Latest news with #VyTran
San Francisco Chronicle
09-05-2025
- Politics
- San Francisco Chronicle
Letters: Despite good experience, S.F.'s building department is still problem-plagued. Here's a fix
Regarding 'Entrepreneur visited S.F.'s notorious building department 80 times in 6 months: 'I got so much support' ' (San Francisco, May 4): I'm happy to hear that Vy Tran had a good experience working with San Francisco's Department of Building Inspection on her escape room project. On my one trip there, I too found the staff to be helpful. However, the story also points outs the department's glaring shortcomings, namely that 'a typical multifamily applicant waits 627 days after approvals to obtain a full set of permits' and that 'the city's building code is 1,000 pages, with decades of lawmakers layering on requirement after requirement, while rarely getting rid of obsolete codes.' Is this any way to run a city, or should I say ruin a city? I propose that Mayor Daniel Lurie create a task force to whittle the city's building code down to something closer to the size of an average novel (300 to 400 pages), then assign it as a summer reading assignment to his entire staff. Stan Barnett, San Francisco Supervisor deserves recall Regarding 'Did S.F. moderates 'rile up' Chinese Americans on recalls only to abandon them?' (Opinion, May 4): Residents of San Francisco's District 4 are pretty forgiving: We didn't recall two supervisors who ended up in prison or those who voted in ways we disagreed with. But previous supervisors met with residents in public meetings, heard their arguments, openly informed them ahead of time what they were planning and took the heat for their decisions. Supervisor Joel Engardio did none of these when he decided to ditch the widely accepted weekend closure compromise to support entirely closing the Great Highway. It's not just that Engardio proposed and endorsed Proposition K; it's the underhanded way he went about it that amounts to what many in the Sunset consider 'high crimes and misdemeanors' — to the point where a recall is warranted. We can't wait until the next election. He doesn't think he did anything wrong, so he'll ignore us again with future important issues affecting our lives. The Chinese American Democratic Club is quite correct, as quoted in the article, Engardio, 'has shown us time and time again that he isn't a leader.' We need a supervisor now who honorably represents District 4. John Higgins, San Francisco Product misrepresented Regarding 'How to know if a charity can be trusted with your money? This one thing can tell you' (No-Nonsense Money, May 4): Cecilia Diem, director of the Center for Civil Society, claims in the story that Charity Navigator's ratings only indicate the financial transparency of nonprofit groups. This misrepresents our comprehensive evaluation framework, which specifically addresses leadership quality and operational effectiveness. Our Encompass Rating System includes assessments across four areas influencing nonprofit success, and only one focuses on finance. Diem also incorrectly claims that Charity Navigator's ratings 'aren't going to tell you anything about leadership or operations.' Our team relies on IRS research and analysis and evaluates organizational effectiveness using evidence-backed metrics. Our Causeway Initiative offers estate planning solutions that leverage Charity Navigator's rating to ensure donations remain effective and aligned with donors' intentions. While we appreciate the Chronicle's focus on informed charitable giving, perpetuating misconceptions about nonprofit evaluation tools undermines donors' ability to make truly educated giving decisions. Michael Thatcher, president and CEO, Charity Navigator, New York Be vigilant about tyranny Winston Churchill called the Battle of the Bulge 'the greatest American battle of the war.' It was the last major German offensive launched against the U.S. Army in World War II in a snowbound forest in Belgium during the Christmas season of 1944. In one of the bloodiest battles in the fight against tyranny, the Allied forces prevailed, eventually leading to the surrender by Germany on May 8, 1945, Victory in Europe Day. In celebrating the 80th anniversary of this historic capitulation, Americans and Europeans would be wise to recognize that tyranny tends to fester and is never fully vanquished. It feeds on the indifference and passivity of those who would allow the emergence of an autocrat to go unchecked. Jane Larkin, Tampa, Fla.
San Francisco Chronicle
04-05-2025
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
Entrepreneur visited S.F.'s notorious building department 80 times in 6 months: ‘I got so much support'
When she first walked into San Francisco's Department of Building Inspections to realize her dream of opening an escape room in the city, Vy Tran didn't have the highest of expectations. She knew its reputation. ' Red tape, fees, unforeseen delays and the feeling that no one really cares what you're trying to create,' Tran said. 'Common themes.' But what could she do? It was the 31-year-old entrepreneur's lifelong dream to create the Bay Area's first combo speakeasy and escape room in the Mission District. She had already signed a lease at 3065 16th St., the former El Tin Tan bar, which had closed a decade before. She was investing her life savings into the escape room, an 'Alice in Wonderland'-themed live action puzzle with brain-contorting challenges, outlandish design and Asian-influenced cocktails. She had no choice but to keep going, and crack a different puzzle, one that has befuddled and exasperated generations of San Francisco builders: the city's famously Byzantine permitting process, which is, by some accounts, among the slowest of any major city in the country. So Tran, an immigrant from Vietnam who made national news in 2019 when she founded the first-ever bulletproof clothing line, became a regular at the DBI permitting center on South Van Ness. She would walk over from her SoMa apartment several times a week. Sometimes more than once a day. In a six month period she popped into the DBI offices 80 times. 'It was nice to have an office to go to,' she said. Tran posted videos about the process on Instagram and Tiktok. When she wrote about her experience on Reddit some commenters suggested the fact that she went there so often was an indication of how broken the permitting process is. 'I was like, 'Guys no, I chose to go. Normal people don't go. I just felt like I got so much support,'' she said. 'When I found out just how many resources were available I kept going. I went there as often as I felt like walking over. Why not stop by the DBI? The folks there are so nice.' Tran's experience is hardly the norm for DBI — the agency has been besieged by corruption scandals in recent years — and averages two stars on Yelp. A 2022 Chronicle study found a typical multi-family applicant waits 627 days after approvals to obtain a full set of permits. The city's building code is 1,000 pages, with decades of lawmakers layering on requirement after requirement, while rarely getting rid of obsolete codes. It has also been rocked by a series of corruption scandals, probes and indictments. Currently, Mayor Daniel Lurie is working on a plan to reform the agency. It's unclear whether Tran's experience represents real change for the agency or the experience of one unusually tenacious and dedicated builder with an irrepressible personality. DBI claims that a newly revamped 'over the counter' desk now issues permits in less than two days for 64% of applicants. Escape rooms — an $8 billion global industry — require teams of players to find clues, solve puzzles in a series of rooms. Tran's escape room, to be called Lore, will include a full-time actor, a flight of cocktails and a 'mad hatter' tea party in the back patio where teams discuss the experience at the end. She said 'at the end of the day it's about helping people make friends.' 'Loneliness is a huge issue,' she said. 'My escape room isn't going to solve it all, but we do need more immersive experiences where people can come together. Bars aren't really the place to meet people anymore. That is just the way things have come to be.' It's rare city building inspectors are the object of anything but bitterness or frustration — never mind undiluted praise. But Tran said she is particularly indebted to David Jones, a longtime engineer and plan checker who manages DBI's the over-the-counter permitting desk. Jones said Tran marched in and made it clear 'she wanted to do as much of the work herself as possible, despite not having planned or built anything like this in the past.' He advised her on how to draft drawings and assemble an application package. 'Vy was a wonderful applicant with a great curiosity about construction and building standards, and an infectious enthusiasm for the unique speakeasy escape room she's creating, Jones said. He encouraged her to use the 3-D design software Sketchup, which would allow her to create her own plans. 'He was the one who said I could probably do it myself. I was like, 'Sure, I can save $30,000?'' Tran said. 'I talked to architecture firms and, my goodness, it's really expensive.' She said learning how to use the software was 'very frustrating,' and she 'quit four times.' 'I'd be lying in bed, angry, thinking, 'Let me try it again,'' she said. After all that, construction is now in full swing on the 16th Street space. Tran designed Lore's multipart mechanical puzzles and hired a Poland-based escape-room builder, A+ Props, to fabricate them. The fully built out rooms are currently on a ship headed to the Port of Oakland and are scheduled to arrive on May 19, 10 days before the escape room opens. Workers in the 16th Street space are putting in the electrical and plumbing improvements, building the bar, a 24-person communal dining table for birthdays and corporate events. The escape room will feature a series of puzzles that take 100 minutes to complete. It will cost $89 per person, which will include a flight of three cocktails. If things go as planned, revenue from the early days will fund more puzzle rooms in a spacious basement, in which she plans a series of go-kart lines carting guests through different experiences. Tran got a grant from the city's new SF Shines program that gives up to $10,000 grants for storefront improvements. She took advantage of a first-time business program that reduced permitting fees to nearly zero. In that Reddit post Tran encouraged other San Franciscans to take advantage of the depressed real estate market — and a possibly even more helpful city bureaucracy — to realize deferred dreams. 'Building in S.F. isn't all doom and gloom anymore,' she wrote on Reddit. 'If you've ever dreamed of starting something, now's the time.' True to Reddit's reputation, not everyone was convinced Tran's experience is a sign of actual change in DBI.
