evision.evision.evision.evision. we're we're we're we're ready k thank you. goodu. goodu. goodu.d welcomewe to the may 10th 10th 3 meetingme of the santhe santhe a board of appealsappealsappealsak swig will be will be will be wii officer tonight, andt, andt, and by by vice vice president josent jl commissioner alexer alexer alexg commissioner john 16 john 16 jod commissionerissi jrsi j eppler s presentpresentpresent as deputyy , gen. hubern. huber who will po the board withard withar any nel

advice at the controls of the board's legal system, alcohol away and i'm julie rosenberg, the board's executive director. we will also be joined by representatives from the city departments that will be presented before the board this evening. corey takes only administrator representing the planning department, and matthew green, chief building inspector with the department of building inspections. the board meeting guidelines as follows board request that you turn off or silence all phones and other electronic devices so they will not disturb the proceedings. no eating or drinking in the hearing room. appellant's permit holders and department respondents each are given seven minutes to present their case and three minutes for rebuttal. people affiliated with these parties must include their comments within the seven or three minute periods. members of public we're not affiliated with the parties have up to three minutes each to address the board and no rebuttal. mr long wear our legal system will give you a verbal warning 30 seconds before your time is up for votes are required to grant an appeal or to modify a permit or determination. if you have questions about requesting a re hearing the board rules or

hearing schedules, please email board staff at board of appeals gov .org public access and participation of paramount importance to the board s of tv is broadcasting and streaming this hearing live and we will have the ability to receive public comment for each item on today's agenda as a tv is also providing close captioning for this fading to watch the hearing on tv, go to s a t v cable channel 78. please note that it will be rebroadcast on fridays at four pm on channel 26. a link to the livestream is found on the home page of our website at sf .org/ b away no public comment can be provided in three ways one in person to be a zoom. go to our website and click on the zoom link under hearings or three by telephone call 1669 906 833 and enter webinar. i'd 8630776. and again sftu hasbro sftp tv is broadcasting and streaming the phone number and

access instructions across the bottom of the screen. if you were watching the live stream or broadcast to block your phone number when calling in first style star 6th 7th and the phone number. listen for the public comment. portion for your item to be called and dial star nine, which is equivalent of raising your hand so that we know you want to speak, you'll be brought into the hearing. when it is your turn. you may have to dial star 60 mute yourself. you will have three minutes and our legal assistant will provide you with a verbal warning 30 seconds before your time is up. please note that there is a delay between the live proceedings and what is broadcasting live streamed on tv and the internet. therefore it is very important that people calling and reduced or turn up the volume on their tvs or computers. otherwise, there is interference with the meeting. if any of the participants or 10, years on zoom needed disability, accommodation or technical assistance. you can make a request in the chat function to our clone right the board's legal system or send an email to board of appeals. that s f cup dot org. now the chat function cannot be used to provide public common or opinions. please note that we'll take public comments

first from those members of public or physically present in the hearing room. now we will swear inter firm all those who intend to testify. please note that any member of the public may speak without taking oath pursuant to their rights under the sunshine ordinance, if you intend to testify at any of tonight's proceedings and wish to have the board, give your testimony, evidentiary weight, raise your right hand and say i do after you've been sworn in affirmed. do you swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. okay thank you. if you are participant and you're not speaking, please put your zoom speaker on mute. so we are now moving on to item number one, which is general public comment . this is an opportunity for anyone who would like to speak on a matter within the board's jurisdiction. but that is not on tonight's calendar. is there any member of the public who wish to speak on an item? that is not on tonight's calendar? alec is there anyone present in the hearing room? yeah, we have one person that which is to speak.

okay, please approach the podium. thank you. can we have the overhead please? overhead, please. put something there. i understand. you have three minutes. assume this out a little. oh, sorry. um. i was here two weeks ago to speak on

behalf of, um friends of the mission. greenway and the wider mission community. i wanted to give you an update on what's been happening the last two weeks since we were last here. since you have stated you wanted to write a letter um so oh, since we last met here, monkey brains has completely blocked public access from the parcel along 22nd street by adding this $300 monster lock, which they ironically had to cut. part of the gate to make it fit. you can see there's parts of the chain link missing. they cut that which is of course, also the gate that they stated was damaged. damaged does needed to be replaced by them. they have not removed that locke. they have not responded to our emails urging them to share. um lock to share. um, you know, a lock. um they've actually we've put shared locks there which they've

removed, which we've also already mentioned this two weeks ago, but since the hearing their you know, upped. the harassment towards the community and have increasingly attempted to block public access by this lock on the other side on the treat, cites the other business mission kids. the preschool has uh, put a lock on our lock with which we had shared access. so they're doing the exact same thing which is removing public access, which you know public access that existed there since the 18 sixties since the parcel. um since its inception as a railway so. even though you know, concluded here two weeks ago was that they don't have legal rights as in. they're not owners, and they don't have recorded easements. but what's happened is that we are actually being more and more pushed out. and by us, i mean the mission community. what we also didn't

mention back then is that since many months we've been threatened with legal action from these businesses also prior to monkey brains since they only moved in two months ago. in these letters from an attorney, um you know, the adjacent businesses used terms like legal rights and lawful property rights. they threaten with a court order monetary damages in a civil suits. in december, they placed multiple signs along the fence pretending to be owners. things the site those signs that read right to pass by permission and subject to owners control civil codes. 1008. another attorney's letter was sent on february 14th state and community members by their full name, which has members hadn't supplied in public. which i can set. consider further means of intimidation. they've also told adjacent neighbors that they shouldn't speak with us. and that they're looking at their security footage, and they don't want neighbors to be speaking with us their neighbors time.

thanks. okay. thank you. is there any further general public comment please raise your hand. okay i don't see any on okay. thank you. so we will now move on to item number two commissioner comments and questions. mr singh? yep. any comments questions? okay thank you very much. none okay. thank you. well, we are now moving on to item number three. the adoption of the minutes. commissioners before you for discussion. possible adoption of the minutes of the april 12th 2023 meeting, and commissioner trasvina reached out to me before the hearing and stated that he would like to change the caption for item number six. this was the special item related to taxi appeals. the first sentence of the caption notes that vice president lopez sent a letter to the sfm to a mission urges guinea would like the caption to state that vice president lopez letter was sent on behalf of the board of appeals. okay commissioners who

have emotion with, uh, with with acceptance of the recommended change, please. mitchell member moved to adopt the minutes with commissioner trans vina's amendment. okay thank you. is there any public comment on this motion? please raise your hand. okay. i don't see any so. on commissioner lindbergh's motion to adopt the minutes as a as amended by commissioner shows vigna vice president lopez, i trasvina. mr eppler president. swig motion carries 5 to 0 in the minutes are adopted. we are now moving on to item number four. this is appeal number 23-1 to mark levinson and annette miraglia versus department building inspection planning department approval subject property 14 62 lake street, appealing the issue in some march 10th 2023 to john paulson of an alteration permit at a 10 ft cable fence. this is permit number 2023 02 to three. 24 72.

we will hear from the appellant's first welcome. you have seven minutes. hello i'm annette feroli. and this is my husband, mark levinson. we submitted our brief on in april , and, um, the paulson's submitted a reply on may 4th. i'm not sure if we're supposed to go over the brief in detail or not. i'm not familiar with the process. um but let me let me advise you that this is a point where you you would present what you want us to hear . it might be a summary of your brief. it might be additional items that you want to call to our attention. um but it it basically formally advised us and verbally as to, uh, what's your point of view is on the subject. okay, then there'll be a rebuttal period after uh, the project sponsor. um gets to

speak, and they may say something that you would like to rebut. or you might run out of time initially and find that you need to make another point. okay so that's that's the best guidance i can give you. would you like to restart the time, please? thank you starting the time. thank you. thank you, um we filed our brief because we are sorry we filed our brief because we were surprised when we saw the paulson's erecting a 10 ft fence. we knew that they had a permit for a six ft fence , which was originally in the backyard and we thought that was continuing out to the front. but then they started putting this metal structure up and we were rather disturbed by it because it's quite large, and we only have one window in our dining room and they're tall cables. they're 10 ft. there are various the polls themselves are 10 ft. and then there's cables throughout, so we're concerned about vines growing up, and i don't know if there's pictures,

their vines growing up and blocking out the little light that we have, um it. there is a camelia tree there and we get filtered light through the tree . we could always trim the branches of the tree, but we can't do anything about a 10 ft fence right now, um the pulse and put some imitation ivy around the poles. uh because we were concerned that the ivy would completely the vines were completely over grow. but our our big concern is that there's a little the i v going around the poles. it's still makes the polls larger. and as the sun goes across. it isn't just directly in front of the window . it's coming down and as it moves across the poles create an additional shadow. the polls are not directly in front of. it's a it's 3333 pane window. the polls aren't directly in front of the window, but they're about two

inches to the right and then two inches to the left and about 17 inches out. so it creates a barrier that isn't easy to see if you're looking at it from the outside, you think oh, well, it's not directly in front of the window, but it has the same effect of creating a shadow. in the reply brief, um that the poulsen's attorneys filed. they say, well, it's just a shadow. you know, it's the minimus that the shadow isn't a big deal, and it would just be shadow on shadow. but if you're inside the dining room where the window is , it's not the minimus um and because we can't do anything about the poles and the vines. when the vines grow. we can't trim them. they aren't our vines . we can't reduce 10 ft poles. we could trim the branches of the bush or the tree. i call it a tree, but i guess technically, it's a bush. so those are some of the concerns we had with the permit and that, um you know, we

were surprised that the fence was erected before they had the permit. we know they had a permit for a six ft fence. but then we found out that they didn't have the permit for the 10 ft fence. so um, in the reply , reply brief. the tolson's attorney stated that when they found out that you know that when a complaint was filed about the 10 ft fence then they altered. i guess their original permit. to make it 10 ft high. and i guess my question would be that if you have a permit for a six ft fence, and you know that your permanence for a six ft fence, it doesn't seem appropriate to build a 10 ft fence and then only get your permit months after you built the fence. i mean, they built it. in january. they applied for the permit on february 23rd, and they only got the permit on march 10th, but the fence was completely erected by the time they got the permit. so what were we supposed to do? i mean, it was already there. it was

like a fate accompli. and i mean, not. there was a long history, which we talked about in our brief. um but there was a lot of damage done to our property under their permits in 2022. we attached exhibits c through g in our brief, which showed the damage that was done to the side of our house. there was exposed concrete shingles were knocked off paint was disrupted. our garden was trashed a front garden used as a staging area and this went on for months, and we didn't go and actively complain because we didn't want to stop the job. but we did speak to the contractors and we said you have to fix this . this is just a disaster, you know? are you going to fix it? and this went on and on and on and then finally we have to write to the contractor. and they responded and said, yes, we're going to fix it, and they listed everything they would do of re stuck owing the wall and putting up the shingles. so you know, we don't have. um, it was just a difficult history with these earlier permits, and we

didn't complain forcefully. and i guess we should have and that was our mistake. but you know, we were just trying to be neighborly and let them finish their job. but a lot of damage was done, and it was disruption over a period of many months. so then we kind of thought. well, this is all over. the contractors have finally done these repairs. but now there's this 10 ft fence, so it was just very disheartening that that should happen. um in the reply brief. one of the things that i found disturbing was, uh, their attorney kept saying there was no damage under the 2022 permits . when anyone can see by looking at our exhibits. there was plenty of damage and then they end on i think was a page five of their reply. they again say, um there was no damage, and then they attach exhibit i, which is a picture. of when the repairs had been completed by the contractor. so yeah, the contractor did the repairs, but

that's not the same thing as saying. there was no damage that's like someone crashing into your car and you get your car fixed. and the person who crashed into your car says there was no damage. well, of course, there was damage. you got it fixed, but there was damage. so you know this damage occurred, and then there were various issues issues with the property line and the back where you know, we were told they owned the portion of our property. it turns out they didn't know on it. uh you know, just a lot of negative experiences. so i guess seeing this 10 ft fence and seeing that our little window, which is the only window there. it's in the houses from 19. oh, four. we didn't fix the house up . it's you know, old school. we just, you know, we keep it as it is. we're more into sustainability. we don't we don't do that kind of thing. so it's you know, it's not a big window, but it's our window like that's our window and you know, to have to look at our window. now. let's see these polls and see the shadows. it's upsetting. you know, i find it really

upsetting because i sit there and i put my back to that window and that's where i do all my work at the table. and you know , i needed the light and it's just gonna be gone and that i understand that the imitation vines aren't gonna spread out. but they can take those mines down tomorrow, the imitation vines and then the real vines will just grow up. so you know, it's anyway. it was just a difficult situation. thank you time. thank you. question from commissioner number people commissioner limburg. ask questions, mr teague, would you do me a favor and close that door? because we're getting mr green either one. thanks. getting some noise in here. sorry. want to hear every word you say. commission member appreciated. thank you for your testimony. i you stated that, uh , that the construction on the fence was was completed before the permit was issued. can you can you go into a little bit more? about what? the timeline

regarding the building of this fence was 10 ft fence. um we saw polls put in. it was in mid january, wasn't it? we saw these polls put in him in mid january , and we were pretty concerned because they were very tall. holes. and we were under the impression that there was going to be a six ft fence put in. so it was like, wow, what are these polls? we talked to the contractor because they were always on our property, you know, walking around and the contractor would say to us all the policies told us not to talk to you. and we'd be like, well, you're building a fence on our property. i think you're supposed to talk to us. so it was just a very strange, very strange situation. but we saw these polls and then you know we had various conversations, but it just excuse me. um they just continued building it and then the cables were put in and then they poured cement and i would say that it was basically completed right the beginning of february, right? it was completed the beginning of february, and then it was they

didn't even apply to build this till february, 23rd according you know, it's even in there were reply brief. they acknowledge that and they said, well, their contract everything was supposed to be under a permit. but it wasn't and it just seems odd to me that their contractor i mean, they've done hundreds of thousands of dollars of work in there, back ground. i have a follow up question was was there a six ft fence built previous to that, or is it was there? never a six ft 6 ft fence in the backyard, ending backyard, but then there was no offense. okay so there just was no offense, and then it was went from 0 to 10. yes, thank you. okay any further questions? have an additional question. um. two questions. how long have you and the paulson has been neighbors? 17 years and during the time of the construction of the of the fence, and you're filing this appeal can you describe any

interactions on the substance of this house? has there been any effort by either you or the postings to talk to each other to resolve this in any way? you tremendous amount of effort. um, we even. we've been told one thing, um, could you speak into the microphone told by john paulson that there was four ft of their property. uh the back fence fence. well yes, we, um we were told by john on the telephone that they're building a 10 ft fence. um and we email them asked them for the dimensions of the fence, so we knew where it was going. um got no response. emailed, um again got no response. um, i talked to him on the phone later on and he said, well, um, i said, john, why do you need 10 ft fence there. why don't you just have a six ft fence, and we'll still have light in our dining room window? and it's not just the

light straight in. but on the dining room table from the sides, you really see the light. and he said, i want to because i can have it so i have a right to have it. so um, at that point, we filed the permit. appeal. okay thank you. we will now hear from the permit holders, and i believe miss jones, the attorney for the permit holders is here. welcome. you have seven minutes. good evening, president swig and commissioners. my name is alexandra jones. i'm with the law firm between morris. i'm here with my co counsel, alice sparkly. uh, the permit holders are also present. the issue before the board this evening is extremely narrow. um, and that is whether approval of a 10 ft high open cable foot cable fence blocks light access to a dining room. celestial a window. be on the appellant's side yard. this work was done without a permit upon learning that they did not

have a permit for the fence. the appellant's instructed their contract, um, contractor to obtain said permit, which was issued on march 10th. the appeal before the board this evening is without merit. the window in question is already heavily blocked by a large camelia bush . camelia is located directly in front of and severely limits the sunlight access to the window from every angle. both in front and from the sides and at all times of the day. chameleons are also evergreen plants, and therefore this is going to be blocking sunlight year round. i've brought with us photographs that were included in our reply brief could. yeah. that's it? yeah, the way it's faced to you about that. hi pastime. there's a pinwheel on top. there you go.

a little hard to see with this, but the purpose of the photo is to show this is from the left hand side and about midday. you can see that the this window is almost completely blocked by the camellia bush. next photo is from the front. this is from the permit holders. you are front kitchen window. excuse me. you can see additionally that the window is completely blocked by the existing tree. additionally from the right side. the same is true. you can here. you can see again that the polls from the trellis fence, uh, are barely visible with the ah. with the existing chip foliage from the tree. um the claim that the

fence is the reason for blocking light to the window is not true, any minimal additional shadow that would be cast by this fence. uh, would only be shadow upon existing shadow. additionally during construction on this project, the paulson's endeavored to construct the fence in a manner that ensures that no portion of the cable fences in front of the window. the vertical metal poles are space, so they are not in front of the window there on either side and horizontal beam across the top is 18 inches from the top of the window. there are additionally, no wire cables that go in front of the window. those are only below and to the sides. ah um and then attempt to appease the appellants and their concerns they installed fake ivy , which will not grow. one of the appellant's primary concerns was that, uh, fines and other plants would grow and create a complete barrier. that is not the case. um and here the

parents attempt to distract from the very narrow issue, which is again whether or not the light from, uh light into the window is blocked by the by the cable fence. uh, damage to the property issues under the 2022 permits are not properly before this board and were not raised in an appeal and therefore do not are not an issue here. any repairs were completed. um and again there. they the. prior issues do not address the narrow issues present here. thank you. are you doing? thank you any questions? commission limburg. thank you, um, first question whose property is the camelia on

? amelia is on the appellant's property. okay, um, because the one of the photos submitted in your brief shows that the fence that was built and actually goes pretty significantly through their tree through, like above and between branches. um so i guess my question is, you know in your view. is this not something that had to have had the neighbors? permission to do, considering that it was being mean pretty clearly even from your own briefing does affect their property. pretty significantly, the permit holders did make efforts to avoid any contact with the camellia bush the their cables do not touch the bush. uh the polls were built in such a way that they avoid. excuse me. they avoid the camelia tree, any six ft fence that would have been constructed would actually have had much more impact on the tree because it would have been right

at the level of the trunk. we note that this window is quite high in the appellant's home, uh and so a six ft fence would actually have far more impact. um on on the tree itself. thank you. i also want to build off of what commissioner? trasvina asked. the appellant's, which is from from your point of view of from your client's point of view. what what efforts were made on your client's behalf to work with the appellant and in this matter in, you know something that i mean quite clearly does impact their light and does impact their property. according to our clients, they did have take great efforts to communicate with the appellant's . the appellants were did not respond to a lot of requests they would only communicate with , um the policies contractor they would refuse to speak with them, even when they were in their yards face to face. um so it's you know, i think that there's definitely two sides to

the story. can you provide some more detail than that? i mean, dates, content of conversations. and if you're clients are better suited to answer that question. they can, but i would like, definitely would like to know that yes, i think our clients can speak to that issue. mr paulson is present. if you have a direct questions for his immediate conversations. hello. good evening. good evening. so with regards you want your questions, regards to communication and all. when we started the project, um the history is we had a survey done. and the surveyor. it turns out, made a mistake and saying that the fence was between 9 to 18

inches onto our property. and when i had the discussion with the 11 cents um. in hindsight there saying that i told them it was four ft off. sorry is this after the faces in the beginning of the project? so way back before we started construction, so the proposed the surveyor told you that the proposed fence would be four ft onto just with a 10 ft fence. um the okay mark and annette wanted a six ft fence built with there was no offense before in the past, our properties went right to the edge of their house had the camellia tree. we couldn't build a fence because if we build a fence a solid fence, the camellia tree would be wiped out. okay because it's 18 inches from the edge of the house to

the property line. community trees right in the middle. it's a big tree. so originally there there was there was no fences. no nothing. i thought a good solution would be to have a cable fence because that would let light through. um mark to express to me that they're worried about the light. i said, how about have we don't run any cables in front of your window? and he kind of nod his head, you know? yeah. yeah. okay whatever . um so there would be no cables. in front of the window. so it's you have four posts. i believe there's cables running. but nothing in front of their windows. and really the way it was. i thought it would be a good idea is because that way with the cables, it would be the least adverse effect on the camellia tree. everybody likes the camellia tree. everyone said to stay. there would be no cables, horizontal cables running from six ft up. in front

of the window. so. now i'm a little confused as to the utility of the fake ivy, because that seems to be from the photos that the appellant presented the what's actually blocking the light to their window is that but itself, i think by in and of itself, as as you just said, wouldn't have blocked the right can come off. we just thought one of the objections was the look of the steel. so we thought we were just trying to soften that for them. so we just put that up, but that could come off tomorrow. it's no big deal. okay, so yeah. alright. and when , when did your conversations with the appellant's happen? but what point in time was that? um i'd have to go back. and look, i mean, it was um, probably during probably just after the construction of it. of the of the subject fence. it was after

the fence was built. but your conversation? i don't i can't remember right now. but alice. members of the board. my name is alice barkley, co counsel. the. the a palace. that's why you, paulie parcel half as several conversation throughout the construction of the fans under the 22 permit as well as this one. and what happened is that defense is not a solid fence because of the window is a very open fence with all the bars vertical support about six ft apart and then the why is in between is at least about 12 inches or so high 66 to 8 inches

so that it's very open. it's not a solid fence because of the tree and when they complained about. the wine wine being placed on the support. which is to soften it because it will block the light. they immediately take it away when and bought some fake vine to just wrap it around the vertical poles and the top of the, uh, baja two by two bar to solve unknown. appearance so if they don't want it there, they can be taken up. thank you, councilor. i want to kind of go back to what my original question is was, which is was there any conversation between your clients and the appellant before the fence was built? the person that would be the best person to answer. it will be polly paulson mrs paulson because she's the one that had attempted to talk to them, and they just walked

away like to hear from ms paulsen, then thank you. very brief. good evening. so can you please reiterate the question? yes my. my question is a simple one. did you have a conversation with either of the appellant's prior to the fence construction beginning in january. yes um, the fan. i was always out in the backyard, and, um, if anyone needed to ask any questions they were welcome to ask me questions . they never asked me would. they would never talk to me. they would only talk to adam or or george the workers and we had these posts and it was an ongoing conversation. because one day they these long, um still, bars were like sitting around. the backyard. and then what? one day they put in a couple of the posts. will

annette contacted john or adam and said, you know what is going on with these posts? if you're putting these in you, um sorry to interrupt. i'm the cement needs to be a certain way it cannot be on our property. there was ongoing conversation before the fence was put up, but that doesn't sound like that was before construction began. um am i missing something here? it sounds like construction began. and then you had a conversation with your neighbors. without the as has been established without the utility of a permit, which we already know and your own counsel has admitted. was there a conversation before construction began with your neighbors? we i believe we did have a conversation with them, and they did not want the 10 ft fence. and was that it or was there more to that conversation?

um. we they wanted. what they wanted was a fence all the way down to the sidewalk, and we needed to put something there because the their property is, um 18 inches to the to the original fence and when originally defense that we put up that we agreed to have had these wings and the wings went to their house. and then they said, we cannot have the wings. the wings like the gate went to the house and the, um one wing of on the gate went to the house and one wing at the end of the fence that started at their house. go went to their house, they said. we cannot have those we agreed to have these wings. at the very start. we were only going to do the fence from the calendars house, which is the other neighbor down to their house and with the wing, which was originally what was there, they said no wings, so we sat

there and we said, we need to put up something because we have dogs. they wanted to offense, so we had conversations about this 10 ft fence with them, and so, um, this when we started to put it up and um, mark came out and i was standing there would not talk to me, but he would talk to george or adam, the um, contractor in his lead worker and uh, 11 day mark was on the phone with the net. and then that was like, did you figure it out and jordan's mark said, um uh, i'm talking to him about building a fence doing our own fence. and so he went through this whole process with adam to build a fence with me standing right there. and. never would he talk to me and entire time.

either one of them talk to me. in fact, one time i went outside of the sidewalk and i wanted to talk to annette. she ran from me and jumped in her car and drove away. okay i think i'm done with this question. thank you. okay thank you any further questions ? no commissioner, grappler. thank you. just so there was a change in the plans from a six ft fence to a 10 ft fence, and it also sounds like there was a change in the design of the fence from offense you described with wings to the current wire fence is that accurate? yes um, no, no no commissioner day with the original plan, and the fans was under the 2022 permanent and that that plan has no offense whatsoever at the end of the house to the front to the street on the sidewalk. and this fence was put in. with our permit,

which was a mistake by the contractor as soon as they were informed. they obtain the parliament. which is the promise before the spot right now. all right, thank thank you for clarifying that. um, but i don't think it it's going to be material at the end of the day. my question then is since there was conversation, if not plans for a six ft fence. what caused the change from the idea of a six ft fence to a 10 ft fence because there was never and six ft fence plan in front of that particular portion, because a six ft solid fence was what was in the around the side yard in the backyard will not be. you will not be able to build one because of the trunk and the branches is over onto. my client's property. so the answer to my next question, which is why i could not a six ft wire fence be built. there is because the top bar would be would be

the tree would impede the top bar of a six ft wire fence. well, also. overhead, please. also from this photograph. well, it's hard to see. as you can see , here is the top of it. and this comes down mhm, because this is an angle. this is actually behind it. so the problem with a six ft, uh, fans is that the branch has done here. ah well interfere with a solid fans, and so they decided to do it with a 10% so that they can go above uh, the window high enough so that it would not who have any kind of minimum impact on shadowing minimum impact on

net. you started with the premise that there was because of the interference with the tree, but you ended with the premise that it was because of the impact of the shadows. that's a seller story window, right? that's a request. i can't say that's architectural term. it's a high up window. correct is it say hi, wendell, except the top of this fence is above it, and then i'm gonna since this is a 19 early. i think they said house, i'm going to presume it has very high ceilings, so that window is going to be pretty high up from the floor. so anyone that's looking through that window the window. so he said, upwards. the window is a clear story window as you can see from the window in the breathe that they took from inside the window. at an angle looking up, which one would do unless there are nine ft, tall and most circumstances with that window, um, which just kind of gets to want to ask that top being being above the window actually has more impact to the

light because light comes from above and the people inside will be looking from below, in all circumstances, so instead of minimizing the impact of the fence whether there's a good reason or not, you know, having the top of it be that high actually increases the impact of the fence. excuse me. can you repeat that again? i'm just like i think i'm okay. thank you. julie we're ready. okay thank you. so we will now hear from the planning department. thank you. you can be seated. all right. good evening, president swig commissioners. corey teague, zoning administrator for the playing departments. good to see you all after a little bit of a hiatus. um i will just briefly go over this permit and question from purely from a planning code and planning department perspective. as you

know, the address is 14 62 lake streets located in our h one zoning districts, single family home. the subject permit, um for the fence in question. the cable fencing question that was reviewed by the planning department and approved over the counter on february 23rd of this year. the location of where this fence is within the buildable area is not in a required yard is not in the required setback. so technically, it's in the buildable area. it's in a portion of the property where you could do it. an actual building edition if you wanted to, um because of the height and the nature of the fence that also was not subject to neighborhood notification, which is why it was approved over the counter. um this seems to be, you know, tantamount to like a property line window situation which you guys have had your fair share of their always challenging. we don't have anything in the planning code. um, that really protects those scenarios or really addresses these issues directly. they are always tend to be more of a um,

neighbor issue more of a civil dispute. um but considering that is relatively straightforward permit. it was correctly reviewed and approved by the planning department because it is compliant with the planning code didn't require any neighborhood notice. and so from a planning department perspective, it's our opinion. that permit was appropriately issued, and i'm available for any questions that you may have thank you for the question. i ask you a couple? um first of all, the what's the legal height of a new fence? well, that's what i'm saying. it did depends on what you buy legal height. um in this part of the lot, put a 12 ft high fence behind my house . is that legal or illegal? if it's in the required where yard the maximum highest 10 ft. you want to go higher than that required variants. if it's in the required front setback, the maximum height is three. ft. um if you're in the buildable area , that's where you can build building right? so and that then

it's just a matter of whether or not it's going to be subject to notice or not. so you could do a 20 ft fence where this fence was, it just would have required neighborhood noticed instead of, um 10 ft limit means it didn't require any neighborhood notice . but according to regulation, this fence is fully compliant and is in a way illegal other than the fact that it was built prematurely and without a permit , correct, correct the permit itself and event itself as it was proposed and exist is compliant with the planet code. would you remind us as a commission and let's say we probably have about 20 of these a year where somebody jumps, the gun builds a fence and goes oops. i should have got a permit for that. so what is the when somebody goes? oops uh and said i should have gotten a permit, but i'm getting one. now what is the retroactive, um, situation

or what is planning to do about that? and it's really a two pronged thing because there's the planning department side of it. there's the department of voting inspection side of it. from the planning department. you know, our enforcement program is almost entirely about abatement. fixing the issue is not punitive, except for some very specific carve outs for that, um, in this situation, a lot of times this happens and there's never been a complaint to the planning department. it's usually some other way the person finds out and they just come and get the permit after the fact which is what would be required. if there was an enforcement project. we basically say, get your permit, and then, obviously, if you build something that couldn't be approved, you'd have to amend that or if you could get a variance and is basically a process of just get the required permit. which is what happened here now in db i side is a little bit different in terms of how they treat work that's been done with that permit, and i can let my colleague from db i speak to that. more specifically, mr greenwood, you prepare yourself to answer that question. thank you finally say those, but this one there was no complaint to

planning there was no planning enforcement case related to this situation. thank you, uh, final question. uh the elegant area of light air views, etcetera, etcetera, quite often, as you know about 20 times a year. uh there is a fence build a deck built of something structure built and there is a complaint about views, light and air. had this been not built already, and we were hearing it pre fence being built, uh, without. um, permit and the subject of light. would have come up. what would have been your response to, uh, impedance of light? sure in this case, it really fits after the fact even if it's already been built, if it's a problem if it's not meeting the code, or it's not meeting certain guidelines. we still look at that. that's something that may still need to

be addressed. um in this case for this type of situation situation this even if it was, the permit would have come beforehand. this would have been approved over the counter. um you know, this is a case of like, two adjacent, you know, decent sized single family homes. there's a lot of other windows and light access into this home. um i think i would say it's a little bit different situations sometimes when we see kind of multi family buildings where you have units that only have maybe limited window access in their primary rooms. um and we can sometimes take a little more notice of that and see if there are ways we can try to accommodate those situations but typically with larger, single family homes that have a lot of different windows, especially in this case, it was a dining room clerestory window. that's typically not can be a primary, um, light receiving type of window and that situation and for this type of fence we would have there wouldn't have been anything under the planning code or the residential design guidelines that would have instructed us not to approve this permit. okay so in in your view, this is a fully compliant

fence. ah albeit it was built prematurely without a permit. uh with regard to light and air, it satisfies the issue of available light and air and probably the only thing that really went went wrong here is to neighbors couldn't see eye to eye and we have a neighborhood just neighbor dispute as opposed to compliance. or or legal dispute . correct planning code perspective? that's correct. so in your view, the permit was issued correctly and based on the compliance to regulations, correct. okay, thank you. thank you any further questions? no okay. we will now hear from the department building inspection. good evening president suite commissioners matthew green, representing the department of building inspection tonight. the

permit before used to add a 10 ft cable fence at the east property line of 14 62 lake street. um. the question was was this fence was built prior to the permit being issued. it's also there's no notice of violation there was issued, so there's no penalty attached to this. we just you know, they're they're complying, so there's no need to issue as a violation. some details about it all works supposed to be performed on the 14 62 late side of the 14 62 lake side of the property line. the fence does not require to be fire rated, um offenses. on the side and rear property lines. if they're under six ft feet. they don't need a building permit at all. since this is over six ft of building permit is required. um i would add. there's just been some comments about not building the fence to the actually approved plans where they're going to not put in all the horizontal cables. i just effect because she used the overhead. overhead, please. so

the plan is approved show these horizontal cables going all the way. um i think the property or the permit holder was discussing about removing some of these vertical sorry. horizontal cables underneath the window. if they were to do that, i would say that wouldn't comply with the approved permit and that maybe if that is the way that board wants to go, it's a special conditions. permit um, making that clear it would be appropriate. um there was also some questions about the six ft fence just to clarify we're heading in. one more thing. there's a permit from 2022 is issued in august 22 for some extensive landscape work, and part of that permit is to replace these existing six ft fence. which is this fence here , um, prior to this 2020 to permit there wasn't any fence here at all. um basically, the neighbor's wall served as defense for all intents and purposes. um so that i would say

this permit after playing department approval, it was approved and issued properly and it does comply with the building code available for any questions. you may ask. oh last question, then commissioner limburg, um so again. ah according to db, i the way this, although albeit it was prematurely done without a permit. there was no notice of violation. uh and so inclusive of the hiccup. uh there. this is a compliant fence, and there are no issues. correct correct. okay um, there there were. i want to clear something up. it's not in hate doing this. it is not in the discussion tonight related to this permit, but since it was brought up by the appellant feel that it should be cleared up in in the case that damage was done on the appellant's property. uh

that would you clarify that that does not fall under the jurisdiction of this this commissioner, would you advise the appellant what steps would be taken to satisfy any of their needs related to damage that might have been great. that would be a civil matter between the two parties. civil matter. thank you very much. just wanted to clarify that commissioner limburg. thank you, mr green. i want to dig a little bit deeper into what president swig was talking about, and we often don't have the benefit of seeing the permit itself. we only get the print out from, uh from the website. but the permit holder actually did attach the permit to their brief in this matter, so we have the benefit of seeing the full permit. um and i'm looking at it, and it says no change shall be made in the character of the occupancy or used without first obtaining a building permit authorizing such change. um there's several other clauses in here like this. i

we've had this discussion several times in several different cases, but i you know the fact that they did come in and have even admitted to building this without a permit and then coming in afterwards and saying this is the proposed use. this is our proposed project. how is that? not? um. if they're saying we're going to do all these things in the future after we get this permit issued. how is that not lying on the permit? and how does that not make it so that the permit was wrongfully issued? um when, by the own terms of the permit itself and the timeline, which i asked the parties for the permit was not properly issued at the according to the terms because it was for work that's already been completed. uh that's a fair point. so what would happen if we did write a notice of violation for this work? we'd say, come in and get a building

permit to either remove or legalize this fence. um it just seems kind of, um they were going through the process to comply with the notice of violation. if we had written one, it just seemed overkill to actually write a notice of violation. so i understand your point. correct. but if we did go through the process of writing notes the violation the corrective action would be to get a permit such as this and just to be clear if there had been a notice of violation, which obviously didn't happen, would would. the plans that were presented in this permit? have would that have been sufficient to legalize it? yes okay. the only difference would be there to be a language on the permit applications say to comply with notice of violation such and such right there would be a penalty attached to small penalty. okay, um so just to go back to what i was saying, though, so i mean, given all of that, given that the i mean the

permit holders have admitted that they did the work without a permit and got it afterwards. in your view was the permit properly issued at the time it was issued not the content of the content is pretty. you know , you've you and mr teague of both stated pretty clearly that the content of it is fine. um but was the permit properly issued on march? 10th when this happened here? i believe so if they if they came in tomorrow, with the same circumstances, we would issue the same permit. okay. thank you. thank you any further questions? no okay. we will now move on to public comment to alex. is anyone present in the room? i don't see any hands for public comment in the room. is anyone here for public comment? okay if you're attending via zoom and you want to provide public comment, please raise your hand. okay i don't see any public comments, so we're going to move on to rebuttal and we will hear from the palace. you have three

minutes. thank you. mr levinson and mrs miraglia. thank you. thank you again. there was a drawing hair of the fence, black and white. um that 14 62 lake put up. it did not show the big metal bar 10 ft up. which it's a high window. it's the only window we have on the entire western side of the house on both of our floors, and it's from 19. oh, four, when the house excuse me when the house was built so there's a big metal bar way up here, and we're sitting down at the dining room table. there's also metal bars here and over here on the other side of the window. so when we're on our dining room table this way we see it. dining room table. that way we see it. we asked john to just lower it many times, just six ft. and then it would wouldn't interrupt the window and he would have his while of plants. but we didn't get anywhere with that. i put emails to him to ask for the

dimensions got nowhere with that. eventually we had a come here today. and one thing i could mention the gentleman who was up from the planning department said these houses these old houses have lots of windows. no not our house. we have one window that little window on that side wall. that's the only window and in the living room. it's a living room dining room combination. there's two windows in the front and you don't get really any light in the dining room from these two windows that are in the front and they're not very big. so i understand that some places may have lots of big windows. now we have windows in our kitchen. that is true, but the kitchen is completely cut off from the dining room. so you know, in our case, that's the window. that's it. and the paulson's were well aware of that. so you know, it was just disappointing, and i just think that some of the stuff that's presented was disingenuous. as i said earlier about that they didn't do damage under the 2022 permit. yes they

did. we got the contractor to fix it. and the reason we speak to the contractors because they're the only ones we could have any kind of normal conversation with. mrs paulson was up here and said that i would run away from her in the car. and i don't didn't even want to mention this. but after the back fence was built, mr paulson said that he would pay for the back fence. we didn't ask him to. he said he would we had a dispute over the boundary, they said. they owned a portion of our property. they didn't own it. we have to ask our surveyor market and then it turned out. they didn't own it. but anyway, um mrs paulson came up to me while i was sitting in my car and shouted at me and said, you are not to touch our fence fence belongs to us. do you understand me? are we clear? that is our fence. this is what she did. and no and yes, i stopped speaking to her because i don't speak to people who yell at me. and that is the only reason i didn't speak to mrs paulson. i would speak to mr paulson and mark spoke to mr paulson all the time . so to say that we didn't speak

to them isn't true. i did not want to speak to mrs paulson if she wanted to apologize to me for shouting at me in the street. i would have spoken to her, but she told me i was not allowed to touch their fence that they are time. so thank you. um number of kinds of questions for you, um. sorry um , so my question for you is, you know, having heard what both planning and be have said that basically this this permit was issued properly and if they were to fix it if you had filed a complaint with b, i had issued a notice of violation. the result essentially would have been the same. so my question for you is what what further steps would make this better for you? what i mean, what? what outcome would you like to see here? so there's three polls. there's one that's about 10 ft. high it's thick and it goes up and anybody sitting down we'll see that in our view. um and different times a year

that the camellia bushes very thin. sometimes it's blooming, and it's thicker. there is always a lot of light that goes through it. and then there's two poles, smaller poles on each side, and i'd like to see those polls pushed over probably four or five ft to the left, and four or five ft. to the right. eliminate that top hole completely. there's no reason on the drawing. i didn't see a top hole on that drawing. there's no reason to have a top pole. i mean, top. border um, 10 ft. high on their looks. looks like construction and also you, you know you don't need it. it's just up there. um and as i said earlier those polls they're not directly in front of the window. but having a poll two inches on either side of the window for all intents and purposes there directly in front, so you know, we just and ideally, yes, we'd love the polls moved a few. you know several feet. but if they were, even instead of two inches if it was just one ft on either side, you know if they don't you know when we even had said if you want the 10 ft fence, if you

will. they already had the polls up, but we did have a conversation with mr paulson. we said well, if you're putting this 10 ft fence, and can't you just move the polls away from our window? we did ask him that. and you know, obviously the answer was no. thank you. julie no further questions. okay thank you. we will now hear from the permanent holders. miss jones, you have three minutes. my name is thank you. first of all, as you have been advised by both department, the permit was issued. lawfully. they started working. without a permit. that is correct. but as soon as they find out that the contractor has started work without applying for a permit, which under his contract, he was not supposed to do any work without that is not

in a that have legally issued permit, so as a result, he started work. and once he was told that he has to get a permit, he stopped work. and until the permit was issued, and then he started working again, so it is an unfortunate incident for our client that his contractor when ahead and do something with our permanent went under the contract, he was required to get obtained permit for all work. as far as to your question, the. permanent holders don't have any problem. if this sport one them to remove the top bar in front of the window because that will not, uh, impair the structure of the vertical poles coming up because

when they are any post that is coming up will need some kind of horizontal tie. so, uh, they're perfectly willing to do that because they already got get rid of the crossbar. mhm. to make sure that they are not in front of the window on their own. so if you have any other question, because the answer commission member. i do. thank you wouldn't have asked this question. but you brought it up in your rebuttal. so now i'm going to, um, the appellant's testified that all of the work was completed before the permit was issued. um and you said something that was directly contradictory to that which was that the contractors stopped work when he realized that the that the defense hadn't been built. or that there hadn't been a permit built, pulled to build the fence and then continued work afterwards. which is which is correct. i will have the. the

permanent odor issue. there's um uh, one day the work was going on the construction crew is putting the doing the work. mark came over and said, you need to stop work. i'm going to call the police. so literally work stop is all the construction workers left and they didn't come back. so we had these poles up. partially complete. and so the work was not didn't start again until we have the permit. so it's mid project. can you give me dates? no, i don't know off top of my head. okay? thanks stopped. got the permit started again. commissioner by presidents week has a question. yes, sir. oh, young. okay, um. can you give me the proper name for the bar at the architectural

name for the bar at the top of the fence place? you you indicated that the permit holder would be willing to if i want to make our okay. and i thank you for your flexibility and in an offering that ah, that opportunity to remove the crossbar at the top of the fence. that is correct. yes, we'll take it out great. the i'm hearing two things in front of the window. is it the crossbar here or is across what? what what? what are you going to? i want if i'm going to put emotion, fourth that includes, uh, technical item. i need to know what the technical item is . the removal of the wet please, if i can if i can have the plan. okay the tree is here, so it will be the top. so what is the architectural reference to that? what do i address? that bar has

the top bar? well you cannot take all the bar. you cannot take all of the top our way, because when they vertical like that they had to be tied together with something to make sure that it's stable. so what is the all i'm asking is real simple question. but is the permit holder willing to remove from the fence. it would be helpful if you could mark those plans with a pen, right? exactly. i need some words. please pass. are you? are you the project architect? okay, great. yeah. maybe you can speak in the mic first. second one second one here. is that the second one crossbar. it's the

one in front of the window. on top of fronts. and the yeah, on top of them. in front of the window. yeah so but so can i. can i throw some words at you and see if they were? yeah. thank you. um so they what the permit holder would be willing to do is to remove the top crossbar, which coincidently blocks the window. yes thank you . okay all done and president so you can have them submit those modifications to the board. so if that's where the boards deciding to go, we have it on record. perfect, perfect. thank you, mr josephine. two quick questions for either either of you. could you clarify that? oh,

can you tell me? what's the new height of that offensive without the bar? it was 10 ft with the bar. what is it without? the post are still 10 ft, so the post on the side will still be 10 ft. but there is no wires on that segment of the friends that the wires are. i think there may be four ft. from the ground up. with the bar that you're removing. well with the bar. it's 10 ft. correct. well, the top of the bars is pan feet. and what would it be without the that bar that you have agreed to remove? posts are also 10 ft. so it'll be the same. yeah so maybe two inches down, if depends where they cut it. what do you cut it this way or that way it will be two inches indifference. and the two inches of difference will vote will will take away blockage of the window. well i

think the most important thing for them are the top bar. the personal side will stay. so what did they do to cut this way? or that way? we'll just make a difference of two inches. i'm i'm asking is what you're what the impact of what you're doing , not whether whether or how much it's important to the neighbor. so the impact of what you're doing is you're you're lowering. taking away that bar. lowers that area by two inches. we are not feeling lowering the fence they post will stay the same height, but we're cutting off that one bar. so what is so then? also, all of the cross wire is already gone. so if you look at the, uh, on the screen there, basically the top bar where we remove all of the wire in front of it is not there anymore. so you have a basically

an open area between the two vertical in front of the window, right? okay so every everything that would affect the windows would be gone. oh council was is nodding. yes okay. i'm drawing a really ugly drawing here. there's the window. there's the . really treat everybody like there's a bar that's goes out. so there's nothing to obstruct the window. great. thank you. we? could you fill out a speaker card, please. hmm speaker card any further questions? no. okay thank you. we will now hear from the planning department. mr green. um planning is not speaking. mr. green will be

speaking. i just like to show the detail over time just to clarify something. get the overhead. the plans has written do not show a cross bar at the top. they show cables to the entire way. so we're arguing over a bar that was not approved in the first place. so we haven't inspected this fence yet, so it sounds like it's not being built according to the approved plants. um unless there's another drawing that i'm not seeing, okay, so just to clarify you're arguing over the top part that shouldn't be there in the first place. any any questions available. you have one from mr commissioner. um thank you, for i was going to ask about the lack of a bar on the entirety of the top there on the plans i since these were approved plans, is it safe for us to assume that the top are is not structurally necessary. i

would say yes, i would say so. go down the bar that they're still tubes or two inches by two inches square. they go two ft into the ground. 10 ft high. i would engineer, but i would say the design professionals, i would hope that design professional took that into account when it is i understand, and the department of building inspection signed off on these plans and being fine, correct without a top bar without authority with a wire instead. correct. thank you. thank you any further questions? i know. okay mr ursus matters submitted comment was oh, there was no public cancer common um. i'd like to start by asking the design professional to step to the podium, please, because we seem to have this is this is where we have problems when people don't build things according to plan and this is when we have we take steps. um

would you please put the design up that was there. with. or or mr green has one that's clean. that's great. overhead blood. okay? ah so we can you move it upwards because the it's obscured. slightly thank you the other way. the other way up. up up. thank you. perfect. thank you. alright, so um, on on that what i see is wires. correct yes , i don't see is a top bar. correct no, we did not have a top. okay is there a top bar, which has been added to that? offense is there a top bar on the family? i can see that so that now that now we have a problem because what has been

built is now illegal is now not according to a plan, at which point the top bar in its entirety will go away. okay, because it's not in the plan. and that's and that this is where contractors this is where this is where per permit holders get themselves in trouble because number one in this case , they didn't get a permit. that's that happens all the time. i don't sweat it anymore. i've been doing this for a long time. but when we find something that has been built, that is not according to plan. and you, you , you. you saw me focus very heavily on was this was this compliance? was this legal? yes, his legal except for the fact that plan you representing is not what was built. so this is where it run into problems. you understand? so is there a bar on that the entire top of the fence i believe so. okay now, um, what happens if we were we removed the entire bar because it's now not legal. well, then we remove

the top bar structurally. it's not a problem. i think that should be fun unless it's yeah, actually. is it a problem or not ? no thank you. and then secondarily the wire, which would also it would seem, is there still would there still be a wire there if we remove the top bar? we we don't have to keep a wire on that specific, understand? don't please don't editorialize. when you're responding to my question, all it will do is served to harass me and pissed me off so very simple question. is there a wire under the bar? no great. so if we take off the bar, which is illegal then that whole there's nothing at the top. correct. that's right. that works for me. alright so on on on on that.

commissioners of course, we're going to have further conversation, but i would be pleased to make a motion. to what are we doing? uh upholding the appeal. and granting the permit. on the condition that the bar, which is at the top of the fence is entirely removed. correct chua lee president swig bar that horizontal bar is not part of the permit, so db would go out there and tell them to remove it. is that correct? inspector green? i mean, we shouldn't have to change the permit to have them removed something that's not even there. legally commissioner mr green would you step to the podium place? that is correct. yes, we wouldn't sign off going to go out. so if we deny the appeal because the permit was properly issued. then you're gonna go out there. you're going to a final you're going to say, ah ha! there's a bar that's illegal.

please remove it. correct our deed is done, and we don't have to make mention of the fact that there is a bar there at all. the only question is what inspector green brought up before is that on the plans there are still horizontal cables in front of the window. so you may change the permit, you would say, remove the horizontal. changed in front of the window. and maybe you can. is that correct? inspector green. there was talk about that before not to put the cables, um in front of the window. uh yeah. if they if they did omit those cables, then it wouldn't be built according to the approved plants. so we would have to change the permit to specify the removal of the cables in front of the window. correct it would be helpful if that's the direction of the board that we know how many cables right? i think i think what the intent of the board is, is to get the cable which is obscuring the window to be removed or the bar. there is no bar and now without a bar, then

i can be a cable. but there has to be a cable because that's what the plans say so we have to, uh, adjust the plans to not include a bar or a cable correct. correct. and how do we do that? i do i just a new drawing specifically removing three or four cables and that specific area just the top cable because that's what we that's the issue. that's what's one is not part of the permit. so db is going to make them remove it anyway. no no, no. but but what's the years? the issue? you just brought up the drawings? the drawings show that there is a cable um, but in fact, there is no cable. there is a bar. so when you when you remove the bar , it's still the drawings are still those drawings represented cable. so the drawings aren't right, so the drawings have to be reviewed to remove any cable and or bar, which is obscuring the window. correct. sounds fine

to me. so give me some words so i can put it in motion and emotion. and then my fellow commissioners can comment on my wisdom or lack thereof. okay so you might want to move to grant appeal initiative permit on the condition that it be revised to require the removal of the horizontal crossbar and cables that are in front of the appellant's window. can i ask? just, uh if we could ask the designer one question or the intent of these cables to go from the entire length of the offense as a strengthening mechanism, or is it just a um, you know, they're removing landscape architect, please step to the podium. thank you. yep. um well, i think it's i mean, we're gonna have one panel on one side and then we went going

to have the panel with the window structure. yeah, it will be structural. yeah. yes, it will be structural. tell mr green thank you very much. question is, if you're going to be removing certain sections of this cable is the entire fence. gonna still keep the structural integrity? right if you tighten the cables through all four, which he seems to say, well, she said, it is structural. but you didn't clarify. it's not huh? it's not going to fall down without the top middle bar. top middle cable being there. no, it's not. okay so what? what do you need, mr green to get this legal? i think drawings were specific, specifying, um, where the window is in which cables are not going to be there. okay so the motion stands julie with a further addition in conjunction with the resubmission of plans that reflect the board's wishes. yes

they would have to do that, anyway. it's called a special conditions permit. okay commissioner, sorry for trying to. guide traffic commissioner transylvania. thank you, president. so i just want to endorse their interest and desire to be specific here. ah, then the next item. is an example of what happens when things leave us. not not. it may not be typical, but it can happen, so i think the more we are specific as to as to the intentions. as i understand it. we have here a fence that wasn't that was built without a permit. and that was been built. with incorrect departing from from the permanent and so i think we do need to be specific and i was just so i would endorse i would endorse the rose the resolution that you are proposing and just say again that that the rest of

all these details. are very much encouraged the neighbors to work them out together. you may be angry now, but you're gonna need each other. you've been there's everything, years you're gonna need each other in the future. and these are the many of the matters that we've heard today. didn't need to be resolved by us, but we're here to resolve it and on the legal basis and i, i support the motion. thank you very much. any other commissioners have any comments that we have emotions standing no comments. would you call for a vote, please? okay so we have a motion from presidents to grant the appeal to the permit on the condition that are being revised to require the removal of the horizontal crossbar. in its entirety as well as the cables in front of the window. and this motion was weight made on what basis. on the basis here. you basis of the permit was properly issued properly

issued. well you might want to say that it, um addresses some of the privacy concerns with appellant or not, just as the light concerns about light by the appellant fine. okay? i think i think the permit was properly issued. well there's properly issued. we wouldn't be changing it and what we're doing. we are changing it to remove some of the cables. so okay. is that okay? presidents week fine with me if it gets a vote. okay so on that motion, vice president lopez make sure trasvina mr lindbergh. commissioner eppler. so that motion carries 5 to 0 and appeal is granted with those conditions and i will follow up with the parties on how to submit revised plans. thank you. thank you very much, so we are moving on to item number five. this is a special item discussion of possible action on december 14th 2020 to the board of appeals

heard appeal numbers 22 just 076 and 22 jack 077 regarding building permits issued for work at 1 46 23rd avenue. the board granted the appeals with conditions at the board's march . 15th 2023 hearings got english that training for the appellant in those cases, spoke during general public comment and submitted a letter regarding these appeals. mr m village indicated that not all. not all of the board's conditions were satisfied at the request of president swig. the department of building inspections submitted a response letter to the board of appeals on april 4th 2023. the commissioners will consider the letter submitted by mr m. lige ndb and determine the appropriate course of action if needed. okay um, so, uh, this is not a hearing. we are not retrying this, uh, this item this is just to discuss. uh, um , any questions that you might have to the two db i regarding? um their response to the letter.

um and this item is closed. but this is just feedback that we have requested from db. i related to what happened in the circumstance and why a ah! why a party? um may have felt slighted in the process. ah so because, um, yes, and that's all. so that we're there's no resolution. there's no direction. there's nothing new. it's closed. this is just information only if you have any questions related to the letter. please ask them if you have no questions related to the letter. we will accept the letter with appreciation from the v i and move on any questions, therefore, commissioner trasvina. um serve

my first. my first question is, is there any is there any public comment on this matter? yes there is. there's always public comment. and uh, would it i would like i would like tv i to explain or summarize the letter . it's been a while mr ambridge made a very impassioned presentation and the detailed letter i think it would help to establish the record. what dvs responses beyond the submission of the letter. request d b i to briefly summarize. ah the occurrences from from your perspective. oh, thank you, mr green. uh you'd like to be just to go over the letter they submitted um, sure. so um, mr average came here and, um. felt felt that we did not follow the board's direction. um if you

remember this case was a 23rd avenue where property owners began. work prior to permit being issued in the under undermined the neighbor's property. um we did issue a notice of violation prior to the hearing, asking in the backfield of the lot. um one of the conditions conditions were, um sorry. the board upheld the permit with the conditions that we would start this db i would perform a start work inspection prior to commencing under the appeal permits. um the permit holders. you'll have site monitoring in place for both adjacent properties on or before the d v. i started work inspection and the permit over holders shall have a sales engineer performance, so compaction test and prepare a report with the findings of the test and then the soil compaction work must be performed in response to the notice of violation. must be completed two db i satisfaction prior to any work being performed under the permit, so we did have the start work

inspection with, um, our senior building inspector was on site. the neighbors are on site with their representatives. the permit holders devi i engineer as well. and, um i believe the engineer from the permit holder um i'm just doing that for memory. it's in my letter, but that those most of the people are there. um requires some site moderate during place to make sure there was no movement to either properties that was in place. um yes. forest soils, compaction test. we had the permit holder hired a soils engineer who came back and told us that day's compaction of the soil was, um. now i don't want to say not recommended he recommended against it because any damage um so it was our opinion that. well, let me back up. i guess there was some talk

about an agreement between the neighbors are written agreement. um that was not part of the board's decision. um and unfortunately, the neighbors were not able to come to a written agreement. um are our inspector did make it are the senior building inspector read. howard did make a mistake. when he was on site, he said no work would proceed prior to a written legal agreement being in place. um he shouldn't have said that there was a mistake. um we regret that we don't have the power to force to parties to sign a legal agreement. um so based on those visits. the engineers letter saying that the souls compaction was was should not be done. um we determined that the conditions of your um. your decision were met. um mr ambridge disagrees without vehemently, um i think, d v. i s

part we could have done better with the communication between all the parties. um i. but i do think we could. we dropped the ball on that apologize to mr m village, his clients and the board. um. let's say the project is almost completed. they're looking for a final inspection. we're preventing final inspection until we get the structural special inspections submitted, which end including the monitoring reports, which were supposed to be in by yesterday, but we have not received them yet. mr poplar. thank thank you for that. i do want to point out that the communication aspect and you know, while perhaps it was not, you know, technically within clause three or condition number three that we had our holding in

our motion. it does say that, um however, soul engineers perform a test prepared reported findings report will be shared with d b i and the appellant. no compression test may or compaction test may have actually happened. but as always, engineer did create a finding, and that finding was shared with tb. but that finding was not shared with the appellant. and then i. and so i mean, that does feel like a fairly. strong not just a lack of communication, but a failure to follow the now the if not the exact precise letter. what's inferred by what we meant in part number three of our uh, resolution. i would disagree with that. i believe i emailed the report to mr m village the week before. his public comment here. okay all right. we're good . that verifies that, and that's

wonderful. thank you, commissioner limburg. makes off. questions for mr m village, actually, um i want to be very careful with this question, because i don't want to relitigate everything here, but , um, you can't i don't. i know i can't, um since the letters the letter you submitted in march. uh, i think it was in march. um hmm. from your view, and your client view has has anything changed since the letter you submitted that? we should know about as a board as far as as far as uh, compliance with this because i mean, it's now mid may and two months of past and i'm just curious if there's anything new, and i want to be very clear that this is a very narrow question. just since the letter was submitted if i understand the neuro question, i think the answer is no.

nothing's changed. there's been no communication to my clients from db nor from the neighbors that address any of these issues . has there been any work performed since then, to further what was discussed in our last hearing. it's my understanding. my clients can certainly speak to it because they're living through it that the work continues to be performed. um that wasn't a very good question. but, um. i think that's all i've got. sorry. thank you. okay just a commissioner lopez. try. this one is for mr green. so thank you. thank you for the for the summary and for the letter. um, on the on the topic of. of communication with, uh, on the part of db i with all the parties. i guess. what's. what's

concerning to me, is that unlike a lot of. matters that come before us the a appellants in this case. you know, have counsel. very capable counsel. i would add. that's before us a lot and familiar with the ins and outs of these types of matters. um i'm sure not just the ones that come before the b o a. but but, you know, construction and planning matter generally. and yet we have this fact pattern. uh, post decision before us. and so what? what i get. you know, very concerned about is you know what about all of our decisions? involving appellant's without counsel. involving appellants who maybe.

potentially less informed who are really kind of you know what's once we once we leave the hearing room they're really kind of relying on on d b. i to be good stewards of what's supposed to happen, which includes that communication. um so what? what can we do about that has any anything been done. to kind of operationalized. ah better communications. um and if so? what you know, or or if not. you can. can we discuss any kind of you know potential solutions to that issue going forward. um what? what? what's been done specifically with nothing. um i you got a good point. i don't have a defense that we should communicate better. um. i don't

know what to say. um i will say if you feel, um i'm the wrong person to represent tv. i have faith in me. i'll happily get somebody to replace me. um yeah, i don't have a good answer to your question. no that's not. that's not where i was going. i think i think it's, uh, you know, i think it's something definitely that. i can only speak for myself, but, uh but i would certainly. encourage yourself in the department to consider. um you know, if anything. you know some kind of system where you know, unlike a lot of unlike most of the permits. that they get processed by d. b. i you know, with with something that comes before the boa, for example. we know that we know that there's an issue otherwise. they would never come

before us. um and so in my mind you know, obviously. you know, i sit over here and not not in your chair, but in my mind. um once we know that there is a dispute it seems like we should widen the aperture of who's involved in those communications. so that's ah, you know, that's an expression of. of you know, concern and suggestion. um that i just you know, encouraged to be internalized. uh, but you know? i also want to say that you know, i appreciate your service . and the question was, it wasn't intended to suggest otherwise. well i was it. this was a failure. you know my responsibility. i apologize. i. i did not have approached them after the hearing. i as they

didn't know it was appropriate not to do that until we spoke here. um all i can say is i'll do better. thank you. commission report. yeah i do apologize for a little bit harder. can you just clarify that because it wasn't in either the letters when the report was sent to the to the prior appellant's i'm sorry report when that was sent to the appellant's i sent it to counsel, i believe was the wednesday or thursday before the hearing we had here, okay. the correct. the leader was in early march. okay in early march. well okay. i guess what i was reacting to is that db? i reissued a soul removal permit in january. um prior to you know, after getting that, and so what i meant having not communicate the report to the appellant. i didn't mean never. i meant prior to other things going on so that they could be notified and thus be able to you know what's going on? and if

there are any rights that they needed to protect, protect those rights in or or even have a conversation with the permit holder to see what's going on and figure out if things are fine or not, um and the reason why i hope on that, and you know it's because, you know, so much of what we see is due to, you know, failures of communication for a variety of reasons and so much of the work that we do, and it's been amazing to me in my short time on here. how much work we do to make sure that communication happens in some way going forward to try and remediated, not the technical matter of the law that's in front of us. but the human aspect of what led to the appeal in the first place and you know, mistakes happens. the department's resource constrained things have to. i mean, there's a lot. i mean, it's not a personal failure, and it's so much as it's a. you know, it's part of the just day to day life and institution. i just hope that we're clear that

that we want to make sure that when we have people who are going to have to go forward that the department does its best effort in making sure that it mediates things on a going forward basis, particularly when we have urged it to do so. so clearly as a result of our findings, and you know, but you know, thank you for the work that you do, and you know, for standing up here and listening to us, you know, go on about this, but it's i, you know, particularly particularly with the department of building inspection. it's important that they that its interactions with the public are very clear and very above board in the air in, you know, it's i say this wearing in my own head as commissioner. um for the department. you know we've it's got to go further. it's the error has to be on the side of overwork at this point in time in the department's history. you're correct. yes. commissioners. anybody else i think for the comment. i'm just gonna do closing. i think that's

very valuable that we had this conversation today. first thing wiseman always told me don't shoot the messenger. we're not shooting the messenger. you just happened to be the messenger and don't feel that you're getting shot. ah we would be unwise to do that. um um, but there have been several points that i hope are taken to heart by db. i don't always want to get into real life. three guys sitting under a house looking at a at a condition. one engineer says. hey the weekend. we can't do this because the house will fall down. if we do this, this compaction process, the two guys sitting with him say, yeah, that's a good idea, and they make the decision on themselves. they don't bother to tell anybody. hmm. right. i mean, that's that's really where it starts. and so the whole point of extending the communication is very important, but i know real life because i could have been one of those guys and say

oh, friday, we fixed the problem . we don't have to tell anybody because we fixed the problem, but the p the communication pieces is very, very, very important. and i understand you guys are overworked. underpaid and the subject of many bows and arrows. uh and, uh and i'm sensitive sense of that. you can't catch every one of them. but we're here to reiterate the need for communication. i think i thought that, uh, commissioner lopez brought up up magnificent point here we have here we have an appellant. who who is represented by bicycle council. and we had the example of the previous case where a couple walked in front of us and said i never been here before. we have no idea how to do this. what are we supposed to talk about? right and hopefully i gave them some direction on what they were to talk about. but that's typical. not atypical, so i think we all have to walk in understanding that we have to bend over

backwards to communicate detail as commissioner josina pointed out that we have to assume either underrepresentation or laughing, lack of experience in the on the opponent's side, or even on the pyramid permit holder side. and bend over backwards to communicate and again field staff. i can't put mr green the position to get shot as the messenger. because that's really what what happened here is that, uh, clarity with reporting back and then the ability for you to come with clarity to report back to the appellant and any of it ourselves that that we had. you know, we walk out of here every week, having gone this way or that way, and we never know what happens. we really don't we just trust that what we deemed whatever we deemed will go according to what we deemed, but we never really find out what

the end of the story was. and in this case, uh, council stepped up and pointed out the end of the story wasn't exactly clear and wanted clarity. we got clarity, but how many times how many times we don't know the answer to this. me the story of gone south or not being followed up in the way that we talked about. so um, it's a communication exercise is very important. sorry if you're if you felt that your feelings were hurt, i apologize for potentially hearing the minister . we had no intent of doing that. and we are very pleased with your service and your ability to stand up here and take the bows and arrows wherever you might take them. um commissioners with that? i think we resolved this issue thoroughly and there will be others. public comment. president probably comment, okay? yes okay. is there anyone in the room who would like to provide public comment? believe there's 34 people that would

like okay, please, alec, if you could call them up, thank you. okay go ahead, sir. thank you first. i just want to say this is not scott inversionistas. matthew green had a long working relationship with mr green and mr duffy before him. it's been a good professional relationship. in fact, my clients feel it's been i misled them because i told them don't worry, matthew green and i are working on this. he's got your back. he's gonna you know, he's pretty. he's going to protect us here and they felt like whoa, that didn't happen. um so it's not. it's not scott amble dresses matthew green i want to, but i want to focus you on something here that seems to have escaped everybody. this compaction test issue, which is the one structural issue that's most important. when you heard this matter before, and it's always it's always dangerous for an attorney to say what a judge or a board meant when they made a decision . but when you when we heard this before, what was it about it was about excavation that had

occurred without a permit and soil that had been put up so that we couldn't know whether the neighboring foundations have been undermined, and we agreed that that soil would be taken away and a compaction test would be done at that point. to see if there was still structural integrity, neighboring the to property lines. okay that that's not the compaction test that this engineer that the monahan's hired is talking about he's talking about. he didn't want to do a compaction test at the end of the day, after all the soil have been removed after he had come in, and he put grouting in and work had occurred. he's saying well, it doesn't it doesn't make sense to do a compaction test now. of course, it doesn't. because he missed the opportunity that this board told him which was do that compaction test at the when and after you uncover. the improper work. do the compaction test then? so these folks can have some security that their homes weren't undermined. but then

what actually happened? was they took away that soil without notice. but this through this do permit. and then they authorized more work to be done, which was done. and never in that in the course of that was the compaction test done. it can't be done now. uh unless you ordered them to rip out all the work, so i just i feel like that got lost in this conversation. there are winners and losers in this situation. there's really only one winner and that's the monahan's. they did unpermitted work. um and they got away with having this redone. uh there are lots of losers. losers are these folks the neighbors? um the losers also include this board who i believe had its, um authority undermined but also it's the point that you've all been making another loser here is the public and be because there needs to be public confidence. the db i is out

there trying to protect the members of the public. not just the privileged contractors, but the members of the public, and i think that confidence has been undermined. thank you. next speaker, please and mayor. sorry. this, gentlemen. good evening. my name is brad solomon . i appeared before you on the two prior occasions, this matter was heard. i've spent the last 33 years as a senior attorney at the california attorney general's office, so i've seen my share of matters. and this one is about as troubling as any i've seen, and i come before you as a private citizen as a neighbor of the maher's, and my question to the board is what are they supposed to do now? because as the maher's attorney said, the cement has been poured now so that what this board wanted done back in december now

can't be done without tearing up this project just to remind the board back in december. the issue was the structural foundation of the maher's house and that the soil had to be removed in order that a test could be made to determine. the foundation structure that never took place. db i came out there on january 5th and said, we need to do that because the boards ordered that and in order for us to do that. we want to get a written agreement between the parties as to how we're going to proceed. and nobody is going to do any work until that agreement is entered into and db. i made no effort whatsoever to facilitate that agreement and now db i as they had done previously, if you look at the history of this case wrongfully issued a permit again. they did it at least two times, if not three times in this case, and i appreciate mr green coming before the board today and saying we screwed up here, but

what does that do for the maher's? what are they supposed to do, and i'm sure you're going to invite them to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars, filing a civil suit? but why should they be victimized like that? they did nothing wrong here. they didn't do work without a permit being issued. they didn't not follow the instructions of db. they did everything they could, and they still don't know if their house is on a solid foundation. if this board has any authority, and i question it after what i've seen here but if you have any authority, and if db has any authority, there's still something that could be done, even if it means tearing up the work that's already been done, but there should be an obligation on the part of this board and on the part of the db to do something for the maher's . they should not just walk out of here tonight, feeling as if they're lost, and there's nothing they can do to try to save their own house. so find a solution because this is wrong. thank you. thank you. next

speaker. please approach my mike. thank you. thanks for the opportunity to speak this evening, outlining some of the issues that transpired coming out of the border of appeals ruling on december 14th first i want to start with dbs purpose statement on their website is to serve the city of in county of san francisco and the general public by ensuring that life and property within city and county are safeguarded and provided to public forum and community involvement in that process. as are outlined this purpose statement was not accomplished in this case instead to local senior citizen families who follow the rules and guidelines of the city officials were misled, and we're not private, provided proper due process to ensure the properties were safeguarded. one thing i want to ask at the end is why was a compaction test not done. but then the neighbors were allowed to use rotary hammers and pickaxes to dig up illegal concrete that was poured and was video and photos were sent to db

with no response. now i want to get into what? what transpired first. no compaction test was completed, which was requirement by the border appeals ruling. second neighboring engineers never got the opportunity to inspect that i'm pretty much permitted work done at 146 23rd avenue after the mountains of dirt and other impediments covering the property line removed. the unpermitted work includes excavation, excavation and concrete poured on the north and south property lines next to each neighboring property, all done without permit as outlined , and dbs engineering report by dbs jared seto and was shared on january 10th 2023 these violations. and actions are covered and pictured in the court documents provided by db today and david zito send new permits needed to be issued third. that's db i senior inspector brett howard established guidelines and rules for all parties on january 5th 2023 during the site visit following the board of appeals ruling in december. brett howard communicated both verbally in person and in writing visas. government issued email to all

parties. i quote from his email . i'm sending this email to reiterate that what was discussed during this meeting this morning. a written agreement signed by all parties must be in place prior to commencing what i shall refer to as phase one. phase one entails excavating on the mars side down to the bottom of the priestly previously board casings and removing any loose soil in between allport cases to expose the condition of the native underserved soil. additionally once that is done a meeting between all aggravated parties. i myself shall be scheduled in order to discuss and agree upon the work going forward. that didn't happen. db i did not provide any communication to the marcellus. inco's about changes these rules and guidelines instead of a few weeks later, a new permit was issued with no communication to the effective neighbors, which contradicted all verbal and written communication provided to the mars and lutsenko synthesized inspection. so to recap, no compaction test was completed and more excavation was done, which was out of scope of permit. no written agreement was signed and outlined and dbs rules and guidelines. no communications on changes was provided by d. b no future

meetings were scheduled with all parties involved before work would perceive, which was outlined by gb's rules and guidelines fear their government issued email. instead, the neighbors were left shocked when work commenced, and there's their houses shook and can you feel enough? thank you. cards for me. thank you. are there any other speakers in the room? comment. yes, we do have. okay please approach the microphone and begin speaking. okay. thank you. thank you. yeah. um, good evening. i am one of the neighbors affected by the unpermitted construction that happened. my husband and i have been taxpaying residents of san francisco for over 40 years. our

family worked for a very, very long time to save up to buy our first home in san francisco, the place that we now call home. my husband and i married and had three children, all of whom attended school in san francisco. in 2003. we finally found our forever home at 14 23. um 23rd avenue, which was built in 1916. we did this by obtaining the proper permits through d b i and following the strict san francisco building procedures. we have lived at our current renovated home for 20 years. this neighborhood that we now live in is a very tight community, and i feel that we have lived up to the standard of what san francisco tries to promote as the perfect community wherever i feel that we have been let down and taken advantage of by the san francisco leaders and inspectors that are supposed to keep my family and my neighborhood safe.

you. the board laid out a ruling after the december hearing in december. db. i provided my family. and the other involved parties that their own set of rules and procedures in a written email on top of that. these rules in portraiture procedures were not upheld. instead they were circumvented by quick and un communicated work permits provided by d. b. i my family was not notified, and we only became aware of the new construction that began because our home began rattling and shaking from pickaxes and power tools. and such as rotary hammers being used next door. i speak on behalf of my family who has been in san francisco residents for over almost half a century. we love our home and hope to continue safely living here. but due to this experience , we are no longer feel comfortable that are safe in our own home. which would cause it

to lose the legacy and the family memories that we worked so very hard to obtain. i did not really want to speak here today, but i felt it was necessary to perhaps exit exam in this series of events that have occurred in it best prevent it from happening for another future aspiring 30 seconds family. thank you for listening to me today, and i must also add , which is not part of my notes here. is that my husband, my son , our engineer and our lawyer. appeared at the designated time to review the composting soil that was removed. and we were denied access by the owners of the property. so to say that you know we didn't we weren't there. that's time. okay thank you. is there anyone else in the room? alec, who would like to see the public comment? there's one more

speaker. okay? and then we'll go to zoom. yes. hello i'm nina lysenko and i owned the house and the other side 1 50 23rd avenue. and everything that went wrong has already been said, except one item. the violation was issued to my address, not to the people who were doing the construction. and if you feel that everything is ok, then i want that violation removed from my record. you know that's my request because i didn't do anything. and if you feel that everything is fine with that construction. it should, like go away and not be on my record. that's all i wanted to say. thank you. thank you. thank you. thank you. is there any further public comment from people in their hearing room? no okay. is there any public comments? oh, i see. yes on zoom, miss monahan. please go ahead. i could. would you like your video? hello uh,

no, that's okay. but you can hear me. yes we can. thank you. okay great. hello i just wanted to say, i think this is kind of being misrepresented. the agreement in question was something that mr m bridge kind of barged into the meeting on january 5th. he wasn't actually invited. we said they're engineers could come. and then he just came in after i'd asked them not to come onto the property, and i think that's where brett got confused and thought that there was supposed to be an agreement. so um, i don't think that that needs to be bret's fault. also i don't think it's fair to say that tb didn't make an effort to have us come to an agreement. they did. i spoke on the phone with brett and, uh, matt several times talking about the agreement. um, and they very much encouraged it. but it wasn't it wasn't gonna happen. um i did notify the neighbors. i didn't notify karen on january 30th that we were going to move forward with just the board of appeal's decision. uh or the items that were in that and not do the

agreement and let them know that we had gotten we were going to get a permit to remove the soil, which is what we were. doing a written agreement about anyway, um said then, when the soils the soils engineer came by to do the compaction test after we had removed it he was saying he was like there isn't i can't do a compaction test on here. there's that term is being used incorrectly. um so he did as much of a test that he could do , and that was shared with d b, i and the neighbors on february 23rd. i emailed that to them myself. um and we do have faith in db. that's why we decided to move forward without the agreement. we just said okay, great db. i can be the determining party on what's going on here. um and they have come out several times. they've done all the follow up inspections that we needed to do. we did remove the soil between the caissons db. i came by and inspected and said, okay. this looks fine. they took pictures that will all be. i'm

sure in the permit if the neighbors want to look it up when it's done and the notice of violation as far as i understand, will be removed on miss losing coz house as soon as the permit is closed. it hasn't been closed yet because we didn't have the monitoring report. i just received it during this meeting, so i will be sharing that with everyone. and then when the permit is being closed, that is when the n o v, i think is supposed to be removed. um we have complete faith in db. they've done a great job. as far as i can tell, um and i has been blown a little bit of out of proportion. the uh the foundations were looked at by d b. i and so the matters i don't know, can probably access that when it's closed to know that the house is safe and everything. the monitoring report looks fine. um and there they don't seem to be any big issues here and, um that's it.

okay thank you. is there any further public comment on zoom? i don't see any. okay so, um, this matters concluded unless you wanted to take some action. no, no, let me let me just speaks quickly and if the commissioner's choose to participate, of course you may, mr green. you are the messenger and you won't get shot, but i'm going to do some shooting. um, clearly this is the bandage just got pushed off the wound. this case is closed. but if i was the director of your department, i would be taking special action to reevaluate the entire case. to take into consideration in public comment what the appellant brought up again. we can't try it again. it's closed. but but there's a lot of bothers

from garbage. that's going on is more than miscommunication. i i'm not going to use the word negligence. but if i was the director of the d b i with all of the bad stuff. that was going on in your department. whether it's true or not. as being litigated in the civil courts at this moment. when? when i hear a case like this if i was director of the department i be taking especial action beyond mr green. and beyond the inspectors. to look into specifically what was just raised at this moment when the bandage was pulled off. and included ms ms monahan's points of view as well. but man that this thing is just this thing is just wide open negligence. i don't know. i'm not in your business. but if i were the neighbors, i'd be i'd be very upset. clearly the we started

this hearing on very unfriendly terms with this body. because the permit holder misbehaved. and i might say, arrogantly misbehaved. and then. to find out that it was done in such a loosey goosey fashion when the in the first place. there was misbehavior. by the permit holder. and again, the bandage just pulled off. so i would i would highly recommend that your director stepped in. and defend the position of the board of appeals and go back. and make sure everything that was done as was promised, because that's why we're here in the first place. correct. gentlemen. and if it isn't take action. popular or not, who cares? doesn't matter. if the wrong was done, make it right. that's what the appellant

deserves. that's what the opinion of this body was. make it right. clearly. somebody in this room does not feel it was done correctly. and i'm not shooting the messenger. i'm shooting the department. so take it upstairs. resolve the issue. or how can we trust you? how can they trust you? i'm pointing to the appellant for those who can't see my gesture. and how can anybody who walks in? it's not you, mr green? it is your department. right and understood. that that that's it. and what? i'm what i just heard as the book bandage was pulled off. was it didn't go the way it was supposed to go didn't go directly as it was, as we ruled , and that upsets this. this commission that upsets the members of this commission and dishonors us. i don't feel i don't feel good about that. and

i don't feel good for the appellant. i don't have as much mercy for the permit holder. because the permit holder started this whole action by by misrepresenting the their action and doing the wrong thing. so i'm not feeling bad about that. so that's that's the message that i'm asking you to carry back any dissent from the commission. from my point of view, there's shaking their heads. no so please take that back to your director. understood. hello. thank you very much. i think now we're concluded. okay thank you all for joining us this evening. hi.

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encouraging our employees who have a residence in san francisco to sign on as well. >> clean power sf buys its power from renewable plants that feed the energy directly into the grid. >> there's a commitment to sustainability throughout the entire organization and this clean power opportunity reflects that. >> one of the wind farms we use is the shilo wind farm and that is large enough to be able to provide energy for up to 200,000 homes. >> our mission is sustainability, even though our bikes are minimal energy use, it still matters where the energy comes from and part of our mission in sustainability is how we run everything -- run our business. having the lights come on with clean energy is very important. >> the sunset reservoir has solar panels that take up about

four city blocks covering the reservoir and the solar power generates energy for city resources and clean power sf for residents participating in the program. >> it was easy to sign up for the program, i went online to cleanpowersf.org and i started getting pieces in the mail letting me know i was going to be switched over and it just happened. when i pay my bill, i still go to pg and e and i don't see any difference between now and a year ago. >> sign up online, just have your account number ready and it takes about two minutes and there's nothing to install. no lines are getting connected to your home. all the power goes through the existed power grid. >> we haven't had any problems with the switch over to clean power. >> it's super easy to sign up.

our book keeper signed up online, it took about 15 minutes. nothing changed but now we have cleaner energy. >> we see clean power sf as a key strategy to meet renewable energy goal, we have a goal of 50% renewable energy by 2020. currently we have enrolled about 86,000 customers across the city. about 20% of what we hope to serve in the future and in the next two years we'll offer service to all san francisco electricity customers. >> an easy way to align your environmental responsibilities and goals around climate change and it's so easy that it's hard to not want to do it and it doesn't really add anything to the bill. >> joining clean power sf is one of the easiest ways to fight climate change, receiving cleaner energy at low and stable rates, you're helping to support

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francisco rising with chris manors. today's special guest is mary chu. >> hi. i'm chris manors, and you're rising on san francisco rising. the show that's focused on rebuilding, reimagining, and restarting our city. our guest today is mary chu, and she's here to talk with us about art and the san francisco art commission. well come, miss chu. >> thanks for having me. >> it's great to have you. let's talk about art in the city and how art installations are funded. >> the arts committee was funded in 1932 and support

civic review, design investments and art galleries. projects we have are funded by the city's art enrichment ordinance which provides 2% of construction costs for public art. >> so art is tied to construction. there's been a great deal in the southwest of the city. can you talk about some of the projects there? >> sure. our city has some exciting projected in the bayview-hunters point coming up. one artist created a photo collage. in the picture pavilion, one artist formed a collage of her

one-year residency coming together with residents, and anchoring the new center is a landmark bronze sculpture, inspired by traditional ivory coast currency which the artists significantly enlarges to mark that it's a predominantly african american community in bayview hunters point. >> are there any art installations around town that uses light as a medium? >> yes. the first is on van ness between o'farrell and geary. it's funded with the m.t.a.s

van ness geary street project. another project is for the central subway. it is one of ten artworks commissioned for the new line. it's over 650 feet long, consists of 550 l.e.d. panels between the powell street station and the union street station. it's called lucy in the sky, and the lights are patterned with unique sequences so that commuters can experience a unique pattern each time they pass through. >> perfect. what about the early day sculpture that was removed from the civic center? >> this is a question that cities have been grappling with nationwide. following the removal of early days in 2018, there was a

toppling of statues in golden gate park as well as the removal of the christopher columbus statue. we are partnering with the parks department as well as the community to engage with the public to develop guidelines to evaluate the existing monuments and memorials in the civic arts collection and evaluate the removal of a monument or statue but also installing new ones. >> finally, it seems like the weather might be nice this weekend. if i fancy taking a walk and seeing some outdoor art, where would you suggest i go?

>> well, i would suggest the embarcadero. this work was commissioned with funds from the fire station 35. this suggests the bow of a boat and the glass panel surrounding the structure depict the history of fireboats in the bay area. >> and where can i go from there? >> then, i would walk up to the justin herman plaza to check out the work of the art vendors. then check out the monuments like the mechanics monument. also, be sure to check out the poster series, installed in bus kiosks along market street, which features four artists each year. >> well, thank you. i appreciate you coming on the show, miss chu.

thank you for your time today. >> thank you, chris. >> that's it for this episode. we'll be back with another show shortly. for san francisco t.v., i'm chris manors. thanks for watching.

>> we are providing breakfast, lunch, and supper for the kids. >> say hi. hi. what's your favorite? the carrots. >> the pizza? >> i'm not going to eat the pizza. >> you like the pizza? >> they will eat anything. >> yeah, well, okay. >> sfusd's meal program right now is passing out five days worth of meals for monday through friday. the program came about when the shelter in place order came about for san francisco. we have a lot of students that depend on school lunches to meet their daily nutritional

requirement. we have families that can't take a hit like that because they have to make three meals instead of one meal. >> for the lunch, we have turkey sandwiches. right now, we have spaghetti and meat balls, we have chicken enchiladas, and then, we have cereals and fruits and crackers, and then we have the milk. >> we heard about the school districts, that they didn't know if they were going to be able to provide it, so we've

been successful in going to the stores and providing some things. they've been helpful, pointing out making sure everybody is wearing masks, making sure they're staying distant, and everybody is doing their jobs, so that's a great thing when you're working with many kid does. >> the feedback has been really good. everybody seems really appreciative. they do request a little bit more variety, which has been hard, trying to find different types of food, but for the most part, everyone seems appreciative. growing up, i depended on them, as well, so it reminds me of myself growing up.

>> i have kids at home. i have six kids. i'm a mother first, so i'm just so glad to be here. it's so great to be able to help them in such a way because some families have lost their job, some families don't have access to this food, and we're just really glad to be