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. To enable Public Participation sfgovtv is broadcasting and streaming this hearing live. And we will have the ability to receive Public Comment for each item on todays agenda. To watch the hearing on tv go to fosfgovtv. And its on channel 26 on fridays. A link to the livestream is found at sfgovtv. Org boa. Public comment can be provided in two ways. Joining the zoom meeting by computer. Go to our website at sfgovtv. Org bboa and click on the zoom link or by telephone call 1 888 4754499. This a tollfree number. And you must enter the webinar i. D. , 146 06 146 069i. D. And sfg the tollfree number and the access instructions on the bottom of the screen if youre watching the livestream or broadcast to block your phone number when and calling in dial star, 67 and then the phone number. Listen for the Public Comment portion and dial star, 9, which is equivalent of raising your hand so we know that you want to speak. You will be brought into the hearing when its your turn. Youll have two or three minutes, depending on the volume of speakers. Our clerk will provide you with a verbal warning 30 seconds before your time is up. Please note that theres a delay between the live proceeds and what is broadcast and livestreamed on tv and the internet. Therefore, it is very important for the people calling in to reduce or turn off the volume on their tvs or computers, otherwise theres interference with the meeting. Now we will swearin or affirm all those who intend to testify. Please note that any member of the public may speak without taking an oath pursuant to their rights under the sunshine ordinance. If you intend to testify at tonights proceedings and wish to have the board give your testimony evidentiary weight, raise your right hand and say i do after swornin or affirmed do. You affirm that the testimony that you are about to give is the whole truth and nothing but the truth . For those who are testifying, okay, thank you. I do. 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. The hon. London breed good morning, everyone. Im San Francisco mayor london breed. Im joined here today with the director of the department of Public Health, dr. Grant colfax, as well as the director of the department of economic and Workforce Development to talk about the citys effort around covid19, whats happening with our reopening, and what you need to know. Today as of today, we have 4,020 new cases total cases, 68 hospitalizations, and 16 transfers from other counties, and 50 people have sadly lost their lives to covid19 in San Francisco. I want to take this moment, first of all, to really thank the people of San Francisco because we know that it is because of many people in this city the fact that you have been wearing your mask, social distancing, washing your hands, and staying home in most cases, even though i know it has been challenging. Because you have done that, we have not seen San Franciscos numbers increase like some other cities that are experiencing significant challenges. But i also want to be clear that we are seeing an increase. Our numbers, along with numbers all over the country, are going up, and we are not out of the woods yet. I have said in the past, dr. Colfax has said in the past, the covid19 virus, this covid19 is with us for at least anywhere between 12 to 18 months, and what we are trying to do is adapt to our new normal, and part of adapting to our new normal is that we not only want to keep ourselves safe, we want to keep the people around us safe. I cant express enough how important it is to wear your mask whenever possible, especially when youre around other people. Its not just about protecting you, its about protecting them, as well. And we, as you all know, are still having a number of challenges, and i want to talk a little bit today about our reopening efforts because i know that thats really been at the top of everyones mind is what is happening. Last month, i made an announcement about a timeline specifically when San Francisco was planning to reopen, and we were doing well in terms of our numbers. As we said, we will look at the data, we will look at whats happening in our city as far as hospitalizations and make decisions. So we moved up our timeline once the state provided us with the variance. We were planning to allow businesses to reopen as early as june 29, and then, something changed. We saw a spike, one that we have not seen in a very long time, and as a result, we had to put a pause on the opening of those businesses, and i know that it was very detrimental, especially since its already been so challenging for so many hair salons and nahair salons d a number of other businesses that were planning to reopen. And i know this was very challenging, but this was definitely a matter of Public Health. I know it was hard to make that decision on that pause for reopening, and the original variance was scheduled to be granted july 13. So i must say that as of today, on july 13, we will not be able to allow restaurants to be able to operate indoors, as we had planned, nor will we be able to allow bars to open outdoors on july 13. And we continue to evaluate and to make the decision. If we see the numbers stablize or decline in any way, we will reevaluate the reopen. But at this point, we have no choice. We are living in covid, and i think what i want to reiterate is the fact that we are all in this together. What you do or what you dont do impacts someone else, whether you know it or not, and thats why its so important that we follow the guidelines of the city to wear our masks, to socially distance, to wash our hands, to do everything we can to stay apart from one another during this time, especially as we see the numbers increase. So i want to, at this time, introduce dr. Grant colfax, who will talk a little bit more about whats happening. And i also as i said, Joaquin Torres is here because we know that our Small Businesses in San Francisco who have already been struggling continue to struggle. We started a number of funds and a number of things to try and help support these businesses. I know its not enough, but i want to be clear that, you know, this is not a decision that we are approaching lightly. We know that in order to protect Public Health, we are creating other challenges for Small Businesses. Were creating other challenges because we know that over 153,000 san franciscans have filed for unemployment. We dont make these decisions lightly, and this is why we want to reiterate how important it is for us to listen to the guidelines and to do our part. We need these numbers to go down. We need these numbers to go down, so we need not just people in San Francisco, but the folks who are also coming from other places to San Francisco, the people who are working in San Francisco. Folks who work for our nonprofit agencies, serving our homeless population, are coming from cities all over the bay area. People who are working in our hospitals, our Public Safety officials. What impacts one impacts us all, so this is not just about San Francisco, this is about the entire bay area, and our need to take this virus seriously and to all do our part to keep one another safe. And in San Francisco, as soon as we can allow things to reopen, we will be the first to do so safely. So i thank you all for your cooperation, and at this time, i want to turn it over to dr. Grant colfax. Well, thank you, mayor. Im dr. Grant colfax, the director of Public Health for the city and county of San Francisco. I want to thank all san franciscans for their sacrifices during this unprecedented time. The psychological, physical, and economic toll wrought by the pandemic are severe and continue to have major impacts across the city and region, particularly among communities already facing socioeconomic and health inequities. The virus has further exploited these fault lines, and so far, for the most part, we have managed to avoid the worst consequences of the virus and the pandemic, but that could change at any time. Today in San Francisco, we have 4,020 diagnosed cases of covid19, and unfortunately, 50 people have died of the disease. In the bay area region, there are over 30,000 cases and just over 600 deaths. In the state, nearly 250,000 cases, and nearly 6500 people have died. And nationally, we continue to see the pandemic surge, with nearly 3 million cases and an astounding 130,000 deaths. Leading up to the holiday weekend, we did everything we could to make sure that we all knew the safest way to celebrate, and that was to stay home this year. For those who did go out, we asked that people avoid gathering wherever possible, wear face coverings, stay 6 feet apart, and wash their hands frequently. Over the weekend, the city handed out over 12,000 face masks to organizations in the Latinx Community in recognition of the disproportionate burden of disease affecting the latinx population, and we are continuing to expand low barrier testing to communities most affected by covid19. And you may have received a phone call or a text from the city encouraging you to do your part to keep your Community Healthy and safe. Unfortunately, there were still dozens of gatherings throughout the city, and many people were not wearing face coverings or masks. But i want to thank everyone who did take precautions. You are literally saving lives and keeping covid19 from spreading rapidly in the city. And i especially want to thank everyone who skipped the usual july 4 fun and made sacrifices this weekend. We are in a period, we have been in a period, and we continue to be in a period of uncertainty, and i want to acknowledge that this is a really hard place for all of us to be. And yet we know what works, and we need to continue to do what works. We flattened, and some would say we crushed the curve once, and we can do it again. If we do not, the consequences could be dire. My commitment to you is that we will continue to follow the science, data, and facts. The results of the july 4 weekend behavior wont be known for at least two or three weeks, but we must continue to do all we can to flatten that curve again. Dont let your guard down. The virus is still out there, and its out there more than ever before. It is spreading throughout our community and the bay area region. We are working with scientists, researchers who are seeing that the reproductive rate of the virus is climbing above 1. That means that for each person infected with the virus, the virus is infecting more than one person going forward. The virus is increasing in our community. At this rate, it could potentially overwhelm our Health Care System and cause many deaths if we dont get a handle on this right away. I want to make sure that san franciscans, that you understand how serious and precarious our situation is. Lets look at our health ska indicators. They are published daily on the San Francisco Health Tracker that you can reach on the San Francisco health website. I invite you all to follow along with how the virus is impacting our community. The indicators are scored by green, yellow, orange, and red to understand where we stand. Todays indicators show that, unfortunately, we have reason to be concerned. Our case indicator is red. We are currently diagnosing on average 6. 1 cases per 100,000 new cases per day. Our goal is to keep that number to 1. 8, so rather than 1. 8, were at 6. 1. That is red. That is a serious situation that requires us to pause. Hospitalizations for people diagnosed with covid19 have seen a 25 increase over the past week. Our goal is to keep that increase less than 10 . Our hospital capacity, unfortunately, remains good. 35 of acute beds are available, and 30 of i. C. U. Beds are available for covid19 and other patients, but again, that could change at any time, and we know, when this virus takes off, it takes off fast. Testing, we continue to expand testing. Were currently conducting an average of 1762 tests over a sevenday average. Our contact tracing, we continue to follow up with 82 reaching 82 of cases, and 88 of their contacts, and our protective personal protective equipment or p. P. E. Is at 89 supply, status yellow. Now lets look at the bay area perspective. As we all know, San Francisco is not alone. We are a part of an interdependent region where people live, work, go to school and play across many counties at once. There are cases surging in communities across the region. For examp marin, 1774 cases in the past two weeks. They were put on the state watch list. Solano, 1662 cases in the last two weeks alone. They have been put on the sate watch list, and we see similar numbering increasing across the region. This pandemic does not, the virus does not know county lines, and we must respect that it is increasing across the bay area. So where does that leave us . Our reopening is still on pause as of june 29 as we work to bring the latest surge of cases under control. We can do it. Weve done it before, and its up to us. I know that this is an unsettling situation, and there are a lot of unknowns. I know and appreciate that businesses are and need to be able to plan, and that residents need to be able to get back to work. While it is so difficult, so difficult, as the mayor alluded to, to slow down the reopening that we all want so badly, the price we pay for moving too quickly is extremely high. Remember, this virus has no timeline. Across the country, the virus is surging back in florida, arizona, and texas. In california and right across the bridge the golden gate bridge, marin is slowing down reopening, and in Imperial County to the south, the hospitals there are full and patients are being transferred to other counties. In fact here in San Francisco, we have 13 patients have other counties that we are caring for in our intensive care units. At this point, we are not dialing back any of the activities or businesses that have reopened, but we are not going to rush it further ahead, either. I know that it is confusing to keep track of all these lists and schedules, especially when they may change. Here are some of the Public Health principles that we are using. You can use them, too, to guide your decisions. Again, everyone in San Francisco and, indeed, in the bay area has a responsibility and an opportunity to protect the communitys health. When you think about the risk of exposure and transmission, keep these things in mind. How risky is the activity . First, is the activity indoors or outdoors . Outdoors is much safer. Second, does it involve gatherings with people outside of your immediate household . That is riskier and should be avoided. Three, can you hear face coverings at all times during the activity . Four, can you maintain, and i mean can you really maintain at least 6 feet of physical distancing . I think some of us have found that harder than we expect in certain situations. Fifth, can you easily wash your hands and is the environment properly cleaned. Think about any activity in terms of the following four characteristics number, frequency, duration, and distance. Number. The more people who are together, the more interactions take place. This is riskier. Frequency. The more often people interact, the higher their risk of transmission. Duration. The longer the amount of time spent together, the higher risk of virus transmission. Distance. The closer together people are, the higher risk of virus transmission. Keep these principles in mind. Use your common use common sense. Use our common sense. Facial coverings, social distancing, think about the number, frequency, duration, and distance as you make decisions about how, when, and even if to engage. When we apply these principles and examine the Health Indicators and incorporate what we are learning about the virus and its reproductive rate in San Francisco and the region, we are forced to conclude that it will not be responsible to allow Indoor Dining or outdoor bars to begin on july 13. Indoor dining is an activity where people typically gather with those outside of their households, takedown their face masks, and spend time in close proximity. The simple pleasure of going to an indoor restaurant is something that we, and certainly i, all miss, and it is certainly a vital part of our cultures economy. I know from experience what it means to wait tables and live by the service tips that are provided. But for now, unfortunately, Indoor Dining is an opportunity for the virus to spread. If we let that happen, it will further delay our chances of getting back sooner to the things we love to do. We are not alone. New york city also has put Indoor Dining on hold and, eve west virginias governor has issued an order making indoor masks mandated when social distancing isnt possible. They are taking aim at the same things that we are. As for outdoor bars, they are currently restricted for 23 counties on the watch list. And although San Francisco is not on that list today, that could change. As i said, several bay area counties are on the watch list, and if any county in the bay area is in such trouble, we are all in trouble. In keeping with our regional approach, we are going to abide by that restriction since outdoor bars are an occasion for gathering, removing a facial mask, and can be a difficult environment to maintain adequate physical distance. Meanwhile, Outdoor Dining at restaurants and bars that serve food will continue to be allowed as long as everyone follows the precautions and the virus remains under control. We are continuing to evaluate the data and reconsider the reopening of indoor museums, zoos, aquariums, gyms, real estate open houses, and personal services. We will have an update on those activities by the end of the week. I cant emphasize enough how important it is that we do our part, that each of us does our part. Remember, even if you do not have symptoms, you could be carrying the virus, or your friend could be carrying the virus. Even though this virus has greatest consequences in general for people who are older, it can also have severe consequences for younger people. We must all do our part to keep as many people as possible from contracting the virus. Do not gather if possible, and not in large groups. Continue to stay home as much as possible. If you leave the house, wear a mask or a face covering, stay 6 feet apart, and wash your hands. These actions save lives. We have time. There is a window now for course correction, but if we dont do it, and we dont do it quickly, we could be looking at a surge of illness that goes well beyond what we are prepared to handle. We saw in march that our Rapid Actions mattered. Just a few days made a huge difference. The power to make things better is indeed in our hands. We can get this right. We know what to do. We need to support each other in doing it. We can have a thriving economy in San Francisco with a healthy population and a renewed economy if, if we work together, remain vigilant, and hold our ground. Thank you. And it is my pleasure to introduce Joaquin Torres, the director of oewd, who will make additional comments with regard to where we stand with the pandemic and business and recovery. Thank you. Well, thank you very much for your leadership, mayor breed, and thank you very much for keeping us all safe and healthy during this time, dr. Colfax. I know that so many individuals in the business community, whether the businesses or their workers are happy that were doing so much to keep them safe and their families. We all know that these practices are what are allowing the businesses to move forward. We know that this is a very difficult time for you, for your employees, and for our city, but so much appreciate what you all have done for us to keep our city strong, lively, and our Economic Activity continuing. The issue for us right now around wanting to ensure that you have clarity is a commitment that our office of economic and Workforce Development brings. You can visit our website at oewd. Org to learn more about partnerships that we are providing with the city and Public Health so that you can continue to have best practices around measures, guidances, and reopening. That is your source for information to grants and loans that we are providing here in the city and county of San Francisco for all of you. We know that all of you are deeply excited about getting back to work. Please do stay in contact with us. We look forward to working with you to making that happen. As mayor breed and dr. Colfax said, the basics are what matter right now. Please do, when businesses are asking for your support, please be patient with them. Please continue to support them. They are looking at for your interests and our entire citys interest by asking you to wear your mask, maintain social distancing, use the sanitizer that they have at the front door when you come in. Please be respectful of that. We all need your support, and they all need your support in continuing to work to move forward to benefit our economy. Thank you to our Small Businesses, and thank you to the workers who continue to come in day in and day out who make sure that we can continue to provide for ourselves and our families. Thank you for all that you do and we look forward to working with you. Please visit our website, oewd. Org so we can provide you information on reopening and answer any questions that you may have whether youre a worker, a business, or a nonprofit in San Francisco. Thank you. Director torres, if you can stay at the podium, the first question will be for you. Okay. The first question is from chris reyes, abc 7. What can you tell the restaurants about the first goal of reopening . Are you working with the restaurants for the first phase of reopening . Yes. The answer is we are working very closely with the restaurants. Our staff are talking daily, if not every other hour, with the Industry Leaders and also individual businesses to make sure that were up to date on information and needs that people have. As you heard dr. Colfax mention, the realities right now are that we are not ready to provide a timeline in terms of when these next steps can be taken. This is contingent on what the data tells us. We look forward to more and to communicating more by the end of this week, but for the Golden Gate Restaurant Association and others, we will continue to work with you and continue to provide you up to date information. Thank you, dr. Torres. The next set of questions are for dr. Grant colfax, the director of Public Health. Dr. Colfax, your first question is from marco siler gonzalez, kesq news. Do you have a total number of patients that have been taken from san quentin to hospitals . Our latest number is 70, and that number has remained stable the last couple of days. Our last question is from [inaudible] on the virus spread in hospitalizations in the bay area, including San Francisco . Well, im certainly very concerned about the outbreak at san quentin, and we are working with our state and local partners to coordinate efforts to ensure that people, both the inmates and the staff of san quentin are getting access to care and the best care possible. That is being coordinated by the state. As i said in my opening statements, hospital beds in San Francisco looks good, so at this point, we will continue to support care for inmates and staff in necessary here in the if necessary here in the city and ensure that all patients inmates and staff get the care that they need. Follow up from kathy novak. Do you think that the crisis specifically is contributing to the delay in reopening . I think that there are multiple factors contributing to the delay. I truly cant draw a cause from the san quentin outbreak to our decision here in San Francisco to delay. I do think that we are increasingly looking across the region. As i said, if one countys in trouble, we are all in trouble. Were looking at both our local indicators here in San Francisco as well as indicators from our neighboring counties to make the decision that we did make to pause, and our indicators will continue to drive those decisions, along with the context of what other counties are experiencing. The next question is from heather knight, San Francisco chronic chronicle. San francisco families with children are frustrated that zoos, aquariums, and other places arent reopening. Do you have any date on when programs will restart . Its really this unprecedented challenging time where were trying to balance the need to protect children, their families, their grandparents with with the very issues that youre raising here. We have done a number of things that we hope will mitigate some of the concerns you raise. Camps are open with certain restrictions. We have child care guidelines out, and child care can open. The slow streets closing on jfk drive so families have more ability to get outside and exercise and get those kids out, and then were looking and working with the School District and private schools, as well, to potentially issue School Guidance soon. Still uncertainty still a lot of uncertainty, but really trying to balance the fact that kids need to get out, kids need exercise, their parents need a break with the fact that were in this unprecedented pandemic situation. And the final question is from felipe from kron 4. How close is the city from having to revert back to full place shelter in place in march that ultimately resulted in the curve being flattened . So were not at that point today. We are not rolling back what we have opened at this point. We will continue to follow the indicators and see. Again, i am hopeful, and i am even optimistic that if we all do our part, follow the guidelines, that we that we wont have to get to that point. Now certainly, its possible, but im hopeful that weve done the right thing in San Francisco by following the data, science, and facts. Moving congruent with the data, well be reviewing the data and indicators and will be issuing the facts this week. Thank you, dr. Colfax. This concludes our press conference for today. [ ] i am the supervisor of district one. I am sandra lee fewer. [ ] i moved to the Richmond District in 1950 mine. I was two years old. I moved from chinatown and we were one of the first asian families to move out here. [ ] when my mother decided to buy that house, nobody knew where it was. It seems so far away. For a long time, we were the only chinese family there but we started to see the areas of growth to serve a larger chinese population. The stress was storage of the birthplace of that. My father would have to go to chinatown for dim sum and i remember one day he came home and said, there is one here now. It just started to grow very organically. It is the same thing with the russian population, which is another very large ethnic group in the Richmond District. As russia started to move in, we saw more russian stores. So parts of the richmond is very concentrated with the Russian Community and immigrant Russian Community, and also a chinese immigrant community. [ ] i think as living here in the richmond, we really appreciate the fact that we are surrounded three natural barriers. They are beautiful barriers. The presidio which gives us so many trails to walk through, ocean beach, for families to just go to the beach and be in the Pacific Ocean. We also also have a National Park service. We boarded the Golden Gate National Recreation Area so there is a lot of activity to do in the summer time you see people with bonfires. But really families enjoying the beach and the Pacific Ocean during the rest of the time of year. [ ] and Golden Gate Park where we have so many of our treasures here. We have the tea garden, the museum and the academy of sciences. Not to mention the wonderful playgrounds that we have here in richmond. This is why i say the richmond is a great place for families. The theatre is a treasure in our neighborhood. It has been around for a very long time. Is one of our two neighborhood theatres that we have here. I moved here when i was 1959 when i was two years old. We would always go here. I love these neighborhood theatres. It is one of the places that has not only a landmark in the Richmond District, but also in San Francisco. Small theatres showing one or two films. A unique they are unique also to the neighborhood and San Francisco. Where we are today is the heart of the Richmond District. With what is unique is that it is also Small Businesses. There is a different retail here it is mom and pop opening up businesses. And providing for the neighborhood. This is what we love about the streets. The cora door starts on clement street and goes all the way down to the end of clement where you will see Small Businesses even towards 32nd. At the core of it is right here between here and 20 tenth avenue. When we see this variety of stores offered here, it is very unique then of the any other part of San Francisco. There is traditional irish music which you dont get hardly anywhere in San Francisco. Some places have this long legacy of serving ice cream and being a hangout for families to have a sunday afternoon ice cream. And then also, we see grocery stores. And also these restaurants that are just new here, but also thriving. [ ] we are seeing restaurants being switched over by hand, new owners, but what we are seeing is a vibrancy of clement street still being recaptured within new businesses that are coming in. That is a really great thing to see. I dont know when i started to shop here, but it was probably a very, very long time ago. I like to cook a lot but i like to cook chinese food. The market is the place i like to come to once a year. Once i like about the market as it is very affordable. It has Fresh Produce and fresh meat. Also, seafood. But they also offer a large selection of condiments and sauces and noodles. A variety of rice that they have is tremendous. I dont thank you can find a variety like that anywhere else. Hi. I am kevin wong. I am the manager. In 1989 we move from chinatown to Richmond District. We have opened for a bit, over 29 years. We carry products from thailand, japan, indonesia, vietnam, singapore and india. We try to keep Everything Fresh daily. So a customer can get the best out a bit. Normally during crab season in november, this is the first place i hit. Because they have really just really fresh crab. This is something my family really likes for me to make. Also, from my traditional chinese food, i love to make a kale soup. They cut it to the size they really want. I am probably here once a week. Im very familiar with the aisles and they know everyone who is a cashier cashier here i know when people come into a market such as this, it looks like an asian supermarkets, which it is and sometimes it can be intimidating. We dont speak the language and many of the labels are in chinese, you may not know what to buy or if it is the proper ingredients for the recipe are trying to make. I do see a lot of people here with a recipe card or sometimes with a magazine and they are looking for specific items. The staff here is very helpful. I speak very little chinese here myself. Thinks that im not sure about, i asked the clerk his and i say is this what i need . Is this what i should be making . And they actually really helped me. They will bring me to the aisle and say this is battery. They are very knowledgeable. Very friendly. I think they are here to serve not only the Asian Community but to serve all communities in the Richmond District and in San Francisco. [ ] what is wonderful about living here is that even though our july is a very foggy and overcast, best neighborhood, the sleepy part outside on the west side is so rich with history, but also with all the amenities that are offered. First its always the hardest and when they look back they really wont see you, but its the path that youre paving forward for the next one behind you that counts. Hi, my name is jajaida durden and im the acting superintendent for the bureau of forestry and i work for public works operations. And im over the landscaping, the shop and also the arborist crew. And some tree inspectors as well. I have been with the city and county of San Francisco for 17 years. And i was a cement mason, that was my first job. When i got here i thought that it was too easy. So i said one day ill be a supervisor. And when i run this place it will be ran different. And i i didnt think that it wod happen as fast as it did, but it did. And i came in 2002 and became a supervisor in 2006. And six months later i became the permanent supervisor over the shop. With all of those responsibilities and the staff youre also dealing with different attitudes and you have to take off one hat and put on another hat and put on another hat. And shes able shes displayed that she can carry the weight with all of these different hats and still maintain the respect of the director, the Deputy Director and all of the other people that she has to come in contact with. Shes a natural leader. I mean with her staff, her staff thinks highly of her. And the most important thing is when we have things that happen, a lot of emergencies, shes right by me and helps me out every time that i have asked. My inspiration is when i was a young adult was to become a fire woman. Well, i made some wrong decisions and i ended up being incarcerated, starting young and all the way up to an adult. When i was in jail they had a Little Program called Suppers Program and i supers program, and i met strong women in there and they introduced me to construction. I thought that the Fire Department would turn me down because i had a criminal history. So i looked into options of what kind of construction i could do. While i was in jail. And the program that i was in, they retrained us on living and how to make the right decisions and i chose construction. And cement mason didnt require a High School Diploma at that time so i figured i could do that. When i got out of jail they had a program in the philmore area and i went there. My first day out i signed up and four days later i started to work and i never looked back. I was an apprentice pouring concrete. And my first job was mount zion Emergency Hospital which is now ucsf. And every day that i drive by ucsf and i look at the old mount zion emergency, i have a sense of pride knowing that i had a part of building that place. Yeah, i did. I graduated as an apprentice and worked on a retrofit for city hall. I loved looking at that building and i take big pride in knowing that i was a part of that retrofit. My first for formen job was a 40 Story Building from the ground up. And its a predominantly male industry and most of the times people underestimate women. Im used to it though, its a challenge for me. As a female youre working with a lot of guys. So when they see a woman, first they dont think that the woman is in charge and to know that shes a person that is in charge with operations, i think that its great, because its different. Its not something i mean, not only a female but the only female of color. I was the first female finisher in the cement shop and i was the first crew supervisor, in the shop as a woman. When i became a two, the supervisors would not help me. In the middle, theyd call me a rookie, an apprentice and a female trying to get somewhere that she dont belong. Oh, it was terrible. It was terrible. I didnt have any support from the shop. The ones who said they supported me, they didnt, they talked about me behind my back. Sometimes i had some crying, a lot of crying behind doors, not in public. But i had a lot of mentors. My mentor i will call and would pick up the phone and just talk, talk, talk, please help me. What am a i going to do . Hang in there. It was frustrating and disheartening, it really was. But what they didnt understand is that because they didnt help me i had to learn it. And then probably about a year later, thats when i started to lay down the rules because i had studied them and i learned them and it made me a good supervisor and i started to run the ship the way that i wanted to. It was scary. But the more i saw women coming through the shop, i saw change coming. I knew that it was going to come, but i didnt know how long it would take. It was coming. In the beginning when i first came here and i was the first woman here as a finisher, to see the change as it progressed and for me to become a permanent assistant superintendent over the cement shop right now, thats my highlight. I can look down at my staff and see the diversity from the women to the different coaches in here and know that no one has to ever go through what i went through coming up. And i foster and help everyone instead of pushing them away. Ill talk to women and tell them they can make it and if they need any help, come talk to me. And they com knock on my door ad ask how i move up and how i get training. Im always encouraging to go to school and encourage them to take up some of the training with d. P. W. And i would tell them to hold strong and understand that things that we go through today that are tough makes you stronger for tomorrow. Although we dont like hearing it at the time that were going through all of this stuff, it helps you in the long run to become a better woman and a person okay. Welcome to San Francisco Planning Commission remote hearing for thursday, july 9, 2020. Before we begin, as i have in the past, i would like to enter the following into the record. On february 25, 2020, the mayor declared a local state of emergency related to covid19. Further more the mayor and governor have issued emergency orders suspending select laws amicable to boards and commissions. On april 3, 2020, the Planning Commission received authorization from the