>> good morning. today is wednesday may 15, 2024. this is regular meeting of the building inspection commission. please mute yourself if you are not speaking. the first item is roll call. president alexander-tut, present. vice president shaddix-commissioner chavez-turn your microphones, please. sorry. >> here. >> commissioner neumann, here. commissioner williams, here. commissioner sommer is excused and we have a quorum. next we have the land

acknowledgment. >> the building inspection commission we acknowledge that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the ramaytush ohlone who are 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, lost nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory. as guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors and relatives of the ramaytush community and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. >> thank you. next, members of the public who may be listening, the call in number is 415-655-0001. the access code is 26623406799893. to raise your hand press star 3

and for the webex webinar password is 0515. >> should i do opening remarks? >> sorry? >> should i do opening remarks? >> yes. next is item 2, president's opening remarks. >> good morning everybody. i will keep my remarks short, but i want to congratulate the director and the staff leadership on a very successful all hands meeting that took place this month and thank you for the invitation. it is always a joy to be able to be with the entire staff of dbi and i appreciated the format and information and the celebration of the great work our staff does so thank you very much for that and congratulations. today we are going to be focusing on

legislation and important role we have as the body that recommends legislation to the board of supervisors, and i wanted to take a point of personal privilege just to say, this is mostly if you see me acting odd, i don't want to be misinterpreted. my fath er in law passed away friday so if i seem different then i usually do, i just want to give you that context. it may not-yeah. that is probably what is going on. thank you and without firth r ado, we'll go to public comment. >> thank you. is there any public comment on the president's opening remarks? seeing none, item 3, general public comment. take public comment on the jurisdiction not part of this agenda. >> handouts and then i'm go toog use the computer. good morning.

jerry dratler [indiscernible] one dollar administrative building permits. the permits are over the counter. dbi issued approximately 4700 of these permits in 2022 and 2023. dbi is fully louded hourly cast for inspectors and plan checkers exceeds $400 an hour.

if dbi were to charge $500 for each administrative permit dbi revenue would increase from $4742 to $2.4 million. this increase could fund 50 percent of the annual grants for the sro collaborative program. approximately 1500 or 32 percent of the admin permits were issued to final other building permits, so what i have seen, say there is another building permit, the original permit and they don't have a special inspection, and what happens then is, somebody goes and gets a admin permit and gets it finaled because they couldn't final the original permit. this practice is rife with abuse and should be more tightly controlled. i will review two examples --hold on one second. having a little technical

difficulty here. so, my first example is inspector donnelly, finaled 6 expired permits at his home with two one dollar admin permits. what makes these permits really unique, there are four of them are santos, former bic president andcurrently residing in federal prison. this shouldn't happen. john pollard was add #d to the dbi expanded compliance control program last month along with herald howell his structural engineering at his structural engineering company. well, guess what? in 2023, dbi issued 11 one dollar permits to john pollard to final other permits. now, you can see 26 parnassus avenue is

one of the 20 pollard permits on the ecc tracking list. so, in conclusion, next steps--bic has two choices. work with dbi senior management to establish controls over the issuance of one dollar admin permits or ignore the problem. i'm interested observing which option the bic chooses. thank you. >> thank you. is there additional public comment? >> i have handouts. okay.

dbi has a hostile and toxic work environment. three building inspectors out of 30 committed suicide in 5 years and all three complained about projects they were pressureed by management to sign off on non code compliant projects-- >> please limit-be careful with your comments. >> okay. >> go ahead. >> okay. the first person was named in my deposition, dennis richard online, mission local. 571 myra way assigned to referenced the article in the chronicle dated june 25, 2021 by jk denene, titled whistle blower report details how one employer--referenced the

complaint number by the district inspector, 20016964 01. called in the office along with [indiscernible] and excoriated by these three mangens. i complained to oreardon prior to his suicide before and unresponded e-mails and asked to stop going after berrios. the response to me was after finished going after bariose i'm going after you next. i don't seed the suicide is fully investigated. i received no response in the e-mails. i had a similar scenario a rearden called me into his office with two others, senior inspectors. audio recording i told them i would be recording this and that meeting

it was a cut and fill condition where it was supposed to-the foundation was supposed to be on non compacted soil and put on top of disturbed soil. the senior inspector went out the next business day to sign off the foundation. reference 3418, 26th street senior inspector oreardon accepts a letter from santos for lack of required building inspection. 533 was a cut and fill condition. this creates a potential lawsuit for the city if the building goes down the hill. the second inspector committed suicide was named on this project. assigned to this project and he complained to me about this as well as illegal demolition. the third person called hours to say good-bye before he successfully committed his second attempt at

suicide. i don't feel dbi adheres to rule to prepresent suicide. i have spoken to bic before about suicide. what action will bic take. please insure the compliance officer receives a copy of the documents i provided. thank you. >> any additional public comment in person or remotely? seeing none, item 4, discussion and possible action regarding board of supervisor ordinance file 240297.

amending the building code to extend the deadlines for existing buildings with a place of public accommodation to comply with the requirement to have all primary entries and paths of travel into the building accessible to persons with disabilities or to receive a city determination of equivalent facilitation, technical infeasibility, or unreasonable hardship; to extend the period for granting extensions from those deadlines; and to extend the time for the department of building inspection's report to the board of supervisors regarding the disability access improvement program. >> i think we have a presentation. >> good morning commissioners. patrick hanen here today to ask that you-to make a recommendation of approval of this item. the board of supervisor s. the accessible business entrance program established in 2016. the deadlines extended in 2021 too allow for a additional compliance. this legislation would further extend the deadlines for the submission of check list by thend of this year, december 31, the file application for the building permit by the end of the year and required the building permit by september 29, 2025.

throughout the program we had three compliance deadlines. the first is submit the check list and second apply for the building permit to address the items identified and third, complete the required work and this extends the deadline frz all three of those requirements. there are 23.504 buildings in the program. the program has been tremendously successful. a 70 percent compliance rate, 16.505 buildings have come into compliance since the program began. that is a lot. there are still however 30 percent of the building non compliant, just under 7 thousand buildings. to be clear, 2800 of those or more then 2800 they submitted the check list and now need to obtain the building permit and complete the work. there are 4128 folks who haven't responded at all.

there are 571 indicated they have a technical infeasibility and 417 a unreasonable hardship, so there are situations where the person can apply and say hey, either because of the way my building is laid out or my own condition, we cant make these changes and under that circumstance they apply for a equivalency that provides for the service required to make the building accessible, but may not be the full upgrade that the building code would immediately prescribe. we have a web page with a online forum and sent 10 rounds of letters and postcards in all 4 lajs wjs. the first mail sg 10 thousand folks and the last, 6900 indicating the compliance progress bethe program. we published a op ed and held

[indiscernible] arts alliance. events in chinatown and merchants walks with support and coordination with office of small business. the program is presented at the small business commission. the code advisory has heard this item and met may 8, 2024 andue man ms.ly recommend--the public works and office of small business to make sure people know about the new deadlines and about the program in general. the legislation pass the first thing we'll do is get a letter out letting people know the deadlines are extended and remind of compliance duty. i'll turn it over to speak more about the legislation. >> hello commissioners. my name is calvin ho,

legislative aid for supervisor mandelman. we received outreach from small business owners with various issues with the program so we have been working with office of small business, dbi, dpw and mayor office on disability to try to figure out ways we can amend the program. this gives us more time to work with these departments and also our small business partners and disability community in order to find a way forward that works for all of us. >> any questions for us? >> sorry.

>> patrick, thank you so much for the update. that is exciting, 70 percent compliance, which is i think pretty good. i'm fully in support of moving extending the deadline. i just want to kind of add to our advisory committee that, public outreach is super important to get these last rounds in, and i think what is happening is, even myself, i have been working on this for years. i have been giving out wrong information from time to time. just recently i found out there were exemptions for hardships. we never knew that a lot of these property owners were going to pass on to a small business owner, which is just not realistic. are there work-arounds and happens to be there are work-arounds and i didn't know that. i want to make sure and really encourage the outreach on this to the last of this 30 percent.

kind of have a feeling i know where those 30 percents are at and i appreciate all of this and been a long time, looking forward to the entire city coming into compliance in entry pp ways so thank you and really encourage the outreach part and that could be also on the small business commission as well. thank you and thank you mr. ho. >> thank you for the feedback commissioner. one reason we do support extending the deadline is we don't want to move into enforcement. the public outreach is the critical piece to make sure the people are aware of their responsibility, aware of the deadline s and given the opportunity to respond. appreciate your observation about perhaps needing to emphasize the technical infeasibility and financial hardship option if people feel that is a situation they find themselves in. we want to make sure they are able to exercise that direction.

>> i may be alone on this but this type of legislation is difficult for me to come to terms with, because there is a reason why the original legislation was passed to make buildings accessible. so, we'll extend the deadlines because i suspect there are disputes between the owners . the small business owners are asked to bear the burden of the expense that and there is a dispute maybe a legal dispute, but what i haven't heard addressed and why i have a problem with it, what about the people with disabilities who don't have access to these buildings? i don't see anything in the legislation that does anything to address the reason behind the legislation. it seems they are just going to

be left out without accessibility to these buildings again. the department has done everything it-appears the department has done everything it can to get these buildings in compliance. there is not more with--the outreach can continue, but there is a hope that this time it will be more effective. it may well be, but that's still going to delay in accessibility for people with disabilities in san francisco, so if there is any way to address that, i like to hear it and that's just my concern with this is, they seem to be the losers in this. >> you are absolutely right. i want to remind, 70 percent of the building in the program have come into compliance, so it has been a successful program. the second thing i want to note is between the time the legislation was passed in 2016, and when the

first deadline extension occurred, we experienced covid and we had a number of small businesses shut down and a lot of businesses particularly buildings part of the program they were hit hard so we want to be mindful that interruption that occurred and ongoing economic recovery that happens. you are also rights, at some point we will have to move into enforcement. what we saw [indiscernible] the final group of people, it was enforcement that gets them over the line and bring them into compliance. and i think we have done good with outreach. 10 postcard, four different languages at consistent cadence is good outreach. we track the impact of the outreach is we able to tick down every time we do another round of letters we are seeing compliance occur, and so i think that is why we feel the extension of the deadline is responsible and continue to

bring people into compliance without coming down so harshly if we have to move into enforcement. that being said, the program isn't going away. the legislation is focused extended the deadlines because we share your goal to make sure people can disabilities a able to access businesses the same way able-bodied individuals are able to. >> the 30 percent left, none is exempt from a ada lawsuit? any particular person with a disability or accessibility issue wanted to enter any of the buildings in the 30 percent category, they can file a discriminatory or ada lawsuit against that building, correct? >> it is important the program is just for the business entrance. whereas, the american with disability act is the entire business. this is to get people in the building is the focus of the program to

make sure entrances are accessibility. we don't view it as a way of making sure people are in compliance with ada. that is the federal government does that, while our role with this is to make sure they are in compliance with that accessible business entrance element. of the 3,000 buildings, that are remaining, if they haven't made changes and those changes were found to be not--want in compliance with ada they are vulnerable for legal action. i want to note, of those 6 thousand, 7 thousand properties, 2800 submitted the check list so they know what they need to do, it is a question do i have money to do this now and in a place to do it. giving them more time hopefully will give the folks to come into compliance, but this isn't a shield from ada and think we should be clear, while it

makes those entrances accessibility compliance standards, the business itself still has to comply with ada. >> thank you. you answered a lot of questions. i want to echo commissioner william's statement. i appreciate the thoughtfulness and are consideration for small businesses to make sure they have enough time and they can financially manage this at this time, especially coming out of the pandemic as mentioned, and there is a real consideration to make for the disability community to make sure there is going to be some level of enforcement at some time to make sure they can access these businesses instead of continued delay. interested to see-you said your office is looking into finding solutions in the interim during the extension so nrt intered to see what that looks like but caution continued delay of this policy. >> thank you >> so, i am support of the

extension, but echo the concern by fellow commissioners and do-the department to consider an outreach timeline that doesn't end with the enforcement date, but continues after enforcement, so having-you get your first violation series of workshops come in right away and we'll hope you with understand more what your responsibilities are. can you remind me, are these concentrated in a particular neighborhood or evenly spread? >> they are not concentrated in one neighborhood but some older buildings in town with steep slopes outside, they are impacted. >> thank you. and then, the one-i know that we are not collecting vacancy, but i also wonder what is overlap with

vacant buildings, and so curious. i dont know how-i can't recall what that overlap or what we did, what the action was. i think to continue to log, about not to collect fees, but as that expires too, i wonder if there is a overlap and perhaps may contacting the wrong people. i want to put that out for consideration. >> an icdotally we heard that. the technical service division fields calls saying i don't have anyone in here and how is it i need to make the entrance accessible because it is closed. the way the law is written, the vacancy is irrelevant. the business itself, the structure needs to be brought in and make sure entrance is accessible whether you have a current tenants or not. >> they have no one to pass the cost on it sounds like. >> we enforce on the building owner, and so one of the areas i think

that some of the tenants and building owners making sure they communicate about who's responsibility it because we communicate with and enforce on the building owner and from our point of view they need to bring the building into compliance. whether the lease agrult says something different about the merchant responsibility, we don't get involved in that, because we enforce on the building owner. i note, our outreach, we go several months past the deadlines. we don't assume that two weeks before the deadline you never hear from us again. we have been sending 2 or 3 mailers after the deadline saying we want to remind you the deadline passed to encourage people and there have been times we have seen greater response when people get the letter say, you missed the deadline and enforcement is possible in the near future. we'll continue to do that outreach and make sure people up to the dead line and afterwards so they have

grace period to come into compliance. we want to work with the property owners so they can meet their obligations. >> thank you. myal final question is, when compliance happens, is the intention to send mass violations to everyone who is not-everyone on the list not currently in compliance or do they require 4,000 site visits? >> i don't want to get ahead what we are going to do, because-hold off on that for a while. we reached out to each individual property owner and said you missed this deadline and we have to begin enforcement because you are out of compliance. it is individual thing and because of staffing size--i don't think we send 4,000 outright away. we have to phase it and we reach out to the people who have done nothing before we the folks who submitted a

check lest and started the process and in the universe of compliance. >> thank you representative from supervisor mandelman office and thank you for your leadership on this. i do want to say, we have extended this so many times. i think [indiscernible] extend it may be waning and even when we have enforcement, it is not like we are enforcing it, the extension is over, everyone gets notice of violation, it is still a month roll out in order to actually issue notice of violation and are get people into compliance, so i am delighted the department has been very proactive. i like the idea the merchant walks, but i think that this-the deadline should be real this time. thank you.

>> is there a motion? i took public comment already. once there is a motion i will call for public comment on the motion. >> motion to support board supervisor ordinance file number 240297. amending the building code to extend the deadline for buildings with place of public accommodation to comply with requirement into building [indiscernible] persons with disabilities. >> thank you. >> second. >> there is a motion and second to approve the file 240297. is there any public comment on this

motion? any remotely? seeing none, we'll do roll call vote on the motion. president alexander-tut, yes. vice president shaddix, yes. commissioner chavez, yes. commissioner neumann, yes. commissioner williams, no. the motion carries 4-1. thank you. next we have item 5. discussion and possible action regarding board of supervisor ordinance file number 240457. ordinance amending the belding code to adjust fees charged by department of building inspection in addition to other requirements.

>> good morning, alex, deputy director of administration. so, as you all know, dbi drafted an ordinance to implement the result of the fee study completed in january. new fees will be effective 30 days after the mayor signs the ordinance, so this is expected to be effective on september 1 of next fiscal year. apologies, one moment. the department request the commission send the ordinance to board of supervisors with recommendation

of approval. these in the proposed ordinance are assumed in the department's fiscal year 24-25 and 25-26 budget. next slide, please. so, history of fee changes in 2008, there were significant changes to the fee schedule and that adopted our current fee schedule that we use today. 2015 during the boom time there was a 7 percent reduction in fees due to the department recovering much more then spending. fiscal year 24, all fees were raised 15 percent across the board. next slide, please. so, as previously brought to the bic in january, dbi hired nbs to

perform a user fee study to determine fee amounts that recover cost in compliance with the applicable laws and industry standards. that study completed in january and the consultant confirmed what we are seeing, the department is significantly under recovering its cost and they calculated that the department should be recovering an additional $23 million in order to fully cover its costs. the consultant also recommended that fees be updated annually going forward until 7 or 8 years later when operations would have changed significantly enough to warrant a new fee study. next slide, please. so, staff recommends charging the full amount, full cost recovery would result in significant increases, so

staff recommends phasing in the fee study recommendations over a three year period and using decreasing amounts of remaining fund balance to balance our budget during that period. we determined which fees to lower and by how much by looking at percentage and absolute increase, the effective population and economic sensitivity of some of these fees. if the consultant recommended the 2 percent increase in a fee, then we said sure, that is fine. let's go with that. if they recommend a 500 percent increase, we looked at that and said let's phase this more slowly to not really hammer the customer and to prevent as much rate shock as we can. and really to not harm the

city's economic recovery. next slide, please. so, here is a summary of the staff recommendations. provided in the packet is the actual fee legislation itself, so that lists all fees that are changing and the previous amount and the new amount, and are this table shows--is a summary by fee schedule of what is changing, so we are the 4th from the last column is a important one. that is the total proposed revenue change. we think making the changes in the proposed legislation would raise an additional $10 million of revenue next year. next slide. here again, i have shown this slide

before, but this updated. this is our history and our three year plan going forward. so, we are proposing to raise fees, which would raise revenue. the blue line is where we are currently. that is current year and to the right that is the plan-the gray line is difficult to see on the handout, but you can see it on the electronic presentation. by fiscal year 27 for revenue to increase to a point where it is equal expenditure and at that point we would no longer be relying on use of one time reserves to balance our budget. next slide. as i will confirm in the later financial update, the cbo funding is at $4.32 million per year.

it is funded by the general fund in the current mayor's proposed budget and because it is funded by the general fund, that is excluded from fee recoveries and we recover the entire cost of those services from the general fund, rather then from fees the department is charging. that is what is currently in the mayor's proposed budget. next slide, please. and then this is a very-the last few slides are brief recap of the fee study comparisons with other jurisdictions, and they really show that san francisco is below many other somewhat comparable jurisdictions in the fees we charge. our plan to raise them would not effect our customers more then

customers in other jurisdictions. so, next slide. you can see alteration on 50 thousand valuation project. this is building permit. san francisco is currently charging and still proposes to charge fees less then all these other jurisdictions and same on the next slide. this is a small to medium to largish business. this is a $5 million construction project. we are about in the middle of where everyone else is charging, and then final slide-these are the full cost recovery rates. we are not charging these in all instances. some fees are charging the maximum possible, some are not. our current fees are lower then the other jurisdictions, and the maximum that we could charge for plan

review as identified by the consultant, all most $450, i think it is $439 for plan review is higher then these other jurisdictions, so the other jurisdictions must be giving discounts as well. next slide. here is the timeline. we are near the end of the bic's role in the fee study, the fee legislation. we have drafted there proposed ordinance. it is now before you and the bic will review and make a recommendation to the board of supervisors whether to approve reject or approve with modifications, the proposed ordinance. so, next step, the ordinance will go to the board of supervisors budget appropriation committee. they will send to the full board and then they will vote to approve.

the mayor signs with the other budget trailing legislation in august and then fees are implemented in september. next slide. thank you very much. i would be happy to answer any questions. i suspect that there is many questions and much room for discussion here. >> thank you. is there public comment on this agenda item? >> hi, commissioners. my name is molly goldburg, director of san francisco antidisplacement coalition. we want to say first, the board of supervisors, made it very clear that the general funding is temporary for the code enforcement and outreach programs and that they expect that these programs [indiscernible] go back under the dbi budget funded by

fees going forward, so the long-term plan of having these programs remain in the general fund is not sustainable to insure that these programs survive. we are concerned to hear about fee increase legislation that does not see full cost recovery and that that will then be on the backs of the most vulnerable tenants in san francisco. we think that is concerning and unacceptable. at the january special meeting we saw that the staff presented that a 6 percent across the board increase in fees would cover the costs of the cbo programs and we are not sure if that covers the cost of the programs they are current funding level this year and maybe those fees need to be a bit higher to account for the actual $5.2 million that the full funding level before the cuts this fiscal year. but, either way we like to see

you all make a recommendation that this legislation includes a 6 to 10 percent across the board fee increase to insure that these programs are sustainably funded going forward. thank you. >> hello commissioners, my name is lisa with chinatown community development center, community organizer and on behalf of mission, chinatown central city and sro family united collaborative and also code enforcement outreach program, i wanted to basically ask for the commissioners to please recommend to restore the collaborative funds, include us back into the dbi budget by increasing the fees, like molly said. the $480 thousand cuts, the 10 percent for the general fund is going to cut staff time, it will cut services that we use to provide for the community that are most vulnerable and with these

cuts we cannot keep on adjusting for the cost of living increases and also inflation, so i really ask that the commissioners to please make recommendations to increase fees so the funds can cover the cost of our program through dbi instead of the general fund so we are not facing cuts every year. thank you. >> good morning. my name is becky, the contract service director at just cause. i want to reiterate the importance of the sro collaborative having safe and healthy housing for thousands of tenants in san francisco. the bic and department need to account for funding these programs and fee increases. the fees listed in the legislation should be increased by 6 to 10 percent across the board so the department can go back to fully funding the cbo starting fiscal year 25-26.

thank you. >> any remote public comment? seeing none, commissioners discussion, questions. >> to share with us. i think what we see before us here today is something that is consistent with the budget that we saw from dbi and from everything that we've heard previously and discussed when looking at the fee study. we do have a 3 year plan to get to full recovery. i think we do have to be mindful of the city's financial recovery and some of these fee increases were asking to take out hundred percent are-they would make it difficult for developers and i think that this 3 year implementation is a

thoughtful one. i would also say that, we've--the programs are in the budget, they are just funded through the general fund for the next-for 24-25. we also have the option revisiting the fees annually. so, it is not-if it doesn't happen now, it never happens, but i think we are all sort of faced with a really difficult realty right now and that's that there is not enough money to go around and dbi in particular as a enterprise department is in a particularly difficult situation, because the fees haven't been enough to recover cost for a few years and spoe so we have been pulling from reserves and i think taking this 3 years to get there will put us in a better position

moving forward to balance our budget. that's what i have to say for now. >> for alex, the proposal as the phased in cost recovery and this is the first year that phase-in, and my understanding is, the reason for it is to support the economic recovery of san francisco and not to raise prices or raise the cost to the extent that it deters would be development. so, with the timeline going forward,b not the formal timeline but at least informally, how are we going to

be measuring the cost increases and impact they have on the development? we are raising them every year and will be judging if it is too much or too little, because it sounds we are trying to find the fine point to recover as much as possible without reducing the work performed so do we have a way to measure that for next year? i know if we are-this is the first step in the journey and we should be thinking about the next steps too. i think-- >> sure. it is very difficult to measure with statistics. i think the best and possibly only way would be to measure customer sentiment. ask them how are you doing? are projects penciling out and that

involves more then dbi fees, it is interest rates and everything. we were monitoring fees at beginning of fiscal year and increased everything across the board 15 percent. are customers going to complain or see a huge drop in permit applications and we didn't see that. we didn't receive complaints, and i think part that is people are to some degree aware of the fact that many san francisco fees are much cheaper then other jurisdictions, like addressing fees are few hundred dollars, they are $600 in san jose and so i think people may hopefully feel they are fortunate to have gotten away with low fees for so long, but to determine the impact it is having is difficult. we know the number of permits this year is-has increased from last year, so we don't think it is having an

effect, all though on the larger end of projects, i think that has more to do with the economy in general and the make-up of people working from home and all the downtown stuff more so then dbi fees effecting those permits. also, one other thing in addition to economic recovery is, one other fear would be raising fees too fast would discourage people from seeking legal permits and just doing the work without permits and so that's another thing we want to be mindful of and again, very difficult to track. perhaps we could think about how much enforcement or complaints are increasing, but i think it is mainly a measure of customer sentiment. >> thanks for all your hard work on this. i know this is a lot.

i am-i want to make sure i'm correct. does this represent a 6 percent increase? we are talking 15 percent increase that just happened, but the fee proposal, is this across the board 6 percent or what--? >> no, these are different increases. each fee was analyzed individually and the table shows average increases per fee schedule, but if you were to go through the legislation itself, you can see that each fee is going up a different amount. >> okay. that's all phased in--those increases are getting phased in? >> yes. so, some fees we were already all most recovering the full amount, so we just increased those to the full amount, and next year they won't increase again. maybe by whatever inflation is, but probably not and then some fees

that were significantly under-charging, we got part of the way this year and the whole way there over the next 2 years, so it is range. >> and this is all the coming fiscal year, correct? >> yes, this legislation, all the changes listed are-these are the changes to the fee schedule that will be effective in fiscal year 25. >> okay. i know this has come up multiple times and we have been talking when the appropriate time is to have the conversation in terms of funding the cbo. we talked about funded by the general fund for the next fiscal year, and i don't yet see a plan for the future. it is really great to see a projection. we can't guarantee beyond next year, correct? that the general fund is going to fund this. we have guarantee for this year. this coming fiscal year. >> so, there is never a

guarantee. the budget is reevaluated every year, and what i can say is, it is in the budget for the next two years, it is added in as ongoing entry, so next year when fiscal year 27 appears as year two, it will be there in the base budget. mayor office, board of supervisors, anyone could always make a change to that, but the changes to our fees we anticipate doing a fee legislation every year for the next three years, so there will be opportunities. thank you commissioner neumann for highlighting that fact that the budget is looked at every single year. it is reopened every year for any changes we leak to make and the fees are also-there will be legislation that will allow any changes we like to make, so at this point, we see in fiscal year

25-26 the program is funded by the general fund and we don't have any reason-we have not heard from supervisors or the mayor's office that there are any plans to take out to remove the general fund support for the program. >> do we have a plan in the event they do take out funding or they decide not to fund it? we have not-i don't think we are planning for a deficit. i don'ts think we are planning to reduce things by 10 percent this year, so say unexpected things to happen and wonder what our contingency is because i think the funded is incredibly important and don't want to put it at risk. >> surementf . i think is incredibly unlikely for a change midyear, if a change were made it is likely in the budget but it could be and we have the option any time to do an additional legislation in

and additional change to the building code, create new fees, increase fees, so that option while it might take time to draft the legislation and make its way through the process, i could not see a scenario in which the mayor's office in october said, changed our minds-- >> i'm talking down the line. we have been talking about this fiscal year, but we dont have-- >> sure. >> future fiscal years where these conversations have not yet happened for. >> please speak into the mic, commissioner. thank you. >> there are future fiscal years we not yet des cussed so trying to-i'm asking what we are assume as our responsibility for funding these down the line? >> so, i think the options would be to contemplate raising fees to fund it at such a time as general fund support

were to go away. if that happened. i think that would be the primary option available. >> annually we have the opportunity to reassess. >> a few more just clarifying questions. it would be from slide 6. the total projected-fiscal year 25 average discount, so that's the discount meaning, the percentage under the actual cost recovery and then for the fiscal year 25 increase percentage for total projected revenue, 18.4 percent, so the projection based upon the aggregate of all the increases, right? >> yes. it is the aggregate of the

proposed fees by the volume we anticipate, which is also difficult to projects. >> right. when selecting the fee amounts, i'm sure there was a spectrum that was considered and landed on these amounts just probably for good reason. informed decision there. on the scope of the spectrum, is this a more conservative approach or more aggressive approach? somewhere in the middle? i guess that-because we will be-this commission will be doing this again next year at some point where we have to determine the fees again, so is this more a aggressive approach to raising fees in the staggered fee approach, or is this a less aggressive-?

i don't know if my questioning is making sense, but what is this represent for this? is this like the-we try to recover as much as possible or more, let's not get crazy and see how it works. >> it is definitely the ladder. we have the option to pursue raising fees to cost recovery now which raise fees higher and maximize revenue assuming we don't effect demand for services by raising it too high. so, i would say it is a more conservative approach, because we again, we don't know what effect--it is very difficult to determine what affect these increases will have on the demand for our services, so by raising it slower that is more conservative approach. we will end-by doing that we have it a

use our fund balance to close the gap and 25-26, so--but we do have that fund balance available to spend and we feel like we are able to--this is a plan that would-is feasible, would leave us with sufficient balance to cover emergency situations at the end of fiscal year 27, and it does the least harm to our fee payers. >> thank you. i used to work for one of the organizations funded from the -not talking about the budget but

probably from a fee. the cbo line item. i still maintain friendships and with people who both receive the services and provide the services, however we are not talking allocation of funding to any particular organization. chapter 12g of the administrative code covers those kinds of things. we are just talking how will a budget line be funded and so i have no conflict. so,-can you tell me why this is a-this legislation only covers one year when we are contemplated getting to hundred percent over 3 years? >> um, there will likely be other expenditure changes to the budget next year, and we have developed a fee model that we plan to plug next year's budget into, and then that will spit

out new fee amounts, so just if those changes to next year's budget, let's say city retirement costs go up significantly, then we would need to rerun the model and it makes the most sense to set the fees for a year as close to the start that year as possible, because who knows what may change if we set fees for three years from now, something will likely have changed that would make us recalculate anyway, so that's why we are doing one year of fees. i asked city attorney if it was possible to give us more flexibility and they said, there is nuance there, but they said this the best way to do it and the fees should be reviewed

every year by the legislative bodies. the only change that everyone was comfortable-the only extraflexibility people were comfortable with giving is to put in automatic cpi increase provision in there, but since we know that we are going to be phasing in much larger increases over the next two years, we were asked to hold off on that for now and just do another legislation next year and then the legislation in 27 as well. >> thank you. the budget isn't a done deal. we are recommending something that will be used in the consideration of the budget. the mayor's budget has been presented, the board of supervisors have not taken a final vote. i dont feel the budget question is completely settled, and if it is settled for 24-25, a lot of

elections coming up. a lot of things can change. iq believeq theqqqqq qqqqq i believe the role of leadership is take action and recommend the legislation with inclusion of 6 percent increase for across the board for outreach education and community organizing models for code enforcement. >> there is a motion on the floor. go ahead. >> i want to comment on that. i would like us to consider something maybe a little less precise and give maybe the board and the mayor the opportunity to make that decision, so recommending that we move this forward with the recommendation that

they make the assessment to make whatever changes they see necessary in order to fund these programs. yeah, that is what we are talking about is how we are implementing the fee study, right? >> there was a comment. >> can we get direction from the sit city attorney. >> there was a motion and then a potential modification to the motion, but we dont have a second, so we need someone to articulate a motion that could then be seconded. >> i think we are discussing and trying to figure out exactly what the motion

should be. >> i think just for process, i think it makes sense if there is a second to my motion that becomes discussion about the motion and potentially a change, but i don't know how there are two molegzs motions on the floor. >> we had one motion made which wasn't seconded and commissioner neumann who proposed a modified motion but also hasn't been seconded. if can restate the motion they like seconded and then we can discuss. >> before understanding more about commissioner neumann's proposal qul i like to maintain the first motion i made. >> i second commissioner alexander-tut's motion. >> okay, there is a motion by

commissioner alexander-tut and second by commissioner chavez. >> deputy city attorney, and then we-commissioner neumann can propose her modifications as a friendly amendment if the movement is amenable. friendly amendment. >> i don't take issue with the motion put forward. i are feel perhaps we can be a little less prescriptive and allow space for the board and the mayor to have these discussions, rather then jumping--i mean, i am hesitant for us to move away from the plan that we put into place for implementing fees, and i know that maybe 6 percent across the board doesn't seem like a lot when

you are thinking about it globally, but when you look at a project and you have been in planning and you heard what is happening and perhaps that additional fee could mean a extra 70, 80, 90 thousand dollars for your project to move forward, it does have an effect, so i think that there's political considerations i rather not be involved with as far as the board and the mayor figuring out what is best, but what i think we have gotten from department of building inspection staff is something that is incredibly thoughtful, well thought out and meeting the needs of the department in a measured

way over time that doesn't prevent us from making changes down the line. like i said, i'm not opposed, i am just want to express my concern. >> deputy city attorney, i should probably clarify along those lines, because the ordinance now doesn't speak to any direct expenditure, it is the fees that the most important consideration for bic would be the actual amount of increase that needs to be referred back. if the commission discused this amount and considered amounts higher or lower, then if it goes to the board and decides to modify it has the range to modify without having to send back down to bic to consider. >> so, up to-we could recommend with an increase up to 6 percent or something like that?

>> deputy city attorney. i think the most important thing is to consider whether or not you recommend changes above or below and if you had a cap i think last year the proposal was 15 percent increase,b and there was discussion whether we wanted to say between 15 and more. if in that case, if or in this case, if the board were to decide to increase fees by 20 percent, it would have to come back here because it wasn't an amount we des cussed. the most important consideration is you discuss the tolerance for the delta on this fee setting. >> i will think about that while we go down the list. just point of clarification, so what is currently being proposed? in terms of increase in fees?

[multiple speakers] we are talking two different ways. we are talking about overall 6 percent increase. how does that proposal impact what we are currently proposing as a increase? >> so, i did the quick math for this meeting and it is approximately 6.49 percent across the board increase would raise additional $4.8 million, so with the motion would be increase fees by an amount that raise extraamount or money or increase fees by a certain percentage across the board? question-- >> deputy city attorney, to be clear, the proposal right now i believe and check my math proposes recovery

of 10 million more then the current fees bring in under the same assumptions and that is approximately half the $10 million more then the current fees bring in under the same assumptions and that is approximately half the deficit of 20million. -- >> approximately. it gets us to-it is about a third of it. >> so, again, the policy consideration for the board is more, what additional tall olerance for increasing fees beyond what is proposed and if the board were to propose something higher or lower, that wasn't considered here and have to be rereferred back, but that is there main concern is really just the tolerance for increase. i believe as commissioner chavez pointed out, not sure what the average increase is, but the average revenue increase on page 6 appears to be 18 percent, so proposed increases

increase recovery by about 18 percent. >> in interest of confusing us further, the legislation--sorry. the legislation itself is line by line and staff spent time thinking about working with constituents, working with the consultant that put together the study to try and balance how the fees were raised for each fee that we charge? >> correct. >> okay. >> so, we could go back through further and do a targeted approach. looking at all those discounts again. some fees may remain unchanged and some could change a lot.

a easier solution is increase everything by 6 and a half percent across the board, so there are various options. i don't know how much that would effect the timing of it, and if approval is pushed beyond may 22, i'm not sure the legislative impacts that, but we definitely dont want to delay implementation of the new fees. we are already losing two months next fiscal year and pushing beyond makes us lose even more. >> just to go to commissioner neumann's earlier point about being too prescriptive, i wonder if the solution is if for the amendment we are offering is to just arrive at that full cost recovery, because there is going to be

different fees-if we do 6 percent across the board there is a $1 admin fee that 6 percent increase isn't going to make a huge difference, but 500 percent increase of $5 isn't a crazy proposal. want to arrive at something that does achieve the goal of continuing to support this really important program and maybe isn't so prescriptive that we are cutting ourselves at the knee when we dont need to. i dont know if i have a proseal proposal for that specifically, but that is what i'm thinking. >> well, a couple comments. this end of the podium i'm not clear what the motion is, and my understanding is we are not-at least with this item, we are not deciding how to allocate any of the revenue, it is just the fee amount, so the

motion may be to increase' fees by 6 percent overall, however we want to do that. it could be to come to a increase-additional fees here to come to an additional $4.8 million to cover the cbo. it wouldn't be covering the cbo because we still are in a deficit and then in future fee cycles then we have to determine if weare fund the cbo again because this isn't addressing the future cbo fundsing. commissioner chavez point about full recovery, personally that would have my preference. we did debate that months ago. my preference would have been,

do full recovery and if the board and mayor decide that it is--there a political or economic reason to provide a subsidy to the developers then they should be paying the department or providing a subsidy program to the developers for that. i lost that debate, so we want to proceed with this. the phase-in plan seems fine, but however we proceed with this, we will have a lot of work to do if we want to keep the cbo programs to come to full recovery. my main point, let's please clarify the motion for me, personally because i don'ts know what we are voting on just yet and otherwise, those are my comments here. >> deputy city attorney, to clarify, one reason why we [indiscernible] discussed expend whichers and have a line item approved in the budget proposal for the cb0.

if there is money from the general we can't double recover the fees. what we are discussing now is the deficit in the proposed budget and whether there is room to both increase 6 percent assuming we stilligate the funds for the cbo, can each fee go up 6 percent without over recovery. that is question for alex. >> if the board of supervisor contemplate raise fees additional 6 percent they are required to remove the general fund support so we are not over recovering. >> are you saying that we are raising our fees so close to the hundred percent line that we are all at 94 percent because additional 6 percent would get the full recovery at hundred percent so that would mean that this year we are at 94 percent? >> i suppose that is true.

the other option would be to reduce our use of fund balance so to collect the general fund support to raise our fees an additional 6 percent and then to balance the budget some revenue source needs to be reduced and that would be use of fund balance potentially. >> thank you. commissioner shaddix. >> question, alex. the 6 percent that we are talking about, the 6 percent across the board increase, there is no guarantee those funds would go to a line item like the cbo funding? it just go backs into the general fund, now we have extra money, correct? >> to be clear, deputy city attorney, not the general fund. the fees are deposited into building permit fee fund so this is

increase to the key would be if we were to do full recovery today, and increase 6 percent off the top of full recovery we are over recovering because we have a proposal to get money from the city general fund. if we were to as proposed now, the currents legislation, i believe the motion was 6 percent in the proposal or recommend to the board they consider going up across the board 6 percent, that is the question for alex as to whether or not that leads to over recovery if we also get the general fund monies and i believe alex said it probably means less draw down of reserves and still are not hundred percent recovery, even if we get the general fund on top of 6 percent increase. >> one important thing to clarify is that, i think it is--i do not see a scenario we increase our fees

and then also allowed to keep the general fund support. i think if the fees are increased, then that general fund support would be taken by the mayor or board of supervisors. >> okay. >> is the motion for clarification, that the 6 percent increase would in this next fiscal year fund these programs? or is it to increase? >> [indiscernible] >> i would clarify and where i believe commissioner neumann's possible friendly amendment was to make less prescriptive and whether fees go up to 6 fert to get closer to full recovery, not specific budget item. >> that gone, we did that. this is just talking about fees. >> deputy city attorney, the budget proposes to fund those programs

as a expenditure, so you are not modifying that today to take it away or change it. that is money through our policy consideration is part of the expenditures. >> so, i think the difference is that my motion does not designate to any budget line item, but it [indiscernible] category of work things such as outreach and communication, we have lots of outreach and communication and can get much better about it, including community based code enforcement as a option for funding, however, if the recommendation city attorney is that may be too prescriptive, i would consider making it more general. my concern would be is that, throughout this entire process, this entire process from the beginning

there has been confusion about what are we going to study the community groups and the code enforcement outreach program in the fee study. we were-commissioner neumann making that request. we were initially told yes and then it was no and then it was it is on the budget so cant study it, so this is confusion since we started the process, so dont think we are arriving today at a new place where we have made any really firm decision. it is mostly been kick the can down the line to the next decision. and so, by concern would be, if we just say the 6 percent and thris this is question for the city attorney, if we just say 6 percent across the board, does that get us closer to the hundred percent fee study that never included this line to begin with?

that is not my intention. >> deputy city attorney, yes, it gets closer and you would be assured you are not double recovering. i believe if you line item the 6 percent only use said for these programs, i believe alex pointsed out that means we are recommending the general fund no longer provide that fund ing and 6 percent increase keeps at the same level draw down from the current reserve, so we would not be increasing fees closer to full recovery, we are just declining the general fund and then putting back into 6 percent this year, so the other question, if we are increasing other years, that the intention to get up to the hundred percent, rb it is really i think the consideration now is, do we agree with this level setting or think there is more tolerance for any across the board increase to fees and thrats polk whauts is important to give to the board so they have some discretion in whether or not they want to go with the fees as presentsed or increase

by certain amount have to rerefer it down. >> i see. i would just like to remind everyone, just because we model it doesn't mean that it happens and doesn't mean we get to that cost recovery. any number of things could change as far as the volume of projects that come in or don't come in. we are highly susceptible to what is happening in interest rate environment. there are a myriad of factors that have gone into making the thoughtful decisions and into phasing it in over time, but i think the most important thing to remember is, just because we model it doesn't mean it is going to happen and it doesn't mean that those revenues are going to come in. they only come in if projects

come in, and so it seems at the moment to me, the general fund is a safer place to be. that's sort of my logic in this moment where we are in. a recession and in a budget down-turn and have the option in a year to reassess and discuss this and touch this again. like, i--i'm a developer and what i do for a living and think we will have very few housing starts this year. i can tell you in my space, money has gone away and we are in previous years, 4, 5, 6 projects a year, maybe going to move forward 2 this year and they are not big ones.

>> i hear what you are saying. budgets are always guesses and unpredictable and can't assume we know what will happen and i think what we continue-i want to express the same frustration. i feel we keep kicking the can down the road and getting told there are different avenues and junctures we have there opportunity to talk about this and i think as a result of us continuing to kick this down the road we snd a message this isn't a priority and i don'ts agree and not the message i want to send. budgets are guesses, but they are also a representation of our values and right now the way we are looking at our fees and push forward the budget and had these conversations and navigated through the consistersations demonstrated this is something we are not prioritizing as a department and don't like that and don't want

that to be the message we are sending. i don't know based on what this fee recommendation covers and what we are moving forward what we can do in this moment, but i want us to have a plan for talking in the future about having a obligation to cover these fees to supporting this program that is really important, having the fund to support outreach and community organizations in the work they do in partnership with us that is incredibly important. >> may i say one? i don't know that is what we are saying at all, when we talk said about this before in the budget context it was literally like i agree that this is a essential service being provided, but when we looked at the budget and the things we were allowed to cut from our budget without losing personnel, this was our only

option so i state again, i think isthis instance what is put before us is very thoughtful and that it is the safer--i agree we should have a plan for the future but we are discussing moving forward the legislation that raises the fee study for the coming fiscal year. >> [unable to hear speaker] so, i think everybody made their points. commissioner neumann is right. with time we will have more data. i think we have work to do on this as commissioner chavez is saying. to commissioner neumann's last statement, to clarify, what we

decide today will not determine if the cbo are cut, because they are going to be funded, unless--there is nothing the board could do to change that. >> [indiscernible] >> hasn't been voted on. >> can somebody clarify what the status of the city budget is because i think that is important information for us in our consideration. it is it the mayor recommended budget, but the budget process i believe isn't complete by the board of supervisors. can someone clarify? >> this afternoon we have the first of two meetings with the budget appropriations committee. they will see our budget and then on next wednesday the 22, the budget and legislative analyst already provided a draft of their recommendations. those recommendations do not involve the cbo funding what so ever,

so unless one of the supervisors--there is no precedent for it being changed at this point. it is certainly possible, anything can happen, but the board is not in their current recommendation, so it is all most certainly to remain in the budget. >> if the board did something unprecedented and took the cbo out of the budget, would we as the bic, would we have the power to draw from-could we have a future vote to draw from our reserve to cover the cbo's if that does happen? >> there has to be a supplemental appropriation ordinance drafted and put before the board so there are two options.

either using existing fund balance or doing another legislation to change the building code to change fees again. >> okay. lastly, to the motion and what it is. so, the 6 percent as i look at the slide 6, i donts know if we can do 6 percent across the board, because that-it appears some of the fees are full recovery so may have to modify the motion so not over recovering for some of the fees, ist tharight? >> it could be 6 percent across the board because now this would be considered a new overhead cost and then all these fees would now be 99pert recovered. >> thank you.

>> [indiscernible] >> >> we'll take a 5 minute recess. >> take a 5 minute recess and [meeting reconvened] >> we have a motion. >> it probably needs to be restated. >> the motion as is is, 6 percent across the board for-where is my notes? out pch reach education and community organizing model and or community organized model towards code enforcement. that is the current motion. >> the proposed amendment to the motion is, accept the fees is with the

option or with leaving open the possibility to raise the fees up to an additional 6 percent. >> there is a motion and friendly amendment. >> before doing that can you make it 6.5? >> sure. >> actually, taking rob's recommendation, can we make it a range like 5-8 or something? >> deputy city attorney, i believe it was up to 6.5. >> okay, great. 6.5 percent. >> is that a friendly

amendment? >> i'm-loave fee study as is, but--i'm losing. >> leaving open or allowing adjustments up to 6 and a half percent. i just feel we are being a little rescriptive with the line item piece and then i also dont want to lose all the good work that was done in thinking through how each of the fees was being adjusted. >> so, for clarification, is your-pardon the word objection, but i'll use it, that- >> concern. >> is your concern about the impact of every fee increased by 6.5 percent, and that the department should take a--like do fee by fee consider the

impact? >> i do not want to hold up the legislation, it needs to move forward. i don't want to delay being able to collect those additional fees and get to a balanced budget in a timely fashion here, so that is not what i'm saying at all. what i'm saying is, i dont want to throw the baby out with the bath water. there was a lot of thought and consideration put into how we adjust the fees, so that we are being thoughtful about the impact we are having on each of our fee payers and so, i think we should--and a thoughtful 3 year implementation, so my suggestion is that we accept as is and say, if you would like to consider also raising fees up to an additional 6 and a half percent, and that leaves it open.

they can decide on fee by fee basis, but i doing in aggregate throwing away all the hard work that went into being so thoughtful about all this. >> okay. i understand. so, your objection is the aggregate across the board 6.5 percent? >> yes. >> i think that is fundamentally different and the reason is, is because the-hf-the recalculation of everything and reallocation of everything seems like--

>> [indiscernible] >> i'm concerned how we-- >> maybe let me rephrase. accept as is, with the open to adjusting made to the fee in aggregate have impact of up to 6 and a half percent. >> can i ask the department, is that realistic for september 1 if we were to say up to 6.5 percent-legislatively,eme polk not-i understand the words, i understand the intention, not sure how that shows up legislatively and/or how that gets implemented on the september 1 deadline. >> deputy city attorney, the building can not amepd an ordinance. you can make-you made recommendation or considered items such when they make a final decision it is within what you considered, so if they go beyond or consider completely different

legislation it has to come back here and that impacts the timeline. they are not mandated to do what the building inspection recommends , you just give latitude without having to rerefer. >> i like to mention one more time, the general fund money has committed. introducing the option of 6.5 percent increase would make it much more likely that the board or mayor would take that general fund money back, so is t is question of who funds it this next year. is our fee payers paying thousands up to 10s of thousands of dollars increased. some would only be a little bit if you get a photo copy or paying a few extra pennies but customers could be

significant impacted, versus sprding it out more and having a few pennies of somebody's property tax funding this. it is hard for the department-had hurts my heart to turn down free at least for our purposes, free money from the general fund. it is coming from a payer, a citizen of san francisco be property tax bill, but the general fund is a much more spread out then charging our fee payers this year. if the general fund were to go away there are options for readdressing that, but just wanted to make that clear. >> we are in oo time of budget surplus in the board of supervisor. my kid is writing letters to the board of supervisor about the mission science group not getting their cut. there is over a billion dollars

of cuts to services and are all really important and think it is hard-we are not in a position to have to make all those decisions. but i do understand our purview. i see commissioner chavez you put yourself on the list so i can differ to you and then consider your comments before i make a motion. >> okay. i just--i'll put othen table what i'm thinking mpt i do agree and we already discussed having the general fund fund this for this next year and there is still a vote to be had on that, that's been planned. we talked about that--i think that is a sensible thing given where we are at overall, and i'm trying to

figure out what happens after that. i know you said the way the ordinance is drafted, we can only take it one year at a time. it is the same problem-we'll talk about it again next year. i'm trying to figure out-- >> that is also budgets. >> what kind of-not promises, what we can say today so that we can try to accomplish this in the future. is it phasing it? >> it is part of it budget discussion that kicks off for the next cycle is think is what we can say. >> i have a idea. so, there is a 10 percent budget cut to the cbo this year, correct? >> correct . >> can we start with a fee that fills in the 10 percent? >> certainly something we can

recommend. one thing i will point out is that, for the past two fiscal years the is under spending by some cbo. the actual amount spent 22-23 is $4.3 million so hope the same amount of services could be procured with the 10 percent reduction. >> fantastic, i'll use it on all the great outreach efforts we have to do that come before us. i think--we use it to for the general fund. i think that to the extent that we start the path--we give them the discretion. we don't mandate-we are a recommending body. we give the recommendation before the board of supervisors and the mayor and comfortable saying, with level of discretion, so we are not

mandating 6 percent and then, we start the conversation over in a few months. so, i would like to--i guess my motion is, i like to have a stronger language then just for your consideration, but that we do recommend some consideration of a fee increase between--across the board between 0 up to 6.5 percent. i'll keep we recommend it, but i will say up to 6.5 percent. >> there is motion. is there a second? >> [indiscernible] the additional up to 6.5 percent, that is in addition to the already

proposed fee increases? >> recommend the fee study with an additional fee across the board up to 6.5 percent. >> nobody said anything. there is a motion by president alexander-tut and second by commissioner chavez. is there public comment on the motion? >> good afternoon. my name is jerry dratler. i have a very different perspective. i don't understand the budget assumption prohibiting budgeting reduction in city positions in a

environment when the number of buildings permits being issued is in significant decline. this can't continue too many years into the future. therefore, i have two suggestions. i suggest the department examine the operational changes that would be necessary to support staff reductions in future years, and, what operational changes would be necessary if the general fund money is cut for community based organization programs, because without the cbo's the dbi workload will increase dramatically. thank you. >> thank you. any additional public comment? >> good afternoon. juan garcia, sro family collaborative. we fully support this motion.

we understand some of the concerns we heard today. yes, a budget projection is a guessing game but it can go either way. some mentioned spending might not occur but didn't say spending couldover occur. you have to look at the potential future budgets could be. yes, we definitely would like to see the fee increase so the cbo can come back in the department. it has been part of the department and never a issue up to now, so why are remaking a issue now? instead of reminding the work being done to help tenants not just the developers. they will find the money. they always do. just because property values are down and those permits values are also down,

it doesn't mean 6 percent will effect them dramatically. it gives them more wiggle room now that the permits are cheaper so they can spend more. maybe not now, maybe in the future. we can't stick to the mentality what if they don't spend. they always spend. this is san francisco. it has never been a issue. thank. >> thank you. roll call vote on this motion. president alexander-tut, yes. vice president shaddix, no. commissioner chavez, yes. commissioner neumann, yes. commissioner sommer is excused. commissioner williams, yes. the motion carries 4-1.

thank you. >> alright. our next item is director's report. director 6a, director's update. >> [indiscernible] members of the commission. i'm patrick o'riordan. department of building inspection. i like to thank president alexander-tut and >> speak into the microphone director, thanks. >> and the other commissioners who also attendeded online. we appreciate your attendance and your support. the all hands meeting featured a presentation about strategic plan and update on recent operational improvements and the result. staff have told us how much they value

and appreciate these all hands meetings so we'll start holding them twice a year. we hope you will be able to join us in the future. speaking of the strategic plan the working group was established for each 6 goals and strategies. last week and this week these groups are holding their first meetings to finalize priorities assign roles and homework and begin to map out the needs to be done for each of these tactics. i attended a few kick off meetings and impressed by the enthusiasm of the team members, and also by how quickly breaking down the work before them into specific tasks. i look forwards seeing this

group group develop and sharing progress with you in the coming months. we also recently held a quarterly public advisory forum attendeded by more then 70 people. among other topics we discuzed dbi new process and forum for extending and withdrawing permits. essentially establishing a better more efficient structure for this process. this may seem a small change, but this improvement is reflective of how much work we are doing at dbi. modernizing and clarifying our processes to both improve our work and better serve our customers. this is important because our success isn't dependent on any one single change. rather on mae many small improvement to better coordinate work. standardize our processes, modernize our technology and establish a relentlessly focus providing excellent

customer service. ultimately we believe our success will be measured in two ways. good, reliable quantitative data documenting our progress and direct fee back from the public. to that end, i like to share with you a brief note sent by mr. brian leang about the service provided by our over the counter manager, jimmy chung. mr. leangustateed, thank you so much for helping out my mom the other day. she greatly appreciates your help answering all her questions and being patient with had er. she said you really helped her streamline her process and made it easier for her in a unfamiliar setting. thank you mr. leang for your kind words and thank you jimmy for your fine work in support for our customers. this concludes my report. i'm available for any questions. >> thank you director.

6b is update on dbi finances. >> could we skip that item? alex had to go down to the supervisors to see where we are at the budget hearing. >> no worries. >> he will be back. >> thank you. item c, update on major projects. >> president tut and commissioners, patrick o'riordan, the slides are intended to highlight the volume of projects 5 million or more filed issued or completed in the last month. we'll profile projects with high value of housing and community assets. in april 2024, one permit

application with a estimated construction value of $5 million was filed with dbi. this project is office is tenant improvement, 1160 battery street and valued at $6.8 million. last mujt issued three high value permits, one for a new gene friend recreation center in the soma. that is valued at $32.5 million. another is $9.1 million renovation as the eldorado sro, 159 street which includes the addition of 4 housing units. and, lastly, one high value permit for a office tenant improvement at 600 battery and that project was valued at $14.3 million. that concludes my report on major projects. available for questions.

>> next is 6d, update on proposed or recently enacted state or local legislation. >> good afternoon. [indiscernible] assistant director. so, as far as active ordinances, the ordinance amend ing building code for the accessible entrance business program is the last one you considered. a few months ago extend the deadline to june 30 this year and signed by the mayor so now into effect. i know earlier today you alsoheard the second extension ordinance to extend the deadline to the end of this year

and so that will now be referred back to the board of supervisors. next slide. a couple months ago you considered an ordinance that would clarify the ministerial approval process for adu. there [indiscernible] review a permit if it creates 25 or less housing units, versus the adu shot clock which is 30 days. that ordinance has been tabled and not going to move forward. next slide. we were also asked to appear to hearing earlier this yeek on the future of union square. this hearing featured presentation by economic workforce development

and we were also there. matt green, deputy director inspection service and qu were there to answer questions about our role helping economic recovery and that hearing was since tabled and could be brought back. and then last slide, the state legislature bumping up against the last day for fiscal communities to hear reports of floor bills heard in house of origin and then may 24 will be the last day for the bills to pass and then we switch over to the budget bill deadline in june. any questions? thank you. >> next we have 6e, update on inspection services. >> good evening commissioners. matthew green, deputy director for inspection services and pleased to provide a update on the

activity of and performance of the inspection service division. in april 2024, the building electrical plumb division conducted 10.814 inspections. 97 percent inspections conducted in two business days exceeding target of 90 percent. in the same month the housing inspection service conducted 1080 inspections with 140 being routine inspections of multifamily housing. the building electrical plumbing division received 452 complaints and responded to 98 percent of them within 3 business days exceeding the tarsal of 85 percent. the code enforcement division sent 52 cases. lastly, our inspection severs received 519 non life hazard complaints and responded to 99 percent of them

within 3 business days. life hazard and heat complaints received 32 complaints and responded to 81 percent within one business day. housing inspection abated 413 cases with noting of violation and sent 37 cases to director hearing for further action. that concludes my report and available for any questions. thank you. >> thank you. we'll return to item 6b, update on dbi finances. >> hello again. commissioners. sorry. my apologies, i went downstairs to check the board chamber where the hearing is happening to make sure we won't lose our place. so, i have in this presentation an update for what has happened since our

department budget submission in the mayor phase of the budget and our regular update. so, in the mayor's phase of the budget, there have been some changes, the biggest is salaries and benefits. those changed due to labor negotiations and there is changing benefit rates, so those chaenges were made. the controller calculated our city overhead, which had a very significant decrease. this was pleasant news, $900 thousand savings. it is great news for us in our fund balance. that's our share of our portion of this building rent and the cost of the board of supervisors and just all the essential city services. small tweak made to the city grant budget program. that was increased by $30 thousand to make the cut exactly 10 percent. there was--from 4.8 million to

4.32. and then other various work order cost, service of or the departments after submitted the budget, those changed. on the revenue side, we decreased what the controller office calculated our projected fund interest, the interest on the fund balance, the cash in the bank. because we have been using the fund balance that is going down. the general fund support also went down to match the amount of the cbo budget so exactly $4.32 million down from $5.1 million. and then, we used reserves to balance the budget. next slide, please.

these are the actual numbers that changed, so the 2 change columns are two budget years. the amounts change from the department budget, salaries and benefits went up. city overhead down. small change to increase the city grant program. and then work orders went down in the first year and up in the second. and then again, on the revenue side, the big change is the revenue change. a million dollar reduction there and that is due to the timing. we were initially hopeful that we could make the fees effective on july 1 first day of the year, but unfortunately it looks like it will be september 1, same as last year so lose about $2 million. those are the changes in the budget. there will be likely additional changes.

i think labor negotiations are not hundred percent done. there could be technical adjustments. we where negotiating with the budget legislate analyst now regarding potential budget reductions for our positions, so i will provide a update at the end of the board of supervisor phase with there final budget. the next slide, please. on to the regular monthly update. we are now 83 percent of the way through the year. our year end projections haven't changed from last meeting, so we are projecting operating short-fall or revenue short-fall, but expenditure surplus, so we will be-we are projecting net $600 thousand to the good so will deposit that on top of what we-we will use less fund balance then anticipated by $600 thousand by end of year.

next slide. here are the revenues, so small changes to the actuals. everything else is as it was in the previous meeting. the biggest story here is the $3.4 million projected deficit to service charge revenue. next slide, please. and then on the expenditure side, again, some changes to actuals from the previous month, but projections are the same. the biggest save lgz is profelgzal service and peer review. we have million dollars budgeted for peer review service. that is when large projectss are required to get a third party engineering analysis. we have contracts with various engineering firms if needed to provide services. we know we will not use all of it. we will likely carry forward

some that, so it won't be true saverings at the end of the year but just for use as needed. next slide, please. and then the permit amounts are largely the same. we still see year to date number of permits being higher then for the same period last year and valuation being lower. it is closeing in slightly and similar to last year but still remains the same and you can really see the effect of the large projects last year, the $200 million projects we are responsible for. $308 million of valuation we don't have this year so very significant fee revenue we are not seeing now. that's it. i'm happy to answer any questions. >> thank you.

is there any public comment on the director's report, 6a-e? >> i have a handout. thank you.

>> good afternoon. my name is jerry dratler. dbi complaint management reporting to bic is awful. only reports on the percentage of complaints that receive-- that receive an initial inspection within the dbi service standard. there is no dbi service standard for closing complaints. there should be a report which shows the number of complaints open for 30, 60, 90, 100 and over 365 days. it is expensive to manage complaints that should have knin closed. there is no dbi complaint for the illegal new windows in this picture and

you can see what it looked like in the left and what it looks like today. however-i need to go back. this is one of two com plaints--having technical problem today. this is one of two complaints at this location. so, you have the illegal windows, and you have a second floor deck that went way beyond the permit scope. now, the question is, why were not two nov issued? why? okay. so, moving along, the illegal rear deck complaint has been open for four years.

4 years. it was opened may 20 of 2020. the last entry is dated october 18, 2023. that's 3.4 years after the complaent was opened. is the 4 year old complaint an anomaly? the only way we'll know is if dbi issues a aging report on open complaints. dbi failure to issue two nov for obvious code violations needs to be explained. two nov earn the contractor a spot on the dbi ecc monitoring report. dbi code enforcement needs to implement reporting just like deputy director pereira implemented in permit services. thank you very much. >> thank you. is there additional public

comment? >> i like to reiterate what mr. dratler said. regarding the follow-up- >> speak into the mic. >> okay, thank you. regarding the follow-up. the way the nov are typically written, you are 30 days to file a permit, 60 days to obtain the permit, 90 days to complete all work. all of these complaints and nov's and enforcement should be automatically computer jen ratted to prevent the subjective nature of favoritism to the

contractors in the city family. reference the [indiscernible] that i spoke about in my deposition and dennis richards case and that's available in mission local online. sometimes these [indiscernible] for years. dont make sense. the commission should get a reason from mr. o'riordan why these are placed in his office and for whom? and then, on 571 myer way, complaint 201696401, issued notice of violation 2-1-16 and abated 8-25-21. four years later. why [indiscernible] get transferred back to the building inspection

division ? code enforcement should go in one way linear direction and only in code enforcement and are not placed in limbo. 24 ord court took 8 years to be abated. i was the inspector on that job. i issued a notice of violation number 201314301. it appears that the notice of violation when you go down to the original violation at the bottom of the complaint tracking is erased from the dbi computer system. i may have the only origeral copy before it apparently went away into the ether. thank you. i get another 30 seconds. again, notice of violation and complaints should go in a

linear direction and not be subjectively moved back and forth for different connected contractors in the city family. everybody should be treated the same and fairly. thank you. >> hi, commissioners. lisa with chinatown cdc and just have a few questions and wondering on page 5 item 6b, the general fund support $5.1 million but thought it was $4.8 million so not sure where the number comes from there. then also, we have been already talking about the 10 percent cut coming up for year 24-25. just wondering how that looks for 25-26 because the mayor instruction is 10 percent general fund cuts for 24-25 but also the additional 10 percent

cuts for 25-26. there is also the 5 percent contingency cut which we all don't know what is going to happen with that as well, so i think any further cuts for our program is going to be really detrimental again to our services and for our staff, so i really hope we can find ways to cover the 10 percent and talk about the possible additional 10 in the upcoming year. there is $600 thousand surplus in the presentation. i dont know if that could be used to cover the 10 percent cut from the general fund for the cbo but hope we can look into that instead of looking to put the $600 thousand in the reserves. thank you. >> thank you. anymore public comment? is there any remotely? seeing none, item 7, update on concrete building safety program.

>> good afternoon president tut, commissions. permit service division at dbi and pleased to present on the building safety program. first slide, please. so, just to offer little background, this program is part of a 20 year effort that the city has undertaken to evaluate structural vulnerabilities within the city, and last 10 years or so has been specifically targeted towards the concrete building program the last two years we focused

on the planning of the program. many heard of the unreinforce [indiscernible] and soft story strengthen are part of the earthquake safety implementation program of the city. next slide. studies have shown there is a 72 percent probability of a 6.7 or higher magnitude earthquake here in san francisco in the bay area by the year 2044. we have been working hand in hand with the office of resilience and capital planning as well as other city partners to insure that we have a overall [indiscernible] of the problem. the office of city administrator as well as the department of emergency management have also

contributed towards the planning. next slide. focus in the concrete building realm has been on two types of buildings, the non concrete buildings as well as the tilt up buildings. the report shows that the non concrete buildings are typically stratify across housing industrial and commercial office space and these retrofits are particularly complicated because it is these connections embedded into the building as opposed to the tilt up buildings, which are typically your warehouse, large grocery stores and autobody shops. these connections are easily accessed

and a lot less costly to rehabilitate. our stakeholder program was broken up into two different types of stakeholders. the technical stakeholders as well as non technical. technical group was made up of the applied technology council. the department buildings inspection and public works staff and the structural engineers association of northern california. the other stakeholders represented 10 want advocates as well as business and labor representative as well. next slide. so, this report was just released a few weeks ago, and recommended

about 9 different provisions. firstly to develop the financing plan and also look to offer grants for building owners to help them with the cost of retrofit. the creation of a communication plan which would be similar to the soft story retrofit program to reach out to those building owners and connect them with design professionals to find pathways to compliance. also to establish a notification process for residents and tenants before work starts. once these buildings are properly identified you imagine if you are a tenant or residents of one of these buildings you want to know sooner rather then later. this provides guidance and resources for building owners and residents to understand the process and their rights.

next slide. as you imagine, dbi doesn't have purview over all elements of the stakeholder engagement report as we focus on permitting and inspection. a lot of this has to do with providing financing, tenant relocation and so on so forth. provide communication packet for building owners and tenants and that includes funding and dedicated full time staff for dbi to administer the program. last slide, coordinate requirements and timelines. similar to the-for the fire alarm facade repairs and lastly, to streamline small sidewalk encroachment and reduce burden.

the next slide, please. few weeks ago, mayor london breed presented legislation essentially directing dbi to come up with a mandatory--a screening program for these buildings. first off, we need to evaluate our inventory. we have an existing inventory of about 3600 non duck tile concrete buildings and about 350 tilt up building so you can imagine there is a big impact of this. that inventory needs to be tightened up so we are looking resurveying the city and making sure we address this a little bit better and then also, allow the residents to or allow us to screen these buildings for applicability to be part of the program or not. and then the second part of this

legislation was to publish concrete building retrofit standard in our san francisco existing buildings code so that the way it is being proposed is voluntary retrofit now for those building owners that are in the process of remodeling the building, or they are completely vacant right now. before they start to rehabitate the buildings or completely ficial the remodeling, those standards help guide them opposed to filling the building and later on compling back and having to rehab the building. the last slide, please. so, in developing legislation, we need to create the screening phase

of the program and this involves a tracking, customer relation management piece of software to track each and every building through the process whether either ops out of the program because it is either ineligible or structurally competent, or if it is identified as applicable we can track it through the compliance process. so, that's it the eligibility portion of it. the last part of it is to create the legislation and the existing building code. we have those technical standards already. they were drafted by applied technology council in coordination with structural engineer association of northern california, and it is just matter of drafting legislation to mike

that a part of the existing building code. that is my report and i'm prepared for questions if you have any. >> thank you. is there public comment on item 7? seeing none. thank you. on to agenda item 8, commissioner's questions and matters. 8a, increase staff at this time commissioners may make injuries to staff regarding document policy practice and procedures of interest to the commission. and 8b, future meetings and agendas at this time the commission may discuss and take action to set the date of special meeting and or determine thoseetums that could be placed on thugenda of the next meeting and future meetings of the building inspection commission. the next regularly scheduled meeting is going to be june 12 which is one week sooner then our meeting is

normally scheduled due to the holiday. >> i just wanted to mention, we said we were going to have a housing committee meeting in may, but that doesn't look like it is going to happen so hoping for june or late july. >> thank you. >> commissioner williams. >> for future meeting item related back to our lengthy budget talk, i think at some point we should have a special meeting dedicated just to the cb o issue. because, it comes a lot. we always say we need more time. we should just have a special meeting dedicated to that where we can

address several various issues coming. the services are the department's contingency plan, if in the future the cbo are no longer in the department and no longer receiving general fund support, so it may be that's-i don't have a specific date in mind, but i think before i for get about that, that is what i like to suggest. >> thank you. if commissioners have other items another time you can contact pee to let me know. is there any public comment on item 8a and b? the next item is 9, review and approval of the minutes of the regular meeting march 20, 2024. is there a motion to approve the minutes? >> motion to approve the

minutes. >> second. >> there is motion and second. is there any public comment? seeing no public, commissioners in favor? >> aye. >> any opposed? thank you. the minutes are approved. the next item is item 10, review and approval 06 the minutes of regular meeting of april 17, 2024. is there a motion to approve the minutes. >> motion to approve. >> second. >> there is motion and second. public comment? there is no public in attendance. is there-all commissioners in favor? >> aye. >> any opposed? seeing none, the minutes are approved. next is item 11, adjournment. is there a motion to adjourn? >> so moved. >> second? >> second. >> okay. we are now adjourned. it is may 15 and the time is what time?

1:25 p.m. thank you everyone. [meeting adjourned] meter. >> hello, i'm captain tom the coordinator for the san francisco fire department. this oversight is the three and 4

anniversary of loma linda earthquake i want to go over a few things to help you preparation building a supply kit and supply kit does is not have to be put together all at once take your time on the website have a list of recommendation and have enough food and water to feed your family through three to 5 days and purchase the fire extinguisher if you have an extinguisher at hand will stop a small fire from being a by fire it is simple to use check the gage make sure it is charged and then repeat the word task task stand for pull to pin aim the novel and screws the trigger and successes to the because of fire the last recommendation to look

at the gas meter electrical gas lines cause fires in the loma linda earthquake and we want to show you how to turn off the gay only turn off if you hear gas or hear hissing and coordinator nathan will demonstrate how to turn that off. >> with a whenever i'm going to turn it over one quarter turn. so in on holler orientation in turn off our gays meter don't turn it back on get a service call from