. >> howard elman, i have just a couple points in rebuttal. i don't know, it's my fault, i don't know whether any of you are lawyers and it's probably a good thing that you are not, i guess. the doctrine of latches has been introduced -- yeah, merchants of misery and paid pessimists, that's what we are. latches has been introduced and it's been completely misrepresented as to how it works in this case. what we're complaining about is the new permit that is based on a foundation of what appears to be illegalities, a combination of a little bit of that while we work on that and then a little bit of that. if you take away the foundation then our argument doesn't fly. but i respectfully submit that having reviewed the files, it does. we also have this business of the modification. when there are practical difficulties involved, this is 104a2.7. san francisco building code. when there are practical difficulties involved in carrying out the provision of this code, the building official may grant modifications for individual cases. the building offic

president and members of the board, i am howard elman representing the appellant, carol seligman and we are, the other appellant has granted us his time so that we could have a little bit more it make a coherent presentation to you, because there are some complex issues. what we're asking for is that you revoke the permit that's been issued and require the permit to correct all the nonconforming uses. our appeal is supported by testimony from fire experts jim mcmullen, mr. moony who is here tonight, the state fire marshal for 7 years. he cannot here to testify as an expert tonight because he is testifying in some expert out of the city. mark moony has equally strong credentials in the packet presented to you. he is here tonight and able to speak on those issues and answer questions. there's a lot of issues in this matter and it's complicated. i would like to focus on a few short ones, ones that are easy to understand. there's a studio apartment in this building that's a nonconforming pre-existing use. the plan before you proposes to enlarge and relocate the studio in violation of the