Board of Appeals - Regular Meeting

OK. Good evening, and welcome to the February 18, 2026 meeting of the San Francisco Board of Appeals. President John Trusvino will be the presiding officer tonight, and he is joined by Vice President Rebecca Soroyan and Commissioner Robin Abad-Ocubillo. Commissioner Jose Lopez is absent tonight. Also present is Deputy City Attorney Jesse Minardi, who will provide the board with any needed legal advice. At the controls is the board's legal assistant, Alec Longway, and I'm Julie Lamar, the board's executive director. We will also be joined by representatives from the city departments that will be presenting before the board this evening. Up front, we have Corey Teague, the zoning administrator representing the planning department, and Jeffrey Horn, senior planner, also with the planning department. We have Joseph Hospital and Carrie McElroy, both senior building inspectors with the Department of Building Inspection. Welcome. The board meeting guidelines are as follows. The board requests that you turn off or silence all phones and other electronic devices so they will not disturb the proceedings. No eating or drinking in the hearing room. The rules of presentation are as follows. Appellants, permit holders, and department respondents are each given seven minutes to present their case and three minutes for a rebuttal. People affiliated with these parties must include their comments within these seven or three minute periods. Members of the public who are not affiliated with the parties have up to three minutes each to address the board and no rebuttal. Time may be limited to two minutes if the agenda is long or if there are a large number of speakers. Mr. Longway, our legal assistant, will give you a verbal warning 30 seconds before your time is up. Since we have a vacancy on the board, three votes are required to grant an appeal or to modify a permit or determination. If you have questions about requesting a rehearing the board rules or hearing schedules, please email board staff at boardofappeals at sfgov.org. Now, public access and participation are of paramount importance to the board. SFGovTV is broadcasting and streaming this hearing live, and we will have the ability to receive public comment for each item on today's agenda. SFGovTV is also providing closed captioning for this meeting. To watch the hearing on TV, go to SFGovTV cable channel 78. Please note that it will be rebroadcast on Fridays at 4 p.m. on channel 26. A link to the live stream is found on the homepage of our website at sfgov.org forward slash BOA. Now, public comment can be provided in three ways, one in person, two via Zoom, three by telephone. To attend via Zoom, go to our website, and under Calendar, click on the link next to today's date, and then click on the Zoom link for hearing in the blue rectangular box. If you want to attend by telephone, please call 1-669-900-9128 and enter webinar ID 912-9366-6360. And again, SFGov TV is broadcasting and streaming the phone number and access instructions across the bottom of the screen if you're watching the live stream or broadcast. To block your phone number when calling in, first dial star six seven, then the phone number. Listen for the public comment portion for your item to be called and dial star nine, which is the equivalent of raising your hand so that we know you want to speak. You will be brought into the hearing when it is your turn. You may have to dial star six to unmute yourself. You will have two to three minutes depending on the length of the agenda and the volume of speakers. Our legal assistant will provide you with a verbal warning 30 seconds before your time is up. Please note there is a delay between the live proceedings and what is broadcast and live streamed on TV and the Internet. Therefore, it is very important that people calling in reduce or turn off the volume on their TVs or computers. Otherwise, there is interference with the meeting. If any of the participants or attendees on Zoom need a disability accommodation or technical assistance, you can make a request in the chat function to Alec Longway, the board's legal assistant, or send an email to boardofappeals at sfgov.org. Now the chat function cannot be used to provide public comment or opinions. Please note that we will take public comment first from those members of the public who are physically present in the hearing room. Now we will swear in or affirm all those who intend to testify. Please note that any member of the public may speak without taking an oath pursuant to their rights under the Sunshine Ordinance. If you intend to testify at any of tonight's proceedings and wish to have the board give your testimony evidentiary weight, raise your right hand and say, I do, after you've been sworn in or affirmed. Do you swear or affirm that the testimony you're about to give will be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? OK, thank you. If you are a participant and you're not speaking, please put your Zoom speaker on mute. So commissioners, I have one announcement to make. Items 5A and 5B, this is appeal numbers 25-056 and 25-057 at 850 Corbett Avenue, have been rescheduled to March 11. It was necessary to do this because we would not have a quorum. Commissioner Lopez is absent, and Vice President Saroyan has a statement for the record.

Good evening. I work as a contract attorney for a law firm here in San Francisco. As part of that job, I did work in the fall of last year for the firm representing the permit holder in items 5A and 5B. After consulting with the city attorney's office and in an abundance of caution, I will be recusing myself from the matter. Thank you.

OK, thank you. So we are now moving on to item number one. This is general public comment. This is an opportunity for anyone who'd like to speak on a matter within the board's jurisdiction, but that is not on tonight's calendar. Is there any member of the public who wishes to speak on an item that's not on tonight's agenda? I don't see anyone. So we're going to move on to item number two, commissioner comments and questions.

Thank you, Ms. Lamar. I want to welcome everyone to the meeting here in City Hall and online. I think for most of you, if not all of you, this is the one time you're here before us. And we've had a lot of matters before us. I want to assure you that we take, whether it's an individual matter in one piece of property or a neighborhood matter or a citywide matter, we take our work seriously and we have come prepared to do justice in your matters. So we just want to welcome you and assure you we will do our best as we move forward. Commissioners, anything to add before we move to the matters?

Okay.

Thank you all.

Thank you. Is there any public comment on this item? I don't see any public comments, so we will move on to item number three. This is the adoption of the minutes. Commissioners, before you for discussion and possible adoption are the minutes of the January 28, 2026 meeting.

I move to adopt the minutes of the January 28, 2026 meeting.

Okay, is there any public comment on that motion? I don't see any. So on that motion, Vice President Soroyan? Yes. Commissioner Abad?

Aye.

Okay, that motion carries three to zero and the minutes are adopted. We are now moving on to item number four. This is appeal number 25-053, Susie Chen versus Department of Building Inspection, Planning Department Approval. Subject property 436 Eureka Street. Appealing the issuance on November 10th, 2025 to Steve and Courtney Martiasauskas of a site permit. ALTERED SITE PERMIT REFERENCE 2018-1009-2526 TO ALLOW FOR THE EXPANSION OF THE BASEMENT, ADD A SKYLIGHT, AND CHANGE WINDOW SIZES. THIS SET IS STILL IN CONFORMANCE WITH THE BOARD OF APPEALS DECISION FOR APPEAL NUMBER 22-013 AND THE SUBSEQUENT BOARD OF APPEALS PERMIT NUMBER 2022-0527-2182. AND THE PERMIT THAT IS THE SUBJECT OF THIS APPEAL IS 22-0527-2182. Oh, I'm so sorry. It's 2025-0814-3077. Thank you. So we'll hear from the appellant first, and I believe, Ms. Chen? Okay.

Welcome. You have seven minutes.

Okay.

Can you hear me?

Okay.

President Tresvigna, members of the board, my name is Susie Chen. Thank you for hearing my appeal. I've lived in San Francisco for 25 years and in my current home for the last 20 years. I live upstairs while my tenants live in the downstairs. We're very close. In general, I do not object to neighbors improving their property so long as They do it in consideration of the community and legally. So I reached out to my neighbors that have this project going before filing this appeal in an attempt to start a dialogue, but those efforts were unsuccessful. So that's why I'm here asking you to apply the rules as written. Let me first provide some background context to the current issue. The proposed project would wall off the light to my downstairs home without any setback. And this project was approved without giving neighbors the opportunity to request the city to have its design review process. The project was subject to a previous hearing, and the record includes signed statements from numerous neighbors stating that they did not receive any 311 notice and no affidavit of mailing was ever produced. So that's the general background, but today the issue before you is even more fundamental than notice. The principal permit expired. So a building official may grant an extension prior to its expiration upon written request by the applicant and with payment of a fee. The permit holder's own brief states that the permit's expiration date was January 26, 2025. No request for payment or extension was made until May 7, 2025. That's more than three months later. There's no documentation in the record showing that an extension was requested or granted before January 26. So the DBI's records show there's a first extension to May 8, 2025. So I contacted DBI and requested the documentation supporting the first extension. The screenshots in our brief are everything that was produced. So there is no record showing a timely extension request prior to expiration for the permit. And the permit holder's own exhibits show receipts from May 2025, nothing before January. So the central question is straightforward. If no extension was requested before January 26, 2025, how did the permit remain valid under the rules? No construction was started. There's no injunction or legal barrier preventing the permit holder from beginning work. Very simply, the permit expired in January 2025. Thank you for your attention and listening so carefully. I'm going to hand it over to my counsel, Christine Kelly. Can you pause for a second? Thanks.

Good evening. My name is Christine Kelly, and I'm counsel for the appellant. Permits expire for a reason. The original application was filed in 2018, eight years ago. If the permit holders were applying today, their property would fall within the Central Large Residence Special Use District. It is undisputed that the project increases gross floor area by more than 15% and results in a single dwelling unit exceeding 3,000 square feet. Under current standards, expanding to that size would likely require adding another dwelling unit. That would align with the city and state's current housing policies. Instead, the permit holder is seeking to revive an eight-year-old plan that would not meet today's standards. If the permit expired and the record shows that it did, then the appropriate path before us is to apply for a permit under today's rules. Finally, I respectfully ask that you focus on this central question. did the permit expire in January 2025? The record shows January 26, 2025, expiration date, extension request in May 2025, over three months later. No documentation of a timely extension. Permits expire because standards evolve. City priorities evolve. Neighbors deserve notice and the opportunity to be heard. The permit holder is free to submit a new application consistent with current law and current policy. For those reasons and those stated in our brief, oh wow, we've got some time, I respectfully ask that you grant this appeal, and thank you very much for your time. Can I reserve the additional two minutes to my rebuttal? No.

You'll have the rebuttal time. You can use the remaining time any way you wish right now for your opening argument.

OK. Yeah, you know what? I'll stop there, and hopefully I'll be able to get those in. Thank you. Yeah, I was hoping to get five because this is going to be a lot. Thank you. All right, thank you.

We will now hear from the... I do have a question for you, though.

Yes, President Triscina has a question for you.

Yes. Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. Thank you for being succinct and covering what you wanted to cover. My question, you've described the central question being the extension, whether the extension was valid or not. Yes. And you've stated that you've outlined the dates. And you've stated there's no documentation for any other dates. Do you put weight on any tolling of the permit period during the pendency of an appeal?

Well, we already included that, and that was not an argument in the opposition. So there was no tolling or reason for tolling. If there was a tolling exception or exemption, that would have been argued in the opposition, and it wasn't. But even if there was tolling, it's been four months, I want to say, five months. There's no reason. There's no argument. And it would have been articulated with the city. Some notation would have been placed in there. Nothing.

Okay. Was this permit that we're here for today is a revision of an underlying permit, correct?

It is a revision. It is a change. It's an application to amend and modify that.

Right. And it's the underlying permit that you question was appropriately extended, correct?

The underlying permit, the original one, actually, we're still disputing that. That's still in litigation right now.

Well, leaving that aside, the permit that you're appealing, that was not extended. It's a revision of another permit, correct?

It's this, sorry, one moment, please. Sorry, there's so many permits. There's a lot of permits.

Yes, that's correct. So there's the one we're talking about, which is the principal permit, the 2108. Yeah. Yeah, 2018 is the one that we're arguing expired, which is the principal permit. The one that is a subject on the listing today is a modification of that one. And that one we're saying is invalid because the primary permit's already expired.

Right. So my question then is not as to why we're here today. The permit we're here today revises the principal permit.

Right.

And it's your contention that that permit was improperly extended.

Correct. It can't be revised because it was already the expiration.

Right. Okay. And that permit, was there not a controversy over that permit that came before us earlier?

The principal permit is the one that came before you, and then there was a plan approved in 2022. So it's been actually told, it was three years after that. It's been more than three years after that. So the January 26, 2025 date is more than three years after the decision of the Board of Appeals in 2022.

So then in your view, either yours or your attorney's, even tolling the principal permit for the time it was before the Board of Appeals, The extension was still too late?

Correct. OK.

Correct. OK. Thank you.

Thank you. We will now hear from the permit holder, I believe his attorney, Mr. Shanager. Nick Thomas, are you? Sorry. I'm sorry. OK. Thank you.

Hi.

Welcome. You have seven minutes.

Thank you. My name is Nicholas Thomas. I am the architect for the Martis-Haases family. First, I would like to thank the board for hearing our case. This is the second time we've been in front of you in three years. The complaint filed actually is not directed towards the architectural merits of the project. However, I would like to mention that the concessions that we made even before the 2022 hearing are still intact and in place in the 2025 altered site permit. As for the permits themselves, my clients have been diligent to pay the fees and to file the paperwork to keep them active. I defer to the planning department and DBI to speak on this matter. Thank you, and I yield the rest of my time.

Okay, I do see a question.

So if I could ask then that at least for the moment you don't have a view as to what the appellant calls the principal issue of the timing. Is it fair to say you're not here to speak to that?

It is fair to say that, yes. I defer to the record holders, the DBI, and to the planning department to speak to that. Okay, thank you.

Okay, thank you. We will now hear from the planning department.

Good evening, President Trasvinia and Commissioners, Corey Teague, Zoning Administrator. I'm joined tonight by Jeff Horn, Senior Planner in our department. He's been the project planner on this for the numerous years it's been going forward. So I'm happy to let him present this case tonight, but we'll also be available for questions.

Thank you, Zoning Administrator Teague. Good evening, President Trasvina, fellow commissioners, Jeff Horn, planning department staff. 436 Eureka Street is located in the RH2 zoning district, the central neighborhood large resident special use district, and a 40-foot height district. The existing building is a three-story over-garage single-family home. Constructed in 1922, the property has been evaluated and determined not to be a historic resource. The overall scope of the larger permits before you were to construct a horizontal expansion at the rear of all levels and originally to expand the garage level as well as internal reconfiguration. The first permit for this project was filed in November of 2018. No request for discretionary review was filed for that permit. The permit was issued in 2022. And the current appellant filed an appeal of that permit. The appellant is the neighbor directly to the north of subject property. Prior to the 2022 appeal hearing, the permit holder submitted proposed revisions to their permit that included an increased side setback of the additions along the northern property line to four feet, a reshaping of the wall and roof form, and a removal of their proposed expanded basement garage. The board granted the appeal and approved the permit pursuant to these plans. On August 14, 2025, the permit holder submitted an altered site permit to allow for the expansion of the basement to be reintroduced and to add a skylight and change the windows. Planning found the permit to be compliant with the board's 2022 decision. the planning code, and the residential design guidelines, and approved the site permit in August 27th of 2025. The scope of the altered site permit did not require neighborhood notification for planning code section 311. And the permit holder had worked closely with the department to ensure the minor revisions were consistent with the board's previous decision, the code, and the residential design guidelines. Based upon the appellant's brief, The concerns are stated as inadequate neighborhood notification, negative impacts to the appellant's property, size limit thresholds for a dwelling unit, and CEQA review requirements. On these issues, the scope of the appealed permit did not require neighborhood notification per planning code section 311. Under the current code, only a vertical addition would have triggered that 311 notice requirement. The proposed design of the appealed permit remains consistent with the RDGs by providing a four-foot side setback for the majority of the third floor horizontal rear addition, maintaining a connection to the mid-block open space for the adjacent property, In regards to the dwelling unit size limits, we assume the appellant is referring to the central neighborhood's large residence special use district, which provides a 3,000 square foot maximum for the gross floor area of a single dwelling unit. The SUD became effective on April 14, 2022. The Board of Appeals decision on the original permit was April 13, 2022, the day before, which is considered the vesting date for the permit for the purposes of planning code applicability. Therefore, the original permit was never subject to the controls of the special use district. The controls of the special use district are applicable to the altered site permit. However, the SUD specifically states that areas dedicated to accessory parking shall not be included in the gross floor area calculation. Therefore, the appealed permit did not increase the size of this unit in a manner that's inconsistent with the SUD and its controls. Lastly, the larger garage expansion was included within the scope of the project as reviewed within the categorical exemption under CEQA, including archaeological review. This was issued by the department in 2019. Therefore, the more limited garage expansion proposed in this current appealed permit falls within that CEQA review. In summary, subject permit represents minor changes to a previously approved project that are co-compliant, consistent with the residential design guidelines, and will not be otherwise impactful to surrounding properties. As such, the department respectfully requests that the board deny the appeal and uphold the permit. This concludes my presentation, and we are available for any questions you may have. Thank you.

Thank you. President Trezevena has a question. Mr. Horne? Present. Thank you. Yes.

Thank you for your presentation. I have two questions. One may be a DBI question, which if that's the answer, that's a perfectly good answer. The first question is you've heard the appellant and you've described the various aspects, the substantive aspects of this. Is this a code-compliant project as of today?

Yes. Planning code-compliant.

Right. And on the issues of the procedural issues of the life of the timeliness of the extension, that's not your issue, correct? That is not the jurisdiction of the Planning Department. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. No further questions. We'll now hear from the Building Department.

Good evening, President Trasvinia, commissioners, Joseph Hospital, senior building inspector, Department of Building Inspection. In front of you tonight is appeal number 25053, alteration permit number 2020508143077 at 436 Eureka Street. In my brief, I've got a long description. I don't think I need to read it. Planning has already gone through the building description and what the revision descriptions are. What I will speak to is the issue that is burning in President Trasvina's mind, which is the expiration date of the original permit. The original permit was issued in early February of 2022, and it was suspended on February the 25th, 2022, then reinstated June 9th, 2022. That's 111 days that the building permit was suspended. Per Table A in the San Francisco building code regarding permit expiration, there is an exception that says that any time a permit is suspended due to a city or board action, that the time of suspension is added to the expiration date of the permit. So our records showed that the expiration date was in January. But the 111 days were not added to that. And in the current system that we use, there is no mechanism to do such. So the actual expiration date of that permit would have been May 17, 2025. And it's my understanding that the revision that was applied for or the extension to that permit was applied for before May 17, 2025, which now gives it a 2027 expiration date. I believe it's April 28th. 2027. But that's... That's the timeline of the approval, the suspension, the tolling, and the revision permit. Other than that, I am here to say that the permit applications were submitted for in-house review. They were reviewed by a DBI structural engineer. And they were found to meet all code requirements of both the city of San Francisco and the state of California. And it's DBI's recommendation that the permit be denied or the appeal be denied. I'm available for any questions.

Thank you. I don't see any questions at this time. So we're going to move on to public comment. Is there anyone in the room who wants to provide public comment? Oh, we do have a question. Vice President Sorian has a question for you.

I have a question for Plani. Plani. I have a question for Plani. Oh. Yes. Yes. So how often are you confronted with a situation where the Board of Appeals has approved a permit, and then there's language approving a permit, and then there are alterations or, let's say, minor adjustments made to that permit approval? Whoever can answer that.

That's what I want to know. The ZA may speak more globally to the department's volume of projects such as Scopes.

Thank you, Commissioner Soroyan, Corey Teague, Zoning Administrator. I think the general answer is not that often, usually because the appeals process is a process where a lot of those details get hashed out, and then usually applicants are ready to kind of go with the project after that process. But it does happen sometimes, and I think it does happen in, I think, general for all types of projects where there's, like, substantial delay because over the course of a couple few years of delay you find little things that you want to change or you get into maybe more your structural work and you find you need to make some changes there so I think that's the general I think that's kind of the context where we see these types of small modifications when there's a gap of time because there's more time to kind of find things that may need to be changed or that a property owner may want to change

Okay, and here they wanted to expand the basement, add a skylight, and one other item.

Yeah, windows, change the size of some of the windows.

Of those three things, well, clearly it didn't trigger. It was determined to be within the scope. What's an example of something that would have triggered, you know, a design modification that wasn't within the scope of the Board of Appeal permit?

Sure. In those cases, we look to see if there are any changes that are kind of inconsistent with the changes that were made to the project. So, for example, let's just say there was a vertical alteration proposed, and then through the appeals process, the vertical alteration was... reduced. If a later modification was to add back some form of vertical component, that would clearly be counter to what the Board of Appeals decision is. For things that tend to be much smaller changes to a project, whether it's a Board of Appeals decision, kind of a planning commission decision, a zoning administrator decision, things like adding skylights, maybe minor parapets, small movement of dimensions, things that are potentially below grade, those are a little bit more judgment calls. But typically, those smaller changes, if they're not directly inconsistent with one of the issues that was germane to the board's decision, then that's not considered to be inconsistent with that decision.

Okay, so within the scope of the original permit language.

Yeah. Yeah, within the general scope, yeah, without any kind of major change.

Thank you very much. That's all I have.

Thank you. No further questions. So we're moving on to public comment. Is there anyone in the room to provide public comment? I don't see anyone, and there is nobody on Zoom. So we're going to move on to rebuttal. So we'll hear from the appellants. Ms. Chen or Ms. Kelly, you have three minutes to address the board.

Okay, great. I want to bring up a certain case or code section that I'd like you to consider by analogy. It's CCP 583.360. And that code section talks about deadlines, specifically tolling deadlines and how tolling has to do with like the expiration dates. People need to like finish up, wrap up a case within five years. If they don't do it, then people can argue tolling. But all the case law behind 583.360 says that you need to have that memorialized. It needs to be written down. And what I'm hearing was a lot of substance, but no documentation of this argument, which was raised for the first time tonight about five minutes ago, about tolling even applying. This is undocumented, and the case law suggests that's not acceptable. The application expiration section of the building code states that a one-time extension may be granted by the building official during the approval process upon written request of the applicant. and payment of the fee. That didn't happen in this case. The agency does have discretion to extend the permit, but it is a discretionary administrative decision, and it would need to be done prior to the expiration upon written request by the applicant and payment of fee. And I do understand what their argument is, but this is all after the fact, after the expiration, and no indication to the public or even in their own records that this was being exacted or utilized. Lastly, looking at the facts of this particular permit, no work has been done. There has been no injunction, no legal barrier to the permit holder to commence work. Numerous neighbors filed statements and no notice was given and a writ was filed. The facts surrounding this permit indicate that it should not be extended. If DBI made decisions to extend it, then it made such decision without any documentation or notice stating its grounds for doing so. All you see in the records are what we submitted attached to our brief.

Do you have anything else to add?

Thank you very much for your time. OK. Thank you.

We will now hear from the permit holders. Mr. Thomas, you have three minutes.

Thank you. I'm not sure if I even need to say anything. But one of the reasons why we didn't start construction is because the appellant is suing the city, I believe. And we were named, or my clients were named in the lawsuit. And therefore, we were left in this ambiguous sort of area of like, can we start the project? Can we not? What happens with this lawsuit? So that's why it added extra time. But my clients decided to finally dig in and build this project. And here we are. So thank you.

Okay. Thank you. We will now hear from the planning department. Anything further? DBI?

Again, Commissioner, it's Joe Ospitelle, Department of Building Inspection. I just want to go ahead and read the exception from Table A regarding application expiration. And what it says is exception number three, the above time limits shall be suspended. Building Department doesn't have a choice. Even though in our record it shows an expiration date of January the 25th, I think it was, What the San Francisco code says is that the above timelines shall be suspended whenever an application is returned to the planning department for review to design change the building code requires. Oh, I'm sorry. Where is it here? I paused your time. Thank you.

OK.

I know why. I'm in the wrong section. I was looking at applications. So I've got to go forward just a little bit. But anyway, the language in the San Francisco code is clear, and I'm going to pull that up in just a second, that as a building department, we are required to add the tolling time to the expiration date, which would have then brought the expiration to May 27, 2025. And I'm not getting great reception here, so I can't... pull it up as quickly on my phone as I would like.

There's a laptop over here if you need it.

If I can use the laptop, I'd, yeah.

Okay.

Mr. Oswald, if you're having technical difficulties, maybe you could just describe the language. I think we're familiar with 106 .

Yeah, well, basically what the language says is that the amount of time a permit is suspended per a city action, a planning action, or a board of appeals issue, then that time shall be applied at the end of the permit expiration date at that time. So it shows in our system as expired in January of 2025. But again, there is no mechanism to change that date, as I understand it. But the 111 days of tolling is added to that date, which would then have brought it to an expiration date of May 17, 2025. I'm available for any questions.

President Chesvena?

I do have a question because, as I recall, this issue came up at our last hearing when it was unknown to I think it was unknown to the permit holder about the expiration date.

Right, the tolling.

So you've heard Ms. Chen's attorney, Ms. Kelly, say that it requires some kind of notice or documentation. There's no such requirement that I'm aware of in the billing code. OK. And because we've had this, apparently we've had this problem before. What can the city do to put people on notice that an expiration date has been adjusted, not by some whim, but by operation of the law in a previous case?

Unfortunately, I think that's a bigger question than me. That would be a question for... for executive management at the building department. But not only that, I think for the city attorney, because San Francisco adopts the California building code with San Francisco amendments. And there's a whole process, and it's a triennial process, which happens every three years. So in order to change that, there is a intermediate process where they bring in code changes on in July. So there may be code changes coming up in July of 2027, since the code was just adopted. But that being said, there's It's a bigger process than I can just answer over here. It would require some type of code or administrative change.

But you're telling me that under the law and under the code, this was properly extended. Correct. So I'm not suggesting that we need to change the code. What I'm suggesting is, operationally, The IT people need to be able to add a field somewhere so that when this happens, the public will know. And the public is entitled to know that a date has been changed. It sounds like it hasn't happened. So that's the part where I am, if you can take that message back to your people upstairs or if we need to do it.

I could definitely take that message back to my senior management, but it's not an answer that I can give the board tonight. If the board is looking for an answer. But that being said, this is definitely a question that I could bring to management as to how the record can be maybe made more transparent than it already is. That's perfectly a good answer.

I appreciate it. Thank you. Any other questions?

Thank you. No further questions. Thank you, commissioners. Commissioners, is this matter submitted?

Thank you all for your presentations here tonight and what you've submitted and the legal analysis. I think it's clear that we're down to one issue as to whether the underlying permit was properly extended. And as was stated, there is a period of time when, if a matter is before us, it is suspended. And once there's final action by this board, then the life of the permit starts again. So in this case, I think it's 1,080 days. The 1,080 days starts fresh with the final action of this board. But it is also clear that the public doesn't know that. And the public should know that. As I just discussed, we've had this situation come up before. So I would say in terms of doing anything on this permit, we've heard from planning that it's code compliant. And the case, in my view, has not been made that it was improperly extended. So I would deny the appeal, but really look to the city agencies to make sure we do a better job of explaining to the public what the law means in terms of extension and then how it applies to each particular permit where these dates do get changed. Colleagues, Vice President Soroyan or Commissioner Abad?

Yes, I'm inclined to agree with your assessment. I would be happy to make a motion. Commissioner Abad?

I concur.

Vice President, if you'd like to make the motion, go ahead.

I'd like to make a motion to deny the appeal.

And uphold the permit on the basis that it was properly issued?

Yes.

Okay. On that motion, President Trasvinia? Aye. Commissioner Abad?

Aye.

That motion carries 3-0, and the appeal is denied. Thank you. As I previously mentioned, items 5A and 5B have been rescheduled to March 11th, so we are now moving on to item number 6. This is appeal number 26-001, Simon Scott v. Department of Building Inspection, Planning Department Approval. SUBJECT PROPERTY 205 FAIRMOUNT STREET APPEALING THE ISSUANCE ON DECEMBER 22, 2025 TO DANIEL GUINASO OF AN ALTERATION PERMIT REVISION TO PERMIT APPLICATION NUMBER 2017-0906-6976 SECOND FLOOR NEW DECK TO BE EXTENDED Third floor, adding new deck over new addition, adding new closet at existing rear office to become new bedroom. Reference permit application number 2025-0917-5558. And the permit that is appealed tonight is 2025-0910-5039. And we'll hear from Mr. Scott first. Appellants, welcome. You have seven minutes.

Thank you. I believe I had some slides. Too short a day. There you go. OK. Good evening, everybody, and thank you for hearing my appeal. So I live at 237 Fairmount Street, and I'm appealing part of a project at 205 Fairmount on neighboring property. One second, I'm going to tie myself. The proposed project includes, amongst other things, a new rooftop deck and a six-foot-tall privacy wall along the side of the deck. Our main concern is not necessarily the deck construction, but rather the effect that this privacy wall would have on the light and air into our backyard and kitchen. We do not wish to block any construction. We're merely here today to ask you to consider a more reasonable wall design. So this plan view over here shows the subject property in the center and what our property is on the right. So the new deck that's being proposed is on the roof of a new family room at the rear of the property. And that's highlighted in red. And the new privacy wall is built along the side of that deck that abuts our property. So our backyard is kind of shown in blue. Currently, we have our house on the one side of our backyard, our garage on the other side, and we have a bush on the street side. And so this new privacy wall will completely close off the only open side of our backyard. The original plans do show that the flat roof does not extend entirely from our house to our garage, but in reality, it's actually the full red area, and I'll kind of go into more detail on that discrepancy later on. This real elevation of the proposed work shows again the deck that's been proposed in red and the six foot tall wall along the property line. This six foot wall would be the tallest wall along that side of the property and it seems a little excessive as it would tower more than nine feet above our backyard. So this is what we can currently see from inside our backyard as things are today, looking out through the open side. And this is what we would see if the six foot tall wall that we proposed was built. We're currently working to convert our backyard into a grass lawn, and this wall would significantly reduce the amount of light and air in our backyard, making it difficult to grow grass. We've not been given any opportunity to do a shade study, as we only received the notice after the construction was approved. And so this is the best we can provide at the time. The open side of our backyard is east-facing, and so we get morning sun into our kitchen currently. You can see here. But if the wall was built, it would cut off all the sky that we can see from our kitchen. And this would diminish our everyday quality of life inside a house. I'd also like to mention that we're first-time homeowners. We put our entire life savings into buying this house last year. And we do feel that this impact would diminish our property value by at least 10%. And because of the outsized negative impact on us, we can reach a compromise today, a compromise solution. So while we do not oppose the construction of the deck, it does not appear to align with many of the residential design guidelines. Page 5 of the guidelines says that new construction should maintain light to adjacent properties by providing adequate setbacks Additionally, page 16 says that when expanding a building into the rear yard, the impact of that expansion on light and privacy for butting structures must be considered, and this impact can be minimized by providing setbacks or incorporating open railings. This construction doesn't really have any setbacks. It's right on the property line, and it's a solid wall with no open railings. Additionally, the San Francisco design standards also calls for five-foot setbacks at the rear of the property. And then the residential decks information handout recommends a three-foot setback when the deck starts encroaching on a neighbor's enjoyment of light. It clearly does encroach on our enjoyment of light, but has no setbacks. So I reached out to DBI last week to find out what the actual requirements were for a firewall along the property line. And they pointed me to the two highlighted parts of the building code. So what's being proposed is shown on the left, the six-foot-tall wall. What's actually required to meet the building code is shown on the right. And that's a 30-inch-tall fire-rated wall, which could be transparent, let light in, with a guard above that at 42 inches for safety. So clearly, there's no need for the six-foot-tall wall. And we can only assume this is being built in spite. We also mentioned that this project is the result of multiple revisions over the years. The first permit was issued in June of last year. This was then revised, the second permit, to enlarge the family room by a foot. Then a third permit was issued in December, which enlarged the second floor deck and did some interior renovation. After that was approved, it was then revised again to add the six foot tall privacy wall and the rooftop deck. And it's this last permit that's the subject of this appeal. So these multiple revisions kind of raise two concerns for us. The first is that we have not given any opportunity to provide input on the rooftop deck on the wall as it was not included in the original design and the original 311 notice. And secondly, we are concerned with the impact of this project has been evaluated in its entirety by the city rather than just these piecemeal revisions. In fact, the permit holder told us that it is easier to obtain approval for a number of small revisions rather than submitting the final plans up front. And so it appears that this project has been mentionised through many revisions and we're kind of concerned about what future revisions will entail. We do believe that if the latest revisions had been included at the beginning, this would have received more scrutiny from the planning department and from the neighbours. I also want to note that the current version of the plans calls for this family room and rooftop deck to be 19 feet long, 7 inches. However, we measured it. As it currently stands, it's 22 feet long. So I'm sure this difference could be rectified with yet another revision to the plans. But it appears that this deck is being built on top of a family room that's no longer compliant to the plans and also points to this bigger trend of the scope growing with time. So, you know, we've attempted to, we believe we've been accommodating neighbors, you know, throughout the permanent holder's construction expansion of his property. We were therefore surprised the first time we heard about this deck and the wall was through the notice of mail. even though the permit holder had never mentioned to us that he was boating vertically. And so, you know, we want to be good neighbors, and therefore we're not going to make a big deal about the setbacks. We just want to request that the wall be reduced from six feet to a more reasonable 30 inches, to be made transparent to minimize the impact on the light, and we add a 42-inch guardrail for safety. And we think this will allow the permit holder to complete his construction as he planned, but also minimize the impact on us. Thank you.

Thank you. We do have a question from President Chesvena.

Yes. Thank you for your presentation. Can you share with us what, if any, opportunities you've had to present these three requests to the permit holder and what their response has been?

Sure. So after I first received the notice in the mail that the permit had been approved, I tried calling the permit holder. I eventually got through to him on the day before the appeal deadline, asked him about the construction. He said he was going to be building a deck. Pushed him a bit more on the details. Eventually, he admitted there's going to be a wall there. Asked him if he would be willing to reduce the wall height or work with us. He said, no, that was it. That's what he's building. Hence, I was forced to file the appeal. I then, before I submitted my brief, I sent him an email with these proposals. I did hear back from him eventually a week later. He said he's not willing to build a transparent wall, but he could build a solid wall. And he's offering to reduce it down to 42 inches currently. And we do appreciate him willing to work with us. He was asking if we could bring that 42 inches down to the required 30 inches, so it gives a little bit more light.

So on the three requests that you just had on your last slide, no agreement on transparent materials. That's correct. And reduction of the wall from what to what?

So we were requesting from 6 foot down to 30 inches. And he is currently proposing 6 foot down to 42 inches.

And then a guardrail?

If you boat it up to 42 inches, you don't need a guardrail.

So no agreement on two of the issues and some movement on the third issue? That's correct, yes. Thank you.

Thank you. We have a question from Commissioner Abad.

Thank you. So I've looked at the drawings that you provided and some of the images, and also on Google Maps, and I just want to understand a little bit more about how your backyard is currently configured. So your property is on the corner of Fairmont and Laidley, is that right? That's correct. OK. And so to the east of you is the neighbor who is proposing to build. this extension, which would obstruct that eastern exposure to light and a view. And the western side of your backyard is a low wall and trees that border Lately Street? That's correct, yes. I was just reading some of the language in your appeal, and light and air is a big consideration. What is the exposure like on the western side? I see there's no building adjacent to you. There's no structure. It is west-facing on Lately, I think, is a hill, so...

Yeah, I mean, there's a street there, there's no building there, but there is a, I don't know, probably like a 10-foot-tall wall on the other side of the street, because it's a level street. So now we have our property line where we have bushes, there's a street, and then there's a 10-foot-tall wall, and then the other street.

Okay. So I'm just imagining the path of the sun over the day rising in the east and setting in the west, and so... there is exposure to the sun on the western frontage of the property at certain times a day?

I would assume potentially at the top of our bushes, potentially. But we don't see sun from, because we have our fence there and our bushes on the property line to protect us from the street. We don't really see much sun coming from that side.

Right, and then there's a kind of a one-story garage at the rear. That's right, yeah.

Okay. Thank you for helping me understand that better.

I think looking at Google Maps, the language in your brief makes it sound like all other three sides of the backyard are completely enclosed by walls, and it seems like maybe there's a little bit more permeability on at least one of those other edges.

Yeah, I mean, the bushes are... probably 15, 20 feet tall. And we could cut them down, but we'd like to keep the trees if we can. Sure. OK, thank you.

OK, thank you. No further questions. So you can be seated. We will now hear from the permit holder. Welcome. You have seven minutes.

Good evening, everybody. My name is Dan when also if you could speak into the microphone you could lift it up My name is Dan when also I'm the My wife Maggie and I are the owners at 205 Fairmount Street Mr. Scott argues that the addition of the roof deck and firewall is a revision to an older permit and then we somehow are trying to circumvent the system and On the contrary, this project has taken longer and has cost more than we expected. We've lived in our house for over 30 years. We've raised three children. We've recently been putting through college, and we're only building what we can afford to build. Our second child has just graduated, so we're moving on to the next phase of our project. While the construction crews are still working, Stopping and starting a project is costing time and money. By adding the deck now, we can cut costs and complete our egress and project. The deck and stairs are necessary to complete an egress from the upper level bedrooms. The parapet firewall is required to complete that deck. We weren't sure we'd be able to complete this portion of the project at this time, but since everything has taken longer than expected and with our daughter graduating, we're able to free up some funds and complete this deck project at the same time that we complete our family room, which will save us some time and money. We followed all the proper filings and submissions to DBI to gain legal approval for our project. The addition of the roof deck slash egress calls for a parapet one-hour firewall along the west side of the roof deck. All the construction and building will be on our property, and no part of the structure will be crossing the property line. Mr. Scott argues that a new parapet wall will block the only open side of his backyard and block light and air from landing on his new lawn that he's intending to grow in the backyard. So I argue that Mr. Scott has alternative ways of bringing sun and light into his backyard. So I got some, I think this, does this show up here?

Where is it, Jeff?

Overhead, please.

So, as shown in Exhibit A here, this is 828 in the morning, and the sun comes up behind a large tree that blocks the direct sunlight. This is behind our houses, and the sun comes up. That tree is right there. It blocks the sunlight from shining into Mr. Scott's backyard. That's looking into his backyard at 840. No sunlight. 855, no sunlight. Let's see, 10. This is exhibit E at 1024. The house behind us completely blocks the direct sunlight. At 1051, Exhibit F shows the sun has risen but is still not casting light into his yard. And finally, Exhibit G shows that at 130, the sun passes the rear of our houses, the rear house behind us, and is now shining on Mr. Scott's house. But the backyard is blocked by an overgrown, right here, this overgrown 15-foot... holly tree. It spans 20 feet long, 15 feet high. There's another shot of it. The sun is also blocked on top there by the walls of an unpermitted roof deck that sits on top of his garage. So my suggestion would be for Mr. Scott to remove or trim his overgrown holly bush and or remove the unpermitted roof deck that is casting shade on the backyard as well as the back of our house. The sun stays on that side of the property for several hours, providing plenty of light and air to help grow his new lawn. This is an inside view of the 15-foot holly bush that raises over twice the height of the proposed parapet firewall. Mr. Scott contends that residential guidelines and code requirements were not followed by the planning department. That's not my expertise. We followed all the proper procedures and requirements set forth by DBI to have our project approved by all the necessary departments. I trust the plan checkers at each stage of the approval process are competent and are familiar with all the current requirements and guidelines. Mr. Scott has suggested that we install a glass firewall instead of a solid parapet wall. He has also offered to contribute financially to the cost of the glass wall system. We notified Mr. Scott that we're not interested in a glass wall due to the maintenance and privacy concerns for both our properties. Standing in his yard and being able to look up someone's dress standing on our deck would be unacceptable. In my response to Mr. Scott's January 27th email I explained the reasons we would not be interested in the firewall system The underlying project was subject to a 311 notice that was issued in August of 2023 Subsequent revisions were reviewed by planning and determined not to require additional notice under applicable code provisions planning staff exerciser discretion appropriately The residential guidelines and residential deck information handout are advisory in nature. Planning staff reviewed the design and approved it based on professional judgment. Alternate designs suggested by the appellant do not render the approved project improper. So we asked that the board uphold our permit that was approved by all the required departments at DBI as is with no new conditions. and allow us to finish our project. So we thank you for your time and consideration.

Thank you. We have a question from Vice President Soroyan.

Yes.

Good evening. Hi. I'm having a little trouble understanding the orientation point of view from some of your photographs.

I'm sorry.

Do you think maybe you could go back to A? Please.

Overhead, please. Overhead? Thank you.

Let me zoom out. Or zoom in. Yeah, make it smaller. Yeah, all right. So there, perfect. Could you explain to me where are you standing? Are you standing in your own backyard looking at their house?

No, this is my backyard. I'm standing in a doorway, and that's my backyard. They're off to the side here. And that's a tree. The sun just rose and it's going.

So the structure with the windows is their house?

That's behind us. That's the house to the rear of us.

Okay. Where is their house?

Just on this side. Just to the right.

Can you point on the picture? Okay. Do you have a picture of where their house is?

Right here. Here I am. Here I am. I'm standing down here in my yard. There's a garage. Down here, this is my family room.

Yeah.

Down here is the backyard. I'm looking that way at that tree. This is their garage.

Yes.

So the sun is coming over the back here. And by the time it hits over here, it's shining on their backyard.

So is that a deck?

This up top here?

Well, that's a deck, but they talk about their, whoever can answer it, but is that on the other side of the wall?

So this is their backyard that they're going to try to grow grass in.

That's the actual backyard.

This is the holly tree that is on.

That you see from the street.

That is on the street, right. There's a small wall here, about a five foot wall maybe. Yes. And then this large tree. And then this is also a rear garage of theirs with a deck. on top that's not permitted, that has walls, that is also blocking the sun and the light from coming into the backyard.

So the picture is taken from your yard?

That picture is taken from my back window, yes, on the top level. So that's where the deck is going to be. This is a roof that we're putting the deck on. And the wall will be, sorry.

Are you extending the property past the footprint of the house?

Well, we already built the family room downstairs. That's the original permit. When we extended the family room downstairs, In effect, there's a bedroom upstairs. There's no egress for the bedroom. So what we then were told we had to do was to make an egress. So to make an egress, we were building a deck downstairs anyway. They said, you're going to have to build some kind of deck upstairs, build some staircase, go down, and be able to get out of the house from upstairs.

Like a, OK.

Thank you so much. An egress. So that's why we had to do that. And to build the egress, we had to put the firewall up and everything else that goes with it.

OK. Thank you. Thank you. We have a question from President Trezevena.

Yes. I'd like to ask you basically the same questions I asked the appellant. Can you describe the communications you've had over these issues with the appellant? Did you initiate the communication? Did he?

he initiated the communications. When we filed for the permit They said that they would send something that day to him. And I didn't hear from him until...

But you never... You told me you've been adding and adding to your home based upon your financial ability, your other family priorities. You've added a bedroom.

Well, the bedroom was already there upstairs. The bedroom was already upstairs, correct. We just added a family room.

Okay, you added the family room, now you're adding a deck.

On top of it, yes.

What I want to understand is what's the level of communication with your neighbor on these matters?

I mean, we've talked about what I'm doing, some projects. I brought them into my house to show them that I had to build a retaining wall to be able to support the deck. We communicated once this permit, once I guess DBI notified him, he called me and we talked about this and he said we should try to come up with some other alternatives to making a wall that would bring light into his backyard.

And what's your position on the three issues? The reduction of the wall to a smaller base with a rail, what's your objection to that?

I've looked into that a little bit more. I thought that it would be something that I could just reduce the wall. But a 30-foot, a 30-inch wall is, you could fall over a 30-inch wall, I guess. So it need be 42 inches from what I understand. That's the waist height. So that's the correct height, I guess. But now my understanding is that... whether it's planning approved the wall and then, or building approved the wall and then planning says it needs to be six foot for privacy. I'm still looking right into his backyard, right into his, he showed that view from his kitchen. I'm still looking into his house. I didn't know that you were able to do that. You know, like when you build a roof deck, I was told that you can't look into anybody's windows and this roof deck won't let you look into anybody's windows. But if that wall is less, I'm going to be looking right into his kitchen window. I'm going to be looking right over into his backyard all the time. I don't know if that's what planning wanted. But I mean, if we have to go 42 inches, I'd be willing to go 42 inches. But from now, I said, hey, I'd be willing to take it from 6 foot to 42 inches. But I don't know if I have the authority to say that.

I'm sorry, you don't have what?

The authority to say that. If planning says I have to have it at 6 feet for privacy, do I need to have it at 6 foot for privacy?

I don't know. So is your concern or your hesitancy whether a shorter wall protects your neighbor's privacy?

No, it's both of our privacy. When I first thought we had to have the wall, I thought, yeah, six foot would be fine for privacy. And then I said, oh, if that's a big issue and we lower it to 42 inches, that's a reduction of like 40%. But then I heard something where that's what planning wanted it to be at six foot. And if that's the case, because they don't want me to be able to look into somebody else's to give a neighbor privacy. I can't look at somebody else's window. Is that correct? I don't know. Like I said, I don't know if I could look over a wall. Are you supposed to be able to look over a wall, or is it supposed to be there for privacy?

We'll hear from Planning next. That's something we can deal with with Planning. My last question is on your objection to the glass. You said you kind of used a graphic example. From a scale of 1 to 10, how risky do you think either you're going to invade your neighbor's privacy or they're going to invade your privacy with a glass wall?

So Mr. Scott's been there for less than a year. He just bought the house. I've been there for over 30 years. The previous owner of the house, there were some issues that we had. But I don't want to create something that... Somebody's gonna have to live with if I ever leave the house to someone else you know somebody else gonna have to live with am I setting a I Don't know what you call it, but am I setting some standard that says hey if you ever buy this house You have to have this wall at 30 inches the neighbors gonna make you have that that's just part of the proc you know it I don't know. I don't know if that's a right thing to do for your house. Like if there's some kind of, there was an overhang on our house. The guy was hanging over before Mr. Scott moved in. And they took it down. They took the overhang down. The previous owner, his brother, he passed away. His brother had it taken down before he moved. But we lived with that thing for 30 years. And I was saying, Am I going to be able to sell the house and that thing is over there and I have to say, hi, I want to sell the house, but I have an encroachment on the house? I mean, is that something that I am forced to agree to? I don't know. I mean, I'd rather have it just the way it should be designed. and the way it works for both properties. I'm not trying to be difficult. We have to build this thing to make sure I get an egress that comes down. But I don't know that he wants to stare at me or I want to stare at him. I mean, obviously, he's going to do it.

Just one other question. As you say, you're trying to get this to work for both properties. Do you understand that it doesn't work for the other property at the moment?

I understand it doesn't work with him on that side of the wall. Like I say, the sun coming up doesn't really hit that side of our house until it gets up over the top of the houses. And then his deck, if he took that, he's got walls up there. He shouldn't even have that deck. If he had that thing taken down or he trimmed that tree on the other side, he has access on two other sides of his property to get this thing done. I have to do this. I have to... Put up a wall there. I got to build this egress. If you would have asked me a year ago if I was going to build this thing, I would have said no. I didn't know that I had to have some way to get out that window and down onto the deck downstairs. We weren't planning on putting a deck up there, but then it turned into this.

You've been very helpful in giving me a better picture. I'm sorry. I hope I have. Thank you, Mr. Ross.

Thank you for the questions. We will now hear from the planning department.

All right, good evening again, President Trasvinia, Commissioners, Corey Teague, Zoning Administrator for the Planning Department. So again, this is an appeal of a permit granted for the property at 205 Fairmont. This property is a single family home in an RH1 district in a 40 foot height limit. As was mentioned, there was a previous permit that was already issued, was under construction. That's the one that basically allowed the horizontal addition at the second floor. They kind of created this roof space off of the third floor bedroom. The permit before you is to convert that rooftop space above the second floor addition into a deck, and then provide the deck and firewall necessary for that to go down. to the lower level in the rear. I will say that this permit was approved over the counter. It is co-compliant. The original plans didn't kind of provide every single dimension. We really needed to nail that down, but I did communicate with the project architect in the last couple weeks, and they provided updated dimensional information that confirmed that the project is within the of the planning code. As was mentioned, this does not trigger neighborhood notification for this permit. So I think the issue really comes down to residential design guidelines. And I would just be frank. I think this is one of those scenarios where it's a little unusual because we have the stepping slope and kind of the Kind of extreme grade difference at the property line and with the way the the homes line up. So We've had many cases here where if you're just adding a deck on the property line as has been mentioned The residential design guidelines and then further through our deck Handout you generally we're going to request a side setback of three feet More egregious scenarios maybe five but the three feet is typically what we do for privacy in this scenario Because of that grade change, the floor of the proposed deck is actually only 3 feet 9 inches above the grade level of the adjacent property's rear yard. So it's not actually a deck that's a full 10 feet or a story above if they were perfectly flat. adjacent lots. So it's not necessarily the kind of deck that's going to be an entire level above and not even four feet above. So that's one thing to consider in terms of why it was determined by over-the-counter review not to acquire the three feet. I would say that the... Actually, I'm going to show the plans. It's going to be easier. So this is what was approved and you can see there's a retaining wall slash firewall that goes all the way down to grade here. This is the new deck at the third floor and so above the adjacent grade you have three feet nine inches to the floor of the deck. You have the 42 inches that are required, 30 inches for firewall, the other 12 inches for railing. But then there's this additional screening here. There's not dimension on these, but it was approximately an additional six feet of height. And so that means that the total height relative to the grade of the adjacent neighbor was over 10 feet. It was fairly high. And the amount of screening relative to the floor level of the proposed deck was more than six feet high, which is kind of typically what we ask for, for screening purposes, if that's what we're going to do. So I did have a conversation with the with the architect. And these are plans that they submitted with a concept of basically reducing the overall height of the wall and the screen such that the wall is no higher than six feet above the floor of the deck, which would be the typical privacy screening height that we would see for a deck of this size. And that means you have, again, You have 30, and I would definitely defer these details to my colleagues at DBI, because they're more of a building code requirement. But we've had this issue many times. But in terms of the firewall perspective, my understanding i think that would have to be 30 inches and then the railing goes up to 42 and then this extra 30 inches that gets you to six feet this is what we requested would be probably a more appropriate response to be more consistent with the residential design guidelines when i spoke with the project architect in the last couple weeks we did not talk about different materials you know maybe translucent materials etc you can have some materials that are both They're translucent in the sense that they allow light to pass, but they're blurred or frosted in a way to still provide privacy. We didn't get into that level of conversation. I know that's been raised tonight by the appellant and discussed by the applicant, but I just wanted to clarify that I think that's the... That's kind of the nuance here is this stepping grade issue and just what's the appropriate overall height. Obviously, you have the minimum heights that are going to be required if it's going to be on the property line in terms of the – from the building code perspective and then what's permitted for privacy purposes. So with that in mind, I think the planning department's position is that the permit was – that was co-compliant, but reducing that privacy screening so that it's no more than six feet above the floor of the deck would be Planning Department's recommendation to kind of grant the appeal and at least provide that level of relief. That will result in a total height kind of fence or wall from the adjacent property's perspective of nine feet, nine inches, which is pretty consistent with the typical 10-foot rear yard fence that you see in most other properties if they were basically on the same grade. And then, obviously, any other factors that the board would want to consider regarding other types of translucent materials or anything of that factor would be at the board's discretion. So again, our recommendation is to grant the appeal just to condition the permit to reduce the height of the wall to no more than six feet above the floor of the deck. But I'm available for any questions you may have.

Thank you. We have a question from Commissioner Abad.

Thank you. Thank you, Zoning Commissioner Teague. So a quick clarification question. You just showed a configuration where there is three foot nine above grade. That's the existing family room structure that's built right up to the property line, plus a 42-inch railing and then a 30-inch railing. privacy screen over railing. So that brings the total height above grade of the neighbor's property to close to 10 feet. Nine foot nine. Nine foot nine. So you have engaged the permit holder about this. And is this just a study? This is not something that the planning department has approved. This is a potential recommendation for conditioning of the permit. Correct.

This is a recommendation because the approved permit, yes, so the Just to be clear again.

The OTC had the 42-inch railing plus sort of an undimensioned additional height.

There's a bit of a glare, so it's kind of hard for me to see it from here. But yeah, what I'm showing now is the actual approved permits. And the scaling from the elevation is not perfect. There's a side elevation that says that additional privacy screen on top of the firewall is an additional six feet. But then... But this is essentially a proposal consistent with what I communicated to the project architect with the planning department's preferred outcome.

And then, so, RDGs, I guess, don't technically apply, but is there any reason that there couldn't, a setback wasn't part of the set of kind of studies about how some of the conditions could be, or the concerns about, like, blocking light and could be mitigated?

Just to be clear, I mean, the residential design guidelines, they do apply, right? I mean, that's where we're kind of coming at this, too. Technically, where this is is in the buildable area. You know, they could be building a building addition there, et cetera. The RDGs would apply to any proposal there. I think the setback issue is the nuance that the height of the deck is actually only three feet nine above the grade. Like, the adjacent appellant property is actually eight. higher than this one. So it's not a scenario where the deck represents like a typical one or two-story deck above the adjacent property's rear yard. It's a lower scenario. And so I think that's kind of what I was saying. That's kind of the nuance of where do you make that determination that a setback is required or not. In this case, it was determined that the setback wasn't necessary for that, and this level of privacy screening would be adequate. But of course, that's a question that's up to the board's discretion.

Thanks for clarifying that RDGs do apply, but they were interpreted or applied in this way. I mean, it seems that from inside the appellant's backyard, whether it's a deck back there or, you know, it's effectively a building. I mean, it's a structure. It's potentially 10 in the original proposal, 14 foot high wall right on their property line. And so is there any... Based on what you know about the two properties and the need for kind of egress and circulation from the third story of the permit holder's residence, is there any physical necessity for the deck to extend all the way to the property line, all the way to the edge of the family room wall that's on the property line?

I will both defer that question to my colleague at DBI. But with an understanding that... It's not my understanding that... the deck and the egress is required under the building code. Obviously, if you're going to have that egress and you're going to put it there, it's going to have to be designed in that way and have the firewall, et cetera. I mean, obviously, the existing building exists as a three-story building without that rear egress from the third story. It's not my understanding that that's a required egress for the single-family home. But again, I would defer that for sure to my colleague at DBI.

I'll reserve those two questions for DBI. And then the last clarification question I had for planning was the permit holder sort of characterized it as a request or a suggestion from planning. I think maybe from a design guidelines point of view to have a privacy screen that sort of totals about six feet in height inclusive of the fire rated parapet. Is that guidance the planning department gave, or are we compelled to, or is a firewall enough? Privacy seems like an option that maybe a property owner might prefer to enclose their habitable roof deck.

I have not spoken with the property owner directly. I'm not aware that the planner who approved it or the counter spoke with the property owner. I think we were dealing directly with the project architect. So to my knowledge, that's the only conversation has been with the project architect. And those conversations, I did not communicate that there's a requirement always for a six foot. I think I was responding to this specific scenario, wherein if you're going to have this wall of a substantial height for the purposes of privacy, there wouldn't necessarily be the need to have a wall more than six feet of height above the floor of the deck.

but there wasn't a recommendation to achieve a six-foot height.

I can't speak if there was some conversation over the counter with the planner. I'm not aware of that. And even if it was, the permit that was originally approved, that total wall height was far over six feet.

Yeah, OK.

Thank you, Mr. Teague.

Thank you. No further questions. We will now hear from DBI.

Good evening again, commissioners. Joe Hospital, Department of Building Inspection. The appeal in front of the board tonight is 26-001, alteration permit number 202509105039 at the address 205 Fairmont Street. The project before the board this evening is a revision to an existing permit, 2017-0906-6976. The permit application and plans were reviewed over the counter by a structural engineer at the Department of Building Inspection. The conclusion is the Department of Building Inspection believes that the project complies with all applicable building code requirements, and therefore the appeal be denied. I'm available for any questions.

Thank you. I see a question from Commissioner Bott.

Yes, Commissioner. I missed your hospital. So per building code, do we need to achieve an exit from the third floor bedroom?

Without scrutinizing the plans, if the addition of the roof deck increase the exit travel distance to beyond 125 feet, then a second way off that third floor would be required. So from the farthest distance inside the house before the roof deck is there, if they can make it out the front door of the building at 125 feet, generally one exit would be required. But with the addition of the roof deck and without scrutinizing the floor plans of the plans, because I didn't hear about this issue until now, if the addition of the roof deck increased that difference past the code requirement, then a second means of egress would have to be provided from that level.

OK. I mean, it was characterized to the Board of Appeals that the permit holder, it was communicated to them that they needed to create a second means of egress. So I'd like to, I think before I'd be comfortable You know deciding on this appeal either way. I'd want to know that factor for sure. Is it is it absolutely necessary to have a deck? Or rather to create egress which then begets this extra deck program that has been introduced onto the property That's question number one.

It's like I don't know if we'll we can maybe do some quick measuring tonight just to I Can I can try if if if mr. Teague still has access to the plans sure we can give it a look

I think that would help a lot. And then the other question is there, this has come up with rear decks and building program that go right up to the property line in the past, but the current proposed configuration would put that habitable roof deck right up against the property line, thus necessitating this 42-inch firewall. Is that OK? And would any measure of setback reduce or otherwise eliminate the requirement for the firewall? And what other treatments might be appropriate?

The setback, because it's on a building, it's not a projecting deck. Because the deck sits on a structure, for there not to be a required firewall, the deck would have to be set back five feet from property line. So that would eliminate the need for fire protection at the property line because the deck meets the fire separation distance requirements. As far as alternative materials, transparent guardrail, something like that, that would still have to be fire rated. At five feet, set back from the property? No, no, no. If they were to build a property line and use a transparent system, which was something that the appellant suggested, that would... I haven't been in the industry for a while, but that would probably increase the cost of that parapet by a magnitude of 10 to 15 times what it would cost to build it out of conventional construction materials. Because firelight glass or a rated one hour transparent assembly They're not cheap.

Thank you for that. So open questions. Is a means of egress from the third floor, is it triggered? Is it required?

I will check on that as soon as, you know.

Yeah. And then I think maybe a question for the permit holder and the appellants is, is there an If egress is required and therefore a DEC program may be an ideal expansion or addition to a simple means of egress, are there other configurations, physical configurations, that might mitigate a little bit some of the concerns that the appellants are bringing forward. And even without the requirement for third floor egress, is there a way there might be some more conversation? Again, this can be done in different ways, right? It can be a setback. It can be lowering the height of an opaque plane. So... Those are all my questions and some of my thoughts.

Right. For your last comment and question, what I would say is that would be a conversation that has to be between the design professional and the permit holder because the building department is going to look at it for code compliance. We try not to opine, only because the minute you opine and something goes wrong and maybe you end up in litigation, the building inspector told me to do it. You know, so we try to stay within the four corners of the building code. So if they can come up with a solution that's amicable to both parties and it's code compliant, I'd stamp them tomorrow. But I will go ahead and take a look at what is on the laptop and see if it meets the exit travel distance requirements.

Thank you for that. And I recognize my second question was really directed at the appellant and at the permit holder and not to the building department. So thanks. Thank you, Commissioner. Any other questions?

Thank you. No further questions. Thank you, Commissioner. You can be seated. We're now moving on to public comment. Is there anyone in the room who wants to provide public comment? Anybody on Zoom? I don't see anyone. So we're going to move on to rebuttal. We'll hear from the appellants. You have three minutes to address the board.

Hi. Thank you, everybody. So just to respond to the permit holder's comments, he mentions needing this deck and stairs as a means of egress. Currently, as planned, those stairs would lead down into an enclosed backyard. On two sides of the backyard, there is We have our garage wall and the neighbor's garage wall that are probably more than 20, 30 feet tall. It seems kind of hard to get out there. And on the other side, he has a big drop down into the property down the hill from him. So he's actually be egressing into an enclosed backyard, which is generally, like I also know, not a co-compliant way of egress. Also, the rear deck is not adding travel distance from the existing bedrooms upstairs. He's building the back, not the front, so I don't understand how that would increase travel distance to getting out the front door. If the amount of sun in our backyard is being disputed, we'd be happy to do a shadow study, but I know those can take quite a long time, up to a year sometimes. But I think my point more is the photos that the permit holders showed today We're taken from just a single day. And the sun does change throughout the year. And even in fact, this morning, I was standing in my kitchen at 8 AM. Sun was shining right in my kitchen. The sun was on the deck. We definitely get sun rising from that side, shining in. I do agree that building codes obviously are the final say here, but we do think that design standards and guidelines should also be taken into account, especially in situations like this when there is a disagreement about the best way to handle things with your neighbours. I'm also going to have to disagree with the assessment that we have an unpermitted deck on our garage roof. There's actually no wooden deck up there. We do have stairs going up there. There's a parapet wall. That was all approved in a permit more than 30 years ago and it was built per the plans. I reviewed the plans a couple of weeks ago. There's nothing unpermitted going on up there. I'd like to thank the planning department for doing a very detailed review. A couple of things to note there. Right now, we do have a wooden deck in our backyard. It's about three to four feet below the proposed roof deck height. When we remove that, the actual grade is much lower. The grade is, I think, like another... six feet down. We're going to try and fill some of that up to kind of raise it up, but the resulting wall will be much worse than it looks right now.

Yeah.

I kind of hear the feedback here. We'd like to work towards a compromise. If glass is pretty expensive, we would even consider a solid parapet wall along the boundary line, as long as we keep it to a more reasonable height of like 30 inches. We will need to give up our privacy. The privacy screen, to us, just doesn't make sense. And we're happy to give up our privacy just by having a parapet wall there at 30 inches and a railing.

Thank you. That's time.

Okay. Thank you. I don't see any questions, so we'll move. No questions. Thank you. We will now hear from the permit holder. You have three minutes.

Thank you. I'm trying to go over a different configuration for that deck and how we would get out the back window. When I was told they needed the egress, they told me that the fire department could come up to the front of the house, put up a ladder, and get somebody out of the front window.

But I didn't have any way of getting them out of the back window.

So that's why they said, you can't get a ladder in there. You have to be able to get back to the rear of the property. So then that's when they told us, make a room that's far away from that back window, then you're going to have to be able to get from that back window across the roof and down and out. So that's why we had to do all of this. That's why we had to build the egress. We have no alleyways on either side of the house, so we have to just... get some way to get out that back window. And, you know, we've gone over different configurations. I've looked. It's like, you know, I don't want to have a spiral staircase trying to get out of there, I guess, or I don't know. I mean, I'm just trying to make it so I can get up there or get down, whatever. But, yeah, we've looked at a lot of different ways on trying to do this. And I don't see, I don't know if you guys have looked at the plans, but I, you know. I don't see. So I guess they're going to look into the run for the fire, see if they can get out, or how long it takes to get out of the house. And like I say, I don't know that I could do the expense of a glass wall or any of this stuff. I mean, I'm just trying to do what we need to do to be able to get this thing to work. Like I said, we weren't even planning on putting a deck up there until all this came down with the firewall, or with the egress, and it kind of changed everything on us. So that's kind of where we're at.

OK, thank you. I don't see any further questions. So we'll hear from the planning department.

OK, thank you again, President Traspini and Commissioners, Corey Teague for planning. Not much to add. Obviously, I'll leave all of the building code Questions and issues to my colleagues at DPI. I will just note on the question about the stairs, though, from a privacy perspective, because the stairs immediately drop and just the depth of the stairs relative to the adjacent rear garage, it seems like the privacy issues are more focused on the deck itself and any wall of privacy there than the stairs themselves, but not to take that away. I think what might be helpful, though, and if I can get the overhead... Overhead, please. We reference residential design guidelines a lot. Overhead, please. But we don't get into what does it say specifically. Because it doesn't provide, they're guidelines, right? They don't provide extreme. Guidance. So I thought I'd just read this real quick. So on rear yards, it states that rear yards are the open areas in the back of buildings, the rear property line. This can be challenging given the San Francisco's dense pattern and development. However, modifications to a building's design can help reduce the impacts and make a building compatible with the surrounding context under the category of light. It says, in areas with dense building patterns, some reduction of light to neighboring buildings can be expected with the building expansion. However, there may be situations where a proposed project will have a greater impact on neighboring buildings. In this situation, the following design modifications can minimize impacts on light. And other modifications may also be appropriate depending on the circumstances of a particular project. I point that out because it doesn't really identify what those circumstances are. And obviously, it provides some guidance, but other things can be provided as well. And then on the issue of privacy, kind of similarly, it says, as with light, some loss of privacy to existing neighboring buildings can be expected with building expansions. However, there may be special situations where a proposed project will have an unusual impact on privacy to neighboring interior living spaces. In these situations, the following, et cetera. It's kind of the same concept. It doesn't identify what those situations are. It kind of DESCRIBES THEM IN THAT WAY BUT DOESN'T REALLY EXPLAIN WHAT WILL QUALIFY FOR THAT AND AGAIN THESE ARE SOME EXAMPLES OF HOW YOU MAY ADDRESS IT BUT THIS IS NOT EXHAUSTIVE. I ONLY PROVIDE THAT JUST TO CLARIFY THAT THE RESIDENTS DESIGN GUIDELINES ARE IMPORTANT AND WE DEFINITELY DO OUR BEST TO APPLY THEM AS CONSISTENTLY AS POSSIBLE BUT THEY DO NOT PROVIDE A LOT OF SPECIFICITY HERE AND THAT'S WHY I THINK THESE TYPES OF SCENARIOS ESPECIALLY WHERE YOU HAVE THE CHANGE IN GRADE CAN BE A BIT CHALLENGING BECAUSE IT'S NOT KIND OF JUST YOUR STANDARD flat lot you know one or two story deck scenarios i just wanted to provide that information because ultimately in these types of nuanced situations you know a call is made by the planning department to implement the guy the residential design guidelines but now that discretion is before the board um in terms of making sure that you feel like this permit is being issued in a way that's consistent with the residential design guidelines so i just wanted to make sure that we at least had a chance to go over that language just to understand where that's coming from. But I'm available for any other questions you may have.

Thank you. Commissioner Abad has a question.

Yeah, thank you, Zoning Commissioner Teague, for just recapping. And I didn't mean to impugn that staff had, you know, misapplied them or anything. I'm getting myself re-familiarized with the RDGs. And I think it's also interesting information to learn that the backyard of the – that Pellin's backyard, the real grade is actually much – lower than I think what's depicted in some of the photos. There is a deck, which you can sort of clearly see. So when the appellant mentioned grass, I was a little confused. So I only bring that up because I think it amplifies the delta, the difference between what we think might be the ultimate highest height of a wall or a plane on the property or the permit holder's property relative to grade and what the experience and the quality of the space would be in the appellant's backyard. So it doesn't appear in the packet that we have any documentation about what that standing grade is so that makes it hard for us to have a fully informed discussion but I just acknowledge that that's a factor should they want to restore conditions to the original grade or even if they're augmenting the original grade and raising elevation I'm recognizing that the proposed building program at the permit holders deck you know ends up being more significant even than it is now

Sure. And if you don't mind, just to acknowledge that, I think the challenge for us is obviously like the existing condition kind of is what it is. And while it's clear that that is decking at the adjacent property's rear yard, it's kind of, especially without more detailed plans, it's impossible for us to know if that's like three inches of patio decking, or a pseudo crawl space below there, or what that distance is. I think just looking at the stair stepping of grade and the existing buildings on that property, I don't think there's anything there to indicate that there was some extreme amount of space below that level that was you know usable or if that was excavated out at some point in time it's just kind of challenging to know without more um without more specific plan details i would also say it's probably hard for the project architect to know beyond that as well because they're they're just kind of tasked with showing kind of the existing conditions adjacent to them okay thank you no further questions we'll now hear from dbi

Joseph Aspatel, senior building inspector, DBI. Commissioner Abbott, I have an answer to your question. In 2017, when the original permit was taken out, there was not a requirement in the building code for fire department access to the rear yard, ladder access. That's how the addition and everything got approved and done. Well, in 2021, SFDBI created an information bulletin for just that scenario. When somebody is doing an improvement to their property and they have bedrooms that face the rear yard, how is the fire department going to access that? And we came out with an information sheet, EG02, which basically states that when you have rear-facing bedroom windows, that the fire department needs to take a 22-foot ladder carry it through the building, through doors, can't go through windows, into the backyard so they can rescue people from the upper floors, because you don't want somebody jumping out of a three-story window. Well, in lieu of that, our information sheet says that if they provide stairs going down, then the ladder access is not required. And ladder access was determined to be required by the state fire marshal in 2019, and it was incorporated by DBI in 2021. So I believe that's why the property owner was told or is under the impression that he needs egress from the third floor. Technically, it's for rescue. It's not for escape. So the fire department can get in there, climb the stairs, and get people out because they cannot get a ladder to the rear. I'm available for any other questions.

Commissioner Budd?

Thank you, Mr. Ospidoff. So in this case, the permit application to build a deck triggers the new requirement that became active consequent to the state fire marshal's requirements in 2021? Correct, because the deck was pulled under this code iteration. So without a deck permit, The permit holder would avoid having to create a secondary means of interest.

Correct. Okay. Correct. As I understand it, yes.

So it's creating itself. Yes. Yeah. Or an opportunity, I guess. Okay. Thank you.

Any other questions?

Thank you. I don't see any further questions.

Thank you, commissioners.

Commissioners, this matter is submitted.

Thank you all for your presentations, in particular Mr. Scott and Mr. Guarnasso. This is hard. Average people coming before us. Ideally, neighbors could work these matters out. But in this case, and in other cases, you have to come to City Hall and get the benefit of the expertise. And fortunately, on this commission, in contrast to the first matter, which was heavily around the law of an extension and tolling periods, this is heavily a planning matter. And I appreciate Commissioner Abad's expertise in this area. My sense right now is there are a lot of unanswered questions and that perhaps to Mr. Guarnasso's credit, he seems flexible as to a number of the issues here. I asked about the One of the issues, he said, well, the city told me to do it, so I did it. Then on another one of the issues of the privacy, he said, well, the wall is there to respect the neighbor's privacy. Not his own, but the neighbor's. And then third is on the issue about the wall. He said, well, I'm thinking of the future owner. So I sense some flexibility here. But I also want to yield to Commissioner Abbott, because he's asked a lot of questions, a lot of good questions. And perhaps there are either more questions or maybe some suggested solutions. As noted, the discretion now is with the board. But we may need some more facts. And I'm interested to hear Commissioner Abbott first about where we might go from here tonight. Commissioner Bodd.

Thank you, President Trasvigna. Yeah, I'm also hearing from both parties some openness to compromise. It sounds like there's been some communication already exploring potential options. Some maybe are quite expensive options. But there are other ideas that it seems like we haven't treated, like a lower height, a setback, other things that could mitigate the impacts to the appellant's quality in the backyard. So I don't know if... I personally am feeling like there's a specific condition we could apply. I suppose I'm inclined to ask the appellant and the permit holder to try and come together and develop some alternatives. That's kind of where I'm at at the moment.

Before I turn this over to Vice President Soroyan, in response, I appreciate your input and your comments here. It might be advisable to enumerate the issues where we'd like some best positions from both the appellant and the permit holder, get the city's advice just to make sure that whatever their positions are, are legally conformed, whether it's with the guidelines or otherwise, and take some time to do that and then have them come back to inform us as to what we should do next. So I think a continuance might be in order. Vice President Soroyan, you haven't spoken yet.

Well, I think at a baseline minimum, and I'm going with the continuance to come to a consensus greater than one point I did hear from Mr. Teague was that granting the appeal with a modification to the firewall to come down to, I think what we said, no more than six feet from the deck. Is that correct? somewhere along those lines. That is what I heard some consensus on. I saw the architect nodding his head, and that is some accommodation for the appellants. So that seems to me perhaps a baseline minimum that you might be able to agree on. I think what the board would like to see, and I certainly understand your neighbors and things sometimes you can agree and sometimes you can't. But additional issues is perhaps to look at the material or consider a different material, as the appellants have suggested. If you shake your head, we can't force you to do anything. We can't force you to do anything. But what I think we can encourage you to do is to use the resources of the city to help you come to a compromise. Because I think our preference is that If we're going to have you come back, give you a continuance to come back with a proposal, and even if it's a baseline minimum proposal that you both agree on, we would much prefer to have you tell us what you would like rather than instructing you.

If I could just underscore, Vice President Soroyan, thank you for those comments. It is so much better to have ideally your consensus. But in the absence of that, maybe there's some consensus, some not, to know what your positions are on these issues. It's so much better for us to have that knowledge than for us to sit up here thinking, oh, well, we know Fairmont Street. We know grades. We know this. And you all are going to live with it. We're not. We have other cases to go on to. So it's so much better to have your input on these aspects. And I do recall, just on the last point about the translucent, I do recall the appellants apparently offering to pay for some aspect of a change in the wall. So I think those are things that we'd like for you to consider, and as you discuss it, maybe come up with some positive outcome, or at least things that we can focus on. And ultimately, if you can't decide, then it is up to us to decide, and we will make a ruling. So I think there's a consensus here for continuance. Commissioner Abbott, do you have some specifics that you'd like issues addressed that we can enumerate, and then we'll figure out how long it will take the parties to come back to us.

So I think absolutely, let's look at height. And it sounds like the zoning administrator and his team have already generated something that's been the product of some exchange between the two parties. So some definitiveness around the height of an opaque screen firewall combination. Maybe a setback. I'm looking at the plans and it looks like if egress is required, that maybe there's a little bit that you can do horizontally there. Something to consider. And materiality as well. so on those three points coming back having dialed up or dialed down any of those factors and as my colleagues have said it'd be great if you come back to us with something that you agree upon um and but if not we'll at least have a clearer understanding about what uh each of your conditions are, concretely. Because I agree, I don't have a real sense. And I don't think we could rule effectively without having more information and without you having had more Congress. So hopefully that helps.

Thank you, Commissioner Abad. I see Ms. Lamar has recorded those elements for a motion. And I think what we would need is how much time it would take the parties and with the help of the city to come back to us.

Our next available hearing is March 4th. Would that give you enough time to get together and talk about a compromise? Yes, from the permit holders? Yes. Okay. Wonderful.

And we would need a written memorialization. Do you want to allow a three-page brief? Up to three pages.

Okay. Which would be due the Thursday prior to the hearing. I'll send everyone an email tomorrow.

Is that next Thursday?

No. We have the 25th. It's the one after. No, it's March 4th. So today's the 18th. Today's February 18th.

Great.

Right. Okay, so do we have a motion from... Motion to continue. OK, so we have a motion to continue this matter to March 4 from Commissioner Abad and the purpose of the continuance so that the parties can work on a compromise for the wall, taking into consideration the height, including a screen firewall combination, Also taking into consideration possibly a setback and the materials for the wall slash privacy screen.

So on that... Ms. Moore, just so to be clear, we're continuing this to March the 4th? Correct. And the brief should be into us the Thursday prior?

The Thursday prior, mm-hmm.

Tuesday prior or Thursday? Thursday by 4.30. That would be February the 26th.

Correct.

And we're at the 18th. So they have a week to meet and decide and write it up.

Fortunately, they just have to talk about a wall. So hopefully, I mean, if that's not enough time, we can make it longer.

I just want to make sure everybody knows the timing. Great.

We're just busy on the 11th, so it would be the 25th after. I don't know. People want to wait more than a month. Okay. Thank you. Okay. So on that motion, President Trasvina?

Aye.

Vice President Soran? Aye. Okay. So that motion carries three to zero and the matter is continued to March 4th. Thank you so much. And your brief can be up to three pages, double spaced, minimum 12 point font. It can include exhibits. Thank you. Did you want to take a five-minute break?

I'd like to take a short recess and return in about 10 minutes.

Thank you. We're going to take a 10-minute break. Then we're going to do the budget. You can stay for the budget if you want.

Unless I'm a line item in the budget, I'll have to pass.

I think you're secure. Thank you.

SFGov TV. San Francisco Government Television.

you

Okay, welcome back to the February 18th, 2026 meeting of the San Francisco Board of Appeals. We are now on item number eight, the adoption of the budget. This is discussion on possible adoption of the departmental budget for fiscal years 27 and 28. Can you hear me please? We will pull up the presentation on the screen. If you could advance to the first slide. As you know, city departments must submit two-year budget proposals by February 21 of this year. That's February 23, as required by administrative code chapter 3.3. So this presentation provides an overview of the board's budget, an update on the current budget, fiscal year 26, and recommendations for fiscal year 27 and 28 budgets. So next slide, please. So I know we have a few new members. 99% of our revenue comes from surcharges on permits. We are a self-sufficient department. We do not rely on funds from the general fund. Surcharges are collected on new and renewed permits, and rates are based on the percentage of cases originating from each underlying department and anticipated permit application volume. Every spring, the comptroller's office does a surcharge analysis based on data they receive from the board, and they make a recommendation for a surcharge rate. Sometimes they go up. Sometimes they go down. Filing fees for appeals are only 1% of the budget. They're collected by the board when appeals are filed. And the amount collected fluctuates based on appeal volume and the types of appeals filed each year. So next slide, please. Just a quick overview of our expenditure budget. Like most city departments, the majority of the board's expenditures cover salary and fringe benefit expenses. In our case, 60%. 33% of the board's expenditure budget cover services provided by other departments. For example, all the excellent legal advice we get from the city attorney's office. And the wonderful job that SFGov TV does for us every hearing. The Department of Technology provides a lot of services to the board. And rent is also in this bucket. Rent at our offices located at 49 South Van Ness. And the remainder of the budget consists of non-personnel services, miscellaneous costs, software costs, interpreters, copier, parking, food, materials, and supplies. Next slide, please. And our current projected appeal volume for fiscal year 26 is 70 appeals. As you can see, appeal volume is down. Next slide. This is our current fiscal year update. Our projected revenue is on track. In fact, there is an expected surplus. As you can see, our current budget is $1,254,000. In our six-month actuals, we collected $751,000 approximately. And I basically double that number. Of course, at the end, we'll see. But right now, we're expecting a surplus. Next slide, please. And in terms of our expenditures, we are on track and expect to have some savings of $140,000 approximately. And so as you can see, the variance, we do anticipate a surplus. Next slide, please. SO AS I PREVIOUSLY MENTIONED, THE SURCHARGE RATES ARE DESIGNED TO GENERATE REVENUE NEEDED TO COVER OPERATING EXPENSES, AND I COVERED THIS INFORMATION ABOUT THE SURCHARGE ANALYSIS. NEXT SLIDE, PLEASE. THESE ARE OUR PROPOSED BUDGETS FOR FISCAL YEAR 27 AND 28, AND I WORKED WITH, WE HAVE A LIAISON AT THE CONTROLLER'S OFFICE AS WELL AS THE MAYOR'S OFFICE, AND I WORKED WITH THEM ON THESE BUDGETS. You can see that actually for fiscal year 27, our budget is a little smaller than the current fiscal year. And that's due in part, as you can see, non-personnel services line. In fiscal year 26, it was $77,000. And now for fiscal year 27, $34,000. And the reason for that discrepancy is We thought we would have additional expenses this year related to our appeal management system, which we purchased in 2018. It's a great system on the Salesforce platform. It helps us... basically track all our appeals, reporting, et cetera. It's very efficient in results. It streamlines the process. But since we developed it, it was developed for us specifically. We had a vendor. It's been a number of years, and we thought we'd have to hire an outside vendor to make adjustments so that would still work. The good news is the Department of Technology helped us with all that, and we didn't have to spend that money. So we're going back down. Next slide, please. So as I said, this goes to the surcharges. Next slide. And please move on. So this is just more budget detail for the revenue. The bottom row basically tells you the budgets and the variances. So it's not a significant increase in fiscal year 28. Next slide, please. This is more detail, which you actually saw at the previous hearing in January. We showed it to the public. Next slide. And if you're interested, these are the surcharge rates that are put on permits. Currently in fiscal year 26, it's $45. And you can go down the line. And as I said before, the amount is based on the volume of appeals before the board. They proportion it. OK, next slide, please. And these are the filing fees that we have that haven't changed since 2010, I believe. But a basic building permit appeal is $175. Planning commission and zoning administrator determinations are basically $600. Those are the bulk of our appeals. We also have an option to give an appellant a waiver of the filing fees. for financial circumstances. And we offer that. And people do avail themselves of that option. So that concludes my presentation. If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer. President Tresegna.

Thank you, Ms. Lamar, for not just the presentation, but all the hard work that goes in throughout the year, both in preparing a budget, but also in administering a budget. And I think we are in somewhat of a unique position but in a very favorable position. A unique position because we're small, and I guess that's not unique, but we are one of the smallest, if not the smallest. Every indication I have is that we run a cost effective, and you run a cost effective operation. The part that is unique is that very little of this is really within our discretion. office evaluates the surcharges and the fees. So there are going to be impacts. The city as a whole has budget issues. There are opportunities on the way we do business, but that's way beyond anything that the Board of Appeals can take the lead on, such as the use of technology and AI. That ultimately will be decided by the city and all across the board, not anything that needs to be reflected one way or the other in our budget. The one area where I'd like to see us making sure, and you and I have discussed this, whether it is Our operations, or whether it's the operations of the agencies that come before us, is making sure that public access is robust and that people understand what for lack of better what they're getting into through the appeals process. And the more we can have people working on their issues together prior to an appeal, that's great. Again, that's not necessarily our role, but it may be the role of the other agencies. In any case, If we have initiatives in that area, I think we can comfortably do it within the budget. So it's really not a budget item and I'm Appreciative of the work you've done and I would when we have further discussion or any public discussion move to take the steps necessary either we adopt the budget or forward it to to the others at City Hall Okay Thank you Vice President Soroyan or Commissioner Abbott, anything to add?

No, I just want to say thank you to our team, Alec and our executive director, Julie Lamar. You do an excellent job, and we really appreciate how you're corralling cats and helping us along and preparing everything. So thank you for all your work.

Thank you.

And there's a third member of the team who I have not met yet, but also does tremendous work for us.

Xiomara Mejia. Yeah.

And thank you, city attorney. Sorry, forgot that.

Thank you all. OK. I don't see any further questions or comments. I'll call public comment. Pardon? Yeah, we do. But I'm going to call public comment first. I don't see anybody in the room. And I don't see anybody on Zoom. We have one person. We are now calling public comment for this item. Would anyone like to provide public comment? I don't see any public comment, so we do need a motion to adopt.

I will move to adopt the budget as presented.

Okay. On that motion, Vice President Soroyan? Aye. Commissioner Abad?

Aye.

Okay. That motion carries 3-0, and the budget is adopted. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. And there being no further business, we will stand adjourned.