Board grants jurisdiction on late plumbing penalty appeal at 356 Golden Gate Avenue

The San Francisco Board of Appeals on July 13 granted jurisdiction to a property representative seeking to challenge a plumbing penalty for work at 356 Golden Gate Avenue.

Sohel Subedar told the board he paid citation fees and applied for a permit after plumbing work but missed the 15‑day appeal window after being referred among several city staff. "I'm requesting that I be given the opportunity to apply, to have my citation fees reimbursed back to me, by virtue of this jurisdiction request," Subedar said.

A Department of Building Inspection representative said the department had "no objection" to granting jurisdiction and noted the matter will come back as a penalty appeal if jurisdiction is granted. Commissioners said Subedar's failure to file within the 15‑day window appeared to be inadvertent and that the board’s role was to ensure fairness in processing. Commissioner Frank Fung moved to grant jurisdiction on the basis the process was not made clear to the requester; the motion passed 4–0.

The board’s action restarts Subedar’s appeal timeline: staff recorded that the appellant now has a new five‑day period to file a formal appeal on the penalty. The board noted the penalty reduction authority is limited—the most the board could do at a later hearing is reduce a penalty by up to two times, depending on the eventual hearing outcome.

Next steps: if Subedar files within the new five‑day period, the case will return to the board for a jurisdictional hearing and, if jurisdiction is granted in that hearing, a subsequent penalty appeal decided on the merits.