developing projects and insuring patient state of at san francisco general hospital our it professionals make guilty or innocent available and support the house/senate regional wear-out system your our employees joy excessive salaries but working for the city and county of san francisco give us employees the unities to contribute their ideas and energy and commitment to shape the city's future but for considering a career with the city and county of san francisc >> clerk: president lazarus, vice president honda and

commissioner swig, submissioner santacana and commissioner chang. i'm the board's executive director. we'll be joined by representatives from the city department presenting in front of the board, scott sanchez with the planning department. joseph duffy, san francisco department of building inspection. carla short, san francisco public works, chris buck, urban forestry. the board meeting guidelines, the board requests that you silence all phones and other devices not to disturb the proceedings. department respondents are each given seven minutes to present and three minutes for rebuttal. members of the public not affiliated with the parties have

up to three minutes each for the board and no rebuttal. time may be limited to two minutes if there are many speakers. you'll get a verbal warning before the time is up and four votes are needed. if you have questions about requesting a rehearing, e-mail board staff. public access and participation are paramount importance to the board and every effort has been made to replicate the in person process. sfgov tv is streaming this live and we'll have the ability to have public hearing for each item. it will be re-broadcast on channel 26. a link to the livestream is found on the home page of our

website. now, public comment can be provided in two ways. you can join the zoom meeting by computer, go to our website, click on the zoom link or call in by telephone. dial 669-900-6833 and enter the webinar id which is 872 1146 9268. and again, sfgov is broadcasting the number and access instructions across the bottom of the screen. to block your phone number dial star 67 and then the phone number. listen for your item to be called and dial star 9, equivalent to raising your hand so we know you want to speak. our clerk will provide you 30 seconds before your time is up. there's a delay between the live proceedings and what is broadcast and live streamed on tv and the internet.

it is important that people reduce or turnoff the volume on their tvs or computers so there's no interference. if anybody needs technical assistance or disability accommodation, you can make a request in the chat or send an e-mail to the board of appeals. the chat function cannot be used to provide public comment or opinions. we will affirm those who intend to testify. any member of the public may speak without taking the oath. if you intend to testify at any of the proceedings and wish to have the board give your testimony evidentiary weight, raise your right hand and say i do after being sworn in or affirmed. do you swear the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth? if you're a participant and not speaking, please put your microphone on mute.

item number one, general public comment, to speak on anything within the jurisdiction and is not on the calendar. i see a hand raised -- 4906 phone number ending. you have to unmute yourself. >> yes, hi julie. can you hear me? >> clerk: yes, thank you, welcome. >> first, i think i would be remised if i didn't mention the sad events in our capitol today and just keep in mind how grateful i am that we have the opportunity here to speak on a civil level of discourse. most grateful. good afternoon everybody. i was one of the appellants in the 24th street case decided on

august 13th by the board last year and i wanted to appear in public comment to provide an update on where the mission verde plan currently stands. in the last five months, the appellant and members of the community have met with representatives a total of at least five times. one of the meetings was to identify unviable sites and another was for viable planting sites in the area. a third meeting concerned the water and apparatuses and fourth and fifth addressed obstacles and updates on the plan. in november, community members had the opportunity to honor and mourn the tree marked for removal on 24th street and at that time, through community

outreach we added 72 volunteers. item 2 passed by the board of appeals states that the 95 additional trees the be planted as part of the plan were to be planted within 6-12 months of the hearing date, july 15th, 2020. to date, as far as we know, the planting sites have not yet been identified and not a single tree has been put into the ground. this concerns us very much, especially in light of the fact that the street tree planting budget appears to be almost completely eliminated. i would like to request that the board consider creating a special agenda item for a future meeting to discuss the timeline and implementation of our ruling. thank you so much. >> clerk: thank you. is there any other general

public comment? please raise your hand. we will move on to item number 2 commissioner comments and questions. >> president lazarus: i was going to plan to say happy new year, it doesn't seem to be right now. i usually focus on business at hand but it seems as it would be inappropriate not to acknowledge the horror we witnessed that took part in our capitol today. i find myself still emotional about it. and i think there just a couple of things that occur to me, one is that we take -- we never should take anything for granted, let alone our democracy. and two, kind of a reminder that we all took an oath of office

when we joined this board and we need to remain committed to the higher purpose of that oath and not to anything less than that. thank you. >> thank you. >> clerk: any other commissioner comments or questions? is there any public comment on this item? if so, please raise your hand. i do not see any public comment for this item. we'll move on to item number 3, the adoption of the minutes. commissioners before you are the minutes of the december 16th, 2020, board meeting. >> president lazarus: any changes, deletions to the minutes? >> just a motion to adopt please? >> clerk: any public comment on the motion? if so please raise your hand. i don't see any public comment.

on the motion to adopt. (roll call) thank you, that motion carriers 5-0. we're moving on to item number 4. this is appeal number 20-062, steve valdez versus planning department of inspection, appealing issuance on august 21st, 2020, to li junsheng of alteration permit comply with 200337276 and 2018008994, construct two new bedrooms and bathrooms and second floor remodel and relocate existing kitchen and bathroom. this is permit number

2018/10/24/4042. the planning department needed to complete an unauthorized dwelling screening. dbi conducted a site visit so the permit holder can provide a complete and full set of plans. we did not hear this case last time. it was continued. we'll start with the appellant. mr. valdez, you have seven minutes. >> thank you madam secretary. so, thank you again everyone. i'm steve valdez, i'm appealing the permit. and so there's a picture here that alex is providing, it's an overview of the property from the front on niagara avenue and

visible in the rear right away. the important thing from the picture, 53 niagara, there's a tall metal pipe that is actually the chimney, the original chimney on that building and then also 59 is a much smaller building. and so, before -- there's one thing i want to address that was brought up back in december by the planning department and i'm just going to put this in the record just for what it is worth. based on the brief, there was a permit back in 2003 for this notice of violation. i actually remember, recall telephoning and speaking with the planning commissioner about the notice sent out in 2003 and he said he went out to 57

niagara and had done an inspection. i can't speak to the extent of what he did, but for what it is worth, i'm putting that in the record that that's my recollection of what happened in 2003. of course the record here shows that he approved both sets of plans in 2003 and in 2009. okay. so, the next picture. okay. so this is a drawing i prepared based on the information i have from the plans and as well as my knowledge of what's going on on the roof. there's that chimney. i'll read out these numbers for the record of what is in here. the chimney is six feet from the front of 53 niagara. one foot from the side. the light wall is 19 feet from

the front and set back one from the side. and on the other side of the picture, 57 niagara, proposing the openings, the light well would sit between the two dormers. and may be estimated distances here, the first from the front window is 6 foot 0 inches and next is 6 feet 4 inches and from the side would be 5 feet 10 inches and to the second dormer towards the back, the proposed staircase would be 6 feet 4 inches. the light well, exhibits -- there's a little notch on the profile there. that's roughly where the light well is. those are the dimensions. so the point when we're talking

about administrative and fire safety, my understanding is the point is the burden is on the applicant to identify the conflicts to prevent creating these fire hazards, right? it starts with the applicant and then ultimately if necessary they have to achieve agreement with the city. so it starts with the applicant first, the burden is on him to identify these things and their plans do not take into account the light well nor the chimney. okay. the next picture. i talked about the ceiling height in the brief and this is based on the original building permit and my understanding of what i have seen. i haven't been in there with a tape measurer but based on the similarity between 63 and 57,

the original -- let me put it this way. the original building permit from 1913 is the dimensions on the permit are identical to the ones on the permit for 57 that i have included with the exhibits. so this is based on my knowledge of what is going on. i mentioned there's the upper part of the finished ceiling and you have about 6 feet 8 inch dimension i put in there. and so, i'm asking ultimately for -- there's two parts for this. there's the appellant making the appeal, i'm asking for the board to consider the case in entirety. and normally an appellant could ask for modifications, the list would be extensive. so in the rear extension, i did mention that the roof was raised

up so i'm asking to consider lowering the roof back down to the original roof height and then when it comes the the conflicts between the proposed dormers, does that require that these openings be changed. do they need to be removed or set back farther. on that second picture, the chimney, i didn't put that in there, my understanding is the top part of the chimney, the top two or three feet of the chimney have to maintain a three foot clearance from any adjacent structure. even though the dimensions are for the windows, you can see they are proposing a dormer like that, it would probably violate the 10 feet separation from the top of the chimney.

and so those are the things that an appellant would normally ask for modification but then there's the question of cancellation. my understanding the city charter allows for cancellation when there's a negative impact on the neighbors or neighboring properties or against general public interest and so i'm going to share something which i witnessed five days ago. that's the last picture. on the first of january, a fire broke out on a house behind us, this is number 32 -- >> that's time. sorry. >> is that seven minutes? >> okay.

>> you'll have time in rebuttal mr. valdez. >> clerk: we'll now hear from the permit holder. bill guan, are you representing the permit holder tonight? >> yes, i am. i am speaking on behalf of the owner. >> clerk: welcome. you have seven minutes. >> first of all, i want to bring up some of the information he is bringing up, never had a chance to review it and never sent it to us. but, i don't think it makes a big deal in this case right here. but because the reason is -- on

my reasons. the previous owner of the 57 niagara, the building has been by the previous owner and residence for many years. on the first floor, bedrooms a lot the bedroom has only like 5 foot ceiling height and the window has no -- the bedroom has no windows.

the stairs are not drafted to code. a lot of fixtures were installed in poverty. many electric -- the residence is an eyesore to the community. my client, he's going to be spending money to make the house a little nice. he's going to clean up the house and make it a safe house, a beautiful house in the neighborhood. let's go back to the chimney. the chimney, by looking at

google map it is really high, it's more than -- it's even higher than 67 by looking at it. it seems 5 or 6 feet above the roof. but we don't look at -- focus on the building, we don't. we have no priority or power over the adjacent buildings. building codes largely based on the poverty line. we don't do issues like the chimney. i think the chimney -- the chimney is really high. the second point i want to bring up that he mentioned about the third floor, the ceiling height, we had verified from the floor

to the top, 9 feet. that is not correct. going to remove that to calibrate so we can have almost 7 foot high ceiling with the dormer. make the third floor a low space. that's all i have right now. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. we'll now hear from the planning department. mr. sanchez. >> thank you. scott sanchez planning department. thank you to the board for having to continue this item to perform additional review. a couple items to note, raised in the briefs and concerns about notification. and there is no section 311

notice required. one of the reasons we continued it was to determine whether or not there was an authorized dwelling unit on the property and we reviewed that and found there was no unauthorized dwelling unit. we found no evidence there. there were issues raised with the interior floor to ceiling heights, appreciate that at the last hearing, the board is interested in getting the facts and finding out the case but do we have other means of getting that information, we have been in contact with the permit holder has been very responsive and indicated there are tenants in the building currently and have concerns about side business being performed. we obtained from the permit holder clear photographs showing with a full height with the

dimensions and accurately assessed if the plans were accurate and they appear accurate. i know there's been concerns because of the 1913 plans may have other dimensions. those are plans from 107 years ago, i think there's argument that there's been work done since then or if it was accurate in the first place. the building does have a garage now and i don't think that was constructed at the time. we don't have any reason to doubt the accuracy of the plans. we have no allegation that the building is taller now than it was allowed to be. the issues related to illegal construction have been at the rear and this permit addresses that long-standing issue caused by a previous property owner. the appellant is worried about raising the roof, the plans don't show that. if they were to do that, that

would be a violation. i'm sure the project will be closely monitored by the neighbor and if they are raising the roof, the planning and dbi will get calls with the complaint. the plans don't show the building of the roof line being raised. the dormers are allowable. the appellant has raised concerns about fire issues and i'll defer to acting deputy director joe duffy on that matter. generally, my understanding that property needs to meet all code requirements on their own lot. i don't think they can rely on a neighbor's property to meet the code requirements for that chimney. i'll refer to inspector duffy on that matter and i'm here for any questions. >> clerk: we have two questions. one from commissioner swig and

one from vice president honda. commissioner swig? >> commissioner swig: mr. sanchez, always a pleasure to see you. simply my concern was in reading the brief was that the building is an older building and has had a long life. it's gone through many iterations and probably a little blighted at this point. during the various iterations, what was originally acceptable for habitation or unacceptable for habitation seemed to have morphed into acceptable for habitation and it seems that there was over its long life as various owners have pushed back on planning or dbi, certain things that were originally illegal became acceptable. that is my concern here. and if mr. duffy's listening,

this is my question for him or if you would address that as well. how did this building get from being unacceptable in certain ways to being acceptable in a 2021 sense now without really changing a lot? and is it illegal? >> i think the issues with the illegal construction, the rear, which this reduces. this permit is reducing the scope of the building as it exists today. they're removing the illegal addition and doing other work to bring it to a modern situation. they are removing unpermitted portions of the building. >> commissioner swig: thank you. >> clerk: thank you.

vice president honda? >> vice president honda: mr. sanchez, you moved, you're no longer in front of the golden gate bridge anymore. you're back to the bridge. it is nice wall paper. i have a shirt just like that by the way. the question was and understanding that this property has been troubled for quite some time and multiple permits were issued and not obeyed and now we have a new owner trying to correct it. the question i have, you said there's no 311 notification needed, what required 311 notification back in 11 of '09 that doesn't require 311 now? >> good question. my understanding from the scope of work on that permit, they were seeking to legalize the addition. in this case they are removing the addition back to what previously existed so it is no

longer required. dormers within a certain size and doing the dormers allowed without notice. if the dormers were bigger, notification would have been required. >> vice president honda: it changes the footprint quite a bit. thank you. that answered my question. >> clerk: thank you. we'll now hear from dbi, inspector duffy, are you now deputy director duffy? >> yes, we had deputy director ed sweeney retired during the second or third week in december so i have the title at the minute and we're going to recruit and fill in acting positions hopefully soon. >> clerk: they're lucky to have you.

>> just on this case, i was going back between mr. sanchez on the architect and i think we got our questions answered on that. what i will say to the appellant, some of the issues are valid points and may have come up more during construction if the permit moves ahead. the ceiling heights is very important, in the building code and we need to get the building heights and we will get the ceiling heights so they're in the rooms because there's a minimum in the code of 7 foot for bathrooms and kitchens and hallways and 7 foot 6 for rooms. in regards of fear of raising the roof, that would be visible not to do that. that causes all sorts of problems during a project. we usually do a stop work order and you have to go back to

planning and get a new approval. and it can cause problems, i would definitely be advising the project architect to get an early inspection with the building inspector to make sure the scope of work is followed and that would sort that out. and then in regards to the 80009, you can't stop someone because of a chimney on another property. the chimney might need to be all set, usually the sponsor goes to the neighbor and says do you mind if i move the chimney over. that's up to them to do that. i didn't see the chimney as an issue. i didn't see the window and light wall as an issue either.

6 feet in the code, where you measure from. but the building inspector can check that as well if the permit goes ahead. i'm not that concerned about it to be honest with you. these older buildings, i agree with mr. sanchez, if it was something illegal -- the problem with the buildings when built in 1913 and now 100 years later we're looking at it again like with a microscope, we have to use our discretion in building and planning to look and see how it was done and what affect it will have on future projects and i know they are good at looking at the line of buildings and those come into play because we have to deal with it all of the time.

and during review of another permit, and so on. right now i'm done with my comments. >> clerk: thank you. i do not see any questions. we'll move on to public comment. is there anyone here for public comment? please raise your hand. okay, we don't have any public comment. we'll move on to rebuttal. mr. valdez, you have three minutes. >> thank you madam secretary. so picture number 4 again. sorry. there was a fire that broke out in the house and unfortunately it spread to three other houses, up to the yellow house there. and so the fire department had to cut into the roof of those houses and all of the neighbors had to move out because of the fire damage. what i was going to say, if

there was a fire that crossed the roof between 53 and 57 and you're having the openings between the light well and the proposed openings for the dormer and stairway and dormer for the room in the front, potentially it is conceivable that people can be trapped if there's that type of fire, it happened where it jumped across the roof. so i don't know, mr. bill guan mentioned something about sending something. other than getting the three pages of the plans, i didn't get anything else from him. i guess that's it for the rebuttal. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. three minutes for rebuttal. are you there, mr. guan?

>> just wanted to do -- i wanted to thank mr. sanchez and mr. duffy for their comments and i think it really tells a lot. and the final thing i wanted to say, we are going to clean up the house and make the house safe and beautiful. it has been a ghetto house in the neighborhood for a long time and it has been temporary housing for all types of people. the employment is going to be good for everybody including for 53 niagara. the permit has been approved by building and planning departments. the argument is from the

property, i hope you can review it and give it a chance. thank you very much. good night. >> clerk: thank you. mr. sanchez, anything further? >> nothing further to add. >> clerk: okay. mr. duffy, do you have anything further? >> no thank you, i'm good. >> clerk: okay. so commissioners, this matter is permitted. >> vice president honda: i guess i'll start. i feel the permits have been properly issued and also, reading through the brief, this home has had multiple issues for a long time. i think having a new ownership that has -- is going to the department and correcting the

issues properly is probably the best thing both safety wise for the neighborhood and as well as the immediate neighbors. >> president lazarus: unless there are other comments are we ready for a motion? >> vice president honda: deny the appeal. >> clerk: we have a motion from vice president honda to deny the appeal and issue the permit on the basis it was properly issued. on that motion... (roll call) that motion carriers 5-0 and the appeal is denied. we are moving on to item number 5, a special item, discussion and possible action regarding presentation by representatives of urban forestry for illegal

tree removal. it will include the legal authority and amount for the fines and fines once public works is made aware and process for changing the fine amounts. they will discuss other legal remedies available for illegal tree removal. this was heard on september 2nd, 2020, and upon a motion by vice president honda, it was voted on to continue the item with the expectation that public works report back on the following items. number one, the feasibility of holding contractors and developers accountable. two, the proposed amendments shared with the board of supervisors and status. three, review of the fine structure in general with the goal of increasing fine amounts and the basis for increasing the amounts and four, the legal limitations on imposing fines.

it was rescheduled to january 6th, 2021, and just as a preliminary matter, commissioner chang, did you have an opportunity to review the video of materials for the hearing that took place on september 2nd? >> commissioner chang: yes, i did. >> clerk: thank you. we'll start with urban forestry, carla short i believe or chris buck. >> hi. i'll try to go through the items you asked us to address one by one and just let you know what we learned or what we found. so in terms of the first item, the feasibility of instituting bonds, our advice from our advice attorney and city attorney's office was that bonds are not appropriate for case by

case development projects or removal applications. and because they need to be reviewed by the department and city attorney's office to ensure proper language and adequate amounts and then verification that the amounts are being paid and the sense was that that was a lot of bureaucracy that probably was not reasonable for case by case sort of typical tree removal application. one option that was noted that the department would be certainly interested in pursuing is the requirement of a security deposit which could be implemented with -- it would require a code change but could be implemented with much less bureaucracy, the department

could manage the deposit and tracking of it and a similar mechanism is used by the department in other cases. so there is some infrastructure existing for something like this. and then potentially if -- i don't think it has been our experience but if there were for example, you know, a bad actor, someone who previously had a history of violation in a case like that, we may require a more formal bond, but for the kind of day-to-day work, the advice was security deposit might be the better approach. the second item was the proposed amendments to the public works code that we shared with the board and status of the amendments. what we shared with three different offices at the board included amendments that wouldn't include actually a

bond, which has been recommended it may not be the best approach for any project within the dripline of a tree. that would cover many, many projects in the city. or the cost to remove it, whichever was higher. and additionally the equivalent replacement costs would be used for the bond, for the value of the bond. and the bond would be needed to be secured for three years which is roughly what it takes to get a tree established. so those were -- in addition to

some other proposed changes that were more for clarity, that was the gist of the tree protection changes proposed to a couple of the board's offices. and we did have some follow up meetings with members of the board. those initial three offices, we did not -- we heard back from one office that at this point they were not planning to introduce any of the proposed amendments. we were not able to get confirmation from the second office but expressed some interest before covid hit. my sense is we had some traction but the world has taken a turn. so that is where things were standing with those proposed amendments we previously submitted. item 3 was a review of the fine

structure in general and goal of increasing fine amounts. within the existing code, we have some ability but, again, it is based on whether there's been kind of multiple violations and that's not usually what we have experienced. usually we have one project that may -- when i say usually, we're not talking about hundreds of cases but on those cases where there's been illegal removal related to construction, we have not tracked many repeat offenders. if we did, our code does allow us to increase the fine amounts based on the second violation, we can double the amount. the advice that we got in terms of -- i think number 3 and 4 were pretty related. number 4 was the legal limitations on imposing punitive fines. the advice we received is it is

likely we could -- by we, the board would have to take action to this effect, but the city could increase the amount of the punitive fine but there should be some kind of nexus. it has to be connected to the violation in some way. we already had an increase for example for pruning around billboards up to 10,000 per violation. it seemed unlikely that amount would be probably okay because it kind of got a legal challenge once already that failed but there was a sense we couldn't just say we want to charge $100,000 for any tree that is removed. since we already have that amount of 10,000 identified in the code as kind of our high amount, there was a sense that that could be administered with

the code change, that could be administered as kind of the punitive-base fine and might get challenged legally but that amount was perceived could potentially face another and survive. i think that's pretty much it in terms of the update. we did get some indication actually earlier this week that there's a supervisor's office interested in working with us on this. i think that we could proceed with that. and the last item that i would just say, it wasn't explicit in the proposed amendments but something we would be interested -- not maybe directly related

to fines and how we address illegal removal but we think may be a deterrent as much in the same way as a security deposit, would be to require our code requires essentially a one for one tree replacement and we can charge for the value of the tree, but we can't double dip, we can't make somebody pay for -- pay for the value of the tree and pay to replace at that same size or value. what we would like to consider is whether we could make the replacement, regardless of the fine amount, the replacement based on the replacement of the equivalent trunk diameter. they would be fined punitively but also required to replace six

inches worth of trees or pay the value of those trees. so, those were the other proposed amendments to the code that the bureau has considered. and i'm available for any questions. >> clerk: we have questions from commissioner swig, president lazarus and vice president honda. commissioner swig? >> commissioner swig: thank you very much. good evening. carla, good to see you. my concern on this whole thing is that the accountability towards somebody who is going to take down a tree because it is convenient is not very punitive. we have had cases in the last

couple of years where there was a building i believe on van ness and some trees got torn down because they had to move a truck in to deliver stuff. we have seen a tree on a city project out in the bayview that was a traffic hazard, a vender of the city. it's convenient, we'll tear down the tree. or seemed to be no super vision on that. that one still confuses me. we have seen trees disappear because a third party vender just chose to take them down and because they thought it was -- they had permission to, rather than checking appropriately with buf. we have had trees taken down by

developers who made calculated decisions that i'm going to save five days on this project -- and this is nothing to do with the upcoming item, by the way. what i'm about to say, but it has happened before. trees have been the victim of convenience and money-saving tactics by developers or people who are building buildings because they want to save -- they have a 10-30 million dollars project and they need to save days which in days are money, they do value engineering and that tree gets to go. my concern is that the fines are really not a deterrent. they have become the cost of doing business when you're doing your other business which primarily includes building or something else and there's a

tree in the way. i still haven't had my question answered and i'm going to ask again. what is the strongest possible deterrent from a fine standpoint that can be done to really make somebody think twice before they touch that tree. (please stand by...)

>> that's the base fine, you are obligated to replace in kind. if the tree you remove is a

twenty base tree, you are on the hook for the value of those trees. for many projects, we get grief for a single tree which is $20,000. trees are the cost of doing business. they are watching every penny. if we were saying your fine starts at $20,000 and you have to pay the equivalent value in trees, i believe it would be a deterrent. >> with that underring, if that's what we like -- if that's what you are recommending tonight, you have to go to the board of supervisors to get

their support in changing that code. >> yes, that would require board sponsorship and a code change. we did get news today that there's a member of the board that would be interested in working with us in maximizing the penalties in what would stand up to a legal challenge. the advice we got from our attorney would stand up to a legal challenge. i can't say if that is what would be recommended, supervisor expressed interest in working with our office on this very concern. >> okay. that's good news for me. thank you. >> okay. now we'll hear from president. >> my line of questions is -- one tree cut down

inappropriately is one tree too many cut down inappropriately. i agree, the project size and budget is going to be determined appropriately. currently the fee is two low. two other random thoughts and maybe you were going this way. if someone is guilty of cutting down a tree that they weren't supposed to, what about having a five to one replacement. not necessarily all around the project, i think we have the ability to require the trees be planted somewhere in the city. three to one or five to one, not just a one to one. my other question may not be

able to be answered here but? kind of a black mark on that entity's reputation or ability to get a subsequent contract. any ideas for any of thoases. >> the ratio of five to one is similar to what i was describing as far as trunk diameter. sometimes fines are increased nine times. that might be at another way to get at the same goal. getting that tree out of the way and getting one tree back. whether it's a one to one or

similar approach. i'm not an expert in contracting rules. i know in the past when i tried to essentially have a contractor black listed because they had repeatedly misled their customers and cold them certain trees didn't need permits or they had perm mitts . we issued multiple fines. i was trying to get them away from the city's books. i was not successful. there's lots of protections that i think protect the wrong people. we might not be able to prevent them from working in the city but we can up the ante in terms of our requirements.

we can say you are never getting another permit from us without a bond associated with the tree in this project and make them post a bond in that case. the bureaucracy associated with those bonds is -- it wouldn't prevent them from working in the city which i would love to do. that's a much bigger challenge. >> do you think the database decision is that those sorts of things can be tracked like this is a bad actor, we need to get the bond sort of thing. >> projects that come to us, i think the challenge, scott and i

have had meetings, could we sufficiently flag for our colleagues, hey, wait a minute, this may not have come our way yet, but they need a higher level of scrutiny. we're all collocated. our hope -- we have done much better in reseptember year nzs n flagging things within the tracking system. i'm confident within our own tracking system would allow us to track anybody that came our way repeatedly once they came to us . i'm optimistic that we could track it on a city wide loafl. level.

>> thank you. >> happy new year. all excellent recommendations and suggestions from our fellow board members as well as the department. not trying to create more work for you. you already have piles of it. you briefly touched on it, c bi something simple rather than having a long drawn out process, dbi has a process to the nine times penalty. there's a minimum two times . depending on the infraction, that could be made to nine times. if they want that would be reduced, they have to come to the board of appeals.

you dpet the finger pointed at you guys a lot. we get the finger pointed to us a lot. we can't control bad actors who are going to break the rules no matter what. if you can't close out your loans, that another ten thousand dollars per month. we continue for a month or so. they get the message. i like all your suggestions. i would like to have something as simple as possible. some of the concerns that vi are like the -- hold on one second. some of the concerns i have are

regarding excessive pruning. i know there was some lessing from your department. the pruning from those large fiek uses was atrocious. you guys ding them really hard and they have second thoughts before doing it. >> thank you, vice president. those are great points. one of the things we can do working with the advice attorney and looking at the other models

like the dbi model. two to nine times the value of the tree that was removed. maybe that would be appropriate. we need to look at -- one of the challenges that we have is urban trees in a very dense city. they can get a little beat up, it doesn't mean they are not providing many benefits to us. i'd want to make sure that anything we do is based on the value or our buys line, whatever is higher. just because a tree is small or shabby, it doesn't mean you can take it out and not pay a price for that. >> i agree. i would like a process that is not as hard. there are people that are going

to do this by accident that really had no intention. that's when this two times penalty would come into play. there are people who do it ip intentionally and that will be the nine times. it will increase their budget to plant new trees and create a canopy in the city that we can be proud of. >> thank you. any other comments, please raise your hand.

mrs. asberry. okay. we can come back to you. >> i believe i'm unmuted now. i like the discussion and the direction of the thinking in this discussion. i know that we're all agreed that we need to disincentivize the removal of trees that we so sorely need and everyday we need them more and need to protect them more. i agree with the idea of the security deposit if it's too onerous to impose a bond in terms of what bus can support. however, i know a bond would be

more persuasive. i also think that we need to find a way to make siy agencies and their agencies aware of penalties. i believe there's a discrepancy in how city projects are treated in this way. i'm not sure how we would do that but some sort of way that people can know that just pause they work for the city or are contracting on behalf of the city, they are not going to get away with removing trees errantly. just to address valuation of trees, i think we want to be careful about a strict dbi or diameter based valuation.

i agree that the amount of trees could be larger so it should be a five to one ratio versus a two to one or one for one ratio. just using the diameter does not really effectively value a tree and it's ecosystem services or replacability. they don't provide the same value for many years. those would be my concerns with this. i appreciate very much taking this up. >> thirty second dollars. >> i'm grateful you found some support with board of

supervisors. >> thank you. we'll now here from lance karn. we can come back to you. why don't we hear -- >> if you could run the slides. >> give me a second. >> happy new year, everyone. >> thank you. happy new year. >> thank you. i'm a tree worchg. tree wonk, i like to look at the data. we're talking about tree removal and perhaps policy changes with

respect to dpw article code 16. one area i've been concerned about is tree removal hearings. this buff goods out and decides which tree they want to remove. we get a hearing schedule. twenty-four hour tree removal services is wiping out a lot of -- before august 2016.

i believe this is when article really was kicked into gear in terms of day-to-day operations. if you go for a hearing, you're going to lose. in may of 2019, they came up with a new type of removal code. it is called tree removal notice. the average time that it's left standing is two to three months which is similar to a fifteen day standing. i would like to see this policy

removed. also there's some discussion side about buff's database. i've studied this for the last 18 month dollars to figure out what they have and what you can learn from it. >> thirty seconds. >> it's not on line for public use. i'd like to contrast this with the real estate map for proposals. next slide. repeating again, fair tree removal hearings, no more notices. >> that's time. >> thank you. >> we will now hear from josh

clip. >> i just wanted to say first of all, i really appreciate the update. and all the creative thinking and input here. another case that was raised requiring no code changes changesprogress be reported to e bureau. ask them to start enforcing criminal penalties. i expect there are some contractors that wouldn't be pleased if it would happen to their brethren.

i lost it at the superior court because as much as he agreed with my perspective, the laws did not support that. i wrote a letter and said we have to change article 16. what were some proposed amendments at that time. it's p out there for a year now. it gets to my next question, what's the plan. what are the next step dollars and project time line hads the bureau set for itself when this special agenda item for the board goes away. there's some urgency to this. there's no money to plant trees and what's happening now is the

city is forced to look to development and developers and their current code requirements op planning or private folks promise to replace or take care. there's increasing reliance on private funning. it could be these fines are going to be the primary source of funding tree planting in the city oarnlg than private funding for who knows how long. my question is, what's the plan because there is some real urgency right in this very moment. thank you. >> thank you. is there any other pub luck pubc comment? please raise your hand -- okay.

mr. nolty. give it a moment. seems like everyone has a slight delay t. can you hear me mr. nolty? we can't hear me. >> now can can you hear me? >> yes, we can. >> i did some research and san n jose has a fifteen hundred dollar fine. next we have santa rosa that if a contractor does a wrongful taking out of a tree, they can deny the permits for two years.

why can't we do what they are doing. next we have san diego. these are already existing googleable rules in cities in california that are current and being used by those cities. i'm giving you three suggestions that weren't discussed and should be just as viable and used here too. >> thank you. any other public comment. please raise your hand if you would like to provide public comment for this item. i don't have any other public

comment. anything further from the commissioners. >> it's not often that we do go on record for topics. i think that it might be appropriate in this case to express our feelings based on what we've seen and see sg seeingshortly on the agenda. i guess my recommendation would be somewhat general but express our concerns about what has been happening and to state that we would support the dep in efforts to create deterrence so we don't continue to see these matters. i for one would not want to get into specifics about numbers and particular approaches. i think my recommendation might be to ask that or the director

work with mr. short and buck on a drafter to come back to us. i'm assuming it would be sent to the board of supervisors because what we're talking about are largely potential code changes. other thoughts? >> i agree totally with the president. i think we should get into specifics and micro managing. from what i heard from ms. short tonight was appropriate and a good direction. i very much like public comment, however, with regard to doing a study of comparable practices within comparable cities within the state of california, i think that's a great idea.

i would suggest what you said, president, we should develop a letter of recognition that we took up the topic. led in the direction that the department has suggested. i would add to that that maybe ms. short wants to consider doing a small study on maybe ten california studies and what they do on the same subject. if they are practicing it it's in their charts or legislation that will would imply that it could get over -- tested for legal hurdles. if we like their ideas, go with

it. borrowing it is the best form of flattery. >> we did do some comparative research. we were mostly looking at that at tree protection requirements. we didn't so much look at penalties, but i think that is a great idea. >> should be look at a target date. why don't you tell us given your work load what might be feasible and we'll let our director respond as well. >> we probably need a month or so to get the research done. looking at maybe we could work

withing executive director looking at some mid march in terms of coming back to the board or having something to present to the board. >> executive director is that okay with you. >> march would be fine. march tenth, 12th -- could we clarify. we're looking for a draft letter to send to the board of supervisors. >> potentially it's to the president and we don't know who that is going to be. that will would be the target or audience. >> the letter would generally express that we support the

department's efforts in creating a deterrent to illegal tree rea moval. we would need a study of at least ten jurisdictions. >> assuming that research will be done, that would effect our recommendations, that would be reflected in the letter. >> okay. we would need a continuance. we have march 10th -- >> i would go for the ten. >> i move that we continue this matter to march 10th to allow

preparation for a draft letter on the topic to additional deterrence for illegal tree cutting. >> okay. on that motion to continue this matter to march tenth. >> (roll call) okay. thank you. that motion carries five to zero. this matter is continued to march 10th. thank you to the department of public works. we move to item six. approval number permit to remove

all trees on frontage street. this approval is -- approved by urban forestry. it was illegally removed by the applicant. we will hear from the appellant. you have seven minutes. >> can you hear me? >> yes, we can. >> i had a video presentation prepared for tonight. given the day it's been, i would prefer to talk to you.

i told my friends and family, let's pick one thing and focus on that. if you try to fight for everything, we wouldn't get through this. i didn't pick trees but they kind of picked me. in 2009. in 2017 i came across my first tree planting notice. i didn't know what it meant.

after all my years planting trees, it was hard to believe there was any reason to take out a tree as beautiful as that one. i was stream rolled by a team of engineers. i got my butt handed to me and lost. the developers contracted me and wanted to talk. i believed and hoped that they had explored every possible alternative. that's not what they told me. he was told there was no turnive. that wasn't the case. what i learned through that first appeal, developers and

construction companies are generally believed when they say something can't be done. after i filed my brief appeal developers found another way. to this day i go past that site as often as possible. they are still under construction. it's a lot cheaper to cut down a tree illegally in san francisco and there's no consequence for doing that. i won an order to work on a replanting plan that the puc

never complied. i tried to offer constructive solutions. i attend urban forest meetings if you really want to nerd out on san francisco trees, i recommend reading san francisco's tree planting guide. as a private citizen i realized there's things that i can do that public servants cannot. i hold the city to an urban

forest plan. i'm exhausted and it's exhausting to keep fighting what feels hike municipal inertia. my mom didn't raise a quitter. here is what i respectfully ask you to do. please do everything you can to change this law. force your way into the planning process. developers, prioritize tree planting just as much as you do every other aspect of your project. construction companies, you can integrate urban forestly into your construction.

i would be dplad to share them with you. to the board, i know you are constrainted in what you can and cannot do. keep asking hard questions. you can compel a deeper discussion. tonight, i dedicate my presentation to those trees, to the tree that was illegally removed an the tree that disappeared. for all the trees in the city that deserve better. thank you.

>> thank you. we will now hear from a representative from mercy housing. >> thank you very much. i work with mercy housing california. i'm the project manager for 1064 mission. i have a presentation if i'm allowed to share my screen. >> yes. you can share. >> can we pause her time until that happens. >> her time is paused.

i think you're ready to go. do you want to make sure you can scroll through it and then i'll start time if you're ready to go. >> do you see i'm scrolling. >> you're ready to go. thank you. >> this is our response to the appeal. we focused our presentation on the reason for the appeal again is the four trees on steven son that we originally applied for those trees to be removed back in 2019. there's three trees remaining. one tree went missing sometime in 2019t. we'll for over that. one tree is in very poor

condition. there's two trees remaining . the project that we're working on is 256 housing. this building is going to be built with housing technologies where the units are built off site and these long load of two units are tracked to san francisco completely finished and craned into place. it includes the urban health clinic that is run by the san francisco department of public health which is run and operated by the homeless housing.

it includes a culinary education program. it's for people who are homeless or have been homeless. public art and community open space with access along mission street. all the public art and community open space was -- we came to those projects with coordination with the neighborhood representatives. this was showing steven son street where the ground floor para clinic would be. we originally applied for our tree removal permit back in 2019. the application requests that

four trees be removed. at some point one of the threes went missing. there's one tree that is not in good shape, it is basically dead. the ground floor is the clinic. the improvements, what we're planning to do is replace those three trees that are still there. wup is dead. one is dead. we're replacing them along steven street. this is the five hundred block

where it's a very active community group. it's very effected by the oap opioidepidemic. the hope is the encollusion of the urgent claire clinic with up to one hundred city employees coming and going everyday. that activity will basically improve -- make it a healthier street coming and going. the street trees had had to be worked around a loading zone. the bike parking which is right here and on the street because we need to provide an accessible path of travel along the

sidewalk. the pilling was held back off the property line. it was held back so we can provide an accessible plaj of travel. the tree that wept missing i just want to be clear happened before we started on site. this one here shows september 2018, the tree was still there. here is june 2019 and the tree is unfortunately missing. this at the bottom is a picture taken by a construction firm. you can seelet parking lot that used to be on site is still in the background.

the mission street improvements we're going to be planting four new forty eight box trees. swun a replacement for the tree that was removed during construction. two are existing trees that are going to be retained. all trees have irdpaition. the community open space is public art. that's basically our presentation. we just wanted to show you what we are doing in terms of replacing the tree that was unfortunately removed during construction. >> thank you. we do have a question.

>> thank you for your presentation. how many trees are you putting in on site. >> there's five on mission street. two are existing. one is replacing the tree that was removed during construction. two are new trees. the three that will be replaced are 48-inch box. there's three trees on steven son. one of the tree that's is there now is dead. >> through your study is that the maximum amount of trees that we can put on the site. >> i understand it is based on the other street improvements that we're including.

we have loading zones. one for an ambulance and one for the san francisco hot vehicles. we cannot fit additional frees from what i understand. >> i'm with miller company and land street architect. on mission street we're hemmed in due the loading zone. we're keeping one of the trees in the loading zone within -- to keep out of the accessible zone that mta established and we have one new tree also in the commercial loading zone which is fine for them. it's just what the space allows right now while preserving the

existing trees along with the new access route and loading zones. for steven son, it's three trees. we're also hemmed in by a loading zone and a new water meter on a further going towards searchth street. that's where we're at in terms of what space a allows. >> as you've heard as the appellant stated earlier, developers generally don't plan in the trees -- that's the least of their concern. although this project is in hope sf and does a lot of good. we generally see and we're hard on those developers to produce

more canopy for the city. when i see a project of this size and the trees maintain the same, kind of tough. thank you for answering the question. >> thank you. we'll now hear from the department of urban forestry. >> it's been an emotional day. a couple of steps forward in georgia and a few steps back in washington. i want to apologize for the appellant. i feel like it's the bureaus responsibility to protect street trees bottom line. we've not always been able to do that. including one of our own projects this summer. twept twenty rea