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Permit nightmare: S.F. homeowner's 'absurd' journey to build a bacony
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Leroy N. Soetoro
Dec 16, 2023, 7:12:04 PM12/16/23
to
https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/homeowner-balcony-project-permit-
nightmare-18524734.php
When Craig Sakowitz decided in August 2021 to build a small balcony off
the back of his house in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood, he
thought it wouldn’t be a big deal. He was doing some interior renovations,
so he’d just tack it on.
His simple project didn’t face the challenges from neighbors or long
hearings before government agencies and legislative bodies that have made
San Francisco infamous for permit nightmares. But it still took nearly a
year to get the 13-by-3½-foot balcony approved, from the initial
application to final sign-off from the city’s planning and building
departments — all for a job that took less than 30 days to complete.
That’s because his project required an exemption from San Francisco’s
extremely detailed planning codes, which added a series of steps — and
months — to get it approved.
Dan Sider, chief of staff of the San Francisco Planning Department, said
that while he sympathizes with the frustration resulting from extra
hurdles in the home renovation process, Sakowitz’s timeline was “well
within norms” for San Francisco.
But Sakowitz, who had anticipated the project could take several months
because it required an exemption, said the Planning Department did not
make clear the steps that would be needed to get the project done, and he
called the entire process “absurd.”
What caused the permit nightmare?
Sakowitz began renovating the inside of his three-story contemporary home
on Brewster Street, which he bought in 2009, in August 2021. The home had
safety issues with its plumbing and electrical systems dating to its
construction in 1988, he said, so he had it brought up to code, spending
hundreds of thousands of dollars on a project that included redoing the
structural support beams for the home’s third floor, as well as redoing
the bathrooms.
He and his contractor decided that he could use a third-floor balcony
because his kids’ bedrooms were on that side of the house, and he wanted
them to have a place to escape to in case of an emergency. Instead of
jumping out of a window to the concrete below, they could exit from the
end of the balcony, which Sakowitz thought would be safer.
He said his contractors told him the balcony would have to be small
because of regulations in Bernal Heights that require a certain amount of
rear yard space.
“It’s so small, it’s hard to even sit on, or put more than two small
folding chairs out there,” he said. Records show that he submitted an
application for the project in September 2021. Sider said the Planning
Department began reviewing the project in November 2021, when the correct
fees were paid.
Because the footprint of Sakowitz’s house already violated the rules
governing rear yard space, he had to apply for a variance, or an exception
to the rules — which in San Francisco triggers neighborhood notices,
meetings and a public hearing.
San Francisco’s permit process
While San Francisco allows for an unusual amount of community input in its
development process, allowing neighbors to object to nearly any
construction project through a process known as discretionary review,
other Bay Area cities, including Oakland and San Jose, in some cases
require a public hearing for a project that requires an exemption to the
planning code, as Sakowitz’s did.
But other cities hear far fewer variance requests than San Francisco,
which has received roughly 125 requests each year since 2021. For example,
in San Jose, a larger and more populous city than San Francisco, variances
are “relatively uncommon and are typically associated with there being
highly unique physical circumstances with the lot,” said Cheryl Wessling,
a public information officer for the city’s planning and building
department.
In the past three years, San Jose Planning had only three projects with
variances, she said, and each took three to four months to process, though
she noted that factors such as the accuracy of submitted plans and
responsiveness of applicants can affect project timelines in all cities.
In Oakland, variance requests take an average of 10½ months to process,
officials said. Since 2019, the city has received a total of 324 variance
requests, averaging fewer than 70 per year.
Sider from San Francisco’s Planning Department said he was surprised San
Jose would receive an average of only one request per year, and that the
definition of variance might differ between the two cities. Still, he
noted that San Francisco’s planning code is “nuanced,” and the rules for
Bernal Heights, where Sakowitz lives, were “crafted generations ago to be
especially rigorous.”
“With that in mind, it wouldn’t be surprising if San Francisco had a
greater number of variance requests, particularly in areas like Bernal
Heights, than did other cities,” he said.
Sakowitz says he received a list of people who needed to be notified about
the project: immediate neighbors as well as anyone who signed up to be
informed about any projects in the neighborhood, which included
neighborhood groups, the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District and even the
Sherwin Williams paint store on Ocean Avenue.
Though some on the list didn’t make sense to him, Sakowitz complied,
sending an email and paper notice about a pre-application meeting in early
February 2022 and holding it on Feb. 19, a Saturday, at 10 a.m.
That day, Sakowitz and his designer bought bagels for any potential
visitors and sat on his front steps for an hour. No one came.
Sakowitz was relieved, and thought he had that box checked.
“You hear about people that love to show up and make problems,” he said.
“I was anxious that that was going to happen and it was going to delay my
project, but it didn’t.”
Sider said that the completed meeting, with no objections, meant that the
department could issue a neighborhood notice for a variance hearing, where
neighbors have another opportunity to oppose the project. The hearing was
held on March 23, 2022. No one objected.
The planning department received 118 variance requests citywide in 2022,
Sider said. Its website notes that the process could take a while: “Due to
the overwhelming number of Variance cases, decision letters may take up to
2 months to complete from the date of the hearing,” it reads.
But the neighborhood notices didn’t stop there. Sakowitz said the Planning
Department told him he needed to post another notice, known as a 311 — a
third opportunity for neighbors to weigh in — before anything could move
forward.
Sider said that normally, the Planning Department would have combined this
with the variance notice, but the applicant hadn’t submitted the building
permit application, which is different from the project application.
Sakowitz said no one told him about the 311 notice requirement before.
After that notice was posted and again went without complaints, the
variance decision, which allowed Sakowitz to move forward with the
project, was issued in late May.
“I was like, ‘Great, you guys can start working on the balcony,’ ”
Sakowitz said. “I was totally wrong.”
He said his builders went back to the Planning Department several times
before learning that there was a bill that he hadn’t paid, but he said he
never received the bill. Finally, Planning said that it was misrouted,
Sakowitz said, and he paid it as soon as he could.
“Every time they asked me to do something, I would do it that day or the
next day if I could, because I was trying to keep this thing moving
forward,” Sakowitz said.
Then, he said, Planning asked for the final drawings, which he said his
contractor submitted in mid-July. Those plans were approved the day they
were received, and they were sent to the Department of Building Inspection
to review.
From there, the plans were bounced around the building and planning
departments through August, records show, before arriving back to the
building department for over-the-counter approval. But when Sakowitz’s
contractors called to find out what had happened to the permit in early
September, they discovered that it had been misrouted to the mapping
bureau, which had nothing to do with the project. The building department
had to ask mapping to approve it before it could come back to the building
department, which they did the next day.
Contractors and architects who spoke to the Chronicle were not surprised
by Sakowitz’s timeline and process, but noted that San Francisco’s complex
bureaucracy is why many people doing projects in the city rely on permit
expediters — people who are paid to navigate the city’s layers of red
tape, getting permit applications to the right people and pushing the
process along as fast as possible.
“People who don’t do it every day get frustrated,” said Ernie Selander, an
architect with more than 40 years of experience in the city. “Once you
open the application process, reason and logic no longer apply. … You need
professionals that know what they’re doing to deal with this stuff for
you.”
Where do things stand now?
Finally, on Sept. 23, the permit for the balcony was approved. The process
exhausted Sakowitz.
“Several times I thought about canceling, just not doing it,” he said.
“But I had this safety concern in my mind that the house really needed to
have this feature.”
He said that while he’s glad the planning and building departments check
projects for seismic safety and other reasons, he feels the process was
convoluted, confusing and needlessly lengthy. He was surprised that a
project with no opposition would still take so long to get approved.
Sider from the Planning Department said he understands Sakowitz’s
frustration, and that the main reason his project approval took so long is
that it required an exemption from the rules. He said the department is
working on streamlining the vast city planning codes that give highly
detailed requirements for each neighborhood.
However, Sider said the changes would not have helped Sakowitz — for
example, by allowing balconies to count as open space.
Sakowitz said he thinks that some of the processes and notices, while they
may have once had a good purpose, need to be cut down. At times, he said,
he wished he’d hired a permit expediter. At other times, he said, he
wished he had just gone forward with the project illegally, without a
permit.
Either way, he knows he’s done with home building improvements in San
Francisco.
“I don’t think I would ever try to do a project here again,” he said.
“It’s just absurd.”
Keith Menconi contributed reporting.
Reach Danielle Echeverria: danielle....@sfchronicle.com
--
We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
stupid people won't be offended.
Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem. It has none.
No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.
Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.
Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
fiasco, President Trump.
Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.
President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed
dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.
nightmare-18524734.php
When Craig Sakowitz decided in August 2021 to build a small balcony off
the back of his house in San Francisco’s Bernal Heights neighborhood, he
thought it wouldn’t be a big deal. He was doing some interior renovations,
so he’d just tack it on.
His simple project didn’t face the challenges from neighbors or long
hearings before government agencies and legislative bodies that have made
San Francisco infamous for permit nightmares. But it still took nearly a
year to get the 13-by-3½-foot balcony approved, from the initial
application to final sign-off from the city’s planning and building
departments — all for a job that took less than 30 days to complete.
That’s because his project required an exemption from San Francisco’s
extremely detailed planning codes, which added a series of steps — and
months — to get it approved.
Dan Sider, chief of staff of the San Francisco Planning Department, said
that while he sympathizes with the frustration resulting from extra
hurdles in the home renovation process, Sakowitz’s timeline was “well
within norms” for San Francisco.
But Sakowitz, who had anticipated the project could take several months
because it required an exemption, said the Planning Department did not
make clear the steps that would be needed to get the project done, and he
called the entire process “absurd.”
What caused the permit nightmare?
Sakowitz began renovating the inside of his three-story contemporary home
on Brewster Street, which he bought in 2009, in August 2021. The home had
safety issues with its plumbing and electrical systems dating to its
construction in 1988, he said, so he had it brought up to code, spending
hundreds of thousands of dollars on a project that included redoing the
structural support beams for the home’s third floor, as well as redoing
the bathrooms.
He and his contractor decided that he could use a third-floor balcony
because his kids’ bedrooms were on that side of the house, and he wanted
them to have a place to escape to in case of an emergency. Instead of
jumping out of a window to the concrete below, they could exit from the
end of the balcony, which Sakowitz thought would be safer.
He said his contractors told him the balcony would have to be small
because of regulations in Bernal Heights that require a certain amount of
rear yard space.
“It’s so small, it’s hard to even sit on, or put more than two small
folding chairs out there,” he said. Records show that he submitted an
application for the project in September 2021. Sider said the Planning
Department began reviewing the project in November 2021, when the correct
fees were paid.
Because the footprint of Sakowitz’s house already violated the rules
governing rear yard space, he had to apply for a variance, or an exception
to the rules — which in San Francisco triggers neighborhood notices,
meetings and a public hearing.
San Francisco’s permit process
While San Francisco allows for an unusual amount of community input in its
development process, allowing neighbors to object to nearly any
construction project through a process known as discretionary review,
other Bay Area cities, including Oakland and San Jose, in some cases
require a public hearing for a project that requires an exemption to the
planning code, as Sakowitz’s did.
But other cities hear far fewer variance requests than San Francisco,
which has received roughly 125 requests each year since 2021. For example,
in San Jose, a larger and more populous city than San Francisco, variances
are “relatively uncommon and are typically associated with there being
highly unique physical circumstances with the lot,” said Cheryl Wessling,
a public information officer for the city’s planning and building
department.
In the past three years, San Jose Planning had only three projects with
variances, she said, and each took three to four months to process, though
she noted that factors such as the accuracy of submitted plans and
responsiveness of applicants can affect project timelines in all cities.
In Oakland, variance requests take an average of 10½ months to process,
officials said. Since 2019, the city has received a total of 324 variance
requests, averaging fewer than 70 per year.
Sider from San Francisco’s Planning Department said he was surprised San
Jose would receive an average of only one request per year, and that the
definition of variance might differ between the two cities. Still, he
noted that San Francisco’s planning code is “nuanced,” and the rules for
Bernal Heights, where Sakowitz lives, were “crafted generations ago to be
especially rigorous.”
“With that in mind, it wouldn’t be surprising if San Francisco had a
greater number of variance requests, particularly in areas like Bernal
Heights, than did other cities,” he said.
Sakowitz says he received a list of people who needed to be notified about
the project: immediate neighbors as well as anyone who signed up to be
informed about any projects in the neighborhood, which included
neighborhood groups, the Castro LGBTQ Cultural District and even the
Sherwin Williams paint store on Ocean Avenue.
Though some on the list didn’t make sense to him, Sakowitz complied,
sending an email and paper notice about a pre-application meeting in early
February 2022 and holding it on Feb. 19, a Saturday, at 10 a.m.
That day, Sakowitz and his designer bought bagels for any potential
visitors and sat on his front steps for an hour. No one came.
Sakowitz was relieved, and thought he had that box checked.
“You hear about people that love to show up and make problems,” he said.
“I was anxious that that was going to happen and it was going to delay my
project, but it didn’t.”
Sider said that the completed meeting, with no objections, meant that the
department could issue a neighborhood notice for a variance hearing, where
neighbors have another opportunity to oppose the project. The hearing was
held on March 23, 2022. No one objected.
The planning department received 118 variance requests citywide in 2022,
Sider said. Its website notes that the process could take a while: “Due to
the overwhelming number of Variance cases, decision letters may take up to
2 months to complete from the date of the hearing,” it reads.
But the neighborhood notices didn’t stop there. Sakowitz said the Planning
Department told him he needed to post another notice, known as a 311 — a
third opportunity for neighbors to weigh in — before anything could move
forward.
Sider said that normally, the Planning Department would have combined this
with the variance notice, but the applicant hadn’t submitted the building
permit application, which is different from the project application.
Sakowitz said no one told him about the 311 notice requirement before.
After that notice was posted and again went without complaints, the
variance decision, which allowed Sakowitz to move forward with the
project, was issued in late May.
“I was like, ‘Great, you guys can start working on the balcony,’ ”
Sakowitz said. “I was totally wrong.”
He said his builders went back to the Planning Department several times
before learning that there was a bill that he hadn’t paid, but he said he
never received the bill. Finally, Planning said that it was misrouted,
Sakowitz said, and he paid it as soon as he could.
“Every time they asked me to do something, I would do it that day or the
next day if I could, because I was trying to keep this thing moving
forward,” Sakowitz said.
Then, he said, Planning asked for the final drawings, which he said his
contractor submitted in mid-July. Those plans were approved the day they
were received, and they were sent to the Department of Building Inspection
to review.
From there, the plans were bounced around the building and planning
departments through August, records show, before arriving back to the
building department for over-the-counter approval. But when Sakowitz’s
contractors called to find out what had happened to the permit in early
September, they discovered that it had been misrouted to the mapping
bureau, which had nothing to do with the project. The building department
had to ask mapping to approve it before it could come back to the building
department, which they did the next day.
Contractors and architects who spoke to the Chronicle were not surprised
by Sakowitz’s timeline and process, but noted that San Francisco’s complex
bureaucracy is why many people doing projects in the city rely on permit
expediters — people who are paid to navigate the city’s layers of red
tape, getting permit applications to the right people and pushing the
process along as fast as possible.
“People who don’t do it every day get frustrated,” said Ernie Selander, an
architect with more than 40 years of experience in the city. “Once you
open the application process, reason and logic no longer apply. … You need
professionals that know what they’re doing to deal with this stuff for
you.”
Where do things stand now?
Finally, on Sept. 23, the permit for the balcony was approved. The process
exhausted Sakowitz.
“Several times I thought about canceling, just not doing it,” he said.
“But I had this safety concern in my mind that the house really needed to
have this feature.”
He said that while he’s glad the planning and building departments check
projects for seismic safety and other reasons, he feels the process was
convoluted, confusing and needlessly lengthy. He was surprised that a
project with no opposition would still take so long to get approved.
Sider from the Planning Department said he understands Sakowitz’s
frustration, and that the main reason his project approval took so long is
that it required an exemption from the rules. He said the department is
working on streamlining the vast city planning codes that give highly
detailed requirements for each neighborhood.
However, Sider said the changes would not have helped Sakowitz — for
example, by allowing balconies to count as open space.
Sakowitz said he thinks that some of the processes and notices, while they
may have once had a good purpose, need to be cut down. At times, he said,
he wished he’d hired a permit expediter. At other times, he said, he
wished he had just gone forward with the project illegally, without a
permit.
Either way, he knows he’s done with home building improvements in San
Francisco.
“I don’t think I would ever try to do a project here again,” he said.
“It’s just absurd.”
Keith Menconi contributed reporting.
Reach Danielle Echeverria: danielle....@sfchronicle.com
--
We live in a time where intelligent people are being silenced so that
stupid people won't be offended.
Durham Report: The FBI has an integrity problem. It has none.
No collusion - Special Counsel Robert Swan Mueller III, March 2019.
Officially made Nancy Pelosi a two-time impeachment loser.
Thank you for cleaning up the disaster of the 2008-2017 Obama / Biden
fiasco, President Trump.
Under Barack Obama's leadership, the United States of America became the
The World According To Garp. Obama sold out heterosexuals for Hollywood
queer liberal democrat donors.
President Trump boosted the economy, reduced illegal invasions, appointed
dozens of judges and three SCOTUS justices.
micky
Dec 16, 2023, 8:22:45 PM12/16/23
to
Did I read about this in the paper, that his balcony was completed when
his kids were 37 years old?
Probably not.
I don't know all the details, but when the apartment building near my
house brought in a big crane, to do some bridge maintenance I think,
that was too heavy for the bridge that leads into our n'hood, they broke
the bridge, and it took I think it's beeen 3 years to replace it.
The only other way in or out had been closed but they were forced to
open it. It takes about 2 minutes longer and the people who live there,
who don't want us, put in, nailed in, 8 new speed bumps, 4 of them where
no one lives. After a couple years, someone ripped out those 4 but the
others are still there.
It took a year and a half or more to get the permits agreed to, even
though there already had been a bridge since 1975 and nothing about the
stream had changed. For months and months, the permit office said that
some of the permits were still not applied for and the apartment
management said they'd sent everything in.
The steel for the bridge was already ordered and delivered and sitting
there for a year or more, in a big rectangular package. If the design
for the bridge had had to be changed, they probably bought the wrong
steel.
It looks like it's been ready for the past week but it's still not open
and no one was working on it most of those days. One day, one guy was
putting about 32 reflectors on it, 8 each side, each direction, even
though no one ever hit the railings of the other bridge, which were just
made of 2" pipe.
In alt.home.repair, on Sun, 17 Dec 2023 00:12:02 -0000 (UTC), "Leroy N.
Cindy Hamilton
Dec 17, 2023, 5:26:30 AM12/17/23
to
On 2023-12-17, Leroy N. Soetoro <democrat-...@mail.house.gov> wrote:
> https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/homeowner-balcony-project-permit-
> nightmare-18524734.php
Snipping your egregious violation of copyright.
> https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/homeowner-balcony-project-permit-
> nightmare-18524734.php
If people don't want to have to deal with building restrictions, they
can just move to Texas or some other benighted location. Apparently
enough people want to live in San Francisco that housing prices are
ridiculous.
--
Cindy Hamilton
T'yon Williams
Dec 17, 2023, 6:29:36 AM12/17/23
to
Cindy Hamilton wrote:
> On 2023-12-17, Leroy N. Soetoro <democrat-...@mail.house.gov> wrote:
>> https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/homeowner-balcony-project-permit-
>> nightmare-18524734.php
>
> Snipping your egregious violation of copyright.
>
Maybe Leroy Soetoro is a graduate of the Harvard School of Plagiarism?
> On 2023-12-17, Leroy N. Soetoro <democrat-...@mail.house.gov> wrote:
>> https://www.sfchronicle.com/sf/article/homeowner-balcony-project-permit-
>> nightmare-18524734.php
>
> Snipping your egregious violation of copyright.
>
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