Transcripts For SFGTV Board Of Appeals 62216 20160628 : comp

That appeals to be heard and later joined by thomas owen for legal advice at the controls is the board cloak alec my name is Cynthia Goldstein the boards executive director. We will be joined this befrg were joined by representatives from the city departments that have cases before this board. Spent to say joe duffy dbi representing the department of department of building inspection and Scott Sanchez Planning Department. Shall be here representing the Planning Departments and Planning Commission as well as chris burke with the San Francisco bureau please be advised the ringing of and use of cell phones and other Electronic Devices are prohibited. Out in the hallway. Permit holders and others have up to 7 minutes to present their case and 3 minutes for rebuttal. Have up to 3 minutes no rebuttal. To assist the board in the accurate preparation of the minutes, members of the public are asked, not required to submit a speaker card or Business Card to the clerk. Speaker cards and pens are available on the left side of the podium. The board welcomes your comments. There are Customer Satisfaction forms available. If you have a question about the schedule, speak to the staff after the meeting or call the board office tomorrow we are located at 1650 Mission Street, suite 304. This meeting is broadcast live on sfgovtv cable channel 78. Dvds are available to purchase directly from sfgovtv. Thank you for your attention. Well conduct our swearing in process. If you intend to testify and wish to have the board give your testimony evidentiary weight, please stand and say i do. Please note any of the members may speak without taking the oath pursuant to the sunshine ordinance, and thank you. Please stand now do you solemnly swear or affirm the testimony youre about to give will be the whole truth and nothing but the truth . I do. Thank you, very much okay. So commissioners we will start then with the first item general Public Comment and thats forces any member of the public to address the boards on items not an tonight agenda any. Patricia merchant im not sure how many of us at this moments im very concerned about the Municipal Transportation Authority not doing the corrects Public Outreach has nothing to do with with that meeting and not having the rights communication towards the public youll each will be getting a letter from me thank you okay. Any the general Public Comment . Seeing none, move on to item 2 commissioners questions or comments commissioners okay. No questions or comments okay then move on to item 3 the boards consideration of may 18, 2016, meeting. Do they have and additions, deletions, or changes if not a motion. A motion. Thank you commissioner swig any Public Comment on the minutes . Seeing none, then have a motion commissioner fung commissioner hyde commissioner honda and commissioner wilson okay pecks that motion carries with a vote of 5 to zero 4a there v appeal numbers those 22 appeals were you filed by the academy of Art University protesting the notice of violation by the Zoning Administrator alleging violations of the planning code as follows the change of us from an office hotel to a post secondary use without a Building Permit on las vegas worth 48 to 66 federal and stockton street and post street and feder the contention of residential units to Student Housing for bush street 1055 pine and 1916 octavia the educational use and the Service Light Industrial Zoning District the establishment of Group Housing as part of a post secondary without a conditional use authorization at lombard street and fteer the establishment of a post secondarily educational street on pine street, calling names and 1821 van ness conversion of a singlefamily dwelling to Student Housing for an constitutional use vanessa avenue the change of use from an industrial chairs without an approved Building Permit the change of use of seating 4 thousand square feet would not providing the offstreet parking required by a post secondary educational use and the cage without an approved permit own Taylor Street and the post secondary institution used in an unauthorized vehicle shortage without a conditional use authorization 509s van ness avenue and 0farrell street i want to thank the palo alto City Attorneys Office and District Attorney albert for providing Legal Counsel to the board since the San Francisco Dennis Herrera filed a separate illuminate and City Attorney state your name for the record, sir and jackson grayish agreed to assist us thank you for your help separately we want to commend explain to the party and public we need 4 Board Members to hear the notice of violations penalty due to the super majority and because there are two 3 members commissioner honda and commissioner swig conflict of interest staff has a drawing names out of hat to see what conflict of interest board member and commissioner swig will hear the appeal and commissioner president honda will disclose their conflict. Id like to is the conflict is due to ownership in a property win 5 hundred feet of subject properties but that conflict has no Barbara Garcia on a conflict. Im renewing on advice from the attorney doctor stevens with one of my wifes clients theres a potential conflict. Okay. Thank you as president leaves the room well have the appellant come forward and the representative of the appellant and the parties agreed for a presentation take no more than 14 minutes we have 6 minutes that we have to set the clock to 14. Good evening. Im George Harris on behalf of found appellant the academy of Art University the each of the nov p decisions it issued on those appeals sets a july 1st deadline for completion of Environmental Reviews the eir and the estn and suppressors Discretionary Authority to assess administrative penalties in the deadlines are not met assessment beginning on july 2nd as starting i can assure the board that without regards to the accrual of any penalties none wants that eir and estn to be completes on times more than the xhaufrdz action as you may know knows on the academies pending theoreticians o authorizes for the subject properties have been pending for many years a charge to the filings that lists all the applications and theyve been on hold theyve been no action taken on them until those extensive Environmental Reviews can be completed were almost there there are about to be completed and the man very much wants to process of reviewing that action on the applications to begin and the july 1st deadline and the operative trigger for the assessment of those discretionary penalties was set in late 2015 and the record will show the academy provided full coordination and working diligently to meet that goal since it was announced and the good news is this is an update on what we put in our filing the parties remain on track to meet the july 1st deadline this is despite some recent minor delays by the consultant that is were talking about working under the direction of the city but the most recently schedules still show a completion by july 1st on the rtc the last thing on the eir is in the screen check stage which means there are the academy provided comments on june 16th on schedule and now going review by the Environmental Reviews officer and the consultant and the final edits and printed in public absolutely no reason that will not happen by july 1st and this is the 4r589 estn schedule we got this morning and again, it still shows on track for that deadline a originally the consultants were to circulate and estn we got this this morning and we got the revised schedule and everything on the revised schedule has been adjusted but still allows for explosion by july 1st deadline so the operative part of the nov decisions the assessment of penalties discretionary assessment of the administrative penalties from the deadlines are not met remains very, very likely to happy this will be met so what i would suggest propose urge the board to do is to postpone any action on the appeal until july 1st and only then if thats not met would it be necessary to assess why it wasnt met and anything that the academy accident or dependent do to keep that deadline made he did r the subject of the nov p issued in march of this year i think what youll find any kind of delays that was not due to the academy since the department announced the revised plans it was provided comments on administrative drafts of estn and authorized and funded new transportation survey and an analysis by transportation consultant that the at a citys request and new site diagrams in the estn at the citys request and approved all the change and budget increases and have been several that have occurred during this period of time so at this point in the city and controls whether the documents are on time the city argues it is reasonable to tie the assessment the penalties to this deadline this is a quote to insure the Academy Brings the facilities into compliance where the planning code and the city points out to catalogs historical delays since this project began in 2008, and in fact, during that period of time since 2008 the academies work with 4 different consultants selected by the city and revised over thirty worker change orders and participated in more than one hundred site visits and paid consultants for 15 hours of work more than 6 million those those are directed by the city so, yeah at this point the academy has provided information requested, is provided the comments on time since this announcement of the july 1st deadline for that reason unless there is a showing that somehow off the track for the deadlines i dont think that will happen the assessment of penalties is inappropriate and not reasonable and exercise discretion at this time and finally the last point i want to address in the papers the underlying premise of the requirements and the actually the process that caused this long delay it taking i think the permits thats the requirement of eir and estn so acting on those those applications it is a false premise not really any needs or requirement not any to continue to defer the action on the applications for these Environmental Reviews now the city agrees the eir required because the academy had plans for future expansion; right . Dividing it into smaller parts is peas e piecemealing but no position that little eir for future growth should hold of approval for this existing uses and in fact, inappropriate circumstances a sprat point they may say well, your combining all the categorical exemptions, in fact, exception maybe applied to a project for improvements at multiple sites were funding something in the city submission that we didnt site but the San Francisco beautiful versus city and county of San Francisco the 2014 court of appeals case with multiple exemption and robison versus the city and county of San Francisco envelope and the Court Appeal Decision the same thing the city recently approved a Shuttle Program and that involved 200 muni deposits o bus stops throughout the city nothing that prevents that from being done the second thing the city argues the key consideration for ceqa smgsz whether no expansion on one hand or some changes on the other the occupations the building by the academy involve a change in use at the time they began to use them in fact, there is clear and uncontested ceqa doesnt require analysis of changes unless theyre changes in existing uses so the bottom line for an Environmental Review is what the use was at the time of the initiation and whether or not it was a permitted use and in fact, in the planning Planning Department memo september 2011 which the city exhibits k f two they say due to the fact that prongs are evaluated at the time of publication of a notice of preparation to the future conditions past actions eve they occurred out objecting the necessary permits are accepted conditions ceqa didnt require a review of what changes might have been made prior to the time the review was initiated im not going to go through this we cited those cases in the memo that the county of sacramento an airport operating for 20 years without permits and the carpool reversed no, it said that the persuade is to look at the use as it you exists at the time and the u yes, the 2004 court of appeals case we cited in our submission the appellants argued the eir failed to consider prior illegal activities likes the historic conservation zoning violations and the court of appeals said no, it said any alleged Code Violations motivate relevant of the variance requested is not a ceqa consideration so you know were not saying the city shouldnt consider those the change or look at it a single project in the permitting process doing so does for the require a ceqa review which is been the basis for the long period of time the long clay this acting on the applications that the academy made beginning in 2007 so, so others operative question the on thing that effects things Going Forward is the july one deadline that a reasonable trigger for the assessment of these penalties and i think the deadline will be met it will be moved so i dont think the board needs to weigh into those issues until siege if this is true every indication and were just a little bit over a week from this deadline that will be met but if we look at that issue then i think that is unreasonable to begin to assess penalties on that date because on one hand that any remaining things that could have delayed or didnt delay that since that goal was announced in 2015 out of the academies controls not attributable it would be inappropriate in this case thank you very much. I have a question. The good faith efforts to comply youre saying that is as of july 2015; right . In lastly 2015 a history of other deadlines and when it mattered or a penalty accrued and came up to this board a whole history of that; right . But the determinations were made and ethics discretion woos was made not to assess those penalties this deadline was sit down in late 2015 and just no record that the academy has not done everything in their power. We shouldnt look at the academy since july 2015. It is really last night 2015 i think the deadline was announced yes, thats the operative deadline here the issues with regards to previous deadlines were in previous filings. Thank you. Maam, can you explain to the audience about the overflow room. Yes. I was going to do that our 0 so if you find a seat please do if not an overflow room in the light court the board has questions and well hear in the other folks. Thank you good afternoon commissioner fung Scott Sanchez Planning Department. So where to begin as a matter that is before you on several versions in the past maybe i should going go back to the program in the beginning the academy 1975 and 7 six the city of San Francisco adopted a master plan the institutions like the academy of art providing the city with information how they will manage their growth in the 2006 the code compliant issued a notice of violation to the academy of Art University for failing to have a master plan the Building Permit was sought for one of the properties we submitted that enforcements requirement and submitted and institutional master plan in 2006 that was inadequate by our review not listing all the properties that the academy had listed on their website subsequent to that we reviewed the list of properties and reviewed feeling against land use records to determine whether or not theyve gotten appropriate permit we found scores of violations on those properties at the time, we issued did first enforcement notice in 23406 the academy of Art University had 26 properties at that point they have operate 40 we are aware of during that time we did issue an enforcement notice about their issues they continues to acquire properties and being made aware of the issues i was in a merging with stevens i thought informed the k345u6r78d will definitely come into compliance i go back to i desk theyre a voicemail their replying windows theyre only testing out the windows we definitely had them into to the appropriate process and reviewed their imp to get it up to a higher standard and through this process they submitted in appropriate entitlements we informed them the deputy and of the process they needed to go though the proper Environmental Review in 2008, the commission looked at the updated version and at the time the Commission Found it was lacking and requested previous inf