Description
The owner of 1217 Park St illegally carved a residential unit out of the front commercial unit between 2004 and 2009. No permits were requested or received; no design review was made for the windows which were replaced. The property was sold in January 2016. The new owner replaced more window in illegal unit B without permits or review. A Notice of Violation has been issued that illegal unit B's kitchen, bathroom, heating, windows, etc, must be demolished and returned to the last permitted use. The last permitted use was in 2003; a commercial unit part of the front commercial unit, known as 1217 Park St. The rear unit, 1217 A, is grandfathered in as a residential unit (studio, one room, one bath, alcove kitchen, no closet) per a unit determination in 2004. In addition to he windows replaced without permits when the commercial unit was illegally divided into half commercial and half residential, with not permits, additional windows were replaced without permits in April 2016. My main concern, as a resident of this building, was that the owner contaminated this property and the neighboring property with lead-based paint while replacing these windows. (The paint has been tested, it it lead-based.) It appears to me the landlord has failed to obtain a permit, and has failed to pay the permit fees, which are per window. Also, the landlord has failed to obtain the appropriate review for closing up a window with wood to put a tiny, ugly bathroom window in, when the landlord added the illegal bath without permits. per code enforcement's notice of violation, the landlord is required to demolish the illegal and un-permitted work that created residential unit B out of commercial unit 1217 Park St. Please require the landlord to get a permit for the windows, comply with the commercial code regarding windows, and replace the wood boarding up the bath window--illegally-with a proper window.
also asked...
A. Design Review
A. windows 1217 park St need design review and permits
15 Comments
City of Alameda (Verified Official)
Planning Manager (Verified Official)
Planning Manager (Verified Official)
Planning Manager (Verified Official)
Closed Planning Manager (Verified Official)
Reopened K T (Registered User)
Alameda Building Official (Registered User)
As stated above the case is closed in See Click Fix but is still being tracked by the City. In order to avoid the unnecessary duplication of efforts the City only tracks Code Enforcement cases in one system.
As a result of a Notice and Order, the property owner has pulled a permit to remove all illegal work. As can be seen in the attached building permit, the next step will to obtain a separate permit to restore the property back to it's last legal use. At that time planning will review any required design review elements.
Closed Alameda Building Official (Registered User)
Reopened K T (Registered User)
This permit does not address the three notices of violation out from code enforcement more than a year after I first reported the dangerous violations. The permit must include the removal of the bathroom in Unit B, as that is the bathroom added without permits, and renovated in April 2016 by landlord Sunia Law's workers without permits. The bathroom in unit B is the unit that has dangerous electrical, plumbing, etc. Also, the permit should specify that the heating unit in unit B must be removed, as it was installed dangerously close to an opening (the door), and without permits, when unit B was illegally carved out of the commercial unit. this permit effectively grants a zoning variance without any notice or hearing to the surrounding property owners, who have been denied the very same variance. This part of Park St. is zoned CC, which means the first floor is entirely for certain kinds of commercial, unless there is a grandfathered in residential unit. Attached is the 2004 unit determination showing that the only grandfathered in residential unit at the 1217 Park St parcel is 1217 A Park St, a rear studio unit. The entire front of the building was determined to be a commercial unit known as 1217 Park St. Unit B was illegally carved out of the commercial unit 1217, between 2004 and 2009, and a new bath and kitchen and heater added so that it could be rented as a residential unit. Giving a permit for them to put together illegal unit B, using the illegal bathroom in Unit B, which according to Alameda code cannot be amnestied, is effectively granting the landlord a zoning variance to change commercial unit B to residential. Granting that permit is also just another way to retaliate against the tenants of Unit A for complaining to, and finally about, your Code Enforcement Department employees to get you to do your job of keeping Alameda citizens safe from dangerous code violations. It didn't really work, because I reported all of these dangerous violations by Sept. 27, 2016, and you still have not required that the owner remedy them. A year and three months is a long time to leave tenants and neighbors dealing with the risk of death from code violations.
K T (Registered User)
K T (Registered User)
K T (Registered User)
K T (Registered User)
K T (Registered User)
No work has been done to remove the illegal apartment and restore the unit to the last permitted use, which was commercial, as per the 2004 unit determination. I went in to the city permit department to find out the status of this zoning violation last Tuesday. I was told by David from Planning that a decision has been made that the landlord will be able to keep Apt. B, (the one illegally converted from commercial to residential) as residential, and that the zoning had been OK'd. He could not tell me the reason this had happened, he could only tell me it had been done by the Building Department, Greg McFann, and I would have to ask the Building Department, or McFann personally.
This is me asking: Why has the Building Department agreed to allow a zoning change or variance to this property owner, when the Building Department's own unit determination shows the last permitted use of illegal residential unit B was as a commercial unit? Why allow this property owner to have that variance when it has been denied to the property owners on either side, at 1219 Park St. and 1215 Park St.? Why has there been no notice and a hearing?
Closed Code Enforcement - CG (Verified Official)