San Francisco Permitting Nightmares

This post was originally published on this site

I honestly have no idea how I missed this. The San Francisco Chronicle has been running a series of stories on permitting nightmares for two years. The most recent installment is from March of this year. It involves a newly renovated donut shop and the placement of a single sink.

[Rebekah] Ahn’s family has owned Bob’s since 1977 and opened storefronts in the Western Addition and Mill Valley. In 2023, the family decided to move to a new location across from its original spot on Polk Street, turning two adjacent storefronts into one, larger space. Because of zoning restrictions on Nob Hill that limit the size of commercial businesses, the family couldn’t build out the space until city supervisors passed an ordinance in July allowing them to merge the two storefronts. 

As they were embarking on their renovations, officials from the Department of Public Health raised concerns about a sink in a front kitchen, asking for it to be placed in the center of the food preparation area. That worried Ahn, because it would place the sink between two fryers — close enough that employees could be burned by splattering oil. 

Ahn met with an inspector from the health department and showed her planned layout for the new bakery, she said. Emails reviewed by the Chronicle show that the inspector agreed to Ahn’s layout in July 2024.

The bakery’s contractor proceeded with the renovations, but when a new health department inspector arrived to conduct a final survey of the restaurant in mid-January, she told Ahn that the sink was in the wrong place and that Ahn needed to move it, or install another one near the front of the store.

City documents later revealed that a senior inspector had reviewed the changes and agree that placing a sink between two hot oil fryers was a bad idea. In short, the city fully approved the changes and then tried to make the owner spend thousands moving the sink to a different location once the work was done.

Fortunately for Bob’s Donuts, the new Mayor came by the site for a visit and agreed that the changing approval was ridiculous. Hours later they got a message from the city saying their sink placement had been approved.

Last December the Chronicle published another story in the series based on a homeowner named Jeff Cobb who wanted to add a garage to his newly purchased home. But there was a problem. To build a driveway to his new garage, he’d need to move a small tree and a shrub.

In order to build the driveway, Cobb would have to remove the Japanese maple and another topiary shrub on the street. In San Francisco, the Bureau of Urban Forestry, a division of the Department of Public Works, requires a permit for the removal of any street trees or significant trees, as the department aims for “San Francisco to have a thriving, robust urban forest.”

The Japanese maple qualified as a significant tree, so in January 2023, Cobb and his permit expediter — a private consultant hired to help usher permit applications through San Francisco’s planning and building departments — applied for the permit, with plans to remove and replace the tree and the shrub.

Then, silence. Cobb said he heard nothing about the tree for months until, in July, the permit was denied — with no explanation.

It took a month to set up a meeting with an inspector. Finally in September, the inspector agreed the tree could be removed so long as a replacement tree was put in place, something which had been an explicit part of their written plan submitted to the city in January. Then he still had to go through a public notice which meant putting up a sign about the tree, presenting at a public meeting and waiting 30 days to see if anyone would complain. Finally, after a year, he was allowed to remove the tree.

“It took a year to get the permit and five minutes to saw the tree down,” he said.

But that wasn’t the end of the saga. In April, when the permit for the garage was finally approved after being held up by the tree removal, Cobb was surprised to find he was charged a $3,000 “extension fee.”

That’s right. After delaying his project for a year, the city billed him for not starting construction quickly enough. And let’s look at one more. This one involves a small Mexican cafe owned by Hilda Mendez.

Due to a 311 complaint and San Francisco’s Kafkaesque permitting rules, the tiny restaurant is now at risk of going under.

On Nov. 7, the city Public Works department ordered Mendez to remove her cacti — which have been there since the café opened [20 years ago] — deeming them a danger to the public and alleging they blocked the sidewalk. The city also cracked down on the small tables and chairs that Mendez placed outside her café after the pandemic to attract more customers after COVID almost forced her to close…

On Thursday, another letter from the city came in the mail. It stated that Mendez needed to remove her outdoor tables and chairs until she received a valid permit — which could take two to six months and would likely cost several hundred dollars — and permanently remove those by the curb due to use restrictions. If she didn’t remove the tables, she would accrue an escalating daily fine starting at $100.

Attached were multiple surveillance photos of people eating, drinking and laughing at four small tables that in no way blocked the sidewalk.

You would think San Francisco has bigger problems with its sidewalks (homeless people, drug dealers, vehicle thefts, human poop) than a couple of old cactuses, but not so. The cactus police were all over this, for public safety.

Fortunately, a Google search reveals that this small cafe survived and is still in business. But you have to wonder how often people just give up when faced with city officials deciding to randomly enforce rules they’ve ignored for 20 years because some random busybody complained.