With San Francisco public works. And thomas rouitman and the project managers from San Francisco public works. And the Board Meeting guidelines are as follows. The board requests that you turn off or silence all phones and other Electronic Devices so they will not disturb proceedings. Appellant and permit holders and respondents are each given seven minutes to present their case and three minutes are rebuttal. And members of the public who are not with the party have three minutes to address the board and no rebuttal. Time may be limited to two minutes if the agenda is large or a large number of speakers. Our legal clerk will give you a verbal warning 30 seconds before your time is up. Four votes are to have an appeal or other city determination. If you have questions about a rehearing and please email board staff at boardo boardofappealing sfgovtv. Org. And every effort has been made to replicate the inperson hearing process. 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If youre a participant and not speaking now, please put your zoom speaker on mute and turn off your video camera. So, commissioners, we have one housekeeping item. And the parties for item 7 which is the the appeal number 7 would like to continue to august 12th that the Zoning Administrator may file a brief by august 6, 2020. So we do need a motion and a vote to continue that item. A motion. Okay, we have a motion from Vice President honda to continue that. With that condition i mentioned. Is there any Public Comment on that motion . Let me look through to make sure that were not missing anybody. I see someone raising their ha hand. Hello . Let me see. Caller sorry, yeah, you hear me now . Clerk yes, did you call in or are you joined by the link . Caller i was joined by zoom, yeah. Clerk so ill promote you and well put you on video. Okay. Caller okay, great. Yeah, so, i mean, i just of course, lets extend this. Theres too many other obstacles to leaf over, right . So i think that for this to get its attention that its due we should allow the time to make it happen. Clerk okay. Thank you. Is there any other Public Comment for this item . Let me go through this. Okay, im not seeing anyone. So we do have a motion from Vice President honda to continue that with the condition attached. On that motion president lazarus aye. Commissioner tanner. Aye. Commissioner swig. Aye. So that motion carries 40. The matter is continued. Thank you. So now were moving on to item number 1 which is general Public Comment. This is an opportunity for anyone who would like to speak on a matter within the boards jurisdiction but that is not on tonights calendar. Is there any member of the public who would like to speak with general Public Comment . I would like to. Okay. Clerk great. Welcome mr. Karnazes. You have three minutes. Hi, thank you. I want to just publicly thank Julie Rosenberg who has accommodated some disability requests for this meeting. As i understand it, the public will also be able to join with a video Public Comment. And that i will be able to use the chat for Technical Assistance for disabilities. And theyve updated the mealing website with disability and accessibility information and callin information. I really want to thank julie for doing this. And i think that it really sets an example of how other departments can and should be operating. Unfortunately, the department of public works a. D. A. Coordinator has been ignoring my emails and accessibility requests for many months and its very nice to see a Department Like the board of appeals taking accessibility seriously and making the simple but very important accommodations so that disabled people and members of the public can attend and be heard. So, again, thank you. Clerk thank you. Okay, we have one other speaker. Miss boller . One moment. Miss boller, you can go ahead. You have three minutes, please. Okay. Caller hello . Clerk hello, miss boller, welcome. Caller thank you. Im calling because theres been an incident on octavia street of tree cutting that was has greatly upset the residents because they expected that an agreement made with the board of appeals was being followed. And it wasnt. They were supposed to come to an agreement as to the replacement of trees and what which trees would be which kinds of trees would be replaced. And that agreement was not reached. Everybody was taken by great surprise that suddenly on saturday that a crew came and took down four trees. And then i think on monday an additional tree im not sure where those were on octavia street. The other one might have been on hayes street. And now apparently its been decided to stop doing it. But i think that its very unfortunate and illegitimate for those trees to be taken down. And theres no putting them back. You just cant move them back on to their stumps. Thats, i guess i dont know what else i should say about that. So thats my comment. Clerk thank you miss boller. I have just one question. What is the address on octavia street, to the caller, miss boller . Clerk miss boller . Shes gone. Clerk she may be gone. But we do have another member of the public who would like to speak. So miss downs . Caller hello. Clerk hello and welcome. You have three minutes. Caller hi, thank you. Id like to echo what miss boller was saying that we dont feel that the adequate, like, inclusion of the publics comment and the we were supposed there was supposed to be a transparent process on how the tree plan on what trees would be made as replacements before the trees were actually taken down. And that was ordered as part of the mandate at the last hearing but that didnt actually take place. Theres just been a couple of side conversations, and the association which does have a democratic election process and does not represent the neighborhood. And we feel somewhat betrayed by, you know, by the suddenness of and the lack of communication around which trees are coming down. But in addition to this, i have noticed and i have a video of the ficus tree at 432 hayes street that was being pruned by those same contractors that were removing the trees. But it wasnt on the list of trees to be pruned or removed, plus, it is still nesting season of birds and in that tree in the video you can see visible nests. And later its been shown that weve been told that this was a mistake by an unauthorized and a decision by the contractors. Id like to know how this could happen and what surveying and what can be done in future to prevent this from happening to anyone else who is having trees removed or pruned in the neighborhood from having contractors take these independent antienvironmentalist, like, initiatives to make all of these yeah, to make these decisions. Im just kind of upset about this. And i feel like there should be a process and we follow that process and thats how things get done. I agree. Clerk okay. Thank you. We do have wait, one moment. We have another public someone who wants to provide Public Comment. The phone number ending in 0701. Please go ahead. Caller hi, thank you. Can you hear me . Clerk yes, i can. Caller this is josh, i was one of the appellants in the hayes valley manner that miss boller and miss downey referred to. And i think that the particular concern is that as an appellant, one of the things that we fought hard for and that the board included in its decision was that a replacement plan needed to be in place before any removals occurred. That is actually in the boards decision. And as one of the appellants, i would think that i would be aware of any replacement plan that was in place and those removals started last saturday, and indiscernible most importantly. Clerk mr. Clip, we cant hear you. I think it was time. Clerk okay. I see hes still there. But we can try having him come back. But we have somebody else. Mr. Clip, can you hear us . He may call back then. Maybe he lost ill reserve his time when he calls back. Clerk okay. So we do have another person from the tenants rights group. Whoever called in from the tenants rights group, we can put you on video. One moment. Okay. Thank you. Caller all right. Hi. Clerk hello and welcome. Caller thank you. Can you hear me . Clerk yes. Caller all right. Im going to just say thank you for giving me the time. I also want to talk about the legaillegal cutting down of tren bayview with the new construction project, with gentrification there. I just dont understand how that could happen when processes and procedures were already confirmed in earlier meetings. Thats it. Thank you. Clerk okay, thank you. And i believe that mr. Clip is back. Mr. Clip . Oh, no. Caller yeah, im hem here, sorry. My phone picked a great time to drop the signal there. You have two minutes and 10 0 seconds reserved for you. Caller thanks. Yeah, all i was going to say is that was language that the board specifically included in its motion, in its decision. And as an appellant it seems that something that should have been aware of that there was a replacement plan in place. I was not made aware of that. And the removal proceeded anyway. So i just think that its important that the board put these things in the decisions that those things need to be abided by by the department. Thats all. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Any more general Public Comment . Just one more question. Mr. Clip, did you have the address of the case that we had heard associated with it . Caller i dont im sorry, can you hear me . Yes. Caller yeah, i dont know all of the addresses where the trees were removed off the top of my head. I do know that they were in a 2 1 2 block radius which is sort of limited in scope. Its not the full removal happening right now, but it was limited in scope because of the request, i believe by the association to ensure that there would be no impedenses to the businesses reopening once the covid restrictions are lifted. Okay, thank you. Clerk okay, we do have one more Public Commenter. One moment. The phone number ending in 8570. Please, go ahead. Caller hello, good evening. This is casey as berry with the demonstration gardens and the healthy street trees initiative. And im calling to address the board generally regarding a pattern that we are seeing as we study the health of our urban canopy. Were seeing that we are losing more trees than we are gaining consistently year over year. And we respectfully seek your support in halting all nonemergency tree removals while we investigate the conditions that are producing this. Were not saying that its wrongdoing. Were not making any assertions, but there are the biggest disturbing pattern is that we are losing healthy mature trees at a rate that we cant afford to. Thank you. Clerk okay, thank you. So let me see if theres any more Public Comment. One moment. I do believe that we did get a message in the chatbox, one of the commenters wants to provide Contact Information to another commenter. And since we are doing this remotely we want to facilitate the process. Mr. Karnazes, can you clarify what you want to share . I cant hear you. Oh, yes, hi, yes. I would just like to provide my email address for those that spoke up in Public Comment today and in defense of our urban forest and id love to communicate with anyone interested. Julie, you have my email address. Please feel free. I believe that theres a private chat that you can send your information to other panelists. Clerk so why dont we announce it. The reason for that is that i dont want this to be part of the public record. If it was a Public Meeting i could say heres a piece of paper and heres my email. Clerk thats fine. So whoever would like mr. Karnazes email send an email to me. And i will provide that information to you. We do have a question from Vice President honda. Vicepresident honda madam president , is it appropriate to ask chris buck what he knows about these particular trees . Clerk are you asking president lazarus or me . Vicepresident honda i have to get the boss approval. President lazarus i might defer to the deputy City Attorney to what is allowable when its brought up in Public Comment and not otherwise agendaized. Good evening, commissioners. The City Attorneys office. The matter is not ajendized on the k8d and if you want to discuss that matter indepth you should schedule it for another hearing. As a discussion item. Vicepresident honda perfect, thank you. Clerk okay, thank you. So just confirming whether theres any more Public Comment. I dont see any more Public Comment. Pardon . I dont see anyone that has raised their hands. If you are here for Public Comment and you have called in you have to dial star, 9. So the phone number ending in 4280, please go ahead. Caller i had some technical difficulties so i apologize, i didnt hear the comment that came before me. I just wanted to say that i live in hayes valley and i understand the frustration of being of trees being cut down without proper notification. D. P. W. Seems to think that the notices that they put up over a year ago were adequate and so much has changed since then. The neighborhood still doesnt know what trees are going to be cut. And they were supposed to have a plan in place before they began any tree removal, which has not been approved. And we were working on it when covid hit and everything was paused. And this past weekend we just woke up to the sound of buzz saws. Nine trees have been removed in just two blocks. You can picture how much foliage was lost. That is 40yearold trees. We still dont have a replacement plan in place. They told us on tuesday after five trees were cut that they wouldnt do anything more until late july, and then we woke up this morning to again the sound of buzz saws and five d. P. W. Trucks taking down four huge trees after they told us yesterday that they werent going to d to do anything more. So i think that it needs to be clarified that the code calls for notification 30 days prior to tree 30 days prior to removal, not at least 30 days prior to, but 30 days. So we have some notice of when our neighborhood is going to be ravaged. It was really traumatizing. And in this particular instance they also need to have the replacement plan in place before they do anymore removal. I think that is all i have to say. And i apologize if its not exactly the right point in the agenda because i couldnt hear the whole meeting. I was having trouble getting in. Clerk its exactly the right point. Thank you. Caller okay. Clerk okay. Thank you, any other Public Comment . Okay, i dont see any further Public Comment. So we will move on to item 2 which is commissioner comments and questions. I have a comment and i couldnt get to the raising my hand part. This Public Comment really bothers me. You know, i got upset a couple weeks ago when were talking about it again today, the same followup. I would like to request that in the future hearing that we address this issue which we will be addressing later on on another case about the disconnect the disorientation, the disorganization i dont know certain a lack of communication between the departments and d. P. W. That would allow trees to be demolished without proper process. And not just the notice, i many, we were very clear. What upsets me is that we work very hard as commissioners to go by the law, to take everybodys point of view into consideration and we try to make a fair ruling according to the law, according to the advice of the departments, according to the testimony that we hear from citizens. And then we make a ruling. And when we make a ruling, thats the ruling. Thats what it is. And so to be to hear what im hearing right now is its an abuse to me as a commissioner. I dont know about the rest of my fellow commissioners, but its certainly an abuse to me. It completely discredits mr. Buck. It completely disar discredits e city of San Francisco. And this came up again on the same case that were hearing again later tonight where out of nowhere the city contractor comes in and without permission, without warning, without anything, buzz saws and kills trees. And that was before we knew that they were going to do it wrong. In this one we had already ruled on what was to happen and this obvious abuse occurred again. So i would like a Senior Department head, please, in a future meeting of d. P. W. Responsible for coordinating these activities to come in to apologize or to justify why this action took place and why the members of the citizenry have to in Public Comment notify that this perceived abuse took place. Thank you. Clerk thank you. We have a comment from commissioner tanner. Commissioner tanner i just want to echo the comment of submissioner swig. I couldnt agree more really what happens when these things happens is that the trust gets eroded between the public and the city. And it makes it harder for d. P. W. To do their job list and harder for this commission to make a decision after listening to the evidence and that evidence is ignored. And it undercuts the public process. We heard several cases in last few weeks where the members of the public are kind of saying where is the process, you know, lets have the public process go through. And then even say if they win or lose or whatever happens with our decision, at least the process has happened in a fair manner. Theres been several cases because things have happened out of order that public process is not respected. Its not the opportunity made to defend the tree, to have the discussion, to challenge the permit. So i really want to encourage whomever it is in d. P. W. To make a point to be here to help to say how the department is taking accountability for these oversights and errors and how is our plan to rebuild trust. We had one case, what, where the guy was putting up the street light before the tree removal was approved and essentially assuming that the appeal of the tree removal, you know, would be not before the department. Thats, again, the actions that erode the trust of the public that what happens in these processes matter and that its important and that the city is even listening to the public with the bad decisions that are being made. So i concur with commissioner swig. Clerk thank you. We will now hear from president lazarus. President lazarus yes, i understand the desire for this. And i think that we should probably withhold a certain amount of judgment until we have heard from everybody. But in that vein, i think that trying to do this sooner rather than later would be helpful. Miss rosenberg, im not sure what our agendas look like for the next few meetings, but i encourage us to try to schedule it as soon as possible. Clerk okay, i will check our calendar. We likely wont have Space Available until august. Our next two meetings are fairly busy, but possibly possibly july 29th. Ill check. Okay. Vice president honda, i believe that you had your hand raised before. Would you like to say anything . Vicepresident honda i concur with my fellow commissioners and especially with madam president , with having this heard sooner than later. We would revoke their permit. And at this point i believe that the board still has that ability to do so. Theyll be putting those trees back into the ground. So someone should come and present what happened and why as soon as possible. Clerk okay. Thank you. So is there any Public Comment on this item, on the commissioners comments and questions. Please raise your hand if you would like to provide Public Comment. We do have miss down, please, go ahead and speak. Caller i just want to say how rewarding and wonderful it is to hear what were listening to and that our voices matter. And, yeah, its meaningful to me and im happy to proi my Contact Details to talk what happened and in addition to not being notified about the tree coming down and the fact they came down without against the boards mandated order and also about the birds nests that were disturbed as part of that process, unwarranted tree heavy tree pruning that happened by the contractor. Clerk okay, thank you. We will now hear from miss boller . Miss boller . Please, go ahead, miss boller. Hello, miss boller. Caller can you hear me now . Clerk yes, please proceed. Caller well, im concerned about what may be happening in the interim, and what the contractor someone seems to be kind of a loose wheel and what assurance do we have with other trees that are not going to turn up cut down to everybodys surprise . I think that is all i have to say. But it seems to me that something is out of control. And i dont know what control has materialized with the decision to hear it, maybe july 29th. Clerk okay, thank you. Commissioner swig. Commissioner swig yes, thats a great point. And i would like to ask the City Attorney and maybe since we have mr. Buck in the room, how do we do a cease and desist on the contractor who has no permission to cut trees but is cutting trees, obviously, where theyre not supposed to. How do we send that message to d. P. W. , do it legally, mr. City attorney . Can we what can we do to communicate to your department, mr. Buck . Brad rusk from the City Attorney office. I dont than we have enough information yet to determine what action could be taken against the contractor and that would be within the hands of the department that has the contract with the contractor and i would assume is the department of public works. Commissioner swig so how do we get a message to the department of public works . To cease and desist on actions that we have already heard, and where where they do not have a permit to cut trees down without going according to what our findings were and what our ruling was several sessions ago. Would it be possible to send a correspondence to the department from miss rosenberg and just following up on our previous ruling . Would that be possible . I think this matter would be more appropriate for agenda being agendized at a future meeting because were having a discussion about something not on the agenda. Right, im concerned about that as well. Commissioner swig i agree with that and that, obviously, the conundrum is, you know, two days from now a contractor could come in and make it a moot point by tearing down a bunch of trees. Thats the sad part. But maybe mr. Buck can do something about that unofficially and without motivation from us. Clerk commissioner swig, i want to point out that miss as bury sent an email to me that i forwarded from carla short from d. P. W. So i know that she was going to respond and look into the matter. I dont know the status at this point but shes aware of it. Commissioner swig its what you call a hail mary play. Im trying to stop at the advice of the Public Comment to prevent further problems. So, thank you. Clerk thank you. We do have some more Public Comment. This is from miss asbury. Miss asbury, please, go ahead. Caller thank you. I appreciate very much the Commission Listening to our urging. This is an urgent matter. And i dont know what the proper process would be to halt removal until we can investigate whats going on. But we do see an escalation and we whether were i d i dot know what the source of it it is. And the only way to find out is to investigate it. And meanwhile i really appreciate the understanding of the urgency. And i support any action to immediately halt all nonemergency tree removals until we can figure out whats going on. Thank you. Clerk okay. Thank you. I believe that mr. Karnazes would like to provide Public Comment. Hi, yes, thank you. I would like to voice in support of that ask from the previous caller. I am really dismayed to hear that even after an appeal that was you know, heavily discussed where the department of public works illegally cut down trees, that theyre continuing to do it. And they know that its wrong. So theyre going to try to pass the buck, as it were, to contractors, but they are responsible for the maintenance and the care of these trees. That is their responsibility under section 805 of the public works code. Keep in mind that this is the same department whose head, mohammed nuru, was arrested by the f. B. I. On charges of corruption. That was only a few months ago. So we what were seeing is a pattern of a department that is littered with corruption and illegality. And that pattern is not going to stop very easily. What needs to happen is fines fines for this department, for this illegal behavior, because thats what it is it is illegal and its not just a miscommunication and its not a mistake. Section 8. 1 of the public coe outlines what those fines can be and theyre a misdemeanor or criminal charges. And that this needs to stop. It really does. And i feel that d. P. W. Is possibly using the covid pandemic as a smokescreen to deforest our city at a heightened rate because they are eager for the money that they get for these construction projects. But i would like to say dont count your chickens before they hatch. The board of appeals did uphold last month that this was okay in the appeal that josh clip brought up last month. They upheld that appeal was approved. So i really ask that the board of appeals deny these the appeals that d. P. W. Brings, especially under the extremely illegal and very dubious circumstances to penalize chris buck and those responsible for this illegal behavior, to fine them and to use the fine to plant new trees. We dont get our trees back if theres just a slap on the wrist or theres a dont do that again. This serious action needs to be taken to make sure that is not repeated. This has a long history of happening. Four years ago on Mission Street they dug up a bunch of roots by accident doing construction before getting clearing permits for removing trees. So there is a long pattern of this happening and its not new, its not a mistake and its not a miscommunication. Its d. P. W. Expecting rubber stamps of this board. 30 seconds. And i appreciate your time and i appreciate that the board is seeming to take this more seriously. And i really hope with this upcoming appeal that they will take this very seriously and show the public that there is an authority here that will respond directly. Thank you. Clerk thank you. Is there any other Public Comments on this item . I dont see any other Public Comments. So we will move on to item three, the adoption of the minutes. Commissioners, before you is a discussion of the minutes for june 17, 2020 meeting. President lazarus any changes to the minutes. If not, a motion to adopt . Motion to adopt, please. Clerk we have a motion from commissioner swig to adopt the june 17th minutes. Any Public Comment on that motion . Okay. Sorry, i should have raised my hand. Clerk thats fine, go ahead. I just wanted to say that i did feel that the minutes were a little bit incomplete and could have provided more detail, especially for the presentations by appellants. I wonder at a future meeting what can be done to change that, to alter the minutes and to include more detail or theres a way for future meetings to incorporate more information on what is presented at these meetings. So that the public can be informed with what is happening. When i read these minutes i thought that it doesnt give a context to what is really happening in this meeting. I feel that is the purpose of minutes is to give context and information on what actually occurred. Clerk okay, thank you. Any other Public Comment . Okay, i dont see anybody raising their hands. So commissioner swigs motion to adopt, president lazarus . Aye. Vice president honda . Aye. Commissioner tanner. Aye. Okay that motion carries, 40, and the minutes are adopted. Now before we go on to item number 4, the permit holder for item number 5 would like to request that the matter be continued to july 29th. And the appellant doesnt agree to this, so the matter is being put before the commissioners. And item number 5 is appeal 19144. And it concerns the subject property at 49drumm street, john yee versus the department of building inspection Planning Department approval. indiscernible . Clerk so why dont we hear first from the permit holder. You have miss knight excuse me, as a preliminary matter, Vice President honda, i believe that you want to be reminded about a disclosure . We cant hear you. Youre still on okay. Please, go ahead. Vicepresident honda i am a partner in a project that hired the law firm of rubin and junui as counsel. This will not have an effect on this. Clerk miss knight . Thank you. Good evening, commissioners. Im on behalf of the permit holder and thank you for your time this evening. As you noticed this is a continued matter, we are here before you in the spring. Weve made significant progress since we saw you last with the outstanding permitting issues, to take additional time to july 29th to submit a permit for the building as a whole that we believe that would alleviate the appellants concerns. The permit before you is for work on the third floor of the building to respond to an n. O. V. It legalizes a third floor addition with modifications for setback for the site, and changes to the fire escape at that level. The 2018 permit was issued after a year and a half of thorough review by the city, including both the Planning Department and d. B. I. It was properly issued and we would like to start the work to comply with n. O. V. That said, theres additional issues that have been raised by appellants with regards to the property. And were seeking to address those concerns beyond the scope of this appeal. And weve been working to address those concerns since we last saw you. On april 5th sorry, march 5th, Scott Sanchez and joe duffy conducted a site visit. We walked through the property. At that point it was noted that there were some Minor Discrepancies between what has been the existing and proposed conditions on the plan and what was shown on the plan at each of the levels. And so we received the direction to clean that up. With an additional permit. And we have been working to do that. Its a little complicated because you have to sort of sort through all of the prior plans and we are working through that and were close but we need to finalize that plan. We expect that to be complete were working to have that complete by the 29th and hopefully having that submitted to d. B. I. By the 29th. I should note that there were no, like, safety issues identified by the city at the site visit. It was really cleanup of the plans. And we have also in the meantime, the other issue raised at the prior hearing is the third floor, and we have submitted a permit to to convert the third floor use to office. Originally when the 2018 permit was submitted, it was anticipated that the third floor would be used for telecom equipment. That didnt end up being a preferred use. There was an Office Tenant that moved in there and we understand that we need to have that permitted under the code. So that permit is under review and hopefully it will be issued soon. We also will be working on the permit well, the cleanup permit or the 2020 permit, which will which will sorry which will clarify whats going on on the site. We have also been doing some structural work, some testing. Thats time. Clerk thank you, miss knight. Sure. Clerk okay, one moment. Okay, so i thought that i saw a question from one of the commissioners, but, no. So we will now hear from the attorney for appellant, mr. Patrick. Will you be speaking . No, Andrew Andrew wiegel. Clerk welcome. Thank you. We simply want to underscore the fact that we appealed this permit because it was completely fraudulent with regard to the description of the work. And we have been getting nothing but the run around from the permit holder ever since. We still have not seen plans that actually show what was illegally built, which is office use, complete with furniture and people in it. And it is our request simply that this matter be decided. That the applicant to be sent back to redo the permit. The permit is obviously fraudulent and the appeal shoud be granted and the applicant should go ahead and properly file for a permit with proper plans, etc. , etc. I yield the balance of my time to counsel for the oasis grill which is far more heavily impacted than my client. Clerk okay, miss androlli. Im going to pause time. Clerk okay. Can you hear me . Clerk yes. Good evening. Clerk please, go ahead. Thank you, commissioners. I am the attorney representing the interest of the commercial tenant 49 drumm building, oasis grill. The request for a continuance is actually another admission by the permit holder as in the permit holders brief that was submitted for this hearing, that was based on knowingly false plans. The fraud was perpetrated on the city and has continued for three years since the n. O. V. Was issued in 2017. The permit holder had three years to submit accurate plans, three years to assess the Structural Condition of the building. Three years to correct the violations of the building code. And now theyre asking for a continuance to finally prepare accurate plans. But preparing accurate plans will not resolve the appeal. As the board may recall from six months ago when we were before the commissioners in january, that the board was nearly ready to revoke the permit after hearing evidence of the permit holders egregious violations of the building code, but continued the hearing to allow the parties to properly brief the issues and time for the city to visit the property. Though mr. Duffy and mr. Sanchez did visit the property in march, nothing has changed. The existing conditions and the representation of the use of the property in its permit application are still grossly inaccurate. And the building is still destruct reallily deficient, as described 30 seconds. And the third floor addition and the electrical and plumbing installed in the third floor of the plumbing, all by unlicensed contractors and is not inspected. Its not the right process to work on correcting these plans. We had very little transparency from the permit holder throughout this process and were just hearing today that for the first time that theyre planning to submit new plans for the entire building in thats time. Clerk thank you. President lazarus has a comment. President lazarus yes, i just wanted to say for the record that i have reviewed the video of this hearing as i was not present for the entire hearing. So i believe that i can rule on this matter. Clerk thank you president lazarus. Okay, we will now hear from the Planning Department, mr. Sanch mr. Sanchez. Thank you, so the Planning Department did perform a Side Business with the building inspector joe duffy back in march. At which time we observed a few issues with the plans that were currently submitted and before the board. And we requested that the project sponsor make changes to those plans. Unfortunately, we did not receive them until late last week. And yesterday chief inspector duffy and i had a conversation with the permit holder where we reviewed the plans and found that there were still some issues that needed to be addressed. And we suggested that the item to be continued to allow time for revised plans to be prepared and to be submitted to all parties one week before the hearing. But this is a fairly typical process with the board when issues are identified that the board does often allow corrections or amenitiment amene made with the issues. And on the third floor we did observe an office use at that level. Its an allowed use and they have a pending permit to utilize the top floor as office. We also had some discrepancies on the proposed conditions on the second floor which was an existing office use. And theyre still kind of working on having accurate representations of that work. We think that all of that kind of changed in the scope and can be addressed in a revision permit. Which, you know, is what they have pending before d. B. I. They have the permit to legalize the third floor use and we think they can make those other corrections at that point. And what is before the board with this permit is the legalization of the top floor addition. And compliance of the Planning Commission requirements which have been cut back so that theres a setback from the front building facade. All of this could move forward under this permit if we have the correct plans and also a plan to deal with the issues that have been identified by the appellant and our site visit. So for that we would respectfully request a continuance to allow for that plan to occur. Im available for questions. Clerk we have questions from commissioner tanner and commissioner swig and Vice President honda. Commissioner tanner. Commissioner tanner this may be addressed by mr. Duffy as well. What i am challenged by is the request for more time when it was seen that there has been more time given. And, of course, during that time we have all been enduring the Global Pandemic due to covid19. So im just curious in your estimation how much of this has because what it sounds like to me is that perhaps these things have come forward at last minute, versus, you know, the appellant or the permit holder working after the hearing to work diligently and covid19 impacting the schedule and now they need more time. Versus you saying that we need a few more weeks. So im not clear. And perhaps you can provide a sense of why more time is needed. Why wasnt the time that has already been provided been sufficient for this . I cant speak to why the permit holder didnt make better use of their time. I certainly think that these changes could have been done within the time they had. In my opinion, the changes are relatively minor. And i think that both the building inspector duffy and i have been fairly persistent with the permit holder in requesting revised plans so wed have time to review them. So everyone would have time to review them. It is frustrating that we still dont have correct and accurate plans. So i cant defend their what theyve done over the last few months and maybe the permit holder is better suited to speak to their issues that they have. Commissioner tanner and following up on that, if the board decided to hear the case and they decided to revoke the permit, theyd have to begin again and do all of that theses over again, is that correct . Thats correct. They already have a permit on file, so, yes, they would need to go back to some extent, you know, we have already reviewed and we have a decision on the project. So i think that our review would be relatively straightforward. But, yeah, they would be going back to the start with the project. Commissioner tanner okay, and to be precise with this. How much time does the staff need from the time they get the revised permits to review them. How much time before they come back to us . We could review the revised plan in a matter of days. I was troubled by the permit holder when they were speaking and saying they wanted to have the plans by the 29th. I think that were very clear in our conversation yesterday that we want something for all parties one week before and that is going to be something that weve already reviewed. So we dont want to have a process starting the week before the hearing. If they could give it two weeks before the hearing we could give them all the comments if we have the plans ready one week before the hearing. So that everyone will have kind of the agreed upon plans. Commissioner tanner a last question. Has there been consistent conversation with the permit holder since the last hearing or did they just get around to talking to you more recently . I think that its been over the last several weeks. We followed up with them about the status of the plans repeatedly. And i again, i defer to the permit holder as to why it took so long to get the revised plans. I actually, i thought that they were working with the tenants of the building during this time. So im a little bit surprised to hear that has not occurred. Commissioner tanner okay, thank you. Clerk thank you, well hear now from commissioner swig. Commissioner swig so i agree with commissioner tanner in the point of view that, you know, where has the permit holder been all of this time and why are they doing it at the last moment. But, mr. Sanchez, whats haunting me is that if we go through this hearing today based on what you just said, were going to it sounds like theres a really good chance that we would decide to punt and move this thing forward until the plans got done. So were kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place anyway because we dont have the information. Id like you to affirm or deny that. But, secondly, also where is where is the burden or where is the hardship on this . Is the hardship on the appellant . If so, where . And i would perceive that if there was a hardship that it would be on the possibly on the permit holder because their building is at risk. Can you give me some ideas and clarification on both of those, please. Sure, so on the first point in terms of the action that the board can take. We dont have the correct plans. So we recommend that the board not take any action to approve the permit. Of course, the board could deny the permit and grant the appeal and deny the permit for the plans that were approved that are not accurate. And then they could go and start over the process and have maybe one complete permit that addresses all of the issues with the unpermitted work, and so that would be one option. Which i think that the appellant is requesting that the board take. The other option is to continue it and to give the permit holder additional time to submit the correct and accurate plans. In terms of who may be most impacted, i think that the appellant has raised issues about structural concerns with the building. And chief inspector duffy did the site visit, hell speak to that, and i know that there were no immediate concerns. It appears to be in good shape. I know that d. B. I. Is o on going and reviewing those issues. And there were issues with the tenants, the ground floor restaurant tenant. And i dont think that theyve been able to open it up now with the covid situation, but only exacerbates their issues. So the Property Owner, im sure they want to get the illegal construction revised and updated. Although, you know, the longer this continues, theyre benefitting from the illegal construction, i think they have or had Office Tenants in those spaces. So i dont think that the Property Owner is necessarily too inconvenienced. It seems potentially any connection to the restaurant on the ground floor. They seem to be most impacted. Commissioner swig thank you. Clerk okay, thank you. Well hear from Vice President honda. Vicepresident honda yeah, mr. Sanchez, so as you said, the permit holder is asking for an additional permit. But currently the usage for that tenant is not allowed, is that correct . So right now the third floor, which, you know, was illegally expanded some number of years ago, that is being used as office. Theres no allowance, or its not illegal use at that level. They have submitted a permit to legalize that use. But that permit is not issued. That would ride together with the permit that is before you, because the permit before you deals with the illegal expansion of that third floor. So its a little bit odd in that we have one permit that deals with the envelope, that is the permit before you, and the other permit that deals with the use that is pending at d. B. I. And i think that is close to issuance. Vicepresident honda this is where i beg to differ that what is before us is a different permit. What theyre asking for is for us to wait for them to get something thats down the line. Thats like if im driving a hundred miles an hour with a 55 milan hour speed limit, but theyre going to make it a hundred miles an hour next month. I mean, im not im not inclined to extend. This has gone long enough, personal lie. I think that it shows really poor taste that they came in last minute and have not provided with all of the time that we gave them the last time. I think that if the board choose toss go that path and denies the permit, we could still address the outstanding issues. Theres a process and that would be through a separate permit and we can make that work if thats the boards direction. Vicepresident honda and then the other question, has there been enforcement on the legal use of the third floor . No, because after it was identified during the side visit they submitted the permit to legalize the use. Vicepresident honda okay, thank you very much. Clerk okay, thank you. I dont see any further questions. So we will move on to the Department Building inspection. Judgeinspection. Yes, joe duffy, d. B. I. Yeah, we were at the site visit with mr. Sanchez and it was the Property Owners and a lot of people in the building. We did a thorough inspection back then, obviously, it was before covid hit. And i might take a different view on the time. I think that in normal times, certainly, the architect that i deal with that is in contact with me, i would have been dealing with him quite a lot on the other projects as well. So i think if we didnt have covid, and if d. B. I. Was open it probably would have come up in conversation. But we havent seen someone in a few months. And he had called me a couple times about this. And more questioning about the ground floor permits. I think that there were questions about the tenants might be violating those permits. And there were some questions about that. But, you know, the other thing the other point they am a little worried about is that the process that they went through to get this. Mr. Sanchez indiscernible it was probably notification on that permit. And to start all of that again youre going to put this Building Back another 18 months when its asking for a onemonth continuance. And i know that they should have been on the ball a bit quicker, but if the permit got denied tonight, for example, youre putting it back to a new process that could take them another two years. We already have the building with Code Violations and plumbing in the building and its the owners fault for doing the work without a permit. But do we want to put the resolution of those Code Violations off for another two years just to wait for the permit that were kind of talking about tonight . So, you know, we did have a call yesterday. I thought that it was a pretty good call. I think that their feet are on the fire here at the minute and i do think that theyll have to get going if they do get this continuance. We did identify some things, and that was always going to happen when the bring planning stuff and d. B. I. Stuff to a building and you have a permit youll probably find a few other things and thats what happened. And i think that the attempt to put this to another permit is where theyre going at the minute with this. And then in the last couple weeks. Three engineering reports, conflicting reports from the owners engineer and from the tenants engineer, that this building structurally unstable. One saying that it isnt, and one saying that it is. I walked the building and i didnt feel that it was an unsafe building. And i wouldnt have went that far. But whats going to have to happen with that process and possibly that might happen in the next month if we get the reports that were going to bring a d. B. I. In to look into these claims that this building is unfit. I havent gotten the reports yet but mr. Satara assured me that we would be getting them. So thats another thing. Thats nothing to do with the appeal but it is an issue that probably needs to get addressed. There was some flaking of concrete that i saw and pretty typical stuff, but nothing that would have risen to my experience as an inspector that the building was certainly unsafe. If it wasnt, i wouldnt have been there and i would have sh uposhooed everyone out. So i would be in favor of giving them another few weeks for the sake of having to turn this back a couple years maybe. So thats my say. Thank you. Clerk thank you. We have a question from president lazarus. President lazarus this is a question for miss knight. And that has to do with the timing, because mr. Sanchez raised the question and you said that you would be submitting on the 29th. Clearly that doesnt work if were having a hearing on the 29th. So are we able to get whatever it is that we need or, rather, is the city able to get what it needs in sufficient time to review it so that we know what were dealing with on the 29th . So our goal what were working towards is to actually submit so indiscernible another permit because mr. Duffy said that we could actually advance the work on the third floor most effectively. So what i would like is to have that permit on file with d. B. I. By the 29th. I dont know you know, a lot of things have to fall in place for that to be the case, but i certainly you know, the timeline about getting this to staff and having them review and sharing it with the appellant and sharing with the board by the 29th, thats that was our intent. President lazarus i am not sure that your intent is going to work if were going to continue a continuance. So there needs to be some sort of a commitment that thats what is going to happen or youll be back asking for it to be continued again. Yeah, i mean well, were pretty close on those plans. We have gotten some comments on the complication on the plans is that youre sort of youre drawing on a bunch of prior processes, including the restaurant. Because theres issues with both the existing and proposed conditions and we want to make sure that everything is totally accurate. There are a bunch of plans incorporated into the 2020 cleanup set. So we have the set and were close, and theres some confusions in the notation and some additional things that staff wanted clarified. So we can certainly turn that around. President lazarus i guess that the other question would be if there is an inclination to continue, would it make more sense to add a little bit more time . Another miss rosenberg, you have to remind me what the calendar is in august. Clerk august is fine. President lazarus in terms of our meeting dates in august, is there one right after the 29th . Clerk we have a meeting date on august a july 29th, we have august 12th, august 19th. Either of the august dates would work. July 29th is getting busy but we could probably put it on there. But its provided that we get the plans as mr. Sanchez said. They need time to review them. President lazarus right. Thats what im concerned about. Maybe august 12th would make more sense. I think that the further along we can get in the process if we could have that permit actually on file with d. B. I. , maybe that would give greater assurance to the appellant and to the board. So i think that august 12th makes sense to me if thats acceptable to the board. Clerk we still have Public Comment for this item. So is there any Public Comment for this item . If you called in, please press star, 9. Or raise your hand if you joined by zoom. Okay. I dont see any Public Comment. Caller can you hear me . Clerk okay, are you the tenant . Caller yes. Clerk well, i believe that your attorney has already spoke during the three minutes so you cannot speak during Public Comment. Caller okay. Clerk thank you. Okay, so commissioners, this matter is submitted. Excuse me, we have a question from commissioner tanner. Commissioner tanner i was raising my hand to comment on this. I, you know, i think that im frustrated as some of the other commissioners that were here at the point that were asking for a continuance. I dont see how hearing this matter tonight would lead to anything positive even for the tenant and for the folks who are bringing this appeal because we have been put in a position to either continue or to deny the permit which starts back again at the beginning. I think that would hurt the restaurant tenant even further than theyve already been harmed in this process. I agree with president lazarus that i prefer an august 12th date because based on what the attorney for the permit holder said, it doesnt sound like things are going to be ready. It sounds like theres still disagreement amongst the parties. People have not had adequate time to review. But i am persuaded by mr. Duffy with the argument that some of this is due to covid19 and the inability of the city perhaps to respond in a timely manner as we might have had d. B. I. Been open and some other normal channels of business being followed that. Said, miss knight, i advise your client and yourself to perhaps to put some focus on this. Im not inclined to be lenient for this for another time. And im tryin seeing work done t permit and things have been done out of bounds and here we are still talking about notice of violation that need to be rectified. Its highly disappointing and i think that its disrespectful to not come here in a contrite matter and saying, sorry, we didnt get this done in time. Instead to hear from the permit holder or th the appellant that still seems very upset with the project and while youre testifying that theres some progress and work and communication. But clearly the communication has not led to agreement, which, obviously, are two different things. But i hope that when you come back that youre prepared to fully present the permit, the plans that are accurate. And a full understanding of what has been occurring to date. So i would move to continue this matter to august 12th if that date is available for the parties. Clerk okay, Vice President honda, did you have your hand raised at one point . Vicepresident honda yes, i still do. Sorry. Clerk go ahead. Vicepresident honda okay. So the board is leaning toward towards to move this and to continue this. For the record im not supportive of this. During the last hearing it was quite evident that the permit holder submitted and falsified all documents, all of the work that was done. And then they came before us and lied before us again. Now theyre coming months later and that they dont have enough time. I understand that theres covid here and in interest for both parties i will concede to my fellow commissioners. But i am not supportive of this. And the fact that im hearing that theres been no interaction between the tenants and the permit holders is very disappointing. So thats a question to you, miss knight. What communication have you had with the tenants and exactly what is that . Yes, so actually there has been quite a bit of communication. Its been vicepresident honda when is the last time that you guys spoke . I mean, we emailed about the plans over the course of the last several weeks. We have been in communication, we have been explaining the status of the change of use permit, our work on the cleanupset and theres also significant communication we were doing structural testing, structural reports, we did a number of site visits. And so those are sort of a little bit of apart from the third floor but they were expressing concern about structural issues that we understand, of course, that is something that we need to address. So there was a lot of communication over the course of this spring about those structural issues. And i do, you know, i hear, commissioner tanner, your feedback and we i probably should have had a different tone coming here today. We do, absolutely should have moved forward more quickly with the plans and we were shelterinplace and dealing with the structural issues on the building. Our attention, you know, was somewhat diverted im not trying to make you the target. You can only do what your clients are allowing me to do and thats the concern that i have that the clients are not taking this serious and theyre benefitting from their illegal actions at this point. So come the next hearing, i mean, all of the ts better be crossed and the is dotted and if the clients are on the zoom line, please hear that very, very well. Thank you. I do hear that. Clerk thank you, well hear from commissioner swig. Commissioner swig im trying to unmute myself. There i am. So i agree with both commissioners. But i would lean to postponing this hearing because i think that if we move forward and i still see us moving it ahead anyway based on the conversations with mr. Sanchez, but also if we right now the guilty party is not being punished at this point. Its the appellant. And the only way to because, obviously, they admittedly are lax. Thats the only reason. I mean, its not that we havent heard the case and had due findings. But if we if we find for the appellant, the appellant gets penalized big time as Scott Sanchez has because we move forward with another year and a half of postponements which is, sure, may penalize the project sponsor but its really going to penalize the appellants and thats why id like to resolve this tonight but im inclined to, according to darryls point of view, but im not inclined to do that tonight. Id rather see if we could resolve this a couple weeks from now. But also with the pr proviso tht enough is enough, jodie, you affirm that you have heard that were kind of cranky on this item. And that wed like to get it resolved and no more postponements and no more oopsie, we didnt get the plans done. Commissioner swig, you cant lease a building that is deemed unsafe. Commissioner swig yeah, i mean, this is a problem. Clerk okay, president lazarus. President lazarus id like to remind my fellow commissioners if i recall correctly that the appellants when this was first heard submitted no brief. So i dont know that they helped their cause at that time. And now theyve done some homework, but we do have, you know, competing engineering reports. So clerk president lazarus, you froze up. Okay. President lazarus to iterate the warning that there will be no more continuations. Clerk okay. Do we have a motion . President lazarus somebody made a motion. Clerk commissioner tanner moved to move it to august 12th. Can we say when the plans are due, thursday, july 30th, is that acceptable . To have the plans due at that time, mr. Sanchez . So i think that as long as i have the, you know, their initial draft plan to the city no later than two weeks before the hearing, i think that its still fair for them to submit their plans to the board one week before the hearing. I was just saying that we want to be able to review the plans and to have any lastminute, you know, changes made to it so that we can have a final agreed upon plans one week before the hearing. Clerk so youd want the plans on august 5th . One week or august 6th . I think that they need to have plans that are that have been reviewed by the city to the board of appeals by the one week before the hearing by the 5th that would be. Clerk okay. So they should be getting them to you prior to that time . Since they have already committed that theyd be finished by july 29th, why dont you give yourself a break and require july 29th. They said it, not me. indiscernible . It depends that everything has to be ready sorry to interrupt. But id like to clarify if its two weeks and then it should just be two weeks. Clerk i think mr. Sanchez is saying that his plan goes to him by the 29th and hell work with the permit holder on ironing out the wrinkles and then ready for the board by august 6th. Thats correct. Clerk so would that be acceptable to you, commissioner tanner . Commissioner tanner i just want i want to make sure that date works for the other party. Clerk mr. Wickle. I was attempting to unmute. I can accommodate that date. Clerk okay. Thank you. Okay, so we have a motion from commissioner tanner to continue this item to august 12th. On the condition that the plans have to be provided to the Planning Department by july 30th and that the final set be submitted to the board by august 6th for the board to review. On that motion president lazarus. Aye. Vice president honda. Aye. Commissioner swig. Aye. Thank you. So that motion carries 40, and this matter is continued. And i would also like to advise the permit holder to provide that plan set as well to the appellant by august 6th. Thank you, thank you very much for your time. Clerk thank you. Okay, we are now moving on to item number 4. This is appeal 20034. Zach karnazes versus San Francisco public works, bureau of urban forestry. The subject property is 1501 quint street. Of a public works order approval to remove apple trees from the public rightofway and denial to remove low cut trees. And the removal for palou avenue street improvement project. And on motion by Vice President honda the board voted 401, and commissioner swig absent to the vote due to technical problems. And continued to appeal for july 1, 2020, so that public works can report back to the board and explain what happened at the location, why removal was necessary, and the plan for replacement of the trees. So since the board did ask for a public works to report back they will go first. And they have three minutes. So i believe that were going to hear first from mr. Thomas wrightman of the project manager for public works. Welcome. Good evening, commissioners, thank you for your time today. My name is thomas rouitman, and ill present on behalf of the project manager for public works. I plan to proceed based on the three questions posed at the motion for continuance on june 3rd. Ill reread and respond to them in order. Feel free to let me know if you would like me to proceed differently and im happy to address any other questions that you have. So ill start with the first question raised, which is what happened at the location. So theres several procedural steps in the process of removing trees that were followed as well as some additional steps that were now aware that were not followed. After going through the process of posting the trees for removals and attending the public works hearing, revisiting the changing design as a fair compromise to the appellants concern and then receiving an approval on the revised design, public works project manager reported the update and we celebrated the positive ruling prematurely. We then shared what we thought was the good news with our Construction Management team and recommended that the project move forward. Our Construction Management team took this direction and related to our contractor and we thought that we were in the clear and all was done for proper process and we know that theres an opportunity to appeal the decision to the board after the hearing ruling and as soon as we did receive the notice of appeal, we forwarded it the Construction Management team. We may not have been clear of our intention of moving off on moving the project forward. In the interim, the scope of work in that area included removing the trees and pouring the new sidewalk, and that had already occurred. And, furthermore, the contractor did not have a permit for removal in hand when they removed those trees. So were pursuing fines for that. Unfortunately, in this case we jumped the gun. And there was a lack of verification that the removal permit in hand led us to this unfortunate infraction. The second question, why was the removal necessary . Short time so im going to just give quick context on the issue. We have approximately one and a half miles of street improvements on palou with a greening goal to increase the tree canopy. Efforts were made during the design in consult with Landscape Architecture and urban forestr forestry. We basically intended to save as many trees as practical and possible but at the location, we just dont have the physical ability to fit in because of the constraints of the street without removing the subject trees. The last question that was asked about a replacement plan. We do have a plan for using funding to procure thats time. Sorry, is that the end of my time . Thats correct. Clerk but you can go ahead and finish your sentence. I mean, we have our plan entails putting new trees, three new trees in place of the ones that were taken out at a suitable location and those are being explored right now by us and by the project team. Clerk okay, thank you. We do have a question from Vice President honda. And then president lazarus. Vicepresident honda so given the Public Comments and then here we are with this one, what is your plan if we revoke your permit . If you do revoke the permit, it would it would require us to go back to the community and basically to inform them that we that we cant continue with the project and we would have to restore whatever was done to that intersection to the way that it was before. So it would be it would be an outcome that would be problematic because wed be wed be removing a Safety Improvement that we were in the process of installing. Vicepresident honda whose cost would that be at . With the city and county taxpayers . Or at the error of the contractor . Would he be paying for that . Well, the contractor is fined for the illegal cutting so in terms of punitive damages for the misdeed of cutting the trees prematurely, the contractor would be paying for that. But the resulting cost of ripping out the street that was improved and putting a new street in, presumably, that would have to be born by the city. Vicepresident honda do you have a cost estimate of that . I dont have a cost specifically to that scope of work to bring it back to the way that it was. But were hoping that, you know, that the board will will take into account other options that we can do to try to restore the fact that those three trees were taken out. Something reasonable that still satisfies vicepresident honda well, the problem, sir, is that the board is trying to offset the Community Outrage in regards to work being performed without the necessary permits. And the fact that those those angry voices are aimed at the five bodies that are here before you. And so if we continually, as the members of the public have expressed, release you of your liability for not following specific directions and instructions. I mean, we have independent contractors that get permits and when they dont follow those permits, there are consequences. And for you to come before us and say, well, you know, that should be different for us and we would like you to make concessions, thats what were trying to deal with, with as you read on this zoom call, the angry voices that are coming before us. And thats all of my questions. Thank you. I can respond to that. I did hear the concerns raised. And i am disappointed about the public trust and the trust of the board in our office and our abilities to follow the requirements. And weve since the last appeal we have actually undertaken some pretty substantial measures in our office to safeguard against this happening again. So while we recognize that we cant undo the mistakes that we made, we have identified these mistakes and were implementing several new safeguards so that we dont do this again. Including new procedures so that whatever confusion led to this happening inadvert enterally int happen again. And were changing our construction specifications as well to make sure that the contractors understand that they have an obligation with obtaining permits prior to any cutting. And were also doing internal training of our construction and management staff to make sure that we dont make this mistake again. Vicepresident honda would that apply to the hayes and octavia project as well . The project hadnt already happened, unfortunately, im not familiar with that one and well probably have to look into where that happened. But the new procedures that were working on are in draft form since the last hearing. And were hoping to implement those going forward. Ive already reached out to all of the other project managers and Construction Management to alert them that theres a new process being developed because of the mistakes that we have made and were hoping that those get implemented prior to anymore mistakes like this happening. Vicepresident honda thank you, and im sorry, im not making you the target, or even the department, but theres questions that have been asked and, unfortunately, theyre before this body to try to get some resolution. Thank you very much. Thank you. Clerk thank you. President lazarus . President lazarus at last hearing the project manager, who i believe that represented d. P. W. , i was incredulous that she didnt know at the time who was responsible for the tree having been cut down in error. And now im a little incredulous that the members of the department of public works dont understand that a permit isnt final until the appeal process time is gone by. So is that part of your new education . Is that not something that everybody in the department who works on permits would understand . Yes, it is. You know, these are what i would say is that theres a long series of steps that take place before we get to the point where were considering cutting a tree. And many of those steps are well understood. There were a few steps along that process that werent necessarily fully understood by everyone. So were working to close that loophole. We would have to identify within that procedure weve once again missed a step. Right now, our procedure that is being developed is being fleshed out with our upper management and bus and project management and Construction Management to ensure that everyone has that interest and experience in these type of projects. Thank you. You, commissioner tanner. I think when its put in items this is the last question you had to at end of it early which they would talk about restoration. I think commissioner hondas question kind of what happened if you, you know, you wrote the permit and you had to remove it and i think your response was, well, maybe there would be Something Else that the department can do help restore or make amends. I dont know if we have a more lab plan of receipt ortation that you would like to discuss. It could be something that we may hear from the appellant first and we still have this presentation or his time. You must understand what is it that could be done sure of tearing out of improvements that would be something to help to further something you already planned as part of this project. Thank you. Commissioner sorry, are you responding. Go ahead. Yes, you could just give me a second to respond. Sorry, in the effort to say my three points and three minutes, i kind of didnt get to the end of that. What i wan i wanted to say is we recognize where we made that mistake and we definitely want to do something there to restore that mistakes. The culmination of the contract are paying the fine for not having the permit will go into a fund that will help trees in general. Maybe mr. Buck can allude to how that works when he speaks. As far as the project is concerned, we would plant three new trees. We would endeavour to put them on the project but weve already walked the project site. What we found is that the project is so packed with new trees along the limits of the project and every possible space that could house a tree or hold one has been a tree is planned for that location. So, what weve done is looked outside of the area of the project to see maybe if the vicinity of the trees that were cut if theres any areas and and they have already walked the site and identify a few potential locations but we would need to verify if it has its own process of working with the fronting Property Owners and utilities to make sure those trees can fit. We plan to find at least three locations to put three new trees to replace the ones that were cut illegally. Thats in addition to the 100 plus trees that are already going in for the projects. Thank you. Commissioner swig. Yeah, this echos on commissioner lazarus. Im blown away you call it a procedure that should come Second Nature and theres an understanding from everybody involved in construction in dpw that theres an appeals process. Im amazed how long have you worked with the city, sir . Eight years. Yeah. So, you know, we deal with dpw weekly anything from, we used to deal with telecommunications, we deal with food trucks, we deal with trees and for me to hear that this is now being become part of the procedure in the awareness was not there, blows me away. But then again, you know, im just, im just not only livid about it but im just kind of dumbfounded. Where do you where does your department sit in your specific department within d. P. W. Which we all have ex t come to realiss is a monster Us Department that even the board of supervisors is thinking about buy for bifurcat. Where is your position juxtapose to mr. Buck and to both . Do you regularly come to contact with each other . Yes, i do. I personally work on projects that dont necessarily involve trees. My colleagues do depending on if its a street scape projector a paving projector a Safety Improvement. At the design level and when we contemplate taking trees out. We recognize its not right what happened and so that is why were implementing a more robust and bussed more formally at various stages of the project to make sure we dont miss any steps that could have prevented this from happening. So, its not that everything happens in a vacuum and theres no contact its just that through the course of projects, lots of things are going on and and we dont forget these critical steps with buff and community at the steps to follow the proper procedures that are already laid out. Its just being formalized for our own Quality Assurance internally. Again, im having a really hard time and how could jury project manager be completely without knowledge of anything and she didnt where we asked who is your boss and she stumbled and we didnt get a name. Who would you talk to about this . Who would you talk to about that . Is it that dysfunctional. Im amazed she didnt know what the name of the contractor was and she didnt know your name or anything and this was either a question of not having any memory of the moment or is this simply that someone in her position doesnt know . I mean, this is what dumbfounded us. And the process, why we react so strongly, let me give you context because this is the first time we met. There buck comes in on a weekly basis and is involved in especially when there are tree removal situations or construction situations. He should come into a metal suite to protecsuitto protect h. The urban floors have been diminished instead of enriched despite legislation. Thats why were so sensitive to this because weve made it a priority to make sure that legislation subpoena upheld and weve made it a priority to make sure that dpw understands the severity of this situation. Why is not your staff to this point utterly aware of severity of the diminishment of the urban forest and cut a tree down or harming a tree isnt a really bad thing . By the way, that was one of two situations in our last hearing. There was another item, which i did not participate in, that involved tree removal that was questionable. Why does this . Why isnt your staff or everybody involved with trees at dpw not painfully aware of this issue . Thank you, commissioner swig. I agree with you. We should be more aware and at times theres a manner that doesnt worked on a project that hasnt encountered a tree and its been per process and we havent run across this issue before. So there is a learning process and we are implementing training for all of our project managers, you know, personnel change and new people come on board and sometimes they dont necessarily learn all the nuances of the procedure and were in the process of making sure that Construction Managers are all very clued into the process. There are steps to get to the point where this tree was enat verdicinadvertently cut. The steps leading up to that were followed. We did make our mistake. We didnt make miss aches along the whole process so what were trying to do is make sure that we close whatever loop hopes we have that led to this mistake and ale can say is in your characterization of of the project manager knowing what theyre supposed to do, theres a lot of projects that get handled correctly and lots of aspects of projects that get handled correctly and per process and this is one case where something was miss sod were working tone sure that we dont do that again because we want to restore the trust from the board and from the public that were trying to do projects the right away and fort public benefit. Thank you for very much and i dont know if we will see you again but clearly you were sitting around earlier in the evening when discussions of another item, which is now going to come up as an educational hearing and well be discussing where which fueled our fire tonight. So you are getting double the you are getting more energy than on top of the energy that already exists. Thank you for your testimony. Thank you. Thank you. We will now hear from the bureau of urban forestry. Mr. Chris buck. Thank you, commissioners. Chris buck urban forester with San Francisco public works and i know i have three minutes but i want t to assure you we were buy today trying to respond to appellants related to Octavia Hayes and were all deluged today during Public Comment. We will be sending president lazarus and rosenburg detailed explanations tomorrow to forward to your body. I want to hit on a few things the project manager removed five trees that were in conflict and the the hearing officer said look theres Public Feedback here. What can we do about the protests and they identify aid way to bring the sidewalk in so that instead of five trees being removed, and a way forward and what we realise absolutely is you follow that up with one more sentence that says this is still subject to appeal and no one as a green light to remove those trees and they have to wait and obtain the permit so the second misstep mentioned earlier and regarding some of the mitigations so from the shipyard to 180 and industrial and the street skate project is planting all planting sites from the old entrance exit to 280 and selby and over 100 street trees that will be planted at the close of the project. Theres also 10 trees being planted right in that immediate culdesac which is the subject of this case in addition, what weve done and i want to make you feel that weve been more active than came across so ive had my team out to quint, the subject of this appeal, and weve identified any potential planting locations on quint and we wish to plant three to six replacement trees on that block. I want to talk about the mitigations. Clerk whiff fifth question from commissioner tanner. We have a question forcommis. Have you been able to verify those locations regard to the utilities, et cetera, et cetera or do you have locations such that hopefully even if some didnt work and we marked seven sites knowing we might lose it due to utility conflicts so we did lose one site so we called underground service alert, which is the company that marks all underground utilities and so we have one that is disallowed. A week ago, one site had been marked and were waiting on usa to mark the five additional what i want today do is come to the board this evening and show that were actively identifying those locations. Not just saying that is a plan but actually saying we rolled sleeves and waiting utilities. I believe theres room for at least a minimum of three and i believe quint is a short block so to complete that immediate block and to directly mitigate the loss of those trees that a permit it makes sense to plant this side street. It would be a maximum of six trees and a minimum of three based on the markings and were still checking the markings as they come in and we should know by the end of the week. Those locations require the Property Owners or is that not an issue in these locations . They do. Sites the Property Owners were contacted about those sites several years ago and we had a hearing about that. These other sites we need a contact those Property Owners and that would be the next step. We want to confirm the plantability and the next step is to notify them with a letter explaining the goals of the urban forest plan and also what were trying to do with infill plating related to the street scape project. We do need to contact them. In regards to the budget for these trees, does it come out the Tree Planting funds such that might be generated from fees and fines that public works collects . Correct. So were working out those details. The project team felt they could plant three trees. Weve issues the fine so its another thing i want to confirm. We issued the fine. Its 2,122 per tree times three. Weve issued the fine of 6,366 to the contractor as of last week. Public works can take those funds to plant and water the three additional trees. If we get up to six trees on the side streets, they could plant three of those and water. The street scape team can plant three and water. That would get us to six on that side street. Our favourite question, what is the proposed species and box size for these trees . Sure, on quint, the culdesac plantings have planned to be olive, fruitless olives so we would plant the same on quint to continue the look and feel of that culdesac would be olives, so were also weve settled on species so we really are in on the details on this. Whats the box side being used in the project . Sure, so 24inch size box on all plantings and and the the additional plantings on quinte. Ok. Thank you. We have a question from price have. Mr. Puck, we had a private developer that wants to knock trees down and as you know this board does not have the ability to increase it. But, through volunteer and i believe that project was at the hospital somewhere off of protero street where the contractor said he would increase it from six to 15 so what can the city offer rather than the minimum offering you gave . I would have to review that with upper managers. We are we have one on the line right now . Sure. I just want to say again, we apologize having this discussion. I understand. That ship has sailed. Were talking about compensation for the illegal action that was done and either contractors please, dont bankrupt me. If private contractors are having to step up for their mistakes, the city should also warn that same type of penalty, dont you think . So in the previous case where trees were not supposed to be taken out and the permitting process was incorrect, the permit sponsor volunteered to increase and double the amount of what are you willing to do this was a big boo boo. Your project manager did not cut her mic off at our last hearing and we got a little extra bonus. In order to compare, i mean, i dont know the specifics of the project that you are talking about but it sounds like an what would be a fair penalty the project is already heavily loaded with greening and new trees. Were adding additional trees that was a condition and getting the permit. Were talking about is the permit was not involved to the letter and this is why were here today. The previous greening to the project, that was subject to actually getting that additional permit and where were at is a different space. I guess what we would say to that is, we would endeavour to put an appropriate amount of trees for what were its a punitive measure than a technical one i guess. With we look at the sites that buck has identified as potential lexes, if theres the ability to put a larger box tree in we would do that. Were not so much concerned about the box size. Because buff has already explained the larger the box size the harder it is to set in and within five years, smaller box size and exceeds or catches so buff can identify several indicateses. As were having this conversation, the public is going to chime in after and you are going to hear what theyre going to say and were going to have to come back and replace that again. What i would like is for you as the Department Head to say you know what, we missed up and and buff will identify and at which point it will help the ca canopf this city which is diminishing at a rapid rate which has been recited over and over again tonight. The ball is in your court. So, ive suggested three trees given that three were cut that would have been were getting three trees more if we would have followed the process and received a favorable outcome from the board. So were getting more than what the project calls for and chris has already proposed, you know, upping that to up to six if theres rom for i room for it ot street. Were amenable of doing that. Are you amenable to six trees period. Whether theyre allowed on that street and if they can find an open basin there, you will plant them . Yes. If we cant get it in the location that we hope for which is to try to be restorative to the area where the infraction we had we would find another suitable location. Thank you. You are welcome. Thank you. We dont have anymore questions at this point from the commissioners. We are now moving o onto the appellant. I understand you have a presentation prepared. I have a screen share. I dont want to use my time to answer if thats ok. We havent started the clock yet. Ill hold him until you are ready. Yeah, i did not know i was only given three minutes. I have to scrap that seven minute presentation. Also, i got a bunch of answers from chris buck, only two and a half hours before this meeting that i had asked questions to three and a half months ago side to really rush to get things gathered for this meeting so i was not able to complete my presentation that was planned. I do have a different presentation that i can do now. Let me know when you are ready. Thank you. My health is not great. Its been two and a half hours. Im ready now. Thank you. There is so many lives and so much of fact in what chris buck and thomas have presented here its really going to be hard to squeeze it all into three minutes. And im going to try my best doing a screen share here. So, first of all, chris buck has said that there were utility conflicts with these trees. According to their own public works order 202958 they said it would not be worth speeding and transplanting three of the small apple trees and trees can be replaced in kind. They also said staff acknowledged these trees were in good, fair condition and so thats a total lion chris pucks part. Its a misrepresent sensation of facts. It was not an issue of utilities conflicts and should he not represent it as such. The other thing i like to point out at the last meeting is construction was beginning. They were already taking down the fence and putting up caution tape on october 7th, 2019, even before this appeal was filed. Even before the public hearing about this issue the first public hearing about this issue was january 27th. They were already doing what they wanted all the way back in october. As you heard in Public Comment earlier today, they do whatever they want all the time and theyre doing it again and theyre lying to the public saying were not going to Start Construction when they do. This departmentalize to the public all the time and chris buck has lied to me more times than i can count. As you can see, this is how the project looks now. They cut down all the trees. Even though the public protested on january 27th. There was a young woman who lives in this community and who did not want these trees cut down. You may remember she spoke up a month ago at that meeting as well and how are we supposed to consider her testimony when dpw does whatever it wants and says well, its a slap on the wrist. I would like to point out that ive been recording on youtube and posting videos of the various violations of dpw for a number of years actually. Theres so many of them. Its clear law by section 805 that they have their main continuance and responsibilities of these trees. They violated that law and the public trust and they do it all the time. Its not an unusual event and thats what i want to stress today. There are numerous ada violations and i was not given a full materials to be part of this original hearing on januar. Thats the responsibility that i have submitted back in march and their ada coordinating wont reply to them. Theyve given mer mow disability accommodations that dpw denies. This department directour was arrested by the dpi when this order was in placed. The permit should be denied. I ask the board of appeals refund the fees to the public and make recommendations time. Thank you. I cant hear you. We have a question from Vice President honda . So, the question was to the last speaker who are is the ada coordinator you are dealing with and are they specifically with dpw. Thank you for that question, commissioner. So, the ada coordinator for dpw has ignored me for months and months what is that person and are they a staff directly with dpw . His name is kevin jensen, his ada coordinating assistant and rick peerman, i cannot get them to respond to me about ada questions. Question is thomas roitman . Are you familiar with this ada coordinator, sir . Yes, i work with them regularly. Is there a reason why theyre not responding to members of the public . Im unfamiliar and will followup with them. Sorry to interrupt. This is come up several times. Not even several. Almost every occasion that he is not getting any responses from one or both of these gentlemen. Can you look into that for us so that we can have some type of answers next time we meet again on this lovely zoom . Yes, i will definitely look into that. Thank you. Thank you. So we are now moving on to Public Comment and i do see that we have a caller for the phone number ending in 8570. Please go ahead. Caller good evening. This is casey asbury with the demonstration gardens and the healthy street trees initiative. As we have come to see that we are in deep tree deficit in San Francisco, our goal is to work systemically to properly value our public tree trust. Given the problems, its clear that our system of fines and penalties, whether for contractors or within the department is not robust enough. Valuing a healthy, mature tree properly, we have to understand that it cant be realistically replaced by a small number, a handful of baby trees, especially in the context of the budget restraints that dont allow funding for proper tree care overtime. Seeing a pattern of promises not being kept and this is part of what we are calling to investigate during the halt of non emergency tree removal. We urge you 20 support this action because this case illustrates how continually safety is placed in opposition to publichealth and infrastructure benefits of trees and design, theyre not considered as important as other factors and we need to reevaluate that. The assertion that healthy, mature fruit trees connery coule replaced is representative of the misplacement of the bureau of urban forestry within a group that is primarily responsible for cement and sidewalks. I just libeling to call these questions and ask and urge the board to followup on your ire with concrete actions that help us safeguard our tree can bee. We will end from the caller who ends in 0901. Please, go ahead. Caller can you hear me. Josh clip here. So, the safe guards that could have been followed and its not anything new and mr. Wrightman who i like and respect very much, i know because he is a public works hearing officer who oversees tree removal hearings and i think he understands the process and we need more than just a fine on this contractor and in fact, 2,000 is not a fine thats an inclu inlieu fee. There are penalties for illegal removals and those should be persuade. Anything less ipursued. Its hard to understand why tearing out the project would be the remedy of the tree removal permit was part of a sidewalk widening and opportunities the entirety of it so i dont understand why the city would take the position of the entire project and it would need to be reversed. Decided not enough, we heard testimony on a couple of occasions now from the people that planted those trees and had them removed from their property they planted them 20 years ago and took them for 20 years and just saying, lets have communications and we didnt understand our own rules and we missed and harm done and only and this particular family and were going to plant new trees and the commissioners are direct its part of the project not a gift to the appellants and the same promise was made in the 16th street brt and i walked past some of those new trees and in two blocks alone, three of those trees have been hacked off at trunk. So if a tree makes it in this city, the city ought to be doing all it can to preserve that tree. Furthermore, our tree support also no ecology and sequester no carbon which is what the city needs right now. We shouldnt plant trees just because they fit in anesthetics but with our environment in mind. I just request the board make a motion which includes all these promises made by public works today requiring the trees are suitable for fighting Climate Change and create additional, accountability, especially in rebuilding public trust. Thank you. Thank you, mr. Clip. We will now hear from the next speaker, and we can have you on video. Im moving you. Can we spotlight her. Can you hear me . Yes, we can. Ok. I just wanted to make a comment about the gentleman statement theyre going to be coming up the new list of procedures and they are dpw and follow i wanted to talk specifically about the notification because karla fork from dpw and Nicolas Crawford from buff told me within the past week that they filled their notification requirements the code specifically states that notices to be posted on the tree 30 days prior to removal. Notices that were over a year ago, i would like it to be made clear that 30 days prior means 30 days prior and something that was over a year ago, does not meet that requirement. When they came in the last couple days and started taking down all these trees, everybody in the neighborhood was shocked and no one understand the purpose of them being removed. They said theyre pruning them and i said no theyre coming down completely. They said why. I said because the city is telling us theyre dangerous and we all know that the order to remove all these ficus trees came originally from nuru who no one has any reason to train. Personally i think something that was ordered by nuru should be looked at again and massive removal of ficus trees should be given a second look now that we know a lot more about nuru. At the very least, they need to do a proper notification so people dont wake up to see their neighborhood completely ravaged, nine 40yearold trees gone in a matter of days in just two blocks. Also, this idea of theyre talking about pavement trees it will be ok because were replacing trees. Replacements dont compensate fort loss of mature trees. Im not going to live long enough to see our foal age replaced from what weve losed. We need to get away from the idea that replacements make up from the loss of trees, they dont. Thank you. Thank you. We will now hear from the next member of the public. Ms. Natalie down. And we can put you on video. Hi. Clerk can you please spotlight mrs. Down. Thank you. One moment. Can you hear me . Yes, i can hear you. Ok. Thank you so much for hearing me. I had a speech prepared but it has crashed. Which is the wrong time for it to crash, ok, im sorry. This isnt just an unfortunate misstep this is a desecration of public trust. Im totally incredulous at the socalled lack of understanding process. These updates and procedure and training sound like halfass covering excuses. San francisco is a fly away path of migrating birds they need fruiting trees to feed along this route. Olive trees are not an adequate replacement. More agencies and more contractors impact trees and do any of these contracts get any ecology training. I was under the impression it was legal for surveys to be done. The 6,000 fine for these trees is nothing and part of the plan is to have a zerotolerance policy why arent they starting now with this contract losing their license for the city. When we plant a tree its a contract to the environment and maintaining be responsible with water and pruning and also with process and adhering to the process of protecting them. Replacing these mature trees do not make up for removing the mature trees, especially in a time of derogation of our climate and warming local temperatures. Replacing fruit trees which are important for birds with olive thats have limited ecological benefits is not an adequate replacement. One tree is not equivalent to another. This isnt just the case of a couple of incidents of unauthorized tree pruning or removals and in hayes valleyment theres a pattern of behavior across a number of incidents of disregard of nature and disregard of the public trust. Apologies just wont cut it. Ok. Thank you. Is there anymore Public Comment for this item . If so, please raise your hand. We have comments from kaitlyn hall. We can put you on video. Kaitlyn hall. Kaitlyn hall are you there . Caller hello. Yes, hello. Welcome. You have throw minutes. Thro th. I would like to say how betrayed i felt to learn the trees had already been removed. I would also like to thank the board fo for appearing to take r concerns into account and what i would like to see is the concrete steps that were going to see in the future to prevent anything from happening like this again. Thank you. Thank you. Is there anymore Public Comment on this item . If so, please raise your hand. If you called in press star nine and i know you would like to speak. We have Public Comment from someone from the tenants rights group. Please, go ahead. Caller thank you. I am extremely frustrated by the lack of process that people were trying to save the city and its foley age have to contract while contractors are given the contracts go unscathed or with a 36,000 fine while the board that we vest our trust in constantly tells us that you have to wait until the next meeting for this process to be actually even taken up. While murder of trees and col mist and we cherish in the city happens and i dont understand where we have to go and what to do and who to talk to for these trees to be protected. This happens time and again. This is happening after the board has actually stated that it cant be done and it has happened. Who is the person that we can go to . While we keep waiting for agenda items to be taken in, we just sit here with our hands tied waiting fon an answer to come. I dont know what to do. Thank you for your comments. Is there any other Public Comment on this item. If so, please raise your hand and press star nine. Ok, im not seeing anyone raise their hands. Well give it another moment. Ok, i think were finished with Public Comment. This matter is submitted. Commissioners someone wish to start the conversation . Sure, i will. Sorry to raise my hand madam president. You know, welcome to our world dpw. This, i believe, is my 216th hearing at the board of appeals and i believe probably 40 to 60 involve trees on a regular basis. Chris and i are personal friends and so, you know, the city is asking for a little more accountability and i understand that its a very large project. At the same time, we have very large contractors that come before us and they always say there was also a very large project and this person didnt know this and this person didnt know this. Its exceptionally hard for the public to understand that the people that make the rules and enforce the rules dont follow the rules. So, you know, he has already said they would guarantee seven trees and i would like chris buck to confirm that after its done at this point and he understand the publics outrage and the proposition that allowed the city to trim trees did not afford them to plant new ones so we are a diminishing can pee. To understand why the public is so upset is because one, i can say this in my sleep. We have the smallest urban canopy of any major city in the united states, right. And visiting cities like barcelona and paris and it is just amazing to have that type of canopy. I know its not mr. Roitman, im sure you are a tree lover. I know chris is, i see picture on his facebook with hugs. We need more accountability and if it comes down to it, maybe we need your director to come before this body. You know, its tough. Were not intentionally throwing darts at you guys. And ive dealt with mr. Buck prior to being on the board. He is a great guy and loves his trees. At this point, its really hard to undue a project that is already been done. Whether that be from a regular contractor or whether that be from a city entity t and the value of knocking i mean, the benefit i think, not to inassault anyone from the public, these were not monument trees. They were not as mr. Buck would say, significant trees. So if were able to get seven 24box trees, i think its a good accomplishment for this particular item. You know. Coming up, regarding octavia that will be a different thing. In this particular case, its just my opinion. If i can have the flor. Thank you commissioner honda. I want to talk to the public first. Thank you for dialing in or zooming in in the hearing. For a lot of these items, a great way to voice your concern and have more Immediate Response with the board of supervisors. This board is charged with looking at the issuance of permits that this city issues and understanding if theres permits were properly issued. Thats our work. To review those. Its more of a backwardslooking body than a forwardlooking body or a legislative body and certainly not, as you saw tonight, able to act on things that are happening right now. Encourage you to the mayor and to take action on things that this board is not charged with. I agree with commissioner honda, i think one question i have for mr. Buck is how would we be assured that this plan would be developed . That the seven or six trees, i like the idea of seven now instead of six, trees, would be found a place for. Whether its on that street or a nearby street without it examining back to us and continuing this item again. How and when will we know with you have a need made good on this commitment . Is mr. Buck able to answer that . Can i respond to that . Yes, thank you. So, my recommendation would be, first of all, i again apologize. I need to state that multiple times. So, i believe that one way to do it would be a finding and adding the condition that seven additional trees be planted that are in addition to what was already planned and that those trees are planted. We could have thomas roitman circle back. We can have that be a condition of closing out that to ensure those trees are planted. That would be one. I know you want very specific. That would be one tool to ask that that go onto the condition for the close out of that project is that we have found seven sites and theyre planted prior to allowing a close out of that contract. Not to interrupt you mr. Buck, can i ask our City Attorney, can we put that language in . Good evening, City Attorneys office. So, can chris repeat that again. I think you said condition of the permit you would say that the contract with the project cannot be closed until the sites are located and the trees planted . Is that the proposal . Correct. The project manager for public works could agree to not allow the close out so this would be put on a public works project team to not allow close out until those seven additional trees have been planted. If thats something that public works is growing to abide by, no have i dont have a proh that condition. Thank you. Thank you. Can we just clarify the order too, please. Under the recommendation, it talks about allowing for the removal of the three apple trees. It doesnt talk specifically about replacement under the recommendations. I just want to confirm that the plan was to plant 10 new fruitless olive trees so there would be a net gain of seven so on top of that you are proposing to plant seven more trees . Thank you. So is there a motion from this . Commissioner honda, commissioner tanner . Ill make that motion. You are granting at peel and conditioning act. If thats the project manager from dpw not to allow close out of this project because the specified trees are planted. On what basis . On the basis beautification on the neighborhood. On the basis that the trees will enhance both the bue fee bd health of the neighborhood. Sure. That sounds good. Ok. We have a motion from Vice President honda to grant the appeal and issue the order son the condition that it be revised to require the project manager does not close out the project until seven additional trees are planted and those are in addition to the replacement trees specified in the order on the basis this enhances the beauty and health of the neighborhood. On that motion, president lazarus. Aye. Commissioner tanner. Aye. Commissioner swig. Aye. Ok so, that motion carries 40. This item is concluded. If i may, im going to recommend a fiveminute break. Five minutes only so well be back at 7 30. Please. Thank you and to another parties, thank you for your patients. Clerk this is appeal number 20038. A vary yansz decision. The proposal is to construct a twostory vertical addition, rear decks and staircase, excavate the basement to create a fullstory height floor, and add five dwelling units to the existing twostory, fourunit residential building. Three new units will be in the new third and fourth floors and two new units will be constructed within the basement. And a portion of the proposed vertical addition and the rear decks are located within the required rear yard and, therefore, need a variance. No open space is provided for the two units proposed at the basement level and therefore, an openspace variance is required. The propose posed units at the basement level face onto a noncomplying rear yard and that is six feet and four inches in depth and therefore an exposure variance is required. The Zoning Administrator granted the rear yard variance and denied the open space and exposure variance. Well hear from the appellant first, mr. Diamond. Good evening, everyone. Sorry were so late tonight. Ill have a presentation to go with it. Clerk great, well hold the time. Alex, you stopped the time, correct . Thats correct. Clerk thank you. Sorry, im not seeing im a shared screen. Clerk did you click on the green shared screen . You have to have it queued up in your computer like adobe. indiscernible . Hmm. Give me one second. Let me pull it up. Its still not coming up. Hmm. Clerk do you want to send it to you can send it to me there you go. Clerk here, we see it. Yes, here we go. Okay, let me make sure that i control it properly. Most of the stuff you have already seen in the brief and im using it to pace myself. So im going to start with going over the exceptional extraordinary conditions that we built with the necessary hardship on our property. These are reiterated on this page by the Zoning Administrators letter. We have a substandard lot size, the property is a Historic Resource that requires a setback to the addition and further limits issue indiscernible and we have an existing nonconforming rear yard and setback. Unfortunately, increasing that setback would further diminish our developable envelope and diminish the existing units and longterm tenants that live there. Which could result in a loss of housing for them if they couldnt make it work with the small unit. And it wouldnt decrease the light and air with the Properties Around us. With number four, theres no rear yard setbacks for our block. Our Neighborhood Properties are built right up to our shed Property Line and on all sides. The conditions on our site, as we just discussed, most of which are due to planning approvals granted for the properties on either side of us, 1234 howard, and those are built in 2004 and they were built in a planning code standard and that results in the following impact, no rear yard for the neighboring property. We have a 32foot wall to the east and a 32foot wall to our south and a 58foot wall to our west. That obviously impacts the quality of life against the rear of our property. Which seems to be the crux of the idea with the zoning indiscernible denial. However, the light and air to our property must have been determined by the Planning Department to be sufficient since they issued the permits to allow the development for the property next to us. And variance requirements that would prevent them from impacting our light. And prevent negative impacts to the neighboring property light and air. And variance number 4, to prevent the detriment to the property in the vicinity. And number five, to prevent the adverse effects to the general plan and the priority policies and negative effects to the neighborhood, and housing, obviously, that affected our housing in our building. They cut off some of our light and air. Since the developments were approved by the Planning Department and they were built, i have to assume that the light and air was determined by the Zoning Administrator at the time, as well as the Planning Department to be sufficient for our property construction. On the issue of open space, this is in regards to the basement dwelling unit, its mentioned in the brief here that theres no open space provided, but our existing open space has well served for the past 114 years and the existing opening space is 25 feet wide and a total of 160 square feet. There is no other open space currently on our property. We are proposing to use the existing open space for the dwelling unit while proposing increasing the deck from 64 to 84 to get more space between our property. The planning code requires 80 square feet per dwelling unit. indiscernible and planning code section 135f i realize indiscernible . Here we go. Planning code section 135f requires 10 feet in every horizontal mentioned for private open space. Were providing 84, and were short there. And we have provided alternative schemes that there we go that were reviewed and rejected by the zoning admin straighter. We provided rear decks to provide the private open space which they didnt have before. We have also provided roof deck and garden with a minimum of 369, common open space for all buildings in the unit to use. Existing and proposed. We improved the quality of the open space throughout all existing units to have more open space. All seven proposed units have direct access from their units to the private open space, and they have private open space. And all seven units have access to the roof deck and garden for the private open space. We have reduced the number of units using the opening space. And planning code section 135d which is on the screen, our proposal improves the overall quantity of open space for dwelling units. Our depth which is short of the required horizontal mentioned for private opening space. We have design alternatives and it was rejected by the Zoning Administrator. Our shortfall is due to the extraordinary circumstances on our property and the hardship that we faced as i mentioned earlier. Were asking to have the administrators decisions overturned for the open space. The subject of exposure, as proposed i believe that our project does actually meet the requirements for exposure. Planning code section planning code section 184. 1, faces a rear yard or a court or a street. We have an existing nonconforming legal rear yard that the basement dwelling unit will face on to. And by granting the variance granted by the d. A. Hes given us indiscernible into the rear yard with the dwelling units that face bo onto it. And the basement rear yard could be considered an outer court which also meets the code. And the clear story windows in front of our property face on any common street. It provides operatable windows which is shy of the 11 square feet required for those units. We have provided every room in our basement dwelling with windows, which give them all light and air. Some have two windows, the bigger rooms, and they get a cross breeze. We have provided an alternative scheme to have a small increase to the size of the clear story windows that meet the code at 12. 5 squarefoot each. I have indepth code analysis in my brief and i am happy to answer questions once were done here. 30 seconds. I believe that we meet the requirements and hopefully you guys will overturn the decision to not grant our exposure permit condition. And the Zoning Administrator has several planning code sections that he could use for a complete or a partial waiver of any of these conditions. Were not asking for complete, were asking for waivers for the conditions as shown. Theres plenty of open space and theres plenty of exposure to the front and the rear of these spaces. Thats time. Clerk than thank you, mr. Diamond. Well hear from the Planning Department now. Thank you. Scott sanchez, Planning Department. So the subject project at 727 natoma street within the residential enclave mixed Zoning District in the special use district and as well as the subject lot is substandard its 25feet wide by 75feet deep. And under the planning code the minimum lot size is 2,500squarefeet. And so its about 75squarefeet short of the minimum lot size. Its a twostory upper basement building constructed in 1906 that contains four dwelling units. Its a known Historic Resource and a contributor to the western soma Light Industrial residential historic district. The existing building is also a legal noncomplying structure that extends into the required rear yard. Under the zoning the required rear yard is 25 , theres a provision in the western soma s. U. D. And in the appellants brief that allows part of the setback to count towards basically giving credit and reduce the size of your rear yard. The setback of the subject building is only approximately one foot 10inches and not nine feet as noted in their brief. And the vertical additions set back nine feet but facing the setback of the rear building. So the rear yard is approximately 18 feet. However, the existing rear yard is only 64, so very substandard and not compliant to the current code requirements. They propose a twostore dwelling addition, and so more than doubling the unit density. I think that the initial proposal may have been six dwelling units but its now five dwelling units. Under the red m. X. Zoning district theres no density limit. Its not based on lot area, its based on the envelope that would be allowed as well as compliance with various code requirements such as exposure and open space. So those are the key standards that we have in the planning code for regulating density in the Zoning District. And what is being proposed currently works out to approximately there were nine dwelling units that would be one unit for every 194squarefeet of lot area. Currently, its about one unit to 43squarefeet of lot area. And the proposed is somewhere in the middle about one unit to 250squarefeet of lot area. Its adjacent to the wdmg mixeduse Zoning District. And that Zoning District rear yard is only required at the level and above. And they are well aware of this that all code requirements must be met onsite. So while the appellant has noted the context, you know, those projects we believe were properly approved and its up to this project to meet its code requirements and rear yard and this proposal would not do that. While the Zoning Administrator granted the variance in part, authorizing the rear yard variance, so the vertical addition can encroach into the required rear yard, the said allowance for the three dwelling units, they denied the variance related to the open space and exposure variance for the two units that are proposed and the basement level, finding that i think that theres two parts one, that the quality of the exposure and the each space is substandard for those units. And really it results in an overbuilt condition for the subject property. The appellant has had other projects for context and their belief that those projects have actually, you know, prohibited the ability of the subject property to comply with the planning code. Again, to reiterate, every property is required to meet the requirements onsite. To use light, air exposure from another property or another property to meet those requirements. But to give context, and further detail about those projects, 1234 howard, they did receive a rear yard exception. But all of the units that are proposed there are compliant with open space and composure and theres 1 18 dwelling unit there is and a larger lot, about 6,750squarefeet and a density of one unit to 375squarefeet so less than what is proposed by the applicant here. 1298 howard, they had a rear yard exception and exposure for eight units out of a total of 124 units. But even those units, that sought the variance based on an area that was about 25feet wide. Just an increase as the floors went up as required by the code. When you have a court. And that was much larger lot. Again, at 37,000squarefeet so the density worked out to one unit of 320squarefeet there. And 20 dwelling units in the alley building adjacent to the project site. That density there was about one unit to 337squarefeet. So, again, much less dense proposal there and they generally, you know, meet or provide quality exposure and open space for those properties. So, you know, for those reasons and looking at the quality of the space that was provided, and maybe i can share my screen with the board to put an overhead up. And, unfortunately, i dont sorry. I havent done this before. But i will clerk you want to email alec or carey . You want to pause time . If you dont mind while i try to figure that out. indiscernible . So if you have it on your desktop in the queue, then it should show up on the shared screen. Oh, thank you. It was minimized which i guess didnt allow that. It should be im resuming time at one minute. Thank you. All right. When youre ready. Thank you. So heres the aerial photo just showing the adjacent development. So actually in some cases clerk we decen dont see it. Mr. Sanchez, we dont see it. We just see the number 7602. Can you minimize it a little . Thats all i you have it enlarged. I will move on. I apologize for that and next time ill test out my technology better. Ill resume time. Thank you. So what i had intended to show from the aerial photo about the surrounding context and you know, and the very small rear yard that exists on the project property of a little over six feet. And really that led to the Zoning Administrator to deny the variance. I think that the board has seen a couple of these denials that have been from the administrator in the past. We have over the years reduced the requirement, particularly for the a. D. U. First to a 15by15 area which this doesnt comply with. And then further reduced to a 9by9 area and 225squarefeet which is not complied with. And they found it challenging to grant such variances when we consistently reduce our requirements but this is still substandard for the requirement. Im available for questions. Thank you. Clerk okay, thank you. Okay. One moment. I just need to see if we have any questions. I dont i see Vice President honda. Vicepresident honda of course it would be me. So, mr. Sanchez, given the size and the substandard lot, what would be the allowable buildout for this . Thank you. So theyre effec effectively mae envelope of the building or actually exceeding that because they did receive a variance for encroaching into the rear yard as well as existing building, extending into the rear yard. So i think that, you know, the most they could do additionally would be a little bit potentially more at the front. Although not much there. Theyve effectively maxed out for the envelope of the building. And then, you know, further adding, you know, more units or doubling the units. Though we do like to see more units, you know, we do have minimum standards that we like to see. Vicepresident honda for quality of life. Especially since that block is being seriously densified since the gas station is gone and the burger king and the starbucks. I believe that theyve raised construction on the small threeunit aside from that Large Development project there, correct . I believe so, yeah. Vicepresident honda to me, i mean, so was the reason for the rear yard variance because of the conditions of the 32foot wall . I think that the variance was found to be justified because the building, the Historic Resource. And additionally theres a provision for the alleyway. So that further directs the development to the rear. I think that those were the justifications for the vertical addition, the var variance, that encroaches into the rear yard and the historical part of the building. They werent in the basement, they were proposing, you know, vertical addition that those units had adequate light and air. And those are the reasons for granting the variance for the rear yard. Vicepresident honda so were hearing you speak about the Zoning Administrators decision, when those indiscernible for as long as i can remember, okay . Thank you. Clerk thank you. Commissioner swig. Commissioner swig yes, is the issue to make this project happen . Or to proclude the need for the unacceptable variance, is it a matter of taking it off the top or taking units off the bottom . I thought for me the basement units were the problem. But i may be misreading the whole thing. What would enhance further movement to making this a more acceptable development . I think that youre correct, commissioner swig, that the variance was granted to allow for the vertical addition with the new dwelling units. At the upper levels. And the ones denied was for the two basement units, mr. Administrator. Commissioner swig so if the basement units were removed from this project, then you would be okay with this project moving forward . Thats correct. The variance was denied to prohibit the units, and so they would need to remove those units to be compliant with the variance decision. Commissioner swig and those units, i mean, obviously, they exist, not the units exist today, but the square the basement exists today. Would there be an alternative use for laundry rooms or storage rooms or stuff like that . Or are they completely unusable . I mean, i defer to the project sponsors to the ability of that space. But certainly they could have expanded area for the units on the floor above because expanding those units wouldnt require a variance for exposure that their existing noncompliant units at that level actually indiscernible but there would be no issue with having Additional Space for upper units or having Storage Space or laundry room, common area, its just the fact that new dwelling units are being added there that only have exposure into that rear yard. And one of the units has a small window to the street, but that is not large enough to satisfy the exposure requirement. Commissioner swig so the issue is the basement units, get rid of the basement units and youve got the project, basically . Right. Clerk commissioner tanner. Commissioner tanner the question about the alternative approacheapproaches that the apt put forward. Those were not satisfactory . Is that because they didnt get to the 10 feet or the nine feet . The 10 feet that the rear yard needs . So in order for it to be compliant with the exposure requirement, it would need to meet the rear yard requirement which would be about a 17foot rear yard. So, i mean, theres no you know, its really not feasible for the project sponsor to do that. Unfortunately, i think that the appellant is incorrect in their argument that it may comply with exposure in terms of the court rierm. The code requires a 25by25foot area that increases by 5 feet vertically. That is how to properly apply the exposure requirement, which it simply does not meet. There would need to be substantial reduction at the side and the rear of the building to comply with the requirement. Commissioner tanner great. And to clarify your reasoning. How do you see the density factoring into the light and air . I mean, i can understand that youre kind of comparing the density, and its already denser or as dense as the surrounding context. That seemed unrelated as to whether or not theres proper exposure. Can you explain to me how thats relevant . Its relevant to finding number 2, you know, that if they have extraordinary and exceptional circumstances that, you know, that there be a practical difficulty or a necessary hardship for the applicant of the property. Theres really no hardship because they have a density that is consistent with that of the neighborhood. I mean, but they want to see a density which is much more much greater than what is found in the neighborhood. And finding number 3 that the variance is necessary for preservation and enjoyment of the Property Rights indiscernible and we just dont find that that finding has been met either. You know, given that what theyre seeking is density that is greater than that of the adjacent buildings as well as exposure that is of less quality than we would approve for new construction today or for alterations. Commissioner tanner great. And the rooftop garden theyre proposing or the rooftop deck, does that factor in at all . Is that more of a factor of open space being provided versus or usable space versus light and air and exposure . Yeah and theyre seeking the variance from the open space requirement, and, you know, generally we want open space to be as close to practical as the unit. And so in this case the area that is right in front of these units would not meet the requirements. It seems that would function more as common open space which would have a minimum area of 15by15. If its private open space, the appellant is create, that the minimum is 10feetby10feet but they dont require with that requirement. And theres a quirk to the area where rooftop decks dont satisfy open space requirements. And that is a unique thing only found in the western soma s. U. D. Commissioner tanner great. And then the measures, if they wanted to expand those first floor units in the basement that would be to file a proper permit to have more more space for those units . Thats correct. I mean, within the existing envelope, expansion of the existing units wouldnt require giving notification. It wouldnt require variance. They could also do some accessory space down there, be it storage or laundry area. Commissioner tanner great, thank you. Clerk okay. Thank you. We are now moving on to Public Comment. Is there anyone who would like to provide Public Comment on this item, please press star, 9, if you called in. You want to provide Public Comment. Okay. Let me just double check. I do not see any. So we will move on to rebuttal. Mr. Diamond, you have three minutes. Okay. In regards to meeting the exposure requirement, the alternative scheme that we proposed and sent to the Planning Department and the Zoning Administrator does meet the letter of the code at the front of the property. Threestory windows and they are required to have 11square feet for one unit and 10squarefeet for the other. And additionally we have provided alternative for the rear of the property where we set back to nine feet and 10 feet to fulfill the requirement horizontal as mentioned. More importantly the description makes it seem that were digging down several feet. Were using the existing rear yard which is 160squarefeet which has been an open space for years and putting at the base level, and open space for four units. Everything improves this property. And theres a picture of the basement units as kind of poor units and i dont think that is the case and a fair characterization. In terms of density, we are not going beyond the density of the property zone lot by any stretch of the imagination. Look at the overhead of the block and you can see that none of the properties see if i can pop it up on our side of the block they were all built in the 1990s and 2000s can you see that hopefully no. No. I dont remember how i did this before. Ill pause time. Okay, sorry. Here we go. Clerk its fine, take your time. Thanks. Did i get it up . Clerk yes. Your time is up. And this is 1234 howard and they allowed it to be built up next and they have an inner court to satisfy the open space but it was a sacrifice of light and air to our property. And you can see this in 58 indiscernible it takes light out of our property and this was also allowed to be built in 1994 right up against our property. So if its a quality of light and air issue its caused by the city. And you can see this is the rear lot line right here where im scrolling and you can see the setback is eight feet maybe. Theyve been allowed to build to the lot line. This is true on our entire block. And we are looking for the same rights. And the city has thousands of units in our neighborhood and i am sure that be we have hundreds and were looking for the same thing. If we can meet the exposure requirements and we set back 10 feet at the rear of the property, which is already proposed in several schemes, theres three here. So thats 10foot setback and why then not able to meet code . If were meeting the code, how are we not meeting the code is my question. And i have asked this question a dozen times to our planner and she just keeps saying that the d. A. Says no. I have spent four years on the project and going to the Planning Department, three years to get the variance, and a year later were here. Time. Clerk thank you. We will now hear from the Planning Department. Mr. Sanchez . Thank you. Scott sanchez, Planning Department. So in response to a couple of issues that were raised by the appellant. So in terms of the exposure and why even the alternatives dont meet the exposure requirement in terms of the front we require that the windows that are necessary to meet the the windows have to be of a certain size to meet the exposure requirement. We require that glazing has to be within the first seven feet, six inches from the floor height. So having windows that are seven, eight, nine feet up, you know, having that glazing area doesnt meet the exposure requirement. So i think that was one of the issues here. While they were providing the clear shore windows, even if they were to be enlarged, given the grade of the street, i dont think theyd be able to have all of that glazing within the 7 feet, 6inches. In terms of the rear, you cant just kind of slant in light to the rear. It has to be maintained, and you have to have a code compliant rear yard going all the way up. So what was proposed simply doesnt meet the planning code requirement. Thats all. Im available for questions. Clerk okay, Vice President honda. My phone dropped, sorry. Vicepresident honda mr. Sanchez, a question. So as the permit holder has pointed out, 128 howard or 1228 howard and the Adjoining Properties all go straight and abut his property pretty high. Were those built could the Property Owner at the time appeal that . Because in my mind it would impact that particular property, right . Yes, all of those actions would have been appealable. And i think that given how they were approved, they probably appealable to the board of appeals. Vicepresident honda shouldnt they have had like a side yard setback to allow light to that particular property, if it was done at that particular time . Well, i mean, you know, you would view it in the context of all of the development there. So it was determined whenned whe adjacent construction was made, with the features on the subject property that it didnt adversely impact it. What is being proposed now is additional dwelling units that are at issue. Vicepresident honda 1994 was a whole different time and space. I believe that the first loft was being initiated at that time on howard . The approvals here for the three adjacent properties at 1224 howard, and they all occurred over different times. I think that natoma was the oldest, 1234 howard then and the most recent 1298 howard. And so i think that what the appellant is mainly pointing to is the 1224 howard and the adjacent property which is unique in that its a through lot in natoma. So in making that determination it was found that it didnt adversely impact the light and air of adjacent property. What is proposed now are new units and the new units need to meet the requirements of the code and they simply dont. Its not a question whether that adjacent building there was or not. Even if the adjacent building was not there, it still doesnt meet the code requirements. Theyre completely separate. Vicepresident honda was howard before the board . For some reason thats a design or something for some reason i remember that. Not that im aware of. Vicepresident honda thank you. Clerk okay, commissioners, this matter is submitted. President lazarus commissioners, any discussions . A motion . The question is the indiscernible or not, correct . I have one question. Mr. Sanchez, these are two separate variances and we dont have to do one or the other. There was a variance approved for one aspect of the project which is vertical and the second variance for the additional basement units . This is one variance appealed. So, if the board agrees this is a hearing for the variance and unlike other appeals or Zoning Administrator decisions, that if you find that the basically you woulda would adope findings of the zone administrator in the variance and that results in the variance approved for the rear yard and allow the vertical addition with the new dwelling units there. And it would maintain the same decision on denying the variance for the open space and exposure. So if you chose not to grant the appeal, the project would be approved with the rear yard variance but not the variance for the basement unit. Okay, and i want to say one thing to the variance requester. I think that part of what you asked why this didnt meet code. And my understanding is the dimensions of the rear yard dont meet the requirements for the rear yard to provide light and air, which have even been reduced from previous dimensions. And then your proposals where you have this slant going like this is actually the opposite. So its a triangle that would go like this. So you have to maintain that space and increase that space as you go up. And so you certainly would not be able to meet that space on those alternative proposals either. So, commissioners, im prepared to support the Zoning Administrators findings. So thats where i am. So to the builder, i do like the design of the unit density. But, unfortunately, the constraints of that issue mainly caused by the size of the lot. And, you know, that was evidently evident when designing that. So i too go with the Zoning Administrator. Clerk commissioner swig. Commissioner swig sorry. For one time being polite. The basement the basement access, the basement aspect of this project just doesnt work. And, therefore, i would move against the granting of the variance and support the Zoning Administrator. Clerk commissioner tanner, you were on verge of a motion i think . Commissioner tanner yes, the motion is to deny the appeal and uphold the decision of the Zoning Administrator. I would go for that. Deny the variance. Deny the variance and hold the decision of the Zoning Administrator. Clerk okay. Deny the appeal . Commissioner tanner sorry, deny the appeal, sorry. Clerk on what basis . Commissioner tanner that the findings in the variance are appropriate. Clerk okay. If i may that it doesnt meet the it doesnt meet the standards of granting the variance, i think, is probably the right way is it not . Clerk thats true for the denial of the variance but hes granting a yard variance as well. Commissioner tanner indiscernible it does meet the findings in first and the second variance does not meet the variance. Two in one. Clerk okay. We have a motion from commissioner tanner to deny the appeal and uphold the variance decision and adopt the findings of the Zoning Administrator on the basis that the findings with respect to the rear yard variance have been met that are required under planning code section 305, have been met. However, all findings for the open im sorry for the open space and exposure variances have not been met. And so on that motion, president lazarus. Aye. Vice president honda. Aye. Commissioner swig. Aye. Okay. So that motion carries 40. And the appeal is denied. President lazarus very good. We are adjourned and i hope that everyone has a safe and sane fourth of july. We are not here next week . President lazarus we are not. Everybody have a good break. Happy holidays and thank you for your work on this and for the accommodations as well. President lazarus thanks, everyone. Bye. Please type your name and your question exactly as you would like it to be read. Submit before the last speaker is finished. We will read in the q a portion. Thank you for joining us. Today we have doctor grant colfax, the director of the office of economic and work force development. Cheryl davis, james executive director of collective impact. Member of the Latino Task Force and Stefani Garcia. With that i will turn it over to dr. Colfax. Good morning everybody. Thank you for joining us before this long weekend. I just have a brief statement to make with regard to where we are in the covid19 pandemic. It is a Public Health message that is really that we need to send across the city, across the region, across various neighborhoods and communities. This fourth of july, th the saft thing to do is stay home. In San Francisco we have had an alarming increase and significant increase in covid19 infections and hospitalizations of the over the past few weeks, our rates have soared. We are in a situation where we could we seeing early signs of a surge. Our increases reflect across the region as increases across the state. As people know, we have put a pause on reopening. It is vital that everyone take the steps that we know stop the spread of covid19. Slow the spread of covid19. This means wearing a Face Covering, social distancing, good hygiene measures, and really limiting outings and staying home as much as possible. We know this works. We saw this work in the spring with our response in San Francisco. As we hit pause, we need to ensure we are doing everything we can to slow the virus spread. This weekend stay at home if possible, celebrate with people in your household. Use as much as possible a way to socialize virtually, socially distance, wear Face Coverings, keep your family and your neighborhood and community as safe as possible. Thank you. Thank you, dr. Colfax. Now we have the director from the office of economic and work force development. Thank you so much, dr. Colfax. I want to make a few brief comments about the importance of moving to this weekend. Like many of the Small Businesses and Community Members who were very much looking forward to a more aggressive reopening. We are thankful for the leadership of the department of Public Health keeping our Health Interests real and grounded during this significant time we are in right now. I think we are excited about the long three day weekend and what benefit that may bring to our struggling Small Businesses doing everything they can to provide a healthy experience and safe experience for those who visit them and patronize them, which is very much needed right now. It is important to remember the virus doesnt take a holiday, it may force one upon us if we dont take responsibility as Business Owners and Community Members to ensure we are adhering to the Public Health guidelines. It is important the progress we worked so hard to create in phased reopening, through our office, mayor breeds leadership, we want to continue to see the progress being made. It is only possible if you, as the public and Business Owners, do your part to be responsible during this week end as we continue to mitigate the Public Health crisis we find ourselves in. We have been doing such an extraordinary job ensuring to get to this place of having many Small Businesses begin to see light at the end of a tunnel to enjoy a little activity and seeing liveliness come back to our neighborhoods and commercial corridors. It is only possible if we Work Together to take care of each other, practice social guidelines. It benefits our health and economic health. We need to keep an eye on that. We all have a part to play in that. Over 153,000 residents in San Francisco sought unemployment. We have a rate of well over 12 . Our job is to add here to these Public Health guidelines to continue to battle the economic crisis we want to successfully address. Together with all of you, we know that we can do that. When it comes to the additional work to be provided, we have signage to be provided. Make sure businesses know there is collateral to collect and gain access to to help them Work Together with their patronizers and those who come in and patronize their businesses retail or otherwise. We want to thank the public for being patient with Business Owners trying to do their part to be successful in this environment. With that, i will take questions later on. I am looking forward to a safe july 4th weekend in San Francisco an and across the bay area. For more information about resources or tools available to you, reach out to our web site. Oewd. Org. Also if you are curious about the phasing going on and what plans we have, please visit sfgov reopening and you will find the information there. Thank you for the opportunity today. We look forward to working with you towards continued success and reopening. Thank you, director. Our next speaker is cheryl davis, executive director of San Francisco human rights commission. Thank you. You know, the director talked about the virus does not take a vacation or holiday. Dr. Colfax and i have been having conversations it is not equal where it is impacting communities and neighborhoods. We have seen the map where the virus is impacts greater numbers matches maps for red lining to highlight disparities in terms of economic and Health Issues and challenges. We realize in some ways we are battling two issues at this point in time. One is the pandemic and one is racism. These two things are very much closely connected. We are seeing a surge within latin x communities. Most recently the Africanamerican Community and challenges with folks in sunnydale with younger pops. We are trying to make sure folks are staying healthy, working with communities. The role of human rights is to engage with community and raise community concerns. We have heard from young and old people. There is a concern folks will come out this weekend and think everything is fine. They will be worse off as we go into next week. We encourage people to talk to their family and encourage them to stay home, healthy and be aware of the idea someone could have contracted the virus and not know it and be spreading it to others. As the human rights commissioners we have been working with collective impact to distribute Face Coverings, pass out sanitizer and pass out collateral that says stay home, stay safe and remind people to get tested. I am grateful for the partners here today to share and encourage others. Grateful for the work of the Latino Task Force. We have to think about making the messagthe mess o the messag. Those with Health Issues are more likely to contract the virus and have a harder experience or be harder impacted by that. We are trying to work with messaging around that so folks realize they are not mandated, we are encouraging people to stay home for safety of themselves and their communities. Our next speaker is a member of the Latino Task Force. Good morning everybody. I am with the Latino Task Force. Since the beginning of this pandemic we are working vigorously to ensure the Latino Community continues to thrive in the city. As director davis just indicated, there are a lot of challenges the Latino Community faces in San Francisco that run parallel with covid. Covid in many ways makes i would worse and highlights. One of the big pieces of advice to anybody that is listening out there, that is writing this down, ensure if you have the ability to shelterinplace this weekend, do that. If you have a need to go out because there is an essential thing you have to do, wear a Face Covering and face mask. As we saw in a mission study, we found 53 of the people who tested positive had no symptoms. People could have covid19 and not understand that they do and be fine and not have symptoms. They could give it to somebody they love that could have an adverse effect. We are reminding our people in the community to ensure that you stay home if you can. If you have to go out, wear a face mask and ensure you are keeping social distance that is appropriate. If you are listening to this message, then you are an ambassador of this message to those that you love and you care about. It is important for all of us to take ownership of this. It is only with all of us participating we will get out of this. If you are absolutely have to go out because it is essential, please use social distancing space or face mask. Cover your face and enjoy this as safe as you possibly can. Thank you. Our next speaker is the executive director of collective impact. I am not sure if you can hear me. Yes, we can hear you. I am working at the community center. I want be the community to understand. I am in the community to tell everybody to come to my community and ask where is james, nobody would know who you comcome to. Uncle stink they know who i am. I knew from day one when this pandemic started that we were opening the doors to the community. The resources were going to be hard for the community to get ahold of. We want our community to have a place to go, ppe, face mask, sanitizer and we did hot lunches here. I want to make sure the community knew that the door is open, they didnt have to go look for anything, it was right here. I have been all over San Francisco and hunters point, the mission, we are supporting everybody with ppe. I know everybody is feeling a little cramped up with the fourth of july coming up. Keep your butts at home. Please stay home. This pandemic and this covid19 is for real. I dont want you to be the person that carries it home. I know a lot of us go home and we have family reunions to get together during the week and go do the fourth and do the fourth of july and you go home and you have a mom, grandparent at home. You know, you dont know you are carrying the disease. Really as young people, you are the carriers. It is like looking out for the people around you at the time. It is not about you. It is everybody else. It is bigger than me or you. It is protecting the elders and seniors and our family around us when we think about it as we go out. Basically if you do have to go out wear a face mask. Make sure you have sanitizer with you. I think about social distancing at all times. Make it a habit that people keep their distance from you. Make sure that you take it serious. This is serious. I am saying this because when you think about it is a lot we dont know about this virus. To be safe just make sure you are taking care of your loved ones and your community. Make sure that you actually let everybody know that i dont want to get sick, i dont want you to get sick. I will stay at home. I will not be part of that. We are going to recover from this. Stay at home and be safe for this weekend. Please stay home and be safe. The last thing we want to do is sacrifice your family. The last thing i want to do is go to another funeral. At the end of the day it is for us to look out for our community to make sure the community is safe at the end of the day. Please, please, please, keep your butts at home. Stay home, you all. Another fourth of july will come up. We will be there next year. This year, please stay at home. Thank you. Thank you. Up next we have Stefani Garcia who is our final speaker, please submit your questions. Good morning, everyone. I am here to talk to young people specifically. I have a message for young people in San Francisco and around the nation. We the young people are intel get anchor intelligence and we can lead by example. I urge you to continue to practice social distancing and only go out for essentials, wear facings and plastic good hygiene. Covid19 affects all of us, especially those we love. Our moms, dads, grandparents, great grandparents and others with underlying conditions in our community. We as young people have the responsibility to act responsible and to leave our pleasures and fun behind. Coronavirus is real. I have had relatives test positive and lose their life to covid. I know what testing positive does to the family financially. In some situations we live in multigenerational homes. We live with the elderly, parents and grandparents. As young people we must remember we are not spared from the virus. We have seen how serious it could be fou for our loved peop. I urge you all to take action and practice social distancing, practice good hand hygiene and continue to wear Face Coverings. We all have the power to flatten the curve and stop the spread. Thank you. Thank you, stefani. We will begin our q and a. First question with rebecca. What percentage of cases tell contact tracers close contacts . Has that changed over time. Do they say why . That question is for dr. Colfax. Could you read me the question again. I didnt hear all of that. The question is what percentage of cases tell contact tasers close contacts . Has that changed over time. When they dont tell the investigators close contacts do they say why . Contact tracing is one of our key interventions that we employ as a result of pandemic. We have 100 contact tasers in the field working with people diagnosed with covid19. Right now we are reaching 82 of cases. Of the people that the cases report, we are reaching 88 of their contacts. We are doing relatively well there for our indicator in yellow there. The goal is to reach 90 . With regard as to why people do not necessarily tell people about their contacts or perhaps refuse with regard to engaging with a contact taser, we have qualitative information. There is understandable concerns about providing information and how that will be used. That is why we have worked very much with multiple Community Partners to the train efforts by communitybased organizations to function as trusted contact tracers. It is about the information that is given. It is also about providing support for people diagnosed with their contacts. Across the city people are offered hotel rooms if they need to isolate and quarantine. Families are offered social support services, food and other key things that help people if they are diagnosed with covid19 if they are at risk and to help them get through the two week period that is most acute with people diagnosed. The other thing to emphasize is the information gathered is 100 confidential. It is only used to get people tested during covid19. The second question. How have moved to reopen San Francisco complicated Contract Tracing efforts. We are working in a cultural appropriate way to engage people who are diagnosed with covid19, to support them and their families, and to support the contacts they have had. It just emphasizes the need to continue to strengthen this work across the city. Next questions from ktsf for dr. Colfax. How do we celebrate the fourth of july with our families safely . I think as i said at the beginning of the call and my partners also emphasized. Best thing to do is stay home, celebrate with members of your household, and to be able to celebrate virtually with others. It is really a key right now we present the spread of covid19. If people go out to emphasize wearing Face Coverings, maintain social distancing which i know it is hard for me to do, but we need to emphasize that. As director about seized in the commenters, even if you feel okay that doesnt mean you dont have covid19. If someone looks like they are not sick, up to half of the cases can initially be a symptomatic. We have got to continue to prevent the spread, wear Face Coverings, social distance and good hygiene. Second question from angelina for dr. Colfax. Other counties allow social bubbles. What is your position on small gatherings of close family and friends . The safest thing to do is stay home with members of your immediate household. If there are times when people decide not to do that, it is very important for people to meet outside, wear Face Coverings, social distance, hygiene measures that i talked about. Be thoughtful how we engage outside of our immediate house old with people highest risk of dying from the disease, people older with chronic conditions. Given what we are seeing in San Francisco and across the state we are having increasing cases. San francisco knows how to do this. We did it and i am grateful for everyones contributions. We did it in march, april, may. We can do it for the fourth of july. Thank you. Next questions from cathy novak with k cbs for dr. Colfax. How willin how many patientsn quentin are treated in San Francisco hospitals . 18 patients transferred from san quentin to San Francisco hospitals. Second question for dr. Colfax. Are San Francisco hospitals preparing to receive more patients from san quintin . Is that going to affect Hospital Capacity. Right now it is good for indicators. People can find it on data sf website if you want more detail. Now the Hospital Capacity is green. We have a capacity to accept patients from other regions in the state. Obviously, we will balance the ability to accept with what is happening locally. We certainly want to support regions where there is an acute need and people are in dire need of care. We are in close contact with the state which is determining how patients from san quentin will be transferred to other counties. Next questions from christian with ktvu for dr. Colfax. Can you speculate about what is leading to the recent increase in coronavirus transmission rates in San Francisco . It is combination of factors. We dont have the precision to identify any one thing. This is not an outbreak in one specific facility or region. It is really what we know spreads the virus, which is people unfortunately in closer contact with people who may be a symptommic but can transmit. Covid19 the people who choose not to wear facial coverings which we know dramatically decreases spread of diseases. Then i think per the conversations and data from the past there are people who essential workers who need to work in settings. There is certainly a transmission risk in the workplaces even with proper precautions. The social distancing, stable coverings facial coverings, hygiene, access to testing, contact notification are all things to prevent further spread. We think over the last few weeks probably just a combination of more activity in the city. The more we move about and the more interaction there is socially in gatherings, the more likely the virus will transmit. Especially indoors if women dont if people dont take precautions we are talking about. Second question. Did we reopen too fast or too early. Are we likely to see restrictions reimposed . As we reopened in a very cautious and datadriven way. We followed the data and facts how to reopen gradually. We know the numbers would increase in our city and region. The goal is to slow the spread. We packed because the rate started to increase dramatically. We talked about flattening the code. It is really about the rate. Too early to tell whether we would need to potentially reverse any steps that have been taken with regard to reopening or taking a pause. We are looking at the data over the next few days and make a determination on next steps based on the data. Thank you. We have the time two questions from joshua at sf examiner. Question one. Please discuss the latest data raising concerns inlooking exact number of cases on wednesday. Most important data causing concern are around the increase in hospitalization rates. And in the rate of case diagnosis. Our goal for seven day average of new cases is 1. 8 per 100,000 residents. We are now at a rate of over 6 per 100,000. That pushed us into the red zone. That is one of the key indicators. The other key indicat indianadis are to keep hospitalizations in the green hospitalizations in the green zone. It is now at 61 increase. The key piece is our hospitalization rates overall for covid19 are low in the city. Thanks to the incredible efforts of san franciscans doing their best every day. The hospitalization remains relatively low, but that rate of increase means the curve is steep. We need to ensure we are doing everything we can to flatten the curve. As we saw this in china, italy and now in floridian arizona. Once this virus takes off at a high rate, it is very aggressive. We need to take this pause now and as much as possible stay at home for the fourth of july to get the curve flat in San Francisco and in our region. Question two from joshua. Can you provide any more specifics what trends you are seeing in terms why there is increase of cases and hospitalizations. Such as demographics location or other causes. I think it is a combination of factors. The data reinforce the continued and ongoing needed as others have spoken to on this call to focus in our approach to managing covid19 to supporting communities where covid19 is disproportionately affecting people, including latin and black african communities and we will do just that. Thank you. This concludes our press conference. Thank you to our speakers for joining us. A