Transcripts For SFGTV Board 20240704

Presenting. Corey representing the Planning Department. Kevin birmingham, acting chief building inspector with department of building inspection. The board request you turn off or silens phones and Electronic Device said to not disturb proceedings. No eating or drinking thin hearing room. The boards rules appellate s permit holders and respondents are given 7 minutes for their case and 4 minutes of rebuttal. Must include the comments. Members not affiliated have up to 3 minutes each and no rebuttal. Time may be limited to 2 mntss if the agenda is long or large number of speakers. You will have a verbal warning 30 seconds before the time is up. Four votes are needed to grant appeal. The board rules or hearing schedules email board staff at boardofappeals sfgov. Or g. Sfgovtv iscasting and streaming live and have the ability to receive Public Comment. Sfgovtv is providing closed captioning for the meeting. Go to sfgovtv. A link to the live stream is found on the home page at sfgov. Org. Public comment could be provided in person, zoom, go to the website and click on zoom link under hearings or three, telephone. Call 16699006683. Enter 841 [speaker speaking too fast] to block your phone number when calling dial star 67 then the phone number. Listen to the Public Comment portion for your item to be called and dial star 9 which is equivalent of raising your hand so we know you want to speak. You will be brought into the hear tg when it is your turn. You may have to dial star 6 to unmute. You will have 2 to 3 minutes depending on the length of the agenda and volume of speakers. Our legal assistant will provide with a verbal warning 30 seconds before the time is up. Dollar is delay between the live proceedings and what is broadcasts. Therefore it is very important people calling in reduce or turn off the volume of tv or computers otherwise there is interference. Any participants need disability accommodation or Technical Assistance make request in the chat function indiscernible or send email to board of appeals sfgov. Org. The chat can not be used to provide Public Comment or opinions. Please note well take Public Comment first from those physicallyprint present in the hearing room. Well swear in all those who intend to testify. Any member may be permitted to speakif you intend to testify and wish to have the board give your testimonydo you swear affirm testimony is truth whole truth and nothing but the truth . Thank you. If you are participant and not speaking please put your zoom speaker on mute. Commissioners, we have one housekeeping item. The appellate for item 5 at 1345 ellis street requested this matter continue to september 6. The determination holder agreed to the request. We would need a motion and ill call for commissioners, motion . I move to continue item number 5 until our september 6 calendar. Okay, any Public Comment on this item . Please raise your hand. I dont see any Public Comment, so on that motion, Vice President lopez, aye. Commissioner trasvina, aye. We are moving to item 1, general Public Comment. This is a opportunity for anyone who would like to speak on the matter within the boards jurisdiction but not on tonights calendar. I see one hand raised in zoom. The phone number ending in 5936. Please go ahead. This is for eileen please go ahead. Eileen boken following up on last weeks hearing indiscernible the appeal based on 4 tower design, however the Zoning Administrator the quite part outloud. The lot size is too small for a tower design. Also, both the project sponsor and the indiscernible use ceqa as the rational for the appeal, even though the law has been overtly hostile to ceqa for many years. Am i missing something here . In addition, 2700 slope directly across the street is 2700 45 avenue. This is the site of the united irish cultural center, known as uicc. At the july 27 hearing at the Planning Commission, the uicc project was approved. One of the main concerns was creation of a special use district. Concerns were that if uicc project was designated as a special use district, that would set a precedent. After the Public Comment was closed, a commissioner asked staff if the uicc project would effect the 2700 slope deliberation or result in a precedent. Staff deflected and replied the special use district is limited to the subject lot. Since there was no followup questions by any commissioners, since the question of setting a pres dant was not answered, this created the perception it would create a precedent and if designated a special use district, would this add another layer of complexity to already controversial project . Both project sponsors share the same law firm for land use issues and finally, the conditional use authorization for the uicc project had exemption as well as Floor Area Ratio and rear year exemption. Thank you. Thank you. President swig, did you want toi see your name up. Is there other Public Comment . I dont see further Public Comment. One last call. Please raise your hand. On july 12, this board had Public Comment for mr. Joshua clip related to the followup of the appropriate followup by the department of public works on a couple of mandates that accompanied findings by this board in the past. Im making this comment for the publics information and to call the publics attention to mr. Clips letter and then what fallowed from dpw. That is the purpose, or else this would be formally calendared for today. So, this is not discussion, it is just ai want to make sure the public is aware of this item. Our sensitivity as a board is that, when this commission has the finding and there are special circumstances attached to that finding, which require an action that we want to make sure that theres follow up on the action. This is any action, this is not restricted to the items in question. Mr. Clip was concerned that dpw did not follow up on these items and soin a diligence fashion this commission called the city attention of dpw, and asked dpw to make a formal response which they did in the form of Public Comment and want to call to the public attention that dpw created a document which is now available for the public to read in response to mr. Clips item and i also like to thank the dpw for their swift and thorough response to mr. Clips letter. And thats it. Okay. Commissioner trasvina. Thank you for that update president swig. It is good to know that the department has responded and it is available to the public. I want to inquire if i could about a another letter the board wrote with regard to the matter on treat. We wrote to supervisor ronen and various city agencies and i wonder er whether we have received response . It is a ongoing item through many departments and we did not ask for response, but it was advisory that went out to just about every department in the city because everybody has a piece of that pie, and we are leaving it to the Supervisors Office to coordinate a effort with their constituency to followup on that item since it is out of our jurisdiction. Thank you very much. Thank you. We will now move to item 2, commissioner comments and questions. Commissioners, comments, questions . Seeing none, lets move on. Sorry. Couple of things. One, i have noticed a uptick in Public Participation in board of appeals meetings lately and want to thank the general public for that. I think it contributes to our Decision Making process and allows us to really hear whats going on, because often whats before us is only the papers that have been submitted and what people argue in front of us, but Public Comment is a excellent opportunity and any different type of case to hear whats often really at stake in some of these appeals, so first i want to thank the general public, everyone hear tonight and at future meetings for that. Second of all, i wanted to publicly assert an opinion and this is just my opinion, and that opinion is and i ask this board leaders to consider this at minimum that i personally am not a big fan of limiting Public Comment to one minute. I think it is not enough time. I understand that it makes our jobs lengthier and more challenging often times, but i read article s all the time about various public bodies throughout california and elsewhere limiting Public Comment to 1 minute per speaker and i dont like it. I think limiting to 2 minutes, which is within the board rules and generally okay if it prevents a 9 hour meeting, but which it often does, but i just wanted to assert my opinion on that and for consideration. Thank you. Duly noted and thank you for the comment. Very important and very helpful. Thank you. Thank you. Is there any Public Comment on this item . Please raise your hand. I dont see anyokay, can you please approach the microphone . Im sorry, can youwe cant hear you. indiscernible im sorry, can you speak into the microphone . It isnt a question and answer time. It is time to give Public Comment. Well i thinkthere is a treat item on the agenda for today. You didnt take it . No. Thats gothe tree item . Treat. Sorry. Okay. It is fine. Okay. Thank you very much for the question. Thank you. Okay. I dont see any Public Comment for item 2 so well move on to item number 3. The adoption of the minutes. Commissioner, before you discussion and adoption are minutes of the july 26, 2023 meeting. Commissioner lemberg and travina. indiscernible if there isnt, ill take a motion. Move the approval of the minutes with the amendment. Thank you. Is there any Public Comment on this motion to adopt the minutes as amended . I dont see any, so on the motion Vice President lopez, aye. [roll call] motion carries 50 and are minutes are adopted as amended. Moving to item 4, 20036, 28612865 san bruno avenue. Appealing the issuance on april 30, 2020, to yin kwan tam family trust, of a notice of violation the violations pertain to excessive demolition of an existing mixed use two dwelling units over ground floor commercial building and unpermitted deviations to the approved Architectural Design this item has been continued and rescheduled several times. The parties have come to agreement and like to grant the appeal and amind the timeline to respond and they submitted proposed language which they like the board to adopt. Did any of the parties want to speak on this . It is not necessary. Okay. Okay, please. Good evening president swig and commissioners. Ryan patterson on behalf of the Property Owners. Thank you to board staff and Zoning Administrator for working with us, trying very hard to get this resolved. Three dimensional puzzle and glad it is resolved, hopefully this part of it. Happy to answer any questions. I think they would be happy to as well. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Commissioner truvina. Thank you and pleased to hear there is a proposed agreement for consideration. I think it would help for the public at least or two sentence description of the departments position and what we are approving. Thank you. Absolutely. Thank you. Corey teeg Zoning Administrator for the plan department. Just briefly, this has been a bit of an ordeal, but in 2019 and 2020 two adjacent properties owned by the same owner were determined to be in violation for doing work beyond scope and creating unauthorized dwelling units. That lead to extended process of enforcement and working with the Property Owner. The City Attorney took action and there was a settlement there. That all lead to finally this year the Planning Commission granted conditional use authorization for to basically bring that entire property into a new legal state and part of the conditions of approval had specific actions with specific timelines and so what we are asking the board to do here is amend the notice of violation not to overturn it or dispute there was a violation but to update the timeline to respond section to be in sync and reference the conditional use authorization adopted so that is all consistent. Can you summarize or paraphrase what the resolution was . What the compromise was or was there any compromise . Dont know if compromise is fair way to explain it. Ultimately what happened is thethere is a total of 6 buildings collectively in these buildings, something on the range of 19 unauthorized dwelling units had been created in a collective development that should have been 12 units. It was more. It was more31. The specific nov today was for one of the buildings and what was ultimately worked beyond scope that was essentially work in a attempt to create unauthorized units and de facto demo and this is captured into one larger approval. Ultimately the Planning Commission granted a conditional use authorization to essentially bring the property back to what it was basically. All the units that had been originally approved for, which is a total of 12, and then some other physical requirements. The conditions of approval have more to do with the timelines around the permits necessary to submit and have approved and do the work to bring it all into a legal state. So there will be 12 units as there were originally . Correct. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. Motion . Any Public Comment on this item before the motion . Please raise your hand. I dont see any Public Comment, so commissionersmatter submitted. Do i have a motion at the recommendation of the Planning Department and settlement with both parties . Not sure im ready to make a motion, just because im reading the email mrs. Rosenberg sent earlier today. It looks like the motion should be to amendgrant the appeal to amend the notice of violation to reference timelines, but im not super clear what those timelines are. There was a pdf attached inside the email. We could put it up on the screen. That would be helpful. Yeah, hold on. I apparently didnt scroll far enough down. That is what the parties like the board to adopt. Thank you, alex. It is page i believe 6 of thei thinkmaybe thats a better copy. Thank you. I think it is page 6 i believe of the nov. They are just changingcan you zoom so we can see the whole page and what the title is . Go out, please. So we can see the top. Lets see the top. Timeline to respond beginning on page 6. They want to cross out that information and add in red. If you could zoom in on the red, that would help commissioner lemberg. Thank you. This is very helpful. Do i need to read the whole thing into the record . No. You can basically just say grant the appeal issue of nov revised to require adoption of the indiscernible that is exactly what ill say. Okay, i wont say it again. On that motion [roll call] that motion carries 50. The appeal is granted with that condition. So, we are now moving item 5 ill announce again that was continued to september 6. This is the appeal number 23031, 1345 ellis street. If you came in late rkts that item has been continued. So, we are moving to item 6. 23030, bruce and deborah macleod. Department of belding inspection, respondent Planning Department approval. 144 25th avenue. Appealing the issuance on june 9, 2023, to frank bellizi, of an alteration permit the project generally consists of replacement of the existing first floor deck and expanding the deck to the rearyard setback line; addition of a roof deck above the second Bedroom Office floor, accessed via four new doors from the third floor office . This is permit 2023 02 02 1229 and well hear from the appellate first. The appellates. Welcome, you have 7 minutes. Thank you. Thank you for hearing this problematic situation. If this isnt the poster child for the Design Review process for residential guidelines, i dont know what is. This should be overturned. Are you going toit is not up there. We see it. You all see it. Okay. This is the invasion of privacy that they would like to submit us to by having this deck and stairs which ride a foot above our 6 foot fence on the Property Line and extended back 12 feet so that we would need to wear street clothes inside our house all the time. So they can use their deck. We have proposed several options of putting opaque glass 6 foot on the side of their north side of their deck. They refused. We suggested increasing the height of the fence so they could push fewer stairs back behind the wall, and they dont want to do that. They have in the brief they mentioned all these meetings we had, we had 2 and a half meetings and a dinner and the dinner was lobster cakes flown from the east coast with French Campaign and two days opened the permit from the city having been granted. It said it is first floor deck extension. It is not. We didnt know it had been applied for. They had talked about sharing plans with us. They talkedthe dinner was to show us the plans, never saw the plans. They talked about termite repair, replacing a deck, and adding upper deck, but saw no plans. We did not see plans from them until their brief was filed. We asked frank straight out at the end of this third meeting half way and he said he had them inside but he wouldnt go into get them, they were a matter of public record. The three meetings2 and a half meetings we had with them, we were trying to convey to them the privacy issue. Go ahead and start putting up these things. This is what it would look like. We have a plate glass wall at the east end of our house. They would like you to think by reading their brief that it is only a stairwell that would be exposed and that the tree, which is huge and leafy would provide us all the privacy we would need. When we have them over to our house on the second meeting to try to convince them about intrusion of privacy, indiscernible this is july, we are already losing leaves. The trees indiscernible in the summer time, not the fall or spring. Certainly not in the winter. When we found out during the meeting at our house the architect had taken a photograph of our tree in december leafless, certainly with exposing the glass wall behind it. And we asked to see the picture multiple times in writing. We have those emails and they would never produce it. Our suggestion of the opaque glass wall and pushing the stairs back so that people rising on the steps would nota person would not be able to see over the side of the Property Line at the corner of the building. This is a twostory wooden wall we have thats they use up to the deck that is currently there. We havethe tree situation. The plans. That they submitted to the city. Thats it. They have trees in the area, but not the tree that is in the Construction Zone, which is our maple tree, which they say in their brief is all you need for privacy. If they build the stairs the way they wish to they sheer off a third of the stree because people will hit their heads coming down. If they move the stairs back that wont endanger the tree which is supposed to be our privacy shield. indiscernible we have trees in the neighborhood that upper tree is at the beginning of our property in the front. The red tree that was drawn in is the Construction Zone maple tree. Never on the plans. Who ever was looking at the plans was not aware that this is a second story deck and didnt have complete Construction Zones critical aspects for privacy, and they included in their brief to incorporate for privacy to incorporate landscaping and privacy screens into the proposal. We had suggested the privacy screens 6 foot opaque screen not acceptable. This is the second story deck picture. So, the city wasnt presented with an honest truly exposed picture of what this plan was. It should be overturned. They want you to also see the stairwell 30 seconds. We submitted this with our brief. They submitted to try to say it is only a stair well where there is privacy issue. We have this picture to see the sight line made by a laser light, which is wherethis is a floor of their deck on the other side of the wall. Here, this shows the height of the 6 person thank you, thats time. At night time. Thank you. You will have time in rebuttal. Thank you. We will now hear from the permit holders. Thank you. Did you want to show it now . Overhead, please. Hello e my name is renauldo jose the architect for the project. I have been practicing arc tectture in San Francisco over 20 years and i do a thorough Code Research and analysis before i start my design work. I voluntarily go down to the Planning Department planning information counter seeking clarifications relative to the code and also presenting a list of questions i have relative to the code, especially as it pertains to allowable building envelope. I met with jeff spears senior planner at the Planning Department and there were two questions i asked specifically regarding the building envelope. First, was seeking clarification of location of the rear yard setback. Rh1 zone projects it is 30 percent. Jeff confirmed that the 36 foot setback i represented here is correct. So, this is the extent we can extend the deck to. It is important to note we can also per planning code extend our building up to that point granted it meets the 40x height requirement. The other question i asked jeff is whether there were sideyard setback requirements and in particular once the deck gets past the rear of the neighboring building. For definitive answer he suggested i reachute to one of the architects on staff. I met with david winslow, principle actect part of the Planning Department Design Review team and can make decisions rel toov the residential Design Guidelines. I asked david located the three foot wide stairs, which is this to the rear yard meets the requirements of the rdg relative to sideyard setbacks. He said yes, this meets the sideyard setback requirements with light and air with buffer zone in the side yard. I asked if i could get this in writing as i like to locate on the permit so who ever is doing the plan check review at the Planning Department can see there is sign off by the Design Review team. David asked to send email summarizing the code clarification conversation and his response he acknowledged what is shown meets the residential design guide bp line requirements and i located this email cor respondence on the title sheet. I like to introduce my client frank next to me. Four major concern, property values, views, privacy and security. If you look at the residential guidelines including those on the overhead and in your brief you notice that none of them accept for light and air and accept for viewsexcuse me, accept for privacy and perhaps light and air are set forth in the guidelines as something to be protected. Especially not property value. Even the Privacy Protection provided by the guidelines is partial and indicates it is it the duty of the Property Owner or neighbor nextdoor to mitigate whatever the privacy issues are and we suggested of course to the appellates that they have the ability to raise the fence near where the maple tree is and they have full privacy all seasons when the deck is practically in use, because extremely dense maple tree of course lies on the appellates property along the joint Property Line. Most important, none of the appellates windows face the ajoint Property Line. My clients designed their new deck so the closest a person can stand to the joint Property Line on the deck is four feet. Note please that the stairs from the deck to the backyard will be along the Property Line and certainly the deck will notthe appellates concern seem to be the same as if the deck was built right along the property. Why . They believe a 6 foot person would linger at the top several stairs of the stairway before coming up and can down those stairs and lingering there the 6 foot person would be able to look into appellates rear windows. Views are not protected, youll see the statement from the appellate, which we provided to you stating the view from our east facing wall, plate glass windows, especially of the gorgeous maple tree we have grown for 40 years has always been the principle design focus of the most used room in the house. Appellates state, there are so many features of the proposed plans that individually and in combination would destroy our privacy, views, safety and property values. The privacy features that do exist and will be provided. First of all, i mentioned the tree several times and i also mentioned the deck will not be adjacent to the wall. It is also important to note the rear wond window you see on the inside and outside here has a reflective quality. You will see it in the second photo in the appellates brieff. Jorks you want the overhead . Yes. Overhead, please. What that means is that with that reflective glass window, and you can see it here, even in the winter when the maple tree can be seen through, your view inside would be blocked by the leflexion reflection in the window, so a 6 foot person who is standing at the topperhaps we should put the picture of the person standing on the fence. Would principally look into a reflective piece of glass. By the way,b it is not a view to a bathroom, nor bedroom, and privacy is taken into account by the guidelines mostly when we deal of rooms of that kind. You have seenthis is picturevery important to note of the appellates producing an addition to the Property Line fence, which is at 8 feet. They put up a 2 foot addition, and thats exactly what they could provide. It is entirely in their power that fence is completely on their property. Therefore, without objection we would have none, they could put up a portion of the two feet,b all of the two feet and as you can see from the photos, it only takes cutting a limited number of limbs of the maple tree. With that addition, there certainly would be no privacy issue. Thank you very much. Okay, thank you. I dont see any questions at this time, so well now hear from the Planning Department. Good evening again president swig, commissioners. Subject property here is 144 25th avenue. Zoned rh1 and there is a existing Single Family home there. The Building Permit that is on appeal tonight did come to the Planning Department twice. At the counter both of the reviews were over in the counter, once in february this year and once may this year for reduced scope of work. During that time and then as the Property Owner mentioned, there was previous input with the Planning Department on the design prior to permitting process. Because the nature of this project did not require 311 neighborhood notice, and because it was consistent with the planning code and also consistent with the residential Design Guidelines, it was approved over the counter by the Planning Department. Again, the Property Owner also mentioned on the issue of privacy and how that is addressed in the residential Design Guidelines, it basically states when there are special and unusual privacy situations that that may warrant some additional consideration and actions for projects. This type of project, which is a typical one level deck in the rear that is done in a way to also meet Design Guidelines that is generally not considered one of these special situations. We have a separate deck that says if you have a deck thats just to the nextbasically one story deck, 10 feet or less with the appropriate design and setbacks that generally is approved over the counter. I cant speak to interactions between the neighbors of course, but in terms of the Planning Department review and determination it was consistent with the code and residential Design Guidelines it appears that was done correctly and permit approved by Planning Department correctly, soewe respectfully request you deny the appeal and allow the permit to go forward, but im available for any questions you may have. Thank you. I can dont see questions so well from department of building inspection. Good evening president swig and commissioners. Kevin birmingham representing the Building Department. There isnt much for the Building Department. We did review properly and issued properly and suggest you up hold the permit and deny the appeal. Any questions . Thank you. No questions at this time. Well move to Public Comment. Any Public Comment for this item . Please raise your hand. Please approach the microphone if you are hear for Public Comment on the item and after you are done speaking if you can fill out a speaker card. That is helpful for the minutes. Three minutes. You can speak in the middle. He has a presentation he wants to show. Do you need help bringing it up . Yeah, i got it here. We are a little late to the party. I live 154 25th avenue. Put on the computer. My name is mike here with my wife lexy. We live at 154 25th avenue. We are little late to the party. We learned of activity going on and saw the porta potty with no parking signs about three weeks ago. We got a notice of the appeal two weeks ago through a text from our neighbor. Thank you very much. And then we realized something was going on and started looking into really whats happening over there. Just to orient you, we live in the sea cliff area. That is my home with the blue dot. This is our home, 154, two doors down from 144 where the permit is held. I went over and talked to allison. Knocked on the door, wanted to find out what was going on, if the permit was going to impact us at all. Her response was a little standoffish. She said the plans are online. Ultimately she said she would have her husband follow up, never did. But ultimately she came around to says this should have no impact on you. I started talking more about what the plan was. She said there was going to be a deck on the second floor which does impact us as ill show in a minute. Ultimately she said there will be a glass railing so again, it would be no impact. I texted her this picture and ill show this again in larger scale. I said, heres our view from the back window looks like the deck railing and furniture will block all most completely the Golden Gate Bridge. This is one of the things we love about our house and effects us. She texted me back and said, it will be a clear glass and that was the end of it. Here we are. This is my home at the bottom, 154. This is their home up here. This is their deck where they want to put a deck on the second floor. Here is view one, which is that view of the bridge. Again, thats the night time view from our backyard. This is what it looks like from the east. This is what it looks like from our yard. From the second floor. A glass railing and heres a person. Thats what it looks like with the glass railing. This is our neighbors waiving at us into our second floor bedroom. Then we learn there would be a fire pit and furniture there so we got the fire pit and people looking at the Golden Gate Bridge and likely greenery. Whats to say thats not going to happen . This is not a no impact. This was a very rushedthank you very much for your time. Thank you. Any further Public Comment for the item, please raise your hand. Please approach. Anyone else out there who wants to do Public Comment, because if so, you can just line up. Thank you. Ron, the Property Owner at 168 25th avenue and here to support both the appellates and the last speakers. I believe that this process not with standing input from the Planning Commission, Building Department was a opaque process and not process that allowed comment from the neighbors effected and think the commission should consider in matters like this where there is a nature of the dispute between neighbors for the benefit of arfbd everybody in the community. It would be a very much improved process if there was open transparency for everyone concerned. I did get the notice about the appeal, but didnt get notice about the issuance of the permit. Had i been given notice about issuance of the permit i probably would have met my neighbors for the first time and been able to give input. Thank you. Can you please fill out a speaker card so we have your name accurate for the minutes . Any Public Comment on the item . If you can please approach. Lexy bisby married to mike. I live in the room that would have somebody look right in on us. I just want to say, i just feel this all could have been mitigated with conversations between neighbors. It just we feel blindsided, and we just feel like our attempt to discuss with them actually we were put off. I just feel like with a little conversation we dont have to be here. Thats all. Thank you. If you can please fill out a speaker card as well. Thank you so much. Any further Public Comment . Please raise your hand. Dont see anybody on zoom, so well move on to rebuttal and hear from the appellates. You have three minutes. The architect talked about what he puts on the plan. I can show what he doesnt put on the plan. What he doesnt put on the final set, the plans is the trees that are very much at issue here. He concealed it from winslow and so winslow when he was talking aboutwell, i think this meets Design Guidelines, knew nothing about the tree and knew nothing about the glass wall and without that knowledge how could he possibly evaluate this situation . If you look, this is interesting exhibit. This is their photograph. Im climbing up on a tree. They claim this shows no blockage. It shows i couldnt get up on the tree high enough to get my feet on this 8 foot or this 7 foot 2 line, which is their deck, and if i had been able to get my feet on it, it would have been up this high. And we put this board there to show that 2 feet addition on the deck would have absolutely no effect. We cannot product ourselves from this. The only thing that can happen is by sliding the stairs 5 feet 8 inches back and we have proposed that to them from the very beginning, and they just refuse it. They say, that would take too much space off our deck. So we say, okay, youre worried about your dining room table you are going to put out there and have enough space. All you have to do is put a trap door. There is a picture of the trap door in the residential design handbook on the roof of a building, but over stairs. They could do that and lose none of their space and protect us entirely. They say, now response. No response. I took frank up on the deck and explained it all to him. He said he would talk to his architect about it. We hear nothing more. No reason at all for not adopting that simple policy that would protect the entire problem and we would be done. Theresone of the other things that just kills me. They say we are rarely going to be up there and people are not going there often. When are they not going there . At what time . Are we going to have a schedule when we have to go in and get dressed . It will change our entire way of life having this monstrosity of a deck looking into our window. Thank you. Thank you. We do have a question for you mr. Macleod from commissioner lemberg. Thank you mr. Macleod. I wrote this question earlier and then i heard Public Comment, which is why i think Public Comment is so important. In the permit holder briefing they state that the fencethe Property Line fence is actually entirely on your property, and i heard you earlier suggest that an opaque glass privacy screen. Is there anything stopping you and your wife from installing such an opaque glass privacy screen . Thats on their deck. That is a different issue. Thats not the stairway issue. Thats on the other side of the stairway and that gives them a view also into our house. Less severe then the stairway. Right. We cant do that. We cant put a privacy screen on their property. No, you cant, but what you could do is put it on your property. Why would that not address the issue . Couple things. You put this stairs on the Property Line that invokes the situation of needing a fire wall. The fire wall will come up this high. Right there you got a fire wall now going up 42 inches that will block our view. Now, we are having to put up a privacy screen. Our winter light will be totally gone. I want to say one more thing. They talk about we rarely go up there, but we are not going to know when that is. We are not going to the time of day they will be there. This is a unusualone more thing, let me say one more thing i wanted to stick to what my question was though, which is why building something on the fence on your own property isnt a viable option . That i can show in the second from the photo i just had up. Sorry, this photo. Overhead, please. Right here. You see how high i am, but im not high enough to where their deck is. But to then screen me i would have to be way up there, so if i was to put a screen upim 6 foot so i put a screen at the top of the yard stick. My god, that covers 80 percent of my window wall. Then i get no absolutely no sunlight in the winter. It is not possible. The only thing that is possible is what we suggested for them and that is just move the deck 5. 8 feet in behind my wall and then it is okay. They never rise high enough to see in there. This is going to be dead space anyway. It is all going to be covered with a deck, they are not able to do anything with it. The 5 foot 8 inches do you mean 5 foot 8 inches lower . Laterally. Which direction . Laterally means this direction this way. You are asking to take 5 foot 8 inches off the deck . No, 5. 8just insert the stairs 5 feet 8 inches sooner. If it is inserted 5 feet 8 inches sooner, by the time they rise to the height they could have potentially seen into our deck, we are protected because now they hit our wall. They hit the flush wall and then they can go as high as they want because it is a 40 foot wall. I suggest that you pull out the plans and show us by means of the plans, opposed to trying todo you have the plans . We were never given the plans. There was a exhibit that showedwould you provide the plans to i will have the architect give the plans which were provided as a exhibit i sent to him. Would the applicant come up and show the plans. Mr. Macleod got the plans from me. Maybe mr. Macleod [multiple speakers at the same time] overhead, please. The red mark on that plan is the critical intersection between our house and theirthat is where the tree is. That is where the glass wall is. There is no tree there. There is no tree there because if they showed where the tree was, you would see that the new stairs are going to be blocked by the tree, which means they have to do what . They have to buzz cut the tree. Probably kill it. So, they are eating our privacy just in two steps. The first step is, we get the permit and we now have control. Now saying you got this wonder tree that gives you privacy. Now we got control of the property. Now we under California Law can buzz cut your tree. You lose all your privacy, but there is nothing you can do about it because we can do what we want to with our property. We are left with nothing. Nothing but a complete exposure. And they talk about view isnt protected, but we are not talking about view. View is a two way street. Maybe not through our reflective glass window. indiscernible not reflective glass, it is just glass. It is a two way street. The problem is, yes, it does effect view and maybe view isnt protected, but it is equally effect view in and that is protected. That is all over the guidelines. Even theand the way to fix it. Let me read fromthis is from the residential design i dont think that is necessary. Thank you. Just trying to get a better sense of what is and is not possible here, because we have to decide whether this permit was properly issued or not. We have racked our brains on that subject and what we determined was, other then giving us a 3 foot setback, which is by the way what the plansresidential Design Review recommends in all cases, rather then building on the Property Line, but if you are not go ing to do that, the only way to do it is to move the stairs 5. 8 feet. If you put in this trap door they make fun of, you dont even lose your dinner table guest ability to spread out. You just close the door when you got people seated. All seated for dinner, when anybody wants to go down they just open the door and walk right down the stairs. We have done anything we can try to try to accommodate. I hear and understand that. I will pass to commissioner trasvina. Thank you. Thank you commissioner lemberg and thank you for the presentation. I have three i think quick questions. It was stated that no windows face the Property Line. Of course. My question is, that doesnt matter because your argument is from the new stairs you can see into your house through your window, so doesnt matter which way the windows face it is only 21 inch wall, thats it. Anybody on that deck indiscernible okay, great. Thank you. My second question is, on the issue of the concealment for lack of better word, the tree isnt on the plans. Exactly. Is thatdoes that in your viewdoes that avoid the issuance of theis the relevance about the impact on the tree, or is it onwhat difference does it make whether the tree is on the plan or not . It invalidates the whole Design Review. Tell me why. Because winslow wasnt told about the glass wall or the tree. Deciding that condition from him. Whats the impact of not having the tree on the plan . Thats simple. The reason that that has a impact is because their plan calls for their stairs to go right down the Property Line, but the tree covers the Property Line. They cant implement their plans if that tree is there. So, the tree without cutting the tree, so they hid the tree from the reviewers by just erasing it off of the plans. Whos tree is it . It is my tree. On their property . They complemented us for the way we keep it trimmed and said we really appreciate this. This is such a beautiful tree, but its going to be sliced. My last question is, with regard to your windows. What is the impact on financially, your lifestyle or anything else if you put up a drape that would protect your privacy . Our windows are 7 feet by 6 feet tall. 7 foot by 6. 6 tall, 7 wide. They are over the stairway that looks down. There is no way we can climb up there and pull drapes and why should we have to . So somebody can have a dinner party and guests can be a little more comfortable and they can have a fire pit on a wooden deck. I asked for the impact and you told me. Thank you very much. We have a question from president swig as well. Can you put the plans back up again, please . Overhead. Yes. Thank you. So, i just want to make it clear. Where we have the yellow box you are advocating that yellow box be moved from my point of view to the leftdid you say 5 feet . 5 feet 8 inches. So, basically the stairs would begin approximately where your house ends, correct . No, two stairsif we have a 8 foot fence, two stairs could remain before our house and it would not impact anything. I just wanted to make sure im reading it correctly, because words and seeing a pretty picture is worth about 10 thousand words to me. So, your advocacy is move those stairs to the left 5. 3 inches. Secondly, they have a glass wall, which would be in this case on the inside of those stairs around their deck . We have a glass wall. indiscernible on the deck extension here . Yeah. indiscernible 6 feet high. I need a yes or no answer, please. Please dont editorialize. You had your opportunity speak. I just wanted clarity. Is that a glass wall . Is that how the plan is . To your understanding is that a glass wall, which is clear glass . No. Under the plans it is to be shorter. Under the plans it is too 42 inches and clear. Is it clear . Okay. Does it help youtrying to help you. I know. Trying to help you. Does it help you if that clear glass becomes opaque . That is what we asked for. Great. Needs to be 6 feet high. So, if the stairs cannot be moved, and that glass wall becomes opaque, does thati know it is not go toog make you the happiest, but is it a better resolution for that section of the deck to have an opaque glass wall . That does not impact at all the views from the stairs, which are the more critical views, because those are the ones that are closest to have the best sight angle. I understand that. Im just trying to work with you here and see you know, compromisesometimes you dont get all you want, but just trying to figure out if that would assist in any way shape or form. It is miner because all it does, when they have people sitting on their deck you dont have to hear them and see them as much. Thats not our problem. Thank you very much. I appreciate that very much. Answered my question. Thank you, no further questions. You can be seated. Thank you. We will now hear from the permit holders. Hello members of the board again. I just want to reiterate that throughout this process we fallowed what is in the residential Design Guidelines as mentioned and also planning code. The question about where the neighbors house is relative to our deck, i think this overhead will show it. What is shaded is the neighbors house. You can see that its a threestory building up against the property. This right here is the end of their wall that goes out to the deck and this is the stair going down. Right now they have a 6 foot fence that is up there, this is roughly where their maple tree and they have another tree there and these two trees are on my clients property. Also, in the question regarding trees and plans, as far as i know in terms of planning code, unless its a Heritage Tree it is not protected, and i dont think it is necessarily required in the drawings. A couple things. First of all, we heard the word view maybe 30 or 40 times from appellate and the neighbors who testified, and im sorry they are not familiar with the guidelines that views are simply not protected. I think you could understand from listening to appellate how difficult it has been to negotiate. We certainly tried, we had many many meetings. We didnt think we needed to have meetings with people down the block, because a view with our upper deck with glass we just didnt think that would be a major problem. I wanted to point out that we are not killing the tree and we are happy to have a arborist. There is only a few branches of a foot or two over that Property Line that is a magnificent tree and we are not cutting any. If the Property Owner took the advice of my client and some of you commissioners he would put up a opaque glass addition to the top of the wall. He could make sure it doesnt cut into his tree. It could be a triangle so that none of the tree limbs are touched and the top of the triangle is against his building. Happy to accommodate that in any way. I dont think we heard a good reason why they cant be done. As for putting a glass wall at the side of the deckcould i have the deck drawing . What is being proposed is i think a glass wall here, 12 feet thank you, thats time. Okay, we do have a question. That is not what we are proposing. Thank you. That is what they are. Can you keep that up please . The plan. We have questions from president swig. Commissioner lemberg and commissioner travina. I will ask both gentleman to stay at the podium, please. You know that wedecks are one of our more challenging items, because we are aware that this meets a 30 foot setback. We are aware that it is compliant, and we are aware that neighbors have the option of having conversations to reach a mutual agreement because they have to live next to each other and i always like to remind everybody that why they are winning the game they are losing their quality of life because they will hate their next door neighbor because they get into a consequential argument that could result in disharmony and i dont want to hate my neighbor. That is my personal view and i hope these two neighbors can solve this. So, compliance is not an issue. Yes, mr. Gladstone sat on the board for a long time and understand views are not protected, and i understand that privacy is somewhat arbitrary and we could sit here on this board and we have broad powers and we can look at the privacy issue and suggest some changes. I would rather suggest that that come from the neighbors themselves. It makes it much easier. So, my question is this, why does that stairway have to be there . Asking the architect in a professional fashion. Why does that stairway have to be there and why can it not be moved to the rear, which would take away all the aggravation that is caused disharmony in this case and whyi dont see if that stairwaymaybe esthetically and i want tothats why im asking the architect, because im not a architect, but i also know if you put back the stair 5. 3 feet that you grab 5 feet more of deck on the front side of the deck, and you create a situation where the stairway rises into the back of the deck nicely, and also completely does what the appellate says, which is takes away the opportunity for an interruption of that privacy. Obviously there would still be deck and we can talk about putting opaque or clear glass that would somewhat alleviate that issue, but first and foremost, what is the hesitation of helping them out and moving the deck 5. 3 inches or 6 feet back so it is against the Property Line and not gans against the tree . This here is a blow up of the deck area and i also put furniture in the plan to show what the functions and program is that my clients want as i think should be the right for their deck. There were challenges on this project, because the existing dining room here has doors that open out so limits the amount of space you can actually put furniture as well as the doors coming from the sitting room off the kitchen also opens out. Right then and there a lot of usable Square Footage gets used up for the deck. And then also setting this back three feet from the fire wall also prevents limitation in size. Thats kind of the impetus for having furniture there for their functions of how they want to i see that the Biggest Issue is really the three hour fire wall and the need to separate. One hour fire wall. One hour fire wall and the need to separate. I am going to ask dbi and planning to comment on that on the thoughts with regard to legality and all that stuff. As the deck sits right now, its not next to a building, so that fire wall issue is not as impactful, correct . Or not . Am i wrong . Can you rephrase the question . The deck is planned right now it is against a fence, right . Correct. Right here. And where is the neighbor building start . In the current plan . Right there. Right . So, the importance of the fire wall is from that point again to the left. I dont know whether north, south, east, west. If it was moved 5 feet to theyou are against the building and thats the necessity for the gap between the stairway and the neighbors building. Is that your correct. PerBuilding Code we are required to have the just trying to get your explanation why it cant be moved or why it can be moved and how we could mitigate that and then we can make a decision as to if we make that request of you. Okay. Thats very informative. With that position there, it is against a fence, so the issue related to a fire wall is mitigated somewhat, correct . Correct. Okay, thats important piece. Very important piece. It is also for the deck what i was showing with the doors and furniture. I dont carethats kind of like okay, get a round table and make it differently because you want to maintain harmony with your neighbor. Thats my point of view, which isnt a legal point of view, it is just how can we build harmony. A fire wall issue is something that breaks code. That is my concern. With regard to converting that wall, the glass wall to a opaque wall which would give them privacy, why not . That is a privacy issue. That is not a view issue and i want to clarify that to mr. Gladstone, because it has nothing to do with a view. It has something to do with privacy in which we have to protect. What about converting that part of the glass wall to a opaque wall to give them some privacy and let them think about raising their fence to the approved height limit, which gives them further privacy . Yes. I can tell you the reasons for providing the wall, which is a guardrail. It is 42 inches tall. Why cant that be opaque to give privacy . We could use opaque glass, because the reason for having this assembly in the design is that it eats up the least amount of Square Footage because it is already a got it, but that could be from what it is right now to give them added privacy. We could ask that become an opaque glass. Give themthey said it really wouldnt be their preference. Okay. Where would the glass wall be . Right here. On the rail . Yes. You are not obsecuring light, you are just obsecuring the opportunity for intrusion of privacy. The height of the glass wall is how high . 42 inches. 42 inches. 42 inches, okay. That could certainly be changed. Those are my questions and ill ask planning and dbi to comment on if thatwhat are the issues related to the stairs being moved 5 feet. Do you want me to keep this up here . Sure. Thats what we are talking about. Thank you. You can be seated. Any other commissioners have questions. Well now hear from the Planning Department. Hello again. Just a few clarifications and con formations. The upper deck portion of had plans were removed so the issue of blocking the view from the Golden Gate Bridge that scope is removed from the permit and not under discussion. That was the second approval that came to planning. Having said that, private views are not protected in the city. Just fyi in the code and residential Design Guidelines. Again, we cant speak how neighbors interact with each other, but this scope of work at the city level, the determination is made. The scope of work doesabout require preapplication or neighborhood notification, so that is why the permit was able to be approved over the counter. The scope of work also doesnt require Design Review by a senior design staff person. That could have happened but could have been approved over there counter by any staff person by there scope of work. On the tree issue, it is true, unless it is significant or landmark tree, it is not required to be preserved or shown on the property. I dont know that would have made a difference in these plans from a Planning Department review perspective, because the trees are not permanent. They change character over time and over the years and tree issuestened tend to be a civil matter between Property Owners. I think at the end of the day the overall question here as we said, the project clearly meets all the code requirements. I think this is a question about interpretation of the residential Design Guidelines and whether or not this is a special or unusual privacy issue that requires change. I would say that the reason this is approved over the counter is that obviously with the tightness of San Francisco we see things like this pretty commonly. People address them in different ways. There is always going to be in the residential design guide bp lines call out the nature of our density means there is only so much privacy from a view between properties that can be achieved. Of course where that line is is a case by case determination and thats what is before you today, ultimately whether or not this privacy issue unique and exceptional enough to warrant a change to the project beyond what is required in the code. Again, the Planning Department reviewed it, determined it consistent with the code and consistent with the residential Design Guidelines. The department determines this wasnt a privacy issue that warranted amendment s to the plans and why it was approved and happy to answer any questions you have about the fire wall and potential changes. Im not sure i understand exactly what the question is related to that, but happy to answer that question or any other questions. Thank you. We have questions. You mind if isince i asked the question beforethe question if quou you put the plan up please with the overhead. Overhead, please. They like to take the overhead down tonight. Overhead. The question was, the stairs right now start out in the backyard, and they end at the beginning of the appellates building. If the stairs were movedforget the furniture plans. If the stairs moved 5. 3 feet to the left what would thatis that legal number one, and number two, because of the fire wall issue and would it trigger any other building issues . Just to make sure i understand what you are talking about. Right now the stairs extend and end to the run matches the full depth of the deck. You are talking moving inward so the stairs actually end their run basically at the neighbors building instead of the full dep th here in effect making the deck along the Property Line and stairs less deep . Is that what you are talking about, shifting shifting the stairs and building them in a fashion to allow them to still have the length of that deck the way it is, but they have the stairs intruding the deck, the arrival of the stairs including the deck at a later if you take these stairs and literally just move them to the left here and reducing the amount of deck space you have here because that is where the stair run would be, that would be reduction of what is there now. It would be reduction of what is actually required along the Property Line now. The full depth and height and everything rel itive to the current proposal is code compliant, so anything that would essentially make thatpull that in and make it smaller is also compliant. Are the issues related to a fire wall or any other things that trigger because now the deck instead of being not next to the buildingright now the deck is not next to the building, it is next to a fence, so it is notit is a different situation. Does that trigger anything related todoes it have to be away from that building any number of feet or is there any further issue related to fortifying the fire wall . The fire walls are Building Code matter and not planning code matter, i differ to my colleague from dbi. Generally speaking again, pulling these stairs inward would probably overall reduce the fire wall requirement. Mr. Birmingham can answer the question. There are two other commissioners i interrupted. Commissioner eppler, sorry. Thats fine, because it was a timely question given the rest of the conversation. I want to confirm just a few elements of the planning code and planning review on this. You did mention that the second story deck on top of the structure was not part of this permit, but it is part of the plans. That alsothat deck does not require 311 notice . Two parts, second first. If you are doing a existing deck on top of a code comclient structure and you are doing the minimum height railings, even if they are solid does not require notice. If you are doing that on top of a building that is not code compliant so in the required rear yard or over the height limit, that requires a 10 day notice so it depends on the nature. Because that is a code complying portion of the building would not have triggered. It is still shown on the plans. They took it out of the plans by bubbling and putting a note and on the cover page saying that is removed eso it is shown but there is a note showing that scope is removed. For the benefit of the public because i get a lot of notices in the neighborhood and a lot for decks, when i get the notices it is because they are not compliant structure or being put on a new structure as opposed to being compliant on a compliant structure . If deck on top of a building opposed to standalone deck on beams generally that is what it means. Thank you for the clarification. Sure. The second, there was accusation made that the plans were notomitted material facts is the way i would say it in terms of the lack of the tree being shown or the lack of the window on the adjacent property. Do youin your professional opinion would that have changed the analysis of the architect for the Planning Department on this deck . For the tree, definitely not, because again the Privacy Protection a tree may be provided we dont factor that in because that can change very easily over time. It isnt like a wall or screen. It isnt structural. In terms of the windowscan i borrow the plans real quick . So i can remind myself how the windows for the adjacent property were shown. So, these plans show the blank side of the wall. They dont show the rear facing window for the adjacent property. I do know that i reviewed this with mr. Winslow before this hearing in full context of what was proposed and the determination was still the same, that this ishis determination that this was still compleent with the residential Design Guidelines. So that is the context knowing where the window is and b, where the tree is . My understanding is full context of the site context. Okay, thank you for the clarification. Sure. Thank you. Commissioner travina. Thank you. I have three questions. First is, could you clarify what you said about the upper level deck . Wondering whether the concerns are addressed by what you said or whether they are not addressed . Sure. It is little hard to see on these plans because it is so small. If you seeokay, got the overhead. And again, this is showing the original proposal. You can see here a small note. Can you move it up a bit . Thank you. Just move the banner. The project sponsor may be able to clarify more. The upper deck was removed, it was moved to a different level. With that, do you mind asking your original question so i make sure i answer it clearly as i can . Your explanation leads me to believe you are not ableim trying toi thought you said at the beginning of your rebuttal that the upper level deck had been changed and im trying to ascertain whether the concerns raised were for a earlier version or whether the current version isi cant ask you whether they still have a problem with it, i just want to make sure what you stated has any impact . Correct, and the challenge for me to answer thet is i dont know which version they were responded to where their concerns. If the deck was the original proposal at the highest level or where it moved to. That is as much as i can ask. Thank you. The second question is on the issue of privacy, you described that this plan doesnt trigger what you describe special or unusual privacy situations. Can you describe and help us figure whetherwhat are special or unusual privacy situations that this would trigger if they existed . Sure. The residential Design Guidelines doesnt offer a lot of examples or exact details. That falls into the subjective nature of the Design Guidelines. This kind ofthere are a lot of Different Things that fall into that category depending on context and detail jz there are times where that comes up. As mentioned by the permit holder, sometimes there is different nature of window exposure and the rooms that are there. Obviously windows on the side where you get direct view are more sensitive then angled views. Sometimes you have views into neighbors windows due to topography and may not be the same situation where you may be buildings to a certain height that create the issue. I think its very much dependent on the situations. What i can say is, this one level deck situation in the rear is very common in the city and we tend to ask those to be pulled off the Property Line a bit and this onethe stairs run along the side, but the deck itself is beyond the depth of the adjacent building is pulled off the property by several feet and so, in terms of our guideline jz how to accommodate those situations, we determine this not to be unusual or special privacy issue. Seems to me you put yourself in adepartment puts itself in difficult situation to determine special or unusual if the process doesnt include the muclouds. If they are not part of the discussion it is hard for staff to know whether this is special or unusual, soand it is alsowe heard their Privacy Concerns and i suppose we get to decide whether it is special or unusual without further guidance from you. Sure. That is the nature of the residential Design Guidelines overall. There are times we think requirements are necessary to modify a project even if the neighbor says they are fine with it because it is about the principle and not necessarily the neighbors who live there at the time and there may be opportunities later for folks to provide their input if they feel necessary. At the initial stage, the neighbors are not at the table . Correct. The last question, on theif you put up the design plan about moving the stairs. If the stairs were moved 5 feet 8 inches, would the deck still be rectangular or would the space where the stairs are now not be built out at the same height . You couldi think the understanding what i heard was to pull the stairs in to end here, whereas this corner now where the stairs are would be a void. That would be the landing where the stairs went down. That is the grade. The entire stair structurethe deck structure is no longer a perfect rectangle, it would have a inset oen the corner. Thank you. The second question i had is, the neighbors object to the stairs at a certain point. They say the top of the stairs if 6 feet tallwhat if the 6 foot tall person is standing to the south of the stairs . Wouldnt the Privacy Concern still be existing . From a angle perspective and viewshed, you would have the same visibility. You are further away but have the same visibility. I cant answer if they have the same concern as the neighbors, but having the same viewshed from a further distance, yes. Thank you. Thank you. President swig. Commissioner travina, welcome to the world of decks. So, im going to help commissioner travinatry to help commissioner travina with his question. How the upper deck was lowered. By how many vertical feet . Third floor to the second floor. 8 feet . 10 feet . 10 foot approximately. We all know views are not protected and if you are the neighbor down the block and there is a deck built in your way the block to the Golden Gate Bridge that is living in the city of San Francisco and not protected. For the comfort of commissioner travina, i wanted you to let him know that because 10 feet lower approximately or 8 to 10 feet lower the view issue is somewhat mitigated, correct . Correct. Private views is clearly called out in the residential Design Guidelines are not protected from design perspective. Thanks. Thank you. Well nowdo we have a question . No further questions. Thank you. Well hear from department of building inspection. Question on the fire wall . Yeah, sure. Can you put up the plan that keeps on going down . Thank you. So, regardlessi want to stay away from design and just get to the point whether there is a deck in the back that replacing the stairs are not. That is for architects to worry about. If the deck were moved 8 feet to the left, i will use left because it is easier, and there would be no issue of somebody rising to the top of indeck and able to look in somebodys window arguably, does that trigger any dbi issues . So, the top of the stairs would bewould approximate where that line is coming off the plan table. The fire wall extends all the way down. All the way down. Follows the rake of the stairs so the fire wall will always be there. Whether you shift the stairs one way or the other, it is always going to be there. Okay. Secondly, if those stairs were shifted to the left do they have to pull off the Property Line . They still have a fire wall. The fire wall is there and therefore regardless. Okay. What i want to establish is, one, legally those stairs could move . Legally they could move if the architect yeah. Property owner decided to. And legally if they rose from the ground architectural they could backfill the deck where they are shown now, so they wouldnt lose Square Footage, they just lose the position. You wouldnt have the head height. Because the deck is here, theyou wont have the head height to go under the deck. I see. That will never be filled in. I see. I got it. Thank you very much. Thats why i need that explanation. Therefore there is really no way of moving those stairs and unless it presents a significant hardship to the permit holder . Yeah. I mean, if you move it back slightly 2 feet you move down so your vision into the window is a lot lower. They are talking a 6 foot person but if you move 2 feet you are down 24 inches, so now it is substantially lower looking into that window. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioners, this matter is submitted. Okay, commissionerslet me start. Probably the greater veteran of decks. This is compliant deck. It is legal, and there is no reason why it should get changed because its legally compliant. It complies to the residential guidelines. We heard testimonying from planning and dbi on the issue isand we have broad and wide powers to say well, maybe we can protect the next door neighbor in some fashion, but without presenting a hardship to the permit holder, who in fact is building a very legal deck. We could say that you could interpret any way you want to as to the privacy issue. Commissioner travina made a very good point. There are curtains that could be installed and that would protectthat gives the appellate the opportunity to protect their privacy. But i think it is important to know the two issues really are one, this is a legal deck. Im not taking a point of view, just trying to frame it for discussion. So, it is a legally compliant deck, and it has caused concern with the next door neighbor. There is slight mitigation and we can this be done and already the permit holder accepted the change. We can ask them to put a opaque glass on that one area that goes along the stairs, and if we feel real strongly about a privacy issue, Strong Enough we can present a hardship to the permit holder and ask them to move the deck anywhere we probably want to. At which point they could take another civil action. So, thats kind of where we are at, and you know, views are not protected so thats not a issue. Privacy is protected. That is subjective. Who wants to talk . Who wants to make a motion . [laughter] commissioner travina. Thank you president swig and i do appreciate your guidance on decks and many other matters. I want to point out a couple of things on that. One is, i agree about the views are not protected. From my Vantage Point you cant disagree because it is law. Sorry about that. Over the years every time San Francisco state built a dorm or Science Building i lost more and more views and wish i can go back, but i cant. The views are one thing, but privacy is another. I do believe that the process is flawed. We dont know whether with the special unusual privacy considerations may be, and the department didnt know because it department didnt have the process established to ask the people who have the Privacy Concerns and interests and i do think on that basis this is a flawed process, and i wouldi want to hear from my colleagues, but i would offer that as something that is a obstacle for me it is very difficult to overcome. I dont think the issue of you with put up drapes, the neighbors were very clear how difficult that would be and even if it is difficult, that is something i think the department is better off deciding, rather then us. The other issue i wanted to mention on this is the issue of just communication and neighborsism we said this a lot at many departments. I appreciate the permit holder submitting the brief of the neighbor. Didnt have to do that. To me it was a sense of trying to accommodate us for the process to be able to make this decision, but also to incorporate your neighbors views and think that is a important step, but for all of the neighbors on this, you are not communicating and however this will be resolved one way or the other, but you do have to live for each other and true for all neighbors everywhere. Could be somebody having a heart attack, somebody needing something down the road and it is really important that it makes our job easier because you all have been ablewhen neighbors make the decisions with themselves and each other, i really want tothis is yet another example where that process has not worked as well as it could. I do commend the permit holder for assistance to the appellate on it brief, but now my main concern is that the privacy interest of the neighbors havent been fully examined or regarded because the process didnt allow that to happen. Other commissioners . Ill jump in, because i do agree that this is a tough one for neighbors who are not notified in advance and not part of the process, but the law being what it is in this circumstance, we have to ask ourselves when we think privacy issues, the residential Design Guidelines are a subjective thing, but do we take each person next door as they are . Whats the reasonable privacy, because people come and go from structures. The design we have has to work for all of them. I dont know how we balance each individuals perception of privacy, versus how we apply these guidelines against the criteria and the structures as they are. I do think that after the fact as part of this appeal the Planning Department looked at that and i do point out that at least recently the Planning Department has not been bad saying we would do this differently if we had known x or y. They had x or y and said we are in the same boat. I do think we have difference of opinion up here on the board and i am not sure how we shake out if we have a vote and a motion. I generally every time it is suggested up here cringe for a second and get convinced by my wonderful commissioners to go along with the idea. I wonder if this is the circumstance where a continuance to allow the folks to figure what to do mayyou can tell me im wrong, may be a good idea, because im not surei fairly certain if we take that railing window that is just to the south of the stair and make it opaque it doesnt satisfy the appellates even though it adds privacy. Not 100 percent comfortable moving 5 feet 8 inches on the stairwell. Im not sure if theres a in between land that we cant think of, because we dont know the minds of the people here and tradeoffs that they may be able it get to themselves. They have incentives to compromise. On the other hand, im willing to vote tonight if thats what you all see fit. Commissioner lemberg. Thank you to fellow commissioners. I feel pretty on the fence about this one. I feel there is pretty solid arguments on both sides. On one hand i actuallyit is no secret that i have been kind of digging in on inefficiencies and problems in processes like commissioner travina was talking about and i do think this is a very good example of where a city process which really has nothing to do with the parties in this case, but where the city process behind something isnt necessarily working for the city, which is representative of the people. On the other hand, i do see that this really has kind of checked all the boxes as mr. Tiegue attested to and i certainly see that and i am a little hesitant to grant the appeal outright just because i dont want this to be to say if you have Privacy Concerns, appeal to board of appeals, well overturn your appeal based on that. Im a little hesitant on that basis, however i did independently also think of what commissioner eppler mentioned, which was the opportunity for a continuance to allow the parties to reallyas we attorneys say, meet and confer and compare notes because it doesnt seem like that has happened here. I am not thoroughly convinced by the permit holders briefing that that really meaningfully occurred and i believe having three separate neighbors attest to the fact it didnt happen is pretty solid evidence that it didnt necessarily occur in that fashion, and for that reason i would be supportive of the idea that commissioner eppler posed and you know, i think that has a couple possible outcomes. I say number one, the neighbors meet in good faith and they have an honest up front conversation and are able to come to some sort of compromise that makes everybody at least happier if not happy. Or, the other option is that doesnt happen and we are just kicking the can down the line a little bit, and for that i say there is not necessarily harm in doing that if not ends up being the outcome and we eventually deny the appeal anyway. I am leaning towards supporting the idea that commissioner eppler suggested just because im notto grant the appeal tonight i would want that conversation to have occurred and clearly it has not and i just wouldnt feel comfortable granting that motiongranting the appeal tonight. I could be convinced otherwise in the future though i think, so thats what ill say. Commissioner lopez. Welcome back. Thank you. I will start by saying i agree and concur with commissioner epplers perspective on the residential Design Guidelines as it relates to privacy rights. I share the perspective that it is likely supposed to be determined based on Design Elements of the plans and not so much the individual perspectives of any given neighbor that may be transient. But i would sayim also in favorjust to share my perspective, granting the appeal is not in the cards for me, but i also see no harm in continuing. I do think that i would ask the permit holder to take that into consideration if we end up with that motion before us, because it is clear that there is strong feelings from your neighbors. Just to echo the points that president swig, commissioner travina made, we all have to live next to each other for the foreseeable future, so it is incumbent upon the interested parties, including neighbors who are not appellates to be able to weigh in, to be able to give input and even with some of the potential solutions that have been floated, you may be robbing peter to pay paul if one of the Solutions Works for the appellates, but then creates a visibility obinstruction for other interested parties. If we end up there, i would encourage the permit holder to really in good faith ernestly engage with with interested parties, but just to preview my general line of thinking, i would be inclined to follow the advice at least directionally from the departments on this one. Thank you. Before i give it back to mr. Commissioner travina, make a couple comments. Okay. So, as i said, this is a legal deck. It is compliant according to Planning Department. We could move it forward, but there is also the unsatisfied issue of privacy i think on this panel. The panel is concerned due process did not occur. Communication was not as copious as it might have been both between the two next door neighbors and maybe the rest of the neighborhood, but i think it is really between the two next door neighbors. Now, let me give you history. I sat on this panel for a long time and i have seen commissioners sometimes donot sure the right thing, but get in the design and architecture business and say that okay, lets see, what can we do with this deck and then we starti have seen it. It happened, mr. Glidestone you have seen it too. We could redesign a deck for you tonight and it would probably be pretty awful, and because we are not architects, but we could do it, because we could talk about the lack of privacy and thats really bothering us and so lets do it that way. And so, i really think that it would be a wise idea and it would present no manifest injustice if we did continue this, and that we ask the neighbors civilly and kindly to get together and have a constructive conversation and take it out of our hands, so we dont get into the design rebuilding deck business, and come to a conclusion. If you dont, then you leave it in our hands, and we are either going to deny the appeal because it is a legal deck, or we are going to accept the appeal and approve the permit with some really bad changes im sure, and so i would suggest that we follow commissioner epplers suggestion, since there really isnti dont see a manifest injustice and do a continuance, let you all have a good communication, try to work it out, if you dont, you know what happens you come back here and well take it in our hands and come up with resolution, but think we have a opportunity to promote some communication and some collaboration and hopefully some peace between two neighbors. Commissioner travina. Thank you president swig. I thank my colleagues for trying to come up with a good solution for everyone. Im not sure whether continuance will accomplish that. From the permit holders perspective, he did everything that was legally required from what i can tell andbut the deficiency is on the consideration of the privacy issues and thats a problem that the process set up. To the extent that privacy can be taken into account because of special unusual circumstances, thats something the department in its expertise getting the holders of the privacy interest and permit holders together to try to resolve and discuss it is where it should be done. Im not sure how the permit holder and the neighbor engage on that issue, how they are supposed to resolve it. More significantly, for the family, if we all agree that views are not at issue, are they part of this discussion Going Forward . Is the permit holder supposed to say, im supposed to accommodate your view when i know there is no legal requirement to do so, or does he say, sorry neighbors down the block, you are not part of this discussion . The best way for this to be handled is by sending backto grant the appeal, send it back to the department and have the issue of privacy to be resolved. Thats where i am at this point. I hear my colleagues hoping that a continuance will enable all the relevant parties to be able to work this out. I do believe they need the Planning Department guidance as they have discussions, so at a minimum i hope the Planning Department would offer its assistance to help resolve some of these issues and perhaps that would accommodate everyone. Thank you commissioner travina. Mr. Tegue, if we continue this, may we pray upon the Planning Department to please provide assistance and guidance in looking at alternatives so they are not doing it in a vacuum and have a facilitator . We are happy to be kept thin loop. Not sure to what extent. What formal role we would be able to play. I dont want to give a false sense of what role we would have. Obviously we are a party in the situation with the position we have taken, so we are there to help answer questions and if they want to bounce design ideas around and what would work and if it requires more process or have code issues, hundred percent happy to be involved in that. Hesitant to be to too involved in the specific negotiations between the neighbors. I say it is satisfactory you are available for questions. I suggest you good posture to be available to interpret legal issues and also agree you are not in the facilitation and negotiation activity. Thank you for volunteering that. Thank you. I just want you to answer your phone when they call is basically it. Is that satisfy some of your issues commissioner travina . Thank you president swig. It satisfies some of them. I wouldnt know if i was mr. Carter or indiscernible whether im invited to the future discussion or not. Im not saying you can say that or not. I dont know. I would suggest that it would be the will of this commissionsorry for putting words in your mouth, i generally do anyway, that the project sponsor do outreach to those citizens which have shown concern about this project. That would be a wise idea. Are they mandated to do that . No. Is it good manners . It is good manners. Will it promote Community Harmony . Yeah, it promotes Community Harmony. Will the people asked to be involved get their concerns satisfied . I cant say that, but at least pick up the phone, call your neighbor. Better thenletting it go to voice mail. I think that is the best we can do on that. You want to move forward a continuance . I do want to say that in my other night time activities of the Neighborhood Association i think it is important for projects to have good outreach with neighbors and be informed. I do want to make sure if i do make this motion to continue that we all understand that we are dealing with a permit for a deck that has an appellate and so when they come back to us at such time as to which we continue this, it will really be those issues that are before us and those issues we need to focus on and the resolution of that as we hear this again. I will ask the executive director should we ask the parties about whether or not they would be available perhaps on there 13 of september since that seems to be open or what are your thoughts on timeline . Could be earlier. I dont know how much time the im out of state that weekday and i cant change my plans. Okay. September 6 . That week. September 6 . September 6 would be fine. Okay. How is the calendar, okay . The architect indiscernible what about the 21 . The one that is at risk of manifest injustice is the permit holder, so you tell us what is comfortable for you and if we have space on the calendar well put it there. If it is december 16, that is fine. It is accommodation more to you because you are postponed here. Is that okay . As to the week after the one im away, the architect cant do it, but they are looking at their calendar from two weeks from the day you suggested when im away. If you hold on. They are checking. We have 6, 13, 27. 27 . September 27. 27 . indiscernible im waiting for the clients phone to come on. Apology. No problem, it is fine. Are you available september 27 for further discussion . Will that allow enough time hopefully to havehopefully you guys by september 27 this being beginning of august you have enough time to have one or two conversations on the subject and also the permit holder might have time to outreach to other neighbors. Okay. Thats covered. Technology, isnt it wonderful . I used to have a black book. Open it up. Yeah, its open. 27 works for us. Lets do it to the 27. Did we want to allow additional briefing . I think three minutesi mean three minutes to address the board. Did you want a one page statement on the fruit hopefully of their discussion . Yeah, for sure. The answer will be yes we had a conversation, yes we made some changes, yes we had a conver sation, no we didnt make changes. One page statement . Yeah. From each of the parties. Okay. Is someone making that motion . I move that we continue item 6 to september 27 in order to allow the parties to confer and seek resolution to the matter. With input from the Planning Department. With input from the Planning Department. Encourage to the project sponsor to reach out to members of the public to express concerns at the hearing . Yes. Okay. On the motion [roll call] that motion carries 50. Thank you everyone and well see you on september 27. Okay. One of the commission request a bio break, so can we come back at 715 . Thank you for your patience, we are taking a short august 2 meeting of the San Francisco board of appeals. We are 7a and 7b. 931 treat avenue. Appealing the issuance on june 2, 2023, to 17th and peralta llc, of an alteration permit demolish interior nonstructural partitions; create new exit passageway and entry hall . Permit no. 2023 04 13 5665. Appeal 23029, friends of Mission Greenway versus department of building inspection. 933 treat avenue. Appealing the issuance on june 2, 2023, to 17th and peralta llc, of an alteration permit demolish interior nonstructural partitions; remodel two existing restrooms, add two new restrooms, remodel existing kitchenette, create new interior entry hall . Permit no. 2023 04 13 5668. Permit number 202304135668. President swig. Thank you very much. This board recognizes that this address and a previous hearing and the activity surrounding everything created somea lot of emotion in the community. A lot of people have feelings about this. Unfortunately this resulted in a violent act at some point. We heard another item on this and we did our best to move it forward, and tonight i very much would like the public to recognize those especially who are here to do Public Comment that you recognize that this is a interior renovation. Has to do with bathrooms. Has to do with internal spaces. It has nothing to do with some of the items that we talked about in a previous hearing. It has nothing to do with some of the items that appeared in the newspaper in public view. This board did its best and commented earlier to show pathways to resolve those issues for the community, so those issues which are not, not, not on the agenda tonight can be successfully resolved at sp point. It is outside our jurisdiction. So, i would ask thatim not going to restrict Public Comment because we have a amendment that says free speech, but i would ask tonight that folks here who are going to do Public Comment that they restrict their commentary to the permits which are under discussion tonight, which have to do with partitions, bathrooms and internal situations, and leave any of the things which are not pertinent to bathrooms partitions and other internal items out of the conversation please. Those would be resolved at a later point. It wont be resolved in this room, and this board has done its best again, to provide the path to resolution on those other items, so please i would ask to stay focused with your comments on the items which are in the permit tonight. Thank you very very much. Thank you. Well hear from the appellates. Since there are two appeals, you have 14 minutes. Mission greenway. Thank you. Im here to talk about the permit applications and correlating building plans of alex indiscernible and real estate llc17 and peralta. indiscernible purchased a warehouse through the llc and received permits to renovate it. I am here to share the permit holder which is the real estate llc filled out an incomplete dishonest permit application and the permit should be revoked or the least reevaluated with inclusion of the Planning Department. The Planning Department should have been consulted regarding this business use of loading and parking because this use is designated on their building plans, yet the Planning Department was kept out of the application. I find this a form of fraud and find the permits incorrectly issued. The full intention of permit holders land use plans designated on their submitted building plans should be reviewed and approved or denied, should not be able to list the uses and renovations that they find agreeable and safe to share with the various City Departments who look at permit applications. Since we heard from friend monkey brains trying to purchase the warehouse and park their fleetsthis is a quote, park their fleet on the adjacent parcel we as the community this business is moving into and Community Concerned about the parcel have a very long time have been trying to get a clear understanding of their intention. The parcel is abandoned railroad right of way half acre lot 25 thousand square feet between treat avenue and 22 street in the mission. Also lacks easement. The nicknake parcel 36 after the lot number and will refer by that name or by the word indiscernible we most clearly learned what permit holders intentions are through various media articles they want to load, unload and park over night and building plans for the two permits they designate the parcel as the loading area, however the department that oversees reviews and approve land use the Planning Department has not reviewed the permit applications because the land use intent was omated from the permit applications. The Planning Department enforcement home page lists in their introduction to the public a few common examples of violation s. Construction demolition landscaping Maintenance Building misuse and inappropriate parking. Permit holder can hit the check box for most if not all. They used a bob cat to excavate, build a mold they poured concrete and started using the parcel as a parking lot for their vehicles. Parking and loding are interchangeable uses. As far as vehicle use is concerned. Loading happens on a vehicle the vehicle needs to be parked. Parking needs to exist for loading to happen. There is no loading without parking and as such loading area is also in use as a parking lot. Even if permit holder goes against the public statements of intending to use the lot as a place for permanent parking using a loading area still requires them to park. I use these terms together and believe they should be seen as such since permit holder designate the parcel as the loading area on the plans they are designating it as their parking area as well. Parcels 36 is labeled at the loading area and building plans, permit holder expecting to turn a property which they hold no legal rights over into their loading and parking area without any legislative procedure what so ever. As far as we know and as the two permit applications opponent out, permit holder failed to propose desired use of had lot to any department. We assume this is due to the fact they danot own this lot nor have any other recorded Property Rights to it. Permit holder continues to believe that they do not need any approval that they can operate outside of rules and regulations and start operating a loading and parking area next to the warehouse. They still do not acknowledge in the brief to the board that this is their stated intention. I read a quote need for loading and on page 6 and they find it appropriate and use for the building. I read the use is deemed as some kind of automatic right that comes with their warehouse and stating a supposed need is in their eyes efficient to ignore the rules and regulations regarding land use authorization. I wonder why the need for more land exist . As i stated permit holders warehouse is too tall roll up garage doors in the front, much larger then the doors in the back that only set a person not a vehicle plus new Head Quarters is 6 times bigger then the current location. It seems using the garage door and interior makes more sense then louding outside. I wonder how the Insurance Company thinks about using property they do not own for their business operations. Permit holder boasts about the loading doors as old as the warehouse itself. I doubt these were approved doors as the owner to which the doors open to dissolved in the 1930s and warehouse built in the 1950s. I doubt planning approval was ever sought for these exterior doors. Permit holder is stated thin media to expect to start using the parcel they deem fit pouring a concrete encroachment. They do not have a easement and if they did a judge would not grant easement rights that include pouring concrete or building walls. A easement is narrow in scope and location, meaning recorded easement defined to accommodate the legally granted purpose and would not grant extra space to do landscaping. Monkey brain misuse of the term is evident as they assert rights. They masquerade the fraudulate use claimling which ever section of the indiscernible this use of legal language is most obvious in the fact permit holder desires entire chunk of this parcel historically not used by predecessor thus not granded easement over this area even if they tride because the tenants who occupy the warehouse before them several decades used the other entrance, not 22 street entrance. Despite lack of use poured concrete along the 22 street neighbor workshop. The stair building and also still clinging to the indiscernible on the 22 street gate. These actions suggest persistent and aggressive effort to claim the space even though there is no historical basis or rightful ownership for this area. They have taken the lot into their own hands choosing where their selfproclaimed easement starts and end and lied to police to have a easement to indiscernible the behavior is corruption of law and concept of Property Rights. Selfproclaimed easement over selfproclaimed chunk of land does not grant Property Rights, yet permit holder is pushing the false narrative to media, police, city legislators and supervisor. We as pedestrians could state historic use and easement right as we say measured by historic weight or easement outweigh theirs because it is used as a pedestrian path since inception in 1860s. People use this lot when it was a Railway Transportation route to san jose before cars existed. The public has been try toog get clarity on the property for decades and last year we reached a point we put planter boxes to make a statement that the neglect of city officials and pretended ownership from adjacent businesses had gone far enough. We had not gotten explanation from the Assessor Office last year who decided in 2017 to finally assess the parcel after it set untaxed decades. It fss transfer today the county fl tax purposes in 2007. The assessment in 2017 likely happened after pressure from the community. What happened next the Assessor Office sent tax bills to a company that dissolved a hundred years prior. This should not have happened yet the Assessor Office seems immune to the indiscernible understandably because they seek to profit from the non ownership as we have seen moves of their implying strategy to take ownership of had property paying 5 years of back taxes by building encroachments and trying to install a private gate and more. We seek help from the board and relevant agencies to prevent unauthorized loading and parking by adjacent business for all the reasons stated above, plus it is safety concern to the public. Something i barely touched upon here but discused in the brief. There are planning code violations. Including monkey brains and unauthorized parking and we are curious if the Planning Department is able to shed light on those investigations as well. Thanks. Thank you. Are you finished . Yes. No questions. You can be seated. Well now hear from the permit holder. Good evening president swig, Vice President lopez, commissioners travina, eppler and lemberg. This is interior renovation permit, has nothing to do with the outside building. No work will be done out of the interior walls of the building. When i look at the appellates brief, i see the mention of loading as the issue so i like to point out that in 2006 a recorded survey was done specifying structure outside our building as a overhead, please. Sorry. Just trying to get the overhead for you. Recording survey in 2006 recorded structures outside the walls of our building as loading using the term loading, which is part of the documents that our architect consulted when creating plans for this building. This building plans were created from combination of public documents and as built interior wall measurements the architect did. Even if we take the term loading as the issue, which is again, completely outside of this permit, it is just purely what the architect labeled the area outside the building. Most likely consulting these documents to do that. The other point that i wanted to make on the use of the term loading is, in the complaint there was a complaint, there were several actually, but one of the complaints made were about the loading doors to the back of the building. Complainant in this case said the loading doors in the back of our building were done illegally and were done post facto to the building. Inspector from dbi came out to the location, inspected the doors and said much to what we believed that the openings had indiscernible edges which is term for slightly beveled, but in a linear fashion. As did all the other openings in the building, so all the windows, the doors, front doors front windows all had this concrete profile, so the dbi inspector determined that the loading doors at the back of the building were indeed at inception of the billing. More interesting in the complaint is the use of word loading. Complainant used loading, inspector used loading our architect used loading and we use the term loading. As we stated in the brief, we believe even though this isnt about the permit, we believe that the term loading is accurate as related to this building. Other comments to be made is also about the use of loading and a umu zone. Our building is in a umu zone, which can be sign in this slide here, which allows thingsdifferent type of activity, one being pdr, which is what our use is. It is production distribution and repair. Things like warehouses fit into that description. The Building Code is s2 or s1 . I think s1. It is non combustible material warehousing kwr that is consistent with loading activities. More importantly, umu in particular is a protected by project x in the sense that the city wants these types of uses in these zones. They want to protect them. If we remove this use from this zone, we would have to create an equivalent space somewhere else in the city. This is important what we provide and this building provides for us and the community. Partially because pdr is considered a way to diversify the city economy and keep us not dependent on say a mono economy. They can leave the city any moment and leave all the social programs and other things dependent on those businesses without funding. We believe what we do is important and brings blue collar jobs, is protected by the city as specified by proposition x at the voters agreed to or voted for in 2016, and we are looking for the board tonight to help us do our job in this building zoned correctly for our use and for the value we provide to the community, which again is jobs, essential service and adding to this balance that is a umu zone. Urban mixed use. Residential, Small Business working together stabilizing our economy. As far as the community, everyone deserves their community. Appellate deserves their community. There are a lot of communities. That is not one community. There is also a Small Business community, a community of latin community, lgbtq plus community, there is a lot of communities and we represent one of those and help all of those. Would you like to add more . Hi. My name is rudey rucker one of the coowners of monkey brains. Good evening commissioners. Thank you for being here. Yeah, we started this business 25 years ago. We are a lbe in San Francisco. We are a legacy business. A Small Business. We provide jobs. We provide low cost internet in the community. We provide Free Internet in many low Income Housing projects in San Francisco. We provide blue collar jobs not just tech jobs but jobs that require more then some of the other trades and we do a lot of training within our organization and we are very proud of that. One thing we do is indiscernible we were try toog work on that today. Something we were working on and stopped that because we had to think about this meeting here before the board. Friends of the Mission Greenway have been abusing the levers of government. They have been harassing us for quite a while now and this permit here that is being appealed is not the only time they made complaints about our building and neighboring buildings. They have over a dozen complaints with dbi and im hoping dbi can speak to that. The other day i was walking down valencia street one of my children and we were walking along and someone handed her the boa letter that you guys wrote, and was encouraging my kid to come to this meeting here, so i want to review this letter here. There is some inaccuracies in it and i want toi mentioned it in an email that was not read at the last boa meeting when this letter was written. I want to point out a couple of facts. There were parts of this letter i agree with. It was well written. There was the idea that the permit was issued in error. We will remedy that. We are confident that the gate is ours. The gate was permitted by the former owner of our building and when we got the building we got the gate. That is how it works. Dbi found the permit from 1981. The very first meeting ing during the gate, there was talk about how maybe the gate was never permitted. Maybe it shouldnt be there. There were thoughts the board pretended created emboldened the greenway, and all that escalated to violence. There is a note here about the monster lock mentioned. We call it big lock, not monster lock. You guys didnt want things to escalate to violence and it has. It is more then violence, it is continuous harassment we have to ender. This paragraph is a little bit of a longbasically it talks about how it has been used for a public right of way for a long time. The lot has been used for loading and pdr activities for 70 years. We are going with the flow here. Okay. So, this group is abusing the levers of government. There are complaints, coming here and decisions by the board and uses as propaganda to get people excited about fighting us. They decided they were going to fight anyone who bought the building, it isnt just us. They had meetings before we even put in a offer on the building that they are going to battle whatever business bought that building and bring it before the bord and try to stop them uvmooing in there. The goal is run up our bill so much we are going to leave. We are not leaving. Here are things they have done, defamed our business, assaulted me, they committed vandalism, they solicit neighbors to vandalize property. They ulpin neighbors, dont you want to hit this on the concrete and jump in. They steal water from rec and park. They steal water from the fire hierants. Commissioner swig i heard you talking about rule of law. We are following laws and getting permits. A couple weeks ago, about two weeks ago a prius rammed into one of the fences and slammed into it. It hasnt been in the news yet so you will hear about probably soon and damaged the fence and we had to pay to get that repaired. Here is the latest action on the activist agitator gorilla Gardener Group taking the prius and ramming into the fence. I dont know the end game. It is questionable. I think they are trying to drive us out. There is police reports. Vandalism. Assault. All this bullshit we are having to deal with. Right . Here is elizabeth crily giving a punch. The group wanted to do this all along and i think that boa embolded them and you need to step up here and help put a end to this. Beforebefore i are flip the phone and Elizabeth Creely socked me, she is shoving, knocking chips out of my hand. There are 4 people trying to get me to react and turn this into a social media event cht their community is primarily a small group of people on the internet. There is maybe 6 or 7 people in the neighborhood and this larger sort of community that is still valid. We provide internet, we are not against virtual communities, but they are using these cameras and never have discussions with us. Im like put your camera down, have a talk, you are talk toog the community by talk toog the camera. It is impossible to talk with them, so please dont ask us to mediate with them. On may 25, they sent an email at 4 p. M. Saying lets mediate and go to community boards. Two hours later indiscernible were out with sledge hameers slamming the work i had done all day long. Me and a day labor from 25 street dug a area, built the form for the concrete for the planters and yeah, you dont need a permit for that, we checked. We are setting up a area to make it look better for carn val. We gave the space for the organizers to prep for the event cht i think we are done. Do you have anything to add alex . Again, rudey is being more integral part of this so i have taken less of the brunt in some ways. Apology to the board if we seem emotional but this has been a long haul and we feel we are doing our best to be above board and lawful and getting permits. We are working with city oversight. We are working with you listening to your suggestions. You said this is a civil matter and we are getting organized to settle this in a civil manner and doing our darnest to be above board and do good by the community and you all as well. Thats all we have. Thank you. We have a question from president swig. Okay. As i said before, im not going to pick on you. I just got to say what i got to say. I said before that i am really sorry you guys are going through this. I am very sympathetic you are going through this. There is unlawful behavior. It is clear. This is not the forum. We are not go ing to hear this. So, i have to ask a question after i make that statement. Do you have any commentary related to the permit, which is it demol ish interior non structure and entry hall . Do you have comment or information that might enhance our ability to make a decision on this item related to demolish interior non structural partitions or model to existing restrooms, add two new restrooms to remodel existing kitchenette and create a new interior entry hall . Thank you for your concern president commissioner swig. Do you have any comment . Yes or no . Yes, we do. Okay. Mr. Men den dez gave the comment and the only thing challenged is loading dock and there is no other challenge, correct . Thats fine. Okay. Thank you very much. Now, im going to ask the same question in advance of the appellate. I would ask the appellate, do you have any comments at nauseam verbatim of what i just said and i would ask, because im making it fair that the appellate limit their commentary or only provide commentaryi will ask them, do you have commentary related to what i just said . If you dont have anything to say demolish interior, indiscernible remodel two add restrooms et cetera et cetera final comment. Do you have any comments on the permit at hand tonight, and im going to ask the same redundantly to the appellate. I understand. Other then what we said about the fact it is all interior work and that we believe that the label has nothing to do with the permit is not only inconsequential but accurate, thats about it. When the public comes up, please limit your comments to what i just said, because we cant do anything about it here folks. Understood. Bathrooms, interiorthats all we can do tonight, okay, guys . Just want to try to move this along in a constructive fashion, okay. Understood. Politics dont apply here. Police issues dont apply here. We are into bathroom and interior structures tonight. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. I had to use you as a segue. Sorry for doing that. No worries. Understood. Thank you. We will now hear from the Planning Department. We have 14 minutes. Good evening again president swig, commissioners. I will be fairly brief. These two permits were not reviewed by the Planning Department. They were not required to be reviewed by the Planning Department. The scope of work was such that it did not trigger Planning Department review so as such wethe department did not review them or sign off on them. Having looked at them through the appeal process that appears to have been appropriate. This is the scope of work very minimal in interior and non residential building that typically does not have any issue that triggers any planning code review. Obviously there are issues that are being discussed beyond this. I can say that there are ongoing complaints that have been filed for these properties and surrounding properties related to a bunch of these issues. Dbi had complaints filed and gone through their process. We are in the process our standard investigation process for the complaints file frd the subject and surrounding properties that process will play out. There is a chance we might be back before you again in the future on other issues through different actions that are taken relative to those issues but speaking very specifically to the permit today, did not require planning and commission review. The permit holders comments about this being in a umu Zoning District that is accurate. Also not entirely relevant to the actual permit itself and scope of work, but im available for any questions you may have. Commissioner travina. Thank you for your presentation. Does the or did the indication of a loading dock on the plan have any impact on the decision to approve the plan for a kitchen or bathroom . Not for the Planning Department if we were to review this in the existing context with the Industrial Base uses there. Somebody reviewed a document that had loading on it, correct . Sure, the plans show the existing loading door of the garage door at the rear. Does the existence of that on that document have any bearing on the decision that was made by the department . Again, the Planning Department never made a decision because it didnt come to us for review. If it would have been required to come to us for review i dont believe that would have made a impact on the Planning Department review. The Decision Maker im trying to find out if there is any rel evance to this loading mention on the document to why we are here. Sure. My colleague at dbi may be able to address more specifically because they did review this and approve the permit. No one from planning saw either of these permits because the scope of work that triggered what is routed to planning didnt meet those requirements. Thank you. Commissioner lemberg. Thank you. I know your expertise is limited to planning so ill stick with that. The other work that the appellates described, not part of the appeal tonight that the permit holders mention they hired a day laborer so didnt need a permit for the excavation work in the back, would that work trigger planning review in any way . I will be honest, i havent reviewed all the reference. There was reference to excavation work on had subject property within the building. I mean it appeared to be outside the building not inside the building. My understanding is the subject properties are completely covered by the buildings so anything outside the property may be on the adjacent property in dispute to some degree, but the question of generally speaking does excavation require a permit, typically in those cases where you are only doing excavation or doing excavation and minimal work it depends on it details what you are doing and how much you are excavating. Typically it is more a ceqa issue from a Environmental Review perspective. If you excavate certain amount of cubic feet or depth you may trigger ceqa review. Whether it triggers under the planning code is specific to the nature of the proposal. I appreciate your answer and i will be asking you the same question. I appreciate it. Thank you. Vice president lopez. Thank you. So, we heard testimony from the permit holder with a statement about the weaponization of dbi and then, which made me kind of rang a bell in my mind when you mentioned a number of complaints related to the subject property Neighboring Properties before planning, and i guess my question is, obviously these are all unverified statements as far as i can tell from the permit holder, but i guess my question is, with respect to planning, if you are starting to get a lot of complaints about a property, about Neighboring Properties, how is that handled within the department ifis that something that gets assigned to the same team or are there efficiencies to be getting that way or what is that process like . Sure. We have a Code Enforcement team and typically if we do have enforcement cases that are on the same or adjacent parcel s and there is obviously a connection we often assign those to one planner. I do want to be clear, we have not received an abundance of complains. We are not overflowed but we have received at least a complaint about each of 2 subject properties here as well as related to the adjacent property in question, the lot 36. It hasnt been a overwhelming number of complaints and we believe we have one enforcement planner assigned and only just begun to start to look at the process to look at all the relevant information. Thank you. Thank you. No further questions well hear from the department of building inspection. Good evening. Conserveen birmingham for dbi. As far as we are concerned this is a internal ti. These are internal non structural walls being demolished and some spaces reconfigured. They are adding 2ada down stairs and 2 up stairs and path of travel issues. Everything was properly reviewed and permit issued properly we believe. As to your complaints, i have been looking through them pretty much all closed. The one you were talking about the excavation in the back is considered not part of their property and referred to dpw and dpw deals with that, not dbi because it was outside the Property Line. Any other questions . Commissioner travina. Just to let you know, there is no work done in the area at the rear on the loading doors. There is no work in the area. Minimal amount of work in the back. Ill ask the question i asked, does the fact that it says loading dock or loading area on that plan have anydid that have any influence or impact on the decision that was made to approve the kitchen and bathrooms . No, none what so ever. Thank you. Commissioner lemberg. A brief followup question, do we know anything from the result of the dpw referral . No, we dont have access to their complaint tracking system. Just wanted to make sure. Thank you. Vice president lopez. Yes. Similar question what i asked how does dbi handle repeat complaints related to properties and Neighboring Properties. The same inspector did most of these inspections. If it did come to dbi it was also referred to Code Enforcement. Jimmy indiscernible handled all most all the complaints so very familiar with the property. Did a lot of research on it and very familiar, so it wasmore or less the same individual most of the time. Thank you. Thank you. I dont see further questions at this time. Thank you. How many people are here for Public Comment, please raise your hand . Okay. President swig, we have 21 in the queue. Do you want to limit Public Comment . Okay. We are moving to Public Comment and the speakers are limited to 2 minutes given it is 8 oclock and high volume. Please line up against the wall and after you are done speaking, fill out a speaker card and hand it to alec, that way we can be orderly and keep track of all the speakers. The first speaker please come forward. You can fill that out after you are done. Thanks. Good evening commissioners. I will try to be brief. My name is paul wormer, and i believe that there is a issue with the fact that the permit has plans that list loading dock and this gets into a document table. You see cite something from 200 6 saying it is a loading dock. I have run into this problem at this board many years ago with plans from a neighboring property where things were taken as real because they were on the plan, which was for something else. By having that word load ing dock on there and the permit that is easily used as a basis for the future claim that yes it is recognized. Number one. Number two is again, possession is 9 10 of the law, and what i see is through actions like this implying loading exists in one permit is setting a stage and argument that can say, look we got this, this is loading dock, it is used for that, part of the property so we have rights to this land and that concerns me and i would ask perhaps a note making clear that this loading dock is contested and that the right is not established. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Maybe the speaker behind her, if you come up and grab a speaker card and fill it out while shes speaking and same with the next speaker so we can move along. My name is lynne, i want to apologize for stepping out the guardrails what he asked for comment. Totally understand. This is just a political statement. So, i want to speak up in support thf greenway. I had discussion with the supporter of the private parking lot last sunday who told me about sunday streets. indiscernible how wonderful an event it was and encouraged me to attend. We all loved sunday streets, a great space and event to pgather and enjoy. The reason sunday streets are so great no cars. Moving traffic is a buzz kill in more ways then one. With exception of tail gates parking lots are not happening places either. If we want more events like sunday streets and more places it fr the community to gather and revitalize the neighborhood we need more space for people not cars. Thank you. Thank you. If you can move forward and start filling out the speaker card; here to support the Mission Greenway and support the urban sacred spaces. Im a community member, have been a very long time and this is one of thea unique space that i havent seen show up in a neighborhood such as this in a long time and San Franciscos culture needs it to thrive. We need to be able to come together and be in community and to neighborhood of families and we are doing something really beautiful here, creating urban gardens and space for people to come together, so thats all. Thank you very much. Thank you. You can move forward. Great. I like to respond to the acquisition that appellates are improperly using the appeal process and board request comments be only about interior renovation and request you do listen to what im about to say. If not now when . If not this process how . A letter has been graciously written by this body to the city supervisors but no significant action taken. Monkey brains poured a permanent slab of concrete on parcel 36 without any permit or authorization. They also ignored this bores april decision revoking the gate permit and installed a big or monster lock on that gate. It is clear that monkey brains intends to do what it wants with the space regardless whether it has a permit or not. Time is of the essence to stop the behavior and the people are reaching out to a City Government that failed for decades by neglecting the parcel and becoming a empty lot. I hope the board can see monkey brains is attempting to use the land taking the land in their hands without paying a fair price. I urge the board to revoke the permit as a way to reprimand for dishonest and harmful actionsism my letter of support for the appeal i wrote many benefits the Community Food garden with have a neighborhood indiscernible and one in this neighborhood can help combat many years of environmental racism. I should have written when people garden together the communitybleding that occurs has positive impact the best cant calculate. I can attest to this. When i was living in tallahassee florida indiscernible and neighborhood where transient ubhoused folks reside. The folks went to local food pantries and drop off points handed out for free. Free exchange of food, art music good company between people of diverse backgrounds inspires in ways i yet to find words to express. Thank you. Thank you. Hello. Im resident of the mission. I think monkey brains permit is mostly correct and should be allowed to build what they request to do which is all the work inside the building. The permit does have the issue of labeling inside parcel 36. The labeling issue could be relevant of adverse possession for the parcel. As a neighbor, i think this risk is something that should be minimized. My interest with parcel 36 is owned by the city or owned by community and adverse possession could negate the process. My hope is the board indiscernible no labeling is on parcel 36 and parcel 36 is labeled as parcel 36. Parcel 36 should be labeled clearly so indiscernible Everything Else with the permit seems perfectly fine to me. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Thanks for having us. My name is devon, i work for monkey brains. I have for quite a while since 2012. I just wanted to attest they are a Solid Company providing a Solid Service to every day folks. I have been in a lot of peoples homes in San Francisco and always do my best to make the best situation for them. I like to see operations continue to get better and more efficient and moving into this building they purchased would help us achieve that. I just like to see the building continue. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is lawrenceim mostly showing up because im actually named in this appeal for some reason. I have nothing to do with ada bathrooms or proper fire exits. I do totally support monkey brains should create those in the building for their workers and thank you very much. Thank you. Good evening. Thank you commissioners. My name is heather, codirector of mission kids. We are a city funded program and serve majority of low and moderate income families over 75 percent of our families receive tuition subsidies, the majority attend for free and we work very very hard to be responsible stewards of city funds. Grateful for the boards concern and appreciate your past efforts to resolve this complicated situation as the board considers this and any future Matters Regarding parcel 36 we request it take extra care to avoid actions that embolden Mission Greenway illegal behavior. Mission greenway put the board past decisions in ways that resulted in continued harassment of our staff and families violence property destruction and had a direct negative impact on those of us who live and work near parcel 36. Past board decisions further emboldened the greenway agitators to selectively follow the rules by the appeal process while continuing illegal activities directly adjacent to the very Young Children and families we serve. We support monkey brains and ask that you oppose the appeal as weaponizing of sit City Departments it is endanger the Young Children and families as they access essential service of child care. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello, jay martin, friends of Mission Greenway and honor you are the president of Mission Greenway . No, just a member. I have the honor of named on the rap sheet. I believe i would have known if i was charged or convicted or paid a fine for any things and i have not been. I am sure this is occurred to one of you already but will suggest it. If this is interior renovation please use broad discretion to remove exterior detail from the plans. What we are big picture worried about is things happening on the parcel is just determined by the people who work next door and it is important the decisions about what happened on the parcel be a matter of public discussion and not just private action. The businesses around keep building on indiscernible their loading dock is not on land that they own. It is on parcel 36. To claim because there is a loading dock that can do loading, that is starting to stretch things so i would say just to calm this down and resolve, remove exterior details from the plans. Alter check they are not planning a new exit somehow. The back exit is pucurule. It is high and designed for a rail road car to pull up. The rail road car stopped a long time ago. If they want to do something new, fine. They cant just assume it will happen. Give me a moment see if there is anything else i wanted to say. I think thats it. Thank you very much. Thank you, next speaker, please. Thank you. Mason carol lead engineer of monkey brains working for monkey brains about 12 years now. One of the most rewarding roles i have working monkey brains is project providing Free Internet for the community. We dont talk about it a lot, but at issue in the whole thing is how much people do for the community. Monkey brain s has deep roots in the mission. Provide hundred percent Free Internet for over 50 low Income Housing projects, every resident gets free resident. That is 5,000 residents of San Francisco. We are recognized by the board of supervisors, mayor office of housing for this work. I will start with the Mission District alone. Every resident 151 units, hundred percent Free Internet the last 7 years. Another in the mission, bernal dwellings, hundred percent Free Internet. Holly courts in bernal heights, 120 units of Free Internet. Anatonia miner and tenderloin, hundred percent Free Internet. Net washington apartment, 83 units, hundred percent Free Internet. Broadway cove, hundred percent Free Internet. Bayview indiscernible tenderloin family housing, 175 units of Free Internet. Valencia gardens, 260 unit, hundred percent Free Internet. West hotel, 1 o4 units, hundred percent Free Internet. Westbrook apartments, 226 units, hundred percent Free Internet. West side courts, 136 units, 100 percent Free Internet to every single residents. Willie b kennedy, 98 units, hundred percent Free Internet. Every unit over 5 years. Ritz hotel, 68 units. Mosaica, Free Internet. Thank you. indiscernible next speaker, please. Hi. Im a mom that has raised three kids in the Mission District. I grew up literally might there every day after school i was right there 21if i wasnt at mymy parents work at 21 and treat, i was at gar field at the mission library, community center. I always loved the way the mission finds a way to Work Together and i appreciate a lot what monkey brains has done. It is used to provide Free Internet. I know raising kids and the same with mission kids, i know people who kids go there. I couldnt have never raised my kids without free daycare. I also just are want to point out, the greenway is located in a place surrounded by schools. Muscone is there. indiscernible also founded by people who feed people every sunday. The produce from the Community Gardeners gardeners are involved with feeds people free organic produce every sunday. When i bring my daughter and niece thoothe greenway t it is a beautiful experience, they are learning how to do urban farming in it neighborhood and that is something that doesnt happen with the gatekeeping Community Gardens that exist. You can walk away and come with a handful of seeds and knowledge how to use them and think we can put our Heads Together and share the space because the illegal activity including indiscernible organic agriculture. Thank you. Thank you, will you please fill out a speaker card . Someone took the pen though alec. There it is. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is carlos. Native san franciscans born and raised in district 10. Constituent. After seeing my city change for so drastic growing up in the bayview i have seen how everything is and honesty coming to this board meetings is something i never heard of so if i look around i feel like it is a very big change for me. Just saying that alone. I actually knew monkey brains growing up. It was my my Community Next to the recycling center i used to go to so always see a monkey brains sign so know where it is. Now it is considered marine streetism before it was just the street. Just seeing they have got to a point where they can actually try to get a building and continue to invest in San Francisco is something that im very honored to be part of. I will continue to be part of ifi dont know how we expect the city to continue to grow if we see a mass exodus of companies that can leave a city just leave in shambles. Monkey brains i see they are trying to invest. I live here and want to continue living here and the only way i can do that is by having a job and if we start losing these kind of blue collar jobs i dont know where else i can go. We already see a mass exodus too often to texas and everywhere and expect that to happen in San Francisco. I dont know where i will be. Im very honored to be part of monkey brains because they are still here and they still value like who i am. I still continue to believe that they want to be part of San Francisco and everything we do we still do inhouse and if you look at the building it is a need of restoration and there is so much commercial spaces out there and they still want to be part of it. Thanks for your time. Next speaker. Hello. Im resident. I live a block away from it. Monkey brain i dont know much about them when they started they might be good but when you do a good deed you dont show up and indiscernible i didnt like the way they were attacking greenway. He came here from his high horse wasting your time, our time and indiscernible about Everything Else, this is easy big bank taking little bank. Greenway is for non profit. They are not going to make anything of just making indiscernible thats all i have to say. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening commissionersism thank you so much for hearing us. Ill keep very brief. I hope we can work this out appropriately as a neighborhood resident im not part of monkey brains, not part of the greenway folks, but i do appreciate having a open space and Community Space and its a vibrant neighborhood and that location has become more and more a important part of that neighborhood; so hopefully everybody can follow to do things within permit. The city folks can make sure procedures are being fallowed correctly and good use for the land can be supported. Thank you very much. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hello everyone. My name is daniel woodberry, been a resident about 10 years now. From boston massachusetts, a blue caller work place so moving to San Francisco nice to see the transition stay the same. One thing about working class is communities they bring within. That community of working class citizens tend to bring the neighbors together even more. Someone mentioned from project greenway the new building we have is somewhat larger and that is true because we are expanding within the community as our size increases with the people who are now working for monkey brain frz the city. I want to putim also somewhat a gardener myself and when we actually started doing work back in 2019 for the harrison condos being built, there was no dispute on that pathway there. In fact, it deemed as toxic soil and wouldnt want to produce things on and so when we were there doing work for my own private company, there was no speak of development there and now Going Forward doing more gardening work there, i didnt see any gardening done. Man curing of the lawn from project greenway besides just heckling and occupying, so i want to speak my opinion from my experience and thats all i have. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. My name is tiffany and been working for monkey brains for about 4 years now. As mentioned, we are a Small Company but we are expanding. I was able to visit the location once for a meeting and i was grateful with the space and how beautiful it was and to know that we are going to be approved for a permit for interior design i thought was lovely because they want to make this space a workable for us. Speaking as a woman, we appreciate sanitation and so the extra restrooms will be helpful for us, and i guess that is all i have to say. Im grateful i have these two guys, alex and rudey who have built the company from the ground up and they are really trying to make it a Great Company and a great business for us as workers and thats all i got. Thank you. Thank you so much and thank you for everyone thin room for being so orderly following protocol. We will now turn to speakers from zoom. Please raise your hand. The first person, edward please go ahead. You need to unmute yourself. Thank you. My name is edward hasbrook. I leaved between 1100 and 1200 street since 1987. Speaking to the issue raised by the commissioners, both of the permit applications state both as the present and as the proposed so called legal use of the properties that these are a warehouse and warehouse only. Reading the pleadings i discover the permit applicant concede they are already using these premises as a concert venue and presumably intend to use it and more restrooms and a kitchen sounds as much as like facilities for concert use as warehouse uses, but whatever, they have conceded that the application was inaccurate. It was false. It was deceptive. You have ample basis in that and that alone that you can and must reject to the permit as fraudulately obtained. Whether a concert venue will be a legal use and permit applicant in the presentation spoke off indiscernible whether it is a legal use, that isnt been accessed. You must reject the permit. You know it is used in a matter contrary to the applicationism send it back and let them go through the proper procedures if that is the use they are making and want to make. We have seen in this neighborhood we had people operating unlicensed concert venue next door to us and had to google the address and email the brands and say do you know you are playing in a house and not concert venue. You know how controversial convert venues are especially in residential neighborhood. Had this was a concert venue you would have people lined up around the block. Thank you. Well hear from val in tina ramos. Please go ahead. Being here lestening listening. I affirm the point the document should be indiscernible the intended permit, which is indiscernible i also just want to make a personal point that children benefit from trees and knowledge and community attractions, not from another parking lot that will make the city hotter. Thank you for your time. Okay, thank you. Well hear from jorge. Hi. Im a Civil Engineer in San Francisco and and just want to address a couple things said before. Monkey brains indiscernible but it is not. Otherwise any of us could jump over the fence and start pouring concrete so that is incorrect. The other item is, mission keeps coming to the meeting and claim all the great things they do for the kids, which is great, but obviously they benefit from this situation. They have reserved parking they indiscernible they use the parcel as a drop off point and parking for their staff continually so that is really i think the reason for being here and supporting monkey brains in whatever they do. If they were that concerned, i would think that they would want this to go through a process and turn into a real parking lot, which means they have safe path of travel for the children as they go to their cars, but that does not exist. Thank you. Thank you. Is there further Public Comment on zoom . Linda, please go ahead. You need to unmute yourself. I am calling on behalf of monkey brains. I am also calling on behalf of mission kids. I think both of them are vital businesses and organizations and i dont understand why it is okay to break fences, bash fences and throw up flower boxes. It strikes me as hypocritical, so thats all i have to say. Thank you. Well hear from kelly menendez. Yes, im calling oen behalf of monkey brains. I just want to reiterate this is permit for interior bathrooms and address the comments of concerts. There are quite a few noise complaints from the greenway concerts that happen. In fact they are planning a party this saturday. I find a lot of these comments to be kind of ludicrous and hypocritical and just bringing ing distraction to the problem at hand, which is create bathrooms so monkey brains can actually move into a building that they bought all most 6 months ago. Okay. Thank you. Any further Public Comment, please raise your hand . Okay. I dont see further Public Comment so well move on to rebuttal. Hear from the appellate. You have 6 minutes in rebuttal. Ms. Hannah. Thank you. I guess the only thing i want to say is that this appealmy understanding of the appeal process and of the various matters that appeals get discussed is that there is often the middle way. It isnt just all or nothing. Obviously it is great if monkey brains gets to renovate their warehouse. At the same time, i have questions about this permit about the permit application process and i find the permit application dishonest and why i was here. Or why we filed the appeal. So, which is something i have seen in prior cases i read of yours where you see that there is a middle way between the right to follow a permit, but also the questions surrounding the completeness of a permit application process and the subsequent permits. I understand how you have come to yournot that you have come to a decision, but i understand what decision you are go toog come to and i respect that and thank you for your time. Thank you. We have a few questions from president swig and commissioner travina. I want to ask a fair question to you. Do you have any questions related to the permit with regard to demolish of interior non structural partitions, questions creating new entry passage and entry hall . Any questions related to demolish interior non structural partitions or questions remodel two existing bathrooms . Adding two new restrooms . Remodel kitchenette and creating new interior entry hall . Do you have problems with any ramification if those entrys and exits happen from the front, then i dont have questions. Good. Thank you. Commissioner travina. President swig addressed my question about the relevance of the outside issues to the bathroom and kitchenette. You can comment on it again if you like. I guess what i really want to know is one. Second is, you described your frustration with this process and other processes and you suggested that there might be a middle way or middle ground that we have taken in other cases, i am wondering if there is any middle ground that you can suggest as it relates to kitchenette, bathrooms or is it totally on the other aspects of monkey what i meant with middle ground is i wish them to be able to renovate their building. At the same time i wish the Planning Department was part of this application review process. So, those are two things. Yes, a warehouse should be able to be renovated but i feel the permit application omits intended use and actual current use as we speak and as we have been speaking in previous months of this parcel, but i also know that there are avenues for example planning complaints and you know, planningthe Planning Enforcement Department looks at enforcement complaints and unauthorized parking and that is also a path forward. Thank you. No further questions. We will now hear from the permit holders. Sorry, your namei missed it. I just want to make sure you understand something. Do you understand that planning doesnt get involved in anything when there is renovation within 4 interior walls which doesnt expand the building and doesnt add a deck or something of that character . I want to make sure you understand that. Sure. My point is that they should have been you understand the permit application was you understand that planning does not get involvedthis isnot picking on you, i just want to save this for the future, because as the Planning Department said, they anticipate that we will be in this room again and sure that you would be justly leading the activity. I have seen you being a leader in this in the last commentary, but i want to make sure you understand that planning doesnt get involved with interior renovations that do not involve the envelope or change the absolute use of the building . If we are turning into mcdonald, maybe we will have a conversation, but i like also when mr. Tegue steps up to give a appropriate answer as to when planning gets involved. Ill ask him about that like right now, but do you understand planning doesnt get involved when the i also understand that there is no back tracking in that respect and that was originally my assumption that that was a possibility, and i alsoi dont like the term leader, and it will only cause pr fr more harassment towards me as a person. You can call me a spokesperson in front of the board of appeals because i have spoken here before. Sorry if i insulted you. I think the commentary being a leader is wonderful thing and applaud you for being a leader so say that in the most positive and complementary fashion. Okay, thanks. Thats it. Thank you. Well now hear from the permit holders. Hello. Thank you. So, i wanted to comment on some of the rebuttal or sorry, appellates comments as well as Public Comment just for the record. One of them was about the use of the word loading on this permit somehow meaning something thin future. I want to point out to the board and the public a 2006 registered survey that was recorded by a registered surveyor used the word loading so that word has been used and whether that is oen the plans or not will not change that fact. I just do want to make that clear. I also want to make it clear of the comment about insurance, we have great insurance. We have umbrella insurance, business insurance, insurance for people on ladders. We take care of technicians, it technicians are heroes and risk their life every day to bring people internet and we are very well insured. I also wanted to address the use of some of the irony here in Public Comment where i heard people use terms like you cant just jump a fence which is odd given the current state of the lot and appellate groups behavior. I also thought it was strange to single out planning when im sure planning would be involved if they decided to turn a area into a farm or a park or a parking lot or anything. I dont understand some of the ironic commentary in the public. Lastly i wanted to address the concert venue issue just for public record. There is a comment about us having a concert venue and indeed we had some i think three concerts there. We got permits from the event commission. We paid for a permit, and on one of them about two weeks ago, there was complaint and inspector came out and said what are you doing here and we said we have a permit for this and she said do you and looked on her phone and said you do and should have looked ed ahead of time and looked around and said i love what you are doing here in the Mission Getting local bands together, they are playing. We were doing a indiscernible i wasnt there so dont know what happened. There is event i heard on the comments plan for saturday on lot 36 organized by the greenway, but whatever. Thank you so much. Thank you. We will now hear from the Planning Department. Hello again. Corey teage from planning. I know we focused on what is proposed on these permits. Interior. Sometimes interior work requires planning review, it just depends. In this situation it did not. I know the issue raised today really have to do with the existence of the loading door, and the activity of loading on to and from the adjacent lot, lot 36. One thing ypt to be clear about is, the permits in front of you today are not proposing to alter or legally establish the loading doors or that activity. They are representing the physical existing state and calling out what they are proposing to change. That is really what we are looking at. It is true people will sometimes do work with no permits and then when they come in the future to do permits they show as existing and the city may not know at that point in time that is not legally existing. That may come to light at some point. The fact you showed as existing on a previous permit, if you never received proper permits for something even though you showed existing does not grandfather you in. Just to be clear on that issue. Having said that, these issues again are all going to be addressed to some degree i think through the complaints filed on these properties and the adjacent property. I think we are very well aware of that issue beyond the scope of what is really addressed with these permits so the Planning Department is involved because it complaints are calling out multiple issues including the specific issues raised relevant to the permit now, which is the existence of the garage door, the loading door and the loading itself. Again, tonight i dont have anything to provide on those issues relative to any of that work happening. That is still very much ongoing, i just wanted to make that as clear as i cood to could to the board. Did i speak correctly when advising the appellate with regard to that unless there is a significant change of use or that a simple thing like a toilet, all the other stuff that i listed redundantly dont require your participation . Yeah. It can depend because we do have some provisions in the code that even something miner interior could trigger review but say generally in non residential spaces where you doing standard ti work, working with bathrooms or put in a break kitchen, moving interior walls, that minimal level of scope of work in a non residential space is rarely if ever going to trigger Planning Department review. Also for the benefit of the appellate, she made some accusations assertions whatever a statement about we got to look back at the permit process because there was misrepresentation. If im paraphrasing incorrectly, sorry, trying to get your question answered. That there was the reason the problem exists here is that the initial filing of the permit mischaracterized or was improper. There was leave out. There were problems, bottom line. Is there anything there and can you shed light on when that might impact the simple permit like this with partitions, toilets, et cetera et cetera . Just general premise, if you share Incorrect Information on your plans is that grounds either to require the plans be chaivled changed on the front end or after, somehow the city planning or dbi determines that the plan application or the plans were not accurate, that can be grounds for suspension, revocation, the need to file a new correction permit et cetera. That is the point i was saying. If you misrepresent or provide inaccurate plans for one permit and that gets issued and moves forward, that doesnt necessarily legally grandfather in that inaccurate state for future permitting. Final question, either profunthry or deep dive review you may or may nod have made on this permit application, did you see anything that would give you cause for suspicion that there was misrepresentations, leave out inaccuracy or otherwise . Not necessarily related to the toilets, passways, but just substantively. I think that if you look first at the issue raised about the adjacent lot, lot 36 and relationship between these lots and other lots to the activity on that lot, there is a lot to be unpacked there. That is understood, acknowledged, being worked on separately. This permit and what is proposed and again we didnt review on the front end because it didnt come to us but looking on the back end, i didnt see issues with the urmt permit promise the last one but you brought it up. You acknowledged that there is issues related to the adjacent lot and are you assuring the public at this point that there isit has your attention, you are reviewing it and deep consideration is given towards the cure of those other activities not related to this permit . Yeah, and those complaints have been filed. We will go through the investigation like we would any other complaint and see where that leads. I hope that gives peace to some folks. Okay. Anybody else . Yes. I have a couple followup very similar Public Service announcement questions to ask you. The Planning Department would be involved if there were a change of use whether it is on the subject property to this appeal or on parcel 36 itself, is that correct . Thats correct. There was some discussion about uses on the subject property, which is zoned umu, can you talk about what the change of use process is like that planning undergoes . When is Public Notice and when it is not depending how things are permitable in a urban mixed use zoning . Sure. We generally any time there is a change of use, even if permitted use that requires a permit because you need a document that use is legally established and sometimes the change of use even if permitted may trigger other code requirements so there is a permitting process for change of use. From a notification perspective, i can get into more detail, but for this property if it is a permitted use you are changing to on interior, generally speaking it will not trigger neighborhood notification. That is because it is deemed permitted already, so there is it is actually the neighborhood notification requirements changed some through legislation in the last several years and in eastern neighborhoods which is what the umu Zoning District is a part of, the requirements used to be if you are changing out of category, so if there is already industrial or non residential use and were going to out of that category say to retail or residential use or something beyond that scope, then you trigger notification. Now that has been reduced somewhat and think there is additional legislation past the Planning Commission that reduce that more so depending, but that is why i say generally speaking if change of use in the building that is a permitted use that is probably not going to require neighborhood notification. If you were watching the property it would probably come up on the neighborhood map . Sure, yeah. Thank you. No further questions. Well now hear from dbi. Just actually trying to address your question. If a inspector goes and sees that things were misrepresent on the plans, we would give a nov and refer it back to planning to take a look at it. If the inspector did see something that said okay, its not being displayed on the approved set of plans properly we do address it immediately. Otherwise, this is work within the envelope of the building, Pretty Simple stuff. Ada bathrooms good for the employees and people that come in and we think it has been properly reviewed and issued properly and we wish you to uphold the permit. Thank you. President swig has a question. I heard very little commentary from the appellate or the permit holder on passageways, toilets, et cetera et cetera, so ill ask you, do see any issues with what seems to be a very simple interior Renovation Program . No, it is pretty cut and dry. Thanks a lot. Thank you. Commissioners this matter is submitted. Commissioners, i will take the lead on this. I heard very little commentarydid i say this . Appellate or the permit holder on anything related to toilets passageways, anything else in the permit given that most of the stuff was extraneous related to other issues to the exterior of the property. I would like to deny the appeal. I dont make motions often if you are go ing it make on both permits i didnt hear comments and see no problems and thrrf therefore a motion these permits were issued appropriately. Commissioner lemberg and commissioner travina, feel free to comment as you wish. I most certainly will. This isas you all know, this is the issue i chose to take a stand on and write a letter on behalf of the board on. I want to start out by saying and i will support president swigs motion to deny these appeals. However, theres messages i wanted to express anyway because i think some important things have come up here tonight. Number one, for the appellate, you actually surprised me quite a bit tonight with the overall legal strength of your argument. I dont thinkobviously as i just stated, im not compelled sufficiently by your argument to grant the appeal. However, as a practice attorneying and practicing litigator the baseline standard and making a good faith argument and feel you did that. I didnt agree with it and feel compelling enough to grant the appeal however i think you made a good faith argument and for that reason i disagree with the characterization that you are abusing the appeals process and do believe you brought several new issues to light regarding this hotly contested public issue. I want to commend you. I believe tonight without commenting on things that are happening outside this hearing room, tonight you were respectful and responsive to questions and generally stayed within the bounds of what we asked of you and i commend you for that. At the last hearing we had on parcel 36, i am looking for my own quote, the city needs courageous leadership to take charge on issues like this. I dont believe that changed a whole lot and i believe everybody in this room has seen continued escalation of hostility between the friends of Mission Greenway and the permit holders and their allies. I take significant issue with what was presented here tonight by the permit holders. I believe while this does not go into the legal reasoning, which was very sparsely provided, i believe your rhetoric was pretty appalling. Im going to call it out, it was appalling. This is not a companyary commentary on monkey brains. indiscernible spoke to good work monkey brains is doing in the community and acknowledge and appreciate that and i have nothing bad to say about providing Free Internet to subsidized Housing Project certainly. What i do take issue is first and foremost the list of criminalof alleged criminal acts. Some people in the room may know, i handle defamation cases and that is a case i would take. It is pretty offensive and listing laundry list of penal code sections that the appellates have allegedly breached with no proof, no evidence is appalling. There is no other word for it and will call it like i see it. I also see the permit holders painting themselves as a a victim and victim only in the situation repeatedly from mr. Rucker and mr. Menendez testimony and last time as well, but what im also seeing is instead of going through the proper permitting processes to try to do that, what i see instead is excavation work occurring without a permit and without a permit application and you just blanketly saying it is okay to do when it clearly is not. With the explicit understanding presumably that the board of appeals would overturn any permit application you submitted and that is frankly just bad faith as far as im concerned. Of course the giant lock which is reported on in the media significantly is also another type of escalation. No matter how you want to put it, this is escalating with the community and whether or not you agree with the friends of the Mission Greenway actions or behavior they clearly represent a viewpoint that is representative of dozens and dozens if not hundreds of Mission Community members and discounting all of them as wrongdoers or people who are criminals even is just wrong. It is just wrong, and if you want the respect of the community that you are working in, you need to show them respect and im not seeing it and im calling it out like i see it. I do not believe the friends of the Mission Greenway are abusing the lever of government as stated. That was a quote from you as well. This is the lever of government. We are here right now. We are one bodyone government body among many many. I did noti frankly did not receive response from all most any accept for supervisor ronens office, any City Departments we wrote the letter to and that also is pretty lame. Just going to say. If youthis parcel is going to continue to be contested. You have seen in the way the friends have filed several complaints with dbi and planning. I presume they will continue to do so as it seems that has been the course in so far. Im not speaking as to the sufficiency of those complaints or legitimacy of those complaints, it isnt my place to do so. I havent reviewed them and it is not before us tonight, however that is the lever of government. That is how Government Works and i believe my colleagues in planning and dbi and any other City Department that were here would agree with that. We all complaint processes for exactly this reason. Again, i commend monkey brains for doing good work in the community and i hope you continue doing that, but this isnt that. I hope you see that and i hope you hear me a little bit, because theresi know we are going to come back and see this over and over again. We are going to keep hearing cases about this parcel and i wish there was more being done to resolve this rather then continued escalation on both sides as i previously said i wrote in the letter to several City Departments. Turn down the rhetoric, it isnt working for you and the legal argument before you tonight was an easy one as president swig stated. Wethere want much of a way to grant this appeal tonight, and to the Mission Greenway folks i say choose your battles better with this because this was not the right place to file an appeal. This was for interior permits and you know that and you acknowledged it ms. Hannah in your rebuttal. I will support president swigs motion to deny both appeals they were properly issued. Lets be real, but if we are going to continue seeing this, i expect to see improvements here because this isnt working and i hope you all see this isnt working. Thank you. President swig, thank you for guiding us through this very difficult item as well as other items tonight. You laid out some guideposts for members of the public and people who called in with testimony, which they by in large disregarded. But thats fine. There is a reason why we have 5 commissioners on this body. We have 5 different perspectives. So, i am very uncomfortable lecturing members of the public. Telling when they are wrong or telling when they have gone out of bounds. I may have done it overa period of time i have been here, but try not to do so. I would say all most everybody other then those on this side of it dais should not be in this room. This isnt a matter that should have come before us, but i feel the pain of both litigants in this and i feel the pain particularly of a company that is moved in contradicted to the city. If we Want Companies to stay here, then city needs to step up and be responsible to community complaints. We try to, we try to avoid this after the last meeting. We wrote to the various responsible officials in the district and throughout the city. I think people here are desperate forcalling out for the city to step forward and resolve the various complaints, whether it is through mediation or whether it is for listening to them, or working this out. We have a responsibility to the members of the Community Whether they are organizations, artists and gardeners as well as the companies. We as a city. This board can only do so much, and what we attempted to do is try to restrict our consideration to the issues at hand, to the Design Guidelines and planning code and all the various legal issues that come before us. But we are like mikey and the life cereal commercial give to mikey he will eat anything. You all come before us, you have been provided a forum to express your views. They go beyond the parameters of the particular permit, but we need others to step forward and yes, it is difficult. Any negotiations are difficult. International negotiations are difficult. Business negotiations are difficult. Labor management negotiations are difficult, but that doesnt mean that they cant be accomplished and i once again reiterate what we express and commissioner lemberg expressed their letter on behalf of all of us that we need the various agencies, officials of the city to be able to work with the various sides on this issue as well as other issues to come to a resolution so they are not plaid out on particular individual permits. Again, it is a government responsibility. I feel the pain of everybody in this room. The excesss we kind of predicted would happen if there was not follow up action and we are at this stage a few weeks later. We want to make sure that our decisions are in the realm we have and i would support president swigs disposition of this emotion and disposition of this appeal. We need collaboratively that kind of listening and solutions so we dont have further frustration and further members of the public coming back on either side expressing their frustration. Thank you. Okay. So, we have a motion on the table from president swig to do deny appeals. On the motion [roll call] that motion carries 50 and the appeals are denied. And that concludes the hearing. Thank you to the public, thank you to the commissioners, and thank you for keeping this as collaborative as possible. See you next week or the week after. Bye. [meeting adjourned] once i got the hang of it a little bit, you know, like the first time, i never left the court. I just fell in love with it and any opportunity i had to get out there, you know, they didnt have to ask twice. You can always find me on the court. [ ] we have been able to participate in 12 athletics wheelchairs. They provide what is an expensive tool to facilitate basketball specifically. Behind me are the amazing golden state road warriors, which are one of the most competitive adaptive basketball teams in the state led by its captain, chuck hill, who was a National Paralympic and, and is now an assistant coach on the national big team. It is great to have this opportunity here in San Francisco. We are the main hub of the bay area, which, you know, we should definitely have resources here. Now that that is happening, you know, i im looking forward to that growing and spreading and helping spread the word that needs that these people are here for everyone. I think it is important for people with disabilities, as well as ablebodied, to be able to see and to try different sports, and to appreciate trying Different Things. People can come and check out this chairs and use them. But then also friday evening, from 6 00 p. M. Until 8 00 p. M. , it will be wheelchair basketball we will make sure it is available, and that way people can no that people will be coming to play at the same time. We offer a wide variety of adaptive and inclusion programming, but this is the first time we have had our own equipment. [ ] good evening this is the Fire Commission meeting july 26, 2023. This is held in person. Members miattends the mote to observe can provide comment at the location or by calling 4156550001, access code 2664 531 2704