Our blog for more info on many of our episodes at sf quick bites. Com. Until next time, may the fork be with you. So chocolaty. Mm. Oh, this is awesome. Oh, sorry. I thought we were done rolling. Good evening and welcome to the january 16th, 2013 meeting of the San Francisco board of appeals. The presiding officer this evening is board president chris hwang joined by Vice President frank fung, commissioner lazarus and commissioner darryl honda. Commissioner hurtado is absent this evening. The deputy City Attorney will provide the board with any legal advice im Cynthia Goldstein the boards executive director. Were joined from representatives from the city departments with the cases before us. Scott sanchez is here, he is representing the Planning Department and planning commission. Joseph duffy, senior building inspector representing the department of building inspection. John kwong is here and im not sure if they are in the room, but im expecting representatives from the Environmental Health section of the department of health. If you could conduct the swearingin process. The board requests that you turn off all phones and pagers so they will not disturb the proceedings. Please carry on conversations in the hallways. The boards rules of presentation are as follows, appellants, permit holders and Department Representatives each have seven minutes to present their cases and three minutes for rebuttals. People affiliated with these parties must include their comments within the 7 or 3minute periods. Members of the public, who are not affiliated with the partis have up to 3 minutes each to address the board, but no rebuttals. To assist the board in the accurate preparation of minutes, the members of public who wish to speak on an item are asked, but not required to submit a speaker card or Business Card to staff when you come up to the podium. Speaker cards and pens are available on the left side of the podium. The board also welcome yours comments and suggestions. There are Customer Satisfaction survey forms on the left side of the podium. If you have questions about requesting a rehearing, board rules or hearing schedules please speak to board of directors staff during a break or after the meeting or call the board office tomorrow morning. The boor office is leb locate [ fb ] located at 1650 mission street, room 304. This meeting is broadcast live on San Francisco Government Television sfgovtv, cable channel 78, and dvds are of meeting are available for purchase directly from sfgovtv. Thank you for your attention. At this point in time well conduct our swearingin process. If you intend to testify at any of tonights hearings, and wish to have the board give your testimony evidentiary weight, please stand, raise your right hand and say i do after you have been swornin or affirmed. Please note, that any member of the public may speak without taking this oath, pursuant to the rights under the sunshine ordinance in the administrative code. Thank you. Anyone else . Okay. Do you solemnly swear or firm that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing, but the truth. I do. Thank you. Thank you. President hwang, commissioners we have one housekeeping issue in record to item 8, this is an appeal of a penalty imposed for work permitted without a permit at 965 mission street. The appellant is ill and has requested that this matter be continued to the boards february 13thing, 2013 meeting and the department of building inspection has agreed. With a vote we can move this to that date. I will move its continuance to that date. Thank you. Is there any Public Comment . Seeing none, mr. Pach echo, if you could call the roll. We have a motion from the president to reschedule item 8 to february 13th. On that motion Vice President fung . Aye. Thank you. Commissioner hurtado is absent. Commissioner lazarus . Aye. Commissioner haabed honda . Aye. Thank you. The vote is 40 and that appeal is rescheduled until february 13th. Item 1 is Public Comment for anyone who would like to speak to the board on an item or a subject that is not on the boards calendar this evening. Is there anyone here who would like to speak under general Public Comment . Seeing no Public Comment well move to item 2, which is election of officers, article 1 section 169 boards rules states that the president and Vice President shall be elected at the first regular meeting of the board held after the [ 1wr5 ]th day of january each year and tonight is that boards meeting. As such the election of officers is on the boards calendar. And just if i could take a brief moment for proceeding with the item. I want to take of the opportunity to thank president hwang and Vice President fung for their service. Its been a pleasure for me to work in this capacity with each of you and greatly appreciate what have you done in these last months in your office thank you. So typically the board starts with the office of Vice President and ask if there are any Board Members to nominate a colleague or themselves for this officer . Commissioners, if i may start . I would like to nominate commissioner lazarus . She has served in official capacity before and i know she will be able to run the meeting in the absence of the president quite well. Thank you. Commissioner lazarus has been nominated foyer office of Vice President. And is there any other nomination . I would second that nomination. Okay. It has been seconded. Is there any Public Comment before the board votes on this . Eseeing none, if you could call the roll on the nomination of the Vice President . Okay. We have a motion from Vice President fung to elevate commissioner lazarus to the vice presidency of the board of appeals. On that motion, president hwang . Aye. Commissioner hurtado is absent. Commissioner lazarus . Aye. And commissioner honda . Aye. Thank you. The vote is 40 and commissioner lazarus is elevated to Vice President. Congratulations, [ applause ]. Moving on to the office of president , any nominations for that office if i may speak again. President hwang has only served for a few months. She has not served a full term and it would be my pleasure to nominate her to continue as president of this board. Thank you, commissioner fung. I would be delighted to accept that nomination. Its been interesting and im not prepared to end this, so i would definitely like to proceed with another term. I am happy to second the nomination. So the nomination of president hwang has been made and seconded. Is there any other nomination for this office . Seeing none, before we call the roll, is there any Public Comment . We have a motion from Vice President fung to renominate president hwang to be president of the board of appeals for another yearlongterm. On that motion, president hwang . Aye. And commissioner hurtado is absent. Commissioner lazarus . Aye. Commissioner honda . Aye. Thank you. The vote is 40 and commissioner hwang is president of the board of appeals for another term. Congratulations. [ applause ] thank you both. Well take item 3, commissioner comments and questions. I would like to request that we get through our docket. Im not feeling well. So i may need to leave early. So in this case, the, i would like to get as much done as possible while im here. Is there any Public Comment on that item . Seeing none well move to item no. 4, which is the boards consideration and possible adoption of the january , 2013 minutes. I will move adoption of the minutes as submitted. Thank you. Any Public Comment on the minutes . Seeing none, mr. Pacheco, if you could call the roll, please. We have a motion from our new Vice President to adopt the january 9th, 2013 minutes. On that motion, commissioner fung . Aye. President hwang [stph pl ] aye. Commissioner hurtado is absent. Commissioner honda . Aye. Thank you. The vote is 40 and those minutes are adopted. Thank you. Calling item 5a, which is a jurisdiction request at 404 jersey street the board received letters from bill pashelinsky, requestor asking that the board take jurisdiction over the denial on august 14th, 2012 of the rear yard variance and the denial on september 5,2012 of bpa no. 2011 12 15, is0758. The appeal periods ended august [ 24 7b8g ], 2012 and separate 20th, 2012 respective and the jurisdiction requests were filed at the board office on october 31, 2012. The Building Permit application is to convert existing concrete slab into parking pad with new gate and curb cut. Mr. Pashelinsky, please step forward you have six minutes. I dont think ill need six minutes. Its very simple. I am bill pashelinsky the project architect and were not here to review the worthiness or lack of worthiness of the parking pad. We applied for a variance and unfortunately due to a number of circumstances near mr. Murphy or i or any representative knew about the hearing, didnt attend and pro forma, as i understand, it it got turned down. I originally applied for the variance mix. I was called by the well, i was told by the planner, mr. Adrian putra that he had a couple of issues. I reported that back to my client and my client at that point hired a specialist consultant who worked on garages. He told us he was working with mr. Putra. There was a hearing. Mr. Murphy came to the hearing for the variance. It was postponed. Mr. Murphy left for ireland for the summer. As far as we know our consultant was working with planning staff. He was not in contact with me or mr. Murphy. A hearing got scheduled, i wasnt notified about the hearing. Normally im the applicant and i get a call or letter telling me to go down and pick up the poster and bring it out to the site. And that has happened in every case. In this case it didnt happen. My understanding is that a letter was sent to mr. Murphys house. Mr. Murphy wasnt home during the summer. He was in ireland with his family. The variance was denied based on us not being there. I got a letter in late august. I called mr. Murphy, unfortunately there was a family tragedy at the time i called. My client, mr. Murphy its fatherinlaw had gotten very ill and proceeded to die. When i called helmet, he was in the process of making arrangements to have the deceased brought back to the United States and to be buried. So it was a series of errors, partly on our fault, on our consultants fault for not kiping in contact burk we also felt that i was at applicant should have been contacted to pick up the posters and notified by the hearing. Thank you. Mr. Sanchez . Thank you, good evening president hwang and congratulations Vice President lazarus. There was a duly notified hearing on the case. The project sponsor did attend that hearing that the time the item was continued one month to the may 23, 2012 hearing. That continuance was at the question of the project sponsor who requested additional time to provide evidence to the department this. Is because prior to the hearing the department indicated that we didnt see much strength in their arguments for the variance. We had a hearing may 23, 20 12 however no one attended. We continued the matter two months to allow the project sponsor to attend and scheduled a hearing for july 25, 2012. Staff attempted to reach out to the project sponsor, but did not receive a response. We had a hearing in addition, to the fact there was no one in attendance on the project sponsors side to present the case. I also found there was no merit to the variance request and denied the variance. So i wanted to make myself available for my other questions, but, but president hwang i hope you feel better. Thank you. You had the same thing last week yes. Its horrible. So we hear from the applicant he did not receive notice about the hearing as he normally would. Do you have records showing that you did provide is that what your normal course is . So the applicant has given a poster to post on property. Its my understanding that that poster was prepared and that a poster was placed on the property and confirmed by staff. When did that take place . That would have taken place in the beginning of april. Okay. They did meet with the applicant right before the hearing in april a couple of days prior to the hearing. At that time they requested a continuance of the matter. And i believe the appellant, the actual applicant did appear at the hearing. I went back to review the tapes and we confirmed and he confirmed and stated back to me it would be continued one month to may. So this was my recollection and confirmed by the tapes. Were you given any reason for the noshow on the may hearing . No. Or the continued hearing . I havent heard from anyone. Thank you. Mr. Sanchez, you indicated for the july that two attempts were made to contact him. What form of con tact was done . I believe by phone after the may hearing. There was no answer . Its my understanding there was no response. Mr. Duffy . No . Is there any public ghent . Comment . Good evening commissioners, my name is brocmurphy. Im sorry your time to speak is under mr. Pashelinsky time. He is representing you . He didnt take his six minutes, can i take the rest of the time . Do you have any record of how much time was left . Probably half a minute. Everyone okay with that . Im recovering from what you have. Everyone want my sympathy tonight. I made the mistake of hiring a consultant whoeed is he would work on the summer and for some pathological reason he did knowledgement. As you heard from my architect, i was many in ireland. I was away. The problem here is that from my perspective, i made a mistake. I practiced law for years and im very well aware of the doctrine of agency and im hung by my agents mistake. Staff should have reached out to bill pashelinsky. I wasnt in the country. My fatherinlaw was dieing in ireland all summer. I was in ireland and thought the thing was beinging worked on. There was into way to get ahold of my and i was under the assumption that i left the matter in the hands of my agents. Mr. Pollard let me down and mr. Pashelinsky was the agent of record on this. Its his name that son the poster. Now it wouldnt matter, except that i am prohibited from come back to have this looked at again for a year from the time that it was dismissed. And i am not asking minto judge the substance of this. I am willing to go and work on that, but im just saying two wrongs dont make a right. There were two wrong ms. This matter. Staff should have reached out to mr. Pashelinsky and he could have picked up the ball when pollard dropped and he could have straightened things out and that didnt happen. All im asking as a matter of due process is to restore us back to the position we were in, and let the thing continue and let the chips fall where they will on the issue of the variance. I dont think its fair to make me wait until next august or september to have to start this again, given the circumstances involved. Thank you. Mr. Murphy, condolences for your fatherinlaw. I wanted to ask the same questions i asked of mr. Sanchez, the Zoning Administrator about the noshows in may and july. I went to a hearing in april. He was right about that. We continued it, mr. Pollard was there with me with mr. Sanchez and mr. Pollard said he was going to submit in documentation to the planner and i left at that. I was not aware there was a hearing in may alt all. The first i heard about that was this evening and i was gone. Again the problem is staff could have and should have in my mind reached out to the architect. Weas my he was my agent. Thank you, mr. Murphy. Is there any Public Comment . Seeing none, commissioners the matter is submitted. I have a question for mr. Sanchez. When we hear testimony that your agency should have reached out to the applicant, when they dont show up multiple times, would that be your protocol to reach out to the applicant, in this case the architect, rather than the Property Owner . Thank you, scott sanchez, Planning Department. In hearing the jurisdiction requestors testimony this evening and i think getting a better understanding of the facts of the matter, actually the department would not oppose the jurisdiction request at this time. I would agree that the department does bear responsibility for contacting the appropriate party. We did have a meeting with staff and mr. Murphy and mr. Pollard and i believe at that time it seemed pretty clear to staff that mr. Pollard was an agent, an authorized agent of the Property Owner. So i dont fault staff for making that mistake, but certainly i could be more proactive in ensuring, especially when we didnt have the attendance of that may 25th hearing that we could have been more diligent and contacting mr. Pashelinsky as the agent of record. We simply did contact mr. Pollard and never heard back from him and mr. Murphy. So i think we do share some responsibility for that and the consideration of fairness to them for how they were let down by their agent. The department would not oppose it. Okay. Thank you. Commissionersing we have [heufgs ]ally have been quite lenient in allowing people their day in court, so to speak. And i would support granting a jurisdiction this instance. I would move that we grant jurisdiction on this particular case. Okay. Just for the record, there are two matters that you are granting jurisdiction on. Right. Okay. We have a motion from commissioner fung to grant both jurisdiction requests. On that motion, president hwang . Aye. Commissioner hurtado is absent. Vice president lazarus . Aye. And commissioner honda . Aye. Thank you, the vote is 40. The jurisdiction requests are granted and mr. Pashelinsky has two 5day appeal periods in which to appear these matters. Thank you. Well call item 6a through 6d that will all be heard together. Appeal no. 12105,106, 107, and 108. Josh bleecher synder and also Dennis Stewart versus the department of building inspection with the Planning Department approval. These are appeal protests the issuance on august 20 2012 to brendan fox of a permit to demolish a building, two story singlefamily dwelling with 1083squarefeet of ground floor area and also protesting the issuance on august 20, 2012 to brendan fox of a permit to erect a building, fourstory, twounit building with 1413squarefeet of ground floor area. These were alluded time to submit codecompliant revised plans and the hearings were held on october 17th an again december 12th, 2012. With the president s afreedom what i would recommend is that we hear from the project sponsor first and give each party three minutes to present their cases. That makes sense. Good evening commissioners lou, the project sponsor. Purpose of the continuance was to allow us to redraw the drawings to make sure they were codecompliant. We offered to reduce the height and make other modifications and i would like to use my time to review those with you, because there was a question as to what was sent to you was accurate. So i want to go through with you, if you dont mind. I would like to use the overhead. Commissioners you may recall what you are seeing right now is actually a section through the original permit set. The building has been reduced 2 in height. Comparing applestoapples. Our other drawings measured height, the way the planning code does it to the roof. There is a 6 difference. Basically the roof has been lowered two feet in what is being proposed now. The front wall on the 4th floor has been setback 2 6, this whole stair assembly in orange has been removed. As a kind of compensating factor the front bay window was moved forward about a foot. But reduced in width by 9. And then at the kind of first living level there was a popout inserted which projects another 5 6 beyond what the stair assembly had. There is a stair going down to the yard. That section basically shows the changes that have been made. Here is a rear yard again. The existing stair assembly, and what has been added, approximately 2 and 5 6 on the secondfloor popout. In the front just to clarify, again this shows at the fourth floor, the setback. That concludes my comments. Thank you commissioners. Thank you. We can hear from the appellants now. Go ahead. Mr. Stewart good evening members of the board, my name is Dennis Stewart and im a [raert ] round the corner. I would like to make two brief appeals on this one, as i think the board has already decided, but for the Public Record i do wish to reiterate for the reasons set forth in previous testimony. This building even with the small reductions in height is inconsistent to the departments codes, with regard to its compatibility with the neighborhood. I want to say it for the Public Record this is not compatible with the neighborhood and sets a bad precedent for future decisions that will be based on a comparison with this building, assuming that you approve it. The second is a procedural objection to this, which i raised at the last meeting. And that is i take with due respect to commissioner honda, i do take umbridge with the fact that he is taking part in this. I would take note to assistant City Attorney, subsequent to the oral statement this was cleared by the City Attorneys office i filed a formal request with the City Attorney and they are not