they bought a 3-unit building and they want to turn it into a one 1 unit with a tiny unit. but butt that's my struggle personally on this based upon our policies and trying to preserve housing stock and the fact that there are so many affordable units in the market. i feel it's something who bought the building, if it was once a single family home and maybe we can wait 5 years and do the same. that's the challenge i have with it. not specifically per say what the outcome is in terms of the size. we've seen cases where you make it 3,000 square foot unit and give us a studio of 500 square feet. that's the struggle. >> i just wanted to respond to a couple of your comments. the studio unit that is in the front of the second floor that is being maintained went from gross square footage loss to 44 square feet. but it gained functionality. it's definitely small. it's 300 square feet. it's a studio and it has access to the foyer and elevator and garage, parking and storage. we are in essence improving that studio unit. i want to make sure it wasn't looked at just sliding this. unfo

two units available to merge into a larger unit. >> okay. so, to make your legislation, connect the dots for me. how does this save rentals? or affordable -- what are we trying to do here? >> according to this incentive for units to be demolished or merged and converted. one of the ways is if there has been a no-fault eviction or there is a disincentive, you can't evict a tenant because you're not going to be able to actually make a conversion of the building or merge units in the building or demolish the building in the future. so, it could actually work to preserving the tenants and the rental stock in those building. we're also making sure that where a property owner does want to make improvements to nonconforming units, that a building where there are conforming units, that they be able to make those conversions and to actually stabilize that overall property and making sure that we're preserving rental property in those units that are nonconforming to be able to become a higher standard, but also make sure there remains -- maintain thei

we did explore keeping the rear unit as the maintained unit and we did explore trying to maintain a unit on the ground floor as you suggested because of the nature of the beast which is a couple trying to build their home for the long-term. there was a few non-negotiable items from the husband's perspective one of which was a library that opened up that was way from everybody else in the family. that's not for you to care about, but we did explore that. it didn't make sense for this project. >> maybe i can ask some questions. do you have any comparison of similar cases. every single family house is very different. but if you can just give us some perspective on whenever this sits on other mandatory dr cases you have seen. >> i will defer this to washington. >> we evaluate this case based on the criteria. essentially they that had majority of those particular findings to support. as far as trying to job my memory specifically on projects where we have had residential alterations that resulted in creation of a unit that was substantially smaller than what may have been the original configu

basically in a four unit building you can expand two of the units but not the other two. this would allow you to expand the legal nonconforming units provided that you don't expand the building's envelope. unless there had been a no fault eviction in that building. does that help? >> yes. my other question is you said merger in two units. what exactly -- >> so, that would occur -- say you're dealing with the same four-unit building and an owner comes in and has purchased two of the units and decides to combine the two units into a larger space. perhaps -- in that case either the unit would need to be empty to do that or there would need to be some sort of eviction processo

, at a minimum one unit to be affordable unit. that's my point. >> i don't think -- >> i am talking about it as a concept. i am trying to understand that something, whether anyone agrees is another question. >> that's the problem, there are potential conflicts. if you want to prioritize the scale as a major issue here, well, something has to give. >> right. >> so -- you know. >> i have to say -- >> can that still make it financially rewarding to the developer and if they use an affordable unit, the marsh is happy and the neighborhood is happy but the affordable housing project is not. he was not guaranteeing them anyway, so there is not an issue here. >> that wasn't an issue for me anyway. the question of affordable housing versus inplace is a circular argument and never been answered. >> i agree. >> i have to say that knowing people that had bmr units it's not actually that affordable, truthfully. it isn't. i mean you still have to pay the h oa fees. that keeps going. it's not really affordable. >> well, i have one for sale now.

and once that unit is reoccupied by a landlord, it has to be that same unit in the future. it cannot be another unit unless they file a petition, i believe, with the rent board. and, so, i think that not all -- when we think about property owners, it's not all property owners are equal. there are definitely some who really struggle who have no choice but to maybe rent out another unit for the extra additional income, but may not have [speaker not understood] they want to put the unit on for the duration that they're living there. so, i would like to he see if supervisor avalos would be amenable to either removing the prohibition of the owner move-in occupancy or reducing the moratorium down to maybe half of what has been proposed today. >> supervisor avalos, do you want to respond to that or do you want to continue it down roll call? >> i would entertain the idea of reducing the moratorium from 10 to 5 years for omi evictions. i think that could help us and show that we're treating omi evictions differently in this legislation, which i think would help it to be stronger and

it is zoned r2h meaning it can have two units with two secondary units, two granny units. a month after the new planning code was adopted in 1979, the planning department inspected and found four units. they said okay as long as it is two families we don't care how many units it has. today 34 years later the property is rent controlled and has still the same four affordable units. however, beginning in 2004 the building and planning department decided that i as a new owner and not the original builder who purchased the four unit building had installed a new kitchen. they filed an abatement against the building, billed me for a fine which i paid and then have continued to harass me, telling me i must remove two affordable rent controlled units. i have repeatedly pointed out this is in violation of their own stated principles of not removing affordable housing installed on improved -- on approved permits. they have posted a lien against my property. i cannot sell it or refinance since i could not refinance when the loans were 1 and 2% during the downturn. the harassment has

is the united states was probably going to realize you can just buy. your own just throw it away this equipment for instance belongs to the united states environmental protection agency and i found as one of them say here this is your computer and ways to. produce a visa. when i should be able to look at these i believe that vision responsible for their products from cradle to grave. from mexico. mental health from america incorporated it also belongs to the washington metro area. properties of a dallas trades. and trademarks. with an economic crisis all over the world and france deserves to get out of the crisis and deserve to have back all the people who are leaving the country to go and work in other places and it's very sad to see that and it's really like that like the land was no lights. why is the price of gold so high. demand global demand do you think oldest money. the value of the only place we have to live of the water that we need to survive it's not compared to i mean gold we're not going to eat gold we're not going to be . we're not going

the landlord hats evicted us to get out it's going from 4 unit to 2 unit. it's like the ellis act was to allow the owners to evict and build something new. the seniors in order to get huge profits it's a dislocation of longer san franciscans to leave the area and drive us into homelessness. those tenants are being replaced by new conforms >> thank you, very much. >> thank you very much. >> thank you supervisor avalos for our proposal. >> tom director of loveable city. thank you supervisor avalos. we have a huge for a moment crisis and when you're in a hole we need to stop digging and this was mentioned before really catch the planning code criteria policies up with the housing elements criteria policies that favors keeping housing and those dpaelt towards housing issues. on the questions of group housing we brought together a few different definitions of demolition. the article 7 and 8 that was covered in mixed youth districts they include the demolitions and article 317 that covers the other districts of city doesn't include groip group housing. we want to

is that unit or buildings. that's buildings so somewhere in the place of 1500 units. i was off. we figured that from all of our previous statistics from the lottery and what we had been through. we thought there was somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 buildings available to convert come july 29. and i think the first day we only saw 12. 12 applications. >> right but 550 units is a lot already. >> buildings. >> buildings. >>genically we multiply by 3 or 3.5 to get the unit count. >> thank you. >> sure. >> commissioner sugaya. >> this is a dumb question but the 20,000 is per unit. >> correct. not a dumb question. >> commissioner antonini. >> let me see if i understand this correctly. one of the restrictions was that the participants to be eligible to pay the money and to be able to convert had to be in line as of april, 2008. they had to be already tic owners in a compliant situation. and anyone who got into something like that after that period of time will not be eligible for the conversion to condominiums. >> no, that's not correct. the first year it's that 2008 time frame. st

states to be neutral and then because of these treaty commitments the united states may find itself having to do something that it really doesn't want to do go ahead john. as you point out the united states you know professes to be neutral it is kind of secured its position in the asia pacific region as a so-called honest broker and so it has tried to do this at the same time of course it has allies so it's very difficult for the united states to actually be an honest broker when it supplies south korea with a tremendous amount of military so. court as i said surpass supported japan for some time provides taiwan with a great deal of military support so the honest broker position is actually rather difficult and yet at the same time we have seen china and japan as well as china and some of the countries bordering the south china sea come to some agreements for instance over oil and gas exploration under sea and these agreements i think could be the kind of core of some agreement in the future one of those agreements was just back in two thousand and eight around the. island and we've

states the president of the united states also took that oath and has breached it so badly that he she but arrested and charged with treason right now and ultimately all of the sycophants of the u.s. congress who passed things like the patriot act and the national defense authorization act again completely contrary to the u.s. constitution which is supposed to be the suturing call law of the land these people need to be arrested and a government needs to be put in place that actually owners the u.s. constitution and our i honestly believe that's going to happen one way or the other it's going to happen but you just started your answer by saying that the revolution is already happening and then you won by citing every like for example the n.s.a. leaks right you kind of touched upon that nothing's really changing within american society i don't see people coming out in the streets and protesting even though they know that they've being listened to even here a plug at give up yeah there they express their outrage at the fact that they have been listening to including the president's but n

again united states has never ratified that we have the the cluster munitions weapons ban again the united states has never signed on to that the mind bans united states and signed on to that so when we actually look at these various international agreements we can talk about all sorts of like the covenant of the social economic cultural rights again you know united states never signed on to that you know we actually find that here could be said to be the you will of the international community but we find that the self-appointed spokesman of the community haven't actually signed on to these important agreements majeed you want to jump in there. you know i think a few days ago i was i usually follow the news also from not only from the west and also news outlets but from the eastern one and i use the term international community is used in the if you. media particularly press t.v. or so it's being used to really i think you can say loosely across the board but again i think. i think the term is without doubt is a western concept which was you can say of course world war two legacy. which b

those are not in law units. typically ass those are non-conforming unit that are built before our laws that were built in the city and the age of the opt are prominently rent control units. there are nearly 52 thousands of those units e.r. 52 thousand of the cities stock. we have a map i have it here that shouz shows the units are they're all in the core of the city but throughout san francisco. again 14 percent of overall housing stock a 3 unit building in an rh unit the owners because designate two he thought units at the conforming and one as non-conforming and the building owners are still allowed to pick the non conforming unit their usual the most undesirable ones in the believe. they have the urban affordable housing and the planning code doesn't allow those unless the work will eliminate the housing unit. this ordinance will allow four africans to those non-conforming it is to preserve those for rent controlled housing. currently because the aefls are prohibited but the removal is loud the current code c

on hill street 13 units, 1,000 valencia street, 11 units, directly across the street is 18 units. 907 valencia 28 buildings and adjacent it has 52. so constructing 12 units is consistent with the area. next i want to touch base on design. >> can you, sorry, i don't mean to keep interrupting but if i don't i will forget my question. the square footage, what is the total? that might be helpful too. average size of the units. >> i believe our average unit size is somewhere around 560 square feet to 700. >> so the full 700 times 12 would be? we are looking at? >> yeah. >> okay. thank you. >> so, with regard to design, one of the allegations that have come up is that this project has a very stark modern design and that it doesn't fit in with the rest of the surrounding district. however, this is contemporary and not a modern style and regardless there is a range of modern structures within the area. the neighborhood both are very diverse architectural style. this has been noted in the project ceqa documents. it includes 23 valencia almost directly across the street from the property, again

is the massive infusion of money since two thousand and one the united states has spent i think over a five hundred billion dollars on intelligence during that period and american officials have long claimed that you know the main outcome of that exorbitant spending was the lack of any. additional catastrophic terrorist attack but of course many other countries achieve the same result for much much less i wonder if these. you know all that spending has really led to any increase in efficiency of operations or rather what they've had possibly an opposite effect because we all know that when money is not an issue efficiency is usually not the first concern well i would disagree with you i don't think it's exorbitant spending at all when you look at what happened in the united states on september eleventh to have two of our biggest buildings in new york knocked down the pentagon attacked and another plane that was heading for washington d.c. that was very appropriate spending and i think we've seen the results of it you mentioned other countries other countries are not the target that t

this one you are allowed as many units as you want with the height limit but some have to be larger units? >> the theory behind is and it not the two districts. it's all the districts across the city. it's beyond just eastern neighborhoods. essentially you are correct, before and other parts of the city based on the per square footage basis so 100 units per 800 square feet per property. in these districts there is no density control, however there is a dwelling unit requirement. 20 percent has to be two bedrooms and 30 percent three bedrooms. it's not filling five or 6 stories full of studios. we want to make sure there is a diverse housing

as the united states has adjusted to the fiscal realities that we have in the united states but i think it's been money very well spent i don't think it's been exorbitant whatsoever we are a big country like russia where we have a global intelligence service because we have interests all over the world we have more threats you know i think it's interesting it might be interesting for your viewers you know the way the united states sees intelligence is different than when we saw it in the cold war while the soviet union and the united states were sort of pitted against each other in a sense it was an easier intelligence mission because russia is a very large of the soviet union was a very large nation state within embassies and armaments and the rest whereas today's threats are stateless international terrorists they are political writers of weapons of mass destruction so the intelligence job is a little bit harder here today in the post cold war era than arguably it might have been in the cold war absolutely mr allen this is a good point but you just mentioned russia and russia is also

force unless it's authorized by the congress of the united states unless the vital interest of the united states are imperiled in some way or other and unless the american people are united over this intervention as you may know i was against the iraq war when president george w. bush took us to the iraq war while i favored the intervention in afghanistan after the massacre of nine eleven i did not believe the united states should stay in afghanistan and try to reform and remake that country according to our ideas and our ideals i thought that was a bridge too far for the united states i've opposed intervention in syria because i'm not an admirer of the regime there but no vital interest of the united states was threatened in that civil war so in each of those cases and frankly since the cold war ended i have been against a most of the american interventions because i didn't see them as directly related to the vital interest of my country nothing in my country was threatened our people were not threatened and so i did in i don't think we ought to be out trying to remake the world in our i

between europe and the united states. without getting too detailed and too involved in the role of the law. i can say from an economic perspective and a relationship a business perspective it's clearly an inincredibly important tool. and allows far huge amount of trade and important relationships that consumers benefit from and that businesses benefit from. and it became a target in the conversation. i started to say in september and i said just last week if it was an easy target but wasn't the right target. if we want to focus on government surveillance issues we should. or happening through rules or adequacy determination or any other mechanisms for cross-border transfers. that is where the conversation should have happen around the appropriate scope of government surveillance. what i've noticed and frankly the e.u. commission issued report on first step in the report on safe harbor. and i think that this conversation i've been engaged in as well as others. i don't want to say i'm the only one. it seems to have gained r

this one you are allowed as many units as you want with the height limit but some have to be larger units? >> the theory behind is and it not the two districts. it's all the districts across the city. it's beyond just eastern neighborhoods. essentially you are correct, before and other parts of the city based on the per square footage basis so 100 units per 800 square feet per property. in these districts there is no

are 3-unit buildings and they want to merge the units and that's how we slowly chip away. that's the challenge. we are trying to figure out a compromise where we are going to consider allowing you to merge down from a number that you are but still have a unit that is at least a good size standard that will remain at some point on the rental market theoretically. our job in the city and county of san francisco is to maintain the housing stock in san francisco and that's where we are coming from. again you you bought a 3-unit building, not a single family home. that is just a fact. actually it's rh 3 and you changing the form isn't condonding. >> it was originally constructed as a 2 story unit. that is what is the prevalent for construction. if this is where we've gone from the 50s to the 60s which had a high incidence of families and lowest in california and possibly united states. so by not allowing larger units to be created because we are not building a lot of new houses with larger units, then we are only exacerbating the problem because there is plenty of smaller units

administrator and twice voted to filibuster his nominee as the united states -- united nations ambassador. i don't understand -- or should i say i don't know what the majority understands the word -- quote -- "unprecedented" to mean, but this certainly isn't it. this, mr. president, is why the truth matters. as of november 21, when the majority leader claimed that there had been 168 nominations filibustered, only 56 cloture votes on executive or judicial nominations had ever failed, and only 17 of those filibustered nominees have not been confirmed. the crisis that the majority claimed turns out to be a myth, a tale for the fiction section of the newspaper. this is why the truth matters, and let's not forget what the majority did on november 21. rule 22, the one that provides a way to end debate, is a written rule, a time-honored rule. it says what it says. and it says that ending debate on any matter before the senate with the exception of rules changes requires three-fifths of all senators. it said that on november 21, and it says that today. the technical term for what the majority lea

important inare the united states.they become real connectors between brazil and the united states. one well-known company that has five subsidiaries in the united states. they are here because this is a big market, but this is also a place of innovation. i wanted to just remember something president dilma rousseff said exactly one year ago in her last interview of 2012. she was asked about this business of the fiscal cliff that the united states was going down. not manage their fiscal affairs and govern themselves. she said, i don't believe that the united states is losing importance in the world. quote, as ist a read this so many times. then she said, the united states ana country with extraordinarily flexible economy , with a great capacity to reinvent itself. -- united states is moving is the country of innovation and is something that she says, value very much, and we have to pay attention to. she repeated four times the word "education." there is a debate in the united states about the quality of education, but t

the western backed forces there rebels are basically they've dissipated they're on the run and the united states is talk thinking about talking about dealing now with the national islamic front that's in syria right now i mean what do you think of that before. well i mean i think it's dangerous because we don't really know who the rebels are and i also think that it's not clear exactly where where the peace talks will go you know i mean firstly we have to figure out whether we want assad to stay or not and i don't think the united states has a clear idea of the us and it's not clear whether assad is going to stop his war with with the civil war in the country so you know the one hand we have massive war civil war going on inside the country and the other hand it's not clear whether who is backing who and what rebels are working with so i think the key thing now is to get assad to stop bombing his own people and have saw and stop the civil war one studies done then you can have a discussion about where the country goes next where they're ok sweetheart leaves but he waited in haiti and some

this one you are allowed as many units as you want with the height limit but some have to be larger units? >> the theory behind is and it