enforcing laws about that. every time i hear and call them up people say, well it's something we can't get to if the owner won't let us in. what's the position about that. >> illegal units is a challenge for us in san francisco and it unfortunately does serve as a viable point of affordable housing in the building inspection when we're made aware of the situation it's the district inspector sees it while inspecting another property near-by we make attempt hand most often we go through the violation process and what happens to us, is after we're done and believe it to be abated and the property owner may have removed

the kitchen after that it may return and that's a challenge we have and we have to work through that at that time as well. we're trying address that. >> that's exactly why i asked because i know that's a source of affordable housing but there's this code enforce meant and i am curious to know your between a rock and hard place. >> the issue is safety. a lot of electrical work is done without permit and may give rise to serious safety issues there so our concern is safety of that unit. we do attempt in many cases, donald can echo this, we've gone over properties three times and they haven taken the kitchen out three times.

eventhough, we still try to address it. >> you have a wonderful selection of materials advising people what the codes are and frequently asked questions with your going to try to legalize things in the basement and one of those was to comply with electrical code activities for storm room. are you actually enforcing those electrical activities. when i checked with someone they said there was not enough personnel going out so it's just being win ked at. i'm bringing to your attention are all codes enforced or selectively enforced. >> as many as we can. we're a limited in resources. >> i'd added to that. it's not a win k, wink.

is it brought to our attention and if it's not, we don't know about it. san francisco as small as it is has a lot of buildings and we have a limited number of inspectors so we're aware and we do enforce it and if we see it's a we do in that particular location, we're doing a garage or some type of remember vacation we'll bring that up and in fact i have to say the electrical division is probably the most stringent. >> my name is wallace and i mentioned so you'll know my perspective as i ask the question. it's about the fa franchise referral process. my impression is there are far few referrals than ten or 20

years ago. my impression was in the past that occurred right maybe simultaneous with the order of abatement. my impression is that doesn't automatically happen now and my question is what is the referral procedure your using. if your not referring so much why is that. my belief is when this tax deductions are disallowed for landlords that money is referred back to the city of san francisco. >> your correct. in my off statement, i don't work with directly with code enforcement. james did you want to comment on that? rosemary? >> good afternoon.

rosemary, would you ftbreferrals, and ten years back the law, it's been in existence quite a while. we do them but other things as well. first getting the money back it does take time because the state has to go through and audit those books. while that's going on we do additional things to get the property owner to comply and when it is we'll assess the cost to reimburse the city the time it takes to get them to comply pursuant to chapter one of the building code and we put more effort into that like for ten or twenty years ago and that helps fund the effort as

systematic enforcement as to doing things like going into department buildings to look and see if they have storm and sprinklers so we do ftb, but with a whole lot of other things. should we do more? yes we would if we had more resources. but we're also putting resources into doing effort of cost giving us the benefit of reimburse meant to wait for the state to do an audit of someone's book and what happens when a property owner does not pay we go to the board of supervisors ask that a special lean be put on their tax belt and their supportive of that. we mentioned several tools and we have not talked about tie or

citations and we use all the tools we have given the resources we have. the assessment of cost is more effective and timely tool for us. thank you. >> also as i recall, the revenue and tax code says there's like a 6 month wait. >> see that's right. that's a very good point. the case has to be ripe. lot of time has to go on before we can send a notice of noncompliance which is the document to the state. the other statement in the past procedurely sometimes they want social security number but it does not mean we can do that and send it to fp b. but we can say we're assessing them at a cost of hourly rate from day one to get them to

comply and we find that very effective and we do get a response from them because not only are they then having to pay that but but they realize we pay twice. once when the case is closed and it's an incentive to see they complete all the required work and get them signed off. >> i realize it's both ends and your simultaneously doing that and using other techniques. my memories of landlords jumping like cats on hot tin roofs when they got those notices. >> i want to tell you dbi and the city attorneys office are best friends but inspector lee i was puzzle about something you said when you went through fileg the complaint and making

a complaint and filing it or sending the come mrabt out to the building owner and then abate. you said if the issue is a pated or the problem is abated there's not a penny charged. can you explain that because when people ask me about it i expect if someone makes a complaint because there's code enforcement or illegal work going on there would be a charge somewhere a long the line. i would like you to clarify that please. >> thank you that's a wonderful question. when i mentioned there's not a penny charge. it's not that -- prior to the hearing -- then if the violation being abated -- then we do not charge them the coenforcement assessment -- as

a matter of fact i found it's very encouraging -- a message we send out to the owners that do it before -- you know, you get penalized later on. >> there's a penalty on the permit. >> exactly. once it's kicks in it's not cheap and has tens of thousands

of dollars. >> could you explain that it implies somebody did something from the original permit and could you clarify if i'm correct in that assumption or is there something negative about having a permit. why not straighten this out beforehand. >> that's difference -- say a person was doing a large scope of work on their house and the actual work did not go precisely to the approved plans and what the inspector of the district would do is write a notice of violation and ask the opener to file and as it was built so for instance if they built a little higher or taller than the plans asked them to we refer that to neighborhood notification process and get approval for city planning

before any of the structural issues that may have been altered in order to example seed the scope of that original permit. so you know there's a little process there. if there's anything wrong, it's where we ask you to stay in the scope of your permit and if you think you're going to file the revision before we ask for that. >> is there a penalty then? >> there could be a two times penalty on the valued amount if the scope of the original permit were exceeded. >> could you apply that? >> yeah, we do. sure. >> what if the neighborhood doesn't want the building taller is there the capability of having height reduced. >> it's a possibility but it become as negotiation at this

point. >> this sounds like an end run around the whole process. >> the neighbors can appeal any kind of permit even as an asibility or appeal site could be appealed before the city refinance anything to be approved and conceive mri the person could lower their building height if that were the final decision and all appeals process on the project and were exhausted. >> is this a common thing or an unlikely thing that happens from your experience. >> it certainly happens. i don't think it's not the rule. but it does happen. and sometimes it's minor in nature and maybe a window was put in where the project sponsor decides go, i would like a window here and we write

them up for example seeding the code and notice them for whatever the amount. that's just one example and send them back through the planning and building process and planning and building an approval process. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> getting back with that revision. when you get a permit for that and the cost of that isn't less than what the original assess costs are you just adding to it and do they give you a new permit for that which is a shorter time from your original, you got original permit that expires in december of this year and somewhere like the middle of this year you ask for a revision and they only give you until october of this year. would you still have to apply

for an extention to get everything tied up with the finishing and everything. >> there's two ways to look at that. the life is de peb dent on the evaluation. if the scope of the work being revised or added to the project is such that it gives you 5001 dollars, it really depends on the project. one thousand to five thousand, it's a one or four month permit and it goes up consist tenth with the evaluation increase. >> better option is adding -- >> we ask the actual value of the proposed work on the permit application. >> okay. so you still like -- i guess i

was not very clear. -- as far as the second permit goes -- since it expierd at an earlier date than the first permit, would you have to complete just that part that you revised but is it not -- >> sometimes that does not work out and when we get to the end of a job and we'll do a renewal on those for the purposes of final inspection only so that's certainly another way to approach it. >> i have two questions. there are a hot of homeowners that are new and buy new homes and they didn't do anything that and they inherited those problems and before they can get settled into their new place the neighbor calls and says there's an i legal unit and there's a citation.

are those new owners barely in their builds paying penalties to take those permits away. >> initially when the permit was written up by the inspector the penalties are imposed. >> how much are they. >> nine times the value of work. >> do the people -- it's unfortunate -- it's one thing if you're the party that did it or if your a homeowner that did not have a chance to the building department and say i want to take that out. you parly had a chance to do that and somebody beat you to the punch on that. >> there's certainly avenues to address that and maybe the new owner can take that back to the real tore and say they

didn't have this disclosed. >> from open homes. somebody walk through a home and call us on monday. >> then i have one other question. you have a neighbor who is just a nuisance neighbor. i like little examples of things and your having a room painted and an i'ding by everything and the building inspector gets that notice and i have a note that there's an anonymous complaint. what is their procedure in investigating that. do they walk right in and see what's doing on or do they send a letter to the owner about it. what are the steps. >> what's the wording of the concept. so i go in and the doors open. i knock on the door ring the

doorbell, identify myself and show the complaint and say may i investigate this and they say come on in i'm doing nothing i legal and i go in. >> you need to be given permission to enter the premises. >> yes. >> i wasn't sure if you kicked the door in and said here's my banal. >> no my badge says -- what does it say? >> inspectors office. >> no, but i'm not kicking any doors in, no. >> normally we do have the authority to get a warrant to enter a property but for the most part serious safety issues we don't exercise that through the city attorneys office and we go through the procedures

donald talks about. >> i said one word and that was it. but the complaint, it stays on record up until it's abated by nothing illegal happened or a notice of violations issue. so the complaint will stay on the computer. it has to be closed out. >> the other thing i'll add is when we do arguer scale projections and we will actually send notices to individual tenants and if we don't have the authority to enter we won't enter so we do just as amy lee mentioned, we're not in the business of kicking down doors and that's exceeding our powers and we're on the side of precaution and

most of the times with warrants we inform the property owner and try to collaborate to get a result. >> is there a session that deals with residential or commercial and if so any of you know what that is. >> that would probably fall under work without a permit. >> or 3402, change of work. or 109' and 4102, change of use. >> i'm rick and i'm a real tore and to speak from the real estate broke rage standpoint there's 30 r that we're required to provide to the buyers i think she's focused on

there's a lot of people that do buy real estate that has a possible -- you know violation to it for nonpermitted work for an illegal unit and in such cases when they do that, um... she's concerned with getting penalized with getting repair work done. that does create an issue for if somebody is going to buy a property to correct damages in the property we're already aware of problems in it but is the other gentlemen said earlier somebody goes to open house while going through theest kro process there's this kind of collision of two words that happens and to have some understanding of that, okay

this is going through escrow and there's a little it of a grace period of involved for somebody to turn the project in and we're going to do these types of repairs that's where she's going to go with it. any comments on that? >> the complaint comes into me, i'll do the investigation on the complaint and if i do research the property and i see a single family home and well i have to call it two units and notice of violation to remove them from the illegal unit or legalize. >> the situation has happened where, you know an illegal deck or something that during escrow it was disclosed or during the open house it was disclosed as a non permitted deck and sol

body turned that cellar in because they did not get the offer on the property but now it goes through escrow and escrow closes and new owner takes possession of the property and their slammed with a violation and penalties on top of that and i think the quandary and con none drum is if someone is closing escrow before they have a chance to take care of a problem they can be mitt with a penalty. >> we relice somebody turned in the property during escrow is there a grace period to wave the penalties to is the person completing their work. >> it goes back to property disclosure laws. we hope the seller would be

disclosing this. >> it is disclosed. there's no issue of disclosure between the buyer and the seller. the issue is during the escrow a complaint is made in that process, the complaint is written up and a violation is on the new owner that has not had the opportunity once they have an opportunity to respond. >> we see this a lot actually. especially in the aim of disclosure and your world is open display and everybody can see the problems you have. what we look for is the cooperation. the person noted stepping up to the plate and take the steps to correct this voilation and when the new owner does come to us and explains that they inherited this problem and

trying pull together the design team and take care of the problem we cooperate are with them. we revisit the penalty issue based on the facts of the case. >> really when you receive anything from dbi, please respond and talk to us. there's always a phone number, you can avoid a lot of trouble by calling us up and i guarantee you after this i have to go back to my office and clear all my voice mail. if not tomorrow morning but by doing that you avoid a lot of trouble along the line because

a lot of people example the case that you, the scenario given to me. if i receive a phone call after the file is made and you tell me that i just kept that property or closed escrow or whatever tell you we have a nice, facility called internet we can go on and find if you are a new owner give you all the time you need. and i would make a note under the case lock and would cooperate with you. you work with us. the penalty part, i tell you, i work in different parts of the other cities and san francisco is the most reasonable and nice place and reasonable working with all dbi, staff we're not here to get you.

we just want to make sure that the buildings safe. that's all our concern. >> i think with that gentleman he went by three or four times and that happened to me too. i'm glad this is a great thing you guys did and i think if you have a car for i forgot your name, that you will help us because i could find an architect or someone that can help us and give us a certain amount of time and if your working 8 hours you don't have the time so if they have a business card like someone that can help us like her, at those times, we can call her and she can help us. >> they do give 30 days and there's considerations for just what you said. >> yeah but to me 30 days and

then i get all nervous and this the and that. >> my numbers at the bottom, just give me a call. there's a brochure here and what you should know about the code enforcement and there's a lot of useful numbers on here and we're happy to work with your trying make progress. okay. i think we've exhausted our time for this room today and i'd like to thank you all for coming.