them. >> . good morning. today is wednesday , january 17th, 2024. this is a regular meeting of the building inspection commission. i would like to remind everyone to please mute yourself. if you're not speaking, the first item on the agenda is roll call. interim president alexander tutte present commissioner chavez present. commissioner newman present. commissioner shaddix present. commissioner sommer and commissioner williams present. okay we have a quorum and next

is our land acknowledgment. mr. william mr. senator, all of us, i think, are logged out. oh no one. okay. just one moment. well we'll get everyone signed in, but you could go ahead. sure. thanks. i'll have to project the mic. i can't turn it on. okay just one moment. i'm going to turn everyone mics on for a moment. okay? go ahead. the building inspection commission acknowledges that we are on the unseated ancestral homeland of the ramaytush ohlone, who were the original inhabitants of the san francisco peninsula. as the indigenous stewards of this land, and in accordance with their traditions, the ramaytush ohlone have never ceded loss nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. as guest, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors,

elders and relatives of the ramaytush ohlone community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. thank you. okay. for members of the public that may be listening in our public comment call in number. is (415) 655-0001. the access code. is 26600604544. the webex webinar password is 0117, and to raise your hand for public comment on a specific agenda item, press star three. when prompted by the meeting moderator. so, um, next we have item two, president's opening remarks. good morning everybody. um, this is our first regular meeting in january. and this

next two months are going to be characterized by several special meetings, uh, that i wanted to bring to the public's attention on. later today, we will be scheduling our two special budget meetings. uh, last week, we had our fee study, special meeting, uh, and that will consume a lot of the, uh, a lot of the time. and the focus of this commission. so thank you to my fellow commissioners for hanging in and for your in advance, for your thoughtfulness . uh, the only comment i want to make today, we have a relatively short agenda is to thank the director and the department for your continued and steadfastness , uh, commitment to upholding the highest, um, standard of ethics and that we continue to walk this journey while, um, you know, bad practices in the past continue to be revealed. and i know that that's difficult for folks who have been around for that. um, and it's difficult when it's people, you know, but it's important. and we continue

to, to move forward. and, uh, with this important work. so, um , that's all that concludes my remarks for this morning. thank you. is there any public comment on the president's opening remarks? um, seeing none. the next item is item three. general public comment. the bic will take public comment on matters within the commission's jurisdiction that are not part of this agenda. public comment okay . if you could, um, project the power point there it is. okay

oh, this is the wrong one. i'm sorry. okay. this is the right one. thank you. i'm ready when you are. okay. okay. go ahead. yes. the fbi expanded compliance control program was created in 2021 as a way to ensure that contractors design professionals, building owners and their agents fully comply with the building code sec requires dbe to track significant violations in all parties associated with such violations. this is not happening in. um, one second.

i'm having a little problem here. the dbe ic program is ineffective and poorly managed, and when i prepared this for individuals should have been added to the ic program list. jenny santos todd van nguyen, john pollard and harold howell after i prepared this, todd van nguyen was added. john pollard has 20 of the 783 notices of violation on on the department's ic tracking list. he has 20. his structural engineer, who works for the structural engineering company he owns, has 11. so why aren't they on the ic list? but the other thing i'd like to mention is that 19 of the 73 noves don't have a contractor number. that's unacceptable.

individuals on on the ic program are listed subject to these requirements. you have that slide. housing code violations need to be included in the dbe, ic program. a recent article in the san francisco standard mentioned 11,000 dbe compliance are filed each year. the average number of days to close the complaint is 40 days, and 20% of the complaints are never closed. that's unacceptable. dbe is on pace for 3000 novi in 2023, 6,007, two thirds of those are housing complaints and there are no housing complaints in this program. the bic needs to conduct a formal review of the ic program. dbe should be required to present a self-assessment of the program

within the next 90 days. at a future bic meeting. thank you very much. is there any additional public comment in person or remotely on personal? focused overhead? please. i'm waiting for the folks to thank you. could you fit that in the full screen? i don't have the you can try to adjust it. i'm not able to do that.

interim director versus acting director is not an interim position. a lateral executive transfer, a qualified veteran, permanent director from another department transfers to another department for temporary interment coverage. while a permanent director can be found and placed through almost two years of a nationwide search. why did the bic not put a classified ad in the ic? see who codifies the codes and adopts, uh and adopts the codes for i would assume it would be at a greatly reduced cost. did the national search disqualify candidates with a four year college degree to only focus on high school graduates? does the internment, uh, director have a right to revert back to their permanent position? why did president angus mccarthy and commission appoint college engineer graduate? uh, both acting and permanent tom huey a college degree was a minimum qualifications for the position.

who changed the minimum qualifications? the bic and the civil service commission. question mark. okay. uh is there a big is there a pay difference between acting and interim? and i thought acting only received 5% more salary. google transparent california civil service commission. uh uh, civil service commission and ethics commission. and the federal government should investigate to ensure there are no impropriety. proprietaries if director o'riordan was only acting, uh, qualified and misclassified by the building inspection commission as interim, then a refund by director reardon is due. if there was an error in the compensation to refund the dbe coffers, it probably was an unfortunate oversight. but the bic commission led by president angus mccarthy, the chief building inspector official test is a test that less than a day to take and there are online preparation classes that you can pay for a lot less. uh uh, hours than a four year college degree. uh previously required under the

minimum qualification. uh the total pay and benefits for director reardon is shown online in google's transparent. california is almost 350,000 per year. um director reardon was appointed interim in march 18th, 2020. this overlaps the timeline overridden states in his deposition from my recollection, available online from, uh, mission local joe dennis richards. uh, if you google that, uh, that he or reardon talked to bernie, his direct subordinate, to not go out of his district over a period, i believe, of 4 or 5 years, but appeared to take no corrective action or disciplinary action over in years ago, could have transferred koran to a non field position in the department with very little customer interaction to eliminate the million dollar investigation. that seems to be, uh, take many years. like the gas pipes encased in concrete to include reference 147 wood street. does a reardon hold himself at all responsible for the failing to take the prophylactic action against

karen? it appears to me that the media and the feds are the persons responsible for the unprecedented arrest and convictions. uh, not the department. it seems like the only time the department takes action is when they have to. when i was hired and a reardon was hired, both were interviewed by three separate independent local jurisdiction chiefs. sir, you need to conclude directors now. all the, uh, hirings are taken from the inside. thank you. is there any remote public comment? okay. thanks seeing none. um. item four, discussion and possible action to follow the board of supervisors. remote public comment policy that eliminates remote public comment , except when necessary, to enable the participation of people with disabilities. um, is there any public comment on this item? first? any remotely. okay. um, commissioner. this is a

similar item that we had at our prior meeting, but we have to take a action this meeting as well. i can just say what i said in the previous meeting. i don't think we need to be closing, uh, public comment online. i know it hasn't posed any challenges for us. i think we especially because we meet on a weekday, it might pose better opportunity for more people to engage in our commission hearings. i think we should leave this open. um and that's my those are my thoughts. thank you. commissioner chavez. any other comments? um no. i concur, and as i shared in the last meeting, um, it knowing when you need an accommodation is not always something that's as easy and predictable as written in as the statement might say. um, as someone who

has my child here who has a disability that doesn't flare up very often, and it didn't expect to have him here with me today. um, i know that sometimes it's last minute calls and you don't have the time to make the arrangements, so i think the most accessible thing to do is actually to keep this open. um, as well as, and to maintain the current policy, um, as well as, uh, to, to, to encourage participation as well. okay thank you. um, if there are no other commissioner comments, is there a motion regarding this item. the motion would, it seems to be, would be to continue with, uh, remote public comment for the building inspection commission. yes. i'll make a motion to i move that we continue the, uh, receiving remote public comment. okay second. okay, so there is a motion by commissioner williams and a second by commissioner chavez. um, public comment on the motion. um, seeing none,

i'll do the roll call. vote um, interim president alexander toot. yes commissioner chavez. yes commissioner. newman. yes commissioner. shaddix. yes commissioner. sommer. yes and commissioner williams. yes that motion carries unanimously. okay next we have item five. discussion and possible action regarding board of supervisors ordinance file number 23116, amending the fire code to require filing with the fire department. records of five year inspection on a five year sprinkler systems mandate a filing fee to ensure that the cost of providing for such filings are recovered without producing revenue. that is significantly more than such cost and require a minimum five feet access from the public right of way to residential structures. on newly divided subplots. thank youoners, i'm cl noceda, legislative affairs manager, here to present on this

ordinance, which would amend the fire code to require five feet of access to residential buildings on newly subdivided lots. this ordinance is sponsored by supervisor connie chan. and this morning we have francis shay from supervisor chan's office to share some comments with you. and this over to you as well. on uh, good. good morning, president alexander. commissioners and director reardon, uh, my name is francis shay, and i'm legislative aide to supervisor connie chan. uh, supervisor chan apologizes that she's not able to be here personally to attend your commission meeting. and speak on this item. um, however, with the later start time, she is unfortunately chairing budget committee. right now, so can't be in two places at once. um, i will be reading a letter, uh,

from her on this, uh, that i think answers some of the questions that were raised at the ccac and, uh, you should have all now received that letter. so i'll just read it into the record. um dear commissioners, uh, in recent years, we have seen an increased demand and pressure to build more housing. we've seen the pressure from the state level and locally, the incredible need for affordable units. this has led to both a sharp increase in marketrillionate housing, as well as more creative solutions to create more units. with the limited land we have of um, especially on the west side of town, this means more dense lots and we need to make sure that these new units and that should be developments. sorry. developments have to continue to be safe and have adequate access for our public safety team. my legislation makes two main changes to the fire code in order to address two safety concerns and residential developments regarding equipment maintenance and access for safety personnel. i believe only

the access issue is under the purview of this commission and is before you today for approval. but i also understand that the code advisory committee had questions regarding the sprinkler inspections. i will attempt to address those questions quickly. the first thing this legislation does is to require that building owners file their records of five year inspections of sprinkler fire sprinkler systems and annual inspections of fire alarm and detection systems with the fire department currently, our existing fire code requires periodic inspections and a posting of these records, but there is no uniform uniformity. uniformity. sorry in where these notices are posted and with no filing requirement, we don't have a central or standard way of knowing whether buildings are in compliance. sprinkler systems and alarm and detection systems are our first and most basic line of defense in cases of fire. that's why these inspections exist in our fire code. this change is intended to

improve compliance with this important part of our fire code, and ensure that critical safety equipment is in good working order. i also included cost recover for the department for this new filing, because i am mindful that when we create new processes or requirements for city agencies, we also must ensure the departments have the resources to implement the new legislation. the second main thing this legislation seeks to do, and which is before the commission for consideration today, is the requirement of five feet of access from the public right of way to residential structures on newly subdivided lots to ensure that in cases of fire, our firefighters have the access for themselves and their life saving equipment. i have worked closely with the fire department to determine their operational needs, and that require a minimum of five feet of access to residential buildings on these subdivided lots. these these two changes have been

combined into one piece of legislation since they address the same policy concern. fire safety in our residential developments, both preventative measures as well as urgent safety access. as i see these as both sides of the same coin when it comes to protecting our residents and our residential structures. as a city, we should realize that all our codes work best when they are taken as a whole. instead of individual disconnected policies. i hope that this answers the cac questions and this commission's questions, and i hope to have your support on this legislation . thank you for your consideration today. thank you. thank you. francis. commissioners, i'll provide a bit more background on the ordinance and just want to note right now that we're also joined by the fire department's chief of operations, darius lautrup, and fire marshal ken coughlin. fire marshal coughlin will come up in just a minute to provide some more information for you as well. but first, some background

on the ordinance, which, as francis francis said, contains two separate amendments, one requiring the filing of sprinkler and alarm inspections with the fire department and then the other requiring five feet of access from the public right of way on newly subdivided lots. today. i think that second piece should be your focus, because the access requirement, though, in the fire code relates to lot split applications requiring ministerial review by debbie under senate bill nine from 2021, and that is why the ordinance has been referred to you for a recommendation. some background info on sb nine or refresher for those of you that remember sb nine requires ministerial approval for the subdivision of a parcel in a single family zone into two parcels it facility. it's the creation of housing units in the lot area typically used for one single family home. key provisions in sb nine include that the local agency modify or

eliminate development standards on a project by project basis, if they would prevent or otherwise prevent the construction of up to two unit of at least 800ft!s in size on both lot, both resulting lots. if you could go to slide three when you get a chance, monique. so the fire department has determined that it's operational needs require a minimum of five feet access to residential buildings on subdivided lots and the existing fire code does not address the minimum access to the public right of way. for residential structures on subdivided lots. so, as i mentioned in the last slide, dbi reviews application to subdivide a parcel in a single family zone into two parcels under sb nine and an application made under sb nine must be considered ministerially without discretionary review or a hearing. though dbi may apply objective standards to those

applications, and the five foot access would be one of those standards. i also just want to note that that requirement would be subject to administrative bulletin 005. the procedures for approval of local equivalent houses. next slide. so again there are two pieces in the ordinance. the first requiring the filing of inspection records for sprinkler systems every five years in the annual inspection of fire alarms and a fire alarm and detection systems, annual, as well as the filing fee for the fire department. and those requirements will be enforced strictly by the fire department. so what is more relevant to dbi, again, is that second piece of the ordinance, which, as i previously mentioned, would require that when an existing lot is subdivided, that lot must have five feet of access from the public right of way to the new residential building for any emergency escape and rescue openings. next slide. so the

code advisory committee met on january 10th. during their discussion, the code advisory was supportive of the five foot access requirement. and then they did request some clarification on that inspection piece that francis just spoke to. so a reminder for today, your action would be to make a recommendation to the board of supervisors on this ordinance, whether a recommendation of approval or disapproval. and either way, you could make any number of suggested modifications. so that concludes my presentation, and i'll invite fire marshal ken coughlin up .

good morning, president alexander. commissioner sumner williams, newman chavez and director o'riordan. um my name is ken coffin. i'm your fire marshal in san francisco fire department. i just wanted to give you some additional context of what give you a visual, more of what's actually happening, and i'll invite chief of operations. uh, darius fletcher up to explain. he's the one in charge of fire ground operations. and that's what this is all about. um, as we build additional housing in, uh, somebody has to put it out. something happens. right? emergency will happen, and we want to be there. so uh, on the screen here, you show what the legislation will allow. and this is from the planning

department's website. a typical west side home 100 by 20. you can build a two up to two two units in the back as uh, carl had mentioned. but if something was to happen in the back, how do we get back there? um, what is enough distance for fire ground operations? and we say fire ground operations. we talk about how do we get ladders, hose people and rescues to happen. so we didn't just come up with five feet out of the blue. we actually actually asked our members to go out there and try different ways of how they would access these spaces. do you need ten feet? 15ft? you know, i, i live outside of the city. in suburbia, you have anywhere between five and 15ft for property, for lot lines, right? this bill is really meant for almost every other jurisdiction except san francisco. we have zero lot lines. our topography, our hills, everything about it makes it much harder for us to act out. so we went out and we tested. and so this is an example of what a three foot opening a tradesman to a unit in

the back looks like. is it enough space? what happens. so as you can see by these pictures, four firefighters carrying a 35 foot ladder, which is approximately a little over 100 pounds, carrying it to the back while somebody else is trying to drag a large three inch charged three inch line and charging that at the same time makes it very, very difficult for us to fight a fire. uh, the new regulations allow up to a 20 foot tall building to be built in the back, with four foot setbacks from the property line fences, so you can have two units 20ft tall, 80ft, 75ft farther back off the street. and without this change, we may be limited to whatever three foot access that we have to get back there now, three feet, trying to carry that ladder in the normal manner wouldn't work. do you see the other picture did show them carrying it on the side, which is a little harder, but you're not getting people back and forth. if somebody had to go back to the engine or back to the truck, it just wouldn't

work. so that's why we came up with the five feet. um it's an objective standard. it works for san francisco, so we're not asking for anything extra. we're just wanting make it safe and make our allow our people to work. so i put this in here just this was a recent fire. 720 masonic and this just to show you, if you look on the back on the on the right hand side is a tradesman entrance on the picture on the left you can see it on the sorry, on the left, on the right picture on the right, on the left hand picture. that's all we had to work with to get to the back of this building. and you can see what the back of that building looked like. just let you know, in that fire, two people had to jump off the third story because there was no requirement for a back stair for us to be able to get back there, treat them, put them on a gurney and take them to the front. if you have hose lines and people going through the front, how does it all work together? so i just want to let you know that that three feet is not enough. we need five feet. and there are other means to get that. um, for

them it doesn't close everything off as we know right now. on the west side of town, if you walk it, people, you don't have a tradesman entrance anyway. you're going to have to create access to the rear lot when you do a split. when you do a split, we're just asking that that that access is a minimum of five feet. thank you. uh, i will invite chief lecher. i just want to explain. kind of fire operations about how many people, most people would be surprised about how many people show up. if you say, i have a smoke in my building or a fire in a building that's kind of open, he can kind of explain how they operate. good morning, president alexander. commissioners director. i'm deputy chief of operations darius fletcher of san francisco fire department and, uh, fire marshal did a great job of explaining our operational needs . um, and we did assist with the presentation here today. um, i will correct one thing. that latter actually was closer to 180 pounds. so it is difficult to carry it in a suitcase carrier. another modified version of the carrier than than demonstrated here. um, the other thing is the size of the ladder

is important to us because the example from masonic shows, um, once there is a fire in the rear unit, it can cause has spread to other buildings of dissimilar height, and we will need the additional height with flexibility and operations is of utmost importance. so 35 foot ladder would be the choice as demonstrated by the masonic fire. um, with zero lot lines. the constant threat for the san francisco fire department and the city of san francisco is conflagration that this fire was already impinging on its two, uh, structures to the, to the north and the south of it and had the potential to spread greatly. um, there is a legacy form of construction in the city of san francisco. we often see carriage houses or other full size victorian structures behind victorian structures and parts of the city where that was a common practice. these are very difficult fires for us to fight. so with. with the introduction of the senate bill, um, that was

our experience going into the conversation. and for the needs of operations. um we talk about the resource, and that's why the chief asked me to speak today. so for any report of fire in a structure like this, you're going to receive four engine companies, two truck companies, a rescue squad that's 30 firefighters and obviously seven pieces of equipment. immediately you'll have the overhead of three chiefs. you'll have an ambulance, you'll have an ems supervisor there. you'll have a public information officer. a lot of people. and then any incident of this size masonic, um, went almost immediately to a three alarm fire. that's a significant amount of personnel that are trying to move around the area of operation directly through this tradesman. it would be a number, a number of trips. and for the example of the armstrong street fire that that narrow tradesmen did immediately. um, once companies had reached the rear of the building become impinged by the fire and was not accessible for the extrication of the two people who were forced to jump

from the rear. and we did have to use, um, access through the fence line in the rear. and the tradesmen and the, uh, adjacent address. so the ability for us to have that space is, is directly, directly operational, necessary for us. and if i have any questions, i'd be happy to answer them. thank you for your time. do we go public comment? okay. thank you. is there a public comment on this item? any in person, any remotely? okay. then. uh, commissioner discussion. okay um, commissioners, any questions? uh, commissioner newman. yeah, i have a question. so without this , a new development would still or a new, uh, adu built would still have to be reviewed by fire, correct? it would just be be more discretionary. sorry. uh

commissioner newman, can you rephrase that question for me? sure. so so when someone is proposing to do a lot split and potentially build a new adu, they're still subject to the dbe review and fire review. okay. and this is just setting a minimum. correct? correct. yes. they still will have to do the review. this allows planning from the beginning when that application is submitted to point to it. and say, hey, there's a five foot requirement that um, but there still. so it would sort of take a little bit of the discretion out of making the determination as to whether or not something correct. it helps with the ministerial review of it. five feet, is it there? yes. okay. so there's two different ways. we're doing a lot split with a flag lot. we have to get to the back. obviously you're talking average in the west side 20 by 100 foot

lots. um okay. and so how do we get to the back lot. they are going to have to provide some type of access now. it's the size of the access is what we're working on or what we want to have codified. because ministerially they can prove to it i have five feet. fine. if it's going through an existing building, we're still requiring the five feet, but you can still build above, you're still dealing with a rated corridor that allows you to get there with a couple of sprinkler heads. so that area is safe so we can still get to the back. so yes, it still will be reviewed. it just makes it easier. it's something to point to is, hey, that's the minimum requirement. um, is there? so this is for dbe staff. is there an administrative live bulletin presently that helps uh, with interpretation of this, uh, once this gets approved? yes it's waiting to be able to put that bulletin to be able to explain all of that to everyone. um, so if this gets passed by the

board, the expectation is to release an informational bulletin that explains that required moment. thank you. uh, commissioner shaddix, thank you. uh, thank you for the presentation. um, i'm generally in favor of this, um, moving forward. um, having been in this town for about 40 something years, i've been front row and center to some fires and, uh, um, and i currently live in a newer building that has everything that you just mentioned. and i feel great knowing that our firefighters or rescues folks can get in our building several different ways. so i am in generally, i support this and i just wanted to, uh, thank you all for what you guys do. and all the women and men that, uh, serve our city, putting out those fires and saving us. thanks okay, commissioner chavez, thanks and thanks for the presentation today. i have to admit, i'm, um, of two minds. i think what you

all have presented is incredibly important. and i would love to actually hear what the average like access to public, um, right of way is, um, if you all have any idea of what that is, do you know what the average access is? what line? most most single family dwellings have access to the front door. the difference is, is we to get to the rear lot, we don't go. we're not going to go through the front door to go back down the stairs or go past a lot. so there's plenty of access. now with the creation of adus, as you know, we have junior adus, which are attachment of the of the original, um, dwelling. and then we have attached and detached adus in the rear. this is not affecting those. those okay. those are those are smaller. so the access to those are usually we're allowing through the three foot tradesman entrance. it's a lot smaller. um, there's a maximum amount of i believe it's

1600. don't quote me on this. i think it's 1600 square feet and a detached a2 could be in the rear. so it's a it's a smaller, less of a hazard. the problem, not the problem. the concern with sb9 is you can put two dwelling units in the back of a house. it could be 20ft tall, four feet from the property line. it's the amount of fire load that's back there that kind of makes us find the need to improve our access. um, so that's really what we're aiming for. so yes, there are different situations and what you're going to put this is solely for a lot split and on occasion those lot splits might be with just the singular adu and somebody could choose to split a lot and just decide to put an adu on their, on their back lot, be subject to expanding the their public. yes. because that person could decide they want to add another unit later on. so at the time of making the arrangements to

purchase or lot split or anything else like that, the map needs to show that there is a five foot access because we don't know what's going to happen in ten years or five years from now. but before all of those things are built, they are subject to fire. review correct? yes, correct. we review all of those. yeah. um, some require, some don't. new housing, you know, require sprinklers. adus do not require sprinklers. if the original unit does not have sprinklers. but if it does, you do. so they're going to be you never know what you're going to get. really? yeah and sorry to clarify. just the last point is if you looked at a review, a plan and you thought, okay, you only have a three foot entrance, but i need you to have a five feet entrance because of something particular about this lot. under the current rules, are you allowed to do that, do a lot, split? no. under the current rules, there's a lot split proposed being proposed. and the entryway is three feet. and you think for whatever reason, based on your review that you need a five foot? do you have the discretion to mandate that under the current rules? no. that's i

think that's what we're aiming for here under a law, in order to have a five, the you do not currently have the ability to mandate that someone comes in with plans, expand their correct. we're trying to work on this with the minister. review is very simple. five feet is what you need. you're doing a lot split that will be there in perpetuity forever. no matter what you plan on doing that rear lot or how the things change. so i understand the ministerial place, but i still a bit confused about whether or not you have the discretion to require a five foot entrance in a in in one. if i come in with a set of reviews for my lot, split and it has a three foot width for the entrance and you based on your review, think it needs to have five feet? do you have the discretionary now to say you need to make this five under sb nine, we have a discretion to say four feet, four feet. we're asking for one more foot okay. so the current is four feet. and for sb nine yes setbacks are allowed to be up to your allowed to go up to four feet. you could go less than that. but it says you allow a maximum of four

feet. we are trying to expand that one foot. so we have a little bit more room to work. i see that was the clarity i was looking for. thank you. um commissioner chavez, are you, um, i just wanted to finish up my comment really quickly. i, um , i believe i'm on the same page as my commissioners here, where i do think this is incredibly important because this is a very real risk. um, and we also are facing a very real housing crisis where our, you know, part of the intent of adu law and sb nine law is to ease the increased development and density on lots, um, and i do think in certain situations like what we just were discussing, where there might be just one adu that you can already have access to, that you don't need the increased, um, access to for a lot split. asking the property owner to then increase that just for doing the lot split might be a deterrent to them. so i'm i'm just saying that a i think it makes sense for this to be a discretionary thing, as we were asking. and i think that's why commissioner alexander was

asking if that's something that you could do upon review, too. um, and when folks are going through their permitting processes as if they were to add a secondary unit after the lot split, if that's something we could add. so just trying to understand the different scenarios in which this could apply. my concern is discretionary review. what person do you say yes to. and the next one you don't. do you want to put the same rules to everybody? hence the reason why sb nine comes out and says you meet the requirements. yes. okay. it's allowed. we take the discretion out of it. and i think that's what we need to do because we don't know what's happening now. another thing i noticed in sb nine being is on the west side. there are no trees or majority don't have tradesmen leading to the rear lot. so something's going to have to be done anyway. so if you're going to have to build three foot access, why not a two foot access now? it also says that if you tear down that front building and you build it in the same footprint, it's considered an existing building. so no majority to actually build those

units in the back are going to have to do a serious modification. if not a total demo. and rebuild of the front unit to provide access. and we're only saying is, is when you build that access to us, can we get 24 more inches than the standard tradesmen? i acknowledge that if you are on a zero lot line with no tradesmen, ali, that asking someone to do five feet instead of what's existing isn't not a big ask because you have to do it regardless. but i think the concern here is where we have preexisting buildings that have tradesmen in alleys. it's going to be a huge deterrent to say from from splitting your lot. um, if you have to create an additional two feet. right, uh, of, of expand your existing tradesmen alley, that is just, you know, you're going to have to cut into your building, you're going to or you're going to have to do something that is a huge building alteration. um,

and so i it's i'm also of two minds. i recognize the safety concerns. um, san francisco, you're right. this law was not written for a place like san francisco, where we have zero lot lines and we have all of these things. um, but i think that's why we should leave it to a more discretion review. um no. sure. um, well, i first, excellent presentation. uh, but you, uh, and the fire department in general, and from what i've heard, i think an objective standard is wise and, uh, for me as a commissioner sitting on this commission and hearing, uh, the statements from the fire department, i am of the mind that if the fire department is saying it needs to be five feet so we can address this, uh, uh, you know, fire the fire concerns unique to san francisco and be

able to, uh, protect the public health and safety. i think that, uh, i would be in support of that. and i haven't, uh, heard much otherwise. and with the discretionary review, i to me, like, uh, fire marshal mentioned, um, you know, how do you establish, you know, there's issues and problems with, uh, uh, what is the scope of discretion there? and how do you how to manage that and enforce that? so, uh, i a great presentation and i'm, i'm in favor of it, but the reason why i pinged in here was to address the other portion of the legislation. and to my understanding, the code advisory committee recommended splitting the legislation and i was wondering if, um, supervisor chan's, um, uh. i'm sorry, i didn't get i didn't write the name down fast enough. so. francis francis. oh, yeah. francis. uh, if you could, uh,

comment on why, uh, the code advisory committee's, uh, position that it shouldn't be split or that it should be split. why these two, uh, sort of distinct, uh, matters, uh, should be addressed in the same legislation. um, thank you very much for the question. uh, commissioner, as, um, a supervisor chan's letter pointed out, if we're going to touch the fire code and we're especially addressing, um, you know, a problem that we're seeing, which is, is, uh, access to these, like, fires in our more dense neighborhoods where and in our new buildings and how we're developing it, then we should look at it as a whole. you know, they're both trying to address the two parts of fire safety. one is, you know, of course, access when you have a fire and making sure that you can get there. but prior to that, it's also thinking about making sure that all of our preventative measures, um, are part of that too. and, you know, if we're

going to tuck it's, you know, really, um, as a policy maker, her choice is that if we're going to touch the fire code, if we know we want to do two separate things, we should do it once rather than do it 2 or 3 or four times. um, you know, this actually could probably be broken up into three pieces of legislation, but it's all all addressing the fire code and it's all trying to address the same thing from a policy perspective, which is fire safety. right. and sprinkler systems detect alarm detection systems and, you know, access for our safety personnel are all part of that safety, you know, policy concern. so in her perspective of, you know, let's do it in one legislation, we can have the fire department come out and talk about it. once we can have like the same people come and talk about it once. instead of going through all these different, um, pieces of legislation. i mean, as somebody who sits at the board of

supervisors and, you know, has to review hundreds and hundreds of pieces of legislation every day, any time when you can combine things. and actually they kind of make sense to combine. that's when, you know, she chooses to do it. other supervisors may choose to do it differently. this is just the choice she's made. and uh, to answer the sb nine discussion, um, yeah, just one point on on the requirements under sb nine. it actually prohibits discretionary review. so the departments have to use objective standards. and so the five foot access would be the objective standard for these application reviews. but the current law says four feet. correct. i would have to rely on fire marshal coughlin's expertise for that. but that's my understanding. yes they have to move it. that's true. that is true. the current sb nine does say four feet. so it's a mandate for you. can the local jurisdiction can require up to

four feet at this particular time. um, so right now we would be saying we would ask planning and building and ourselves wouldn't accept anything less than four feet. okay. that's the current. that's the current right now. that's the current law. we're asking for 12 more inches. yes. okay. so can i just repeat this so i can get it right in my head. so the average tradesman enter the entrance is three feet. correct well that's typically the doorway then you got gas meters in there. now you're down to two feet. at some point. right. so it's three. so under. so it looks like if the current is four they're expanding anyways. and you're asking for an additional fee. five. yes 12in. um and carl did bring up a great point. there is no discretionary review with this objective standard. that's helpful. the point about discretionary review is helpful for me. what's difficult about the building and these building codes is they once it's built, it gets grandfathered in. and so we're making a decision now about what is fire safety look

like for the next 50 to 100 years in these buildings weren't built yet. and you know, as things get built, we don't have the ability to go back and say, oh, we should have passed this and so if it's looking like we're going from zero line or three line, we're expanding anyways, and we don't have a discretionary review. um, i'm in a position where i'm moving to support this legislation, but i'd like to hear from other commissioners or my other commissioners. can i just touch on one other thing, commissioner williams had mentioned regarding that first part? um, the only difference on when it comes to the certificates or the submitting of the five year certificates is our current code just says that people still have to get it has to have to have their system serviced. the only difference is, is they hold on to certificates unless we go there and ask them to see it because we think they didn't do it. the only difference is it's ensuring we're finding a process for people to submit those. and when people don't now we can be proactive and find those people and remind them that needs to be

serviced. that's the only difference. the reason there's a fee associated with it, because obviously there's people power that have to go behind it, because definitely we're going to be finding people that have not serviced it. somebody has to go out there and do the paperwork and the interaction with the with the building owner to ensure that the system has been serviced. that's the only difference is, is we're asking them to send it in to us, and we have to have a tracking system and be able to react to those not being done. that's the only reason that's in there. it's just a different way. we're holding the certificates. thanks. i really am leaning towards, um, using the state mandate. i think we're wherever we're limiting, we're making it more difficult to create more housing. and the state number here, i'm sure, was researched and arrived at for good reason. and i understand that san francisco is a difficult place, and maybe i have a tradesman alley that meets that

requirement, and that one foot more is going to stop me from doing the work. um, if i have a zero lot line and i have to do the work anyway, you know, i would hope that you would, you know, consider widening. um, but and i understand that it makes the job harder, but i think we have to balance existing conditions with future conditions with the very real world problem of creating more affordable, more, more housing in this city. period um, we don't have enough of it. and anything that's going to further limit that, and especially if it's pushing against the state law that was meant to increase building housing, um, i, i, i tend to, to oppose. um from what i understand, sb nine says that, uh, the, the setbacks and the

access can may be up to four feet. so we would have to pass some sort of ordinance or to say that that's not what the city has decided is required. right. does anyone rob my understanding is that if that's what the state law allows, we would not have to pass an ordinance to go beyond that. we would. which is why this is before you. yeah. um then i'm with. well, i don't, especially after listening to you all today. i don't really think that this is like a one size fits all solution. it does sound like a pretty case by case basis, and i understand that we can't do a discretionary, um, process. um, and with all that said, i, i am, um, with commissioner newman on this. i do think that we should defer to the state. uh, we have a very

real housing crisis. i don't think i have to tell anyone in this room that and i think and the challenge definitely is that we have to balance what we're building for the future and what we have in existence right now. um, and i think that the, the best thing we can do is really follow what state law is saying. uh, deputy city attorney rob kaplan. i'm if it aids the commission in this, i think the key with dealing with sb nine and the need for objective standards is to determine the state at which or determine the conditions at which the city cannot say no or must say yes. and so setting this would say, if you meet this standard and it flies through, that's the streamlining condition. um, if it's no longer sb nine compliant because it does not have that, the city would have discretion at that point to look at a case by case basis, potentially. um, the other issue here is if you have a four foot setback, that wouldn't include the sprinkler requirement. so if you just go with the state mandate, i don't believe the state mandate requires sprinklers for that four foot access way. if it's in

a tradesman. so you would also lose that requirement. so there could be something much more nuanced that says if you don't meet the four foot requirement, then you have to do this sprinkler. if you are starting with a zero lot line, then you have to the deputy city attorney, rob kepler. there it would be impossible to set out all the conditions at which there was an objective standard. right. but i think the at least the way i would look at this right now is where do you want to set it? where the city. we'd say if you come in, you meet this it flies through. that's really the goal of dealing with sb nine is finding the this is the discretionary point or this is the point at which we no longer have to look at anything else other than you've met these standards. but can you address that to current conditions. so if you are you you would not be able to set the baseline at current conditions that change with each project. that would be discretionary. so you need to set an objective minimum standard that at that more objective standard at which if

you meet it, we don't have to look at case by case studies. you've met that condition for this property. and so property owner knows when they come in. i'm going to design it this way. and then i'll meet it. not i'm going to design it to try and keep the current tradesmen and then see if i can get a discretionary approval or something less. so i sorry to interrupt, commissioners. um, we did, uh, found out that there was an issue with the remote public comment. so there are a couple of people that are on the line that would like to add public comment. it's okay if you can try to see if the if i have that wrong. from a fire code perspective, the fire marshal wants to speak to that. okay uh, before we do that, uh, did the fire marshal want to make a comment, uh, regarding the comment that deputy city attorney coppola just made. i just wanted to concur with, uh, deputy city attorney on this. um

. the discretionary versus the non non discretionary. i mean, he hit it right on the nail there. um i'm just going to leave it at that. i kind of lost my train of thought, but i thought it was very perfect how you stated that. rob thanks. i would say sorry. and deputy city attorney rob coppola, to be clear, um, the state says set these objective standards, after which you can't say no to a project. so this standard we those projects would move through. i believe. and that's why i wanted to make sure i was correct. we would still have discretion in slight deviances from that. possibly we have a local equivalency process. so those would be the areas where we would look to see if there are other things that would be just as safe, and the fire and dbe could look into those. but under the state law, we can't do that for a project that meets the minimum standard. and so if a project comes in, it's four feet, but it's not sprinklered, it has obstructions. we otherwise do not think it's safe

. if it's four feet, state law would say you have to greenlight it. we can't look at it as a case by case and ask for other protections that might make the spot safer for subdividing the lot. so to clarify, if we if this legislation were in effect, someone who comes in and says, here's my five foot entrance, we can't say no. but if they come in with a four foot entrance, there, that the department would have discretion on in order to, uh, city attorney rob coppola, from a sb9 perspective, have it no longer meets an objective standard. so it's no longer a ministerial project. so it doesn't. then there could be discretion and there could be factors that the fire department and dbe could weigh as to whether or not this has an equivalent safety factor, but they're not allowed to look at those factors because it's a ministerial review. if it meets the minimum five foot standard. so we're not. so this legislation is not saying there must be a five foot for any lot split. there must be a five foot

width just for those who apply, who trigger the sb9. it it would set a five foot standard for subdividing a lot. we have a process for providing, you know, local code equivalency that you could go below the minimum standard potentially. it is a case by case standard. we do it with other types of building projects now where you have to find some sort of way to make it equivalent. and i'm not saying it would always exist or ever exist, but this determines the threshold at which we no longer have to do all these case by case studies. if you come in, you meet this standard. those are the ones that fly by without further review. it slows the process that's understood significantly. but if somebody were to come in today with a three foot tradesman entrance and our standard is four. in the state standard is four, which we as are is also that is also our standard. so that would also it. uh, city attorney rob keppler, i believe we would say it does not meet the current objective standards. so it's no longer a sb9 project. so any tradesman

entrance does not meet the sb9 standard. i wouldn't know in every case if they all meet that standard. so okay, any any three foot entrance or any three foot tradesman entrance would not meet the current sb9 standard, would not meet our current sb. we enforce a four feet or greater. it wouldn't meet ministerial means to be approved, but the you could under the you could make tweaks to make it safer under our our code because our we don't match much of the rest of the state. so we have this special discretionary piece where we can say, okay, and let me know if i'm not understanding this correctly. we can say, you can, but you have to have a sprinkler system because you don't have enough egress or to counterbalance or, uh, yeah. deputy city attorney rob kaplan, i want to distinguish between

sb9, which is this requirement for the if you meet these things , it's sort of like a checklist. if you can check yes on all these boxes, that's it. there's no other review that has to come in. generally most projects all building permits across the city have been discretionary. but sb nine says take these out of your discretionary bucket. if it meets all these check boxes. so this is trying to create a binary check box where you can say it meets this or it doesn't. if you would not are not able to check that discretionary box, then you would have to go in and ask for a discretion. ask for the discretion of the departments to determine if there's a safe way to meet it without meeting that check box, you're no longer sb nine. you're not subject to the timelines or the ministerial review. right. and so we're but there are discretionary lines, right now set by the state. and we're asking to make them more stringent. yeah we see that's what we do at our our building code. our fire code can go above the state mandates if we have unique characteristics. and you have to make those findings when

you have an ordinance. i believe this ordinance reference is then okay, triggered, triggered by trader thought was yes, we know it is the ab oh five over the building departments administrative bulletin. and that's an equivalency. so they do that for lots of different projects. if you don't meet the letter of the code is what are you going to give us that makes it just as safe. right. what could work for us both the building department, the fire department get together and agree that this is equivalent. so if you came in with four feet, yes. they would not be the sb9. it would not get a ministerial stamp. instead it would go through the normal process to say, hey, i am doing this extra. it's not a typical tradesman, it's extra safe. i'm not sure what this would be included, but they may come forward and ask to do the four feet. the difference is, is they don't get the immediate stamp. yes, move on to the next thing. this is now you're in the ab. oh five process of planning meetings and discussion with building official, the fire official to see if it meets the requirements based on what we know and how we operate here in san francisco. thanks, rob.

thank you. uh, president is it okay to do the public comment now? okay. so uh, we are going to, i guess, reopen the public comment. um, there was a caller the 925 prefix. we are about to unmute you now. the caller um, would you like to speak now? yes. thank you very much. um good. still in? good morning, commissioners. corey smith, on behalf of the housing action coalition. uh thank you for giving the opportunity here. um, our san francisco organizer has sent in a coalition letter, uh, that we had had put together with a couple of other organizations related to this ordinance and a really kind of interesting conversation that sort of developed on on the fly here related to how sb nine works. um, and what the requirements are. and four feet and five feet, um, pieces, a couple of just sort of high

level comments on it. and this was a little bit discussed. san francisco does have unique lots that are generally relatively narrow. um, and while certainly fire safety is top of mind, housing is as well. and we need to figure out a way to have these two things work together. and to my knowledge, nobody within kind of the design and build community was was consulted when this legislation was drafted. um, and so we are fearful of some of the unintended consequences when it comes to reducing potential housing production. as it relates to this ordinance. um and so i really feel like we can get a middle ground there and would be open to participating and trying to be productive in getting something across the finish line that accomplishes the shared goals of fire safety and building more housing. and then there's the overall kind of intersection of state law and how it impacts locally. i've got sb nine in front of me, and while we did not spend a ton of time on it, um, it does relative , as i understand it clearly say that the setbacks or the side yard, um, access points up to

four feet. and so just really want to make sure of how we are interacting with state law. so we don't again, hit an unintended consequence and get in trouble with the state and have our local laws contradicting what is required by the state itself. and i thought the city attorney did a great job of sort of explaining how all of that works, but just kind of wanting to flag that for everybody as well. and then a last point. this is, again, an area where i hope we can be helpful in this similar conversation is going in a bunch of different cities. and so looking at other cities and seeing what some of the other best practices are could be potentially helpful in trying to find that, you know, fire safety, housing production, sort of middle lane that we're all trying to achieve. um, thank you very much. i appreciate the time . thank you. caller. and uh, miss calhoun, we are going to unmute you now. um, if you could try to unmute yourself. oh,

there we go. great thanks, everyone. hi, my name is sabrina calhoun. i'm a local architect. i've been practicing for 22 years. uh, in the bay area. i'm very opposed to this legislation . um, the most recent ordinance, uh, the constraints reduction allows for 20 foot wide subdivisions now in the city. and this legislation requires a five foot, uh, setback open to the sky as it's currently currently written. it's not a tradesman alley. so that's effectively going to make these lots unbuildable with only 15ft of, uh, of buildable area, buildable width. um, in addition, you know, it doesn't say anything about sb9. this legislation is not written in a response to sb9. it's for every subdivision in the city. so i have a project right now with the 100 foot lot. we're subdividing into 25 foot sections with the, you know, primary dwelling adu and j. adu. um, that would make these only 20ft wide in every case, which would make them almost again, unbuildable, uh, this is going to have a significant impact on

the ability to create housing in our city. and it concerns me as an architect that our community was not even, um, approached to discuss this. this was introduced only in november, and it's already moving through the basic, you know, but this is a big deal. well, the six section that the fire department, um, cited that fire at 720 masonic. that's an old housing project with no second exit and a very narrow tradesman alley with electric and gas meters in it. that is not the case of a subdivided lot that's got new construction. modern new construction is required to be sprinklered. it has to meet significant fire safety standards that were not in place when our original housing stock was built. so i don't see this as an apples to apples, um, you know, straight safety concern. i see it as an overall each in making a major change to the to the building code that has, you know, over 100 years of tested and measurable data. so i think this really requires a lot more study, a lot more people from

the community. and i'm in strong opposition to seeing this be approved today by the hbic. thanks so much. um, thank you. i believe there's no there's no further. there's no other hands raised. so that concludes the public comment. so back to you. the president, president alexander, to um, thank you. is there so i have a question about the legislation. um, i think this is there are there two um, francis shea or to, um, the, the dba and the city attorney. so i'm looking at the requirement on page five of the legislation, and it says new residential buildings on all subdivided lot shall have a minimum five foot width with clear access pathway open to the sky from the public right of way. and then that's where i'm seeing open to the sky

. and then in the second it says for lots with existing buildings constructed across the entire width of the lot, the front of the of the lot, new residential buildings at the rear shall have an access corridor with a minimum of five foot height clear access pathway from public right of way, and the new residential building, blah blah blah. the minimum width access corridor shall be equipped with fire sprinkler. so can you address this question about when is it required to be open to the sky? if there's an existing trades men open alley, but so therefore it does not appear to go across, you know, can you tell me when does it require to be open to the sky and when is it not required to be open to the sky? so this fire code amendment would allow for both if the current building is constructed across the entire width, there would have to be a tradesman corridor five foot wide for ministerial approval under sb nine, if the building is not built across the entire

front of the lot and there was room for this five foot wide access to the public right of way open to the sky. um, so it would allow for both. okay. so it allows for both. so it doesn't require that somebody who has a corridor existing then cut off a bunch of their building in order to have an open to the sky corridor. that's not the requirement in this situation. correct. it does require that that, uh, corridor be sprinklered. um, but not necessarily open to the sky. and why did i understand the wedding part? i wanted to clarify the opening in the sky, because that part had not been discussed, and i wanted to clarify my understanding. um is there any other discussion on. is there a motion? i have some discussion here. so for the commissioners expressing opposition, uh, i, i'm just looking to be enlightened because i'm, i've

heard a presentation from the fire department and fire marshal saying this is the bare minimum that they need to be able to address, uh, fire concerns in, in the back of these lots. uh, and your the opposition is saying, well, the state says it's four feet. and so to be clear or are you contending that the fire marshal is incorrect, that they don't need that bare minimum five feet? or is it is it something else or if i misstated the fire department, okay, then then i'll leave it. anybody who any of the other commissioners who want to, uh, present their position if or address that concern, because that's my so that condition, that condition does not exist throughout the city of san francisco. and so we are fighting fires every day that do not meet those conditions. so i understand that ideally that would be the condition. but to me it's a balance of safety. this like safety concern, which is very real. and i recognize that with what further

restricting the law would do to the creation of additional housing stock in our city. and i think that it would negatively impact our ability to effectively use the state law that has been passed out so that is that is my stance. i also think there's a difference on like when you're building a new building, if you can build a five foot access way for better fire department access than you should, you should do something like that. well, a lot of the buildings in san francisco i know don't have like commissioner newman was saying, just don't meet those standards. um, i do think that obviously poses some level of risk. and, you know, asking folks to cut off feet of their building when maybe three feet is four feet is sufficient. um, seems like a very costly, like, huge barrier

to state law that okay, so but so my position here is the fire marshal and the fire department is saying it's not sufficient. and you're disagreeing with that is that my is i don't want to mischaracterize what anybody saying. but if or and i don't want to mischaracterize what the fire department's reported here, i want to be informed. uh, so i know that my position here so they still have the discretion if the four feet requirement stated by the law is not met to have additional requirements in order to create a safe condition , then it still requires sign off from the fire department. if you're not meeting that state standard. and so that is the condition with many of the existing buildings within the city of san francisco. but rather than them just being pushed out like they would being saying, oh, you don't meet the

standard, right? um it leaves a little more space for, i believe , for projects to be able to go through ministerial review rather than discretionary review. right if we're asking for that much more so if the standard tradesmen alley in san francisco is three feet, it's still not meeting that four foot requirement. but it's still goes into that discretionary review pile, right where it's like you do not meet the ministerial requirement. so in order to potentially approve your project, you have are subject to this discretionary review process, right. and so that's how i see it is like we're pushing we're making it we're making it the barrier that much higher. before you go into that and it's easier than to say no. well easier to say no wonder

which standard under the new objective or what the proposed five foot objective standard is or the status quo four foot objective standard. i think we're asking for a more stringent, stringent requirement, which what that does is that pushes more people into that discretionary category or more potential housing projects into that discretionary category. and i, i do think the sprinkler piece should be broken away because i do support that piece of the legislation. um well, i suppose i can i will just continue to opine here, but, you know, an issue. one reason why this objective of versus discretionary, i think, is important as me, a commissioner on the building inspection commission, is just i

my observations whether where there is discretion involved in these planning and permitting processes, it is, uh, more susceptible to abuse. right. and that is something that is, uh, topical, prescient. i think, for all of us on this commission. so, uh, i guess this isn't really an opinion, but more of a comment on my on my part for why i think an objective standard more than the discretionary standard is what i would be in favor of an objective standard does exist. it just exists in a less stringent way from the state. it's a lower standard that this fire department in this jurisdiction says is not sufficient for their needs. and and that's it. okay. so is there going to be a motion or what are what are we doing. on i'd like

to make a motion that we approve , um, ordinance 23116, as is. is there a second? i second okay. there is a motion and a second to approve the legislation. i'll do a roll call, vote on the motion. um, interim president alexander toot. yes commissioner chavez, no. commissioner newman, no. commissioner shaddix. yes yes, commissioner. summer yes, commissioner. williams. yes okay, then the motion carries 5 to 2. i'm sorry. 4 to 2. motion

4 to 2. okay thank you. okay. um next. then we have item six, director's report. um, six. a director's update. thank you. interim president alexander toot and members of the building inspection commission. i'm patrick o'riordan, the director of the department of building inspection. as the new year is getting underway, i want to share some of the progress we made in 2023. and to highlight a few of the improvements we made to better serve our customers and the city overall. in 2023, we created a new online portal for many solar permits using solar, a-plus and just last week

learned that we received $100,000 state grant to offset our implementation costs. we also built online tools so customers can submit record requests online and receive copies of plans electronically. d.b. relocated the information counter from the first floor lobby to the permit center on the second floor, adjacent to the help desk and over the counter permit application review counter, bringing all of our frontline operations into the same area created a more cohesive and sensible layout for over the counter permit applicants and for our staff. as we discussed in november 2023, uh was also a year in which we saw some of our earlier efforts to improve the permitting process, such as pre-planned check and dynamic staffing. assignments begin to really produce results as compared to january. our october permit

assignment times were 33% faster, and we conducted the first plan review at at the building station, 43% faster. that's a full three weeks faster in october versus january, a terrific overall gain in just ten months. in may, we offered a comprehensive proposal to support the mayor's housing for all directive, including teaming up with our city partners at the end of the year to implement a new 100% digital in-house review process using concurrent electronic plan review to provide better fast service at less cost to the applicants. we're continuing to improve on this new process and just last week added a new page of in-house review forms and applications portals to make it easier for customer to find the documents and submission pages needed to apply for a building

permit. and the results review function in the permit tracking system that we introduced in july substantially improves the transparency of our of our reviews and applicant revision time and activity, including documenting the number and nature of project rejects. d.b. responded to unexpected challenges by being thoughtful and forward thinking. after a series of high rise window um uh, breaks in heavy winds. um, we commissioned a study that that revised the facade ordinance to provide additional guidance and require additional inspect sections to prevent this from happening again on when anonymous complaints targeted small businesses, we streamlined the process to legalize commercial awnings without unduly penalizing the proprietors. uh, in 2023, dbe also played a critical role in

helping to get the city back on track. uh, we lead the way on code changes and clear. soon to be published guidelines supporting commercial to residential, commercial conversions and conducted joint inspections to help fill vacant downtown buildings with pop up businesses. there is no question that we have more work to do, but i'm tremendously proud of our staff and for what we've already achieved, and i'm grateful to you, commissioners, for the support and encouragement you've given to all of us throughout the year. and i do want to give a special shout out to our administrative staff, who worked very hard through the whole day period, uh, to facilitate being ready for administrative bulletin 1114 um, and i can promise there's much more to come this year. and this concludes my director's report. thank you. our next item is six b update on major projects.

okay good morning again, commissioners. the following slides are intended to highlight the volume and valuation of projects costing 5 million or more that have been filed, issued or completed in the past month. we will profile a few projects that bring especially high value in terms of their contribution to housing and community assets. in december 2023, six permit application with an estimated construction value of 5 million or more were filed with the department for five of those permits were for a new sfpuc community distribution division, headquarter at 2000 marine street and those were collectively valued at 149 million. another was for a new

13 story, 179 unit mixed use building at 1515 street, that one was valued at 40 million. and we have the next slide, please. uh, last month we issued two high value permits with a total valuation of 52.5 million. uh, one was for a new eight story, 92 unit affordable housing building on state owned land at 850 turk street. uh, that was valued at 39 million. and other was for a new four story school building. at last international school at 3270 18th street. uh, that was valued at 13.5 million. and uh, lastly, we filed for four high value permits. two were for the construction of a new six story, 105 unit affordable apartment building on treasure island at

one avenue of the palms, which has been readdressed to 55 cravath street. uh, these two permits were for the construction of the new apartment building and repair of major water damage and were collectively valued at $50 million. another was for exterior renovations of an apartment building at 2211 stockton, which was valued at $10 million. thank you. thank you. um, our next item is item six, update on proposed or recently enacted state or local legislation on. hello again. interim president alexander tute and commissioners, i'm carl nicita, legislative affairs manager for dbi. my legislative update will be brief since the board of supervisors was on recess since your last meeting until last week on slide number two, the ordinance making technical edits to the findings

supporting our local building code amendments passed its first reading at the board of supervisors last week, and it will have its second reading at the board's meeting next tuesday. second board president aaron peskin's ordinance amending the existing building code to require buildings with 15 or more stories to conduct, and submit supplemental inspections for windows and glazing systems, will be heard by the board for its first reading at its meeting next week, and just to update you, president peskin did accept the amendments that you recommended at your last meeting. so thanks for your thoughtful consideration of that ordinance. next slide. another ordinance that you considered at your last meeting was the ordinance to temporarily or temporarily suspend the vacant commercial storefront registration and fee after discussions with dbi staff, the mayor's office requests a continuation of this ordinance to a date to be determined and if it remains a priority, it will be contemplated as part of a broader, broader budget. planning process. because of the fiscal impact that it would have

on dbi. you consider the other ordinance on this slide amending the fire code earlier in the meeting. next slide, the two ordinances that you considered in your october meeting are still pending further amendments . the ordinance to clarify the approval process for accessory dwelling units and the ordinance to extend the deadlines for the accessible business entrance program. i will keep you updated on those next slide. i just want you to be aware of an ordinance amending the housing code to authorize occupants of residential dwelling units to sue to enforce the prohibition, a prohibition on substandard housing conditions. that ordinance has been referred to the land use committee for a public hearing, and as director o'riordan mentioned, a resolution authorizing dbi to accept and expend $100,000 from the california energy commission for the costs associated with the adoption of solar plus an automated permitting platform for residential solar installations, was recommended

for approval by the board's budget and finance committee and will be considered by the full board for approval next week. next slide a quick note on hearings that dbi has been asked to participate in a hearing regarding the timeline for lead and asbestos remediation at the richmond senior center on geary boulevard, and the consequences of extensive closure of parts of the senior center on its operations and service delivery. we've been asked to participate in that hearing with human services agency. that one's been scheduled for the public safety and neighborhood services committee next thursday, and a hearing to discuss san francisco's efforts to prepare for respond to, and recover from a larger earthquake, including a status update on the soft story retrofit program will be held by the land use and transportation committee in the near future, not on january 22nd. as the slide says, and next slide. just a reminder on the legislative deadlines coming up in sacramento on january 19th,

legislators have the have to submit bill requests to the office of legislative counsel on january 31st. is the last day for each house to pass bills introduced in that house. last year, and february 16th is the last day for bills to be introduced. so i expect at your last meeting we'll have some state legislation to discuss. thank you. thank you. our next item is six d update on inspection services. good afternoon, commissioners matthew green representing or acting deputy director representing inspection services. um, first slide please. okay um, in this in december of 2023, the building electrical and plumbing division's conduct dated 9377 inspections, 90% of those inspections were conducted within two business days. of the date requested by the customer. barely meeting our target of 90.

um, next slide. in the same month, our housing inspection services conducted 802 inspections, with 84 of them being routine inspections of multifamily housing. uh, next slide please. the building electrical and plumbing divisions received 327 complaints and responded to 100% of them within three business days, exceeding their target of 85. additionally our code enforcement division sent 44 cases onto director's hearing. uh, next slide. uh, lastly, our housing inspection services received 305 non life hazard complaints and responded to 88% of them within three business days for life hazard and heat complaints. housing received 45 complaints and responded to 82% of them within one business day. housing inspection services also abated 336 cases with the notice of violation, and sent 31 cases on to director's hearing. um, that concludes my presentation.

i'm free for any questions you may have. no thank you. okay thank you. um, next we have item six e update on dbis finance. good morning. commissioners. deputy director, administration, alex koskinen. first slide, please. so this is the monthly regular financial update. 50% of the year has elapsed to date. dbi has collected 48% of its budgeted charge for services revenue. and for the first time, this year, we've done an analysis to try to determine where we think we'll end the year, where we think our revenues will come in, and where we think our expenditures will land. and we have determined that based on the year so far,

we project collecting approx. $2.83 million. um having having a revenue shortfall, i'm still hopeful that revenue will pick up and that the past few winter months are slower than normal and we can expect to pick things up. but at this point, with what we know so far, it seems prudent to project out a current revenue , um, which would result in a shortfall. however, on the expenditure side, we believe that we have some, um, room to save and we will make sure that that we don't spend more than the revenue we collect. and we can we can create a. corresponding $2.8 million expenditure savings. so we will not we at this point, we do not plan to use any more of our fund

balance. this fiscal year. and then on the salary side, um, we are projecting spending, which is our biggest expenditure item. we are projecting to go over a little bit in salaries. and that's primarily because our budgeted attrition is just too low. so the assumptions made for budget is that i think 15, 18% attrition. and we're just seeing that we're not having people leave and we're able to hire people faster. so our actual attrition rate is lower. next slide please. so here are the revenue numbers. you can see the only projected variance from budget at this point is in that first line charge for services where we expect to only recover 44.2 million out of our, um, $47 million budget. next slide please. and then on the

expenditure side, side, we are projecting eating. we can confidently project out salaries because those costs are known. we know how much people's salaries are. we know approximately when people will be, how long it will take to onboard them. when we hire who we choose to hire. so those those numbers were fairly confident in and then the remainder of the savings we plugged into non personnel services, we're fairly confident that we will experience savings in most expenditure categories. so material supplies services of other departments. we've had expenditure savings there in prior years and it looks like a lot of especially work orders are trending below uh budget. budget. so our workers comp budget we have less people injured and less people receiving workers comp payments than than budgeted. our utility

payments are slightly less than budgeted. our our, um, central shops. so our fuel and vehicle maintenance costs are a little bit less than budgeted. so we're confident that we will have savings all over. but for now, we're just projecting all of that savings in non personnel services, which would be savings in it. we'd probably have to if we needed to create $3.4 million of savings in non personnel, we would delay major it projects like cloud migration which is important for the city and for safety and resiliency. but if we had to save somewhere it would be there and slowing down hiring. so at this point we think we will come in as expected with no additional use of fund balance. but we will continue to monitor and then these projections will be updated again at nine month. so

in quarter three of this fiscal year and that will be we'll have at that point three quarters of the year passed. so we'll have an even better idea of where we'll end up on expenditures and revenues. next slide please. so on the permit side it's very similar similar story to last month's report where we have more for permits than at this same time this year we've processed more permits. however the valuation of those permits is lower. so we're doing more smaller projects, fewer bigger projects. next slide please. and again to highlight, as i believe i have in the past, the larger buildings. the 100 to $200 million buildings. we haven't gotten any of those projects this year. and the two we received last year were uh, more than explain on the difference between this year and last year.

so it's very difficult to project when those buildings will come in. a big project might have an entitlement, but then they might not actually apply for permits. for many years. so it's difficult to project. hopefully things pick up in the second half of the year, but we will at this point continue to monitor and that is it for my presentation. last slide please. i'd be happy to answer any questions. thank you. is there any public comment on the director's report? item six a through e! there is .

one. thank you. okay. can begin. my name is jerry dratler. alteration of inspection records and the dbe permit tracking system bts by dbe employees is likely illegal because it's illegal to alter public records. the first finding in the controllers september 2021 report addresses the lack of proper system controls to ensure complete data is entered into bts and to prevent, after the fact changes to recorded to die expense. instead sections. i'm going to repeat that prevent after the fact changes to recorded dvi inspections. the pic should ask deputy city attorney kaplan to issue a

written opinion in the next 30 days whether dbis after the fact changes to inspection records in bts is an illegal alteration of public records. the alteration of dvi inspection records should stop immediately. i have one more comment and my comment is dbe presents performance data on how quickly they respond to complaints and how quickly they perform inspections, but they issue no performance data on an execution and the pic should ask for the execution performance data. for example, how long does it take to close an nof? how many novis are open that are over a year old? et cetera. et cetera. because you're only looking at the front end, you're

not looking at execution. and dbe has a historic problem on execution. thank you very much. okay. is there any additional public comment? yes, i've seen the thing. same thing as mr. dratler. uh that the focus of dbe is on a numbers game. it's typically, especially in code enforcement when they say permit research. sometimes this goes on for years, but if they put down permit research for, uh, uh, within the first two days. oh, we responded in 48 hours. and then as i spoke in my deposition in the mission local, joe harbor, uh, dennis richards case , um, i talked about the fifos.

those were the files placed in directory reardon's office for certain people. there's been no explanation from director reardon. while i was in code enforcement. uh, there were a lot of, uh, uh, people who notified me and dropped off, uh, papers of all these files placed in our reardon's office, sometimes for years. you know, unexplained. look at 24 ord street that i retain, i believe the only copy that was deleted from the dvi computer for a connected contractor as mr. dratler mentioned earlier, this was a jerry dratler project. or not. jerry dratler. i'm sorry. uh uh, john pollard project and harold howell project, where they claimed there was an existing basement. there was no existing basement. uh, and, uh, that was all approved. and i believe i recall 2178, uh, uh, pine street, where there was merely a facade hanging in the

air. why wasn't that declared an illegal demolition? okay. thank you. any remote public comment? okay. seeing none. item seven. discussion and possible action on the proposed budget of the department of building inspection for fiscal year 20 2425 and 2025 2026. hello again, commissioners. before we begin, i'd like to mention that this is the first of two budget meetings and we're still at a very early stage of budget development, and not much has been put in. there's a lot moving and changing. in january, our budget submission is due in february. if we can go to the first slide, please. here is a timeline, a budget schedule of all of the

key milestone dates. so we are in our first of two required basic budget meetings. the second meeting is being scheduled right now. it will be in early february. we then on february 21st, all departments submit a two year budget proposal. all except for possibly mta, but departments submit two year budget proposals to the mayor's budget office and to the comptroller. then in march march through april, the bic will recommend proposed legislation to adopt the new fees. as previously discussed in um, our our fee study, that has recently been completed and also that legislation will address other things such as, uh, adjusting the fees going forward and some other possible administrative processes in

february to through june. after the department submits its budget proposal, the mayor's office takes over. it's their phase of the budget. they develop their proposal using the department's proposal as a base. they make their technical and policy changes and then on may 1st, last year, it was june 1st this year, and typically it's may 1st for enterprise departments. the mayor will submit her proposed budget to the board of supervisors. and then in the month of may, the board of supervisors will hold hearings and the department will present um, its its proposed budget to the board of supervisors. the supervisors will then um, with the help of the board's budget and legislative analyst, ask questions and propose changes, reductions in add backs to the department budget. then in july, in late july, the board of supervisors will adopt the final budget and budget trailing

legislation. the mayor signs the budget in august and then it is effective the next fiscal year, and fees this next coming year. hopefully we hope to address this in the budget trailing legislation. but as last year, fees will be new fees, should they be adjusted, will be effective 30 days from the date that the mayor signs the budget. so september next slide, please. here is i believe i've showed this slide before, but it's been updated. this is a financial history of the last 2020 years of d.b. it shows revenues, expenditures and available fund balance. the last few years include the department's tentative plans to close the structural deficit and, um, bring revenues back in line with

expenditures. one thing to note here is the dotted blue lines. those have not been incorporated into the budget yet, but given in our six month projections of three $3 million revenue shortfall, um, it is likely that we will adjust the budget downwards by $3 million in each year. and that's what that blue line represents. it's so if we have to adjust revenue downward then our fund balance would be lower. our revenue would be lower. however, we still the tentative plan is still to increase fees slowly we, uh, step increases and achieve full cost recovery. in fiscal year 27. so the question now is just how much fund balance, how much remaining fund balance will we have left at that time. so next slide. our fund balance at the

end of project at the end of fiscal year 24 is projected to be. about $36 million. last year, year two of the budget, fiscal year 25 was balanced using. $24.5 million of fund balance. however um, at the direction of the mayor's office, we did not include we did not anticipate any fee increase at that time in the budget. so now we do anticipate increasing fees for fiscal year 25 that would generate an additional $9.9 million of budget. so we don't need 24.5. we only need $14.6 million to balance the budget for fiscal year 25. that would leave $21.2 million available at

the end of fiscal year 25. in fiscal year 26, the plan now now is to assume that we will increase fees again in fiscal year 26, and that we will, um, reduce the use of fund balance by half. so the $14.6 million that we anticipate or that we will budget for fiscal year 25, we will cut that in half to 7.3. in fiscal year 26, that that would result in 13.9 remaining available fund balance at the end of fiscal year 26. however as i previously noted, if we adjust revenues down by $3 million per year, then then we'd need to use another $6 million of fund balance. so the conservative estimate right now is $7.9 million of fund balance remaining at the end of fiscal year 26. that may sound like a

lot, but things change. the economy is unpredictable. well, there could be large swings up or down in demand for services. we don't know. and. we would like to keep that $7.9 million available fund balance and not commit to too much else and potentially get ourselves into trouble, because at the end of the day, there will it is very unlikely that there will be any general fund support to save the department and if we are forced to reduce expenditures, that would likely affect staffing. so in order to avoid that, we are trying to maintain an appropriate reserve levels. next slide please. this is just a table form of the previous page. hopefully it's easy to follow. so you can see from right to

left and then down the down the rows. so you start with 35.9 million. we expect to collect. $62.8 million. as when we if we if our fee increase is passed, that's an additional $9.9 million is our expenditure for is 87.3, which would require us to balance that year to spend 14.6 of our available fund balance. so this is just what i had described on the previous page. next slide please. so as i had mentioned, it's very early in the budget development process. it's been less than a week since the previous fee study meeting. very little has actually been done to the budget so far. um uh, many policy decisions have not been added yet. the only changes that i will show soon that have been

made to the budget so far are adding in revenue estimates from the fee study, and these are just high level plug numbers. um, to show the effect of the fee study technical salary and benefit changes made by the controller. so so, uh, when retired, they recalculate retirement rates and employee contributions and pension costs. and how the retirement system is in investing. our money affects what city costs are. so technical changes like that and then some, um, union salary changes, all the technical things that affect labor controller makes those entries and um, the mayor, the mayor's 10% general fund support reduction in that has been applied citywide is in is in these numbers so far. and one other item to mention is a

technical thing. uh continuing fund project cleanup. so we've been looking under couch cushions trying to see is there any available funds anywhere. so we've done a review of all continuing projects that the department has been engaged in. and there are many projects that have been completed with small balances available in them. and we are moving all of those balances into a contingency project, which we plan to use for bts, replacing. so there there are, there were a number of projects that are now completed, closed and we can take the balances from those. and put them towards our bts replacement project. next slide please. so changes to come are department initiatives were still talking to staff, talking to managers and meeting as an executive team to determine what

are the department priorities for this next upcoming year. people are requesting additional staff, additional software or changes to cubicles. et cetera. et cetera. so all of the additional trainings they'd like for staff, some collecting a wish list of all items, all initiatives from from staff and then we will put those together, sit down, determine how much money we have available, what we will put in our budget, recommendation, and what we just keep on the wish list for later when funds are available. second is the cbo funding that has not been changed. we haven't touched it yet, so you will see that it's still in is still general fund funded. it's reduced by 10. that decision taken and that actual change needs to be made. um, and that will be addressed

by the second budget meeting. but it is just in there as, as it was loaded. um, work order changes from other departments. so so other departments are determining their costs and how much they will pass on to us, how much we will be charged for rent, how much we will be charged for light, heat and power, how much we will how much? uh, dr. expects that we will spend in workers comp costs. how much city attorney expects to bill us in the next year. so all of those costs, it's difficult because to determine full costs, everybody needs to know what other department costs are. so that those work order costs come in very late and in some cases not until the mayor's phase of the budget. so many of those services for other department costs will likely be they usually always go up. so we'll see the degree to which they

increase. and if they do, that would require additional fund balance, additional use of fund balance to cover. but but we don't expect it to be too significant interest as calculated by the comptroller. so all of the fund balance that we have sitting in a bank account earns interest. the city invests it in a pool with all its cash and they will tell us how they think that they will do. i think last year they did better than expected and we had a few hundred thousand dollars extra, which was good news. but you never know with that and controllers will let us know what that amount is. and lastly, countywide cost allocation. so this is all the city central services. so the board of supervisors, the city administrator, uh, the controller's office, all of those costs get allocated out to department costs and controller's office will let us

know what that is. that's very difficult to project again, but but if it does go up, it likely won't be terribly significant. next slide. so here is what is in the budget system as of now. this this includes all the changes that i previously mentioned. i think we should go down. um well first i'll explain what the columns are and then we can go down the rows. so the first column that fiscal year 2324 adopted budget. this is our current year budget. this was a proved last year as year one. and this is the budget that we are currently operating with this fiscal year. the third column, the fiscal year 25, 24, 25 original budget that was what was approved as year two last year. so that's what the board

of supervisors, the mayor, that's what went before the bic and then you can see between those two the changes from fiscal year 24 to 25, the. fifth column, the fiscal year 25, 24, 25 department proposed budget. that is what will be submitted. and on february 21st, as the department's budget proposal, you can see the changes from what was approved last year, minimal salary and benefits. that's controllers, technical stuff the 300,000 and uh, non personnel and 210,000 city grant program. that was the mayor's 10% general fund cut the project, carry forward cleanup that i had mentioned. that's just moving old surplus balances to bts project. and then on the revenue side you can see the $4.4 million in licenses and

$5.6 million charged for services that is our fee study. $9.9 million increase. um the general fund transfer in was reduced. that's the revenue side of the general fund cut. so 510,000 reduction. and then because our revenues are increasing, our use of fund balance can go down. from 24.5 to $14.6 million. then in year two of the budget, the only things that are changing the very last column, the fiscal year 2526, that's year two of our proposed budget that we will submit in on february 21st. the. the $2 million in salaries and 700,000 in benefits. those are the mou salary, uh, cost of living increases. is that all staff get? those aren't discretionary. everything else is projected the same for now,

but we'll see what department initiatives come in. and then, um, the cleanup only happens in fiscal year 25, not in 26. so that's zero. and then on the revenue side side, we're tentatively, tentatively projecting. another $9.9 million for revenue increase from a fee increase in fiscal year 26. and that, along with the increase cost and salary and benefits, would result in, uh, reduction in use of fund balance. of $7.3 million. next slide please. and the labor budget i'm showing it here for reference, but no changes have been made here. i expect minimal changes to be made to the labor budget. there was a massive cleanup, technical cleanup last year and some right

sizing of positions. but there may be a few changes, but nothing has been loaded so far. i may just reassign positions from one department to another at no cost, but some positions may be substitute suited to reflect changing needs. some up, some down, but the final labor budget will likely look substantially similar to this, and one note is the differences in fte between years is due to a technical calculation. attrition is loaded by comptroller's office and um, the number of fte that represents is a negative number, and it's calculated by the system. i don't know exactly how it works, but it's very slightly it changes year to year. so there's not fewer positions from 24 to 20 5 to 26. it's just a, uh, a calculated attrition from comptroller's office. so that is the budget

presentation, and i'd be happy to answer any questions. uh, thank you. is there any public comment? first on on the budget. hi. my name is becky hamm. i'm the contracts and services director at augusta. just cause, um, we are one of the cbos. so, um, just want to say that there needs to be a careful consideration of the, um, vital impact of community services. as with and the potential contradictions between revenue generations and budget cuts. um so i just wanted to one of the things i want to say is the last meeting staff stated, we only do outreach and education. ryan wanted to point out that our cip programs are sro collaboratives. we also counsel and support tenants with getting their units

or buildings up to code by counsel and letting them know their rights, helping folks write letters to their landlord, communicate with their landlord, um, and i also really can't emphasize enough how important education is. we have all these important housing codes. we have all these laws. as you all know, like, um, enforcement without enforcement, it doesn't do anything. and so a lot of the work we do is supporting tenants . um, and also, you know, working with the staff at dbe to, as appropriate, but wanted to really emphasize that our work is vitally important. um, we don't replace the staff and they also don't replace us. so let's see. um, yeah, i wanted to really make sure that we increase the revenue. we i was here last week to talk about the fees those, um, needing to increase the fees so that really can make sure that the central

services are funded by this apartment so that general fund money is not continued to be used to take away from other departments. um amounts and also wanted to. yeah. i wanted to point out, you know, these fees have historically funded the work done by cbos, have funded this important work. and i also really have a concern about the proposed reduction of $210,000 to the cbo budget for essential services when there's an anticipated, anticipated increase in revenue from the adjustments. um, i you know, i see that there was a 10, uh, directive decrease directive from the mayor. but i also noticed that, you know, that isn't put into the budget across the board as 10% cuts and. yeah, i just wanted to really have the budget consider what you know, if it's the needs of the department, but also what is

equitable for the community. thank you. okay. is there any additional public comment in person? um, i believe there was someone remotely there are public comment remote. okay. caller you're unmuted. yeah. good afternoon commissioners. my name is maria zamudio. i'm the interim executive director at housing rights committee of san francisco. we're an active ceop organization in um, and i am here to really echo a lot of what my colleague becky has just said to you all in person. um, i want to reemphasize that, uh, last week when we were also here, um, the cac program and what our organizations do was identified as just outreach. we don't just do outreach. we are a code enforcement program as well. and using all of the tools that my colleague becky just highlighted, we also do support in the necessary, uh,

implementation of code enforcement without there being, uh, without the enforcement arm, our codes, um, all of the codes that we fight so hard for here in san francisco are not able to be implemented. and that is one of the things that our programs do. um, so i wanted to note that, um, with the anticipation of a revenue increase amounting to 9.9 million through the perspective through the proposed fee increases, um, it raises the crucial question of why those reserve funds, um, won't the proposal is to not utilize those funds. i understand that the department wants to be in alignment with the 10% reduction in general fund obligations from the mayor, and so there is there is revenue generated that can be allocated to bridge that gap. and i think we should do so. um, this approach both aligns with the mayor's directive, but also ensures that, um, resources aren't cut. and that as we had mentioned last week when we were here speaking, we're not, um, burdening the general fund

resources with, um, uh, costs that could be covered by this, um, enterprise department's own resources. i also want to clarify why, um, that these revenues traditionally have been allocated to fund the cbos. and so historically, the fees go to cbo funding. and that is a crucially important aspect of these proposed changes. um, it sets too dangerous of a precedent to move away from continuing to have the fees, the revenue fees support the cbo funding. they were linked for a reason. they should remain linked. um, and then one particular concern that arises is this anticipated cut. right. so if there is potential increase from the fee in from the fee increases, um, there the targeted that aligns with the targeted reduction in general fund, we should use that to not

cut the cbo budgets by $210,000. um, that is counterintuitive. we should use the additional revenue to simultanea only bridge the gap and maintain essential services. so i urge this committee to consider, um, using the revenue from the fees as well as as, um, this, uh, the . yeah, user revenue from the fees to, to keep the cbo budgets whole. um, because the if you could wrap up your comment is an i will thank you so much. the number we're looking at here is now a significant reduction from the increase that we actually asked for last week. thank you. okay. and the next, next public comment person. hi there. um, sabrina calhoun again. i'm a local architect. i just it's interesting for me to hear the budget, but i look at it from a slightly different perspective, which is the fees my clients are paying for their improvements.

um, i recently had a client with a rent controlled apartment come vacant. we did a renovation that converted the three bedroom, one bathroom into a four bedroom, three bath, two and a half bathroom. and we did a tiny infill of a lightwell of three foot by three foot light. well, the permit fees were $26,000 for that unit. renovation and 10,000 of that fee was for just the planning fee for spending 20 minutes at the counter on, uh, this little light, well, infill. so i do want to make sure that when we're looking at raising fees for permits that we're considering, you know, the real impacts to the cost of housing, the cost of improvements and, and making it really difficult for people to improve their properties. that's it. thank you . any further? okay. thank you. that's the end of the, um, public comment. okay. and um, president alexander, to. do my

commissioners have any questions or any comments on the budget? i do, commissioner williams. so i your presentation you when you were discussing the fees and the fee study? mike. commissioner yes. okay. uh, so, uh, there was reference to the plan being, uh, a phase in to, to come to full cost. uh, this plan is that, uh, like, i don't recall the, the board agreeing or this commission agreeing to that is, is that still is that just the proposal? and, uh, plan for these fees based upon the fee study, or is that, uh, i mean, that isn't concrete yet, correct? no, it is absolutely not concrete. the fee study just says this is the maximum you can charge. these are the fees this is the cost. this is your cost to provide service. if you

charge this, then you will recover your costs. and then when we are are charging less than that to prevent huge significant increases in, in and significant impacts on on customers. um, the legislation the budget this year remember that year to become a year of a budget becomes year one next year will be revisited. um, i feel it's important to put a placeholder there to make sure that the expectation is clear that there will be some sort of increase next year. um, again, in the options are reduced expenditures or raise revenue. and the department is 95% non-discretionary spending. most of that labor. so reducing expenditures is would be very serious. um, and would impact

service levels. uh but no, the legislation to increase fees, the budget trailing legislation will only be will will say the building code for each. the fee is this and then it will be this. so it will go up to the fiscal year 25 amount 26. there would have to be either another legislation to increase fees again or we would have to have some, some sort of mechanism to increase it again next year. okay um, a few more questions, perhaps, uh, the fee study and i think intuitively, if we're charging less than what it costs to provide a service and i this is addressed in the fee study, then we're providing a subsidy to those customers that we are under charging for the services. so and this is uh, you mentioned our options. so there are are policy reasons why we should not

want to go to full cost, uh, right away because of the sticker shock from that. uh but do we have an option other than this department providing that subsidy? uh, within the larger city budget for the general fund from the city or from other from some other source to, uh, effectuate that policy decision to so are we just limited to this department being responsible to provide that subsidy, or if that's a concern for, uh, if that's a legitimate policy reason, could the board of supervisors or the mayor's office provide that subsidy subsidy instead of this department? absolutely. the general fund could subsidize. it's up to the mayor's office and the controller's office. they control what goes into the budget and they they would make that policy decision on. so if that's an option, that would be fantastic. and that wouldn't help us out greatly. if yeah. so

it's really a question for them. and given the difficult 80s that the city as a whole is facing and the dire the budget meetings that the presentations that mayor's office have have given, they basically said, don't, don't expect the general fund to swoop in and save you to all departments, not just us, but i think there are many difficult conversations being had in similar settings across other departments. but yeah, but if, uh, if this department doesn't come to full cost recovery soon, then we will need saving because yes, yes. so yeah. okay. well thank you. any other questions before i go? um, i want to do my disclosure, which is that i formerly worked for one of the organizations that is currently and was previously funded by the city grants program. um, and i

maintain friendships and personal relationships with people who both work for there and receive those services. um, but we are not talking about any particular organization here. we're talking about a line item, not future allocation, not current allocation, just a line item in the budget. um, so i have a i have two questions. and one is when we discuss at the fee study, uh, finalizing. where we will land on the, on on on the fees. is that something that's before us today or is that going to happen at the next budget meeting? it sounded like you said the next special budget meeting. the next budget meeting will be when you review and approve the department's budget submission to the mayor's office. so today is just discussion on okay, so it says action item on the agenda, but it's just informational. uh, apologize if it says action item. it should just be. that's what i thought we were doing so

much relieved. okay, good. um, and then so that's also true with the what i heard you say was the city grant program, um, which is line items on the proposed budget. this is as is in the as if it was to be funded through the general fund. but any discussion about moving it back would happen through action at the next budget meeting. is that my understanding? i believe so, yes. we will make, uh, we will enter everything that we plan to propose in our department. budget submission and then bring that to you and then you would review and determine whether or not to approve or send that with a recommendation to the mayor's office. okay fantastic. thank you. um, i don't have any other questions except that i really like the addition of the project. carryforwards and the programmatic projects. i understand what that means from an internal, very internal city

perspective. um, and i think that's very good cleanup. and you said that's for the rts. that's that's for the permit tracking system, that's for an expansion or the new a new system, a new system. and we have a project manager starting next week. this is likely to be a multi year long project that involves other city departments and the permit center and will profoundly potentially impact debbie's business. its workflows is how it charges the fee schedules themselves may radically change. we may charge for different things. um, so the rts project is really a big deal . and there is currently $7 million set aside for it. that's nowhere near enough. this will be another 1.7 added, uh, the last i think ten years ago, a rts replacement project was attempted that cost $12 million and fell apart, ended in lawsuits. no new system on the

permit center commissioned a consultant to do a report, and they estimated a new system could cost as much as $25 million. we need to determine how much the general fund will kick in money for that project. they have to other general fund departments like dpw, d.p.h rec park, uh puc etc, etc. they planning. they all will use this new system so they will pay a portion of the upfront cost. and then we will also need to determine then how to recover the on ongoing costs. our mis team, their maintenance costs, their salaries. so we may charge a licensing a license fee. so planning you have 25 users of this system. we're going to charge you $1,000 per person per year. something like that. um so all of that has yet to be determined. but i would like to stress how big of a project that

is and how how much it will impact. thank you. i don't have any more questions. anybody else? thank you. thank you. thank thank you. uh, commissioner, uh, i guess that's clarified this item is just is for discussion at this meeting and for the next, uh, the special budget meeting there will be, uh, action at the next public hearing for a special. it will be a special public hearing. okay okay. um, we're on to item eight. commissioners questions and matters. eight a inquiries to staff. at this time, commissioners may make inquiries to staff regarding various documents, policies, practices and procedures which are of interest to the commission and eight be future meeting and agendas at this time. the commission may discuss and take action to set the date of a special meeting and or determine those items that could be placed on the agenda of the

next meeting, and other future meetings of the building inspection commission. um, are there any, uh, inquiries or, uh, agenda items for the next meeting? madam secretary, were you going to announce the special meeting for the, um, i, i will um, i was we were going to discuss that, uh, so i just read a and b together, but we can do the meeting first. uh, the next regular meeting is going to be on, uh, february 21st, and the special meetings there were two, um, dates that i guess the majority of the commissioners responded. um, one was february 7th at 930, and the other one was february 13th at 930. the seventh is a wednesday. um, and i believe commissioner uh, chavez is not available. that day. the 13th is a tuesday, and commissioner newman is not available on that date. so but that's the that's the closest

that i could get to people. so it's either going to be on wednesday the seventh or tuesday the 13th. that's that's the closest we can get. i know right. who wants to choose i like i leave it to the you commissioners allow me to choose before you. okay so, um, i wanted to propose that we move future meetings to 9:30 a.m. instead of 9 a.m. for regular for, um, as our regular agenda. i don't know how others feel about that, but that could be. can we? is that would suggestion for a possible future action or. um, yes, we could, we could agendize that for the next meeting. is that correct? city attorney, if we wanted to officially change the time, the start time, uh, would this be for atv as well? um, it would be. well, this would be for the building inspection commission, and then we'd have to do it separately for arb. okay. yeah. you would just. okay. yeah the

arb so yes, we can, um, we can agendize this and we'll have to make that a point to, to put the, the this as an action item on both agenda. okay. what are we looking at me for? i do. so are we, um is there any consensus as far as the, the next special budget meeting or as as to whether the seventh or the 13th will be best, the wednesday or the tuesday? no. okay so we'll i'll have to talk with you all offline. we'll need to confirm by the end of tomorrow. okay. so i'll talk to everyone offline okay. and if there there are no other future items you can contact me as usual. okay uh, so that's the end of that item. is there any public comment on the item? item

eight. i'm seeing none. item nine is review and approval of the minutes of the regular meeting of december 13th, 2023. second. okay so there was a motion by commissioner shaddix and who did the second, uh, commissioner, commissioner alexander to that? the second. is there any public comment on the minutes? okay. seeing none, are all commissioners in favor? aye. or any opposed? okay. thank you. then the minutes were approved. our next item is item ten. discussion and possible action regarding director o'riordan's performance evaluation to n a is public comment on all matters pertaining to the closed session . is there any public comment pertaining to the closed session

? sir, is there any remote? is there any remote? and just for the record, there's no remote public comment. is there person going to come forward? okay overhead please. okay. it will show and this comment is just pertaining to the director's performance evaluation. that's the subject that you should be addressing that will be what i'll be addressing. i've spoken to others uh, in inspectors in the department of building inspection and they're very disappointed as to the progress that has been made. uh or alleged progress, uh, as i spoke earlier, the hiring and promoting remain the same kind of internal family and friends for the new hires. uh, appears to be controlled by the city

family. if you just look at the dvi contact directory, um, you can see the names repeating and, uh, a lot of family stuff. take deputy director matt green has had a, by my count, six family members, uh, employed by dvi, including the last person who called me just hours before he committed suicide to say goodbye by, um, there have been three suicides out of approximately 30 bid inspectors and less than five years. all persons who committed suicide complain. if you could watch your comments, sir. that has nothing to do with the director's performance evaluation. you can go ahead and continue and i'll allow you more time. uh regarding the hiring process, how come the hiring isn't like when director o'riordan and myself were hired where there are three, uh, chiefs and directors from outside divisions, uh, or jurisdictions. did the hiring process? did the interviews? it was not internal like it is. i think they should revert this

back. so so it helps eliminate the, um. insider. what i perceive as insider hiring. so will the they change back and revert to the, uh, hiring, sir? uh, we're going to have to conclude your comment if you if you're not addressing this, thank you. just has to be on the agenda item, the agenda subject. is there any additional public comment. okay. um, seeing none item b possible action to convene a closed session. is there a motion to convene in closed session? so moved. is there a second? second? um we'll do a roll call. vote on the motion. interim president alexander toot. yes commissioner chavez. yes, commissioner newman . yes, commissioner shaddix. yes. commissioner. sommer. yes

commissioner. williams. yes. okay the motion carries unanimously. we are now in you that the time is. 1:09 p.m. and this is a building inspection commission. is there a motion to reconvene in an open session? so moved. and is there a second, second? an and i will are all commissioners in favor to reconvene this meeting in open session? i and is there any comment by commissioner enterprise institute? um, yes. so we have um, decided based on scheduling needs to table the item until march or we will continue it until the march regular meeting. okay thank you. no. okay. thank you. so this

item will be continued to the march regular building inspection commission meeting. and so our next item is 11. adjournment is there a motion to adjourn. so moved. is there a second? second okay. are all commissioners in favor? i okay. um, no public comment. um, we are now adjourned. it is 1:10 p.m. thank you.

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>> just knowing we're giving back to the community. >> especially the spanish speaking population it hits home. >> people get hungry why not eat and give here big space. meeting is called to order. this is a continuing portion of the budget hearings. um, roll call, please. president paulsen here. vice president rivera here. commissioner jaime he.