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I just sent the following to the consumer advocate at a local TV station.

From: Michael Mahan
Design and Construction
Contractor License Number 395296

To: Marti Emerald
Troubleshooter
KGTV-10

Dear Ms Emerald.

Perhaps you can lend some assistance to Mrs. Martha Leary in the following situation. Mrs. Leary is 80 years old and lives with her sister at 3360 Hawthorne Street. Her neighbors to the west had some work done by David who was doing business as Lima Construction. Mrs. Leary had a back porch and stair on the west side of her house on the property line next to these same neighbors. It was in great need of repair or replacement, so she hired this David of Lima Construction to do the work. She paid him a certain amount in advance and he began the job. He removed the old porch, porch roof and stairs and began replacing it exactly where it was. He assured Mrs. Leary that she didn’t need building permits since he was just replacing an existing part of her house. The neighbors reported her to the building department and it became clear that she did indeed need permits. As it turns out, he was not licensed as a contractor in California. The building department notified Mrs. Leary that she was in violation and would have to obtain building permits.

At this point since Mrs. Leary was a friend of hers, my mother-in-law asked me to do what I could to help. I met with Maxine Brown, violations officer for the City of San Diego, and told her that I would be assisting Mrs. Leary with the process of getting permits. The work that David had done was not to code. The neighbors were concerned that the porch was on their property, even though it had been there since the house was built. In 1956 the property boundary was adjusted so that Mrs. Leary’s property would include this same porch.

Before I spent too much of my time and Mrs. Leary’s money in drawing plans and obtaining permits, I thought I should check with the City Zoning Dept. to be sure that they would allow the porch to be grandfathered in in its location in the side set back. I was told by zoning that since this was a nonconforming use under current regulations the porch could not be replaced.

I informed Maxine Brown that Zoning would not allow replacement of the porch and I advised Mrs. Leary that she would need to have the work removed because of this and because the work was not to code. She plans to do this.

Mrs. Leary is now in the situation where her back door opens onto a drop of about 6 feet to the paved side yard. This is obviously neither safe nor legal. Mrs. Leary was the victim of an unlicensed contractor who did not obtain the necessary permits. The city would probably not have permitted replacement of the porch, however, had it not been removed repairing it would probably have been allowed, possibly without a permit. Now Mrs. Leary is being victimized again by a City bureaucracy, that will undoubtedly force her to relocate her back door at great expense.

You can contact Mrs. Leary at *–, or me by phone at *-**** or e-mail [email protected]

Thank you,

Mike Mahan