Oh, heavenly day!
We got the permit!
Pardon me while I dance a little jig in celebration.
You see, this is a small San Francisco project legalizing an existing secondary dwelling. We are doing this through a special program San Francisco offers, which allows owners of houses with unpermitted second units, to legalize those units without penalty. My client bought the house with the unpermitted second unit and wanted to legalize.
Legalizing provides the owner with several benefits, not the least of which is a higher property value and the potential to ask higher rent. It also puts both the owner and the tenant on more solid legal footing should there be any disputes between them. Not to mention, once the project is completed, the legalized unit will comply with all the relevant building codes.
We applied for this permit way back at the beginning of September of 2015. Between the back log of permit applications in San Francisco, and responding to City comments, we are only now, 8 months later, receiving our permit. When we submitted the application, they wrote “EXPEDITED REVIEW” across the top of the application.
Yeah. 8 months is an EXPEDITED REVIEW for a small project in San Francisco.
Fortunately, we have been working with a contractor from the very beginning. We hope to start work in the next 3 weeks.
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