Transcripts For SFGTV Board Of Appeals 20240713 : vimarsana.

Executive director. We will also be joined by represents from the city departments that have cases before the board this evening. Scott sanchez, deputy administrator, representing the Planning Department. Joseph duffy, representing the building of inspection. The Board Meeting lines in are as follows. The board request that you silence all phones or electronic devicings so they will not disturb the proceedings. Appellants, permitholder and respondents are given three minutes. Members of the public who are not affiliated with the party have up to three minutes to address the board and no rebuttal. Please speak into the microphone. You are asked, but not required to submit a speaker card when you come up to speak. Speaker cards are available on the left side of the podium. The board reserves the right not to call an item after 10 p. M. If you have a question, speak to board staff during a break or after the meeting. Or call the board office. This will be rebroadcast friday. Now we will swear and affirm all those who intend to testify. Please note, any member of the public may speak. If you intend to testify at any of the proceedings tonight and wish to have the board give your testimony weight, please stand if youre able, raise your right hand and say i do after youve been sworn in or affirmed. Anybody who is going to testify, please rise. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give is the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth. Thank you, please seated. We have one housekeeping item. Item 5 has been withdrawn. Andrew lee versus the zoning administrator, 1333 taraval street. That item will not be heard. Were moving to item one, general Public Comment. This is an opportunity for anyone who wants to speak on a matter. Is there anyone here for general Public Comment . No . Okay. Well move on to item number 2. Commissioner comments and questions. We will move on to item number 3, before you discussion, adoption of the minutes of january 29, 2020. Sorry, i have a cold. Let me have a little water. While shes choking, any deletions or changes to the minutes . Motion to adopt. Clerk okay. Thank you. We have a motion from commissioner swig to adopt the minutes from january 29, 2020. On that motion, santacana yes, lazarus aye. Tanner aye. The minutes are adopted. Thank you. Well move on to item number 4. This is appeal number 19133. Tom johnson versus San Francisco Public Works Bureau of urban forestry. Appealing the issuance of november 15, 2019, sylvie dhaussy, the tree removal order. It causes issues because the trees require annual pruning and grow back quickly, hitting the facade and roof. The sidewalk is too narrow to allow any replacement trees to be planted. This is order number 202245. Well hear from mr. Johnson first. You have seven minutes, sir. Good evening. I want to thank you for your time and attention. And i appreciate being here. I am my name is tom johnson. Im a homeowner at 5407 Diamond Heights. This is where the trees are locate thad are in question. My purpose here tonight is to keep our trees that have been part of our building structure since 1971 when it was built. I have been a homeowner there since 1985. So 35 years. I can only assume that the trees were originally planted in 1971. So basically trees have been part of our building for 50 years. In 2002, the original tree branches began to crack the sidewalk. We voted to remove the trees and plant new ones. So 18 years ago we planted these trees that are in question. The supposition is theyre ill suited for the space and would cause problems in the future. I say lets wait and see if problems arise in the future and not be premature cutting down two healthy trees according to urban forest. It was 35 years before the first trees caused a problem. My request is not to chop down healthy trees. Here are the reasons not to remove the trees. The boulevard is a busy street with fossil fuel pollutants by vehicles creating Carbon Dioxide which is poisonous. Our trees help absorb this krod Carbon Dioxide from the air so theyre environmentally sound. I know all of you are environmentalists if youre in San Francisco, right . [laughter] and this is in sync with the plan to not remove trees. Ive been advised not to get into the weeds with homeowners, but this is something that is germane to this whole complaint. There is one womans complaint about the trees. She has lived here for 20 years. The trees are okay for 20 years. Then in august, 2019, she said they were breaking blocking sunlight in her unit and causing dry rot on her windowsill. Her complaint in august, preceding the complaint, the trees were pruned back from the door to remove safety concerns. This precaution was taken before the august 26th hearing where it was stated at this hearing that the trees are a safety hazard. Presiding officer at the time even remarked, what is the safety hazard . This was a false statement that was made that claimed that the trees were a safety threat when they had already been cleared by six feet from the door. Her other allegation about sunlight was removed by pruning the trees back and taking care of the dry rot, which the whole building had dry rot for 20 years. So its not just a window sill. I asked her on november 22nd if she was okay with the trees. Overhead, please. So i know its hard to see that, but this is her answer to me, that the trees are okay the way they were pruned. The homeowner on the other side of the building said that the trees were okay for him, too. And thats an email from him saying he doesnt want the trees removed. I apologize i cant find it. But its an email from the other homeowner saying he doesnt want the trees removed. I apologize. The homeowner it all comes down to one womans desire to impose her will on my wife and i. She dropped this letter at my door suggesting that we move. This is definitely dropped by somebody in the building because you can see there is no address on this letter. So this is the start of trying to get us to move. We were called by this woman, saying it would be too expensive for us to live there and they raised our dues 70 a month to prove the point. The complaining they also complained my home office was run as a business and so i had to which it isnt. Its not a nail salon or anything like that. So i had to go and get another address, which was costly to me to do that. What im getting at here, there is a pattern of harassment to me and other homeowners. There was another homeowner that submitted a complaint to the city regarding this woman. The city and county. So its not just me that doesnt get along with this woman. The previous owner of unit number 2 moved, partly because she couldnt get along with this woman. If you have any questions about that, you can contact her, but that was one of the reasons she moved. The other thing that is affecting the whole building is this is a picture of the trees. And on the far righthand side, you can see there is another tree, a smaller tree. I woke up one morning and this number one unit was out there with a chain saw cutting the tree down. It was not voted on, approved. It was done unilaterally. So i think what i have what is going on is a pattern of harassment to me and my wife. And i would ask you to keep these trees because they bring so much enjoyment to us. We love them. Were treehuggers if you will. We want to keep the trees as they are and as theyve been for 50 years. So thank you very much for your attention. Commissioner honda ive got a question. Considering Diamond Heights is unique to San Francisco being that it was formed in the late 60s, 70s, the bulk of the buildings were done in mid 70s, right . Is your property, besides h. O. A. , is it a p. U. D. . I dont understand. A lot of properties are pud. Planned unit development. Im not aware of that. Commissioner honda thats a question ill ask the department. And also, did you when the other person was cutting the tree, did you file a complaint with the city . I did not. I should have. Commissioner honda you still can. Thank you. Well now hear from the determination holder. Good evening, welcome. Can we share the microphone . Why dont you take turns and lower actually. This is our president of the youll have to speak into the mic. Shes the president of the h. O. A. What is your name . Sylvie dhaussy. I have it, never mind, please go ahead. So first of all, tom johnson is focusing on me, which you know, we had a vote regarding removing those trees. And actually i did show you in the response that we all agreed, including the neighbor on the other side who said if the city feels like they need to come down due to other safety hazard kilometres per hour, that is a hazard concerns, that is a different conversation. They would like to keep the trees, but there is no space. Also, he said i was okay with the trees, he just cut them. But i said i would prefer if it was removed. Regarding the bushes on the side of the street, we agreed to have them cut down because the garage next to it, unit number 6, the owner when he was coming out of the garage could not see the traffic coming. So we reduced the height of the bushes. What else . Go ahead. Good evening and thank you for listening to us. My name is alice, im h. O. A. President of 5407 Diamond Heights boulevard. I think you have all the papers of the response to the appeal. To make a long story short, i believe when the oldest buildings have been built, for the pud, the first development, they were not there were no trees planted in front of any buildings. If you go down Diamond Heights boulevard, you wont see any trees in front of any buildings probably for the same reason that mr. Mark stated in his ledger, there is not enough space for the trees in front of this building. There is enough green. There is park nearby and canyon. And i dont think this the trees in front of our building add much to the environment right now. But they do damage the building. Yes, were taking care of dry rot and it happens every decade. 20 years like mr. Johnson said. And, yes, growing trees are contributing to having a dry rot, so its a big expense for us as well. In terms of the tree, but its not a tree that mr. Johnson mentioned, its a bush on the other side, the south side of the building. And its never been it started to grow with the rains last year and we made a decision to cut it shorter. We didnt destroy it. We trimmed it. And we also have been trimming it for many, many years. And one of our homeowners needed that to be to have clear access driving out of his garage space. I dont think the harassment case is actually having place here. It just is regular relationship between homeowners. Some of them agree and some of them do not agree. And we had a vote for majority of four people have voted for what is english . Concurring with the city into removal of those trees. I think it has been initially done wrong 50 years ago. Thank you very much. I would like to add that i never threatened him. I dont know where that note came from. I saw the envelope said vanguard. I have no idea who it is. I dont care if hes in the building or not, as long as he doesnt create problems for the other homeowners. Do you have any questions for us . I do have a question. Other than the dry rot, are there any other safety concerns with the trees . Well, actually, when they were planted 12 years ago, to replace the older ones that we were told we should remove by the city, the woman named kerry derky, one of the homeowners said he was going to plant dwarf trees there. We said, okay. But it didnt turn out to be dwarf trees. They grow and they completely, as you saw in the pictures in the back, they completely block unit number 1. So the problem is that the view of the window are blocked, that is a safety concern or the esthetic. The light, there is no view. There is no light. Is there any other safety concern . If i open the window, the branches were coming inside. Those are the issues, thank you. I cannot do that. So when the trees started to grow and it turned out they were not dwarf trees as we expected, the branches were starting, you know, from the bottom of the tree. And half of the tree was blocking, the growing branch were blocking the visibility when you come into the building. And there was a Police Officer who recommended us to trim all the lower branches from the building from the trees, which we did. So now there is a clear visibility, but since the trees are growing wildly, it becomes a hazard to concern will catch fire, how sylvie and other neighbors who live will escape. Thank you. Great, thank you. Maam, with the scarf. If you could fill out . Thank you. Well now hear from the department. Welcome, mr. Buck. Yes, good evening commissioners. Chris buck with San Francisco Public Works Bureau of urban forestry. Well look at the power point, if you go to the computer. It provides context. We can go through images of the site. If we can go to the screen. Thank you. So this case before you, we originally received an inquiry from Property Owners within the building to just get our sense on the trees themselves. And so its a typical process where the public would say, these are street trees in the public rightofway, what do you think of these, would you approve them for removal . Were looking at the worst first and large trees and large volumes and quantities. So our initial staff decision was to deny the request to remove the two trees because they relatively speaking, compared to what were used to managing, theyre not nearly as large as what were focused on right now. So we told sylvie and other folks there that we would not typically approve the removal of these trees at this point in time, but if they wish pursue removal on their own, then Property Owners can submit an application and pursue it on their own. If approved, they would be responsible for moving the trees. Thats how we got to this point. Our initial review again, was some degree, there was a little bit of a sense of we wish these trees were on private property, because its a unique setting. As the commissioner honda said, Diamond Heights is challenging. Im think being amethyst, gold mine drive, those two neighborhoods. The land use there is really narrow sidewalks and a lot of the landscaping that exists is on the back of the sidewalk, kind of tucked in among the buildings. Variation in the architecture, so some homes that variation between the buildings, there is a little more space to have trees or plants. Something a little bit more than just small ground cover. With that said, i just wanted to point out some of the images that we have. This shows the trees as they were earlier in the year. And heres a side view. The challenge that we have at the department and the reason why once this went all the way to the departmental hearing, why we essentially reversed course, where at the staff level we approved, but the departmental sorry, staff level we denied and here at the departmental level were saying removal is reasonable. I had an Inspection Group on what do we anticipate our position being board of appeals. Would we not look and say is this enough room for street trees . The answer is really no. Im showing the photos. I have a diagram. This photo is provided by one of the respondents. Its a challenging limited space site. When we look at the order that regulates the planting of street trees, this is a good resource for us, because nowhere does it show placed tree, or tree basin with a back up to the building. That is something we never typically do on our own. That is a guiding principle. We dont even have a detail for when we would plant the back of sidewalk up against a building. We have enough problem with trees and upsetting people when theyre at the curb, let alone up against a building. If you look at google over the last 10 years or so, there has been a lot of work to get these cypress trees established on the site. Im sure this is what the police were referring to, not necessarily the safest. Interesting, because its a little entry way. Its neat, but from a Public Safety standpoint, might not be all that welcoming. There is also awnings or eaves above the site as well, so really what i wanted to bring your attention to was the really limited space that we have here. We need a fourfoot path of travel for pedestrians. And thats really located along the curb, so we cant shift the site and try to place these trees at the curb. And so one thing im sort of obvious thing that i want to put out there, and unfortunately, i did not have enough time prior to the hearing to reach out to both parties. Im going to float this evening that one compromise would be removal, but where id be willing to try to broker some sort of an agreement between both parties on what form of landscaping or even smallish tree could we all jointly agree to, that its not just a kneehigh or waisthigh shrub, but something a little more ornamental, that is not going to get public works into trouble longterm. I feel that the trees are young and small but were already having problems, right, with the management of these trees. So think of it as almost like zoning. Someone is trying to put a really Tall Building in an area that is not zoned for trees. Thats the situation where we are. Again, idea world, not that im looking to shirk responsibility, but this is its a difficult case. Its important to both parties. But were not in the business of planting trees, street trees that are going to be an asset longterm so close to the building. I think thats mostly what i wanted to cover. There is not a lot of options that are treelike. But there are some that might get a little bit taller, but not dominate the facade. And thats what were concerned about. Realistically, we were hoping to punt on this. We said this is not really a big issue for us, lets move along here. Understandably, folks in the building are, no, no, we want to press the issue now. So one concern i have is the trees have been pruned since these photos were taken by our own tree crew, but were looking at annual pruning. So even if one of the homeowners wanted to prune these on their own every year to keep them away from the building, were just looking at a conflict here for the rest of the time these trees are there. Theyre going to eventually damage the sidewalk from the tree root system. So its difficult, but we need to say no to trees here longterm. I would be willing, if both parties are willing, to try to review [bell ringing] landscaping material to come up with a compromise. What is your sense that these