Pope

Permit and ordinance violations. Illegal protected native tree removal.

8 54 Wa lker Ave nue – single family residence running 50% of length along public stairwell David son Way and also has frontage along Walker Avenue sidewalks on the front of the house.
1. The owners have illegally removed a protected tree ( California Juniper ) that was approximately 40+ feet tall, without a permit or public posting of their intent to remove the protected tree. (Section 12.6 Protected Trees ) This tree provided a great deal of shade and beauty to the many pedestrians on Davidson Way and to the surrounding neighbors and it is irreplaceable. It has served as a historic and practical tree and the illegal removal is inexcusable. The city is urged to provide the maximum allowable fines and restitution due to the loss of this century old tree. It is devastating to the local neighborhood.
2. The owners is doing a complete construction project around the property , installing non compliant retaining walls without engineering or permits. The property is located in an earthquake landslide zone, and the retaining walls support tremendous weight and the commercial apartment building located above it. There are past permit issues with water drainage and failing retaining walls in the compliance records between the 854 Walker property and the apartment building behind it on Vermont.
3. The current permit to do dry rot repair references a report from McDonald Termite, but it is missing pages 3 and 4 and it was never filed with the State Structural Pest Control Board as required by law to be filed within 10 days of being completed. Online search listed no inspections in the last 2 years as of January 21, 2024. The report says it was done in September 2023. The diagram on the report references A B C D E F G H I , but yet it does not explain anywhere what the report is referring to. The report should not be accepted for the permit since it is not filed with the State Structural Pest Control Board. Large soil removal and excavation has taken place where these A-I marks are on the inspection report, soil has been removed in violation of the moratorium on soil disturbance during this season, and there is no engineering report or approvals to do this work out of season or otherwise.
4. There is a large foundational / porch entry on the left side of the house that has been demolition and is an unsafe access point to enter the home. It is full of rubble and is a dangerous and extremely unsafe entry point and should be tagged and forced to provide repairs or mitigation to this unpermitted demolition.
5. There is a vast amount of demolition with concrete patio being jack hammered up, huge amounts of soil has been dug up from around the house foundation and in the rear yard. Much of the soil has been relocated to the front yard of the property where it has been used to grade the front property and it is in violation of the grading ordinance in many areas and was done without a permit.
6. The entire project is violating the wet season moratorium on soil movement and excavations as they have dug out deep trenches to the left of the house, adjacent foundation in the rear and destabilized a large amount of the rear terraces. As mentioned large amounts of soil was then dumped in the front of the property without adequate approved soil draining or compliance with the requirements for grading. The grading and excavations have all been done without permits.
7. The front retaining walls of the property were covered with approved decorative materials as part of post Loma Prieta Earthquake constructions. In 1991, structural repairs and seismic improvements and were engineered and overseen through the permit process by the city. These very visible retaining walls in the front remain without the approved covering and are not in compliance with the retaining wall requirements. The front retaining wall by the sidewalk, now with a great deal of additional stresses from the many cubic yards of soil dumped from the property rear, the non compliant slope of the newly graded dirt, and lack of adequate water draining being engineered into the soil/yard are all failures to comply with the code and are without a plan or engineering factors being properly submitted to the city for design approvals.
8. While looking up the state license of the person doing the dry rot work and the huge amounts of general work that dwarfs the dry rot work, they list workers compensation as “exempt” which is only for company’s under very narrow and limited circumstances. In all cases, if company’s have any employees besides the owner/licensee, they must carry workers comp and certified to the city that they did have coverage, and there have been seen multiple workers on the site doing work for the various activities, but they are working without workers compensation insurance which seems to indicate they are being paid off the books and that may also violate numerous city requirements for workers to be fairly compensated and to have adequate workers compensation coverage.
9. There is numerous excavations of soil. Relocations of large amounts of soil to the front of the property where it has been regraded at unsafe inclines. No approved storm drain plan is in place to replace the drainage being dug out in the back patio or in the front of the property where the stress of the surcharge even before the addition of large amounts of rubble and soil from the rear to the front. This stress has caused the front retaining wall along the sidewalk to be failing prior to the additional stress added.
10. The referenced inspection report from McDonald Termite, missing pages 3 and 4, and without explanations for diagram letters A-I, was attempted to be verified with the state Structural Pest Control Board as is required by State Law. The online search revealed no inspection reports filed in the last two years (checked on January 21, 2024.) When cross checked with the State Structural Board, the property inspection was never submitted to the state in violation of the requirements to file it within 10 days of it being completed, which was in September 2023.
11. This property has multiple code violating situations in operation and it represents a danger to this fragile earthquake landslide danger zone. The owner has disregarded the law and has removed a protected tree that is priceless, and is recklessly grading, removing soil in wet season, and engaging in many different construction activities that must be stopped and there needs to be forced compliance to halt the potentially dangerous and illegal actions at the property. Please promptly send inspectors to stop this project and take corrective measures as soon as possible!