Building inspector. And we also expect chris buck, urban forester with San Francisco public works. The Board Meeting guidelines are as follows. We request that you silence all phones and other devices so they will not disturb the proceedings. Please carry on conversations in the hallway. Each are given seven minutes to present their case and three minutes for rebuttal. People affiliated with the party must include comments. Members not affiliated with the parties have three minutes each to address the board. To assist the board in accurate preparation of minutes, youre asked to provide a name. Speaker cards are available on the left side of the podium. The board reserves the right to not call an item after 10 p. M. Please speak to board staff during the break, or after the meeting. We are located at 1650 mission street. This will be rebroadcast on fridays on channel 26. The video is available on our website and can be downloaded from sfgovtv. Now well swear in or affirm all those who intend to testify. Any member of the public may speak without taking an oath. If you intend to testify, and wish the board to give your testimony weight, please stand if youre able, please raise your right hand and say i do after sworn in affirmed. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth . Thank you. Please be seated. Commissioners, we have one housekeeping. The parties for item 7, appeal wernette versus public works. Subject property at 3896 noriega street. Motion to continue. Okay, we have a motion from commissioner honda to continue this to march 18. Any Public Comment on the motion . Seeing none, santacana aye. Lazarus aye. Tanner aye. That carries 40 and that matter is moved. Item number 1, 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 here for general Public Comment . Seeing none, well move to item number 2. Commissioner comments and questions. None. Commissioners . No, okay. Well move on to item number 3, the adoption of the minutes before you for discussion, january 8, 2020 Board Meeting. Vice president lazarus commissioners, any changes, deletions . No, motion to accept the minutes. Okay, we have a motion from commissioner honda to adopt the january 8, 2020 Board Meeting minutes. Any Public Comment on the motion . Seeing none, on that motion, commissioner santacana aye. Lazarus aye. Tanner aye. That motion carries 40 and the minutes are adopted. Were now moving onto item number 4. I guess we can start. I dont see inspector duffy here yet, but hes needed commissioner honda is he needed for all of them . For the next two, not for item 6. So. Commissioner honda if we need him, we have to move to item number 6. Were going to move to item 6 because Senior Inspector duffy is not here. Oh, hold on. In the nick of time. Okay, were going back to item 4. This is appeal number 1910. Rosehillson, versus department of building inspection. Appealing the issuance on november 6, 2019 to george hume of an alteration permit, replacement of eight foot fence on the rear Property Line, north, east and west. This is permit number 2019, 11066606. Well hear from the appellant first. You have seven minutes. Good evening. Welcome. Good evening. I have my agent here nancy with me, in case i cant finish. Im rosehillson. My tree is a rare variety of the native which the Indigenous People collectively refer to as the to provide food, shelter, and medicine. This people respect it and protected these trees to the benefit of the environment and themselves. Im respecting the tradition by respecting this tree in our city. I love my tree. I have spent at least two decades determining and studying this specimen. And in having to vigilantly protect this tree from harm. My efforts were rewarded when the board of supervisors agreed with me and the urban Forestry Council to protect the tree through awarding it landmark status in 2008. This landmark status is supposed to ensure that the city now is my partner in protecting my tree from injury or destruction by law as described in public works code article 16. The city is not doing its job to safeguard my tree. Or probably any of the city landmark trees. The Zoning Administrator under code section 810e shall be required to identify designated landmark trees on proposed construction sites. And notify the urban Forestry Council and public works. Also, the Zoning Administrator and public works shall be required to impose measures to protect landmark trees on a construction site against damage to trunk, roots, and branches. Public works director approval of the tree Protection Plan is required by law to certify adequate tree Protection Measures will be taken as part of the construction plans. No one can approve a tree plan Protection Plan. No one else can approve a tree Protection Plan. These city actions described must be taken before a Building Permit is issued per section 808c2. None of these requirements were met before dbi issued this permit. The bureau of urban forestry, of public works, had no signoff on the permit because dbis permit process does not include d. P. W. Bureau of urban forestry before issuance. I was never shown a copy of the construction plans and the work to be done to replace the Property Line before the permit was applied for. We now can see the construction manner in the permitholders response to you. My tree is not indicated on the drawings. There is no indication on the application there is a landmark tree involved in the construction area. I had to make an appeal to you to stop this unlawful Construction Permit and request that you deny its issuance. There are so many things wrong with the permit. So many legal steps not taken before it was issued. This permit cannot be amended with conditions. It must be revoked. A new Building Permit application must be required for any project that could affect my tree. It must include me in creating the design plan drawings and Protection Plan. It must be reviewed by the Zoning Administrator and public works, including the separate bureau of urban forestry with the director of public works. In the event of enforcement action being needed, the director of public works shall request the director of building inspection to initiate enforcement action under the Building Code for 808c7. Also, the landmark trees location needs to be shown on all city records, on all adjoining parcelle s parcels so 808a shall be complied with. Please do not put my rare mccann nita tree in any jeopardy. Thank you for considering my comments. Im going to need the overhead to show the picture. This i my tree. Vice president lazarus well now hear from the permitholder, mr. Hume. Good evening, welcome. Vice president , lazarus, honda, tanner and santacana. Thank you for the opportunity to discuss the appeal ms. Hillson. There is a history rooted in fact and fiction. If you listen to mrs. Hillson, you would think that myself, my wife and our contractor daniel harder are conspiring against mrs. Hillson and want to hurt the manzanita tree on 115 parker avenue. You would think we didnt follow the correct permits, follow rules and not take the wellbeing of the tree into account. And you would think that our city officials have been negligent in their duties. This is not the truth. This is the truth. We have worked with mrs. Hillson in the process of our landscaping work from 2017 and our fence project in 2019 as Good Neighbors do. Communicated via over 100 emails and numerous meetings on site. We enlisted the help of her arborist even though she would not give us the name, and we had to call many to find one that. We have written approval, where you can see mrs. Hillson is copied, mayor to move forward with the landscaping plans. Which we have every person who does work in our backyard read and acknowledge. We have another tree Protection Plan written by her arborist for our fence, that mrs. Hillson approved and stated, roy, thank you for the tree Protection Plan and helping out with the situation. Thank you for helping figure out the fence project together. Chris and nick, sorry we missed you, but this should fulfill the requirements of the ordinance. Weve had her attend numerous meetings with our arborist, herself and contractor, where everyone was 100 on board to repair the fence. Mrs. Hillson asked us for a private meeting on her property to work the issue of the shared fence together. We were happy to do so, to put a plan in place as neighbors. We all agreed on a time and she never attended. Nor respond tony followup emails. We asked her to attend a meeting with the dbi on property to review the appeal and she did not attend. I had to walk over to her house and hold a phone to her doorstep so she could hear the appeal could be solved by being neighbors, all she needed to do was withdraw the appeal, given we had agreed to stop working on the side of the shared fence. She decided to move forward with the appeal, given there was unfinished work securing our fences and gate to the street. Luckily, mr. Duffy guided us and allowed us to complete the street fence and gate. I would like to express gratitude to mr. Duffy, the dbi and julie rosenberg, so it did not provide a Security Risk to the neighbor. I am born in childrens hospital. I went to school here. Our two sons, alexander, age 7 and james age 4, also born in this great city. My wife is a native, having grown up in santa rosa. We believe in being Good Neighbors and we have worked and continue to work within the rules and city guidelines when it comes to working on our property, including our backyard and fence. In the appellant brief filed, mrs. Hillson has grievances outside the scope of the appeal. In that appeal, she ask that the permit be amended to not include our shared fence. However, the updated appeal references complaints against dbi, and other divisions. She puts into question the entire process which we and our contractor did arduously and legally. We ask that you see this appeal for what it is. An attempt by mrs. Hillson to use the appellant process to undermine the procedures, use questionable tactics and misrepresentation to bring the city, workers and us and the end result, a fence in disrepair and not safe for us, our children, and also the landmark manzanita tree. A fence that is in extreme danger of falling down on our children or on the landmark manzanita tree if a strong wind prevails from the west. A fence that would be fixed with permits filed and approved. Please do not allow mrs. Hillson to invalidate what we have done thoughtfully, with a tree Protection Plan shared by her arborist and dbi, and contractors and mrs. Hillson herself. We have tried to hire mr. Leggett to work with us on this appeal, but mrs. Hillson has blocked us by not responding to his request. Leaving us, our kids, our property and the manzanita tree at risk. Why do that . To conclude, id like to para phrase what mr. Leggett said, in an email exchange when we told them of the appeal by the way he had no idea they had placed the appeal on the permit george and roxanne, rose has been hesitant to bring me in too often, which has led to her handling the fence issue herself and making the project too challenging for everyone else. Im sorry about that since the ideas we hatched were solid. Solid. Myself, my wife, roxanne, and our children are very grateful to all of you for listening to our side of this important matter, regarding our fence, manzanita, the permit, which is essential to the safety for us, our two young sons, alexander and james, and our property. Thank you very much. Vice president lazarus thank you. Mr. Sanchez, well now hear from the Planning Department. That beard is filling in, buddy. Thank you, it probably wont be lasting long. Appreciate the comments of the appellant and the permitholder in the matter. This is straightforward. A fence replacement permit, which are common and approved routinely over the counter and worth noting that the fence was six feet or less, no permit is even required. Appreciate the issues raised by the appellant in terms of process and how the process could be approved. The Planning Department does have a database that we get from department of public works and urban forestry with all the landmark trees in the city. So all the properties with landmark trees are identified. The issue in this case is that the landmark tree is not on this property, its on the adjacent property. Unlike most issues we have in the city when we note something on a property, its only relative to that property, like the historic status, its only relative to that and not the adjacent properties. Landmark trees are unique because the landmark tree, depending on its location on the lot could have implications on abutting properties because the Protection Measures need to apply to the dripline which is where the roots grow. Luckily, chris buck is here and can explain the details better than i can. In this case, we certainly should have been able to identify it as adjacent to a landmark tree. And the appellant has suggested that we look at every single adjacent property when reviewing one permit. That could be five, six, seven, a number of properties. Thats not a feasible option, but you know, they did highlight an area for us to improve and so were working with the department of public works and our staff to be able to better flag these lots. We may do every property, or flag every property that is abutting a property with landmark tree. Over time, well go in and work with public works and identify specific properties which need to be tacked tagged. In this case, its really only the one adjacent properties in the rear that could have impact on the tree. That said, i dont see there are any fatal flaws in the permit that would justify disapproval of the permit. What is required is a true Protection Plan, which as i understand has been prepared, accepted. They have the means and methods to move forward without damaging the tree, which i think is everyones goal and additional processes not the goal. The goal is to make sure the tree is protected to allow the fence to be reconstructed in a safe manner and let everyone move on with their lives. So with that, Senior Inspector duffy has been out to the site and also chris buck has intimate knowledge of this, so i defer to them for further discussion of the permit. But i wanted to share our thoughts. Vice president lazarus so, lets say that this had been noted there was this tree adjacent. What would have been different about the process . Essentially the tree Protection Plan coming before the permit is approved. Vice president lazarus would that be something that is referred to public works to review and they would sign off on the plan . The issue here, we have in our database the landmark trees. Dbi does not in theirs. So were going to have to work in multiagency to ensure we have a system whereby when the permit comes in, dbi can see if that needs to be a routing step. So well work with dbi, bureau of urban forestry to ensure that we can better implement this process. Vice president lazarus as far as youre concerned, its similar so what we see here, this is how were going to protect the tree, everyone agrees this is part of the plan and when dbi goes out to inspect, its happening with the protection on site. Do you have an idea of how many landmark trees we have in San Francisco . Its not a tremendous number. Mr. Buck might have a better idea . Yes. Well now hear from the Department Building inspection. Good evening. Joe duffy, dbi. The Building Permit as you know is replacement of 8foot fence on the rear Property Line on the northeast and the west. So the permit was properly reviewed and issued by dbi. There is nothing wrong with that. I did hear, i was involved in this originally during the early stages of the appeal because the contractor had started the work. And when the permit got issued and then the permit got suspended. But the yard was completely wide open. I mean, it was unsafe condition. Securitywise with the permit holders, they were keen to not have their property open for a period of until now from basically back in november. So we did let them finish the Property Line that would have been on the adjacent neighboring property. We let them finish that work. The only part that needs to be done is the back part that faces onto the appellants property. And i agree with mr. Sanchez f there is a tree if there is a tree Protection Plan, its my understanding theyre going to use the existing footings, cut posts, weld in brackets and then build the fence posts from that. Theyre not disturbing anything underground. There is ann arborist involved and he could oversee. But i dont see this as being a big issue. In my experience, ive seen a couple of oak trees that are protected and there are requirements around them. I believe this may be the only manzanita tree in the city that is protected, but mr. Buck can speak to that. My opinion is, let them continue with the work on the Building Permit that is issued, or sorry, that is under appeal. The work can be done safely if its overseen. And quality of the work on the response of the permith