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Excerpts of the Board of Zoning Adjustments Regular Meeting Minutes January 5, 2012
<br />Page 4 of 7
<br />Member Makin pointed out that Mr. McKinney may not have received the mailed CUP until
<br />later, but he did have it, with the conditions spelled out, in the September 1, 2011 agenda packet.
<br />Member Makin further stated that those conditions were discussed at length during that meeting,
<br />and that Mr. McKinney answered a number of questions, including the hours of operation. Thus,
<br />he said, Mr. McKinney should understand why the BZA feels he misrepresented his intent and
<br />why he's created a serious credibility issue.
<br />Secretary Barros explained that prior to a CUP hearing, the proposed CUP with conditions of
<br />approval is mailed to the applicant and distributed to the BZA. The later CUP mailing to the
<br />applicant is simply a reformatted version of the same document (the Agreement to Conditions).
<br />After the hearing and the BZA vote, she added, the Chair asked the applicant whether he had
<br />read and agreed to the CUP and he said he did.
<br />Member Thomas asked how many times the C &M Trailer Rental facility had been rented out
<br />prior to September 30, 2011. Mr. McKinney said that was the first time, although he had held a
<br />personal party there once. Member Thomas asked, too, what Mr. McKinney's current backup
<br />plan is, in case he encounters another financial hardship. Mr. McKinney said that he makes
<br />$120,000 annually, and if necessary, he can access $90,000.
<br />Acting Chair Houston recalled that at the September 1, 2011 meeting, Mr. McKinney had
<br />indicated receiving and understanding the conditions as well as the filing time required for any
<br />changes. She asked how long after that meeting Mr. McKinney posted the first advertisement (on
<br />Craigslist) about the facility being available for rent. Mr. McKinney said it may have been two
<br />weeks. He said, too, that if this were something that he had planned, he would have been doing it
<br />already inasmuch as he'd been at that location for almost two years. He said that he amended the
<br />Craigslist posting the day after the homicides.
<br />Acting Chair Houston excused the applicant and opened the public hearing.
<br />Robert Legallet, 1401 Griffith, San Francisco, is the landlord and manager of 2661 Alvarado
<br />LLC. He said he would not reiterate what he wrote in his letter (in the agenda packet). He said
<br />the tragedy has been very traumatic for him, Mr. McKinney and other tenants. He explained that
<br />2661 Alvarado LLC is an entity formed in 2005 to purchase the Gardco Lighting plant, and the
<br />LLC isn't a bunch of Wall Street people, a REIT or anything like that. In addition to himself,
<br />those in the LLC are relatives, close friends and some other individuals who operate small
<br />businesses. Mr. Legallet said that when the family's leather tannery in San Francisco went out of
<br />business in 1979, he went the LLC route, specializing in "adaptive reuse" of single -user
<br />buildings as multi- tenant spaces that typically attract smaller, less sophisticated, artisan -type
<br />tenants. He said that even he is intimidated and "thrown amuck" by all the different codes and
<br />things that are involved in running a business over the last 10 to 15 years.
<br />He said that uses in these spaces tend to be hard to define uses, and while the tenants spend most
<br />of their time in their space doing a particular business, he said it isn't uncommon to find a
<br />carpenter, for instance, changing the oil in his car on a weekend. Typically, even if such activity
<br />violates a code, he said, it doesn't affect anyone.
<br />On the Monday after the tragedy, on October 3, 2011, Mr. Legallet said that he called all of his
<br />26 tenants, and reported that not one has moved because of what happened that night. Three
<br />tenants did leave because they were intimidated by being "under the microscope," when five
<br />City inspectors with clipboards came through each unit. Mr. Legallet said he's testifying in
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