primary box. so ultimately at&t would have to apply for an excavation permit to trench the conduit to context the 2 boxes. that would be a normal excavation permit which will issue which still maybe appealable to this appellate body. that's something different in this case. >> the issue as i understand is not the excavation itself, it's the placement, the ultimate placement, right? and being in the public right-of-way versus on some separately privately negotiated agreement to have it on someone's private property, right? >> for this specific permit, you are correct, commissioner. what happens is there is a preapproval of the siting of this box as a preoccurs or and the excavation permit is the trigger for any appeals. >> sure, i get that, okay. >> thank you, is there any public comment on this item? okay, seeing none, we'll start with our rebuttal. you have 3 minutes, mr. hillegas. >> well, i think i would just repeat what i said before. i think it's clear that property owners were not contacted here. and it is clear that these smf do in commode the ability of disabled people to get in and out of their cars. >> thank you. mr. johnson? >> the only thing that i have to add is a question that commissioner honda raised earlier which he asked if dat at&t has to provide proof that they have done these mailings. they have to provide proof and if you would look at exhibit c, you will see a letter of transmittal as part of our application process. the way the city request that we provide this mailing, it provides the mailing list to everybody we send a mailing to. if they are returned to us, we have to provide those to the city. i don't know what further way at&t can verify if they receive the mail that we send them. you assume when the mail goes out that it ends up at somebody's home in a mailbox. i don't know what they can do than to make everybody sign. this is method that the department requires that we follow. that's what i have to add. thank you. >> so on this particular mailing, how many are returned? >> none. it's my understanding. >> so none were returned for this current mailing that they got sent. >> none on the easement were returned to us is my understanding. there were several from the notice of intent mailing that are returned that are part of the application package. >> okay. thank you. >> mr. quan, anything further? no. >> i have a question for mr. quan? >> me too. >> madam president? >> on this potential issue of impeding the right-of-way perhaps for somebody who is handicapped, wouldn't that not be a consideration by the department when evaluating the site? >> what the department would do is as part of the excavation permit evaluate a final siting of the cabinet as part of the excavation permit and validate it would not impede of people entering on exiting a car. on pictures shown previously, it shows the back of that cabinet is in the red zone. so actually cited when a car pulls up, the passenger should be able to open and people should be able to exit without being impeded in these kind of cases. >> what's the width of the sidewalk at virginia street? i'm not sure, i believe it's 12-15 feet on virginia street. let me double check. the sidewalk on virginia street is 15 feet based upon the drawing. thank you. >> thank you. commissioners, the matter is submitted. thoughts, commissioners? i think i said too much last time. >> i will say i don't believe i have heard anything that would convince me that the permit was improperly issued. >> you have a motion? >> there is no other discussion, i will move to deny the appeal and uphold the permit as issued on the basis of compliance. >> okay. mr. pacheco? city clerk: there is a motion from the president to deny this appeal, uphold the permit on the basis that it is code compliant. on that motion, commissioner fung, aye, commissioner hwang, aye, vice-president hurtado? aye, commissioner honda? no. >> the vote is 4-1. the permit is upheld on that basis. >> thank you. next item, item 8: golden gate heights neighborhood association, appellanttss vs. dept. of public works bureau of street-use & mapping, respondent 203 quintara street. protesting the issuance on march 19, 2014, to sbc- pacific bell engineering, excavation permit install new cabinet; telephone purposee. application no. 14exc-1497. for hearing today1234 you have seven 7 minutes to present your case. >> hi, my name is sally stooens the president of the golden heights association. the steward came to us and asked for help in pealing this permit. it's a group that's been active for five 5 years at -- beautifying the and where they want to put the at&t box. i live about half a block away from this area and it is very much considered by the neighbors to be open space. the stewards have done a great job of beautifying the over the past few years and we don't want to see it get any worse than that. they came to ask for our help and we agreed to do the appeal. i would like to get marina moran oh come up to speak. >> good evening, my name is marina moreno. i'm an attorney and just a resident. i have a lot of history with the site. we have been taking care of this for 5 years. we came together in 2009 because at the time we were hoping to get a grant from the community challenge grant so we got a little bit more form al ized in terms of that grant and we had post hearings. i'm here today to present the reasons why we believe that this permit should be revoked. i'm going to place something here. now, the department itself basically as you know by state law the city of san francisco has a right to the place and manner the box is placed. the purpose of the smf order to exercise that right and determine to allow owners to participate and allow residented to participate in this process and this is from dpw's response brief from those hearings and to definitely make sure that the location selected offers the least negative environmental impacts. with those two goals in mind for the order which is the only reason the order exist. for quintara, neither of those things happened. neither of these locations were selected by the broad or even strong community participation. for at&t solely decided when where they wanted to place it and it is an agreement that is not a smart choice. the second location, they probably had two people based on the information that was presented by at&t to me and made in 2013. we don't know if anybody really that participated in the selection. personally dpw has already permitted at&t to place the box at 2096, 12 avenue. they have the permit to exercise but have chosen not to do so because it's probably more expensive. they did not notify the department they are moving from that location. they just moved on to a next location. i actually was there the day they came by may 23rd, i saw them from my window and there were about 10 people with necessity -- yellow vest on. that day when they selected the location, we don't know who if anybody presented any information from the community as to this being a good location. now, in addition to that, as i spoke at length in my brief, the importance of the citing process is paramount in the order. it is very well detailed that several paragraphs talk about several locations and allowing the hearing officer to offer the location that presents the least negative impact to the neighborhood. so the whole presumption is that you are looking at several options here whether the public is looking at several options or whether it is dpw. unfortunately, dpw just took the application at it's face value, assumed that at&t used good faith in completing that checklist. one is to make sure they have attempted to private property and delivered three letters to property owners and they have reached to the owners from everything we have heard, the conversation is something ridiculous like $8,000. something more reasonable if they are paying 35 percent for these boxes, why not put it in front of your house. that is annuity. anyway, i think the point is i don't think that there was good faith on the part of the applicant to complete each one of those steps. additionally, the only thing that they provided evidence for that they had completed that they were compliant with the requirements by exhibit b was that it's just a statement. this location complies with the requirement of exhibit b. that's pretty much the dpw took all of that information and decided to allow at&t to post these notices for approval. so none of these cases did dpw ever visit the site. they were never there to vet any options. none considered all the options together to see which have the least in the community. it's up to the applicant to make all of these decisions. frankly i have to say the department has been outstanding in the public. they have worked so hard and bombarded and over taxed with this process. everybody has just been wonderful. i will say that, despite that, they have not been able to address the issues. here, in addition to that, they have been several unlawful problems with this appeal. it definitely and reasonably affects the character, it obstructs access to the utility lines above and fronts an open space to the recreational open space element and there is two elements that are violate or in term of the character of the site. so i will take your questions. i do have a lot of visuals by the way, if you have any pictures of the site if that is not sufficient what you got. >> thank you. mr. johnson? >> thank you. well, i would like to begin by providing some background and then i'm going to make some legal arguments. this is the situation where at&t has been seeking a permit in this neighborhood for more than three years.3 years. it noticed a site at 21 funston avenue which is within 300 feet in the neighborhood. at&t received objections from the community. it went out and conducted a box walk. there were several people there including a mr. john lee who told at&t that he thread -- led the local community organization. at&t worked with mr. lee to find an alternate location. it was determined there was a potential alternate location at 2096 avenue. at&t voluntarily withdrew it's original permit application. at&t then in october 2011 filed a second permit application seeking a permit for 2096, 12th avenue, it went through process and granted an excavation permit. at&t went to the field and met with the city inspector to look at the location and was told by the city inspector at that time that the hillside near the proposed site had suffered erosion and it was an inappropriate site for at&t sfm. at&t abandoned it's application for 2096, 12, avenue. it renoticed the neighborhood, conducted a third box walk and again met with mr. lee and it was determined that there was a second alternate location that was acceptable to the community to quintara. at&t mailed notice to everybody in the neighborhood to all three of the box walks conducted. mr. moreno who spoke earlier was sent all of those mailings. she did not attend any of the box walks. at&t went through permit application process for two 203 kinetic with -- quintara, when quintara objected at&t contacted her and there was correspondence between ms. moreno and at&t and she spoke several times with individuals from at&t including mr. blake man who is here this evening. at&t offered to meet with ms. moreno and her neighborhood to look for an alternate site. she client to -- declined to do that. this hearing went before a hearing officer. there's no evidence presented at the hearing that the propose is location would have a right-of-way. mr. -- ms. moreno objected. she argues that the wooded lot that's in between her home and the home on the other side of this wooded lot is an open space. it's not a city designated open space. the planning department maintains that an open space matt for the city of san francisco. that we would be required to notify the planning. they worked in the community to locate a location for the last few years. the at&t application met all the the requirements for the order. there's no evidence presented this evening or at the hearing that at&t's proposed location would in commode the public right-of-way. finally i would like to put some google photos on quintara up so the board can see what the neighborhood looks like. i don't know if you can see this on the overhead. quintara, has quite a few other sfm in the vicinity, at least a dozen. it's hard to say that there is anything about another sfm that will be out of keeping from what's already there in the neighborhood. mr. blake man is more familiar than i am with the actual process that took place in the community. but i'm happy to answer any questions that you might have at this time. >> how many other, i don't know if you are answer this, but you said, my screen is messed up. >> mr. pacheco, can you try to get the screens to -- >> how many on that block at issue? >> so, it appears from the photographs that i have seen on google maps that there is something in the neighborhood of at least a dozen telephone poles, wires strung across the street, street lamps, all of these are smf's. >> are they boxes the size the one at issue? >> i don't believe there are other cabinets, no. >> okay. >> but again, i would point out that dpw is determined that the proposed cabinet would not in commode the public right-of-way which is the only basis for denying a permit under california law. >> counselor, the previous two permits that you had at&t voluntarily relinquished them, is that correct. >> it only did on the avenue. we didn't proceed on the application once it was clear there was community opposition to place it on that site. what at&t did instead is conducted a box walk and identify an alternative site. >> the 2096, 12th avenue was relinquished by at&t. the permit was issued, correct? >> it's my understanding the permit was issued but what happened when at&t went out to meet with the city building inspector. >> we heard that. >> all right. >> mr. quan? >> good evening, john quan. i want to thank the appellant in this case for it's diligence in the maintenance of that portion of the unapproved portion of montclair avenue. operational staff has been working with them as they are suggesting to acquire a grant to maintain that portion of the public right-of-way. one thing that must be pointed out that there is some misunderstanding of what is opening space and what is not. the appellant as part of their briefs show that they provided a section within their brief stating defining what the definition of open space was. in this case, because of claremont street is unimproved right-of-way it was definitely not considered open space by this definition. one thing, and i did go back at&t is correct that they did make several attempts within this neighborhood to identify alternative sites as they have identified two previous sites prior to coming to this final sight. the department did evaluate all three locations. we provided the public notification as the authorization of the public notice as required. there were objections as stated. i was not at the hearing but i did listen to the hearing results. the primary objection was again related to the perception that this is open space. however there were at the hearing there were no alternative sites being provided by the people who objected to this location. the department was left with those three locations that was given to us from at&t on 12 street and quintara street because at&t withdrew that one on funston street that was not on the community. the 12th street at&t stated they could not install at that location and the one on quintara street was the only choice left to the departmenten it's evaluation. the placement of this facility is actually behind the constructed sidewalk with the unimproved landscape area currently being proposed. it does not impede any pedestrian travel in this case. there were discussions from the appellant stating that it would negatively impact access to that portion that is the public right-of-way for utility access and in our brief we stated that it's not the case. so, we based upon the information that again was reiterated here, there is no reason for the department to reject the site. we believe this was the best location of the three in this specific case. that is the reason we approved it and believed it should be upheld. i'm here to answer any questions you may have. >> a few written documentation of the soil analysis that seem to mitigate that 12 avenue site as being potential? >> that is something you have to ask at&t. according it was a building inspector and not a dpw inspector in this case. >> mr. quan, were you involved in the discussion of the mou and the guidelines when they first came up? >> are you suggesting an mou between at&t? >> no, were you involved during those cushions that -- discussions that occurred when the mou came out? >> no between the city and at&t, i was not. >> the criteria that is listed on the discussion are extremely difficult to define. you know, it's hard to say anybody if they had a certain opinion about those things is incorrect. you know, without anymore flesh to it, you know? >> what the department tries to do is to get community input to identify the least objectionable. >> i was curious as to whether there were discussions at the conclusion of this mou related to some more tive eye thank you. >> any public comment on this item. this is by the association, i would ask that officers speak on the time allotted to the parties and not on public comment. >> commissioners, thank you for your time tonight. my name is thomas gulf mcgiven. i live at 21 quintara at the proposed location by at&t. when i moved to this street quintara, the street was a dumping ground for unwanted debris. garbage. the community and my family have turned this into a beautiful place. it is truly a beautiful spot. as you drive down south, ask any of the neighbors, ask anyone about this space. has it changed for the better? yes. our city should protect and cherish the transformation of open space such as these. why at&t picked 203 quintara is hard to understand. they were permitted to put the box in down the block. they had the ability. they that had resources to put the box down the block on the original subject that this man just talked about. at&t has been a little bit misleading. they put flyers in our mailboxes that weren't very truthfully accurate as to their intent. they did not seek to work with our neighborhood or at least with my portion of the neighborhood in their choosi

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