meet the press dbi - 4 to 5 san francisco >> there are different divisions in the department of building inspection involved in the code enforcement process. building inspector donald duh! if i will explain the procedures with the issue answer of notice of violation an the referral of notice of

violation and james lee will speak of code enforcement process that include the directors hearing procedure and issue of ordinance abate meant. and speaker alan bait meant will speak of the housing inspection services and there maybe come apparent that there are similarities the processes. and how the inspector mandi a, will does kiss the abatement section. i'm pleased to introduce rebecca love vova yand san francisco department a souks and lep e, from st. peters housing commission.

the panel will be able to answer questions that conclusion but we request you make your questions brief and to the point and limit them to one minute in order to accommodate others. i'd like to invite donald duh! if i to speak on his session. >> hi i'm donald duh! if i and inspector with building inspection and my role is to investigate complaints and issue notices of violation and in the event of noncompliance to refer them. a brief overview of each function the complaints. two complaints. that could be referred and operation ss handled by the

building commission work in the scope of work with it. and once a complaint has been logged into our system it will be the same to inspector and work pe yopd that is handles by building up speck tore and unsafe structures are handled by inspection team. we'll utilize things and investigate only that area of complaints. upon the investigation a notice of violation will be issued. a notice of violation is official citation to document sigh tabss that do not appeal with housing codes and it shall display the accusations

accurately and mediation applies with time period attached and penalties imposed there's a permit fee so it can be costly. if the owner does not complain within the notice of the time period of described a second will be referred and i'll now hand it over to david son. >> good afternoon i'm with housing inspection services and giving a brief overview of code enforcement process that runs concurrent. the process starts with the complaint. the complaint is initiated by the public or referral from another department or basis

tell attic routine inspection. the next step is the actual inspection. a district inspector will ininvestigate or a routine inspection of the common areas of the building. move down to the notice of violation itself, if housing inspection violations are found a notice of violation is issues describing the repair and the reinspection time and date. next, we move down to the reinspection. at the time of the reinspection if all corrected items are corrected the days of the case will be abated and that's goal we try to reach. i would like to introduce the record hearing and order

abatement process. >> the complaint of file comes to our section called coenforcement session. the coenforcement section employed administration process for the procedures and tools to correct code deficiency. and this section initiates follow up enforcement when the case has been referred by other cases with dbi, such as electrical and building instructions and pi d, and bi d, by holding directors hearings and referring cases to building inspection commission and city attorneys offices for litigation. we review and power tiez

complaints and referrals from other departments. and for the directors hearing concurrent along housing division cases. what's the directors hearing? a directors hearing is a powerful apparatus to compel, compliance. it involved aqua si judicial compliance. involves one talking to witness to testify to all recordings of sections and three, presiding by chief or city inspector on behalf of the director of the dbi, and four providing the city, the property owner and interesting owner of fear or

clear opportunity to discuss their case. prior to discussing as a major task of preparation we conduct a title search to find out those that have the financial interest on the property such as other business partners and landing institutes and notify them of upcoming hearing. at this point, if the property owner has complied with the notice of violation and delivers a copy of the signed off card to our division the entire hearing proceeding can be avoided and there for case abated. most of the outcomes from the directed hearing are issue answer of an order of abatement.

now what if an order of abatement in order of abatement is a negative title means, a cloud recorded against the property it inversely effects the properties title and business activity. sech as title transferring, selling or buying of the private property or have a hard time of obtaining et cetera. this is a powerful tool to achieve compliance. once the order of abate meant is issues and recorded, the property owner is also responsible to reimburse with abate meant assessments. let it be known, an order of

abatement is empirical. it can be appealed for ten calendar days. the rest of the work on theication is monitoring the case to achieve a payment or abatement or revoke the order of abatement or make preparation to referring it to special litigation committee for possible city attorney referral. now i have concluded in my presentation and senior davidson your turn. >> so, where we left off after james so, wonderfully explained this, the assessment of cost. once the order of abatement has been assessd the department will prepare an inspector and

clerical time on the case based on an hourly rate. it's roughly a minimum of about 6 hundred dollars. that's the initial bill and with the initial bill it's always five. after the initial cost the bill is set and we have the option to send it to litigation subcommittee or city for referral. the department of building inspectors is over or under the litigation of subcommittees have cases tenth or sent to them and this is when the process becomes costly. we all know attorneys are not cheap no matter what you have to do. so in conclusion this is what we're trying obtain. abatement laws in the process. so the remedy for this is, code

enforcement process can be avoided by avoiding these in a timely manner and doing them quarterly and functional sanitary housing soy would suggest to avoid all of this about right here, so the next speaker is housing speaker will talk about code enforce meant process in detail. >> i'm housing inspector with the abatement division. it led based session 3407 is regarding any activity to serve or remove lead paced paint on the exterior or interior of 1979 builds and structures and properties. the purpose of this ordinance is to minimize or

eliminate the risk of lead contamination to the environment and provide a reasonable level of health and safety for the public at large. especially children and pregnant women. here's some photographs. you can see that this is typical between 1979 building their preparing to do the exterior. and this is another photograph to show they do the paint work without complying with the requirements. and then there's another one that's the exterior paint serving work and didn't comply with requirements. there was a workshop earlier today regarding the lead paint

and environment if you did not have a chance to attend i will be happy to answer any questions after this presentation. okay. let's talk about the coenforcement procedure in lead abatement division. typically, the enforcement procedure in this division are very similar to what donald, james and allen, described earlier. conducting and issuing notice of violation and looking decision and so on. because of the led basing ordinance the plead abate meant have enforce meant action to bring the abatement into compliance. during the complaint inspection

complaint is justified and in violation inspector can have a pemty and fee with a notice of violation like property owner or contractor and here's an example. go back to notice of violation. here's an example of notice of violation and go out and find it in violation and we'll mark what kind of violation in this notice. and the next one. the penalty can range from 250 dollars up to 3 thousand dollars for inspection fee added per day. this is penalty year in violation that will calculate how much to charge for each violation per day. in the total.

if the responsible party wishs to repeal the penalty and fee and repeal the penalty form we'll be provided for them and this is another form for the appeal form basically homeowner or contractor or either or both of them can file from submitle led abatement division. should be submitted in a 15 or 16 days on the day of penalty and fee. if the responsible parties choose not the file the penalty and fee should be paid in 30 days if not the final order of notice of penalty fee will be against the property and recorded in the office and this is a sample for final order if they don't pay them we will issue this one in the office.

upon receiving an appeal they will schedule the case for the directors hearing and a notice of decision and order will be issued and recorded in the office. this can be a modification of obsessive panelty or allow the parties to attend a party in lieu of this. it must be lead training and positive monitoring. and this is another sample of the notice of this position after the hearing. if the responsible parties fail to pay the penalty and fee have issues or failed to comply with the notice of decision and order the case will be referred

to special assessment hearing before the board of supervisors. it will be a lean on the property tax field and may be referred to office of city attorney for further abatement process. in addition the properties owners name may beacon tractors name maybe we referred to contractors state license board and that's the coenforcement process thank you. >> i'm a deputy city attorney with code enforcement unit and i guess on the end of the enforcement line so when all these individuals have enlisted property notices and have done all of their orders and sometimes before all these steps are taken i'm the attorney and one of six or 7 attorneys in the city attorneys

office in charge of enforcing our municipal codes and relative state laws and relevance to public nuisance. i get complaints from departments and public and we operate a hot line and my job is to assure that our codes are adhered to and codes are followed. i think you heard a lot today and i cannot echo enough that cooperating and working with the city to address problems as quickly as possible is effective. you've heard there are enormous violation of building codes and anything unlaw full can be carry penalties of large amounts of money. i say that not to scare you but

i say this because this is why we try to enlist your cooperation to ensure our housing properties are safe for the residents of citizens. if you see me it's probably not good news. >> i'm director of the housing rights director of san francisco and what i do is i try to work before we get to this position, before the city is called in at all. we're tenants rights organization and we have lots of people that come to us for assistance and one premier area is in repairs so what we do is work with tenants to try to work the landlord to keep it out of the cities process. it's the city money and does a

lot to build relationships with be napts and landlords and builds relationships with groups like myself and landlords participateing in this program. so there's a lot of bonuses in this process and we've learned a lot about the cities process and we've saved the cities session pensions a lochlt we keep 20 to 35 cases out of the city per month. that'ses a lot of time and effort not wasted. sometimes it'ses just an issue of landlord and tenant speak a different language or sometimes an absent landlord that don't know what the property management is doing on the ground. it also gives us an opportunity to work with other nonprofits

and with the apartment association that has done a lot to edge kate all of us to provide safe and descent housing. whether a tenant or landlord we assume our goal is to make housing more livable. thank you. >> i'm with the san francisco living association. i'm on the side of rental providers the landowner and we have resolved quite a few cases and keep about 30 cases a month going and some are resolved with one or two phone calls and some go on over a period of a year or so unfortunately but the sooner you can act, the better is it for the opener and a lot- less costly. one thing i did want to mention in one of our mandates as a

nonprofit in san francisco is we do education and provide education to rental housing providers and i think important thing for everyone to realize, all the problems caused are multi level and although they may effect the building, a lot of times there could be language barriers or all sorts of different issues or people not understanding the responsibilities of owners and what we like to do is offer on going education courses not only in the area of lead and mold but basic business things with owning land in san francisco. i'll be around to answer any questions you may have and i'd like to thanking amy and her staff at dbi, for having us here today we have all found it and my staff to be a very

fruitful day and enjoyed ourself and thank you rosemary. >> i'm with st. peters housing commit in san francisco. my organization is spanish speaking tenants in the spanish district and been around 20 years and we provide tenant counseling for tenants in san francisco and basically our goal as part of the program is also to try and get as many cases out of dpi as possible. it's to get those as a lengthy process of going through hearings and we help write letters and speak spanish other than spanish so we help them write letters in english about repair problems giving them problems you can repair it now

and we to have the option to taking it to the process and this program will give us a really unique opportunity to work with landlords to get this resolved and it's something that's great on san francisco and something we can be actually do. we also help tenants and we refer cases to dbi, and again like everybody said our goal is for the tenants to have a healthy dignified place to live and working with what they need. working with the association and one of the things that we see that are the most common problems are like in wintertimes we get walls about leaks and moisture and we try to work with other commissions

and people are pretty responsive. we like to see communication happen and get a resolution some i think dbi for putting this together and i'll be around for questions as well. >> thanks lup e. that concludes our formal presentation. we have a microphone set up in the room. >> what do you do about a building owner that has converted a commercial property and continues to allow entry to determine people are actually living there. what can the assumption of the other people have the same concern. >> for any -- it doesn't matter what the circumstances are. for anything that the city has

a right to inspect, for anyone interested. 18 mayors office of criminal justice presentation of community policing. discussion only. point 5 for your numbers people. it says it allows me to get a warrant. not in a criminal content but an order that allows the department to bo an inspection the one cannot be done by force. we must serve it to the property opener and if they don't get us consent we're required to go back to court to enter the proper think by force. we're closed to do that because we want to come at these in the spirit of collaboration so that is the technical way we can get access to property in my three years we have yet to do it. >> i have a question about i