okay. good evening and welcome to the september 27th, 2023 meeting of the san francisco board of appeals. president rick swig will be the presiding officer tonight and he is joined by vice president jose lopez. commissioner john trasvina, commissioner alex lundberg, and commissioner j.r. eppler. we expect deputy city attorney john givner to arrive shortly, and he will provide the board with any needed legal advice at the controls is the board's legal assistant, alec longway, and i'm julie rosenberg, the board's executive director. we will also be joined by representatives from the city departments that will be presenting before the board this evening. i'd like to welcome andrew perry, a planner with the planning department, who will be representing the planning department. and we also have matthew green, deputy director of inspection services

with the department of building inspection, and chris buck, urban forester representing san francisco public works, bureau of urban forestry. now, the board meeting guidelines are, as follows the board requests that you turn off or silence all phones and other electronic devices so they will not disturb the proceedings. no eating or drinking in the hearing room. the board's rules of presentation are as follows appellant's permit holders and department respondents each are given seven minutes to present their case and three minutes for rebuttal. people affiliate with these parties must include their comments within these 7 or 3 minute periods. members of the public who are not affiliated with the parties have up to three minutes each to address the board and no rebuttal time may be limited to two minutes if the agenda is long or if there are large number of speakers for cases that have been previously heard. the parties are given three minutes each with no rebuttal. mr. longway, our legal assistant, will give you a verbal warning 30s before your time is up. four votes are required to grant an appeal or to modify a permit or determination. even if you have any questions about requesting a rehearing, the board rules or

hearings schedules, please email board staff at board of appeals at sveaborg. now public access and participate in are of paramount importance to the board. sf govtv is broadcasting and streaming this hearing live and we will have the ability to receive public comment for each item on today's agenda as sf govtv is also providing closed captioning for this meeting to watch the hearing on tv go to sf govtv cable channel 78. please note that it will be rebroadcast last on fridays at 4 p.m. on channel 26. a link to the live stream is found on the home page of our website at sf.org. forward slash voa now public comment can be provided in three ways one in person two via zoom please go to our website, click on the hearing link and then zoom link or three by telephone calls. one (669)!a900-6833 and enter webinar id 82159804099. and again sf govtv is broadcasting and streaming the

phone number and access instructions across the bottom of the screen. if you're watching the live stream or broadcast just to block your phone number when calling in first dial star six seven then the phone number list in for the public comment portion for your item to be called and dial star nine, which is the equivalent of raising your hand so that we know you want to speak and you will be brought into the hearing when it is your turn, you may have to dial star six to unmute yourself. you will have 2 to 3 minutes depending on the length of the agenda and the volume of speakers. our legal assistant will provide you with a verbal warning 30s before your time is up, please note that there is a delay between the live proceedings and what is broadcast and live streamed on tv and the internet. therefore, it is very important that people calling in, reduce or turn off the volume on their tvs or computers. otherwise, there is interference with the meeting. if any of the participants or attendees on zoom need a disability accommodation or technical assistance, you can make a request in the chat function to our long way. the board's legal assistant, or send an email to board of appeals at icgov.org. org. the chat function cannot be used to

provide public comment or opinions. please note that 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 or affirm all those who intend to testify. please note that any member of the public may speak without taking an oath pursuant to their rights under the sunshine ordinance. if you intend to testify at any of tonight's proceedings and wish to have the board give your testimony evidentiary wait, raise your right hand and say i do. after you've been sworn in or affirmed, do you swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth , the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? thank you. if you are a participant and you're not speaking, please put your zoom speaker on mute. so commissioners prior to the meeting i spoke with president swig about the order of the agenda and we agreed that item six, a and six b should be heard after item four, just to let you know and also to announce that to the public. so we are now moving on to item number one, which is general public comment. this is an opportunity for

anyone who would like to speak on a matter within the board's jurisdiction, but that is not on tonight's calendar. is there any member of the public who wishes to speak on an item that is not on tonight's calendar? no okay. i see somebody on zoom. there's nobody in the hearing room. so the phone number ending in 6049. please go ahead. you may need to press star six to unmute yourself. okay. can you hear me? yes great. thank you. julie it's david osgood at lincoln center. just want to kind of wrap up the rincon annex matter. um and thank you all for your time on the on the issue. i understand because of the way this was settled and there won't be any kind of report from the commission on which is unfortunate because i think that

would be a way of maybe bringing about some reform. um, and more than one issue came to light during this process where some reform could be would be a good thing. i want to give you one example that came to light. since we submitted our second brief and you may want to keep this in mind in the future when you get historic buildings coming before you, what we realized is that the planning department is using the wrong secretary of interior standards . um, and it doesn't appear to be a mistake. i don't know if you are aware of this, but there's actually four standards , one of which is a preservation one and another one is rehabilitation in the planning

department analyzed the, the rehab habilitation standards that length in their brief and they spent about five pages on it and we think it's the wrong standards and they should have been looking at the preservation standards which is a separate different set. there's actually two others, but the reason is that when you get a building that's in pretty good shape, like rincon annex, it's really a matter of preservation and i think they concede that they had a numerous opportunities to tell you that there's four standards and we're using the rebuild station standards and here's why . but they never did that. and the standards are quite

different. if you look at bullet one and the preservation standards, they're calls for maximizing the retention of materials, the rehabilitation is calls for minimal change. so there's a big difference there. and if you care about you know, preservation, you may want to bring this up with planning and even ask them tonight why they would ignore the preservation standards. that's time. okay. thank you. mr. osgood. is there any further public comment? please raise your hand. i don't see any, so we'll move on to item number two. commissioner comments and questions. commissioners. anybody have anything tonight? commissioner trasvina. thank. thank you, president swig. and i think i wish the city attorney were here

because after the last meeting, as you know, i followed up with the city attorney's office regarding the issue of the allegations and complaints of any retaliation for people who come before us. and i think that's important. i also think it's important that the public know that we do listen to the public comment. and i would hope when mr. givner arrives or shortly thereafter at an appropriate point, we can find out where the city attorney's office is in terms of studying, studying the matter and with regard to the first matter we just heard in interesting points and i hope the member of the public contacts the department himself as well as supervisors or or others. are there some things that this board of appeals can do when we have a matter? but sometimes we can't. so i just wanted to follow up with the city attorney when he arrives. thank you. okay thank you. in terms of any discussion that might be had, it should be probably agendized. so. right. so if you wanted to agendize it

for the future, we could or you could separately talk to the city attorney. but there shouldn't be a discussion on the public record unless we have an agendized item. yeah, i would suggest that that you to clarify with julie rosenberg the, the specific question that you have or an area that you would like addressed and, and she puts it on as an item to address that specific question so that the public again can comment on it and we can have a full conversation, transparent. commissioner trasvina, outside the hearing and we can talk to the city attorney. i would be happy to do that. but i just want to know where the city attorney is on it. i don't want to agendize something and if they're not ready, so it's premature to agendize it, but you why don't you clarify? i would suggest that you you clarify the issue. you know, it can be any issue because you're

your commissioner and you can do say you can ask whatever you want. i'm not being sarcastic anyway, but if there's a specific issue, the issue of which you spoke last week or any other issue. the process isn't this good for the public. this is why i'm being so wordy that go go to the to go to miss rosenberg. your your question it's formal or formally presented as a question to the city attorney. it is a agendized. your question will be there in front of everybody. so that it will allow the public days before the hearing to know what your question is. so if anybody wants to comment on your question from the public, they can do that. while the city attorney has the opportunity to prepare an answer to your question, i know it sounds kind of like really that much, but

it's really a good thing and we can discuss it amongst ourselves , too, in public right. thank you, president swig. i just wanted to clarify. i just meant there can't be any discussion on it, but if you want to just ask to ask about the status, i think that would be appropriate. okay. so are there any further commissioner comments and questions? is there any public comment on this item? i don't see any hands raised, so we will move on to item number three. this is adoption of the minutes commissioners before you for discussion and possible adoption. are the minutes of this september 13th, 2023 meeting and prior to the meeting, commissioner trevino reached out to me and indicated he would like an addition made to the comments made by marcelo fonseca under general public comment. in the second sentence, commissioner trevino would like to add the words, quote, being vindictive by quote, end quote. after the word was so, the proposed sentence would read, quote, he stated that he was calling to make the commissioners aware that the

sfmta was being vindictive by going after the same permit holders that the board helped not long ago. so we would need a motion by commissioners. do i have a motion with those changes ? somebody so moved. thank you. is there any public comment on the motion to adopt the minutes as amended by commissioner trasvina? i see one hand raised . okay. now the hand went down. okay so we have a motion on from vice president lopez to adopt the minutes as amended by commissioner trasvina on that motion. commissioner trasvina, i commissioner lundberg, i commissioner epler i president swig. all right. that motion carries 5 to 0 and they're adopted as amended. so we are now moving on to item number four. an and this is appeal number 20 3-030. bruce and deborah mccloud versus department of building inspection planning department

approval subject property 144 25th avenue appealing the issuance on june 9th, 2023 to frank bellizzi of an alteration permit. the project generally consists of replacement of the existing first floor deck and expanding the deck to the rear yard setback line, an addition of a roof deck above the second bedroom office floor accessed via four new doors from the third floor office. this is permit number 2023 0202 1229. note on august 2nd, 2023, upon motion by commissioner eppler, the board voted 5 to 0 to continue this item to september 27th in order to give the parties an opportunity to confer and seek a resolution to the matter with input from the planning department. the board further encouraged the project sponsor to reach out to members of the public who expressed concerns about the project. at the hearing. so as a preliminary matter, commissioners, the appellant would like to he has a point of order and would like to make a request. so we're going to give him three minutes and

then the permit holder will have an opportunity to respond. thank you very much. speaking to the microphone, please, so we can hear you. and so the public can hear you. thank you very much. thank you. thank you very much. um, this will be brief overhead. please. i try described where we were at the end of our session last time and it was very clear from, from the closing that we were to submit a one page only. memorandum about very specific things about what we had done and whether we had reached agreement or not. but that is what i did. the permit holders submitted that at and also 16

more pages and argumentative of pages, pages that have a lot of things that can be disputed and all. alternatively, i would like either there filing to be stricken or me allowed to have a reply of ten pages or so to their 17 and okay. thank you. are you done, mr. mccloud? well with the first one. okay. i mean , we're not starting your case yet. we're just. the other thing i wanted to cover was into the mic. please. thank you. sorry. sorry about that. laid stuff out over there. the other thing i would like to cover is that i had prepared and have with me today a binding settlement offer. i had a draft of it last week when this case we were to

file our one page motion and i when i saw the permit holders filed at the very last moment, i filed mine at pretty much the last moment i saw the permit holders had submitted all that additional stuff as well. i had prepared really it was just to go to the permit holders, a sort of complete analysis of the case. but and prefaced by a binding settlement offer with all the formalities that you would contain. when i realized that they had filed this extra 16 pages, i thought, well, let me file my binding settlement offer as well as the explanation of it. but i was denied that as

being late. i was 35 minutes late, so i would like to distribute that out to the board. okay you have 30s left. you have 30s left. i really have nothing more. okay, so the permit holder has an opportunity to respond to your request. so he will address the board. now mr. bellizzi, you have three minutes. sure good evening, commissioners. so, just to remind everyone, when we had our original hearing, the mcleods failed to file in a proper manner. although the instructions were very clear. and as i think one of you pointed out, we were gracious and actually embedding that into our into our brief so that they could be heard. this has now happened a second time. it was abundantly clear what we needed to do. we i spoke with julie. she made it very clear exhibits were allowed. we could list the communications, anything having to do directly with settlements

and that's what we did. so we again, have no objection to the mcleods proposal being put in. i think, as you'll see, it's one that makes no sense in terms of trying to find compromise. it's their proposal for our deck and we can get into that in the actual three minutes. i don't want to take up any more of your time, but thank you. thank you. did the planning department or the building department want to weigh in on these requests? okay. so president swig, he's asking the so to address the first the first one, typically, when it's one page to page, three pages, that's that's commentary. that's editorial. and it does not include it exhibits which don't not have a point of view, but but rather support it as visible visual aids for the for the commissioners. i am sorry that that was misinterpreted or not explained clearly to the appellant. had the appellant had

a communication with the with yourself, ms. rosenberg they would have discovered that the same way the permit holder did. so so there's so for clarity, the exhibits don't count towards the page exhibits don't don't, don't count as edits all on on the second notion of motion or the second request, i got my self handed to myself a few weeks ago by accepting a document as you are requesting a post filing and was fairly clearly reprimanded about doing that and it was a mistake. so i'm not going to do that again. and so because your document was not filed appropriately at the at the right time, i can't accept it on behalf of the commission on lest i get in

trouble yet again. so i hope you're sympathetic to that. and with regard to just a sidebar, with regard to settlements, we this this board, i think we had in our conversation and i'm not going to i'll try to paraphrase this, this board created an extension for you all to talk to each other. and we created a time timeline, which i believe both of you were asked, is that enough time to get your stuff done? and there was an affirmative. and so any settlement offer that's when the time the settlement offer should have occurred between the two. the two parties and that's a that's a private matter. so just just for your information, and that's why we extended the time to hear this matter at this time. so you all had the chance

to have a conversation and supply each other with with settlement papers, have discussions that didn't happen. so now it's in the hands of this commission to decide what's going to happen, period. so that's it. thank you, commissioner lundberg. i don't disagree with anything you said. presidents wig. i just want to add, i believe i recall from the last hearing, mr. mcleod, that you are an attorney by trade and these. and i i'm an active litigator. i've exhibits are always not considered toward the page count of submissions and ad filing deadlines are always pretty strict in my experience as well. so don't think i, i in my experience we've done, we've applied these rules very consistently with the one

exception that presidents twig just mentioned. but i, i, you know, we've dealt with this issue several times before and always come out the same way. so commissioner trasvina, thank you . thank you. president. i just want to concur in your observations about what about this matter and we gave the parties the opportunity to try to work things out over the period of time. i didn't i didn't sense that we were going to be mediating a decision or a compromise between the two. we were going to give them the opportunity to do so. and i believe that if we hear this matter tonight, both both sides and neighbors and the department will have a full opportunity to express their views and allow us to make an informed and correct decision. so i agree that we should proceed. okay. so we. thank you. i was just going to make one point not to throw a

complete curve ball, but i think from my perspective, what was problematic about about the instance that we're talking about in the last meeting with the with the submission to the board during the meeting was that it was only paper copies. the that were being distributed to us on the board and there was no copy made available to the, the other party who was participating via phone and there was no electronic copy to share with the other party participating via phone. and i know that we have accepted kind of impromptu submissions in the hearing room before so, so personally, i'd be open to taking that submission with the understanding that obviously it's not going to receive the

same kind of thorough review by the board members as by the commissioners, like prior briefing would. that's been submitted several days in advance, so long as there are sufficient isn't hard copies for both the commissioners and the permit holder or if electronic copies could be made available to the permit holder so that they're not stuck responding to something that they can literally not see. so that's that's how i see that that portion of it. but i the only i agree with everything else. the only flaws was made very clear to me when i did what i did a few weeks ago is that beyond you're absolutely right about the permit holder seeing it, but it's not noticed to the public. the public has no opportunity. interested parties who may be the neighbor down the block, the neighbor up the block, they they need that transparency, too.

they need that information, too. so the you're right that it would be okay that the permit holder have seen that paper. but another interested party which would be the neighborhood doesn't have the same transparency and ability to prepare so they come here armed for whatever they want to communicate. so i just want to you're you're right. but it's not quite broad. it's not the distribution needs to be broader . yeah, that's that's fair. that's fine. yeah. okay. so we're going to go ahead and proceed with the case. mr. mcleod, do you have three minutes to address the board? just two seconds on, on the mic, please. mr. mcleod. sorry two seconds on the mic, please. on the microphone, please. thank you. not used to this. the world needs to hear you on on the on the prior instance, i had absolute proof that it was an internet failure. the kickback.

notice said the address for the planning board was entered wrong and the kickback notice itself said had the right address. it was how it happened. i don't know that read. i'm sorry. okay. we have a little interference. so if you're on zoom, please put your speaker on mute. alec, can you make sure they're all muted? please they're muted. they just keep going on the mic. and the only other them to the attendee if they keep talking. okay please. okay. the only other thing i wanted to say is that permit holders were served at that time last week. i'm not trying to shove something in that they haven't seen. okay but why don't you start your formal testimony with regard to today and step to the mic, please. so

you have three minutes. all right. so you remember where we were when. last time and that was we the big problem here is designing a deck that that is the problem because the deck that they had period right into our windows and i had some success in in getting that changed it turns out i realized and my wife realized that the. there was an alternate location that the permit holders could use, which rather than running up the stairs to my vantage point, would be lateral and perpendicular to it. and it was would cross an area that was really almost unusable of their lot because because it was part

of a kick kick out. and so we design this and then we went to the permit holders and we said, look what you had designed. if you want something that's gracious and that works, it wasn't that designed because that design created a trench that they had that would have them going down the stairs with a firewall on one side and the supports for a deck on the other side. they were going down there at night with spiders. et cetera. it made no sense. and ours meant more sense and they agreed. and they trimmed it to us that it was our design in. and so it looked like this thing was going to settle. and it went out to their architect and their architect. it was in yosemite or someplace. and it took about a week to get back with the with the plans. and when they got

back to us with the plans, yes, it was perpendicular to but they had moved it eight feet for toward our lot line. so it left them standing. somebody going up the stairs, the ultimate location was exactly the same place that we complained about. we couldn't understand hand why they would do that. so we had negotiations with them and they concluded, yes, today is the first negotiations we've had person to person. the others were zoom and it was a disaster for and the worst part of it was i said, how are you going to put this these plants that you think are going to block the view in

this space when there's a tree there or it's got a root system ? et cetera. and mr. belize, his comment was, we're going to cut the tree. thank you. president swig has a question. i got a couple of questions for him. thanks very much for your patience. so can you please. we gave you all the opportunity instead of instead of doing findings the last time we gave you all an opportunity to spend some time to have conversations, to negotiate a some resolution on this, and i want you i, i want you to understand before i ask the question. no, i don't see an architect or a designer on this panel. so we're not in the architecture business. the design business. what we are do do you understand that we are in the business of looking at the man or woman? there's generally a woman there, but today's tonight's there's a man from the planning department and the

gentleman who sits there regularly, mr. green sitting there tonight from dbi. and we asked them, is this is this legal? is this compliant? so do you understand that we're not designers, we're not we're about compliance and leaning on on those folks from from planning. and you understand that. and i and i absolutely agree. okay. and that's that's i just that's a yes or no answer. now it's my turn again. okay can you please describe since we sent you a way to have conversations from your point of view, what were the level of conversations that you had between yourself and the permit holder since we left a few weeks ago, we had good conversations around the plan that we came up with when the permit holder moved that plan up

, up to the exact location that we found. so invasive, invasive of our privacy, they they were absolutely intransigent about not changing it for reasons that we do not understand. but i do agree with you that it's a planning department function. and mr. trevino, i think i'm in agreement with his comment. it's an at the time before you voted was that you've got to have some way of getting these things resolved at and his idea was, and i agree with it, that he said that the permit should be revoked. it should be sent back to the planning commission and the planners can design that. and let me tell you what we did with this plan, what we figured out was that by using our

location. option, they could get their fire pit area, their entertainment area out of the wind. they're going to have terrible wind problems here because they've gone out past the building. you're you're extending your three minute testimony to four and five minutes, and that's just not fair. and i understand why you're doing it. and it's really okay. my question was, did you have conversations? evans and in your view, nothing got in the way of having your conversations with the permit holder even though you didn't resolve? well, there's one thing that got in the way, okay? and that is the permit permit holder even after we designed this, this new design for them, which they accepted. but then moved, they would never let us go on their property to look at dusk to see

what the invasion of privacy was. and in fact, in writing they told us no, you can't go on the property. now. how are we supposed to help, you know, find a solution here when we can't even visualize lies? the invasion of privacy? we can't see the sightline on because they wouldn't let us go on their property to do it. thank you very much, mr. trasvina. thank you, president swig. and that is correct that in my view there and the planning department state that there are the views are of no legal import. and we had other people here talking about their views and they're not here. the privacy issue is the one that in certain circumstances is illegal, legally viable interest? yes.

i'm not going to get into the discussion debate with you until until until it is before us. but the one question i have is, is whether the privacy that you are seeking is any better available with the new new design as compared to the time you were here before the new design gets things out of the wind for them and is better. the old design can't do that and i think the planning department, if they looked at this, would say the new design is better. i'm sorry, i'm just asking you whether it's your it's your sense of privacy , your your and your wife's sense of privacy. does it would solve it is your privacy any better secured with the new design or with the old design completely solved with the new design, with our new design completely solved. and i'll be more precise. the whatever. the

last effort by the permit holder is, does that design better protect your privacy interests as compared to the time we were here before? it's the same in that it's what challenges our privacy because because it ends up at the highest rung of the ladder to be looking into our window. i same same place. i don't need to know the reasons, but you've told me your privacy interests are the same. your your privacy protection hasn't improved. and with what the permit holder is offering since the time we sent you out to talk, you just said it's the same that that's true. it's the same. no that's what i need. no privacy screen above just what they have as a railing and same location that i don't need the detail. i just want to know where. where things stand. thank

you. thank you. no further questions. you can be seated. we will now hear from the permit holders. welcome. you have three minutes . computer, please. good evening . commissioners. read for you one moment. okay here we go. okay. good evening, commissioners. my name is allison bellezza. before i hand this over to my husband, frank, i do have to comment that we were deeply offended by being incorrectly portrayed by the macleods as by not being community active, neighborly or supportive to their concerns.

they misled this panel when they said we hadn't shown our plans or that we hadn't been interested in a settlement, when in fact we provided a written one prior to the hearing, adding this deck has been a long anticipated and important feature of our home. we have followed all the rules and guidelines as related to developing it and obtaining an approved design. we have also engaged in good faith and made numerous compromises along the way, only to be met by the mcleod's overreaching and perceived right to design our deck. all that has made this whole process extremely upsetting. the big picture facts here are straightforward. both our original approved permitted design and our revised option b design meet all planning code and residential design guideline requirements. there are no variances requested and a three foot side yard setback is standard direction given by the planning department for side yards in all residential projects in the city. this is not a case where there are special or unusual privacy

impact. there are no windows that lie on the joint property line. the single window in question is highly reflective, facing east, not south towards our property. the window does not directly look into a usable living area. let alone a master bedroom, bath or closet. and the wisdom window sits adjacent to a downward switchback stair. our architect can unpack this drawing in more detail, but the important point is that there is a downward stairwell immediately. next to the window in question. any living space is at least ten feet from the mcleod's rear window and the distance to our deck at least 20ft. despite an absence of special circumstances, we've incorporated several additional layers of privacy protection. at the hearing, the appellants principal objection was that the dexter on the side yard property line caused an invasion of privacy. our changes. we offered an original design directly address those concerns and now our new design b goes even further. we've moved the stairs off the side yard. setback we've added a ten foot fence at the property line and we've added 12 foot all season. shrubs for further privacy. these three measures, combined with the existing trees and the highly reflective nature of the window,

provide five angles of privacy. the clouds remain unsatisfied. they advocate for a design that's theirs, not ours, and make demands. they're not entitled to, which have nothing to do with privacy. a simple way to address it. their hypersense activity would be a window covering, which is easily doable. 30s astonishingly, since day one and notably the mcleods have yet to offer a single compromise to any of their demands. instead, they've listed their list of demands have grown to a dozen. if this ordeal is a poster child for anything, it's for the unneighborly overreaching. the mcleods have tried to use this committee's guidance as a license to appropriate our entire project planning codes and regulations exist to provide guidelines to approve permits can be applied consistent and predictably to set a precedent that a neighbor has the right to impose their own design choices that will go well beyond protecting privacy and go against standard planning policy is neither workable nor fair. okay. thank you. we do have a question from president swig. i'm going to ask same question just for the record. what is the level of communication? can you put that the process and level

communicate? sure. who had as a result of our giving you that opportunity? yeah as you can see, as you can see from the exhibit that we presented, we made multiple outreaches to the mcleods throughout the month of august. in fairness, they were on holiday for a couple of weeks, but they did not offer a time to meet with us till the end of august. and also contrary to what mr. mcleod said, we met in person twice and we also met via zoom. the first call was zoom for an hour and 20 minutes and we met in person in our backyard and i met with him just last night at his request just to review his proposal. so we made outreaches. we sent for emails to try to get this going and yeah, that's the extent of the outreach to the mcleods we also yeah, answered your question. thank you very much. question for your architect or maybe you can answer it was there any the issue here is the claim of lack of privacy. the planning department will address that and also will address compliance to code and all the

things that you you talked about. and again, you are correct. you're not required to go beyond code, but just a question to your architect. is there any is there any other thing that you can considered in your design or that is possible in your design that would further mitigate any issues related. to privacy? the privacy issues of the mcleods? yeah originally we took our original permitted deck design and after the last hearing what we proposed was a ten foot fence adjacent to the deck stair that used to be along the property line and then after that, this is what you see now with the option b, option of moving the stair perpendicular to and to the east side of the deck. that's that's kind of where we're at. so is there anything i recognize that you did that and

that's appreciated. is there anything further that we might be looking at to night that would effectively not totally mitigate the privacy claims of the mcleods? i don't i don't think so. yeah. and also your best is what i'm saying. yeah and you know, per the brief we have three measures that we're use to address privacy. i understand. so thank you very much. you're welcome. commissioner trevino. thank you. president i don't want to thank all of you for your efforts to do what we asked, which is to go back and try to talk to your neighbor and neighbors as i understand it, from from from the record, you were in communication with the other neighbors who had the view issue. and they are now satisfied and supportive of this going forward. so i appreciate you're doing so. as i understand it, you have made some changes

to your plans to address the privacy issue. is is the if we uphold the permit are and has has there been a agreement from the mcleods as to that change? you've suggested it to them. have they said yes, that's good. no, we don't want it. it just anything else? or do you know the proposal that the mcleods made, their design proposal, contrary to what he said, we never accepted or agreed to. and as you saw, there are a dozen requirements that go with it. and so it's not that we accepted theirs and then came up with something new because our architect was away. it took us some days to review it. we were also grateful for planning and building the time they gave us. we met with them in terms of trying to come up with solutions that would address privacy over the last six weeks since we were here, seven weeks since we were last year or eight weeks. so no, they have not agreed to anything. they've not made one movement on any of their demands

. what we've done with the new design, which is our preference, is it allows us to take some ownership of additional privacy measures by having that movement of the stairs away, we can put landscaping there, we can put a ten foot fence on our property line and manage that ourselves. yeah, i guess that's what i was focusing on is, as i understand it and correct me if i'm wrong, you have you are willing, you have expressed your willingness to make changes since the last time you were before us. and. doesn't doesn't sound like they've been agreed to by your neighbors. so they've not been agreed to at all. and nor have they made any concessions from where they started. they started with five demands as originally and now there's a dozen different things they want to see having to do with their tree with, you know, to give you a sense of the insanity here, i did. okay. i don't want to overstep the flaws on that. my question is, if we are approving a permit tonight, you would not

be opposed to our approving the plans as you have most recently stated them. that is our preference, irrespective of whether there anyone else is in agreement. that's that's correct. you're you believe you are better protecting privacy by this new plan. and that's the one that's before us unequivocally. there are no longer any steps on the property line. and we have the ability to take additional measures which we plan to both for our privacy as well as the mcleods. thank you. okay. thank you. no further questions. you can be seated. we will now hear from the planning department. good evening, commissioners. andrew perry, planning department planning department staff. this is the second hearing on this appeal and the permit holder has presented a revised design. they reached out to the planning department to confirm that it is code complying and compliant with the residential design guidelines upon review. it is a code compliant design, the new

stair and landing does encroach into the rear yard. however, that is a permitted obstruction per section 136 and could be approvable over the counter without notification similar to the last design. it is also compliant with the residential design guidelines as the revised design does provide a three foot setback as recommended by the design guidelines along the side property line. and as discussed at the last hearing by a zoning administrator, teague this is a fairly standard proposal that we see in the city and in the residential context, there is no special or unusual circumstances that would warrant additional or special consideration for privacy. this is a typical one story deck. these are standard and regular shaped lots without windows facing directly onto the adjacent property onto the subject property. pardon me. and to address, i think a question from earlier. you know, while both designs the original design

and the revised design comply with the residential design guidelines, the revised design does create some additional distance and additional privacy for the appellant overhead. if you turn it facing yourself as if you're reading it, then it will. can you help them zoom out ? so previously the stairs were running up in the side setback and so the privacy was concerned was having somebody ascend those stairs and be much closer to the property line and potentially view into that window. now this this distance is, you know, we have the three foot side setback. and additionally, there's the additional depth distance of separation adding to that privacy. so in summary, you know, the both the original proposal and current proposal fully complied with the planning code were appropriately approved at the counter and are fully compliant with the residential

design guidelines. and so we respectfully ask that the board deny the appeal and uphold the permit. i'm available for questions. thank you. president swig has a question then commissioner lundberg, to be redundant so you have no problems with this plan? this plan has been formally submitted for you as the final plan for this project, correct? we have no problems with the plan. i don't believe it has been formally submitted. i'm not familiar enough with the board's process. whether that would be a special special permit or whether it could be done on the current permit. we would we would ask that upon approval or denial that these this is subject to the plans that have been submitted to us tonight. and in fact, as i as i noted by moving the this is common sense math by by moving the by adjusting the size, the sorry, the layout of the deck. the president united states is right behind us, guys, and lives a little motorcycle noise catching my attention. so that's why my

attention is not so good. welcome, mr. president. so the permit holder, in fact, compromised significantly by giving up three feet by whatever on the size of their deck, by trying to assist in the in the needs of the neighbor. correct. from the first. so first design. i don't know that any square footage was actually lost. i believe the original design of the deck did also go up to the rear yard line. it was just that the stair and landing itself was moved into the rear. so i don't believe any square footage was gained. however, there was a redesign to accommodate additional privacy. i recall that. thank you for clarifying that. so you're you're happy with the plan? you'll accept the plan and no issues. okay. thanks . uh, commissioner lumberg, uh, just building off of what president zweig was asking a little bit because the it

doesn't it sounds like planning is reviewed the new plan, but hasn't yet approved. it is just making sure that's that understanding is correct. that's correct. per the board's direction at the last hearing, the planning department made ourselves available to the permit holder to review those plans, but no formal approval has been given. okay. does planning have a formal opinion on whether it is better to for this body to approve the new set of plans versus us approving the old set of plans that were actually approved by planning already and letting the permit holder to submit the new set of plans over the counter as, as you stated would be an option or would be the way it works. i believe planning would be agnostic as to which version moves forward. both are code complying and compliant with the design guidelines you know, the revised design, as i stated in

my comments, does provide potentially a little bit more privacy due to that additional depth. thank you. i just didn't want to step on planning's toes. if we're when we get to that point. thank you. thank you, commissioner trevino has a question. i have a question regarding the department's interactions with the clouds at at the original approval. well, it was just over the counter, so there was no has has there been any contact with the german clouds over the most recent plans? to my knowledge, the clouds have not reached out to planning at all since the last hearing and has planning reached out to them, not to my knowledge. okay, so i'll i'll go back to what my concern was at the first hearing, which is how does the planning department determine in that there are no special or unusual privacy concerns belonging to the

neighbors without any communication? sure. and i believe, as discussed also at the last hearing, again, you know, these are fairly standard add conditions and proposal that is being proposed both in the original permit and the revised design. it complies with the residential design guidelines and it is a policy position of the planning department that such proposals do not require pre pre application meeting or any notification session. and that is a policy decision of the department. i hear you. but how do how do you how does the planning department propose affect the privacy interests s and uphold that and determine that there are no special or unusual privacy implications is based on the conditions of the adjacent property of the

appellants. there again, you know, these are standard rectangular lots. there's not odd lot situation or building configurations that would provide direct windows onto the subject property. um it is a one story deck. you know, these are things that are very common in the residential context and in a dense urban environment at the residential design guidelines do not state that there is a, an expectation for total privacy among property lines across property lines and so, you know, this is this is fully compliant with those design guidelines. and so there was no no need for further process or outreach to those neighbors as as part of that policy. so you assess the privacy interests of the neighbors based on the permit holders testimony, the plans and

looking at the property of the permit holder correct. primarily the plans and the context of the property and the adjacent properties. what do you mean the context of the property and the engaged property. again, the configuration of the adjacent building, the fenestration patterns, the adjacent building only has windows that face out onto the rear and not onto the subject property. there's no special or unusual conditions here that would warrant additional review or process. okay. thank you. thank you. i don't see any further questions, so we'll hear from the department of building inspection. good evening, president swig commissioners matthew green representing the department of building inspection tonight, holds that

the original plans were code compliant in regards to the building code, as is the new design. it's set back three feet from the property line. so that's actually going to negate the need for a firewall at that site. i would say that if you did decide to adopt the new plans with the special conditions permit, i would ask that they're added a structural detail for the ten foot fence just so that we know how that's going to be constructed. i'm happy for any inspections. she looked confused when one of the items on the plans as submitted , is raising the height of the fence ten feet. so the normal, you know, a fence under six feet doesn't require a building permit because that's standard framing. but ten feet, we would like some detail on how that is going to be constructed. so it is resistant to the wind and other factors. thank you. that was my question. sorry, i'm available for any questions you may have. thank you. i don't see any questions. thank you. so we will now move on to public comment. is anyone here to

provide public comment on this item? anyone in the room is there anyone on zoom who wants to provide public comment? i don't see any hands raised so commissioners, this matter is submitted. commissioner, does anybody want to start on this? mr. lopez. sure. thank you. president swig. i i was comfortable with the initial plans. i'm comfortable with the revised plans and yeah, i think it makes, i think further to the questioning of the planning department. i think it makes sense to me that we would have objective standards based on property lines and building configurations as and so i don't see necessarily a fault with that process. i think otherwise

if we're tailoring based on the preferences or. or hesitation actions of individual neighbors and it's just hard to have an objective, consistent standard because it depends on whether your your neighbor is j.d. salinger or a witness protection programs or if they're like a youtube influencer or an exhibitionist. and so that all makes sense to me. but i appreciate the permit holders, you know, neighborly community actions with the appellant and the other neighbors appreciate the efforts to accommodate those concerns that were voiced and would be comfortable to deny the appeal set in motion. or would

you like to enter a motion or did you want to adopt the revised plans or did he? the permit holders expressed a preference and thought there was greater privacy with the revised plans. yeah, i guess. i guess i'll, i'll, i'll. i don't know, do a conditional motion because i'd like to hear from my fellow commissioners as well. but but i think, you know, barring any kind of material changes, i think based on what's before us , i'd be prepared to deny the appeal all and accept the revised sized proposal with the condition that, as voiced by mr. green from dvi, that the construction elements be added to the plans specifically for the ten foot fence. okay. and then just for clarity, for the record, we would be granting the appeal and issuing the permit on the condition that be revised to require the adoption of plans with the addition of the

structure and detail for the ten foot fence. exactly so thank you. thank you for that. commissioner trevino. thank you, president. second, i'm prepared to support vice president lopez's motion and disposition of this. i think the property owner permit holder has done what we asked to do, has extended themselves to come up with something a little better, trying to accommodate. and they were able to and they made some changes. and they found a satisfactory way of addressing the privacy issue. i do believe that it's fundamentally flawed if we have a provision in the law protects special and unusual privacy that the person who holds the privacy interest is nowhere in the room and not at the table when the issue comes up. if it was if it was not special, unusual, who the only person who can say it's special and unusual is the person who

has the privacy. and yes, you want to you want streamlining? yes. you want you want to look at the maps. but that's not what special unusual refers to. it refers to the person. so if i on this matter, i think we should proceed. but i do think the planning should go back and consider whether they are faithfully upholding the interests of privacy interests of those special and unusual ones that the law reflects should be protect. and thank you, commissioner. i have little to add. i would support vice president lopez's motion and that is all i have to add. okay. and so i called for the continuance in the or moved for the continuance in the first hearing. i saw a range of possible outcomes that could perhaps gain the support of this board. and i think that the

permit holder has come up on one that more than falls within that range. it's perhaps a better outcome than i had anticipated, that we might get out of this process. and so i'm thankful for your efforts on that. i will say that from a process standpoint, you know, the it's kind of a testing rate and a practical issue. if a special, unusual outcome is there, it's the special and unusual outcome that presents itself. you have to look at it objectively and you know, the process whereby the special unusual case gets handled or processes like this. and, you know, that's part of that's efficiency and part of that is you don't end up with as many of the false positive errors as you might get otherwise if you did it on every single single sort of case. and so i think that i know that

planning makes itself available to neighbors, even if there is no formal process. and these processes and will consider what neighbors say. and if they have made a mistake, that's that's where we come in. and i think that we've we've thought about this one very cuff and decided that particularly with these revised guidelines, there is no special unusual case. okay i have a little to add. i was prepared to deny the appeal last time because the deck was compliant. and we live in the city and that's the way it is. but i went along with hearing it again, again. and i want to extend send my thanks to the permit holder to taking the time to listen and making make an adjustment even when it was unnecessary to do so and necessary from a compliance standpoint to do it. and that's

it's always great to see that because that's the spirit of neighborliness. so thank you for that. and of course, i would support the motion as it is. so let's go for a vote. no, i'm sorry. it's not it's not possible. would you sit down, please, sir? you're out of order, sir. you're out of order, sir. thank you. you're out of order, sir. we can't accept any testimony at this time, but thank you very much. thank you. we have a motion from vice president lopez to grant the appeal and issue the permit on the condition that it be revised to require the adoption of the revised plans dated september 27th, 2023, which were submitted by the permit holder as exhibit g to his one page statement with the requirement that they add structural detail for the ten foot fence and vice president lopez, what's the basis of this motion on on the basis that the revised plans are code compliant

and take into account privacy concerns raised by the appellant? okay. thank you. on that motion, commissioner trevino. yes. commissioner lundberg. i commissioner eppler i. president swig. hi. so that motion carries 5 to 0. and that concludes this hearing or not the hearing. this matter. thank you so as i as we previously indicated, we're going to be hearing items six a and then six b, uh, so these are building department matters. so first we will hear six a and we're going to be hearing them separately based on an accommodation request by one of the parties. so item six a is appeal number 20 3-036. mark bruno versus department of building inspection subject property 472 474 and 476 union street and 15 nobles alley appealing the issuance on august 4th, 2023 to paul boschetti of an administrative permit to

document, quote, housekeeping unit, correct record to show existing housekeeping unit is legal comply with notice of violation under separate permit to 02200496. no work to be performed to be performed under this permit. this is permit number 2023 0718 2373 and we will hear from the appellant first, mr. bruno, you have. seven minutes. before i start. i just put this very simple model in front of you, so you know what this building looks like and what sections of the building we're speaking about that's fine. just children's blocks essentially. so.

mr. bruno, it's good to see you. i haven't seen you for since pre-covid. yeah yes. yes. you're like an old friend. come back to the roost. no, you're right. i'm the only one left. i know you're the only one that's right up here. yeah, that's fine. so they can see it? yeah that's fine. how's that? yeah. there you go. okay, so now i'm going to do this. okay this will be for 72, and this will be 50. nobles and then just so we know, a little. label so we can you might not be able to see this, but you might want. me. to now, i've. it's

yeah, yeah, that's fine. so this side, this that's fine. that's great. thank you. i apologize for taking time with that. no problem. are you ready to go? i'm ready to go. and how quickly ? you can start now. it's fine. on the left. my left. your right is an alleyway that's tiny. and these three units, the dark units are where people live. three units and this on the other side, union street, are where three other people live. so there's six units all together. one of the issues in this case case, is that the owner has claimed in the past that there are seven units in the building or in this case that there's a housekeeping unit which i disagree with based on the definition of housekeeping unit in the in the housing code , which is also referenced, and

i had a long conversation in person with one of the planners yesterday and the planning department there. they use the same definition. that definition requires the housekeeping unit to have been requested between 1960 and, i believe january first of 1970. so it's obsolete to try to do that. now, i also want to make it clear it's not a complaint against the department of building inspection communications, but they were not able to give me all the photographs i requested. i requested them on the 25th of august, and then again, and we went to sunshine hearing and they were very nice. we all tried to help each other, but they still have not. they still have been unable to give me the photograph that i requested. so if this is can be seen here or how does this work overhead, please? overhead so you can see that on the second page of this request, this immediate disclosure request is listed all the slash back inspectors who

came to the building between 18th december of 2022 and a few days before this was requested on the 25th of august. so there are five of on site inspection ones that i know of, and there are four inspectors. and of those four, only one and christina deng of the housing department, apparently submitted or was her photographs are part of the record. so the other parts of this record going back to 2022 and deals specifically with with mr. boschetti, the respondents that work in this project checked without a permit back in 2022. he then received an nof from the building department building department is not housing, so therefore i didn't get the photographs from the building department, at least not a complete set, maybe a very incomplete. we don't know. i only got the housing photos. let's go right into that

. that element of working without a permit because that's an nof you can read it. it's part of the application. i made the appeal. i made back in 2022. i hear all the noise and there's all this stuff going on and i speak with my landlord who was then we were on friendly terms and he explains that, well, there's a sign, there's a symbol down there, a thing that proves that this bathroom, this bathroom which is now in ruins because of his work without a permit, you could put it on the o. put it on here. sorry and so this work without a permit is supposedly allows him to keep doing this work because really it's a homeowner's unit. it's a housekeeping unit. it's something it's as he said in 2018 and 2019 before this very body. mr. swig then president swig, then being the only current member who was there, then he said, back in 2018, 2019, the same owner, hey, there's a existing studio here. and joe duffy, if you read my appeal, said, excuse me, there's

no existing anything here. there's just a space, a space that since 2018, 2019, when that permit was denied by this very body, he has ruined the taken out the walls to attach to this lower level bathroom. you can see it. it's about 3 or 4ft beneath the floor of the unoccupied, never occupied store room. this is the storeroom from the other side where he's punched holes in the wall. all of this is described by mr. gwathmey in his nov of december 23rd of 2022. so you go from december 23rd of 2022, you move forward rapid action to other notices of violation and one of them results in an existing now order of abatement on the property at and further another nov. that's just as recent as 20 as august 25th of i'm sorry, august 23rd of this year. and

that's a significant one. again, it's part of your appeal package because that says he's working outside the scope of the then permit that a that is at issue in the second part of this hearing at the same location. so again, 2018, 2019, working under a permit that says, oh, there's an existing studio there, but it turns out there isn't one, then you fast forward to 2022. just last year and he's working again in the same area doing all this work. that's all in your planning, in the appeal, and it says working without any permit whatsoever. so he has gone from a permit, which i would say was acquired falsely because he submitted plans us that said a studio was there, but there was none. and then third and last is the nov. that's as recent as august 23rd from the planning plumbing department of this year between those times and what i'd like to get to quickly since there's not much time left, is the housing violation i'm sorry,

14 housing violations and the photographs from many of them are in your are in your packet. now. why that's significant is the only thing i would ask from the board, especially because we all got a note from mr. green of building is that we abide by the logical, reasonable, all building conforming, building code, conforming violation, warning of miss staying in housing which says you can't do this, you can't have a big garage to use as your staging area unless you have sprinklers up there. this is in the building code, by the way, section 603 garages. this is in the housing. i never looked it up, but she told me this yesterday. this is in housing as well. so you can see in these photos. sorry, overhead. yeah overhead. yeah. sorry. so this these are photos taken by miss dang. i'm almost done on you can see it says may 23rd. 30s it

says this first one is march 16th. march 16th. that's all the debris and construction zone. and this is may 23rd. by miss dang. if they have a date on it, it means the housing department did it. there's another one from her 16 seconds left. this one is from me. i'm sorry. it's sideways, but it's more recent. it has no date on it. and this is lastly, the one from me earlier this month. yeah. in august. sorry again. no it's blocking. you can turn it so we can see it. sorry. that's time. why don't you. oh, yeah. sorry. yeah so this is the last photo and the last thing i turn it. turn it the other way. so if you're looking, if you're looking at it, please. so this shows the blockage of what we used as. yeah. thank you. your time is up. but we do have a question from commissioner lundberg. okay. thank you. thank you. mr. bruno. i'm a little bit confused what any of what you just said has to do with the permit that is being appealed and i understand we're hearing

the two parts of this appeal separately. but this is the housekeeping appeal. but what do any of these housing violations , even assuming it to be true, have to do with this particular permit? oh, good question, because as you know, in the appeal that i gave you, i think i showed very solidly that a housekeeping unit is not a relevant, not applicable, not available rather to this owner or this permit holder not available at all. and since i got the message by email yesterday from mr. green in building that seems to comply agree with what i said. the only issue that still exists is that the if he were to go back and get an adu application in, i'm asking this board to note that it requires a staging area to do it properly so there's no fire that's all. thank you. okay thank you. president swig has a question. yeah, just clarification. so so the grounds of your appeal is that it's a

convenient designation from a room that was a storage room or whatever to something else. we had actually had a case before any of you guys were here. i think it was in the on potrero or mission. i can't recall where somebody had designated it was designated as a laundry room and suddenly it was a bedroom and similar situation. and be responded equally so. so your point in in this is that this permit really applies to something that doesn't exist, right? that's absolutely correct. and that's simple as that. you can't get a permit. your point is that you cannot get a permit on something that doesn't exist. yes and it's an obsolete word, as was explained to me yesterday by mr. correct in planning. the reason it's there at all in the planning code is because as the laundry room case brings up, they still exist in the world because some people did apply for them in the

past and that's why it's still in the planning code as a reference thing. but you can't do it now. it's thank you, mr. bruno. appreciate it. thank you. no further questions. we will now hear from the permit holders. representative did you want to should i move those? do you want to leave it? i'll leave them. okay. please do you want to move them? oh, okay. good evening. members of the board. president swig. my name is jeremy. paul and when i first came in this evening, i was greeted by mr. rosenberg with the. haven't seen you in years. how have you been? and you know what's up. and the reason why she hasn't seen me in years is that a lot of what i do has been made obsolete by the legislation

that has allowed for legalization of all types of housing that previously took a struggle to get legal. all i've been doing been a permit consultant for about 35 years. i started in the 80s doing this and there was a field instruction manual for inspectors that was developed to direct inspectors how to deal with existing, not legal work or existing work that wasn't on record. and over the years there have been a number of different classifications created and methodologies for legalizing or for excluding substandard or non-ordinary or out of, you know , off the record housing. i sort of have a hobby. i do a lot of work, legalize nothing inherent

early inexpensive, inherently affordable housing. this is this particular site is in north beach. this is a place where with a history of the best san franciscans, poets, strippers, artists, you know, the creative people that keep san francisco great need cheap places to stay. and this is not great housing and i'm not going to argue that it is. i'd like to go to the overhead and show some pictures overhead. this. am i able to tab and change the direction? well this is the if you turn your head sideways, you can see that this is the door labeled 472 rear. and that is the designation of the space where we're discussing there is a

breezeway down the side of the garage that is fire protected passageway to this door which enters the space. inside there's a basic kitchen and wainscoting and detailed woodwork. there's that kind of detail above the cabinetry. there is gas hookup for a stove. there's a an old thermostat and there's gas hookup for a space heater. that's the space we're talking about. somebody has lived there in the past. i don't know when. why did i apply for a housekeeping unit? well, how did this whole thing happen? why am i here? why? i was contacted by mr. boschetti, who had heard that i have a particular interest in legalizing weird housing, inherently cheap

housing. and so i came out and looked at it and said, all right , this looks like somebody's lived here once and we can make this legal again. however, the bathroom is not entered from within the unit. and the only type of housing that i have experience with where one had to leave the main living area to enter a bathroom was a housekeeping unit. and mr. bruno is right. the housekeeping unit is an obsolete definition of housing. it there are many of them in the city. they were a special method ology for legalizing units created either between the wars or during that time period. in the early 1900s. so so that housing that was is meeting the minimum standards of housing code could be legalized without being subject to the rest of code enforcement. it meaning that house keeping units

or this unit specifically has as a protected access directly to a street. it has light and ventilation. it has sufficient space for to be to be a housing unit. what it doesn't have it doesn't have a have fire sprinklers. actually, it does have fire sprinklers. excuse me. there are fire sprinklers, but they're in order to legalize this through to any other process other than through an administrative permit, would subject this inherently cheap housing to code upgrades that might render it unaffordable or, frankly, not a practical project for the property owner and what i'm trying to do is to create some housing for the people who need that kind of cheap housing in north beach to be. now, what

is it going to take to legalize this? i mean, i understand ms. green's chief inspector green's memo. there is a unit verification process available. this would fail. there is no documentation of this space. it exists. we all could see these things. he's inspected it. he sees the hardwood floor and sees this cabinetry and the wainscoting. somebody was there. but none of the facts that are need to be assembled to clear the unit verification process are available to us. if we tried to legalize through any other methodology, there would be considerable, considerable code upgrades to meet. 2023 codes. however we are meeting the standard of the code that existed at the time that this housing was created, and that's what the field inspection manual from 1985, otherwise known by

the building inspectors as the mickey mouse code, instructed inspectors to do to apply the code. at the time something was built. it's a very simple matter, really. i'm not trying to avoid any processes as i don't want to make it difficult for if there is a problem with the designation of housekeeping unit, the word housekeeping does not need to be on these plans. the plans that were reviewed and were approved by d.b. showed exactly what what is there. we did not lie on these plans at and if we want to call it something else, i'm happy to do that or simply take jurisdiction on this permit and authorize this housing as a unit. thank you. thank you. thank you. we have questions from president swig, then commissioner lundberg . there we go. so as i did with

mister bruno, welcome back. it's been a long time. thank you. and this body, not these guys, but me, have seen you many times before for and always on from my point of view, the just side, which is as you represented as as somebody who tries to find support low, low cost housing and of course nobody can deny that that's a bad thing. now now, in an and also being here long enough i got a memory and i've seen this building before and i was here when mr. duffy gave recommendation. i believe, to the property owner, about another way of approaching this and this body. i was here on this body and i remember

emotionally because it was one of my first exposures to unjust behavior by a landlord who was kicking out somebody who had lived in an in-law unit for a long period of time. and they were getting kicked out and there was no protect action. and we sent a letter to the board of supervisors and said, this is unjust because this this i believe it was a couple has been living there for a long time. and the building owner is kicking them out and claiming, well, it's illegal anyway. and we can remove them. and that was the birth of adu, although we didn't know it now. so we're we're sympathetic, sensitive and supportive of that housing. however. what i don't understand , and maybe you can explain it several years ago when we heard this and again, not these folks sitting on this panel, i was

member of a panel that heard about this building before. there was a path and it was to the adu and that's why the adu i go all the way back to my first emotional experience of having somebody trying to be kicked out of a in-law apartment. and that's why adus were created and legal secure, appropriate and support and just for the occupants of smaller, more affordable housing. why why what what brings up to me is what are we doing here? when it was recommended to your client, make it an adu. that's why adu law was created. just what you're finding for. so why can you explain to me why? why we're

trying to zigzag around a formula that was created just for the purpose that you're standing up here and opining upon supportively and i'm agreeing with you. thank you, president swig. i appreciate your comments and your question . most part of that question, i think is best addressed by chief inspector green in terms of what the requirements of complying with the adu requirements are. but the one that concerns me the most is that this creates what would acknowledge an existing fourth floor of occupancy and that triggers upgrades throughout the building that would probably be cost prohibitive. and the age of the conditions that we see there, there's a date stamp under the on the sink of 1927 is the way i read it. i mean, this stuff has been there and somebody has used

this space. if we are going through the adu process, the investment necessary to comply with the code fully under 23, code under adu, code would probably suppress the ability of this property owner or any property owner to justify the expense of doing it. so what i'm doing is frankly looking for a way of retroactively legalizing an existing thing and encouraging young housing to be created. and i am sympathetic to all your points and i understand things in san francisco are expensive. and in my own house, which i'm lucky enough to own if i'm doing renovation and dbe comes in and says, oh, that plumbing, that wiring, uh, that over there, uh, and what i see in my mind is the, is the money

flowing out. but but i'm also, i also have taken the consideration, the law, which is to protect neighbors from faulty wiring, which could result in a fire in my house if i if i did any illegally flooding, which could result in harming my neighbors if i did it illegally . so. so this is why the adu standard was is this not why the adu standard was created? is this not why compliance standards are created, not to save landlords money? unfortunate not. unfortunately. we live in a very expensive city, but it is to protect mr. bruno. it is to protect mr. bruno's neighbors and the neighbors all around north beach. god forbid we would have an electrical fire and, you know, north beach, it's old, it's dry, and it's a tinderbox. birx so why why should the law

be circumvented and compliance be circumvented? so your client can get an affordable way, albeit potential be in breach of all these secure compliances? i get it. the answer is that this permit this permit that was issued an admin istrative permit for putting on record this space in no way is a free pass on the wiring or the plumbing or frankly anything else that is not code compliant. what it does though it exempts complies with all of the building wide issues that would be raised if we were creating this space new and this is not new space. you could see these pictures. you see that wainscoting. this is not current . this didn't happen in the last in my lifetime. and that's all

we're trying to do. this permit will require electrical inspection and plumbing inspections and also fire to assure that all those neighbors and these buildings are protected. i couldn't agree with you more. and what about mr. bruno's claim that, in fact, the lack of. of fire protection in the in the garage, in the staging area, which which potentially you know, paint it burns, you know, stuff. it burns. that's why that's why sprinklers are there. why why what is the valid position of mr. bruno on on that claim that that would be an illegal staging area and cause a safety and security? i can answer that. okay. this building is in is an r two occupancy as such, this garage is a fire protected space . everybody who lives in a building that of over two units that has a garage has the same

fire protection standard as everybody keeps paint, everybody keeps lumber, everybody keeps cars and gasoline. that's part of living in a city. what you saw in those photographs was kind of typical for what people do in their garages. this was not a construction zone staging area for a big project. this is a tiny little bathroom smaller than this desk. that's what was being worked on here. so i think that the fire protections that are in place in this garage are more than sufficient for the kind of use that's being placed there and that if it was to exceed that, then by all means. mr. machete's, contractor would need to get himself a storage unit on the street to store his building materials. and finally. sorry, commissioner, i'm going on too long and i'm not harassing you because, you know, i have great respect for you because you've done great work for creating housing. but, you know, i also see work being done

without a permit. and how are we supposed to it's kind of difficult. we see this all the time. folks start building things that they know they're not supposed to be building. and then get caught and so why why does your client, if he expects us to believe your words, is why does he start construction without a permit, especially when we've been here before and we've seen him before. and it wasn't the prettiest experience in our in in my history. there are going to be penalties levied for work done without permit. i'm not going to justify it. i haven't met mr. machete before. i was called in after the nov was issued. i'm not going to justify it, but but once that nov was issued, i went and met with the inspector who wrote it and we discussed the situation and discussed what he saw and i explained to him what i thought

was a pathway. and he said, as long as the nov gets complied with and we get inspectors in there to review plumbing and electrical and the framing work that's being done, he's good with it. and and there will be penalties for the work without permit no doubt. thank you commissioner lumber. thank you. i have a question that's similar to one president zweig asked, but distinct in my mind, which is near the beginning of your testimony, i heard you state that you knew that this permit type was obsolete and that the housekeeping unit was obsolete. if you knew that, why did you apply for it anyway? thank you for that question, commissioner for the fact that there is no new housekeeping units being created is understood that that's what the housing code definition of, of the housekeeping unit is. however, in the past situation ins that

suggested that they may have been included in that program where there is no other easy pathway to legalize an administrative permit, that said, the language of this permit is correct. the record to show the existing housekeeping unit. so we're not proposing a new housekeeping unit. we are proposing to correct the record and legalize the existing housekeeping unit, make the code modification as necessary to get somebody living there, as in expensive housing. do you know of any precedent of a retroactive designation? of an obsolete designation? is there any any precedent for that? yes. not that i can present to you right now today, but i have done this many times in various sorts of ways. but in most cases, it's cooperative with the department . it's not facing an appeal.

it's that the department is looking for a way that we can document something that everybody recognizes needs to be documented. thank you. thank you. no further questions. we will now hear from you can be seated. thank you. we'll now hear from the planning department. hello again, commissioners. andrew perry, planning department staff, the property under appeal is at 472 union and 15 nobles. it's lot 21 and assessor's block 0104 and it is a three lot with frontage on both union street and nobles alley and the rh three zoning district during a previous 2019 appeal hearing, the department of building inspection did describe this as a single building. both portions are connected structure and the existing three r report indicates that this is a six unit building. the subject

permit under appeal was brought before the planning department staff at the counter for review. however the language on the permit indicated that this was an administrative permit with no work to be performed. it's planning's understanding that when in such language is used on the permit, it's intended to reflect that the permit holder had gone through the unit verification process, which is not typically a process that the planning department is involved in. so again, because there was no work being proposed under this permit, there was nothing for planning staff to review. and so planning staff at the counter correctly indicated that it was not subject or not applicable to planning department review. i have no other comments, but i'm available for questions. thank you. i don't see any questions at this time. we will now hear from the department of building inspection. good evening again, commissioners matthew green representing. first, i'd like to

address mr. bruno's comments about the photos. it was my understanding that we did forward all the photos in the record. i'd be happy to look into that. so to start off the definition of a housekeeping unit, it clearly says legalized before 1969, in a building built before 1960. so this was not legalized as a housekeeping unit prior to 1969. so we do have an administrative process to, if you believe the record is faulty and that there was a legal seventh unit here. it's called the unit verification process. the process entails you get a current three r report, a report of residential record, and then you dispute those findings and you would present a package with the entire permit history be any evidence that might support your claim, including old the original water records, the assessor's records, anything you can come up with that might support your claim that all

presented to a senior building inspector who will review the records and perform a site visit. if he agrees that there is a problem with the records that there was a unit there legally that just wasn't caught in the records, then he will he or she will issue an administrative permit and generally the language of that permit is administrative permit . to establish the legality of this building as, say, a three story, two unit building. that's just an example. mr. mr. paul did not go through this process. we should have caught this at 3 or 4 stages. unfortunately we didn't. i've worked with mr. paul before when he's gone through the unit verification process and i've agreed with him and we've gone through the proper, proper methods. i don't agree with him here. i've gone through the records myself. even if he did go through the unit verification process, i don't think we would have agreed that this was a seventh unit. i do have. can i have the overhead

out overhead, please? this is this is a record created by the department of housing inspections in 1970, i believe it's 1974. they did it entire permit history of this building . and they established that there were two units on each floor for three floors with a total of six units. there's been no records or any permits since that report that would change this record. i would say i watched the hearing from 2018 and i agree this this is not a legal housekeeping unit. it never was a legal housekeeping unit. i if they want to go through that process, they should try to legalize this as an adu. and, you know, as mr. sweetzer president sweig said that was advised six years ago or five years ago. so in in summation, i believe this building permit was issued

incorrectly, and i recommend and that you uphold the appeal. and i'm available for any questions you may have. thank you. president swig. i don't disagree with you, but i have some questions and i'd like you to educate us on some things. okay? certainly. so going back to whenever i started on this board and that that first court case that i referred to was there there was no record of that unit at that time. not unlike a gazillion other in-law units around the city where our families were living. and in and, and where they had hooked up a stove, where they had hooked up a sink all illegally. all right. but they were living there at and then as i described it was is horrifying that one after another we were getting

these cases. that was the first. but there were others where people were getting booted because it was time to renovate that space. and we want those people out, you know, and long story short, adu was born. thanks to the board of supervisors respecting a letter that we sent to them. so so what is the process? so none of those in-law units were ever units on that. if you looked up all the sheets of paper just like you presented just now, you would find out that we were a gazillion units that that were in-law units that weren't units at all. and ultimately some of them became adus were what is the transition process of a officially converting an an a unit which had been used for housing and clearly that my. my

indication that something had been used illegally as a housing unit is the hook up. you know, that there was a gas line that hooked up to something. you know, generally a stove, that there was another utility there that indicated there if there wasn't somebody living there now, there was one. what is the path of conversion from a unit which is an occupied illegal unit or an unoccupied illegal unit. to legalization ultimately in your suggestion? i agree an adu. and what and in this case it it in in this case can that be done number one and number two even if it was and it's not going to be recognized as a housekeeping unit from a cost standpoint, what's the

difference from a wet standpoint, from a cost standpoint? because the argument here from from council for the permit holder or lack thereof is that, well, it's going to cost my client a bunch of dollars and they're not going to convert this to anything but what makes me scratch my head is there is going to have to be some conversion to compliance, electrical, plumbing, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. that makes it legal, safe and secure for both the tenant and the neighborhood. so adu versus first of all, can it be created , converted to an adu? i think i can anticipate your question and second of all, what is the difference between whether it was converted with the designation of adu or a designation of a housekeeping unit? it still has to meet certain code. well well, this permit here just proposes to create an extra unit out of thin air. right. it's not going through the normal. i understand. i'm there with you.

okay. gotcha. this is i preface this by saying i wanted to educate me and the rest of the commissioners on on this subject. i'm agree. the first thing i said was, i agree with. i'm not used to that, sir. right i agree with you. but but i'm trying to create a path. i i'm a housing proponent. i agree with a permits council that we should have more affordable units wherever possible. i have participated on this panel to see the grant that in-law units have found a path to being realized legally. but what is that? what is the path to the adu? and also on the cost issue, what is the difference? even if it was a house keeping unit, what is the why is an adu? what's the difference how much it's going to cost? so i mean, sorry, you go through the process, say, i want to legalize this area as a unit, right? you draw a plans, go through the planning department approval, the building department approval

, the building department would be looking at, you know, make sure you have the minimum ceiling height. you have the minimum space requirements for sleeping rooms and occupancy. make sure you have the minimum light and ventilation and make sure you have the proper exiting . you'd also part of that would be have the all the wiring inspected. if it's substandard, have to be replaced. same with the plumbing. it also this is a six unit building. it also come under the purview of the fire department, which would probably require some upgrading of sprinkler wise. the adu process, as you know, is much simpler now than it was ten, 15 years ago. we are encouraging that that path, but it still needs to be brought up to minimum habitable habitability standards. there is a cost to that. you've seen the pictures of this unit. there's you know, there's i don't think there's any hot water in the kitchen. that'll have to be new new piping there. they'll have to be heat installed. so there would be a substantial cost,

even in even if you did uphold this permit. and grant this as a housekeeping unit, there would be loads of work that have to be done to upgrade this unit to be habitability standards. and so the money the money argument, do you think it's valid? just want to clarify. no it will be expensive mean there will be a cost involved. whether that you know pencils out over time i'm not prepared regardless of whether it's a housekeeping unit or an adu unit, it has to be legalized. it has to be legalized to a certain standard. and that's going to cost pretty much same amount of money one way or the other. and the standards are the standards are the minimum standards, the building code is the minimum standards, right? so yes, there will be costs. right. but but there's not a cheaper way to do it. no but i mean, legally, if this was a let's go back to the

original story. if this if there were tenants currently living there and it the you came in vb came in because it was an illegal in-law unit and vb came in to again say as an illegal unit and you got to upgrade it to an adu or to what is a legal standard one way or the other is the investment going to be any different or is the investment going to be any different to legalize even if it was occupied and had to be upgraded in the way that i mean, the tenants would have their tenants rights there, but we would say either revert this to its last legal use or legalize it as its current use. right. right. and to legalize it to its current use, you have to meet the minimum code standards and the codes are there to provide minimum safety standards and habitability standards for the

occupants. right. and one way or another, it's going to cost the same thing. it's going to be. that's what i'm trying to get you to answer my question. well, i'm not prepared to say how much it's going to cost because no, i understand that. but there's going to be there's going to be a substantial cost to legalize this unit. okay. thanks commissioner lundberg. thank you, mr. green. the this topic makes me really uncomfortable to bring up, but i feel like it's necessary in any way. i'm really glad you caught this mistake. obviously you caught it before the hearing. you emailed all of us. um i. it makes me really uncomfortable to hear that there are 3 or 4 places in this permitting process in which this mistake should have been caught , but it wasn't. and obviously, and this really isn't directed at you because apparently when it came across your desk, you saw this and realized that it was a mistake and addressed the problem appropriately. so this really isn't addressed to you

specific likely, but you're here representing it makes me uncomfortable that we hear this from you with somewhat regularity that there's several places in the process where a mistake should have been caught, but it wasn't. and when i hear that something should have been caught 3 or 4 times but wasn't caught, what that implies to me is that it was not caught intentionally. and that's very, very troublesome to me. and i want to ask if you can address why what happened in this process, why this wasn't caught at any of the 3 or 4 steps in which you said earlier it should have been caught and was only fixed because mr. bruno filed an appeal here. and i want to know if mr. bruno had not filed an appeal, this would have just moved forward anyway, most likely. i can't imagine any other way this mistake would have been caught. well well, actually, it did come across my

desk. post-issuance and i was investigating how they got issued, and i was ready to revoke this permit. and then it got appealed almost simultaneously. it was a result of mr. bruno emailing our code enforcement, asking why there's not a what we call an address restriction on this property. then i started looking into this. so but you're right, it i take exception to it wasn't done intentionally. we processed thousands of permits a year. there was a mistake here. it went through the code enforcement section because there's an existing complaint there. they gave it to the process because they didn't think it addressed to their complaints. they should have looked at it more closely at that time. it went to housing inspection, housing inspection has existing complaints. they i agree with you. we should have looked at this closer and we missed it. i've spoken to all those individual appeals about this. i can't defend what we

did. we made a mistake here. and i hear admitting it. it just occurs to me that, you know, this it sounds like from my understanding of this, that this sort of permit hasn't been around since 1969. that's a very long time ago. and you know, any such designation of that, if, you know, if i were a staffer reviewing this permit and i receive a permit application requesting designation of something that hasn't existed in how long is that? 55 years that that would trigger immediate scrutiny and i just can't imagine why it would get so far in this process. and as you said, even if it was before the appeal, it was still because mr. bruno emailed staff. yeah i just, you know, it's just not clicking for me why this got approved in the first place, no less. at other points after that

and maybe you don't have an answer to that question. and i guess that's okay. i don't expect you to know all of what all the staff does on a day to day basis. but it was a mistake. i i fully admit that the department screwed up here. i don't know why we screwed up. i just. we should not have screwed up. but i. i do not believe this was done intentionally. like i said, i take exception to you saying that in the public record there was no allegations of graft here or anything like this. this was just a mistake. all right. thank you. thank you, vice president lopez. thank you , mr. green. what what can you tell us about this this 1974 document that you presented, that that kind of audit or accounting of the unit permit

history and status history? is that is that something that's done regularly? and what what kind of materials were reviewed or what what would go into that review to kind of produce that type of report? so this was done by the division of apartment hotel inspections, which was the precursor to our housing inspection services. right they it was pretty standard for apartment houses, which would be three or more units would be substantial inspections. there to try to legalize not to bring the building up to code. there was you know, there was quite a an effort back in the 60s and 70s and 80s to go through buildings and bring them up to code. that's why the housing code exists. part of this process was, you know, there's a lot of construction over the years that wasn't warranted, wasn't legal. there was it's just try to establish what the legal use of the building was.

so back here in 1970, 74, the inspector assigned to this did a full inspection of or sorry, a full review of all the permits that came up, walked the building. they come up to establish how many bathrooms are there, how many toilets are there, how many units on each floor, the size of each floor. it was just to establish the record of the housing stock in san francisco. so this is a very, very common record for all apartment houses in san francisco. so so, so it sounds like correct me if i'm wrong. so that was kind of a product of that era to try to kind of capture and recognize as, you know, units that had been built before, before, you know, a more modern kind of era of code compliance. s and if that's correct, are we me so is it safe to assume then then that these gas hookups and fixtures indicative of a dwelling unit

that would have happened after 1974, since they presumably weren't caught in that review. i'm sorry. i was looking i didn't catch the end of your question. i apologize. yeah. no, i was just saying, if that was kind of a one time sweep and i mean, we have pictures now of, of gas hookup and fixtures is, you know, indicating that there was probably a dwelling unit there at some point, even if it's not occupied right now. so are we are we are we then assuming that that that those installations happen and after this 1974 sweep, because otherwise no, presumably no, they would have been caught in that, right. yeah so they back there in 1974, the inspector looked at that space and determined that it wasn't a legal unit. and can i have the overhead again? alec overhead, please. so. so this is just a

this is the housing report that was performed as well. part of this whole process for the urban renewal and they had all sorts of rehabilitation programs was to go through the entire unit, the entire building, the building inspector, electrical inspector and a plumbing inspector. and they noted all the code violations. so the purpose of this was to bring the building up to code to meet minimal, minimal habitability standards. this is just an example of that. the report was done. the items here, the repairs addressed the specific legal units there. so it's just the reason this report was made was part of a comprehensive inspection of the property to bring it up to the minimum code standards. at the time. okay. i think i'm good. thank you. okay. thank you. i don't see any further questions, so we'll move on to public comment. is there anyone here to provide public comment on this item? anyone in the room? is there anybody on zoom who wants to provide public

comment? i don't see anybody. so we're going to move on to rebuttal. mr. bruno, you have three minutes. i'm picking up next. sorry. thank you for all your time spending on this very interesting project because it represents so much about north beach. i'm only the third person to live in this unit. i was invited to live in this unit in 1985 because the person who was then living next to me, she's no longer with us, met me in a hospital. we both were visiting a person who was very sick with crohn's disease. she thought, oh, what a nice young man. and she had just lost her best friend in the unit where i now live. he had lived there 33 years with all due respect to vice president lopez, nobody ever lived in the unit that they are now trying to make into a dwelling. how do i know that? because i paid my rent in the marina to a person who had two

other houses just for her cats. that's how wealthy the people, thank god, the italians who had made these units had become. they owned property all over the neighborhood, and i knew them. they were very old when i knew them. they were retirees only three sisters alone who owned this property. and they told me that that little bathroom was built for their father because he liked to go outside on the street in front of. they showed me pictures. the owner had these elderly women and their father. he liked to hang out on the sidewalk. so with all due respect to all of us, when we think about these these numbers and the issue of permits and law, we also have to recall that really these are real life people who might have simply started a project, which is what i believe in, that unit on the bottom floor and never finished it. why do i say that as well? because during my 36 years there, this very typical i'm italian, so i can say typical, passionate italian family had a lot of disagreements with each other and they had people coming

back and forth from italy all the time who themselves were not poor people. they might have started to build a unit there. they owned the building next door. they no longer the current owner no longer owns it. they own three buildings next to each other. this was just one of them. and they owned buildings up the street. i have since tried to help people who were being evicted from one of them. that's how i know they own that building up on union street. but so i think the solution might be the answer might be that they started a project but didn't finish. but one thing i'm certain because they told me in person and were still under sworn testimony, the bathroom itself, mr. boschetti tried to make into part of this unit, so-called dwelling unit was put there late in. it's like a broom closet. it was put there late in it's broom closet. life to satisfy their father who didn't want to walk all the way back up the stairs to go to the bathroom. that's why there's a little toilet there. and in the garage is a little sink because people were living these real lives and they were not poor people. they didn't need to have anybody in that basement. they they weren't trying to save

$0.05 or $50 or $500 and have somebody come in who was poor. they weren't trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator. they were trying to raise people up. and admittedly, they were mostly italians. when i moved in there at one point, i invited them to meet a friend of mine, a woman. they said, no, we don't. we don't believe in women living alone in their units. and yet all three of them were single women. so i think that was very actually two of them were single women. so anyway, that's what it was like. and that's a partial answer. that's fine. okay. thank you. thank you so much. thank you. i don't see any questions this time. so we'll hear from the permit holder. you have three minutes, mr. powell. thank you for the lively discussion. commissioners i really do appreciate it. i'd first like to just comment on mr. brudos last remarks. this building was built as part of a cluster with the two adjacent buildings. each of them had a commercial space in front. so what is now the garage was previously a commercial space in north beach. it was very common for a small

storefront to have a dwelling unit for the proprietor in the rear. i believe personally that that's the history here. i don't have any documentation to prove it beyond old photographs of the storefront, but i don't think that that's particularly pertinent here. what is pertinent here is that there's an opportunity to create a space for people to live. i believe people have lived there in the past. this kind of wainscot noting this kind of detailing to the cabinetry didn't get done to a store room. this was used, this was lived in those gas lines. sir thank you, commissioner lopez, for your line of questions. it was clearly not visited in 1974. i know those housing records up and down in and a lot of the detailed records were thrown away by the department specifically to make these kinds of things difficult. they called it file stripping where all the records of the inspector from the field got thrown away. so we've lost the institution

memory of the agent city agencies fundamentally, if this permit had not been, quote, caught, had not been stopped, exactly the same process would have gone through the electrical inspector would have come in, the plumbing inspector would have come in the plan check on this permit, verified fire access, verified and light and ventilation verified all the things that chief inspector green listed to you. and now, finally, i'm going to editorialize to commissioner lehmberg. you challenged dbe for exercising discretion. i do a lot of work with arts groups, performance spaces and strange housing consideration is and it's by the exercise of discretion, by our intelligent well educated public officials that those most of those things thrive in this city without

discretion by our inspectors being able to make it possible to make safe performance spaces and living spaces, the costs of for artists and for the outsider to remain in san francisco would not exist. and i think that this board should take on as one of its mandates, support supporting san francisco's underside underbelly, creativity, beauty, the best things about our city rest in weird little spots like this and i think we should allow this to be legalized. that's time. thank you. i don't see any questions at this time, so you can be seated. any thing further from the planning department. okay and how about i. first off, we the street files that mr.

paul discussed, they were stripped down because they were digitalized. there was no it was just to make the intent was to make the keep the pertinent records and get rid of all the excess. it was not these files were not stripped down to make this process more difficult. i respectfully disagree. that's not true. i will agree that in the process back there and i believe was in the late 90s, early 20 as some records may have been thrown away, that should have should have been kept. i don't know that that's the situation here. i just know that those were a treasure trove of information that we that is somewhat limited now, i stand stand by my statement. i believe this is the wrong process in this permit should be the appeal should be upheld and permit revoked. thank you. president sayegh. i would just add sorry, if you were to go through the special conditions permit, changing the language to somehow try to legalize this permit, i

would rather i would recommend that you have the permit applicant draw up new plans, and then we have to go through the entire fire and building and planning review so that they knew what this process was. thank you. thank you, president swig so all the rhetoric, all the history, all the other stuff aside, bottom line is, is this this is a permit. this is a question mark at the end of this. this is a permit which is improperly issued, correct? correct so we shouldn't uphold this permit, correct? correct. in your view, second question, i'll say it again, just so maybe the permit holder and the owner might hear it, is there a path to legalization in this unit appropriately, yes. the legalization process? yes. and

is that legalization process through the adu process? yes. or they can try to legalize this as an adu or they can try to legalize this as a seventh unit. okay so there there is a there is a legal path, path to creating another housing unit. and i'm not using money in i don't care about money. it's about you want another unit and you feel good about putting housing in this this building. then there is a path to get it done. correct correct. but this permit is not appropriate. for at this moment, correct. thank you, commissioner lopez. yeah thank you. mr. green. can you. i'm not sure i made out what what you said about the special conditions pathway that you were mentioning. oh, i'm just saying that if you do want to go that path and a special conditions permit, changing the language on

this permit to legalize the space as an extra unit, i would just request i'm not ready to approve the plans at this time. it needs to go through the fire department, the planning department and the building department. so planning department did not look at this in the in the full with a full sense of review. got it. thank you. commissioner eppler, i'm not recommending you do the special conditions permit that if you do go that i'm going to i'm going to ask for a little bit more clarity on that. if we did uphold the appeal and the permit was denied, would the permit holder not be able to reapply with essentially what we would put in as special conditions? so, i mean, like i mean, well, the special conditions appropriate. yeah they can reapply to legalize this space. yeah. so we don't need it wouldn't be reapplying. i mean this permit shouldn't have been issued so it's a new permit. got it. thank you, president swig anything further

? okay. thank you. thank you. commissioners. this matter is submitted. commissioners we'll start at this end. thank you. you know, i think that there's a little bit of history here that that is uncertain. and you know, we don't have all the details for it, but the records that we have show a six unit building. the status of the putative unit is, you know, relatively clear with the history that we have. and there's a process to create a legal unit there. there's a couple of different pathways that can be taken. and, you know, i don't think we should prescribe one or the other and allow the permit holder to pick those. but i think that they need to go down an appropriate pathway. and this administrative permit to document a housekeeping unit is not that. thank you. i want to make a motion. i'll gladly wait to the

other commissioners to speak. okay um, i concur. i think the outcome with this particular permit is fairly straightforward and obvious as being, as, as has stated their opinion that we should grant the appeal. and i see no reason not to grant the appeal. and and permit the permit holder to proceed with the adu process that's been laid forth and that is the appropriate way to legalize this unit if they indeed wish to do so. um, and i know commissioners trasvina and lopez will chime in as well, but i would move to grant the appeal on the basis that it was that the permit was not properly issued. mr. thank you, president zweig. i agree with commissioner lundberg's proposed disposition of the

matter. i think we need to follow follow the rules. the i, i don't know the people here, the history, but what we're being asked to, to do is seems like saying, well, you have a willing young person wants a job , get rid of the minimum wage. you're going to give them a person a job. the employer is going to have have a worker. well, let's just do it because it makes everybody happy. well, we can do all sorts of things that way. and we as a city and we as a nation have said we're not going to go down that road no matter how much it may be seemingly favorable in a particular condition. so mr. green has laid out a pathway and that's a pathway that and as well as the as well as the board of supervisors of the mayor under the ordinances have established a pathway and that should be the pathway that the permit holder should follow.

yeah, i mean, this one this one's harder for me than it sounds like it is for others, because i do, um, you know, i'm really sensitive to the housing crisis that that we face. and i see something that can be a unit, and i see that the there is a potential pathway, you know, with perhaps going down the special conditions path. but i also know how to count and understand if that pathway is a bridge too far. and so i'll go with the crowd. okay. of all the same, i would just like to say, being a veteran of this building, this is the second time hearing i remember getting cranky at at at your client, the permit holder because of not not so kosher behavior the last time and that that bugs me especially

when, you know, four years later i come back, you come back and i see illegal action being taken. especially especially me. when joe duffy, who i hope is getting better from his illness. sorry for that disclosure if i was inappropriate, but i like him a lot, especially when joe duffy was very, very, very clear in saying there is a path. so here we are again. you know, and i have to throw in that editorial because it's i feel just a wee bit disrespected and i feel my crankiness coming on again. but appropriate to the point of the of the motion will will proceed because the appropriate we have to follow the rules and we have guidelines and there is a path. so let's take the path you want

to take a vote. so we had a motion from commissioner epler to grant the appeal and revoke the permit on the basis that it was not properly issued. i think as commissioner lundberg oh, okay. sorry about that. okay, commissioner lundberg, thank you . um, commissioner epler started out and i thought he said something, but so this motion is from commissioner lundberg. on this motion, vice president lopez, a commissioner trasvina, a commissioner epler, a president swig a so, uh, uh, the, the appeal is granted 5 to 0, and we are now moving on to item six b this is appeal number 20 3-037. mark bruno versus department of building inspection subject property 472 union street appealing the issuance on august 22nd, 2023 to paul boschetti of a plumbing permit work category to pr regus three units, three copper, three units relocate, three water heaters new flue for same water

heaters. this is permit number w 202 308 22 584 and we will hear from mr. bruno first. sure. do you want to recess for in fact, may i before we get started, i would like to use the bathroom myself. okay. so could we have to take a ten minute break till 730? what the hell? okay thanks, everyone, for your patience. we'll resume at 730. okay welcome back to the september 27th, 2023 regular meeting of the san francisco board of appeals. we are now on item six b appeal number 20 3-037, and we will hear from the appellant first. mr. bruno, you have seven minutes. thank you. and thank you all for listening to another appeal concerning construction done either without permits or with permits that were where the permit holder

went beyond the scope, well beyond the scope of what was permitted. confused ing the people who live there and making it impossible for all of you and the building department to know what's going on. for those who might think that the knowledge of what's going on is insignificant, that's an advantage. but to me, non builders simply are resident there and a citizen of the city. it's a disadvantage when dbi and plumbing doesn't know what's going on. so i if we could have the overhead, for instance, right overhead, please. so you can see that it's required. it's not my personal finicky belief that the unit number of the location of a major construction should be listed. it's not just something i came up with. it's right here in the city's application a permit to install plumbing worksheet job address unit number. it says here in the yellow. if you could go to the overhead again, that is what's supposed to occur and it didn't

occur here whatsoever. they took one plumbing permit from august 2nd and said, oh, we're doing stuff in stuff, meaning just the bathroom and the kitchen. and that's just two rooms, bathroom, kitchen in, no pipes coming externally through the wall of the building. but that's what occurred. wall of the building pipes coming through. they just took that one plumbing permit from august 2nd and said, we are just doing a kitchen. and bathroom at 472 union which if you look at this is this the union street side. i had them together before union street. so for 72 is here you can see on the label it's an actual apartment for 72 for seven for 476. on this side, it's to confuse us more rather than have different numbers. i live in 15. nobles number three here at the top. so this unit number that they refer to in their first application, which gets an nof

from michael allen on the 23rd of august, about 22 days after it was issued, did not allow them to do any of the work that they were doing. none in they're doing work all over the building . and it's documented in your appeal packet by mr. allen's photographs that show you copper going all over the city, all over the building, rather, and alongside units that are not at all listed. that's not fair. and it's not allowed by the permit process. the other thing that's not allowed by the permit process is the actual permit they're trying to do here now, which i'm appealing to make up for the fact that they had gone so far beyond the scope they thought. and apparently this is part of the process with all due respect to mr. green, i was told this by two people who work in the plumbing department. oh yeah. if they mess up and start going beyond the process, they just come back to us and we go in and check it off and say, that's okay. if that's the case, why then do we have a plumbing

code? division two administration in section 101, general duty and powers of the authority having jurisdiction. the subtitle is. 137 modifications amending your application, which is what occurred here. i'm opposed to the application that amended the prior plumbing permit that they're using to do everything. they basically admitted in the one before the board. yeah, we're doing everything. so now we're going to we're doing everything and we're just going to write. we're doing everything after a permit has been issued and an inspection of the work has been made, the scope of the permit may be altered by filing an amended permit application and paying fees for an additional work as set forth in table, blah blah, blah. the point is, there is a process and i profoundly disagree to go back to the garage, which i'm about to jump into again, that everybody in san francisco does it, we all have patents there. we all have petroleum there. we all have illegal things there. i don't i don't use the garage.

those of us who are most susceptible, most apt to be affected by a fire in the garage don't have any such things there . and why not obey these laws that are housing laws? they're there for a reason and they do protect tenants who if mr. boschetti is so interested in helping the poor or those who can't otherwise afford to live here should include those who might die in a fire. so why can't he therefore, for not allow the housing violation to continue the housing violation in that garage, which is being used as a staging area? and to show you again that, you know, we have these two photographs from miss dang, the housing inspector in may. so we'll go back to march. here's march. okay. and she claims on her on her inspection report that notice of violation in march on march 16th at the time of inspection on construction debris, not other junk, not

personal junk construction, debris and storage and garage remove or provide fire sprinklers if fire sprinklers are installed, permits required all in caps, which makes sense in this location since so many things have been done without any permits on may of that year , she comes back for a re-inspection, which the respondent never shows up for zero the fourth time. so she's told me that he was supposed to meet with her four times and never did hear you have another photograph which might or might not be construction debris. i'm not an expert, but here's a photograph. more recently, this connects this housing violation, the misuse of the garage as a staging area to what's before you. right now, this plumbing permit, which is illegal and or should be turned down. here you see if you can the. okay sorry. and if you'd like president swig, i can give this to the clerk and you could all look at it because it's not a great photograph. it's my photograph. but the point is, you can see right there that there's copper

piping all over the floor of the garage, uncut and a blow torch next to it or some other cutting implement. and that there are other impleme vents to do construction work. so whereas in ms. dang's photographs, it's not quite clear in this one it is. and i've lived there, i've lived there and worked there and saw that they're using the garage is a construction area. so at the very least in this case, the very least i'm asking that the location of the permits be noted as required by the plumbing department workshop, that they must be located. and secondly, more important, prior to getting any more permits, this this satisfaction has to be given to the housing complaint in the garage. thank you. thank you. that's fine. thank you. we have questions from commissioner trevino and commissioner lundberg. thank you. thank you. i see the stacks of blocks in front of you. yes are these

adjoining buildings or are they is there a street in the way? yeah, they're supposed to be like this. this will be okay. so can so you you've described the problem with the lack of lack of designee of the unit etcetera. can you can you state with particularity what is the harm to you? what is the harm to me? yes, yes, of course. so i invited. you might have heard or not of arch plumbing. it's very well known plumbing company to come in and see my water heater. so one of the suggestions in the permit before you that i'm asking to be appealed is that they not move the water heaters to the basement. so this is why you can see how far it is. if you were on the street, you wouldn't see the distance of this unit 45ft to this basement , nor would you know unless you went out there, which i'm also suggesting the plumbing department should do that this basement is entirely a dirt

floor. so to move my water heater, according to arch plumbing to this basement, means three things. number one, you're putting it on an unstable ground and it's just dirt down there. and it's not easily accessible. it's poorly lit. you would be correct in saying, well, maybe it could be fixed, but can they fix this? commissioner truss said. sweeney can they pay me back the pga bill, the 10% increase that arch plumbing and others, they've all told us this plumber, when you move the water heater to the basement, whether you're in a house or you're here , it costs more. guess that's not a big surprise. it costs more to get hot water 45ft up in the air to mr. bruno's apartment and then have it go into his bathtub. and not just a little more 10 to 12% more. okay. so earlier we've been talking about changes at 470 to 474, 476 union over here. yes yes. and you're you're your argument or your testimony is that the permit

holder is attempting to move the water heater at 59? nobles as is often the case, when people are not using the permits the right way, there's a little confusion here, but it's all within a one month period. so it's easy to follow. they went and got a permit on august 2nd for 472 union. there's one unit at that permit said nothing about water heaters. it just said make general plumbing repairs and kitchen and bathroom as needed. suddenly they're all over here and i then contact mr. konami from the building department to say what's going on, because he reported on the original notice of violation just eight months prior to this. and he looked into it and said, well, they they only have it for this unit. so it was then when they discovered somehow through the grapevine, i don't know how that i was asking questions about this, that on august 23rd or so,

august 22nd, 20 days later, they came up with a new permit and instead of saying 472 union, then it doesn't say any address . it just says three units. which three units, sir? is it those over here? oh it might be these three. it might be these three. you just have to guess. so the actual permit, this was given a notice of violation by the plumbing department because when they came and saw two days after the 22nd on the 24th. so if i could summarize your. yes, please state your your answer to my question of what is the impact on you, you your answer is that because there's no specificity as to the move, the gas heater change in 472, 474 476 union. right that you you believe that your own gas heater in 15 nobles number or one

number three is affected by this permit. they came up and yelled at me and i have a witness here who will testify to that during public comment when they were supposed to come, meaning they the plumbers, to repair a tiny leak behind my tub, they instead instead meaning they never repaired it. it's still there. and it's a housing violation. they've never repaired it. they came up and yelled at me in front of somebody who's here. why don't you accept the copper piping coming through your kitchen in front of the refrigerator and through the wall? who would accept something like that outside of the description i gave in detail from a plumber about what would happen to the water heater. their idea of adding copper piping is an absurdity. it doesn't help anyone and since we've stopped this because of. yes, please. so the impact of your the impact on you, the harm on you is you're going to you are being asked to or being told to take a change in your gas

heater bill, the bill of it that will cost you money. yes. and you don't want copper pipes going into your unit. i would be very happy if the copper pipes were parallel and near the galvanized pipes which are in the wall. but that's not how they're doing it. they're only doing that for the new clients who are going to pay a lot more for their apartments. they're removing the floorboards and the wall or to put things properly inside and yeah, so what's the impact of the copper, the copper and the. so the cases for those people who are here now, not others, just on on your on you and your. it's blocking my use of the apartment. my i never realized until this hearing and i measured my apartment. i thought it was 600ft!s. i'm way off 428ft!s. it's nothing to me. it's a lot. i love it. i love being there. i've been there for 30. but i don't want them taking part of the 428ft!s away. and that's the effect of the copper going through the kitchen. thank

you. somewhat related. i just want to make sure i understand what the basis of this appeal is. i hear that the permit did not include the for the use addresses and i see the mistake with the 472 being one of the units and then there's three apartment numbers at 15. nobles it sounds like. are there any other grounds for this appeal or is that yes, the grounds for this appeal is called the department a code enforcement section of the building department. well more specifically, are are the code. i'm sorry. go ahead. i apologize . are there any actual other flaws with the permit itself other than the lack of proper address designation? yes, both mr. thomas moyer of the s and charles robinson, who i met with in person of the rs, told me no

uncertain terms. this this property should have a block or a block block like you're blocking something or a note on it. and that should have been seen by plumbing before giving out this permit in on august 2nd. it doesn't mean it couldn't have been given. it's not quite clear. what does it mean then? it means probably that having seen that, the garage still hasn't been remedied and that that was being used as a staging area and had a threat of fire in it, that we then the city and county would go there and look at what's going on before we give the permit because they can do that. but that doesn't actually have anything to do with the permit itself. that's a surrounding circumstance. perhaps but it doesn't actually have anything to do with the permit. well, it's not clear to me from rs if it would have stopped the permit. they they had discussions about it among themselves. so you'd have to know or you'd have to ask the building department about whether this block would have stopped the permit. i do plan to ask them that, but just i'm just trying to make sure i understand

your your your argument here that that we're considering the argument is exactly as you described it. it's both in detail that they have not given the location of the project. and secondly, but perhaps more important is that without without remedying the housing issues first, they are violating thing a greater part of the code that's equally, if not more important. thank you. okay thank you. no further questions. we will now hear from the permit holder. i'll move this for you. thank you. thank you, commissioners. jeremy paul on behalf of the permit holder, may i use your

photograph of the garage, please? sure thanks. let me just keep those. sure. all second, here's the. there you go. thank you. thank. we live in an old city. the we're working in a fully built environment. when a typically when a plumber starts a project, they go online in and they draw their permit before they arrive at the site. the first time. then they assess the scope of the work. they contact the plumbing inspector and after an inspection, modify the permit in any way necessary to address the totality of the scope of work. some variety of that process happens as dozens of times every day in the city of san francisco. i think that's what happened here. nobody did

anything nefarious or underhanded. this was the way things get done as as far as this overhead, please. this is an even better picture. i i don't know about your garage. my garage is messier than this. a lot messier. there's one standard recology trash bin filled with wood debris that was removed from the bathroom. that's adjacent to the garage. you can see the ceiling here. this is a fire barrier numerous times per year, they get an inspection from a fire inspector . they get a lot more often than usual because mr. bruno calls them. you have a letter in your packet from one of his

neighbors, a 33 year tenant in the building, who's very upset that she can't get her plumbing fixed because as any time that a permit gets issued to do the plumbing, we're here or there's some delay that mr. bruno creates, this is a very simple matter. this plumber needs to get his work done. as far as the way the copper is being done, it will be done in a code compliant manner. and that's what the department of building inspection will make sure of. thank you very much. thank you. we have a question from commissioner lundberg. i i tend to agree that the copper wiring is kind of a non-issue. my concern is the address design nation here. what is your opinion? well, let me ask, first of all, are you the one who applied for this plumbing permit or was it the plumber who know the permit plumbing permits and all specialty permits are done directly by the license holder.

they're done online. okay. and quite often, as i'm sure was done in this case, those permits are pulled before the plumber ever visits the site. so so this is a confusing building. there's no doubt it's not even known whether it's a single building or two buildings. okay. but but i'm going to intervene here. i work for mr. boschetti. i was a business manager for if you could block a lot of san francisco. yeah. if you could identify yourself. my name is morgan thomas. i'm paul vasquez's personal business manager. i oversee this. i've seen mr. fischetti's, 80 years old. we bought he purchased this building for years ago. we inherited this whole permit mess. this has been an ongoing issue. battle. he's been appealing to park down the street. he's appealed another lady down on noble's alley as well. so we're doing the best we can to provide housing for people who need housing. this lady in this building is paying $800 a month. i don't rent. i

don't need the editorialization about the tenancies. my question is about what the address designation and whether the address designation, sir, on the excuse me, the permit whether the address designation on the permit is correct or incorrect and no, no, no. it's being presented to us that it's incorrect. there is a block in lot number on this permit which describes as both buildings. that is the way this is described. let's say we had a farm in the middle of nowhere and there's no address there would be a block and a tax code. so there does not actually have to be a physical address assigned to this. there is a block and lot number on here which covers both one building, two buildings, whatever you want to call it. it's one parcel number for both of these two properties and that is what's on the permit. so i understand that. but also when in a multi unit building, which certainly this is in a multi unit building, when you're doing work in some but not all of the units

you would designate, my understanding is that you would designate which units the work is being done in. is that not correct? it the city issued it, but we have a licensed plumber who's been in business here for a long time. um, and that's the way they issued the permit. okay so, i mean, can you affirmatively state which units the this work is being done in it first started off in the top unit, which was 476 union. okay 474 union had already been permitted and then there was some leaks that kept happen and so they had to go file for an additional permit to the problem is, is this building is probably built in 1890 before there was any records, before the earthquake. so the plumbing was original. mr. boschetti had heard a huge mess here. and we are just trying to fix the

plumbing. so we hired a plumber who's very good plumber to copper the top unit. then there was some more leaks flying throughout the building. he called the plumbing inspector out multiple times, called the fire department multiple times. but you're not answering my question, which is, which units are does this permit apply to? now? it's my understanding the new permit it is applying to all the units. well but that's certainly not what the permit says. the permit says three units and if you're saying now it's applying to all of them, then we're not talking about the same permit. okay so we have i have two permits here. we have five. we're looking at the one ending in 2000, 584. okay. let's see here, 25, 84. okay. it says

two copper, three units recopying gas re, copper, three units relocate, three water heaters, new flue for the same. so that is the front building because which is the front building. sorry for 72 union street. my apologies. so the front building, the two units are vacant, so they're relocating those hot water heaters down to the basement and then the tenant downstairs is her hot water heater. she's having issues with the water. and so we've relocated that down to the basement or paul is or the plumber is. so that's what they're trying to do. and i think in the meantime, i mean, his he kept calling the city inspector saying he didn't have hot water. so, i mean, the plumber kept trying to go in there to see what happens. he denied his access multiple times, which we have more correspondence about that. i mean, this is just a simple thing here. we want to recapture the building. i understand the

goal, but unfortunately, what we're faced with, you know, the question before us is very narrow. and the question is whether this permit was issued properly. and what i'm hearing is that the permit doesn't include. okay. doesn't include unit numbers, even though this is a six unit building, which seems to be well established at this point. i'm going to defer to mr. green on this. he his department issued the permit to ask him as well. yes but okay. i guess i have your answer. so thank you. thank you. we will now hear from does the planning department want to weigh in? okay. no, we'll hear from department of building inspection. good evening again. matthew green representing the department of building inspection. so this permit was issued work category two pas and two pas is plumbing installation for residential construction with six or less dwelling units

. so work category two pas has three units. copper three units relocate, three water heaters, new flue for same water heater heaters. and so the plumbing code requires an application for a permit. identify and describe the work to be covered by the permit for which the application is made. it did identify the work. describe the land upon which the proposed work is to be done by legal description. street address or similar description that will readily identify and locate the proposed building or work. so. i guess there's a dispute whether saying it's the building 472 union, which covers us, is accurate enough. they call it for the first plumbing inspection. the inspector would have noted which units are being the work is being done in. i have a simple solution. i can have the proper addresses added to this unit. this sorry, this permit, so that it's very clear which which units the work is being done in. i was hoping they would clarify

which units are being done, but i was a little more confused when you asked that question. so i will have to follow up to see which works, which units the work is being done in. so i, i would say that this permit was issued properly on line. it clearly describes the scope of the work, but for the sake of clarity, we will alter the permit. if you choose to uphold it. i'm available for any questions you have. commissioner trevino. i asked the appellant what the impact on him was, and he said the impact was his water heater was going to be moved and from what i understand from the permit holder or from you, it affects three units in on union street, not a unit on nobles alley. well, so it's one it's one a confusion or is there is everybody saying the same thing? it's the one building. there's no dispute over that. it's one

building with two addresses. so i would argue if you say for 72 union, you're you're talking about that six unit building, same as if you say 15 nobles you're talking about that same six unit building. the dispute here is which specific units work is being done in. and we can easily clarify that it would have been clarified by the plumbing inspector when they were scheduled for their first inspection. so even though there for 72 for 74 and for 76 appear to be different addresses, respected by the postal service, at least in the planning department's view, as long as you mention one of them, it covers the entire building rather than it would have been better if they clarified the units. it's an easy fix. these are not these are plumbing permits are just minister approved. they're not like building permits or planning departments. so they go through a long approval process. all

we're trying to do is make sure that the plumbing work is inspected properly and safe when it's done so. so the so when i asked mr. bruno what the impact was and he said, well, it's going to cost me more money because the water heater is going to come from the basement instead of in my unit. it's going to cost me some money. that's not something that you're that you need to hear you can do anything about. that's between him and his landlord, not us. correct? correct thank you. okay president swig. thank you for the segway. commissioner trevino . likewise whether a whether a plumbing is cosmetic appropriate or favorable to a tenant really doesn't it? does that matter to a plumbing inspector? no as long as it meets the minimum

standards of the plumbing code. right. so. so, again, with sympathy to mr. bruno, who may have his cosmetic esthetic being impacted as long as a is installed correctly, according to a compliance plumbing statute, then it doesn't matter whether it's ugly or not in the eyes of the tenant. is that basically it? correct. yeah. it can be ugly and still meet the minimum that was that was the other complaint. i just wanted to thank you for that segway. all right. thanks. okay. thank you. no further questions. appreciated. we'll now move on to public comment. is there anyone in the room who wants to provide public comment on this item? is there anyone on zoom who wants to provide? okay, ma'am, did you want to provide public comment? yes. okay. if you could approach and after you're done, if you could fill out a speaker card and please

use that a copy of the testimony . hello, my name is mary bergeron. and on two occasions, my friend mark bruno asked me to be at his apartment in north beach to wait with him for the plumbing contractor to come to repair a leak behind the bathtub . on the first occasion in june of this year, we waited 2.5 hours and also called the landlord and there was no response. and nobody showed up. i know the agreement to meet was from the landlord's attorney because mark showed me the email. nobody came at all and nobody called. one month later, mark again asked me to be there when a contractor was supposed to come to fix the leak instead of a single contractor. there were two of them and one was introduced as the owner of den plumbing. the other was his employee. also there was mr. boschetti, the owner of the building, and another man who

was mr. piketty's assistant. as we met these men in the sidewalk all six of us walked up into mark's small apartment. it was strange as not one of them walked into the bathroom where the leak was, but into the kitchen where they showed each other copper pipes, where they might be placed throughout the walls of the apartment. when mark asked them to look at the leak, there was silence. mr. dunn said, oh, don't worry, we're not putting pipes in until after you and the landlord agreed to this. mark asked again if someone was there to fix the leak in the bathroom or not. mr. boschetti got very angry and asked the two plumbers for pliers so that he could fix the leak himself if the plumber suggested he not do this, that it was harder to fix than he thought. mark asked again if they were there to do repair for when nobody replied, he asked the four men to leave his apartment, which they did. thank you. thank you. is there any

further public comment? i don't see any. so we will move on to rebuttal. and mr. bruno, you have three minutes. we have the overhead in here. overhead, please. i thought. what? okay i'm starting now. i thought what? mr. paul was going to tell us about this garage photo. this is the one he liked. is that. no, there's no construction equipment in there. or he had special knowledge that this is a very safe environment. but instead, to remind us all what he told us is that's what everybody does. my house looks that way. doesn't that make it okay? but we all know if you're if you're doing commercial fishing, that's one type of law. and if you're having guests come on your boat to go fishing, that's a higher standard. there's a higher standard here than what you might do in your own home. with all due respect to mr. paul, there's a higher

standard because you have six strangers. we actually have five people now living in the building. but anyway, you have strangers living in a building. you don't even live there. mr. boschetti doesn't live there. and should there be a fire there, we're the ones who are going to be affected. so i think it's not fair to just say, well, everybody does it, so it's okay. after all, it's being pointed out that the copper is being done in a code compliant way. why shouldn't the garage where our own city employee inspector dan, uses the word fire, why shouldn't that be code compliant? also all i'm asking, which seems reasonable, is that that be code compliant prior to the installation of the copper piping, wherever it may be. mr. morgan here because there was confusion when i noticed among some of you said i heard him say, oh, no, the copper piping and all the three units that are referred to the three units are on the front of the building. the 472 side, the union side. if that's the case, this is still on. why then is all this copper piping being done? and more

photos from your own inspector, michael allen. all on the 15 nobles side. this is 15 nobles in the beneath me. i'm sorry if you can't see it. that's all new copper piping. it's this photograph that michael allen from plumbing took on the 23rd, i believe, of august that led to him issuing an nof so their claim that it's really on the front and not on the back and it's really there and it's not here. why should we believe people who over the course of four years have consistently avoided the city process? it's not right. and what they're doing here is really a form of harassment of the current tenants, so much so that paul, who's first language is not english. i called up ccd on his behalf because he was so flustered by them just showing up, no notice whatsoever to say that. second, sorry to say that they're coming into his unit to

do that work that you saw. it's not a small amount of work. it's overhead. it's a big amount of work. this is more of it going into the 15 nobles. so it's just not true that they're only doing the front. i don't think they know what they're doing and they just feel like doing a lot of stuff, abusing the fact that we're, you know, doing this all for free and can barely pay our rent and we're just kind of watching them go by and affect our lives greatly. thank you. that's time. thank you. okay. thank you. i don't see i'm sorry. please be seated. we're not ready for you yet. i don't see any questions us. so we will now hear from the permit holder. now we have three minutes. you have three minutes. my apologies for being rude, but this is just . we are just trying to provide good basic services for the tenants for a building that's been 100 years old. we hired a licensed plumber who pulled a permit. my apologies for the addresses not being on there. that was not my job. we hired a guy to do it. he pulled it on

the identified three units. it may have been the top and the bottom unit and the back unit, we don't know. but we will make the addresses, as mr. green suggests, it changes. okay. thank you. are you finished any other questions you guys have for me or. i don't see any questions at this time. thank you. we will now hear from the building department. um um. good evening again. i'd like to add that the garage there is a notice of violations going through the code enforcement process. i disagree with mr. paul there that debris shouldn't be in the garage. it is a fire hazard. there is a notice of violation to remove it. there's also a notice of violation for the work done without permit that we saw in the previous appeal. so those items, i think, are independent of this plumbing permit. i think, like i said before, this is an easy fix.

give me the clarify which three units are being done. i will change the language or i'll change the addresses on the permit. any further units done outside those three will require an additional plumbing permit to accurately document the work being done. i'm available for any questions you may have. okay. i commissioner trasvina. so if i can understand you correctly, you're you're going to ask the permit holder to define the units in which plumbing is going to be done. correct. and at the moment, the permit permits is three units, three units, and if mr. bruno's unit is not one of those three, he if there's any work to be if there's work to be done that needs a permit, it can't ride on that permit. it needs to ride on another permit because this permit presumably applies to

three units, not it does apply to three units. yes okay. if mr. i believe he's in unit number three of 15 nobles, i they haven't clarified which units they are. that's what once they get those numbers, those would be the three units that the work will proceed in. if there's okay there's three other units if they want to do work in those units, then they'll need another permit. okay. thank you. thank you. president swig, i'm confused. too many units too little time. what should we do tonight? please i suggest you deny the appeal. uphold the permit with the condition that dbe updates the addresses. okay. that's simple as that. simple as that. and you'll take care of the other. moving on. i feel i feel a little bit of a shell game just going on. yeah. if they could just list. i'll talk to the plumbing contractor. tell

me which three units you're doing the work in and we'll label that. so so they're going to choose three. we're going to take your advice on that. maybe. i can't speak for the commissioners, but they're going to choose three. and if there's any other work being done in any of the other that are not chosen, is that end of time? are you going to do an inspection of the building to see that there was illegal work done? i mean, unfortunately, we've already discovered in the previous case that that there has been illegal work done in the building. so there is every there should be every potential suspicion. i'm not going to make accusations. there's the potential for suspicion that other illegal work is being done in the building right. you're that's what happens. i'm amazed that they would do it because mr. frutos filed dozens of complaints over the years. they're being closely watched. i don't understand why they won't just do it right is very thorough. but so what happens

here tonight is we potentially take your advice and then they choose three. and then do you go into the rest of the units in the building to see if there has been any illegal work done and. take steps accordingly or if there's no illegal work done, there won't be any steps. well, i wasn't planning on doing all three. all six units. you can you can put that on the condition of the permit if you like that we do an inspection of all six. yeah. no, i'm asking i'm asking your advice. what should we do? because again, you know, if there's a building where they've already was already and i'm not picking on mr. boschetti, i have nothing against him. but, you know, it's just you. once somebody makes a mistake, you got to suspect that there might be another miscue, you know? so so, so, so as your

advice would be to deny the appeal, we'd be granting the appeal. the appeal. sorry and in issuing the permit on three units with the clarification of the numbers, but with another condition that we advise or we require or i need some words here. i'm not making a motion yet. just trying to see the future a little bit. require or advise dbe to inspect the remaining units in the building for any i can have the our senior plumbing inspector in charge of complaints meet with the plumbing inspector, sorry, the plumbing contractor, and specifically say go through each unit and see where the work is being done. yeah, i mean, i would just i've had experience with mr. bruno again, mr. bruno is very thorough. i don't take

everything that mr. bruno takes at face value. like i don't take anybody's testimony at face value. we look at all the, you know, the evidence. but i respect that. mr. bruno will most likely be be eyes on. and so we might as well assist mr. bruno in being eyes on. that's kind of my point is that and can we make make that happen? sure so i'm just trying to noodle this through my head. we you want to go through and clarify which units the work is being done now, but if the work is in the future, being done in a additional unit, how do we know that the work hasn't already been done in the additional units? this is this is part of my confusion. i use the word i'm confused. so yes, sir. just so you know, the last appeal process we went through, we went through appeal appeal to remodel

the two middle units on 15 nobles and for 72 unit union. and those were fully remodeled over the counter remodel because he built them several times. and this is what brought us all down here. so with the condition of us appealing those permits and just to clarify, there was actually really no work done with under mr. machete's ownership, the work that was leaked downstairs. so some stuff was demoed, but there was actually no work. so that's why we pulled this plumbing. the this is what happens when. yeah, i like i said, i have nothing against mr. i'm not suspecting mr. machete of any or accusing any misbehavior but this is what happens and this is this is what happens when an illegal work is done. then the rotten apple ruins the whole barrel. unfortunate i agree with you, sir. all right. and we're not

talking right now because he's he's on stage. and if we have any further questions of yourself, we will we will surely ask them of you. so how about this? we you agree. to honor the appeal? i'm sorry. you're going to grant the appeal. sorry, grant. the appeal. reinstate or grant the appeal with the addition of the proper addresses. but prior to that happening, we have the a representative of the plumbing inspection division walk the building and verify that this work is thanks for that advice. you're welcome. thanks i have no more questions. well deputy city attorney john givner is saying he doesn't think that should be put in the motion. the inspector is going to be going out there anyway to verify that the work was done. so that's. yeah, but the concern is if there's additional work not listed on these right. but i mean, d.b. is on notice now. they can go out any time. um, i mean, we're just focusing on the permit at hand.

i'm just trying to resolve, find, find a way to resolve this whole project. so we don't have to see this building in front of us again. that's what i'm trying to do. okay. yeah yeah. and i'm not being argumentative. i'll take your best advice. i ask for his best advice. i have no advice to offer here. other than i really don't. this is the second time yours truly is seeing this building. this is the second time there's been an issue with this building. on the earlier appeal. we saw it and i saw it four years ago, so i'd rather not see this building again. and make sure that everything is at reaches a point of compliance. and we're done. my recommendation to the board is only that you take the representations that d.b. is making to you about their plans to do inspections, not necessarily include that as a condition of your vote, but that they have publicly stated, mr. greene is publicly stating what their plan will be. and then you can take your vote on on the

permit separately. so wonderful thing. thank you for your good advice, counselor. all right. i have no more questions. okay, commissioner trevino, i'd be happy to follow the deputy city attorney's advice. all the time. and in this circumstance, s if i understood precisely what mr. greene's representation is earlier, you told me that all you need is a single address to cover the entire building. i said that that address identifies as that building. correct. so so, yeah. so one address covers the entire building. why wouldn't it not be in the normal course is to inspect the entire building. and we and as long as we have the as long as i have the assurance that the entire building is being inspected. and then i think i would be comfortable proceeding well, the normal process of a plumbing permit

inspection is to inspect the work under the permit. not all not the entire building. it's very specific. you're getting a permit to recover a unit. you look at the recovering of that unit, you don't go look at the other units. it's but right now, you don't have you don't have the specificity of which unit you have. correct? three gas units, three copper units is that six units or is that three or is it the same three? we don't know. i read it to be the same three, but point taken and then relocate three water heaters. they may be another there some subset of the six. so that's the way so given given the testimony you've heard here and the possibility that you could be kind of doing musical chairs of the units and the water heaters, etcetera? yeah, i would think that would be reasonable for dvi without us telling you and without getting into trouble with the deputy

city attorney that dvi would inspect all of the units on the permit, which is the entire which is everything. so if that's something that dvi can do that it would be good to state it. now well, if the property owner is willing to provide us access to all those units, it's there's like i said, the normal process would be get a plumbing permit. you call for the inspection to make sure the work that was installed is done to code. it's not it's not that it's not like a vertical addition where you have to go through a numerous approval processes, right? we'll just say, sure, you can replace the water heater. we just want to know that it was done properly. so i understand your concern. normally the normal what would normally if this went through the normal process without the appeal at the first inspection, the plumbing inspector would clarify exactly which units the work was being done in and that would move forward. but but you

have as part of this building evidence or suggest that unpermitted work is being done. right? which plumbing work, any kind of work? yeah work. yeah. there's suggestions of that. so it seems reasonable that you would both ascertain whether the work with the permitted work was done in compliance and no other work was being done. yeah, but would you like me breaking it into unit say, hey, there's an allegation that there's work without permit here. we want to look at your plumbing. if there was a record of that or if there's a record of that. yes yes. okay okay. if they were willing to provide access this building owners coming to the city for a permit. yeah you can say yes or no. so it's not a

matter of breaking in. this is not. no. you're asking me to look at the units other than the ones that are going to be listed on this permit. and you have established that. one one address. this covers the entire building. so i would say it's a reasonable interpretation to i, i don't i'm not a dvi expert. we can go to 472. look everywhere for the three d re gases, the three re coppers, the three water heaters and not four, not five. if you put down that you require people to put down three, they could put down one and say, well or they could just say we're going to put in water heaters. we're going to put in copper units, we're going to put in, we're going to recast units . would that be acceptable just to say, hey, we're going to do multiple water heaters if they

if they said we're going to replace all old water heaters in a six unit building or copper, all units, that would be acceptable because it accurately describing what the work they're doing. but they didn't say that. they said they're doing it in three units. so you're saying you don't need to specify if you're saying all you're specifying? no. if you just say, what are no, they're saying three. they're saying three. yeah. and i said, yeah, it would be ideal if they listed the specific units that i said, an easy solution would be for us to add those specific units. so we know exactly where the work is being done and what is to be inspected. so we have here the appellant who says unpermitted work is being done. i think other people have said unpermitted work is being done and i think he said he didn't like the description of the it seems it seems that my colleagues and i want to approve of the firm, uphold the permit, but with some assurance that unpermitted work isn't being done. and i don't understand your resistance as you're

equating your equating looking at all six units as breaking in . and i don't understand the my reluctance is setting this precedence that if you get a, a plumbing permit to remodel the kitchen in one unit of, say, a ten unit building, you'll want to say, hey, you should go look at all ten units to make sure there's not other plumbing being done separate of this state case. but i'm happy to have a plumbing senior plumbing inspector go out there and walk through the building. do you want us to. i don't want to suggest that it would be put on the description of the decision . i'm happy to have the senior plumbing inspector do that and send an email to julie saying that he's done it and then you can move forward with reinstating the permit. i'm not trying to hide anything here. i'm just thinking you're trying to refer to city attorney who doesn't want us to direct you to it. okay. and if you have if we have a working relationship where you hear the complaint from the member of the public and you hear the concern about work, that's not being done,

permit to a permit that if we have some assurance without a guarantee, without putting it into an order, that other units will be looked at for the very thing that's being talked about here, i'm not sure how i got into this argument. i think i already agreed that i would do that. i'm not sure what we're arguing over. well, because i because the deputy city attorney said we should not put it into our decision and we should. we should accept your representation. so i ask, well, what is your representation on? and that's when you started to resist saying, well, no, we don't want to look at all all the units. well, that's when you started accusing that there's work being there's additional work being done. say there's 4 or 5 units being done. may i, commissioner, just a suggestion to maybe break the help break the logjam, if i may. i would i would welcome that very good idea. one option would be to ask

to commit that they will inspect the three units that are named and the rest of the building as well. well, if the property owner consents to inspecting the remainder of the building or if after consultation with his attorney in my office, that attorney advises that the full building inspection is legally permissible. i'm i appreciate your suggestion and i'm happy to accept it. we could also say impose a condition that correct the addresses and that would be the order. and then with the recommendation and the strong urging that they inspect the entire premises. well, i'm just

saying, if we're involving the city attorney, it's like getting complicated. i mean, it's kind of we're sticking to the permit. i don't i'm not suggesting adding a condition to the permit. okay. i'm i'm suggesting that mr. greene can just explain what his plan is, which could be inspect the three units and if the property owner consents to inspect the remainder of the building or if his council, all of his council advises that it's permissible to inspect the remainder of the building under this permit, that that will do so. but at a minimum, the gbi will inspect the three units that are listed in the permit. i don't get that. i don't i don't think that needs to be a condition on the on the permit. just just a representation from dvi. well, this could be very easily resolved. and i certainly don't want to take up the commission's or the public's additional time on this, but i see the building owner or the manager standing up and perhaps

he could help us along by saying he will have. so here's here's the plan. so this all started. we have another permit that was open here, plumbing permit that he missed the appeal date by one day. then we, the plumber, mr. dunn, pulled another permit to remodel to rick copper, the other three units, and do whatever he was going to do. he's a plumber. we're not plumbers. and if need be, we want to pull a permit to correct every plumbing issue in the building. so that's what we want to do. so we want to we met the plumbing inspector out there twice. we went through the building. he obviously went into the other gentleman's unit. so we want to cooperate with you guys. we want to be do the right thing. we want to get the permits out every time we get a permit, he cancels the permit. we stopped work. we told the city we would stop work. we didn't do another bit of work. there so this whole thing with him stating that we did a legal work to begin with was not true because we inherited this

building with these open permits. i'm not i'm not the chair of this meeting. it's a president's wig. but but i sought to get an indication from you that you would allow inspection of the other units in order to push forward this permit. and you can either say yes or no. but one thing i don't like, and we've heard it repeatedly, is reference to the appellant's other appeals. this is what i've talked about in other circumstances, about people being being singled out for using their rights under the law to appeal matters. so this is a separate discussion, a discussion for us. so if the answer is yes, you will consent . but i would appreciate your saying it. if the answer is no, you won't consent. i would be happy to. i'm willing to hear your answer. i have to defer to mr. boschetti first before i can make this come up here. we will

consent to inspection of the entire building. and i want to be present. i'm sorry. we can't hear you, sir. can you come up? the reason why we did the microphone? because i have the water department sent me notice. mr. boschetti, we have to hear you on the microphone. i'm very sorry that put you out. there's constant leaking. you know, 16 gallon an hour or. and this and that and the other thing. so that's why and this we have the original guy galvanized pipe from 100 years ago and they spring leaks everywhere. i mean we're just trying to do what was what we can with with an old building. we can. would you allow access to the plumbing inspectors to inspect all six units next week? yes and i want to be with you. so we expect the entire building and we will we'll we'll just give our you

know. thank you, mr. boschetti, for your cooperation. yeah. i mean, the water department constantly sent me notices with the phone and at home, my i dress that we have 17 gallons an hour and this and that. you know, we just wanted to fix this problem since since california is a desert and we are short of water and it doesn't rain. can i can i make can i make a suggestion? we'll i'll get your contact information today and i want to be present and we want to inspect all the apartments now there were. okay. so 3 to 2 of the apartments. okay thank you. we need to move on. we have a suggestion. is i'll get mr. sorry, i'll get mr. boschetti contact information at the end of this hearing. we'll arrange an inspection for next week. i will have julie have the inspector email you with the thank you very much for both of

your cooperatives. thank you so much. you can be seated. commissioner is this matter submitted? that's a good idea. okay. who would like to make the motion which has already been presented as at the advice of the dv. okay. i move to grant the appeal on the basis that the permit was not properly issued and also to reissue the permit with the requirement that the three units in which work is to be performed be listed on the permit specifically, and that all unit addresses be listed on the permit more broadly. i'm sorry, what was the last part? and that and that all unit address. i'm sorry that all unit addresses be listed on the permit. generally but what if they're not getting work done? i don't understand for sorry, i should have been more specific for the address of the property. all of the unit addresses should be listed for the scope of work.

the specific unit addresses that in which work is to be performed and should be listed. okay, so we're talking about this particular permit. does that make it too complicated? i can scratch out that just sounded like you were talking prospectively and we're just looking at this permit before us right now. so you want to grant the appeal and issue the permit on the condition of be revised to require that it be updated to reflect the three addresses that are the subject of the work. yeah, i'm fine leaving it there. okay. and on what basis are you making this motion that the permit was not properly issued initially without this information? okay. thank you. so on that motion. i'm sorry. on that motion, that was a motion by any other any further discussion commission honors seeing none. call it, please. okay okay. can i go ahead. so on that motion, vice president lopez. commissioner trasvina, i , commissioner epler i, president swig i that motion carries 5 to 0. thank you. we

will now move on to item number five. thank you so much for your patience. this is appeal number 23. dash 031. bowler versus san francisco public works bureau, urban forestry subject property 1322 1324 ellis street and 1335 laguna street. appealing the issuance on june 16th, 2023 to saint francis square cooperative of a public works order approval to remove ten significant trees on private property with replacement of four on ellis street and approval to remove one street tree with replacement on laguna street. this is order number 208224. note on august 2nd, 2023, upon motion by commissioner lundberg, the board voted 5 to 0 to continue this matter to september six, 2023. the appellant requested the continuance and other parties agreed on september 6th. upon motion by president swig, the board voted 5 to 0 to continue this item to september 27th so that one all parties can submit a brief and to the board office

can send new notice of the hearing with the correct addresses for the subject property. this motion was made for the following reasons specified by commissioner lundberg. the initial notice provided by public works for the underlying hearing was incorrect. the notice of the hearing sent out by the board office was flawed since it relied on the incorrect address on the public works order and the permit holder submitted a brief at the hearing and the appellant did not have the have an opportunity to review it. the board further requests that the appellant determination holder and buff meet and attempt to collaborate on a resolution. so we were resetting the process. president swig so this is like a new appeal, is that right? each party gets seven minutes to present three minutes for rebuttal. all i think that is what we resolved at the end of the last hearing because it was such a. so we will hear from miss bowler first. it welcome miss bowler. you have seven minutes. yeah can you hear me? yes, i can. uh well, at long last. and i hope you're feeling okay. uh, members of the board

and president swig, we're meeting now on unsettled, unseated and central land of the rama acres alone to consider the removal of 15 poplar trees lining the southern edge of saint francis square. it's self built. on some of the land that was also taken from its residents back in the 60s. for redevelopment. as part of that, these trees were planted here about 50 years ago along the southern edge of the square in the square along the southern border next to the row of the poplars is a parking lot for the residents. along its eastern boundary is quickstep lane, a

cement pathway between the parking lot and some of the residences that leads into the interior of the square at the street entrance. it is marked no trespassing, as is the entrance to the parking lot. however it's understood, at least by local neighbors, that the square is open to foot traffic. there's a bench on the lane facing the parking lot and the row of 15 poplar trees on the left stretching off to the west towards the ocean, to the world . and this is where i enjoy sitting, watching the poplars, gracefully brushing the sky as they have been day and night. we after week, month after month. i

used to do the same as a child where i grew up watching some waving poplars lined up there. poplars are often planted in rows to make a good windbreak. well, these problems have now been judged dangerous and undesirable by some of the residents in this square. by summit, the primary school sharing borders with the square at the south west end of the square and across the street, a daycare center and a recovery facility. we have a nursing home signed petitions by some of them regarding the dangers of the trees have been submitted to this board. perhaps it all began with a falling branch, damaging a resident's car in the parking lot. i understand that management has been making efforts to confirm the residents

and all three immediate neighbors feelings about the dangers of the trees. but an atmosphere of fear has developed, which is feeding on itself. so that now the poplars are regarded by some number of residents as menacing and needing to be destroyed, petitioning was limited to the square. residents it has not included the neighborhood residents. parenthetically both laguna street entrances to the senior housing building, which is at eddy and laguna kitty corner from the square are subject to very frequent, extremely strong winds. more intense than any others in the area. the theory is that it's because the building is so tall and the winds coming up the

street from the ocean get blocked and deflected downward anyway. no one is suggesting we remove the building. that's just the way it is. i understand that a lot of signed petitions regarding the trees have been submitted to the board. i submit that this process of gathering signatures must be contributing substantial partially to the atmosphere of fear of the tree limbs falling even possibly the fear of a whole tree falling, an antidote to this sense of danger is available in the very recent arborist report by ellen shea, a well known certified arborist, which concludes foods, quote, no track risked risk assessment has

been done for these trees before any decisions are made about these trees. i propose that a qualified arborist perform a level two track assessment and provide a reasonable management plan based on sound methodology for the city to evaluate and of quote. during our walk through yesterday with the applicants and myself, the appellant an and chris buck acknowledged the value of ellen shea's buck acknowledge knowledge the value of ellen shea's work and agrees that a level two track assessment would be more thorough. so i suggest that this board consider requiring a level two track assessment. so as to evaluate thoroughly the safety

of each of these trees. this might spare more of them, or at least reassure the board and the residents of the square as well as the neighbors that any of those hazards would be removed and further suggest that trimming of weak branches that has been suggested for many of the trees would help alleviate the fears of branches falling on the walkthrough, chris buck used a wooden mallet to sound out the trees for hollowness and used one of those metal pull out tape measures to stick into holes to show how deep were any holes in the trunks of the trees. thus we were called upon to use our own eyes and ears to get how diseased or just defective each tree was. thank you. that's time . thank you. i don't see any

questions at this time. yes, commissioner trevino? yeah thank you for. for your testimony. i have a, i think a short question for you. you were describing your walk through the with mr. buck and seeing the hearing, the hearing, the hollowness of the tree and seeing the trees up close. we didn't have those pictures before this hearing prior to at the earlier hearing. and i'm wondering what impact if any, having that walk through has on you or your your concern about the safety. you're you're on mute. we can't hear you. no,

i don't think she's on mute. i think you were just getting ready to talk. i don't know. no, i see she's on mute. she just unmuted herself. sorry okay. sorry. please go ahead, miss bowler. yeah uh. i didn't. i didn't need to change my impression because the five trees have been agreed upon to remain on, and the others to be removed. uh i would like it. were more trees to remain than that, if possible, and thought that the. the evaluation, the track evaluation might straight might clarify and help some more of the trees to stay. thank you.

okay thank you. we will now hear from saint francis square cooperative. welcome. you have. seven minutes. good evening. all late night tonight, huh? you guys work really hard. thank you for all that you're doing. so my name is connie ford, and i'm on the board representing saint francis square. um, i want to briefly state what i was going to say and then we can start to address miss bowler's comments as this. these trees that we're talking about are on private property. de saint francis square is the manager, the property manager of these trees management of these trees we take very seriously. we it not only includes the health of the tree, which is vital and

important, but it also includes the safety of our residents and our neighbors as well as the liability of events that might be caused was because of the trees. our neighbors do include the preschool across the street with little children, the skilled nursing home, rosa parks school. we're all of the kids, not all. many of the kids walk down on ellis underneath the trees and go to school riding their bikes, sometimes with their parents. and on the way home you can see that in the letter that's attached to the packet. at the very last letter is from the principal of rosa parks. and she was so interest rooted in our opinions on this, which we discussed at and that she wrote a very lovely letter really in favor of the work that we've done. our relationship with each other and recommend mending that she agreed with our position. so since the nine six

hearing, we have tried desperately to make sure that we've covered all of the points that were risen by all of you. all of them are concerns of ours as we respect this process. we wrote and filed our brief in a timely manner. it contained the letter that we tried to get in at the last hearing inappropriately, but it's there now. we gathered signatures, as you've heard from miss bowler, about about from residents and neighbors and these three entities that i was just talking about it, they come from all of them that was one of the people who had to leave to take care of her young children. but she was a parent who lives in the square and also her to her one son and her future son will be going there later. and they all support it. we have pages and pages representing their thoughts that they're they're

scared these so we're supporting that then to this let's see this. we've publicized these this hearing tonight every week in our newsletter, we wrote a front page article, a, about the information of this hearing. when it was how to be here, how to voice your opinion. it was expressed to everybody, everybody in san francisco is pretty clear that we're here representing them tonight. um the last thing that we did is we did reach out to miss bowler. we reached out to miss bowler, and she we agreed and we went we went over to her apartment, not her apartment, but her her apartment building and met with her on sunday afternoon for a couple of hours. and then yesterday we invited her along with chris, to come out and visit the trees, the site themselves and all of those

were. and then chris diligently took the time to look at each and every one of the trees and analyze them, showing some of the things something new that he found or that we found is that there's actually a bacteria now, at least in one tree, that you could tell because there's little mushrooms there. i think they call them shoestring mushrooms. and anyway, that that bacteria actually targets the roots and weakens the tree even more. three arborists have said to us that these trees are unsafe and should be removed. both the two that the square hired and the arborists that represent you in the city, they said there was poor structure, rot and decay present. all are planted too close together for at least two of the decaying pockets have debris pockets that are some of them six, eight, ten and one is even three feet long.

these are the stabilizing trunks that are becoming unstabilized. the last thing i want. well, i already told you about the japanese. i'm sorry. the bilingual program in in rosa parks and the attention that the principal's giving this issue. so we urge you to deny this appeal and let us go back to our business. the one thing i wanted to say is that we in our meetings with the appellant, we agree to basically on one thing, and that is to remove or remove or drop the street tree on laguna in terms of our permit. so we both agreed to do that. but that's all we agreed on so far. and we really urge you to deny this appeal and let us go back to doing the work of keeping our neighborhood and friends safe and replacing the trees when we can. yeah, i'll

just quickly add one of the things i was going to say is that because it was mentioned at the last meeting that we show community support, we did a petition, not digital, we did handwritten one and we obtained over 125 six signatures. and the people who supported public works bureau of urban forestry approval to remove the ten poplar trees where members from our housing co-op, rosa park elementary school families, staff and teachers and the members of japantown, such as members of a church, the neighborhood organizations such as the members of the japantown task force and workers who work in the neighborhood, and the phoebe hearst school family teachers and staff and as mentioned, we've been in discussion with the rosa parks parent advisory committee about having more cherry trees planted because their grove, where they've planted reached capacity and so we'll work to set up a memorandum of agreement to work out arrangements for that for

the japanese bilingual program they have and lastly, we and many others are hopeful that you'll deny the appeal and allow us to replace the disease and dying trees with healthy trees that will thrive for decades. thank you. i have we see. i see a question from commissioner lundberg for you. thank you very much. it's obviously you've put a lot of work into this. and we on this panel certainly appreciate it. i'm remembering what mr. buck submitted in his papers and i'll ask him the same question later. but of the ten trees that are slated for removal under this permit, it did occur to me that that. of the ten, it sounded like a. five

could be replaced rather than the four that was in your previous plan is that in accordance with what? with what your understanding is as well? well, we have been talking about that. and so, yes, we accept the five replacement now. we upped it for one, trying to compress lies with the appellant, which hasn't happened yet. okay so just so i'm clear, the saint francis square is willing to do five replacement as opposed to four, which was previously allowed in the permit. okay in this space where the ten are in the space where the ten are being removed, correct. okay. plus the cherry trees. thank you. okay okay. thank you. i don't see any further questions. we'll now hear from the department evening commissioners , chris buck with san francisco public works, bureau of urban forestry. i'm just going to pull up a powerpoint.

good evening. thanks again for the opportunity to return. it didn't go well several weeks ago and i won't repeat a lot of what's been covered already. but i did make a point prior to connect ing with the appellant d.o.j. bowler not knowing if we would be able to connect with her. i just kind of did a kind of inflection on what are some things that i can do in the meantime to move my own appeal forward. just identified pretty quickly ten measures that seemed reasonable. i wanted to demonstrate that we listened and that we heard your feedback loud and clear at the first part of this. so that's contained in the brief. a big part of what i wanted to do also is just take more time to your disadvantage to try to grasp the condition of

ten trees over for this format without a brief in advance. and we've submitted that material. it contains in the exhibits our original staff presentation that occurred in may at the public works hearing. but also i went back on september 16th because i could tell from the feedback i was i was receiving that some of these images weren't really kind of revealing some of the defects that the trees clearly had. and one of the things i did when i returned is i brought a mallet, which is old school technique, but you can hollow i'll show a demonstration in a moment. you can sound a tree just like when you're trying to find a stud on a wall with with that sort of regularity before you go punching a hole in anything you can, you can determine. okay there's nothing behind this drywall and so that's what i documented when i returned on

the 16th, as well as just taking measurements. there was a request for more specific how much decay is present during that process? i discovered that tree ten, though it had bark on the outside, it simply flaked away on me. that tree is in your jurisdiction. when there's an act of appeal, a contacted julie rosenberg to state that there's so much decay on that tree that i just need to post it as an emergency. when we met on site yesterday, the appellant agreed that we could move on to the other trees that we i had proven my point on that tree. but again , going from where we were three weeks ago to then saying that one of these should be removed as an emergency, it was not taken lightly on our part. but at a certain point when information is brought to my attention, we have to act on that. that said, provided the additional documentation, we'll get to the replacement tree plan in a moment. we're not going to have time to go through all these images. this evening, but

just again, showing the public right of way is from face of curb to 12ft in. that's designated in the monument maps. the city has. this is a location of the subject, trees and the proximity of the parking garage for the first three trees would remain on. i'm not worried about wind exposure for these trees are very tall and already very exposed. the street trees would remain adjacent to these trees. so tree one, two, three and 14 and 15 don't have decay. they don't have the issues that we identified with all the other ten trees. the issues that these trees have are relatively predictable. after 40 to 50 year lifespan, i would say these trees were very well maintained. had they been topped two years ago, these trees would have needed to be removed decades ago. so again, we stated that this species doesn't grow to be that long lived. we've really gotten the max time we can out of these. we've denied five of the trees based on their

individual conditions and one of the things i wanted to show was just that, you know, to the layperson, an this might look like, oh, this is cute. this is where birds and wildlife can can live. and that's true in a forest, but in an urban forest, it becomes a public safety concern. so i did measure this cavity here on tree number five. and we'll just pull this up, linking it to a google just to show there's no trick of the tape measure. this one went in without even the probe. i just was able to literally put the measuring tape all the way in 30in. without doubt, breaking out all the decay first. so literally 30 inch amount of decay at the base of the trunk, decayed wood has no strength holding capacity. so too much decay means the tree becomes structurally unstable and unsound. the only other video i

want to show, just to demonstrate what what it sounds like when there's a cavity in a tree is this video here? this is the old school technique of using a mallet to listen for hollowness. and let's see, this will just take a second. so again, we did this through all ten trees and found that there's extensive decay as we knew. but i just wanted to provide additional information so that there's a little bit more reassurance about the need to remove the ten and that that was our final and best offer as we sometimes say, while that's loading, we'll get on to the replacement tree plan in just a moment. this will be the last video that i show when i was sounding out some of these trees. i had a neighbor across the street approach me and literally say my goodness, does that mean it's hollow? that's taking a while to load. i will

move on from that in the interest of covering more ground , we believe that removal of the ten trees is very reasonable. this is a property owner who's trying to manage their property. they've done a good job managing these trees over the years. they've never been excessively pruned and the reward is that the trees lived this long to begin with. this is the emergency, just completely full of decay. and this is what the tree looked like prior on the left a year ago in september. but once i started sounding that the bark flaked right off as additionally the roots on some of these trees. you sound those are also hollow and then i did find armillaria root rot armillaria. mellea. it's a very decay. 30s. it's a decay pathogen that rott's trunk tree

roots. so so with that, regarding replacement trees, we started with three among this row we have existing street trees. i was proposing one tree in between, but i think we can get up to two trees in between the street trees to bring it to six on alice and one around the corner on laguna for a total of seven. thank you. that's the end of the seven minutes. thank you. thank you, president swig. and then commissioner lundberg. thank you, mr. buck, for a good rally back to getting us all informed and with your diligent study and great explanation. you mentioned that there have been three study done, arborist studies done, and then the appellant mentioned a stage two

study. i've never heard that terminology before for my sake and that of the commissioners. can you describe what a stage two would be? but it also sounds , is it really necessary to do a stage two or any other inspection, given that you've already had three arborist not too mention you walk ing, as we've all seen and seeing a lot of rot and justification. but tell us about stage two. and regardless of what it is, is it really worth it? sure. thank you, commissioner. the qualification in so there was a arborist report. i would call it an arborist feedback regarding two reports. so on september 20th, just about a week ago, ellen shea, who full disclosure , is a friend of mine, i've worked with her since 2000 and various capacities. i respect her work. she didn't produce a

report that assesses the overall condition of all the trees, but she did find fault with, i would say, some of the old school approaches to assessing risk and risk management. it doesn't mean that they're wrong. it just means that there are a number of different ways to go about quantifying how much decay, how much risk exists and what those targets are are ultimately, i agree with the recommendations of most of those two original reports. i agree that and i agree with ms. bowler that there is some parts of those original reports where, as an english major, i thought the writing could be a little bit better, but the kernel of the truth was they ultimately said the things we the property owner, was looking for flagging them as potential public safety concerns . so the track, the tree risk assessment qualifications that's administered by the international society of arboriculture, i've served as a

proctor and exam administrator for the isa for a number of years. my team has that the track qualified citation level to assessment is when you are taking tools like a mallet or a probe and you're physically doing more with the tree. it's not just a visual exam. nation. our team looked at the amount of decay and felt like, well, this is clear. these trees are in senescence, they're declining. we think this is a reasonable case for removal. we're going to notify approve ten, but after our hearing, it was clear that there was some doubt among either commissioners or the public. and the information and the lack of information that we provided. so i don't believe a track level two assessment using the tree risk assessment qualification form, which we have and we can do two, is going to give us new information on. i would do it if it would provide good additional rio assurance, but i'm not at essentially what i did on the 16th was the same

level two measures really exploring, taking measurements, talking about the extent to which those trees are decayed. and i just want to point out respectfully that ms. shay and her report recommended the track. she didn't have the benefit of reviewing all of our information. she didn't have our as far as i know, our staff presentation and or my presentation that was submitted . so i think it was fair feedback for her to provide in her review of those two previous reports. so thank you for the question on that. thank you. president swig. i was going to ask president zweig's question. i really commend your answer to provide some assurance to ms. bowler and to others and to educate us on the on the track inspection, whether one's better than another. so i really that very much helps me pursue process this all of this information. i had a question about the and this is from i

believe this was in the saint francis square brief. if the gallinger report from 2015. it's an exhibit a, it describes the laguna street tree that at that time was considered a potential hazard greater than average recall amended removal or replacement. are you familiar with which tree that is? and i'm wondering with the with the process going forward that you're recommending whether that tree still stands today and whether it would stand or if it's one of the ten that's going to be removed? thank you, commissioner. i noted that to and read that and had the same kind of red flag raised up. i don't think it's the same tree that we're dealing with on laguna. it may have been another tree, but i don't think it's there was a lack of specificity with what which tree? this this refers to. so i don't know if there's a direct connection between that 2015 report and that tree. and the other subject

, tree and laguna, i don't believe it's the same tree because the tree on laguna, look to be in better health. a couple of years ago. so and there's 15 or so trees out there. so i that didn't i don't believe that relates directly to the tree on laguna that said i will take the opportunity to say that i believe a reasonable amendment to this permit would be to drop the removal of the street tree on laguna. it's the response ability of public works are inspector was well intentioned and in saying this tree is real hazard or it's starting to really decline, why don't we include it so that we can do it all at once? yes, but due to the address issue, i think it's just confuse the matter. and so one simple suggestion is that we drop that from this permit application. public works will still need to just begin a new posting period with that and it

will. i can commit to a 15 day hazard notice, meaning it wouldn't be an emergency. 15 day hazard will still allow the public to protest if should they wish to protest a tree that has cracks in it. okay, this is very helpful. thank you very much, commissioner lundberg. i echo the comments of my fellow commissioners, and i really do appreciate the thoroughness with which you presented your written findings and as well as your your oral presentation today, because it is my understanding that in order to change the replanting plan, that we would have to grant the appeal. i want to make sure i really understand what your amended replanting plan is, because i heard you mention seven at one point, but i'm not totally clear as to where those seven are. so i just want to ask for some more clarification on that. thank you, commissioner. the

originally when the permit was approved by public works or recommended for approval, was removal with ten, with replacement with four three trees on one around the corner on laguna. that spacing was based on our street tree spacing where we really want to plan for the full mature size of the tree at maturity. the subject trees are poplar trees. they're very columnar were planted very, very close together over or over the last month and a half. you know, obviously there's great desire to replace as much canopy as possible. so i thought we could plant an additional tree between on the existing street trees that got that up to four on our site visit literally the other day. if that was yesterday, i think we can do two replacement trees between the street trees so that we have six replacements on alice and the one replace tree significant tree on laguna.

so it now is would be my the recommendation of public works would be to delete the tree drop the tree in laguna the street tree and grant the appeal with the modification of dropping the tree on laguna and on the condition that six trees future significant trees be planted on alice and one future significant tree be planted on the laguna frontage for a total of seven. why would we include the laguna tree if it's no longer if the removal is no longer part of this permit? great question because there's available space . so it wouldn't really it wouldn't be related to that street tree. public works will remove and replace that street tree. but there is space on laguna for another future significant tree to be planted that would still be part of the same parcel of property. thank you. that's. would that be a street tree or a significant tree on laguna? you just called it significant, but we're going to drop the street tree. we

propose to drop the street tree from laguna. the removal of a street tree on laguna. there is available space for a significant tree on private property to be planted on the laguna street. private property along laguna street. okay thank you. and i do have a quick question because the order originally said that you were going to replace four trees on ellis, not three. you just said three. i just want to make sure we have the numbers correct. four trees. one, two, three. what ever the original order said was what the original order said. we originally there was going to be three trees on ellis plus the significant future tree around the corner on laguna to get us to four. okay. because just the order reads a little differently. i just want to make sure. so now you want to put six trees on ellis, replace six on ellis and one on laguna and those would all be in property as future significant trees. just just so i'm clear the tree

on laguna is not one of the ones being removed. it's just there's a space to plant a new one. there is a tree on laguna, a street tree. that's the maintenance responsibility of public works. but that's the one that's being removed from. we're going to delete it from this application. and public works will would remove and replace that tree, starting a whole new process. okay. but directly adjacent to that tree on private property is a gap, a potential planting space. i see. so it's directly that's why the confusion. okay. it's adjacent. yeah. i just never had. so that's at 1335 laguna to you would say that is that is a site that's pretty much next door to 1335 laguna in our in our tree database 1333 or 1337 i would say we had it before as 50ft north of. 1335 laguna, but it

would be a significant tree on private property near 1335 laguna avenue in our tree database, the street tree itself is listed as 1355. laguna just to clarify that. thank you. okay thank you. we will now move to public comment. is there anyone in the room who would like to provide public comment? mr. carnes, please come up to the microphone. yeah govtv. we have the wrong appeal number showing it should be appealed number five, item. number five. thank you. thank you, miss walsh. everyone wants to get this address wrong. it's like. it's like infected or

something, you know? see alec, could you pull my thing up here? thanks. so do you want to start now? one moment. alec is. we need to get alec set. oh, okay, great. thanks so. so yes. hi. my name. i'm not sure when to start. go ahead. okay. hi my name is lance carnes. i've been working with trees and with with buff for four years as a as a just a as a resident. i'm glad i got to come up here right after these people spoke because i heard pardon me, but at least 5 or 6 factual errors, especially the tree on laguna that i believe mr. buck is trying to foist as the wrong tree. i don't

know why he's doing it, but as you can see here, i have a table i can show you of. these are all the trees on elm street, the poplars overhead, please. overhead can you see that. no. oh, a little light. maybe you can zoom out a bit, please. okay. thank you. alec. these are all the poplar trees speaking the mic. please pull directly from the public works database. and as you know, little overwhelming to look at, but the main thing is they're all 13, 20 lots and there's 15 of them. and when you map those using our friend google maps, it comes out looking like this is even though it says 1320 elm street, it maps

to quickstep lane. can you speak in the mic? unfortunately, our our arborists are not very good mappers and i'd be happy to help out. but they never asked me because. because i know, i know how to use longitude, latitude, which they do not. so the other thing that someone mentioned is a significant the trees, the poplars, they said, are significant, are on private property. they are on private property, but they're called signify trees. and they're under the rules of article 16 of the city code. and i had another arborist walk with me through the trees and he said, oh, you know, these trees were topped about when they were about 15, 20 years old. so that's probably a reason for why there's a lot of rot. and let's see, how do i

step through my thing here? the computer, please. yeah. so here's this. no one mentioned this, but i believe it was jenny . september 21st. these three trees were marked for emergency removal. mr. buck didn't mention that, but it's significant thing you don't go around announcing trees for as emergency removal on a whim and you can see there's a there's a posting piece here that's here's the here's what it says. emergency tree removal. notice there's a part of the city code called article 16, which covers urban forestry 30s emergency trees remove walls is a very special thing and there's no such thing as an emergency tree removal.

notice. the code is very clear. i'll show you. you guys are. you guys are pretty smart. this is the article 16 code on emergency removal. and basically what it says is if you see a tree that's about ready to fall over or damage some property, get rid of it right now. and then later you can tell us why. okay. thank you, mr. carnes, your time is up. is there anyone else? there's no one else in the room for public comment. but on zoom, megan bowler, please go ahead. yes. good evening, everyone. um i'm presently on different time zone, so it's very late here. i'm glad to get to speak with you. um i want to share, uh, first the concern about the climate of fear that has been created about the so-called public safety of these trees.

and while of course, none of us would want to see branches fall on children or on senior citizens in this area, there are at present the only evidence we have that has been shown to you is. as one one branch on one car and as someone said at the last meeting, the only way to one of one of you in the board, the only way to prevent branches from falling is to not plant trees. so this is, you know, all of the really understand there's a parent fear, but we don't have evidence which gets to the second point i want to make, which is, um, we have lots of evidence that the evidence that has been given us is faulty and it is inadequate it and i really recommend that you look at what ellen shea carefully prepared.

what we have is an outdoor arborist report from 2021, and that does not use the track method. i do not understand from what chris buck just said that he we still don't see a document that does this track method which is very different than the what that arborist report from 2021 did it did a process which valid which is a rating that values tells us the value of that tree. that's why they rate it 1 to 100. but even the ratings that that arborist gave indicated that the majority of trees, ten of the trees were above fair were above 50. and yet he wanted all of the trees removed. so that's just one of many instances stances and so it seems to me there's a lot of discussion now that is getting away from the fact that we need

a track assessment. why is there not careful documentation portion of the health of each tree? and i say this largely as time. yes. as a principle. it's just a principle. we cannot have, you know, on the basis of fear. communities come and say, i want this gone or i want that gone. this is about a process. and a legal process. and we need evidence. thank you. okay thank you. we will now hear from karen . kai, please go ahead. you need to unmute yourself. karen kai. yes, yes. thank you very much. um, i'm in involved at rosa parks elementary school and i also have done a great deal of work in the japantown area of on the planning that's been done for the last of about 20 years.

so i've had a lot of opportunity to work with saint francis square. um, and i have to say i really respect what they've done. i think that when i have ever had to deal with them on a tree issue, they've been very cooperative, very supportive and , and, um, i have actually worked with them on siting trees and planting. and i believe that the beauty of the square is due to the dedication of the residents of the square and that there is a wonderful, thriving ecosystem there because they are good stewards and they take care and they don't do things as just willy nilly. they really do make an effort. and i think mr. buck's presentation, um, which

was very informative, if not a bit alarming as well, um, brought that home that they have identified an area that really needed attention and have carried this out. um in a way that i think they've tried to be responsible even if they've on occasion made a misstep. they have made every effort to be responsible. and that's borne out by the testimony that was given here today. so i hope you will allow them to go forward with their plans, whether it's. the six tree replacements. i think the main thing hearing the issues is that, yes, there's really evidence that there are conditions that need to be remediated by removal of trees and that we can trust that saint francis square will take care and do the re plantings that

will maintain the beauty and the health of the ecosystem in the square. thank you. thank, thank you. is there any further public comment? please raise your hand if you're in zoom and you want to provide public comment. okay. i don't see any further public comment. oh let me see. miss bowler, you already spoke so you can't speak again. we're so we're going to move on to rebuttal. and so, miss bowler, you have three minutes. oh uh. you you just muted yourself. you were unmuted. okay it was unmuted, so i'm okay now. yes, we can hear you. thank you. uh did not know i was going to get an additional three minutes, and i was longing to say at least one thing, which was that at the

our gathering. uh, let's just yesterday, uh. chris burke said . and, uh, he proposed that with the removal of the trees, a replacement of 3 or 4 significant trees would be required along the geary street side of the square, and that would begin to make even the number of replacements less, uh, to the number of removals. uh, and he showed a map of where along the edges, but inside the

property, those trees would be placed. and i think that would be a very good thing to happen. uh. thank you. are you finished ? i i just want to thank everyone, uh, for their courtesy and care that they have taken on to, uh, do the best they can for the residents of saint francis square, as well as the public. uh, so thanks for your time. thank you. so i don't see any questions, so we will now hear from saint francis square cooperative. you have three minutes. it's getting late. i don't want to be long, but i just really want to say that when we had the tour here with

chris yesterday, tree by tree by tree, those decaying pockets were at least 30in, if not less, 24. they were scary. and then we saw these these pockets and the roots that just showed how unstable the trees have. and honestly, i'm not a tree expert . i love trees, but i really didn't it sort of sunk into my bones that we were not being in good manager of these trees and our friends. so i once again, i just urge you to deny the appeal and help us move forward. okay. thank you. you still have a little did she have time, alec? yeah. you had two minutes. three minutes is up. oh, gosh. nothing further. okay. thank you. i didn't know you wanted to. oh, no, i was just going to say. yeah, it was a little disturbing to see the. the tape measure go into the trees is anywhere from 8 or 10in to almost three feet.

and to see the mushroom, the shoestring mushrooms as evidence of root rot. so anyway. oh and by the way, somebody came out while we were doing and as often has been happening, a lot of people have been asking us, what's the progress on getting the trees removed? and one of the neighbors parks in the garage right there. and he showed a photo of the large crack in the floor of the garage that runs parallel to the trees. it's maybe 25 foot long track that could be related to the roots. okay. thank you. we'll now hear from the bureau of urban forestry. good evening, commissioners. chris buck. we'll try to keep this brief if listen to the feedback from the public . and i do want to thank everyone who's been involved with this. the application was received, i believe, somewhere in the neighborhood of a year and a half ago. and i do want to assure the public that. and i think something that ellen chase

wrote in her report, again, that was received just a few days ago, this sense this i felt like it was a little bit off on the tone, but it stated that that public works didn't have the benefit. you know, that that we were relying on reports that weren't using best management practices as and i just want to assure the public that when we get an application for anyone to remove a tree, we got to we have to evaluate that tree individually. a report submitted with an application is just shows that a property owner is managing, trying to manage their property, get guidance on that. so that was one thing i really wanted to point out. like no, i want the public to understand and people can put all kinds of reasons on why they may want to remove a tree. and then we go out and look at the actual site and the tree. we make our own determinations to be consistent with how we've handled similar cases. so just some reassurance that i'm not seeing the climate of fear that i know some in the public feel i'm not. there's no

pressure on the city to come up with a certain decision. this permit has been going on for a year and a half. that's not a climate of fear. i i think that one tree we found, i found on my on the 16th is just a bit of a wake up call that we need to move along and then i do want to just address mr. khan's comments about emergency removal. it is true that we're not required to put an emergency notice on a tree in advance. that's just a courtesy that we prefer to do. we prefer the public to know ahead of time. no one likes surprises, especially not around tree removal. our code doesn't preclude us from being proactive and actually putting notices on the trees ahead of time. it also takes the owner for several days, maybe even a week, to secure a contractor to get out there and provide the quote and go through the process to hire someone. so nothing going on there that that we haven't been doing before. and then lastly, we do appreciate that mr. khan's

a great advocate for the urban forest and we can look at xy latitude, longitude if there's an issue with that. we're open to correcting that. and so we listened to his feedback and appreciate that. thank you. i don't see any questions. so commissioners, this matters submitted. okay, let's start in the middle. mr. trevino, you want to get this started. i i heard earlier the language about granting the appeal for the purpose of, of the, the new version that the city and saint francis square have agreed to and i would want to see that language better formulated by by julie then perhaps me although i heard the laguna street removal would be taken out of the

application an and the appeal would be granted with six significant trees to be as replacements on alleys and one significant tree on laguna. and i believe that based on everything we've heard tonight and everything we've provided has been provided on the record, that's the appropriate disposition of this matter. okay mr. lundberg, thank you. um, i want to state for the record, i'm really happy we did this rehearing the way we did it. i was skeptical of it initially. we at our last hearing and i'm really glad it it came out the way it did. i think we got a lot more information and i'm much more comfortable making an informed decision today than i was three weeks ago when we were here last. um, i also want. to say i find having heard several tree cases in my time on the board, you know, unlike all a

lot of the other types of, of cases we hear, i'm not afraid to say on the record that i have a bias toward the trees. the trees are always going to be what i root for and i you know, i'm not afraid to say that. it's i think , a greater good sort of issue. and i definitely i also want to acknowledge, uh, especially after reading ms. shea's report that was submitted by by ms. bowler that i did find her report quite compelling, actually. and i think mr. buck did as well. um but that report unfortunately did not necessarily support the conclusion that the tree should not be removed. it simply supported the proposition that a, the initial arborist reports perhaps weren't. uh, weren't as thorough as they should have been. and frankly, when i read that initial arborist report as

compared to several others in previous cases that we've heard had similar thoughts, not being a tree expert myself and not being an arborist or ever having written an arborist report, but having read several of them, it did seem somewhat deficient to me as compared to previous case arborist reports that we've reviewed and received and consider. and that being said, i don't think that that ms. shea's report gives sufficient reason to actually deny actually grant the appeal in full and prevent these trees from being. from being removed and replaced. but i'm also, you know, i'm also very pleased that the replacement plan has has shifted pretty significantly and includes several more trees. i'm

pleased to see that saint francis square agreed to that. and that we are kind of maximizing we have the opportunity to kind of maximize the replacement trees, which again, is a bias. i will always bias toward is replacing as many trees as possible. and if we do have to remove trees, planting as many new trees as possible in their place is again always a bias i will bias toward, but i am. i'm satisfied that the replacement plan as presented by mr. buck with the six replacement on ellis and the one on laguna, is a pretty significant shift from where we were three weeks ago. and again, bias being toward more trees and as little removal as as is feasible here so i wanted to say all that i'm you know while i never like to see any trees

removed i want you know obviously to, to uh, you know, if they have to be i'm pleased with where this came out, all things considered. i, i was during the first hearing, uh, inclined to, to deny the appeal . however, i do think that this has been a very fruitful process to have continued this. and the reason i think so is because we finally got to the process that we're supposed to do at the very beginning. that process is not just in terms of briefing reports, which i gave the full information that that we needed in order to make this determination more fully and more comfortably. but it also usually involves the community tensions between parties and the communications between the parties and the city that are necessary to try to get to a better place than than where we have started out. and that's where i've gotten to here for, you know, this is the second thing that we've heard tonight

on which we had a continuance and that continuance resulted in a better outcome. frankly, i think in all of our opinions for all parties involved, and we're not going to continue everything that comes before us. so i think this is my appeal to the public in general and to the city to make our lives easier, because when you make our life easier by providing a fulsome case and giving us all the information we need and having worked with in reference to another case that we heard tonight, clean hands in order to solve problems, then we can be quick and expedient, both in terms of your time here in this in the first hearing and without having to have a subsequent rehearing, because we've had to continue it because we've been grasping at straws. i'm going to vote to support the motion that we have tonight. mr. lopez, have you anything nothing to add. okay. commissioner trasvina, you seem to be wrestling with a motion, so why don't you continue and finish it

and then we can vote? thank you, president swig. i will go out on a limb and try to get this done . granting you're a better. you're better than what you said before. would you like me to paraphrase what you said before? yes. thank you. okay and i also might make the suggestion that you correct the address on the order, because right now the order says 1345 ellis street. it should be corrected to 1322 1324. ellis so that should be a condition i that i recommend. i believe that's an important addition to the to the i would i would suggest that you follow her direction. she's really good at this. yes. okay. so we have a motion from commissioner trasvina to grant the appeal and issue the order on the condition that it be revised to require one, the correct addresses, namely 13, 22, 1324. ellis to that the six that there be six replacement significant trees

replaced on ellis and three that we omit the street tree on 1335 laguna from the order and lastly that we put one significant tree at the area adjacent. to 1335 laguna and what is the basis of your motion perhaps public safety this is addresses the public safety concerns. it the appeal is granted based upon public safety and the. for further. the further record that has come before us at these two matters. i'm sorry. and the entire record that has come before us at these matters. oh, okay. okay. so on that motion, vice president lopez, i, commissioner lundberg, i

commissioner epler i president i . okay, so that motion carries 5 to 0. and that concludes the hearing. good night, everybody. good night. thank you.

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>> this meeting will come to order. welcome to september 28, 2023 of public safety neighborhood service committee. the clerk is mrs. carroll and like to thank sfgovtv for staffing the meeting. do you have announcements? jb the board and committees convene hybrid meetings. the board recognizes equitable access is essential and will take public comment as follows, public comment taken on each of the 7 items.