Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20240714

Secondly, it runs contrary to the whole idea, the whole policy behind why this process underwent modification, meaning the fee schedule in the fee calculation. That is so smaller projects and smaller units could actually pay the fee as opposed to only choosing to build units. Building those units isnt into resolving the affordable crowd housing crisis. He should bear those in mind respectfully request that you conclude that the 2019 fee is the appropriate fee and uphold the appeal. Im, counselor . One question. What is the fee difference between the 2019 and 2018 schedule . I can give you the gross difference. Page 8 of the brief. We dont have that calculation with us or get let me just answer this, it is significant enough that i do not believe they would pay the fee. In i got it. And q, counselor. We will now hear from Scott Sanchez. Thank you, Scott Sanchez Planning Department. Also joined by dan adams who is Deputy Director for Housing Community development and jacob senior planner for for special projects and policy team for the Planning Department. Intimately familiar with the process that led to the change of this policy and the methodology calculation. I appreciate that the appellant has put it down to a fine point. It really is a question of what methodology applies to the subject permit. I think with respect to what the appellant has said, it does have locations beyond this application. Which has caused grave concerns for the department. The appellant misunderstand how fees are assessed. They actually are assessed at site permit issuance. Also in the Building Code. What happens later on is they are collected typically at First Construction document. In the interim, if their annual indexing of the fees those get calculated then. When you pay your, ultimately, the First Construction document. Assessment occurs at site permit issuance. The application for this project was received in 2018. In part because they wanted to preserve their grandfather rate of having a lower affordability requirement of the onsite of 14. 5 . That led to them getting the site permit. Apparently it has been a doable project for the applicant because they have demolished the building and they are working on construction. They have pursued demolition of the building, they are moving. What they are asking for in this case would be a reduction of the fee, a little over 1. 3 million. I can understand its economic benefit for them to have the methodology applied. The new fee methodology was developed after years of process its all cascaded down from prop c and outlined in our brief with the timeline. There was by which the board and the Comptrollers Office had planning work on a new methodology that was developed last year. In looking how this that changed, it is a discrete change and the calculation of the fee. We had determine how to apply that fairly, consistently, accurately and in line with our policies and procedures with the planning code requirements. When the policy was ready to be implemented we developed clear standards of how to be applied. We stated if you had your site permit issued before december 31, 2018 that you are subject to the old fee methodology. If your site permit is issued after the date you are subject to the new fee methodology. At the time that, you know, the appellant was pursuing the project they had artie stated that they were going to apply by providing onsite units. Now they want and they would like to use the new fee methodology because it is cost advantageous to them. The issue we have moving forward with this, first it and correct and inconsistent code application. We look at when the assessed and occurs, it is by permit issuance. That locks in the methodology for those calculations. That is what the Zoning Administrator determined. It is what is on the policy that we announce to the public last year. They would like to overturn that for the benefit of this one project. There could be implications beyond this one project area for some projects, they may choose to go that route because it is less, but there are projects that may have end up paying more. In order to achieve a balance that is how we came up with our proposal which is in the letter to assess it appropriately and consistent with the code at the time of the site permit is issued. I think this covers the majority of our argument. We believe that this is a consistent manner to implement the well within the authority of the Zoning Administrator under planning code section 307, given the authority to establish procedures rules, regulations that are necessary to properly implement the planning code and further that the appellant has not provided any evidence that the zone administrator has abuse of discretion in any way in making this determination. With that, i am available for any questions you we also have most of the staff here and the planning staff as i mentioned. Mr. Sanchez . The appellant, in the language that was drafted for the reduction of the affordable units or the buyout, does it say holding permit or does it say site permit . In term of the roles that we adopted as part of the implementation of this, it is at site permit area. In the appellant brief they made a difference indicating that there is a difference that the language said Building Permit rather than site permit. You are saying now it is a different language and it says site permit. Amine so you have a fault permit which is, you know, we Building Permit would be if you have all of your ability and you could construct everything. A site permit to go and you pay the subsequent addend is, you have your complete Building Permit package. I unfortunately know that all too well. The code is very clear, the outside permit is when assessed and is made. It is rick riordan we have to do a report to the project sponsor so they know what the fees are. The other question is, if the project sponsor never identified and initially decided to do, rather than pay the in loo, they were going to do on site. What about the notification argument . There is general Public Notice on our website that was broad, this was a public process developing these requirements. At that time they had already obtained their site permit. Thank you. Im probably going to pile on the commissioner. Basically what you are saying in the opinion of the zoning admitted straighter is that when the site permit was issued that is when the snapshot was taken. That is when they happen to have chose at that time to fulfill the housing rick met with physical product, but, at the same time if they would have chosen to pay a fee, that is when the snapshot is taken. That is when the game is over when that site permit is issued. Even if you change your mind, as they did, and move from physical implementation of building housing unit, but then they change their mind. Still, they are held to that moment in time which is when the site permit was issued . And they made a business decision, at that time, for the reasons you stated that they wanted to build the housing. For purposes of the fee methodology that applies and how it will be assessed for this permit and all similar permit that it is based on the site permit issuance date. And your point of view, it was either going to be the fee at that moment or it was going to be products, they said we would do physical product trade we are not interested in paying the fee. Then they change their mind so the fee at that moment kicked in , and thats it . Under the planning code they still have the ability to go to the Planning Commission and request to pay the fee and the Planning Commission may choose to accept that. But then theres the question of which methodology applies. We said given that it wasnt simply an annual adjust rent, which the letters of determination that they cited in their brief where we found it is the fee schedule in effect of the date of First Construction document. There were no changes in the fee methodology for those areas those were simple annual updates. Its a more nuanced distinction here this is a change in the methodology. In order to properly implement that. We would developed a rule that we did in december which is that we are basing it on site issuance. If they want to go ahead and change to a fee now, they can. They are going to pay the fee that they would have had to pay back last year. We are not changing the rules on them. We are preserving the rules for them. They are the rules that were in effect when they got there permit. Nothing has changed for them in that regard. Theyre not losing anything ragged. From a legal standpoint, that judgment is clearly the legal rights of the Zoning Administrator . Yes under planning code 307. There is an assertion by the appellant, that they were encouraged, to get their site permit when they did because rules were changing. Not necessarily this rule, obviously out of proxy, lots of things have been changing all the time. I dont know if you can speak to that it all if you do feel like you are encouraging folks to pull their site permit. I felt that they were encouraged to pull their site permit so they did and perhaps could not anticipate. We encourage them to get their permits unbilled so so we can have the housing. We encourage the production of housing. I think that the project sponsor was very self encouraged to do this, because having a by december, pursuing that application they would preserve their grandfather affordability rate. We were warning people. If you want to preserve those under the current law, get it by the state. Then that ended up being extended by the board. We were working on the rules that were in effect at the time. I would think they were wanting to preserve their grandfather rate and that is what they did. To follow up with her, so the affordability that changed, it was 14. 5 or 14 and i believe this building is over 25 units, right . What would that affordability aspect me right now . It is out 20 today. Kind of tough to have your cake and eat it too, right . Yes. There was a suggestion, you know, that the reason that these changes were made was to help smaller units and that theyre are all of these small units that are vacant. Can you speak at all to the merits of that assertion. Dan adams, Deputy Director of the Housing Community development. We definitely do not have affordable units sitting vacant. If they are rental units, we lease them quickly, we have lotteries, i dont have the documentation that he references , but from our perspective that is categorically not true. There is a housing crisis out there. We encourage both onsite unit and when folks want to pay the fees we make good use of those funds. We do our very best to deliver units in every way possible and we have a full team that is focused of leasing of the units very quickly. In terms of the fee methodology, the intention of the methodology change was based on a desire to encourage the fee out for smaller units. That is also not true. There were significant changes in the fee methodology mandated to our office through prop c. Which changed the basis by which we calculated the per unit fee. The old fee actually had a calibrated fee based on the size of units of meaning the number of bedrooms per units. We had a lower fee for one bedroom, a higher fee for two bedrooms, a higher fee for three bedrooms. The new methodology it became a basic per unit fee. So, that was mandated through prop c. We then, for reasons of administrative ease worked with the Planning Department to translate our per unit fee calculation to gross square foot fee calculation. This is consistent with the way other impact fees are applied. Administratively it is much more advantageous. It also means that smaller units are not prejudice in the new fee application. Under the old fee, four bedrooms. Under the new fee, you would have had the same fee whether you are building a five or a 2,000 squarefoot luxury building. That change was administratively advantageous and had the effect of not prejudicing smaller unit, or alleviating burden on larger luxury units. It brings more parity to the application fee. Thank you, mr. Adams. I have a question, sir. I mean, there is a reason why they changed it as you just explain. The belowmarket for the bmr housing, i mean, do you have any idea of of vacancy or non vacancy . As far as violators of that program, and what enforcement is being done. I do not have that to stick some vacancies read i do know sometimes when we work with news answers, sponsors mean project sponsors. They are challenged to meet our marketing requirements which ensure fair housing law and ensure broad distribution of opportunity. We go through a lottery process. There can be delays in these, especially with new operators on new providers are folks who are not accustomed to our rules. I get it. As a realtor for 21 years, i deal with the Mayors Office and have two bmr mrs right now. Excellent. Are they leased up . No. You shouldnt ask that question. [laughter] the question is here, i noticed that the policy has changed recently and the bmr system is quite different. As the appellants had mentioned. I would like to get a number of vacancies and violators, because there is evidently a reason why the system changed. I do not know what system change you are referring to. We were discussing a change in the fee methodology. It should not have any impact on a lease up or vacancies on the bmr unit. Those are separate issues. Id be happy to come back and report on vacancies in our bmr program. I didnt mean to off track. I want to make clear that our team is dedicated to ensuring a lease up happens as quickly as possible. Thank you. Any Public Comment on this item . Moving on rebuttal. Thank you. I am disguised with glasses here. If you want to answer a question about the vacancies, our brief is freely available. We have identified units that are vacant in assistant. The other issue whether you want to call it prejudice, or unfair. The fact of the matter is, small units under the old system, it was unfair to them. I think that was just stated differently then i stated it. More to it the central question here that president swig and honda, all due respect to the zoning and a, we know when the fees are paid area they pay the fees. They pay the fees with a Building Permit. They did not pay the childcare fee, this year, they use the 2018 fee, because the site are was issued in 2018. They pay the childcare fee as a cost now. What he is saying is semantics. It is assessed. That means it is applied. When the project was approved, you will be paying the Affordable Housing fee, or you will be complying with providing onsite units. The amount is not determined with site permits. It is determined that Building Permit. In this case, the rules are not applied the same way they are typically. Thank you. Thank you, Scott Sanchez, Planning Department. The assessment is made at site permit issuance. That includes a notice to them. That does include the amount. It may not be the amount they ultimately pay. There is indexing, so there is annual indexing and the amount may go up and they would pay that when it is due, because it is collected with the First Construction document. This is different. This is not an indexing question. This is the to properly, fairly, consistently, legally implement that we develop the rules outlined in the zoning of illustrators letter. Those are made publicly available last december. That is how all projects are treated fairly and consistently. The appellant has never requested a change of the project so they could take advantage of a lower fee. As outlined in the letter of determination, they are subject to the methodology that was in place at the time of the site permit. That is how we have implemented this area in respect to the enforcement, i can speak to that. That is a separate issue from the fee methodology. We do have a very Robust Program working with the City Attorneys Office. We meet monthly. There has been numerous litigation working with the City Attorneys Office on violators read it is very stringently enforced. There have been settlements in the millions of dollars for violation of these bmrs area. You need to get all mark on. Im available for any questions. If i was driving on the road, and the fee limit was speed limit was 45, and i got pulled over and my fever going 55 in 845 was assessed then that would be my assessed rent and if i went to the judge sixmonth later because the speed limit suddenly was made 65 in zone. I should not have to pay a fee because now it is a 65mile per hour speed limit. This is the argument, what im hearing here, from the appellant is, no, i should not have to pay the fee that i was assessed at site permit because the rules have changed. In fact, the rules are the rules of the time that the site permit was issued. That was the fee, or it was the option of building up the units. It is hard to compare the planning code to anything. [laughter] there was a change in in the fee methodology. We had to determine how to implement that. It is based on the site permit issuance date where is consistent with the permitting code. Yes, the fees may not generally be collected until First Construction document. Here it wasnt just a routine indexing of the fee, it was a change of the fee methodology. That is why we are in the situation. Again, the v. A. Is legally entitled to take that position . That is correct. I think that is what we are talking about today. Thank you. That darn Zoning Administrator, the previous one was worse. Thank you. Heard my position. I will make a motion to deny the appeal on the basis that the letter of determination did not abuse discretion of zoning admitted strata. Administrator. We have a motion from Vice President lazarus to deny the appeal and uphold the determination. The letter of determination is properly issued. On that motion. [roll call] that motion passes 40. The appeal is denied. Can we take a seven minute break . We are now one item number 9. Approval. The subject property is 192113 street. Protesting the issuance on may 6 , 2019. No work at the middle unit. This is application 20109. And as a pull them in every matter, the attorney for the permit holder would like to address the board. He would like to state for the record that he is willing the permit holder is willing to cancel the permit. So we will give him three minutes to address the board and then the appellants will have an opportunity to respond to that. This is prior to. So mr. Fisher, if you could please take a seat. Excellent. In the cancellation will have the same effect as if the appellant one this case, correct correct. Well hear from both sides. Lets hear first. Welcome, councillor. I was hired on this case yesterday afternoon. I tried to get up to speed as quickly as possible. In looking at that case in talking with the owners, it seems like the right thing to do is cancel the permit. It is a situation that no one likes to be in and i would like to try and find a better way through this with the tenants, with the appellants to the extent that they have personal interest in this. We would like to request at this point that the permit be cancelled administratively. If we have to go through an appeal hearing, we are prepared to argue the appeal, but i think the better thing to happen is to try and find a resolution for the tenants. My understanding is that negotiations broke down under Previous Council and i would like to restart that and find some resolution. At the end of the day, this building does meet it does need to be made safe, but hopefully we can find something that works for all of them involved. Thank you very much. Im happy to answer any questions. Councillor, what would be the benefit of this board really pushing control by cancelling the permit . I mean by continuing it when we get the case . We would therefore see it before the purview of this body. The board certainly can do that. As i have said, we are prepared to argue the case. This permit that is before you today is to add roof decks and roofs. This is not for substantial rehabilitation. This is additional work, separate work, and the owners are happy to do that. It is not really the issue that the appellant is here to talk about. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Fisher, you have three minutes to respond to this. This is all news to me. I guess the real question is that they need to grant us the appeal. The tenants want housing. The role of the department of building inspection is not following up on violations, i am ready to go on this. You can talk to us. This is really interesting because this has gone on for a year and this is an eviction of longstanding africanamerican tenants. Forty years in this place. Jackie long has mobility problems, her daughter is schizophrenic, her soninlaw has had six surgeries since 2014 due to a workrelated accident and has more coming. These people have no safety mats safety nets and cannot be moved away from their doctors. I went into this because i dont want this on my head. I have been to their weddings, i have been to their funerals. What is going on here, which is really offensive, as i have a report from their engineer from 2018 about what is needed from the respondent about what needs to be done to the building. It is nothing close to what they are doing. They are trying to create luxury housing and climate rehabilitation. They want to put rooms in to make an 11 story flat when it should be an accessory dwelling unit so we can house more people in our neighborhood. And this whole way he has not been cashing the rent checks, threatening with violations, so for me to come here now to say i acquiesced this, they need to come along and put more on the table because this has gone on for a year. He has not offered them anything we are supposed to now say, you know, if he wants to say we will fix up the middle unit, which we are not doing any work to, and we will move you into it. We get that, im happy to withdraw this, but i went over the respondents appeal and i saw excuses and so many falsehoods which im also prepared to address here. This is ugly. This is a person who came in, but a building with protected tenants, with two vacant units because they have them on them, and building the building has been continuously inhabited and the Structural Engineer says it was a soft story retrofit and some floor bracing. That doesnt help taking the tenants off. Rehabilitation is not the same as building luxury housing. I would really like to be heard on this unless they are really are going to work with the tenants. Can i ask a question . I understand your passion and sensitivity and care for the situation, but we have a choice here. We can hear the case, and if you win, the permit will go away, or there is a willingness by the permit holder to cancel the permit today, which will have the same effect. So if you win, the permit goes away, or if you we dont have a hearing, the permit goes away. So why should, im trying to figure out why should we waste your time tonight . Or the other alternative is that we continue this, and i would even ask you how much time would you be able would you be comfortable to have a further conversation with mr. Mr. Patterson and we continue this so we maintain the jurisdiction here at appeals. Nothing will happen except for the fact that they will have one more shot at the ring. If you would like to say okay, we can continue this for two weeks, four weeks, six weeks, and we will come right back here and the same thing you if you want the permit to go away, one way or the other tonight, or do you want another, give them another shot to hear you privately and come with new council, new advisory, and if you are not happy, you are back here in two weeks, four weeks, or six weeks. Very good. There is one other issue. Im asking you a question. I dont want to hear the case right now. If we want to hear the case we will hear the case right now. I am asking you, you are in the driver seat right now. Do you want the permit to go away, or the permit to go away another way, or would you like, with new council, hopefully a more levelheaded that will listen to you, and give them another period of time. Your call, by the way, as to what period of time you would like to give them. You are in the drivers seat here. What would make you feel most comfortable . I need to confer with council for a moment because theres a lawsuit that has been filed and im not about to drop this. We are not asking you to drop it. How many minutes would you like to visit in the hallway . I would like five minutes in the hallway or we can move to the next case and come back and make this hour last. If they really want to have something on the table, im willing to give them a chance. With the permission of the commissioners, rather than giving you five minutes, we can give you a few more minutes and we can move to item ten, and then here you after we finish with item ten. How was that . That is fair. Thank you. Mr. Patterson, does that work for you . Yes. That is fine for me. I just have a question. I thought that mr. Duffy was involved in the discussions that were taking place a little earlier between the parties. I dont mind them talking, but in the brief it indicated that the property was in very poor shape and i was just wondering if the department had verified that. I think if fellow commissioners dont mind, and if it is appropriate, i would like to hear from mr. Duffy before we go in and plus be havent heard from the Senior Inspector the whole evening. It is good to see joe. They have new council so i dont mind continuing no matter what. So my question is, the relevance of this permit to what you all may have found at the building. Right. I wasnt involved in discussions but more about the cancellation of the permit and i dont think this permit, this permit is more of an improvement of 109 which obviously, it sounds like there are structural problems in the building and some of them maybe addressed on this permit, but my understanding from speaking to mr. Patterson, and you can ask him as well, is that some of the work has been done with the rear storage, but there are problems with this building that need to be addressed. Now there was a report in the brief, exhibit c, and when i read that brief last night, to be quite honest with you, i hadnt seen a document like this from our department and i have been working there for 20 years. It was called a preimprovement inspection report dated december 19th, 2018 and it had a whole the way it was laid out in the way it was done isnt something that d. B. I. Does. So i believe what happened was one of our new inspectors had a discussion with these Property Owners and this report was compiled, but i jury it to the attention of some of our acknowledgement this morning and the inspector, he has created a document here that we wouldnt be able to stand over and d. B. I. , you have heard me speak your many times, i speak about complaints received, notices of violations, order of abatements, we have our process and our housing inspection, electrical building and plumbing. This report incorporates all of those divisions into one report and that is not what d. B. I. Does bill walsh is the district inspector and mr. Walsh is a new inspector. We have a lot of new inspectors. He probably is feeling that hes doing the right thing by documenting something, but this isnt the way we do Something Like this. It just simply isnt. Had the case been heard, i would have spoken to that as well. There are notices of violation on the building and there was a notice of violation issued by mr. Walsh, as well. Just in reference to exhibit c, it doesnt mean anything, and we are dealing with it internally at d. B. I. And, you know, it is not a document that we would stand over. I think it is more of a document that you would see from a licensed engineer or an architect or a consultant as to the condition of the building, but not something the building inspector should be having his name on. And because we have our own processes that have been in place for many years and ends up ultimately it could end up as a task force inspection where we have building, electrical plumbing and housing all going together with some of them even from the City Attorneys Office and then it is into the abatement proceedings. That is just what i want to say on that. If we were to continue it, would you do a site visit, inspector duffy . If required, yeah. I will not write a report on it. We have if there is an emergency i get it. If this building is in serious condition or imminent hazard and danger, we would issue an emergency order. We would red tag it and we would add a do not occupy. We havent done that. We havent been asked to do that there are People Living in this now and were hearing one side and i would have felt much more comfortable had you visited the site. That was going to be my question sorry to put more extra work on you. I never mind that. Its okay. But if there is electrical problems, plumbing problems, other maintenance problems, you know, it is going to be different divisions. I can go there and look at it and tell you the building is the permit before has not had anything to do with the latter part of it, and unfortunately we get into it. But the permit before us is completely different. At the same time, we would like them to resolve how the permit holder has new council. I would like a minimum to allow this to happen. If you look at the permit itself, it doesnt look unusual. If someone is doing a roof deck, they are doing a remodel of a unit, they were doing rooms on the ground floor, we see that all the time. Were dealing more here with the circumstances of the tenants. The permit itself doesnt look that bad for what theyre going to do. But there are other issues that are going on and we know it. Thank you very much. Commissioners, can we hear item ten . Let the appellant i think they are back. No. And new council can go talk about it, then we will hear this out of order after we hear ten. Do you guys need gloves or a referee . We will referee for you. We are now moving on to item number 10. This is appeal number 19054, Serena Calhoun versus the department of building inspection. Theyre protesting the issuance on april 30th, 2019 of an alteration permit to replace six windows with the same size windows that are on the back, not visible from the street. This is application number 201904 and 9355. Well hear from the appellant first. Good evening and welcome. It is your lucky day. You got to skip a case here. I thought it would be another hour. Okay. Good evening. Normally i see you when i am representing one of my clients as our architect. Today i am here for a more personal reason. My home of the past 11 years. As noted in the admittedly lengthy brief about six windows, which i realizes a little bit over, to me the devil is in the details. The proposed scope of the permit in question is a simple replacement of my neighbors downstairs windows. This is the photograph of the front of the building and these are the windows in question on the bottom. In my own unit, which is located directly above there is, i replaced my own windows just three years ago as part of a renovation. And then turning the corner onto the back of the building, not in the photo. I did not go fully historic in nature with my own work, nor do i expect my neighbors to. I only ask us to try to get windows that will be weatherproof, that are safer the downstairs tenants, and that match so we dont have a Patchwork Quilt of mismatched windows. In reviewing my neighbors brief in detail detail, i appreciate this process has given us time to work out some of the details and get additional information. I see that they are no longer proposing the change to a single hung style operation, so that concern is off the table. Also, i see no evidence from the inspection report they provided from 2016 which i have not seen, and also from the photographs they provided, i am satisfied that a repair is needed. I do not agree that a full replacement is needed. I have done a lot of repairs and similar conditions, but i do agree that a repair is needed. I will note just a couple of corrections to the items that were listed in their brief on page 2. They stated that our h. O. A. Approved the change to the windows, that is inaccurate. We requested additional information. Secondly, on page 5, the clear opening of the proposed new windows that they suggested is not a typo. 12. 31 inches is the clear opening of that window based on the documents from the milgaard website. I realize that h. O. A. , the seats are outside your authority. Im not here to have you satisfy a dispute. I will use this process to address the three items that are within your jurisdiction. First the permit review procedure, secondly the code requirements and safety concerns , and finally, a clarification on the preservation radio. Related to im sorry. These are photos of the windows that i did directly above just for reference. You can see that they are set back and they do have a detail that goes into the transition from the gem and jam and the stash to the glass. Okay. First of all, related to the permit review procedure, the downstairs neighbors had assured us they had the approval of both preservation and fire, but neither of those departments had stamped on the permit application form. It was not reviewed or routed to either departments. I will defer to joe and scott as to the correct procedure, but because the permit didnt reference that these are both egress windows and also changed to the material of vinyl, i feel like it is possible that it should have been routed to both preservation and fire and was not because of the permit application that was relatively vague in terms of the scope of work. I will defer to joe and scott. I respect their procedural inputs. Secondly, related to the code requirements and safety concerns the work includes alterations to the egress windows for the downstairs unit. It is a onebedroom. These windows are the egress windows for that. Under the existing Building Code , the replacement window shall be the manufacturers largest standard size with that will fit within the existing frame or existing rough opening, et cetera. The tuscany series that they selected does not meet this requirement. Their websites, the tuscany series of a 2foot wide window has an opening listed of a little bit less than what was on their window order, so i will use the 12. 31 inches, but the milgaard also makes an ultra series that has a wider clear opening of 14. 5 inches shown here. It represents a serious reduction in the size of the clear opening area as compared to the existing window. The solid wood windows actually swing all the way open. There is no reduction in the frame around this, so it opens approximately 21 inches and will be going down by almost half for the only bedroom windows in that unit. The proposed installation of a retrofit style window that fits inside the frame instead of with a nail also reduces the size of the opening. A nail on fit would increase the clear opening. I will also, it also provides for a lot better waterproofing that we can install a better waterproofing Assembly Around the whole window with the nail on which is part of the reason for the renovation and the replacement is that these windows were leaking potentially and caused some dry rot. Without that nail on fin and the overlapping waterproofing, it will be less protected. Incidentally, the windows that i installed above would be an even larger opening of 18. 81 inches for the same style of window. 4. 3 inches wider as well. Related to the historic character, i will defer to scott about this, but plannings purpose is to protect the character of residential areas, conserve and protect existing housing character and preserve landmarks and Historic Buildings this is a class a resource. It is on the eligible panhandle for the haightashbury district. I cant remember exactly. I realize that planning reviews are subjective and that their primary focus is on the street frontage, by the character of the building is not limited to the front facade and neither is plannings jurisdiction. For example, i doubt that they would support installing vinyl windows in the rear of the Julian Morgan building. I also doubt that may have neighbors with support replacing our other windows above that are original from 1891 right above there windows with vinyl. I am aware of the standards for window replacement are for the street facing frontage. I cited it in order to illustrate the logic behind the standards. Mixing window materials, and inconsistent appearance to the building facade, and installation of six new vinyl windows introduces a new element that will make it even worse. It is a recipe for ugly. With that, i will stop because im out of time. Thank you. Question for you. I know we are not involved in the h. O. A. Disputes, but since youre h. O. A. Still has the power to say they cant do this, why are you before this body . It is about the timeline. I think i laid it out in the brief, but we were not aware they would be replacing the windows until the end of april. Hour or or mid april, maybe. They sent us an email saying they would be replacing the windows. We had one meeting, at which point they already had the window order together. I rejected it, me upstairs neighbor asked for additional information. Two days later, there was a mull from them saying they had gone ahead with the window order and they had satisfied the issues. I knew we were on the one day deadline to the brief. I filed a brief, i find the appeal, i filed the appeal because i really wanted this time to give evidence the upstairs neighbor is neighbors to make her final decision. What is your request today . Some of your matters have been addressed already. Isnt the opening size and the materials of the replacement windows . Im looking for information information from joe and scott to reinforce for me upstairs neighbors to understand that this is a safety issue and that preservation may have wanted to look at it and that it was not reviewed as they said. I would like to have the permit revised to be reviewed by those two departments. I dont know if it is too late to do that now in this process or for requires cancellation of the permit or not. As you stated before and is planning may discuss in their time, i dont believe that rear window are subject to the same standards, so i dont see that they would need to review it or that it has not been properly reviewed by planning in that regard. The openings perhaps are subject to review by planning and we could have them discuss that, but the nature of the materials would not be subject to review by planning and reviewed by this body. Thank you very much. Yes. I have to ask the obvious question. Are you guys talking . Yes. We are. We did have a meeting and we did talk about it. The timeline was very, very fast to be honest, these neighbors purchase the Property Three years ago. The upstairs neighbor and i have been there for 11 years. Their daughter lives in the downstairs unit and she is the only person we have spoken to for the last three years. The first time we met them or have known about them is when this happened in april. We are speaking, but they asked us not to discuss this until all the appeals had gone forward, all the briefs have been filed so we had all the information we needed to make a decision. I mean, you are a qualified, experienced architect, and i am assuming that the Property Owner and or their daughter are not, do not carry the same expertise as yourself. It would seem that they are getting a lot of good for the expertise, and maybe maybe it would further a conversation and yield a mutual decision to do something different, or are you at loggerheads . I think additional conversations will yield results deathly to your point, there has been an attitude that my experience is not particularly relevant on this one which i find frustrating, but, you know, here we are. We have all the information, we have pages and pages of documents and details and i think that we will come to a resolution. Right. So the point of this hearing tonight is really you want to hear from planning and d. B. I. To give their opinions that might be in support of your opinions or not, and we might do a continuance so you can continue chatting or we might just fine for you are fine for them. Sure. Then it just goes back to the h. O. A. Absolutely. Thank you. I got it. Thank you. We will now hear from the permit holder. Good evening. Thank you for being patient. No problem. Thank you. Thank you for giving us the opportunity. I am the coowner of the condo together with my wife who is here, and my daughter who is still at work. It takes a family these days to own a condo in san francisco. It takes three families sometimes. Anyway, thank you for the opportunity. I am trying to be brief. I have some things that i wanted to talk about. It might looks like i might not even have to do this anymore because this is the first time that she has actually acknowledged dry rot. She has denied dry rot the whole time through the process, and several other things, so im happy to hear that. Let me go briefly through these points that i want to make. I want to get specifically to the h. O. A. Part and how the decision was made really quick at the end. So the idea here was to replace the windows because they are badly damaged. You can see that an exhibit 2. I think it was acknowledged, and the windows that we have down on our condo have no classic features, so there is no o. G. Logs or anything like that. They douched these windows were a decision in 1981 to replace these windows, so they are somewhat passed 1981 and they were put in. They have no historic relevance. They are in the back of the building and on the side of the building. They are overlooking our exclusive use area, which is our patio. They do not define any historic character of the building. Because if you look at the photos, exhibit 1, of the back of the building, there is a mix of things. So my neighbor still has o. G. Windows that she pointed out in her photo. Right next to that she installed the marvin windows which are modern style, they have no o. G. Locks from the outside, and they have wide frames as opposed to the frames of the old windows. They have modern doors in the back, so the back of this building is beyond historic character. The fact of the matter is that the windows that we chose look almost exactly like the marvin windows that she has, and that was acknowledged in our h. O. A. Meeting by our other neighbor who looked at both. We had an example of the window there and from a distance you can even see that there is a difference. Regarding the permit process, i wanted to address this. This was an overthecounter permit because this was a simple window replacement. There was no change of size, frame, functionality, so the city allows for this, and any kind of various reviews of other departments i think are not needed. This process is to avoid these types of things. I dont think there was anything wrong with that process and the way it was done, you know, first of all, we selected a contractor and then after we selected the contractor, we informed the h. O. A. That we wanted to do this so then concerns were voiced and we immediately asked for a meeting and sent all the plans that we had at the time, which by the way, were not the plans for these windows, these are just the marvin standard window drawings that our contractor had given us. We gave these off to the h. O. A. And asked for a meeting. They were two weeks between that and the meeting. There was plenty of time to go through this. We had the meeting, and in the meeting, are neighbor voiced all the same concerns that she voiced here and in her brief. We provided a window, a sample window, we had a meeting, we went down and looked at the situation, and then we took a vote. The vote was 21, go forward. You can do that. With two conditions. That we check with the city that we dont break any rules, and that all the windows are the same, so we dont mix single hung and with other styles. We talked with the city several times and we had email conversations with scott and joe about this as well. There were no concerns about the project. The egress requirements, here is the deal. There is a code. I am not an architect, but there is an existing california Building Code under under a section for replacement windows. In that section is stacy can replace a window if it fits, if it is the largest parcel size that the manufacturer offers with the same functionality, and you put it into the existing opening, then you are exempt from the typical egress requirements like 20 by 45 or whatever it is. That is exactly what we are doing. We are putting the largest possible window into that opening without altering the opening. One more word to the measurements. There are manufacturer drawings that are made with the windows. They show the actual size because the window openings vary depending on what your frame actually is. You cannot go outside and highlight the size and say that is the size. We have to wait for the actual manufacturer drawings to see what the size is. So what she is providing, the 1l standard drawing that our contractor put in our quote and said, this is what i am quoting. These measurements have nothing to do with what we are actually putting in their. So with that all said, so the timeline, i think i talked about that already regarding the h. O. A. So we had the meeting, the vote was there, there was never a decision in this meeting that said, you have to come back and report what you have found. There was a decision to move forward 21 if you do these two things. We did those two things. By the way, we reported them via email to everybody. I guess that is what i had to say. Thank you. I have a question. You mentioned earlier that you have exclusive uses. Is that deeded exclusive uses . Yes. It is an exclusive use patio. Is a patio that my daughter uses she has her furniture out there and her grille. Miss franklin can walk over to the washer dryer. She walks over to get to the washer dryer which is on the base, but other than this other than that, yes, it is just for us. Thank you. I wanted to emphasize a couple things that you said to make sure im hearing correctly. With the window opening, it sounds like the information initially submitted was what youre contractor gave you to say here is an idea of what were thinking about. That is what we had the end of april. His we gave that to the h. O. A. For review. I want to clarify, you are not planning to decrease the window opening sizes . We are not decreasing the frame opening. Were taking the window out and we are putting a replacement window in. There is a frame left and right because it is a complete