thousands of dollars in debt had to pay our rent we decided to have an old-fashioned one we created club hours where you can watch to online and or be on the phone and raised over one quarter of a million dollar that of incredible and something that northbound thought we could do. >> we got ourselves back and made me realize how for that people will show up if i was blown away but also had the courage but the commitment now i can't let anyone down i have to make the space serviceable so while this is a full process business it became much more

about a space that was used by the community. and it became less about starting up a business and more about the heart of what we're doing. this building used to be a- and one of the first one we started working on had we came out what a mural to wrap the building and took a while but able to raise the money and pay 5 artists to make a design around many this to represent what is happening on the side and also important this is who we are this is us putting it out there because satisfies other people we don't realize how much we affect the community around there when he i want to put that out there and show up and show ourselves outside of those walls more fabulous. and inspires other

people to be more fabulous and everyone want to be more fabulous and less hatred and hostility and that is how we change the >> okay. good evening and

welcome to the june 1, '21st 2023 meeting of the san francisco board of appeals. president rick swig is the presiding officer and joined by vice-president jose lopez and commissioner lemberg and tras and epper. present is jan hoover who is the board -- i'm jill, the board's executive director. we'll be joined by representatives from the city departments that will be presenting before the board this evening. and tonight we just have corey tate, the zoning administrator representing planning department. the board request that you turn off or silence all phones and other electronic devices so they will be disturb the proceedings. no eating or drinking in the hearing room. the rules of presentation are as follows, appellants and per met holders and responder was 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 period. members of the public not affiliated with the public are slow minutes to address the board and no rebuttal. mr. long way, our legal assistance will give you a warning 30 seconds before your time suppose. four vote was required to grant an appel or modify an appel or determination f. you have questions about requesting a rehearing, please e-mail board staff at board of appeals at sf gov dot org. now, public access and participation are paramount importance to the board. sfgovtv is broadcast and streaming this hearing live and we'll have the ability to receive public comment for each item. sfgovtv is providing closing caption for this meeting and to watch, go to channel 78. note that it will be rebroadcast on friday at 4:00 on channel 26. a link to the live stream is found on the home page for our website at sf gov dot org slash voa. public comment can be provided in three ways. one in person, two via zoom, go to our website and click on the hearing

link, three, by telephone. call 6-699-500-6833 and enter webinar id84507375797. and again, sfgovtv is broadcasting and streaming the phone number and access across the bottom of the stream if you're watching the broadcast. to block your phone, star seven and then the phone number. listen for the public comment portion for your item and press star nine which is equivalent for raising your hand. you'll be brought into the hearing. you may have to dial star six to unmute yourself. you will have three minutes, a legal system will provide you verbal warning 30 seconds before your time suppose. please note that there's a delay between the live proceedings and what is broadcast and live stream on tv and the internet. it's important that people calling in reduce the volume on their tv or computer or there's interference with the meeting. if attending on zoom need technical says tans

disability, make a request in the chat function to the board legal system or send an e-mail to board of appeals at sf.gov. note we will take public comment first from those members of the public who are physically present in the hearing room. now, we will swear in and affirm all those who intend to testify. any member of the public may speak without taking an oath pursuant to the rights under the sunshine ordinance. if you intend to testify at the proceedings and wish to have your board give testimony, raise your right hand and say, "i do" after you have been sworn in or affirmed. [swearing in] >> okay. thank you. if you're a participant and not speaking, put your zoom speaker on mute. so commissioners, we have three housekeeping items. number one, item no. four, this is appeal number 23-018. it has been withdrawn from the appellant so

it won't be heard and item 6a, this is appeal number -- it will not be heard. and lastly, item 6b, this is appeal number 20-036 also at 2861 san bruno and the parties would like that matter continued to july 26th, so we would need a vote to continue that item. >> a motion, commissioner? >> yes, so moved to continue until july 26th, you said? >> yeah. >> july 26th. is there public comment on this motion, please raise your hand? no one from the hearing room. i don't see public comment, so on that motion to continue this item, vice-president lopez? >> aye. >> commissioner trasvina >> aye. >> commissioner swig? >> aye. >> commissioner epper.

>> that carries. that item continues. we have item no. five, appeal number 23-017. 1281-1283 greenwich street property, llc verses zoning administrator. property 1281 to 12 -- i'm sorry, we do have a few more items. i went straight from -- i was wondering. >> let's go to item no. one, general public. item one is general perk. this is an opportunity for anyone that wants to speak on the boards's jurisdiction that's not on tonight's calendar. would anyone like to provide public comment. okay, i don't see any. commissioner two, commissioners comments or questions? >> commissioners, comments or questions? giants going for a winning street. >> adoption for the minutes, adoption of the minutes of the

june 7, 2023, meeting. >> i move to adopt minutes as presented. >> okay. is there any public comment on the motion to adopt minutes, please raise your hand. i don't see any public comment, so on commissioner trasvina motion to adopt, lopez >> aye. >> lemberg. >> epper >> aye. >> commissioner swig. >> aye. >> that carries 5 to 0 and minutes adopted. item four has been withdrawn so we're on item no. five, appeal 23-017. 1281 to 1283 greenwich street. subject property 1281 to 1283. appealing the issuance on april 6, 2023, of a violation & penalty decision (planning department records indicate that the subject property is currently authorized for two-family dwelling unit use and the violation pertains to the unauthorized merger of the dwelling units in violation of planning code section 317. additionally, work was conducted without the required permits in violation of

planning code section 175) >> work was done without permit section 175. complaint 22-007739. note on may 31, 2023, upon motion by commissioner trasvina, the board voted five to zero to continue this item to june 21st, 2023 at the request of the parties so we will hear from the appellant first and the appellant is represented by mr. merit. welcome, you have seven minutes? >> one housekeeping thing. >> sure. >> the minutes we just passed, the adoption of minutes is miss numbered as number seven. it should be number three and i caught that. >> okay. >> it's a minor edit. >> what should we change >> this is the minutes from last meeting. it's miss numbered so it goes number one, two, and seven. >> thank you so much. we'll make that correction, thank you. i appreciate it. >> okay. so, apologies, mr. mayor. please go ahead.

you have seven minutes. >> thank you, and good evening commissioners, i would like to share a powerpoint presentation, so if you can give me a second here so i can share my screen. can everyone see that powerpoint? >> yes. >> great. okay. and as i said, i'll alex mayor sxit i'm representing the property owners and appellant's. there's a lot the history in the record and in the briefing but the short story is this, my client bought a single-family home on greenwich and the planning department says it's a duplex. they found a code violation and ordered the home to be partitioned. we disagree and this appeal presents a narrow arrow for the board to decide, which is does the property have a valid dwelling unit merger and the answer is yes. in 2015, the zoning administrator administered a dwelling merger for the property, that approval wasn't appealed. it does not expire.

and it's now vested under common law principles and therefore we think the decision should be reversed. first a little bit more on how we got here. in 2020 my clients bought the property in good faith for $18 million. it was marketed and sold as a single-family home and here's a small exert for the marking materials and it was a single-family home and the full materials are in our brief and were attached to exhibits to our brief and i would encourage you to take a look at the 3d video which shows this clearly. my clients weren't aware of any code or permit issues when purchased. then, last summer, anonymous neighbor filed a code complaint and planning opened an enforcement case for unauthorized merger. we've spent a lot of time trying to figure out what happened here. here is our view of what

happened. in may 2015, there was an action memo administratively approving dwelling unit merger on the property. this is a screenshot of the relevant portion of the memo. it reflects an authorized administrative approval. building permit application, proposing the merger of two dwelling units within a two-unit building resulting in a single-family home. it's important to note at this time in 2015, the approval fully complied with the planning code. at that time the rules on mergers were more relaxed and it allowed the planning department to administratively approve mergers and certain findings, basically the units merged was not affordable housing. this was a discretionary lands approval. the va approved the factors and evidence including appraisals and he exercised his judgment and granted the approval. in 2015 approval is now final and remains valid. first, it hasn't expired. there's no expiration

date on the face of the approval and no expiration on the date. there's no appeal. it was subject to appeal and here's the appeal prevision to the determinations, providing for a 15-day appeal period for determination of the za. here nobody appealed and the action became final. and third, the approval is now vested under common law rules. these are set forth in the cases we cite in our brief, the add code case for brad party construction. the argument is that the appellant's and the developers who did the remodel of this house relied on the merger and spent money reliance on it and therefore the city can't take away. i would note the za has not responded to the vested rights argument in his brief. instead, the zoning administrator makes two arguments both which is wrong as a matter of law. and throughout this proceeding, they take the

position that the merger should be borrowed by code cages but that's not correct. since 2015, it's true that the city changed the planning code and eliminated the administrator approval halfway for merger, but the controls took effect in july 2015 after our approval became final and the per permanent controls took effect in april 2016 long after our approval became final. (indiscernible) is not retroactive and in fact, they are expressly not retroactive and here's section 317-c3 and you can see where it says the removal of a residential unit that has received administrative approval prior to the effective date is not required to apply for an additional approval. so, these codes are expressly retroactive. we already had an administrative approval in the 2015 memo. we're not required to

get additional approval. and planning staff has consistently misunderstood that. here are a few exerts. this was genesis of the entire confusion in the case when the new controls came out, the planning staff had a meeting and they decided that those controls must apply retroactively to the project when in fact they didn't. and what led from there is that the planning department essentially reshot to the applicant, the developer and his contractors, basically give them incorrect advice that the code has changed so they can no longer have this approval although it had already been granted so they pro poured to withdraw april police -- withdraw the application. it was final and in effect. and then the second argument here somewhere, demonstrating the planning staff confusion about

the retroactivity point, second argument raised by the za is some further building permit was required to effectuate the entitlement and the action doesn't mean anything. it was a documentation for the file and it doesn't take effect until the city issues a further building permit. there's no legal basis for that in the code. the za was briefed as is a requirement of the planning code and building code but doesn't fight for any prevision. it's contrary to standard land use practice. say for example the city gives a conditional use authorize, that approval is final when the appeal period returns. it doesn't hang open until all construction permits are issued and once the building permit is issued, a neighbor can go back and appeal the permit authorization. that's not how land practices work. it's entitled first -- and so in conclusion, this was granted and final. it doesn't expire under

your code. it's under common law principles and can't be revoked so the permit building on file doesn't reflect the one-unit building, the solution there is the applicants of the appellant should apply for a new building code and not for the city to take the home away. >> thank you, that's time. >> thank you. we have questions from president swig and then commissioner trasvina and then commissioner lemberg. >> just a simple question. and i sat on this commission for many years. and it has been reiterated to me over and over again and we've had some more cases that have similar discussion about the combination of two units into one. that's just not something that's possible to do in the city of san francisco. but what was confusing to me in this case is

1281-1283 greenwich street, using, you know, the old story, the quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, it must be a duck. why if it's a one unit building, why is it 1281-1283 greenwich which would indicate two units? >> there's no question it used to be two units and i agree with you. it would be impossible to get a dwelling unit merger approved today but in 2014, 2015 when this was approved that was not the case. but that's -- at that time it was possible to get a dwelling unit merger and done aed minute stray tivoli. the za could do it and it didn't have to go to the planning commission on a cu authorization so that's what happened here. the fact that the address hasn't been updated, i assume nobody has gone down to the post office or the building department or whoever is responsible for street numbers and updated the street number for the home, but we don't think that's a legal

issue. in fact, there are a number of properties in san francisco, i have seen, it has unusual street numbering that's holdover from previous property configurations so i don't think that's a real issue in the case. >> commissioner trasvina. >> thank you, president swig and thank you for your presentation. i have a couple of questions and thank you for your brief and on page 8, you talk about the zoning administrator's view of your position was, well, it's very little, a very literal reading of the code and you say, well, that's what you expect. i mention that in the context of page 3 of the 2015 determination because it's on page 42 or 43 of the materials that have been submitted as part of the record. and in the findings, the last

sentence on the second to last paragraph says, the code exempts the most, i'll read the whole said tense because a major intent of planning code section 317 to from he serve existing sound, housing stock, and affordability. the code exempts the most expensive single-family homes from the hearing requirements pertaining to this code section. doesn't that mean that the action granted by the zoning administrator is simply that exemption from further hearing proposal and not an absolute merger? >> no. we don't read it that way and we went back and looked at planning code section 317. what it did, it established different approval pathways. one is an administrative approval pathway by planning department where the units are economically inaccessible. they are not approved with a lower-level of

review and lower-level of scrutiny. the planner looks it and issues it at the staff level. at that time, where the units were not financially inaccessible there was a greater level of review. it would go up to the planning commission for mandatory discretionary review or go to the planning commission for conditional use authorization so at that time in 2015, there very much was an an administrative approval pathway in the code and that code section is attached to our brief as well. >> in terms of the inspections and knowledge of the city, there's a lot -- a lot is described about the wall that was removed, making it one large unit. can you, do you know -- do you know when that occurred?

>> i do not. we have no information about that. when my clients bought the home, there was no wall. there was no partition between these two units. if you look at the marketing materials, the listing photos, you'll see that. i'm not sure whether it was ever installed. whether it was installed and removed by the developer. i don't know how it was inspected and approved and the planning and permitting history is confusing. we have been several months requesting records from dbi and asked plan to go go through its files and we refute everything. there's a lot of confusion around what happened here and how single-family home was built, given that permit, some of the permits anyway show it was going to be two units to remain, so there's not a clear answer to that question, obviously, some mistake or something happened along the way but we don't know what it was and it certainly wasn't my clients' fault. they bought the property as a single-family home >> i appreciate the position your clients are in. are you in

a position to know or surmise as to when the city knew it was one rather than two? >> i don't. i'm not in a position to say that. >> okay, thank you. >> yeah. >> commissioner lemberg. >> thank you. thank you, mr. merit. i have a couple of, digging in deeper questions here. >> sure. >> first of all, which, i'm looking at the notice of violation that list all the permits, first of all, i want to ask -- from your clients perspective, is this the background session of notice of violation document accurate as to the permits that you believe have been taken out on this property? >> i cannot speak to that. i assume it was accurate or mostly accurate. we have identified some other permitting materials

and plans that did reflect a merged unit and i'm not sure those are reflected in here, but ultimately the argument that we're raising is not about the plan sets and the permitting history. we understand that there's a problem there. our point is that the city has approved the dwelling unit merger, that there's a mistake in the permit and the permitting doesn't reflect that so the solution is go back and fix permit. we have vested land use entitlement that says the units can be merged so we need to go back and correct the building permit that reflect a single unit. >> how, then do we address the part where it says november 12, 2015, building permit application 014071972 which is the one is -- the subject of most of this, i believe, because that's where the merger approval came from, i'm seeing it for this big capital letters, note dwelling unit merger is not permitted under this permit, two

dwelling uniting to remain. how are we supposed to get passed that, i guess? >> yeah, i mean, that's exactly the issue, right. the permits to show, many of them do show two units are to remain. that was based on a misunderstanding from the planning staff about the retroactivity of the new legislation, so it's a view they had. the land use entitlement which sits above the building permit reflects one unit. there's a problem with the building permit on file and way you fix that is for us to sent a new building permit -- the solution is not to require the property to be partitioned. >> my problem then is, it seems uncontested that that permit was withdrawn in 2017, so again, how are we supposed to get passed

that point where the permit that, under which the previous owners reportedly were able to merge the property and it was withdrawn and it wasn't completed. the work that was described in the permit theoretically wasn't completed then, is that right? >> no. i want to draw a distinction between the entitlement which is the dwelling merger and the permit application. the permit application was withdrawn and planning staff went to the developer's contractor and we had a change in this code and this can't be approved and you've got to get rid of it. they said "we'll withdraw." at that point the appeal period for the za's approval have already expired. the 15-day period had run which means entitlement became final. withdrawing the

project, there was an approval in hand. they said we'll withdraw our application but the fact of the matter is, final approval had already been issued so there was nothing to withdraw. there was no pending application at that time, so it's confusing but we think that withdraw was an a null because it was already approved. and it was a misunderstanding from the planning staff. >> that's all i have. i'll pass it to president. >> i think commissioner trasvina hit it on the nose but i'll ask it in a different way. how -- >> is your microphone on >> yes, my mic is on. i'm being (indiscernible) today. you find it hard to believe. so, how did the wall come down? how did these units, two units become

one without a permit? >> yeah, that's a great question. >> wait, wait, counselor, i'm not finished yes. how did the units become one without a permit? how did your clients buy a house in a full disclosure state where, if you don't disclose something, your in trouble as a real-estate agent, it's against the law and so, how did two units become one without a permit? and how did your clients spend a little bit of money buying a significant building and not do the due diligence to find out, how did two units become one when they were two units all along until they were anticipated to be separated into two units by a permit that was cancelled and

never implemented. that's kind of the squirrelly part for me. >> your first question, how did the wall get removed? we don't know the answer to that because my clients had no involvement in that. >> i understand. [multiple voices] this is not a good answer, sir. this is not a good answer. >> well -- [multiple voices] >> i'm not going to accept it because, gee whiz, how did you get that bloody nose. i got punched or fell on my face, but i really don't know. >> i think the answer to your second question may explain it. we did get the real-estate disclosures as part of the sale and the real-estate disclosure said no units had been unlawfully merged or demolished and all work had been done according to lawfulfully permits. this was a complete renovation ground up and the building did say it was a single-family homes and all permits obtained so my clients

had no reason to file with odb. they took the disclosure packet as true. your question as to how the wall was removed? i think there's two possibilities. one is that the developer of the property never installed it and somehow it passed inspection anyway because there's all this confusion in the file about whether it's one unit or two or the developer built it passed inspection and removed it before selling it but again we don't know. my clients came in after the project had been fully built and just purchased it. they weren't involved in the development of it at all. there's nothing in the record that i've seen that answers that question. corey may have more information >> this presents a big problem that i think we'll probably investigate later. how did a wall disappear and without a permit and how do two units, how do two units become one without a permit? and this is,

regardless of whether your clients knew this or not, makes no difference whatsoever. the question here is, how did two units become one without a permit? when did it happen? and if it happened illegal, you seem like you might have a hell of a lawsuit against someone who sold you a very expensive house, but we'll investigate that later. i think it's somebody else's turn. . >> thank you. i don't see further questions so we'll hear from the zoning administrator. >> already. good evening, president swig, corey tooe, zoning administrator for the planning department. i respectively disagree with the appellant. i don't think this is a confusing situation. i think the record is quite clear. i appreciate the situation that the appellant and their client find themselves in, but i think this is a little bit of a silver

bullet argument, looking into the past at a different context than how things played out. so, in the brief, i tried to layout kind of a very linear timeline argument of everything that happened. i think there's important points to pull out of that. again, i think this is a straightforward situation but i think based on the arguments that have been made, like technical questions that may come up and i'm happy to answer any of those, but getting to the question you were raising, record is clear. there's nothing in the record to indicate that it's one unit. every permit, every cfc from dbi and the three r report and the tax assessor's data, everything except for the listing of the home when it was sold, very clearly says it was two units. so, to the extent that the buyers who own it now had some concerns about all that documentation, being listed as a

single-family home, i can't answer it. but the record is clear there and it's not just clear in a passive way. it's clear in an active way because the original proposal was to merge the units. and the basically, you know, the laws in the city changed. it would have required a conditional use authorization that was communicated to the applicant at that time and the applicant chose not to go that route and to purely speculate, part of the rationale was that at that time, the mergers weren't getting approved and weren't being supported. it wasn't impossible but it was at a time when losing these unit were hard to get approved. the applicant at this time switched gears, withdraw their merger application. they amended the building permit very specifically to not be a merger and keep it two units and they changed the cost of construction down significantly from what it

was originally proposed to be so the record was very clear that the property owner at that time, very clearly understood that the, there was no authorization for a merger. they moved forward with a renovation permit for two units. there's a subsequent variance that was issued too, all very clearly for two units. all plans slow it as two units. as i laid out in my brief, the only set of plans in the record that i could find that actually showed that wall being removed and to be clear, not showing the scope of work to remove that wall, just showing the existing state of that wall being removed was a sprinkler permit that had nothing to do with the residence so it wasn't reviewed by planning department at all. that's the only place in the record i can find where it actually shows on the plans, even though permit still says two units. on the plan it shows that wall being removed. does that mean the wall had been removed at that point? we can't really know. but the record is

very straightforward. so, clearly, the a people ant's focus is on this zoning administrator action memo. i think it's really important to understand a few things about that. one, the planning code does not even require that the zoning administrator make this call. it doesn't require that zoning action memos even be issued. we do them, we started doing them in 2011 purely as housekeeping because the previsions of the code started expanding and more kind administrative decisions were left to the zoning administrator and we wanted to make sure that, if and when questions about well, did zoning administrator think about this? did the za actually make this call? why did they make that call? if they came up as a part of a future appeal, for our own records we would have that documentation. it's not required in the code but we do it for that purpose. the other thing and this is

called out specifically out in that action memo, only determination that was made there was a waiver from the mandatory discretionary review process. before, before the code changed, the way it worked as it was called out is, dwelling unit merger was a mandatory discretionary review. you had to go to planning commission. not as a cu but a dr but there was a price out option. if the home was just very unaffordable, right, so in the top 20% evaluation, essentially, it was so unaffordable it was fine to do the demolition or merger without doing that. the only thing this memo did was confirm that based on the appraisal and the work we did to set those values that this home was appraised at a value high enough where that merger would not, would be eligible for a waiver from the mandatory dr process.

but even with that waiver, the permit was still required. city still has full discretion. a neighbor could have filed a dr on merger and we could have staff initiated a dr. all that memo did was document the fact that the permit qualified for the waiver from the mandatory dr process that's literately only thing it did. the appellant raised an issue with the cus and (indiscernible) in the permit. you get a cu to build something, the cu has a time period, performance period at which time you have to get a permit issued and the permit has to get completed to do that work. that authorization doesn't live forever. and it's really important, i think, to know there's, this backwards look and trying to use state law to grasp on to this memo to say that in effect, it's a legal merger, the

owner at the time had no expectation that they were, that they had a legal merger. the city certainly didn't communicate that to them in any way and it wasn't communicated to the city. our intent was to merge the units without a permit going forward, so to conclude, i think this is a very straightforward situation. i understand the situation the appellant's are in but the record is extremely clear and we have a fundamentally disagreement on the nature of that zoning administrator action memo so we think the nov was appropriately issued and correct and respectively and ask you a deny the appeal. >> questions from commissioner swig and lemberg and epper and commissioner trasvina. >> so, appellant's counsel, this seems to weigh heavily on which came first, the chicken or the egg and that is land use

overrules the permit issuance or any permit that was issued subsequent to some level of entitlement. so, can you further dwelve into that, so if i had, if i got an entitlement before i got my permit, should i, it was -- is it possible that i got an entitlement to do something like this before i got my permit and would that initial assumption of that entitlement be guaranteed to be actualized in the permit? >> i'm hesitant to even go down that road because there is no entitlement involved in this situation. [multiple voices] >> you might explain why there

was no entitlement. >> i was going to explain why i was hesitant to do it because it's not relevant to this case because there was no cu or mandatory dr, and no entitlement. if you get a condition use based on the code as it exist today, typically you'll get a three-year performance period. within three years you have to get a building permit issued to effectuate that cu. >> it's not in perpetuity. >> it's not in perpetuity but even more than that, let's say you get cu today based on the code that exist today, a year passes and you haven't gotten your permit yet and the code changes. and it changes in a way now that, like, what you want to do is just not permit it. unless the planning code was amended in a way that included some grand fearing prevision, you're out of luck because we're the law of the day. we can't issue a building permit unless on that day it's being issued, it's

fully compliant with all the requirements of the municipal code that day and so, there is this kind of chain, right. there's the entitlement and you have a certain amount of time and there's responsibilities you have to complete certain actions to effectuate that. otherwise, that entitlement is kicked back to planning commission to extend or revoke. but again that's not really the case here because there's really no possible way to view the zoning administrator action memo as an entitlement. it was purely a procedural waiver that was a tiny piece of the overall permit review. >> but even if it was, you're saying by the time it was issued, there was -- in the new code, there was no grandfathering of any kind and that was off once the code changed >> there was when the code was

amended, there was a grandfathering prevision for projects that have been approved by a certain time and the appellant is making the case that it was a merger. the point i made in my brief was that wasn't the case. the action memo did and if you see what it's referencing, it's just -- saying that permit is not required to get a dr. it didn't approve it. the planning department would have still had the ability to do a staffing initiated dr, a neighbor could have requesting a dr. the department could have denied it. the planning commission could have denied it so it wasn't an overarching approval in any way shape or form. >> following on my question before the appellant, there -- and help me with this, please.

when was the renovation permit, renovation permit that -- major renovation that was done? when was that actualized? was that -- >> the 2014 permit because that was the original permit that came in. it was going to be merger and because of that history, they included. it's not a merger, it's just renovation and so that was the 2014, 72 permit and that was completed in, that permit was completed so all work was done, inspected, finalized out in november of 2019. >> okay. >> was there a wall there? >> sir, i can't answer that. i don't know. i don't know -- voice -- i don't know what was inspected. there was no authorization for there to be a wall and the cdc from this permit, so you know, you have to

have -- all your inspections and you get your certificate of final completion, that cfc clearly is for two units so, i mean, the department of building inspections position upon completion of this permit was this was a two unit building. >> is there plans you have seen on file? this is a major renovation, so this isn't an over the counter situation. are there any plans on file that showed anything related to a wall that would come down and bring the two units together? >> no, so the way it's laid out and i don't have plans, but you know, i have access to the plans through the dbs system and i can't share publicly because of copy right issues so the property owner can, but all the plan showed, there's a dual entry and you go in one side and it's one unit and go on the other side, it leaves immediately to stairs to go upstairs to the other units and

of course that's not on the same floor and that stairway up to the upper unit is separated by a wall on that ground floor. all of the plans show that wall there. there was never, you know, there was never any approval to remove that wall. as i've mentioned, the only plans that's in the record that i could find that shows that wall missing was this 2017 sprinkler permit and again, that permit was not kind of saying the existing is there and the proposal is take it away. it shows existing and it shows that wall wasn't there. it wasn't called out in a specific way because it was just a sprinkler permit. >> so the final inspection that the cdc was based on a wall that was there that separated the two units? >> absolutely. >> okay. >> yeah and final, again, redundant to my previous

question, you know, like i said, i looked at the picture of the building and there's two addresses. and two addresses would indicate two units so that goes to -- it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck but someone says it's not a duck. it's something completely different. is it as simple as counsel references that someone forgot to go to the post office and change the address or -- >> no, i mean, i think the appellant has been upfront about the fact that the record is clear it's two units and addressing is done through dbi so if all your permits say two units, your addressing is going to be two units and there's two kitchens still. the only thing that has been done that interior wall taken down and marketed as a single-family home. those are the only two things that's a

single-family context. everything else, the entire record is, that it's two units. >> right. according to the city, at no point has recognized -- the city, just in summary, did the city do a final inspection on the renovation based on two units and two units only? >> absolute! >> did the, is the addressing on the building reflecting accurately that there are, that it is a two unit building? >> yes. there were two addresses before all this permitting. there still is and it's pointed out in the brief that the llc owner -- it has both addresses. yeah. there's very little in the record to indicate there's anything other than two units. >> so that wall -- it disappeared at some point.

>> yeah. >> and so, i don't know, it's a fair question, you can deny to answer the question, i'll give you permission on this one but is it some strong possibility that after that renovation was completed as a two-unit building with two separate addresses that a contractor working for a developer just might have come in and removed conveniently that wall and started a marketing process as a single-family house? >> yeah. i mean, i can only put together what is known, which is there was a wall there. none of the permits called for it to be removed but at some point before they started marketing it, the wall was gone and they marketing it as a single-family home. >> so someone committed a fraud in your opinion. >> the wall had to be physically removed. it wasn't a situation

where it didn't exist where they removed it. it was removed. >> i'll defer to commissioner lemberg. >> thank you, commissioner. i want to be clear, i don't think this question is this positive in any way. i think the record before us was pretty clear regarding what is being appealed before this body today. my question is somewhat along the lines of what president swig was asking. i'm looking at your timeline which was helpful and thorough and it looks like the cfc was signed off november 22nd 2019. and then the property was purchased by the current owners on january 10th 2021 which is less than two months between and presumably that's the end of escrow period. i don't know if that's the day the deed was signed and if so, that means it was sold at least 30 days prior, most likely. i'm guessing here,

but do we have it in the record that the cfc showed that wall not or that wall being there still? >> so that's a little challenging because the cfc doesn't have, you know, to have the cfc issue inspections on what's there and they should be matching what the plans were and the cfc is issued so i can't speculate if the, if it wasn't out there and the inspector missed it because it was this little wall separating them and it wasn't like a major thing sticking out from a life safety issue or if, you know, an hour after the inspector leaves, someone came in and took it down. i don't know which one it was and there's not any clear way in the record to be able to make that call. >> okay. yeah. i mean, just -- the timeline we're talking about is so short that it seems improbable, not impossible, but improbable that they took it

down between november 22nd and say, december 10th, which is like two and a half weeks. >> and the appellant may have dated marketing materials, pictures, so clearly have you have dated marketing materials prior to the cfc that would help answer that question. i haven't done that level of review to answer that question so i'm not sure. >> okay. thank you. the reason i'm asking is not -- i honestly don't think it's this positive on this appeal itself. but i'm trying to throw a little bit of a softball to the appellant counsel who i think do have recourse here. i don't think it's necessarily through us and these sorts of questions will definitely be helpful for them getting some sort of justice, but i do think they are entitled to that, but maybe not just here. thank you. >> thank you. commissioner epper. >> sure. i'm going to be slightly redundant with what i said and i'm going to arrange it

differently and enhance my understanding of the situation. so i see your memo and i see that your memo authorized administrative approval, which i take to mean you said, yes, you can go through administrative approval on this merger. when does administrative approval happen? >> so, when we use the term "administrative approval" in the code in our documentation, that basically is a reference to no entitled is required and you need a permit process. administrative means it happens within confines of the process and it doesn't require the planning department or require a variance. when we say thing was done administrative for a project review, we're saying that's being done as part of the building permit review and that's why the memo goes into that. it's clearly saying this is an action on that permit as part of the review of that specific building permit. >> okay. so, you filed the

permits and then merger would be administratively approved at that time? >> so if you filed the permit, right. if you think in the order of operation, they file permit for a merger, the planning code puts a fork in the road and says, the main road is you have to go to the planning commission, mandatory dr, but if your home is valued or your building property is valued at a certain level you canning take a right turn and go down this path where you're not required to go down the planning path. that memo is saying which path this is authorized to take. they were authorized to take that path of not having to automatically go to the planning commission and the memo did nothing else than that. >> our records show that no permits calling for a dwelling unit merger have never been filed for this site? >> the original 2014 permit was for the merger but it was, but

that one was revised to be just a renovation and be a merger and that was called out. the meaner was very specific on the permit -- the planner was specific on the permit, this is for two units and the paper trail was heavily covered to be very clear that it was two units and not a merger so the merger wasn't administratively approved with respect to permits. >> correct, okay. >> the change in the law that occurred and became effective in 2016 made a grandfathering for unit mergers that had received approval from the planning department through administrative approval or the commission through a dr or a conditional use authorization? >> correct. >> okay. but there was no administrative approval of a dwelling unit merger? >> correct. >> okay and thank you. that's all. >> sure. >> thank you. commissioner

(indiscernible). >> thank you for your testimony and the materials you have provided. back on the 2015 zoning administrator action, can you describe what the permit was for, what the application was for? >> sure. the original 2014 application was to merge the two units into a single unit. so >> so when it talks about approving, it says you can appeal the zoning administrator's action by appealing the above referenced application, that seems to me that you've granted the application, notwithstanding other things that's in this notification. >> so on the specific appeal issued, there's a couple of things there. one, the language of what's being authorized in the memo says what's being authorized is the waiver from

the dr process not the overall approval and the language about the appeal gets back to -- as you know, sometimes, the planning code calls for the zoning administrator to respond in writing to request for determinations, right. it's a letter of determination and those are appealable upon 15 days of issuance of that letter to the board of appeals. when we have these administrative decision from zoning administrator that's tied to a specific building permit, the zoning administrator's individual calls are not appealable themselves because they are part ever administrative process for the building permit itself so language is there to say, listen, if you disagree with this permit on the grounds that the za didn't require them to do, you know, mandatory dr, you can't appeal the za's decision on that right now. you have to wait until the building permit is issued and appeal the building permit and have that be one of your arguments. that's the point of that. this isn't a

separate and independent discrete zoning determination. it's part of review process for this building permit and the appeal process is through the building permit appeal. >> i think where in the action where it says, "authorizing administrator approval" but you're meaning authorizing administrative -- >> it could be better. it's not granting -- >> don't skip over it though. >> sure. >> you have people here who have invested a lot of money in a building. we're talking about fraud and a lot of other folks but this is a confusing document and for this, for these owners, who inherited all this problem they weren't around in 2015. they weren't around until much later. for them to see that the application was approved. it says so twice. there's a very

good valid basis for them to be making this case today, so i caution, i really would urge looking at the terminology here because it may be a word here, a word there but i think there's a real significance to it. >> i'll take that to heart. i agree. i think -- the specific language on what is being determined could be tweaked. i think it's fair to read it in the context of the entire memo because it's very clear what's actually happening through that memo. but i definitely, you know, agree that we can tweak that language to be a little clear. >> thank you. the second area i wanted to ask about is, as i recall and please correct me, there was a complaint filed about this property, that the -- it was an illegal merger? >> uh-huh. >> can you describe, i mean,

we're debating whether it was a legal merger or not but can you describe the harm, if unlawful mergers are allowed? >> well, there's the question of mergers themselves legally. what is the policy behind restricting those. i think unlawful mergers are, um, have allowed the issues that any kind of unlawful action happens, right. there's a reason we require permits and approval for some of these things. i don't have anyone from dbi here now but there are different code requirements for single-family homes and two unit buildings. there may be life safety issues there but i do think that part of the other harm is potential downstream harms, right. again, i can't speak to the current property owner and what they knew or didn't know when they purchased the home but it was advertised as a single-family home and they legitimately

thought they were purchasing a single-family home even though the technical record is very clear it's all two units and it's a legal merger is harmful to them, i think they would make the case. >> okay. just a suggestion from the appellant that there's -- that the complaint itself was driven by some animosity somewhere along the line. unrelated to the city, of course. and problems with mergers, as you've described, reduces -- also reduces the housing stock and plenty of others. i do want to -- i think it's important to underscore why we're doing this and why the city is saying, because otherwise, what difference does it make? it's a wall in your house that came down and what if it had come down on its own or what if it was taken down but there's no money to put -- to put one back up. someone could say it's just in my own home.

there's all these other external harms to these which are important to mention. >> absolutely. >> the third area i wanted to ask you about is from the city's perspective, are there two different tax bills for 1281 and 1283? >> i don't know the answer to that. but the planning department, we're not involved in taxation and assessment and billing for that, so that may is a question for the appellant. i don't know if the property owners receives two separate tax bills or not. >> i think if the city considers it not merged and it's two places, you would have, as you've stated, there's any number of occasions that they were buying either 1281 or 1283, not both and they would be on

notice from the beginning that there's two separate pieces of property here, not a single-family home. >> sure. i can't answer the tax question. obviously two-doors with two addresses and lots of other things that come in disclosures like the dr report that says it's two units that should be a red flag but i can't speak for are the property owners on that. >> thank you. >> okay. thank you. vice-president lopez. >> thank you and thank you for the presentation. i was also focused on that second paragraph in the ca memo that commissioner trasvina was focused on. you know, based on the plain reading, especially when we have all caps, bold letters that say "authorize administrative

approval" and going for the building permit and proposing the merger of two dwelling units within a tee in a building, comma, resulting in a single-family home, you know, i think an honest (indiscernible) would say we're done. we're good and so, you said earlier in your presentation that, "hey, this isn't how we communicate or document approved mergers." so, how does that happen, like, do we have any kind of counter documentation that they would have received, like, hey, you're not there yet or you still have further steps to go or would, you know, someone in the property owner's position, the property owner at the time in 2015, would they and their advisors, you know, presumably if they had experience with

merger in the past, like, what is actually the actual merger look like if it's not this? >> sure. a couple of things. i don't have the memo in front of me. i have it on my computer. i couldn't mind grabbing it and looking at the words with you a little bit but something i want to stress is that again, there's no indication that the previous property owner even got that memo because we don't use it for that purpose. it's an internal memo that we use for record-keeping purposes. and so we would have communicated through the planner that oh yeah, she qualified for this. we're going to process this permit now which is what we did. it went out for 311 notice and started to the 311 notice saying it was a merger from two to one and after that started, the law changed and they changed their permit and so forth, but that memo is not used to communicate

to the outside world. it's really used as an internal documenting process. there's nothing in the record to make me, to indicate that the prior owner or the current owners ever saw that memo until this process. so, i don't know if that helps answers that question. if you have a building permit for a project, whatever it is, you're going to be in communication with your planner and they are going to process it and it's going to go through the process and you're going to communicate directly with your planner. and then on the specific language, do you mind if i pull it up or i don't know -- >> i think -- >> okay. >> that answers that part of the question. what about the point about how -- what would the actual approval look like for the property owner? >> that's what i'm saying, it's the permit. the building permit, again, even if you get an entitlement you still have to get a permit. the building permit is the implementation

tool for physical changes on your property and that's pretty clear and straightforward. and that's what they were doing, right. they filed the building permit as that would have gone forward and it was very clear, there's no question in the record that the prior property owner was told the law changed and it's a cu now and they said "no thank you," we'll keep it two units and that was supposed to happen. that was clear process going forward. so, there was no expectation from the prior property owner, no confusion from the city that they actually had some kind of secret authorization to merge the unit. that wasn't communicated at all to the prior owner. >> well, just to be clear, that's an inference we're making based on the fact that they changed the permit, right? >> i didn't quite hear that. >> that's an inference we're making based they changed the permit to drop the merger? >> correct. because they didn't

have to do that. they could have said, okay, we're going to file the permit authorization and ask the commission to approve our merger. they had that choice and they chose not to take that path and to abandon the merger. >> got it! yeah. i mean, i think when -- one might dump the merger for other reasons as well, but i think that's -- fair. >> sure. reasons aside, in terms of what the prior property owner chose to do and what they moved forward and the permitting record is clear on, it's a two unit building. there's no indication of a merger being approved or effectuated otherwise in their record. >> got it. thanks! >> sure. >> president swig. i'm sorry, commissioner trasvina. >> president swig if you want to go ahead, that's fine.

>> so, the administrative memo even though it's internal and no one ever sees it, that inferred entitlement, it's just like a site permit, is it -- is it a cite permit verses a building permit? i mean a site permit means you can owe on -- we're going to give you the opportunity to build this here and i might be taking a step back too far because now it's for new construction by once you get the site permit, it doesn't mean anything until you get to the building permit. am i on -- a completely wrong path and should i shut up now and not ask questions? >> i think that analogy makes it way too formal. >> okay. >> what i'm saying under the planning code, we're not required to issue anything relative to this decision. the

za action memo is voluntarily and we do it internally to document. the planner could have told the applicant over-the-phone, you qualify for this waiver and you don't have to do mandatory dr and we wouldn't do it. we could have e-mailed them and said, you qualify for this waiver. you don't have to do mandatory dr. those would have been totally acceptable under the code. there's nothing in the code that says we have to notify the property owner that they are eligible for this waiver. so, that's why i was saying, this action memo is really purely internal record-keeping that we do and need to do better in terms of the wording but the audience is really internal and to have on file in case that permit did go forward and say the law didn't change and the neighbor was out of town when the 311 happened and they are unhappy. they didn't get a chance to dr and they want to appeal it and they can say we don't think it was actually --

it met that threshold and we can say we did review it and here's the memo where we called out the specifics so as opposed to having an appeal and saying trust us and we did look at it and it did meet that requirement. that's the purpose of that memo. >> the bottom line on all this, you've got nothing until you have an approved building permit, so you may have conversation and conversation, conversation and there might be administrative memo, you may be blah, blah, blah, blah and but until you have that permit in hand that says, you can, in this case, separator bring the other two separate units, you've got nothing and that's the point of this conversation, right? >> sure. i mean, you have to actually legally merge the units, you would need a building permit to do that. >> right. so, all this stuff and i'm sure appellant's counsel is seeding right now and we'll hear

from him in a couple of minutes, but really all that stuff about what happened before and what we thought we had or what they are sure they had really doesn't mean anything -- you're saying it really doesn't mean anything, nothing means anything until you have a building permit that says you can do this and it could be anything. any building permit for anything, you could have an entirely different conversation with somebody else well before it, but when push comes to shove, what you have, what is legal, what you can do is what is written in that building permit and nothing else, right? bottom line. >> i don't want to be too expansive but generally speaking, yeah. i mean, if you want to do work on your property, obviously there's minor scopes that don't require permit like repainting and certain things. you don't need a permit for every single thing

but there's thresholds where you need a permit and any scope much work that meets that threshold and you don't get a permit that's a challenge because the permit being issued and completed is important. >> but something of significance scope and i would consider this significance scope. >> sure. >> everything that i just said would apply. >> yeah. you have to have the building permit. >> okay, thanks. mr. trasvina. >> thank you, president swig. back on that action member - -- >> sure. >> you described it as an internal memo and memos are usually to somebody from somebody. you got the planner. you've got the the architect up there, somebody up there, external folks are listed there but at the end there's a notice that says you can appeal this. so, if it's something that can

be appealed, they've got to know the action, so they must have known somehow, either through this memo or some other memo that the action was taken. otherwise, they would not have been able to appeal or they wouldn't -- they wouldn't know about it and in the document itself, it says you have the right to appeal to the board of appeals, so why wouldn't it be external document and why wouldn't it attach some significance if it's an action that is taken that is appealable to us? >> sure. again, i think this gets into maybe some nuance about, it could be worded better because just to be clear accident it's not designed to never be external. it's not something we won't share or don't share because i'm not saying we never do send it to anyone and it can't be discovered because obviously it can and that's why that language is there. it's there, again, for

internal purposes but i put it in my brief but it's for the project sponsor, if they want a copy and for members of the public, we get records request for projects all the time and we have to disclose documents, he is, so there's an understanding it could be a public-facing document. it's not to anyone. the memo isn't addressed to, it's just to file. it's not to the applicant. it's not to members of the public. what's that? >> it's copied to the file separately from whoever else it's going. >> it's going straight to the file and you know, could we word it better? absolutely! i mean, that's part of the learning experience from this. this issue has never come up before in the last 12 years since we've been doing this but we'll take this case to heart to adjust this language for sure to make sure there's no confusion on that

issue. >> and just to follow up on president swig's question to you about, it doesn't matter until you have the building permit. couldn't a merger be achieved without any construction remodeling being done? >> well, i'd have to think about a scenario where that could happen because typically by definition, dwelling units are separately so if you want to merge them, there has to be some type of physical connection made. i mean, i don't want to necessarily say there's absolutely no scenario under the sun where a merger could occur without some physical work. i can't give you one-off the top of my head. but even without the physical work, changing the number ever units or occupancy of a building requires a building permit. even if you weren't doing any physical work, just the change in the number of units itself triggers the

building permit. >> thank you. >> sure. >> okay. thank you, there are no questions. okay. okay. we will we're moving to public comment. is there anyone here to provide public comment? >> can i get a rebuttal? >> yes, you do. we're on public comment right now. if there's no public comment, we'll move on to rebuttal. okay. so, i don't see any hands raised. so we're moving on to rebuttal so mr. merit, you have three minutes. >> thank you, sorry for jumping the gun there. >> no problem. >> i want to focus on this idea there wasn't an approval. i don't think that's a defensible idea. it's not legally defensible. if you look at the action memo, on its face it says it's an action memo. that means an action was taken and there's several place in the memo including the sentence under finding, it says the zoning administrator took the action above. it says in all caps the action taken is to authorize

administrative approval of the dwelling unit merger and at the end of the memo, it says you can appeal the action, so i don't understand how you could in good faith read this as anything as approval action. that's exactly what it says. there's no evidence in the record that this wasn't distributed. if you look at the header of the memo, it looks like it went to the project sponsor and the staff contact and the last page was carbon copied to the file. it wasn't just into the file. there's no evidence in the record to the contrary to that at least that i see. the zoning administrator says the planning code doesn't provide firm approval. this is a waiver of a hearing requirement. that is false and i would direct you to exhibit 6 of our brief, section 317 that is an applicable version. it expressly provides for administrative approval. it just says that in plain language. it says there are three paths. i wish you could

get a residential dwelling merger a proved. you can get a conditional use authorization, two the planning commission can approve an mandatory dr hearing or three, the project can qualify for administrative approval and the planning department approves the project administratively. it specifically calls for administrative approval and then when you look at the retroactive prevision under the current planning code, the one that's on the books right now, it also speaks to administrative approval. it says quote the removal of a residential unit that has received approval from the planning department through administrative approval prior to the effective date is not required to additional cu approval. the planning department grants approval and nowhere in the code does it say you have to get a building permit in addition to the planning department approval to effectuate the entitlement. corey said that multiple times

in the hearing but he hasn't cited a prevision in code that says that and that's because there's no provision of the code that says that. that's the planning department internal practice, but it's contrary to the code and it's not going to be defensible in superior court. and there's also no response to that retroactivity prevision. what does that prevision mean if it is grandfathered in, if you don't have to get a new approval. beyond that, a dwelling unit merger isn't any old approval -- >> thank you, time. [multiple voices] >> mr. merit, thank you your time is up but we have a few questions from commissioner epper and president swig. >> go first. >> so, thank you. what does administrative approval mean to you? what does that look like? what is that from a process basis? sorry, you're muted.

>> you're muted. >> this california land use law, there are two classes of approval. there's approval that goes to a public hearing like to the planning commission or the board of supervisors and then there's administrative approval, which doesn't go to the decision makers or higher maker. it's approved at the staff level. administrative approval means it's approved by the zoning administrator who is the planning director. >> or in this case by the planner on the project who is perhaps looking at permits or another process that is purely administrative in nature but and not requiring commission approval or discretionary use or discretionary use or any of those other processes, right? >> right. i think a planner -- in my experience, the staff planner never does it. it goes to a planning manager or planning director or zoning administrator when it's a consequential approval. >> i ask because we a knowledge

that administrative approval is a process, right. i think you said that when you were reading the code that you had to qualify for administrative approval, right. it's not an automatic thing. it's not three equal pathways to get approval. there's conditional use, discretionary review and if you qualify, you get administrative approval, right? >> exactly. >> okay. going back to the action memo which we've spent a lot of time on. we these all caps words and the first one is a verb and that verb is authorized. what does authorize mean? >> authorize means granting administrative approval. >> we have a verb, you usually have an object and i think those other two words, administrative approvals are the object. the thing that's authorized is administrative approval. we're talking about an approval process, i would expect if we were approving something like a

dwelling unit merger, we would approve that instead of authorizing the approval through a mechanism that we've already said is a process, right? >> i think that's wrong. if you look at the planning code, it refers to administrative approval. that's the name of the approval and so this is saying the administrative approval has been authorized. it's not authorizing some further consideration of the administrative approval and the best evidence of that is the finding section. this isn't just a normal administrative approval. it is a degrees e- discretionary entitlement and there's factors that the za had to consider. you have to a valuate them and take evidence, he accepted appraisals that he requested from the applicant. he made findings and he said from the document that he's issuing a document for approval -- it says it and it's consistent with what the code said. i don't think there's a reading to the contract frankly. >> accept it authorizes the process because you have to make findings in order for the

process to be able to attach. i'll ask mr. tig about the administrator's role in a minute >> mr. swig? >> i'm going back one more time to the missing wall. i bought one or two houses in my life. actually about three. and what you do is go through a due diligence and inspection process and you hire professionals and when you're at that level where you're spending the amount of money spent on this home, you can afford really good inspection, really good inspection process and i hope you get it and you have very good professionals like yourself to look at legal issues and --

and -- and i know it might shock you that sometimes a real-estate brokers do misrepresent what they are selling, but it has happened before and, so when there are two-doors, entry doors, two addresses, two entry doors, two kitchens, wouldn't that raise a question about where did this all come from to just the -- a basic inspection and also, my brain cohort here, who brought up the fact that on the calendar that the timeline is not something that was an extenuating plan. this offering came up really quickly after the

completion of the construction and so it was prey fresh meat o- -- it was fresh meat. it's not like the renovation happened before. what am i missing here that either -- that something wasn't missed or that your clients may have looked the other way or whatever and then, follow-up question is going to be also, a great question asked by one of my fellow commissioners. do you know how many tax bills there are that are presented to your clients? did they do, did they do an analysis of the tax bills when they bought that -- when i bought a house, you kind of discuss what you owe on the tax bills, right. if you buy a house in middle of the summer, you got

to pay the second tax bill and what about those tax bills? and were there two or were there one? these are the things that just don't fly with the whole clarity that this was an entitled or permitted single-family home. can you elaborate on that, please? >> sure. to your first question, there's one tax bill for the property and i looked that on the assessor's website while we're having this hearing so we can take notice of that or put it into the record. there's one tax bill for 1281 to 1283 greenwich. as to the diligence, they did do their due diligence and got the disclosure packet and looked through it. i don't know if they had an obligation to go back and review all of the building permit records to discover this issue. i know with my house i didn't look through the building permit records. but that's kind beside the point. the question we have presented is a legal question, whether the 2015 approval is

valid or not. and i think they could have done better due diligence or didn't do the due diligence correctly, that isn't relevant to the appeal we've made. >> thank you. >> thank you, president swig. just on the -- something to ask about the tax bills. if there's one coming from the city, is that consistent with a single family home >> >> i don't think it matters one way or another. there's one assessor parcel to that one parcel of property is assessed by the tax assessor. the question of how many units are on the property, i think is a separate question. to be totally honest about it. >> you wouldn't assume when it was 1281 greenwich, 1283 greenwich, it would have been more than one? >> i don't know. it seems -- i

don't know the history before this renovation but at some point there were two units. it seems there were two unit s the same lot, it seals like the lot wasn't subdivided. that's my best guess. i will look into the history on that. >> on the zoning administrator action memo, my colleague, commissioner epper walked through the words of the action section. at the very end, it says, resulting in a single-family home. >> yeah. >> do you put any weight on those words to describe what the action was taken by the memo? >> sure. i mean, it's very clear from the base of this document that this is an approval of the merger to create a single-family home and all the determination that is used in this memo tracks that the -- this was an approval to continue some process or go pard with the building permit.

nothing in the code at all. the code says you can get administrative approval of the merger and this document says you get administrative approval for the merger. >> this idea that the approval doesn't mean anything until you get a building permit. that's not consistent with basic principles of land use law. if you get a variance, that doesn't you don't have anything until you get the final building permit. those are separate approvals. they had their own finally date and appeal periods and as in this case, once you get that approval and spend money and reliance on and under california common law principles, you have a property right and that's the situation that the appellant's are now. they have a vested property right to a single-family home. the courts have been clear from this point. >> city attorney, please.

>> council didn't submit -- counsel didn't submit the tax property bill as a part of his papers. he would have had it support his position. i would just like to clarify for the board when you look up the property on the assessor's website, it shows 1281-1283 greenwich street. it shows a use type of flats and duplex and shows units two. so i would want the board to have the full information on that. again, it hasn't been submitted as part of the papers. >> right. what you're saying and i realize this after i asked the question which is why i like to ask dumb questions because it clarify that they are dumb questions, this was a rental property, so of course, it had two units under one -- >> it was a single tax bill but what counsel neglected to mention is that it discloses or it states two units on the assessor's website.

>> i wasn't trying to conceal anything. i'm happy to submit this pdf in the record. >> thank you for allowing me clarify of being stupid that while you have two separate units, you don't get two separate tax bills. it was rented as two units and it's clear. it's on the record. commissioner lemberg. thank you. >> i also don't think this question is this positive but it's helpful for us and i'm going to address to mr. hue board or ms. tig, depending on who knows the answer, i'm looking 2015 action item, you can appeal the action to the board of appeals by appealing issuance of the above referenced building permit application. to my understanding when somebody submits a building permit application that, comes with its own appeal period, kind of naturally and we obviously hear

those appeals regularly to building permit applications. is my reading correct that when an action memo such as this one is issued, it kind of just resets the appeal period for the -- because very specifically says they would appeal the issuance of the building permit process, not the action memo itself. does it in effect then reset the appeal period for the building permit application or is it some other type of time period for an appeal? >> would you like to ask that after mr. tig completes his rebuttal or would you like to ask it as part of rebuttal? >> you're right. i was building off what someone was saying. >> i slot it into the appropriate spot. >> i table that question until mr. tig --

>> any further questions related to the rebuttal from the appellant. >> we'll hear from the zoning as -- from the zoning administrator. corey tig zoning administrator. it maybe helpful to look at the code language that's the basis for the action memo. >> go ahead. >> can you zoom it out a little bit or -- >> thank you. got to hold this flat. >> okay. >> it's subsection three which says administrative review criteria shallen sure that only those residential units pro mowed per merger that's not affordable or financial accessible, housing are exempt from mandatory discretionary hearing and it get into how you do that. and then it says, if

you meet these cry tear determined by appraisal made by six months, you're not required for discretionary review hearing. the action memo is saying you meet this. so you don't have to do the mandatory dr. that's the 100% purpose of it. nothing more. it's not even required to be the za. it's definitely not a separate authorization of the merger itself. it is simply just an authorization to go down the administrative path and not the entitlement path through the planning commission. so, i think it was helpful to see that language. again, we'll go back, we'll work on the language of that memo so we can be super clear on that. again, this issue is just really never come up before. but again, there's nothing in the record that shows any indication that the property owner at that time saw this

memo. they may have. there was no record in the e-mail file from the planner that they had sent it to them. they may have sent it but there's no indication they thought they had authorization for the merger. additionally, even under the code, the zoning administrator wouldn't have the able to grant approval of that merger. there's the building permit process. the planning commission and the department has discretion over that permit. so, the za wouldn't have the ability to grant this overarching authorization without the merger without effectuate that through the issuance and completion of a building permit. you can't override the discretion that the planning department and the department has on that, but even if there was a consideration that this za action memo was still valid in some way, again, like, it wouldn't change the

fact that as we sit today, even if they could use it today to move forward, there's no building permit on file, let alone issued and completed to merge the units, which is the state that exist today. it's not a legal state as it exist today. >> thank you. >> i'm open to any questions. >> president swig and commissioner lemberg. >> so, appellant council, i'm not going to be able to paraphrase him, has repeatedly stated the spirit of land use law would indicate there was an entitlement that allowed this even before the permit was issued. it's a natural, my interpretation, a natural flow that this memo would create an

entitlement and in the spirit of land use law, it would be naturally moved right into the permit and be continued as part of the permit. what is your view on that overarching land use spirit of overall overarching land use law and its relationship to future permits? >> sure. i mean, i would say, as you know the appellant made legal claims and i don't interpret state law. this board isn't, you know, a california superior court. there's a venue for those to be heard and adjudicated, if that's the -- where it goes. we're looking at what the planning code and the municipal code says and how that is implemented and interpreted. the appellant is correct that

entertainment ernt grant -- that entitlement grants you rights and it's not a situation without the building permit you have no rights and the point of entitlement is it grants you rights into future. it's not future and forever. there's perimeters and you have to implement then tilements and it's thresholds and benchmarks you have to move forward with that entitlement, so it's kind of both, but the bottom line whether a project requires an entitlement or not, the building permit to merge a building is 100% necessary, whether it was done to implement an entitlement granted or not, if you're going to merge units understand the planning code and the building code, that requires a building permit. that clearly says we're going from two units to one unit. that is not in

question. so, i hope that answers your question. >> commissioner lem bert. >> do you need me to repeat my question or are we good? >> do you mind repeating it, sorry. >> not at all. i took a quick know but not enough. >> from the action memo from 2015, it says you can appeal the administrator's actions by the building permit application so my question was, is the creation of the action memo an extension of the appeal period for the building permit itself or is it the creation of a new appeal period that just happens to also reference the building permit itself. >> thank you. it's a great question and this is another place where we'll be amending this language because language says, you can appeal this determination this way. it really should say, you can't appeal this determination

independently. what that is saying is this determination is being made part, being made as part of the building permit review, so if you are in disagreements with this part of the building permit review, you have to appeal it with the building permit. it doesn't change the appeal timelines. it piggybacks on the standard of appeal for the building permit. if you don't mind, it's an analogy. we get situations all-time where planners bring projects to the zoning administrator and alike. i can't tell if this project meets the rear yard requirement. maybe it's a funky layout and we have to make a call and say this meets the rear yard and we don't document. the calls happen everyday. but that permit may get issued and a neighbor may say, i don't think this project meets the yard requirement. i'm going to appeal it. that's the basis of the appeal, right. we don't think it meets the rear yard. the zoning add minuted stray tore made that call and that za call wasn't separately

appealable. that's the same thing but we document it for this purpose and do this for certain other types of za calls that's called out in the code that's done as part of the building permit process. but in effect, it's the exact statement process. it's a call made in the service of reviewing a building permit. >> i guess follow up to that then, what is the appeal period when a building permit is -- >> once issued? sure. 10 to 15 days. >> generally 15 days, circumstances 10. >> this building permit was issued october 17, 2014, and the action memo wasn't until may 21st of the following year which is 7, 8 months. >> it was filed in 2014. >> right. [multiple voices] >> the appeal period for the building permit itself have expired well before the action memo. >> no, the appeal period is once the permit is issued so the 2014

permit, main permit was first filed and submitted object 17, 2014. the action memo was may of 2015 and this permit was issued later. when was it issued? >> issued without the approval, so -- >> yeah. >> it does say submitted, not issued so it makes sense. >> yeah. >> okay. and so these action memos are necessarily done before the building permit is issued? >> absolutely. yeah. because they are part of the planning department's review and i think that's important to callout is that what is an approval. what is an administrative approval. if the administrator approval of a building permit. if you look at the permit, the department approves the permits. it's not a zoning administrator approval but we don't stine off on permits unless they meet requirements and so sometimes these are part of the review that's necessary to determine,

yes, it meets all the requirement in order for us to be able to approve it administratively. >> thank you. >> city attorney would like to speak. >> i mean, i think this is all theoretical because there wasn't an appeal and we have to take those as they come. this may be an area where my view differs from mr. tig's. i do think there are grounds to bring an appeal to the board of appeals when there is an alleged error or abuse by the zoning administrator in the interpretation of an ordinance. so, i don't know why there is a reference here to a building permit. it may be stock language that was pulled from some other planning documents. again, it's totally theoretical. but i think there could be an argument that there is a 15-day period, if for example, the zoning

administrator had denied the merger, the property owner, potentially could have come to the board and mr. tig and i would have differing opinions of whether there's grounds to remove. there's differing points on that and i wanted to make that clear. >> can i respond to that, just for clarification. >> please. >> yeah. >> through the chair, so, this is an important distinction because you look at the code in 307, it says if, you know, when there is a request to make an interpretation of the code, administrator must respond in writing and that determination is appealable, error abuse, or discretion and that trigger, it's specific to those determinations. again, the zoning administrator makes determinations based on individual permit review multiple times everyday that are not documented at all. and the

reason that language is in there is because it's designed to be very purposeful that way. these are part of the building review process, building permit process and the an appropriate appeal is to approve the building permit, whatever your grounds may be and that the za calls that are documented in the action memo was very specifically structured to be part of the building permit. and not a separate written determination upon request. now, of course if someone would have said, let's say, this project goes out to 311, right, and a neighbor says, they should have done a mandatory dr. we don't think they qualify for that. we're going to request a za and put it in writing and appeal that. and people do that. that's -- that would be process to have a written determination from the zoning administrator interpreting the code that is then appealable to the board. so, that is the distinction. i

mean, understandably coming from the outside looking in, you're not working on it everyday and it doesn't seem like a huge distinction but it's designed very much to function that way and to be very separate. >> i just wanted to add in my experiences in processing appeals, this is (indiscernible) to discretionary review process. the planning, the planning commission would issue discretionary review memo and that's not appealable, what's appealable is any permit that has been issued or denied pursuant to that memo and in this case, if they decided not to go ahead with merger, they would have denieded the building permit which would triggered -- the appeal. >> it's not independently appealable. it's the same thing. it's an action on the permit, the appeal, either the granting or denial of the permit. that's why you don't -- otherwise, you would receive dr

appeals all-time, which you don't because you can't do that. >> i appreciate the deep dive on this, thank you. >> sure. i'm kicking myself i didn't put that analogy in my brief. >> president swig. >> diving deeper, i want to give the benefit of the doubt or at least investigation of the tax bill. city attorney just read to us that -- upon looking at the tax bill that it still reflects a two-unit building. the transaction, remind the transaction to purchase this building occurred in 2020 or was it 2019? >> 2020. >> january of 2020. [multiple voices] >> let me go back to the timeline. january 2020 is when the purchase happened with current owners. >> so, how fast, if this indeed

was a legal -- owe legal one-unit building and again, let's look at the timeline created a my esteem commissioner cohort who said that this -- the csc was issued in 2019. what's the process that when a cfc is issued and the tax bill gets a new description on it? >> sure. how does that happen? what is the expected timeline on that and wouldn't it not be -- today is june 2023, a solid three-and-a-half, almost half years later but if you go through 2019, yeah, three-and-a-half years, wouldn't it be changed by this time or

changed by the time the cfc was issued. can you give education on that? >> i can't educate you. i'm my depth on this. it's my understanding there's a process where the tax and assessor recorder use building permit information and cfc information to help inform their assessment and the number of legal units. i'm not fully up to speed on all their methods or timelines and how that exactly works. i agree with you that it has been x years since whatever date you want to pick and the tax bill still says there's two units. i would assume that, you know, if there was a standard process to go from two to one that would have changed by now but i'm by no means an expert on how the assessor recorder or the tax collector processes that

information. >> yeah. i was just using commonsense which would -- the city is sometimes slow in processing administrative stuff, but it would seem that maybe almost four years later that the records would be completed, especially with the tax bill situation. and anything, what would be the expectation of updating records subsequent to a new construction where there's -- there's a better question, actually, what would be your expectation that the city records would be updated to reflect a major change from the structure from a two unit to a one unit if approved or any major change whatsoever, so that the description of what that building is is current. >> unfortunately, again, it's going to be hard for me to answer that. if we had a dbi representative, they could maybe speak to when and under what

circumstances. like a 3r report which is a report of a residential record. if and when those are automatically produced and updated after a cfc and a change in unit count. obviously, those are always produced upon the sale of a property. and same thing for tax collector. i'm not sure, i just don't know what the standard turnaround time is for those records to be updated. i'm sorry. >> okay. thanks. >> okay. thank you. no further questions so commissioners, this matter is submit and a reminder the standard of review is error or abuse of discretion. >> we'll start with commissioner lopez and for no particular reason other than you're at the other end and i'm not. >> sure. thank you. i'm inclined to deny the appeal. i

know that that we've had, i think some reasonable questions about the wording of the memo. but it is, you know, one piece of evidence among others, in my mind, are countervail and that contribute to the conclusion that the nov in the complaint, you know, are what should rule the day here. we don't have, we don't have a final permit. you know, even if there was the potential for some ambiguity, based on some of the phrasing in the 2015 memo itself. and so,

all together i'm inclined to deny the appeal. >> commissioner trasvina. >> i agree with vice-president lopez and i think, particularly, the comments by the zoning administrator and mr. (indiscernible) were helpful this bringing all these aspects together because there's reasonable frustration on the part of the appellant's. whether that frustration is solely based on their reading of the 2015 action memo, that they just picked up. they weren't a part of any of that debate or proceeding or whether that frustration ought to be placed upon the various people involved in the real-estate transaction when they bought the property, that, i think, there are other forms for that. but i do appreciate zoning administrator's review of the

action memo and opportunities for there to be much better communication on the part of the department on the terms and the purpose of the action memo. i was a little confused by a description that's an internal memo, but also describing the rights of the property owner to appeal. and then the final description of it is, here's your right to appeal but it really isn't a right to appeal. it's telling you that you can't appeal until later. so, there are opportunities for city to address these concerns and again, for the benefit of members of the public to be able to have early and correct information, so i appreciate the zoning administrator's commitment to that, but in terms of this matter before us, i agree with his analysis and commissioner lopez's comments and i would deny the appeal. >> commissioner lemberg.

>> i also support denial of this appeal. i think i've talked enough otherwise, so i will pass it to commissioner epper. >> wrong button, sorry. thank you. i also support the denial of the appeal. i think i've been relatively clear. my reading of the zoning administrator's memo was somehow met perhaps ignorantly straightforward, perhaps, even the portion describing, proposing merger within the building resulting in a single-family home. to me, that's describing what the permit is for that is currently being discussed and you know, we see that in legal writing all the time where we talk about something and say what it does even though it has no real pert pertinent to the meaning in the sentence so i see this in this case. have i sympathy for homeowners -- i have sympathy for homeowners and as mentioned,

there's potential recourse through the civil courts but i think we were not here to consider, as it perhaps was stated in the brief, whether or not the approval of the dwelling merger was, you know, no longer valid. i think what we were debating whether it was approved at all and i don't think we found it today. thank you. >> so, i agree. it's interesting to be on a panel with four lawyers who actually can dissect a paragraph in 47 different ways and are much smarter than i, in that i support their position and but first and foremost, we like to extend the sympathy to the homeowner, who unfortunately

is going to suffer, has suffered and probably will probably continue -- continue to suffer duress and thinking what is going to be recognized as something as a result of tonight. that's a drag. that's an understatement but that's very sad and i don't think that anybody on this panel takes this lightly or in a cavalier atmosphere and i want to communicate that to the appellant. in looking at a more layman's point of view and experience on this panel, i look at other evidence. i look at the tax bill. i look at plans that don't exist without a wall. i

look at two entrances, two kitchens and i look at two addresses and i look at absolutely no evidence that legitimizes conversion or legitimizes support or gives evidence there was a proper conversion of two units two one. it's just not there any where and i'm really sorry, again, to the appellant's but i can't support your appeal. may i have a motion from somebody, please? >> one moment. just before the hearing concludes, again, i don't think it's a material point at all. when i was describing what i saw on the assessor's website t was a summary of the property, not the tax bill. i don't think it's really all that relevant. it's one piece of many pieces of information that refer to two

units but i want to make sure that the record is very clear that what i was viewing was a summary from the assessor. i have not seen the actual tax bill. i understand that counsel has requested that ms. rosenburg include the tax bill as a part of the record. again, i think there are many pieces of information, so i don't know that there's any issue with that. that would be for the board to decide if it would like to accept it. >> and for the record, what counsel expressed, he said it doesn't state two units. i have no reason to contest. i was looking at a summary of the assessor. >> since it was a subject brought up and fully discussed and certainly a consideration in our discussion, although i don't consider it a key piece of the

puzzle, i wouldn't have any objections into including the tax bill as part of the record because it was discussed and as for myself, again, that tax bill, there was -- i'm just saying there wasn't a tax bill that said, single, a one-unit residency. my point is i haven't seen anything in support of -- in my point, i haven't seen anything in support of the position other than this is nothing but a two-unit building and it would have been nice if the tax bill said one unit, that would have been a solid point of view for appellant, but we didn't see that either. so, amongst other things, so i have no objection of putting it in and if any of my fellow commissions would like to make the point because you're the lawyers and you know what you're

saying about, go ahead. president trasvina >> i'm concerned enough to at least suggest an objection. i'm concerned that we've heard the testimony. we've heard descriptions from counsel, certainly from our city attorney. i'm reluctant to have anything in the record we didn't have access to and we didn't consider. we did consider the descriptions, that's part of the record but i don't think it's proper to have documented it in the record. >> unless it was presented in the materials, you're saying we haven't seen it, it's hearsay from city attorney who looked it up. we didn't see the full document. it's hearsay from the appellant's lawyer who was looking at potentially partial information as well, correct? >> i'm fully supportive of their statements being in the record. but not the actual documents since we don't have it. >> i would take that advice and

reverse myself, if there's likewise support from the other commissioners. is it okay not to include? >> yes. >> lawyers win. so, not to include it but to absolute -- for the record, mention that the tax bill had full discussion, but without proper or not full disclosure. is that okay with you? >> i haven't seen the tax bill, but it wasn't submitted as part of the record. i included my comments. i was looking at something else. this is precisely why we need a complete record prior to the hearing and yes. >> okay. so we won't bring the tax bill into this -- into the documentation because it wasn't presented formally in the -- in any submission, how is that? okay. sorry about that. so, to your motion. >> i move to deny the appeal on

the basis that the zoning administrator neither error or other a- becaused discretion in giving the penalty situation. >> okay. we is a motion from commissioner lemberg to deny the appeal and the administrator didn't error or abuse his discretion. [roll call] >> that motion carries 5 to 0 and the appeal is denied. and that concludes the hearing. >> we are adjourned. >> thank you. >> thank you.

>> you are watching san francisco rising with chris manners. today's special guest, carolyn mante. >> hi, i'm chris manners and you are watching san francisco the stow about restaffing rebuilding and reimaging the city. the guest is

carolyn manteto talk about the organization is helping to preserve the city cultural heritage and architecture. welcome to the show. >> thank you for having me e. >> good to have you here. >> can we talk bat the history of your organization and the mission. >> sure, thank you. san francisco heritage started 51 years ago and the main mission is to preserve and enhance the architectural and cultural identity of san francisco. when it started out the focus was really on the buildings, historic landmark listings and really concentrated on downtown area with all the development happening. our organization was raising a reg red flag with historic landmarks in danger and victorian mansions so a hallmark of our organization is moving these victorian mansions in the way of development to inwestern addition neighborhood and other areas to get out of the way of development and preserve them. our organization was

around before there was the historic preservation commission of the city so we were at the forefront drawings attention to historic preservation, landmarking and over the last 51 years we have seen how there are more then just buildsings in safeguarding the city cultural resources, there is also small businesses and the different neighborhood icons that make a neighborhood special, so our outreach has really-it is really come full circle in a way because it moved downtown into the neighborhoods and now with the covid epidemic it is really going back to downtown again looking at how we can play a role in the economic recovery and revitalization of downtown san francisco. >> that's great. so, now i understand your organization is also responsible for maintaining a couple properties. could you tell us a little about those? >> yes, our non profit was

gifted in 1973, the historic (inaudible) house. it is now a historic house museum but this was a family since 1886 built this victorian mansion in the same family year after year and one of the last resident of the family when she passed way gifted the mansion to san francisco heritage so since then we have been running this historic house and the home of our office. in 2018, one of the long time members nor aa lasten gifting a building on the e h-as hate polk became a commercial corridor after the earthquake, the owner at the time, he raised the

house and put 6 store front underneath in order to take advantage of the commerce so we are in charge of the house on the corner and it has been a wonderful way to get new numbers, new audiences interested in the work of our organization. during the pandemic, we have been using it as a artson residents and partnering with different bay area artists as well as cultural institutions, cultural districts and then one of the storefronts we converted into a pop up galleries so gives a opportunity to raise awareness of the importance of the art and cultural resources in san francisco. >> that's fantastic. so, now, let's talk about legacy business. what does the designation mean? how does somebody get add today the legacy business registry and what benefits does being named a legacy business? >> i love this program. it was started by san francisco heritage and adopt ed

by the city and run by the office of small business but the program looks what are the businesses really contributing to san francisco and the neighborhood. when we started the first focus was bars and restaurants but over the years it exb panded to include other businesses so these are places that contribute to the character of a neighborhood, so sam's grill downtown, the amazingarian press in the presidio. book stores like city lights oergreen apple recently named. this year we had a lot of attention on the legacy business program. we put out a contest to the public of what you think should be the next legacy business and one of the businesses that was recommended was the club deluxe, jazz club on the corner, and 2 or 3 days after we launched the contest, the

owners announced they would have to close. the rent was driven up, they couldn't afford it, coming out of the pandemic so we worked at speed to get that application submitted with them and that status convinced their landlord to negotiate with them a lower rent and this way they have been able to stay, there was a lot of social media support around this, so when you become a legacy business, not only do you get marketing and business support from the office of small business, but you also eligible for grants and we work closely with the legacy businesses as we do our work for san francisco heritage. >> that's great. so, apart from architecture and buildings, you also work with cultural districts, and the castro theater strikes me as a place that is both. a beautiful building and cultural hub and center. what has been happening with the recent acquisition by new

owners; >> it is leased to another planet entertainment and been in contact with planet entertainment by the castro theater is historic land mark building. it is recognized as a very important architectural monument. one thing-one of the main activist organizations of the preservation of the theater we work together with supervisor mandelman on a interior landmark historic landmark designation for interior, but what happened over the is summer and people learned is there is a lot of concern not just by san franciscans but people all over

the world, movie directors, stars who are very concerned about the risk to the lgbtq and film programming at the castro theater. another planet hosted community stakeholder in august, and it was so moving to see the number of people who took the microphone-everyone had two minutes to say their testimony of what castro theater meant to them and those testimonys showed this building is contributing not just as a architectural monument but plays a role in the lgbtq community that is irrelaceuble able. >> it is beautiful theater. >> it is. my involvement in the theater raised awareness to not only the castro theater to be emblematic of the lgbtq culture and history but also there are many other sites in

the city that also contribute to the identity. that is why so many people come to san francisco as a place of freedom and diversity so in my previous work i worked at the world heritage center, so when i joined san francisco heritage i was thinking why isn't san francisco a world heritage city? for the architecture alone it could be inscribed. golden gate bridge to name a few but the city is so unique in the architecture, the mansioned and historic landmarks so hoping to start a conversation on that with city stakeholders this year. >> that is great. let's talk about your relationship with other agencies. you mentioned economic and office of work force development and planning commission. how do you unt integrate to them? >> these relationships

are essential. we are working with office of small business for the legacy business program and the planning department is really one of our most crucial relationships. we meet quarterly with them and we really see how we can support not only historic land mark listings and historical cultural context statements, strategy for culture districts and city survey among many other activities that really are of concern to both of us. for the office of workforce development, i attended a etmooing recently that the chamber of commerce organized with them on the downtown revitalization and a key goal in that meeting and in the downtown revitalization is to make sure that the city historic culture resources play a key #r0e8 in the economic recovery and revitalization especially after the pandemic. the office of workforce development has the

city build program which is admirable program where youth are trained in construction techniques for rebuilding and especially with the new housing legislation, and we really want to see how can that workforce be expanded to include training in historic preservation. we have so many victorian homes, historic buildings and other places that really need a skilled labor force to make sure that they are preserved and that they help keep the special identify of the city. we really value these relationships, we meet quarterly with the various organizations and we are really grateful for grants of the arts we receive and other supports so definitely that is a key relationship for san francisco heritage. >> the city build is great. i like that a lot. thank you so much for the time you have given today. appreciate you coming on the show. >> thank you so much raising awareness about san

francisco heritage. we hope the people watching will join us in the mission to help keep san francisco special. thank you. >> that's it for this episode. we'll be back shortly. i'm chris manners, thanks

>> growing up in san francisco has been way safer than growing up other places we we have that bubble, and it's still that bubble that it's okay to be whatever you want to. you can let your free flag fry -- fly here. as an adult with autism, i'm here to challenge people's idea of what autism is. my journey is not everyone's journey because every autistic child is different, but there's hope.

my background has heavy roots in the bay area. i was born in san diego and adopted out to san francisco when i was about 17 years old. i bounced around a little bit here in high school, but i've always been here in the bay. we are an inclusive preschool, which means that we cater to emp. we don't turn anyone away. we take every child regardless of race, creed, religious or ability. the most common thing i hear in my adult life is oh, you don't seem like you have autism. you seem so normal. yeah. that's 26 years of really, really, really hard work and i think thises that i still do. i was one of the first open adoptions for an lgbt couple. they split up when i was about four. one of them is partnered, and one of them is not, and then my biological mother, who is also a lesbian.

very queer family. growing up in the 90's with a queer family was odd, i had the bubble to protect me, and here, i felt safe. i was bullied relatively infrequently. but i never really felt isolated or alone. i have known for virtually my entire life i was not suspended, but kindly asked to not ever bring it up again in first grade, my desire to have a sex change. the school that i went to really had no idea how to handle one. one of my parents is a little bit gender nonconforming, so they know what it's about, but my parents wanted my life to be safe. when i have all the neurological issues to manage, that was just one more to add to it. i was a weird kid. i had my core group of, like,

very tight, like, three friends. when we look at autism, we characterize it by, like, lack of eye contact, what i do now is when i'm looking away from the camera, it's for my own comfort. faces are confusing. it's a lack of mirror neurons in your brain working properly to allow you to experience empathy, to realize where somebody is coming from, or to realize that body language means that. at its core, autism is a social disorder, it's a neurological disorder that people are born with, and it's a big, big spectrum. it wasn't until i was a teenager that i heard autism in relation to myself, and i rejected it. i was very loud, i took up a lot of space, and it was because mostly taking up space let everybody else know where i existed in the world. i didn't like to talk to people

really, and then, when i did, i overshared. i was very difficult to be around. but the friends that i have are very close. i click with our atypical kiddos than other people do. in experience, i remember when i was five years old and not wanting people to touch me because it hurt. i remember throwing chairs because i could not regulate my own emotions, and it did not mean that i was a bad kid, it meant that i couldn't cope. i grew up in a family of behavioral psychologists, and i got development cal -- developmental psychology from all sides. i recognize that my experience is just a very small picture of that, and not everybody's in a position to have a family that's as supportive, but there's also a community that's incredible helpful and

wonderful and open and there for you in your moments of need. it was like two or three years of conversations before i was like you know what? i'm just going to do this, and i went out and got my prescription for hormones and started transitioning medically, even though i had already been living as a male. i have a two-year-old. the person who i'm now married to is my husband for about two years, and then started gaining weight and wasn't sure, so i went and talked with the doctor at my clinic, and he said well, testosterone is basically birth control, so there's no way you can be pregnant. i found out i was pregnant at 6.5 months. my whole mission is to kind of normalize adults like me. i think i've finally found my calling in early intervention, which is here, kind of what we do. i think the access to

care for parents is intentionally confusing. when i did the prospective search for autism for my own child, it was confusing. we have a place where children can be children, but it's very confusing. i always out myself as an adult with autism. i think it's helpful when you know where can your child go. how i'm choosing to help is to give children that would normally not be allowed to have children in the same respect, kids that have three times as much work to do as their peers or kids who do odd things, like, beach therapy. how do -- speech therapy. how do you explain that to the rest of their class? i want that to be a normal experience. i was working on a certificate and kind of getting think early

childhood credits before i started working here, and we did a section on transgender inclusion, inclusion, which is a big issue here in san francisco because we attract lots of queer families, and the teacher approached me and said i don't really feel comfortable or qualified to talk about this from, like, a cisgendered straight person's perspective, would you mind talking a little bit with your own experience, and i'm like absolutely. so i'm now one of the guest speakers in that particular class at city college. i love growing up here. i love what san francisco represents. the idea of leaving has never occurred to me. but it's a place that i need to fight for to bring it back to what it used to be, to allow all of those little kids that come from really unsafe environments to move somewhere safe. what i've done with my life is work to make all of those situations better, to bring a little bit of light to all

those kind of issues that we're still having, hoping to expand into a little bit more of a resource center, and this resource center would be more those new parents who have gotten that diagnosis, and we want to be this one centralized place that allows parents to breathe for a second. i would love to empower from the bottom up, from the kid level, and from the top down, from the teacher level. so many things that i would love to do that are all about changing people's minds about certain chunts, like the transgender community or the autistic community. i would like my daughter to know there's no wrong way to go through life. everybody experiences pain and grief and sadness, and that all of those things are temporary. >> it is one of the first steps

families and step to secure their future and provide a sense of stability for them and their loved ones. your home, it is something that could be passed down to your children and grandchildren. a asset that offers a pathway to build wealth from one generation to the next. and you need to complete estate plan to protect the asisets. your home, small business, air looms and more. you and so many communities, black, indigenous, latino and asian worked so hard to make yours but estate plans could be costly and conversations complex proud to partner to bring free and low cost estate plans to san franciscans. by providing estate plans we are able to keep the assets whole for our families, prevent displacement, address disparities and home ownership and strengthen the cultural integrity of the city. working with local non profit organizations and neighborhood groups bringing the

serveess to you and community, to workshops focused on estate planning and why it's important. >> i'm 86 years old and you do need a trustee. you need a will and put who ever you want in charge of it. >> that's why i wanted to be here today. that is why one of the first steps i took when become assessor recorder is make sure we have a partnership to get foundational funding to provide these resources to community. but even more important is our connection to you and your homes and making sure we know how to help you and how to protect them. >> if you don't have a living trust you have to go through probate and that cost money and depending on the cost of the home is associated the cost you have to pay. that could be $40 thousand for a home at that level. i don't know about you, but i don't $40 thousand to give up. >> (indiscernible) important workshop to

the community so we can stop the loss of generational wealth and equity and maintain a (indiscernible) >> why are estate plans important? we were just talking before we started the program, 70 percent of black americans do not scr a will in place. >> as mentioning being in community we had a conversation with a woman who paid $2700, $2700 just for revocable trust. what we are talking about today are free or low cost estate plans that are value between 3,000 to $3500. free or low cost meaning free, or $400 if you make above $104 thousand a year, and capped larger then that amount. because we want to focus on black and brown households, because that's whether the need is, not only in san francisco, not only the bay area but the region as well. and,

>> i was excitesed to see the turn out from the western addition and bayview and want to make sure we cover all the different steps from buying a home to making sure homes stay within the family. >> work with staff attorneys to receive these free and low cost complete estate plans that include a living trust, will, financial power of attorney, and health directive. >> that's why it is so important to make these resources and this information accessible. so we can make sure we are serving you and your families and your generations and your dreams. >> we insure the financial stability of san francisco, not just for government, but for our communities. >> on behalf of the office of assessor recorder, i'm thankful for all the support and legal assistance they have given that makes the estate planning program a realty for you in san francisco and are thank all the community partners like san francisco housing development corporation, booker t washington center and neighborhood leaders and organizations that hel