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Board holds off abatement at Polk Street hotel, gives six months for permit work with conditions
Summary
The Abatement Appeals Board upheld an order of abatement for a 48-unit residential hotel converted to 51 units but held recording in abeyance and granted the owner six months to secure required permits, conditioned on responding to city plan-check requests within 15 days.
SAN FRANCISCO — The Abatement Appeals Board on Oct. 19 upheld an order of abatement for a residential hotel at 2048 Polk Street but agreed to hold off recording the order and gave the owner six months to secure permits and satisfy plan-check requirements.
Rosemarie Boske, Chief Housing Inspector, told the board DBI discovered in late December 2014 that a building with 48 legal guest rooms had been altered to contain 51 guest rooms without permits. Boske said the permit to legalize or remove the unpermitted rooms was filed in February 2015 but the application remained in intake and, for an extended period, had not been assigned a planner. "We have 15 months here where we've got an occupied space and we do have an operator that we've had some experience with that does tend to do work without permit," Boske said, explaining why staff asked for an order that would prod the owner to move the matter forward.
Owner representative Bob Melki said plans exist and that the filing encountered an intake delay. He said the owner wants to proceed and urged that an abatement record would not help the property to resolve the outstanding permit work. Melki said a CFC (certificate of final completion/clearance) had been issued two months before the complaint, and that intake backlog — not the owner's lack of cooperation — largely explained delays.
Commissioner Walker moved to uphold the order of abatement but to hold recording of the order for six months to allow planning and building departments to process the application; the motion included the condition that the owner respond to any city agency requests for additional information within 15 days. The motion passed unanimously.
The board recorded an assessment of roughly $1,300 in recovery costs related to enforcement activity; the abatement record will be held in abeyance while the owner pursues plan check and submits required revisions. If required items are not submitted promptly, staff indicated the board could revisit the abatement recording sooner.
