, so, there's over 7,000 signatures online on these trees and i think we should continue a plan for the 24th street corridor and also to plant trees in the immediate vicinity to elected other years. >> thank you say hi to your twin brother. >> is there any other public comment. i realize i didn't give mr. buck an opportunity. did you want to?

>> i wanted to ask if i could make a one minute general related comment not related to the trees? >> >> people can say what they want but you are wasting your time in terms of the opportunity to speak with supervisor ronen's office. that room is available. i don't know how long if everyone speaks here on the substance of the appeal which they are entitled to but then that takes away from the process. >> for myself to make one minute general public comment unrelated to the trees, could i have one minute of your time is all i'm asking. >> we don't do this and you are asking us to make exceptions. >> you are an appellant so you cannot make general public comment. thank you. so mr. buck, did you want to address -- >> good evening, commissioners and the community chris buck.

just be very brief. public works agrees to the request for a continuance. we do so reluctantly. these trees were identified based on their structural condition and many cases over all decline. we must reiterate our concern for public safety based on our assessment of these trees. we do not take the removal of any street trees lightly. while we did significant outreach with supervisors' office and the community before even starting the formal removal notification process, we also understand and do appreciate the supervisors eady sire to work further with the community and public works. so again thank you for the opportunity to continue. >> thank you mr. buck. >> commissioners, the matter of the continuance is submitted. >> commissioners. >> i would support a continuance so that there is more public involvement to march 11th. >> march 11th. >> so you make a motion? >> that's my motion. >> ok. we have a motion from

commissioner honda to continue these appeals to march 112,020th. so that the public has an opportunity to participate in the process. on that motion. [roll call] so that motion carries 5-0. thank you. and so this concludes the hearing and i encourage you all to go to room 278. thank you, very much for your patients. >> i really appreciate it and our board appreciates it. the fact that not all 100 people got up to speak and then to meet somewhere else. so thank you very much. so thank you very much.

>> still a lot of people wonder since the trees have a lot of issues, why did we plant them in the first place? >> trees are widely planted in san francisco. with good reason. they are workhorses when it comes to urban forestry. we have begun to see our ficustrees are too big and dangerous in san francisco. we have a lot of tree failures with this species in particular.

this is a perfect example of the challenges with the structure of the ficustrees. you can see four very large stems that are all coming from the same main truck. you can see the two branches attached to one another at a really sharp angle. in between you can't it is a lot of strong wood. they are attached so sharply together. this is a much weaker union of a branch than if you had a wide angel. this is what it looks like after the fi c.u. resolution s limb . >> we see decline. you can see the patches where there aren't any leaves at all. that is a sign the tree is in decline. the other big challenge is the

root system of the tree are aggressive and can impact nearby utilities, and we can fix the sidewalk around the tree in many cases. we don't want to cuts the roots too severely because we can destabilize the tree. >> in a city like san francisco our walks are not that wide. we have had to clear the branches away from the properties. most of th the can canopy is one street side and that is heavyweight on those branches out over the street. that can be a factor in tree limb failures. a lot of people wonder since these trees have a lot of issues. why did we plant them in the first place? they provided the city with benefits for decades. they are big and provide storage for carbon which is important to fight climate change and they

provide shade and really i think many people think they are a beautiful asset. >> when we identify trees like this for removal and people protest our decision, we really understand where they are coming from. i got into this job because i love trees. it just breaks my heart to cut down trees, particularly if they are healthy and the issue is a structural flaw. i have also seen first hand what happens when we have failures. we have had a couple of injuries due to tree failures. that is something we can't live with either. it is a challenging situation. we hate to lose mature trees, but public safety has to always

b>> 5, 4, 3, 2 , 1. cut. always >> we are here to celebrate the opening of this community garden. a place that used to look a lot darker and today is sun is shining and it's beautiful and it's been completely redone and been a gathering place for this community. >> i have been waiting for this garden for 3 decades. that is not a joke. i live in an apartment building three floors up and i have potted plants and have dreamt the whole time i have lived there to have some ability to build this dirt. >> let me tell you handout you -- how to build a community garden. you start with a really good idea and add community support from echo

media and levis and take management and water and sun and this is what we have. this is great. it's about environment and stewardship. it's also for the -- we implemented several practices in our successes of the site. that is made up of the pockets like wool but they are made of recycled plastic bottles. i don't know how they do it. >> there is acres and acres of parkland throughout golden gate park, but not necessarily through golden community garden. we have it right in the middle of

>> in 201,755.7 million passengers traveled through san francisco international airport. we have on average 150,000 people traveling through the airport every day. flying can be stressful so we have introduced therapy dogs to make flying more enjoyable. the wag brigade is a partnership between the airport and the san francisco therapy animal assistant program to bring therapy animals into the airport, into the terminals to make passenger travel more enjoyable. i amgen fer casarian and i work here at san francisco international airport. the idea for therapy dogs got started the day after 9/11. an employee brought his therapy dog to work after 9/11 and he

was able to see how his dog was able to relieve passenger's jitter. when we first launched the program back in 2013, our main goal was to destress our passengers however what we quickly found is that our animals were helping us find a way to connect with our pang. passengers. we find there are a lot of people traveling through the airport who are missing their pets and who are on their road a lot and can't have pets and we have come in contact with a lot of people recently who have lost pet. >> i love the wag brigade. >> one of my favorite parts is walking into the terminals and seeing everybody look up from their device, today everybody is interacting on their cell phone

or laptop and we can walk into the terminal with a dog or a pig and people start to interact with each other again and it's on a different level. more of an emotional level. >> i just got off an 11.5 hour flight and nice to have this distraction in the middle of it. >> we look for wag brigade handlers who are comfortable in stressful situations. >> i like coming to airport it's a lot of fun and the people you talk to are generally people who are missing their dogs. >> they are required to compete a certification process. and they are also required to complete a k9 good citizen test and we look for animals who have experienced working with other orgorganizations such as hospits

and pediatric units and we want to be sure that the animals we are bringing into the airport are good with children and also good with some of our senior travelers. i think toby really likes meeting kids. that is his favorite thing. he likes to have them pet him and come up to him and he really loves the kids. >> our wag brigade animals can be spotted wearing custom vets and they have custom patches. >> there is never a day that repeats itself and there is never and encounter that repeats itself. we get to do maximum good in a small stretch of time and i have met amazing people who have been thrilled to have the interaction. >> the dogs are here seven days

a week, we have 20 dogs and they each come for a two hour shift. >> there is a lot of stress when people have traveling so to from these animals around to ease the stress and help people relax a little bit. i think it's great. >> one of our dogs has special need and that is tristine. he wears a wheel around. >> he has special shoes and a harness and we get it together in the parking lot and then we get on the air train. he loves it. little kids love him because he is a little lower to the ground so easy to reach and he has this big furry head they get to pet and he loves that. >> he doesn't seem to mind at all. probably one of the happiest dogs in the world. >> many people are nervous when

they travel but seeing the dogs is just a wonderful relief. >> what i absolutely love most about it is the look on people's faces, so whenever they are stressed and flying is stressful these days you get these wonderful smile. >> i am the mom of lilo the pig and she is san francisco's first therapy pig. >> lilo joined the wag brigade as our firs first pig. >> wag brigade invited us to join the program here and we have done it about a year-and-a-half ago. our visits last 1.5 to 2 hours and it does take a little bit longer to get out of the

terminal because we still get a lot of attention and a lot of people that want to interact with lilo. >> i feel honored to be part of the wag brigade. it's very special to meet so many people and make so many feel happy and people that work here. it's been a great experience for me and a great experience for to totoby. >> it's been an extremely successful program, so the next time you are here, stop by and say hi.

>> my name is travis. i will be your waiter this evening. on the menu.

welcome everyone to these beautiful, beautiful chambers that i often refer to during board meetings as the mash pit. you all know what i am saying. so many wonderful memories in this chamber and such a joyous occasion this evening to introduce and swear in my good friend, dean preston. [applause]

i asked president norman yee how do you say congratulations in chinese. he said mazeltof. we do have some people in the room who it is my honor to introduce. we have former semble man supervisor and senator mark le leno. [applause] someone who i have known for many years and have a great affection for, former mayor art agnos. [applause] every time i drive down the

embarcadero, art, i think of you. he tore down that damn freeway. [applause] >> i have former supervisor david compos. [applause] >> san francisco board of education member mark sanchez. city college trustee tom cam comprano. alex randolph, treasurer jose. bart board director, former

supervisor, devin. current supervisor district 8, rafael mandelman. forcurrentsupervisor hillary ro. current supervisor district 6, matt haney. current supervisor district 1, sandra lee fewer. president of the board and current supervisor norman yee. [applause]

and current supervisor district 4 gordon mar. (applause). i was quite honored by supervisor elect, oh, my god, all right, current supervisor and colleague from district 10 supervisor walton. and, of course, without any introduction needed, my good friend and colleague from district 3 supervisor aaron peskin.

[applause] sorry for the omit. no returned phone calls for tom. where are you? former supervisor and sheriff ross. i can't use the "f" word. it has been quite a journey. i spent 14 years here in this chamber, and we had many victories, we had some losses, but we always stayed resilient. i remember especially the first years of my tenure the issues were housing, homeless, police,

muni, marijuana, mental health. that is why i feel this is the groundhog day movie. i would like to think that the various boards with their different opinions did lay the building blocks for many of the issues and social justice issues that san francisco is known for have been laid. and i know that we are going to continue that with our currently elected supervisor from district 5. when i got on the board, i had two supervisors in mind that were very inspirational. one was harvey milk. the other was harry brit. [applause] each of them knew what leadership was. it wasn't about being in charge,

but taking care of the people who were chair charge. i -- o who were their charge. they knew it was not someone who was going to lead but someone who was going did make a difference. that is why they inspired me and that is why i was so supportive and honored to support dean preston. i would like dean to come forward now and i can swear you in. we have been waiting for this moment a long time. [applause] would you pleas please repeat ar me. new jersey accent not required.

i, dean preston, could you here him? >> i dean preston do solemnly swear or affirm that i will support and defend the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of california against all enemies foreign and domestic and that i will bear true faith and the allegiance to the cons station of the united states and the constitution of the state of california. that i take this obligation freely without any mental

reservation or purpose of evasion. and that i will well and faithfully discharge the duties which i am about to enter. and during such time as i hold the offices of commissioner of the san francisco county transportation authority and member of the board of supervisors of the city and county of san francisco as mayor of the emerald city i now

pronounce us man and wife. [applause] supervisor dean. [applause] >> thank you. wow! thank you so much. (applause). thank you all so much. i have already broken a promise to myself, and i have now broken

it twice if the last week. never follow tom in public speaking. he is a hard act to follow. it is an honor to be with you all today. it is such an honor to be sworn in by tom, my legislative hero, mentor in many ways. i was so pleased that he was able to swear me in today. even if he threw me a curveball or two during the swearing in. i want to start by talking about something that i didn't talk about a lot on the campaign trail. i have had mixed feelings about talking about family and roots when you are out there trying to get votes. now that we won and are moving forward to taking office i will embarrass my family. thank you so much to my

incredible wife, jen kin, who is over here. [applause] she has put up with me now for 30 years. yes, we are that old. thank you so much for all of your support and sacrifice especially over this last year. to my kids who are hiding there in the second row. you can duck down and hide. that is fine. sky and kira. raise your hands. [applause] my brilliant amazing kids. if you have ever known anyone running for office or been married for someone running for office, you know the spouse, the parent is not around in the same

way as before they ran for office so i want to thank my kids and jenkin for all of their love, patience and support especially over this last year. thank you. [applause] obviously, i stand on the shoulders of a lot of folks in my family going back beyond those here today. my father, who is alive but not able to be here for health reasons tonight, he and his parents are holocaust survivors who landed in new york city and built alive in this country. without theiren credible tenacity and determination to overcome all odds i wouldn't be here today. i am sure for them, for my father and for my grandparents

and others, they probably never imagined that i would be here being sworn in and taking office in this next generation. so many others. my mother sacrificed so much to raise me. my brother is the rock of the family during the last few years when we suffered the loss of my mother and my sister who passed away in 2018 of cancer at the age of 51 and who loved the politics so much for my run in 2016 she made me promise i would run for office again. i am glad i made that promise to her. [applause] i also want to recognize and really feel the presence of migrator family, including those

here today. my wife's family, i don't know if you want to raise your hands. they are here. if goosby is familiar. it is because you know san francisco history. everything i learned when i moved to the city in 1993 as a new city -- new resident of the city, i learned through conversations with the late doctor goosby, first african-american resident of the school board and one of the greats in the city. i owe him so much for orienting me to politics in this town, including who to trust and not trust. that family loves this former mayor in the front row like no

other, art agnos. [applause] so i see we have our public defender. thank you for being here. [applause] i think we have mentioned the other elected officials who are here, but also the da is here. [applause] it is a new day in san francisco when our public defender and our district attorney so exciting things are to come. to my -- i guess i don't sato

say soon to be colleagues. to president yee and so many for making time today to be here, thank you so much. i am looking forward to working with you. i am used to talking more at rallies than at board of supervisors' hearings, i am sure you will teach me a thing or two about operating in these chambers. we have so many folks we can't recognize individually. people who work hard on the campaign. neighbors district 5, labor leaders, tenant rights leaders. so many folk fighting day in and day out for all of the things that make this city great and are unwilling to give up this city to the agreed, the speculation, the never ending agreed and speculation.

[applause] this is in many ways a big deal. it is big deal to me because i am being sworn in to the board of supervisors. it is bigger because of who i have the pleasure to represent on this board. i am as tom alluded to, the first democratic socialist elected to the board of supervisors in 40 years. [applause] that gives me the privilege and honor of representing on this board a movement of people who believe inputting people ahead of profits and making that a reality in every possible way. i am, i believe, the first tenant rights attorney to be

elected to the board of supervisors. [applause] i have had the honor for 20 years to be part of a housing justice movement. i now have the honor to represent that movement here in the board of supervisors, and it really is a privilege to be in that position. the movements that have put me here and that i have been a part of are not new. so many of you whatever label you attach and whatever you have been fighting for in legislation or in the streets, you have been fighting this fight. these movements have been fighting for years, for decades, really for generations. they are not new. the history in this town of organizing whether it is workers on the waterfront, lgbtq in the

castro, tenants rising up for rent control, the rich incredible history of activism is and has been alive for years. i am part of that movement with a greater voice here on the board of supervisors. so when i say today is not about me, it is about those movements, i mean that. i mean that in every possible way. i want the folks to know who have been organizing in those movements whether in district five or anywhere in the city that our office in the district five office is your office, it is your organizing center, what you do outside city hall is as important as anything we do inside city hall, and in fact your organizing workout side city hall enables me or will

enable me and has enabled my colleagues around me to do so many of the great things that have been accomplished by this board and will be accomplished by this board in the upcoming years. thank you for your incredible activism. [applause] you know, i get asked all of the time. what does it mean to have a democratic socialist on the board of supervisors? hillary is going to answer that? (laughter). what does it mean to have two. anyone else want to out themselves? we will have them all by the end of the year. to me the democratic socialist movement is about more explicitly not just valuing people over profits but

intentionally moving power in our city and our society through structural reforms from corporations and billionaires to working class people. that is the challenge of socialism and it guides everything we do. [applause] it is not just a vague idea or a noble cause, it affects everything that we work on. it means moving forward in a serious way on social housing for the city of san francisco instead of private real estate speculation. [applause] it means a strong union in every workplace, democracy in worker ownership and cooperatives wherever possible. [applause] it means an end to homeless

sweeps which we will not tolerate in this city. it means public power instead of power and other utilities for profit. it means public transportation and i dare say free public transportation instead of privatized transportation. we are up for this fight. i want to just recognize the elephant in the room. we will not do this all in my first week in office. some of these are long-term fights, some are short term. we will get to work immediately on all of these things, and i feel so emboldened to move to city hall and pursue these

issues because of all of the support and grassroots activism, the folks who have my back and know that i hav have theirs andu can't thank you enough for the support and for being here this evening. thank you, thank you, thank you. [applause] >> thank you so much for coming and being here. i am still pinching myself every second. we are pleased to hang out with

us, bask and share a lot of hugs. we will have a party for the opening of our office soon to spend more time together. tonight get out. there are a lot of cool celebrations in the city. enjoy them. we are going to change the world. thank you. good-bye. [applause] >> i came to san francisco in 1969. i fell in love with this city

and and this is where i raised my family at. my name is bobbie cochran. i've been a holly court resident for 32 years. i wouldn't give up this neighborhood for nothing. i moved into this apartment one year ago. my favorite thing is my kitchen. i love these clean walls. before the remodeling came along, the condition of these apartments had gotten pretty bad, you know, with all the mildew, the repairs. i mean you haven't seen the apartment for the program come along. you wouldn't have believed it. so i appreciate everything they did. i was here at one point.

i was. because i didn't know what the outcome of holly court was going to be. you know, it really got -- was it going to get to the point where we have to be displaced because they would have to demolish this place? if they had, we wouldn't have been brought back. we wouldn't have been able to live in burn. by the program coming along, i welcome it. they had to hire a company and they came in and cleaned up all the walls. they didn't paint the whole apartment, they just cleaned up the mildew part, cleaned up and straighted it and primed it. that is impressive. i was a house painter. i used to go and paint other people's apartments and then come back home to mine and i would say why couldn't i live in a place like that. and now i do.

>> hi, i'm with building san francisco. and we have a special program of stay safe today where we're going to talk about what you can do to your home after an earthquake to make it waterproof and to be more comfortable. we're here at spur in san francisco, this wonderful exhibit of safe enough to stay. and this is an example of what your home might be like after an earthquake. and we have today with us ben latimer from tvan. thank you for joining us. >> thank you. >> we'll talk about things you can do you don't have to be a professional contractor to make your home more livable after an earthquake. >> i want to talk about things a homeowner can do.

we have comfort and we have things like a little bit of maybe safety if your front door is ajar and waterproofing if you have a leak in your roof, or if you have broken glass on the window. >> so unr, one of the most important fib use is keeping outside out and inside in. let's look at windows. >> let's assume this window is broken in the earthquake. we have wind and rain blowing in. one of the most important things you need to do as a homeowner is secure the plastic properly. if you just take staples or nails and put them into the plastic, we're going to get a strong wind and rip it right off. what i'm going to have somebody do is they're going to have -- this is an old piece of shingle. you might have -- everybody has a piece of wood in their basement. it doesn't have to be fancy. they take out this rusty screw begun, and hopefully you have one of these. >> there is one at the neighborhood support center. >> at the neighborhood support center. you're going to wrap this plastic around this board, take

your screw. and then screw that in. >> you need a permit for this? >> you do need a permit for this. and you can contact the former head building inspector to get that permit. that's it. now when the wind blows, it's tight and it's not going to pull through, having a single point of contact. >> great. what about this door? take a look at this door. what can you do? let's say it doesn't shut tight. what can you do? >> for the sake of argument, we're on the inside. i can't lock my door at night. i have a very similar, very similar idea. i'm going to take my 2 by 4. i can put it across the jamb in the door. one. two. maybe i want another one up here, maybe another one down there. but i can go to sleep. and that quickly, i can get it off

in the morning. >> terrific. what about the roof up here? we see people throw blue tarps over their roof after an earthquake. that seems reasonable. >> i think the blue tarp is reasonable. the things that people want to know that they need to know is if you have multiple tarps, how you overlap. starting from the bottom and moving up so that you're overlapping this way. so, rain running down doesn't slide under your tarp. >> right. >> and the same technique we did over here, as silly as it may sound, wrapping the end of that blue tarp with your board and then securing that if you can underneath, if you have to on top is fine. but making sure that you don't have an area where the wind is going to get under and bill owe that tarp. >> the wind can rip it right off. >> and then you're back up there again. >> let's go inside and check out what we can do inside. >> old fun. here we go. >> so, ben, i see you have nails, universal tool right here. >> man's best friend. duct tape. let me show you a couple things we can use this for after an earthquake.

this window right here, because it's off kilter, we have open seams all along. i have a lot of air coming through. i want to stay comfortable at night. i want to keep that air out. it's as simple as that, all the way around. >> excellent. >> now i don't have any air coming in. let's say this one is one that would annoy me. everything is a little off. my doors won't stay closed. i take a piece of my favorite duct tape here, close it up. and at least it will stay out of my way when i'm trying to live throughout my day. if we're not talking about pressurized water, we're talking about just the drain, sometimes they're going to get a crack here. >> right, sure. >> and you're going to get a leak. duct tape around that is going to help us get through until we can get a plumber out and get that fixed as well. let's say we only have electricity in one room, so we're running extension cords across the house. if i'm going to run an extension cord from one room to the other, i don't want kids tripping on it. i don't want to trippon it. i take my trusty duct tape, tape it to the floor, and i don't have to worry about it

getting kicked. >> great, great. look at this. let's look at the duct tape here because we see a big -- >> yes. in the event of an earthquake, i don't think we're going to have too many -- too much debris that's safe to put into a plastic bag, even as strong as it might be. these are called vice bags. this is what they use to put rice and things when they ship it. this is something where i take my glass, i can take broken pieces of wood, i can take anything sharp and fill it. and it's not going to puncture and come out. it's not going to fall all over the floor. i've not going to have it sticking out, maybe scratch myself, cut myself or anything like that. these are a great thing to have. >> you have a little go-to box for emergencies. that's great. thanks very much for joining us, ben. it's really been interesting. and i want to thank you all for joining us here at the spur urban center.

>> this is a huge catalyst for change. >> it will be over 530,000 gross square feet plus two levels of basement. >> now the departments are across so many locations it is hard for them to work together and collaborate and hard for the customers to figure out the different locations and hours of operation. >> one of the main drivers is a one stopper mitt center for -- permit center. >> special events. we are a one stop shop for those three things.

>> this has many different uses throughout if years. >> in 1940s it was coca-cola and the flagship as part of the construction project we are retaining the clock tower. the permit center is little working closely with the digital services team on how can we modernize and move away from the paper we use right now to move to a more digital world. >> the digital services team was created in 2017. it is 2.5 years. our job is to make it possible to get things done with the city online. >> one of the reasons permitting is so difficult in this city and county is really about the scale. we have 58 different department in the city and 18 of them involve permitting. >> we are expecting the residents to understand how the departments are structured to navigate through the permitting processes.

it is difficult and we have heard that from many people we interviewed. our goal is you don't have to know the department. you are dealing with the city. >> now if you are trying to get construction or special events permit you might go to 13 locations to get the permit. here we are taking 13 locations into one floor of one location which is a huge improvement for the customer and staff trying to work together to make it easy to comply with the rules. >> there are more than 300 permitting processes in the city. there is a huge to do list that we are possessing digital. the first project is allowing people to apply online for the a.d.u. it is an accessory dwelling unit, away for people to add extra living space to their home, to convert a garage or add something to the back of the house. it is a very complicated permit.

you have to speak to different departments to get it approved. we are trying to consolidate to one easy to due process. some of the next ones are windows and roofing. those are high volume permits. they are simple to issue. another one is restaurant permitting. while the overall volume is lower it is long and complicated business process. people struggle to open restaurants because the permitting process is hard to navigate. >> the city is going to roll out a digital curing system one that is being tested. >> when people arrive they canshay what they are here to. it helps them workout which cue they neat to be in. if they rant to run anker rapid she can do that. we say you are next in line make sure you are back ready for your

appointment. >> we want it all-in-one location across the many departments involved. it is clear where customers go to play. >> on june 5, 2019 the ceremony was held to celebrate the placement of the last beam on top of the structures. six months later construction is complete. >> we will be moving next summer. >> the flu building -- the new building will be building. it was designed with light in mind. employees will appreciate these amenities. >> solar panels on the roof, electric vehicle chargers in the basement levels, benefiting from gray watery use and secured bicycle parking for 300 bicycles. when you are on the higher floors of thing yo of the buildt catch the tip of the golden gate bridge on a clear day and good

view of soma. >> it is so exciting for the team. it is a fiscal manifestation what we are trying to do. it is allowing the different departments to come together to issue permits to the residents. we hope people can digitally come to one website for permits. we are trying to make it digital so when they come into the center they have a high-quality interaction with experts to guide then rather than filling iin forms. they will have good conversations with our staff.

welcome to the san francisco planning commission regular hearing for thursday, january 9, 2020. happy new year and happy new decade, commissioners. welcome back from your break. i'd like to remind members of the public that the commission does not tolerate disruption or outbursts. please silence your mobile devices. and when speaking before the commission, if you care to, state your name. [roll call] we expect commissioner richardsons to be absent. first on the agenda is consideration of items proposed for