they are giving that to other people. they are dressing up the landscape. they are certainly not staying in their tent. but there is that notion. there have been fashion spreads in some magazines about that burner look. and but you will not see me in fluffy leggings. [laughter] that is fine for anyone that prefers them. i do not know. there are just a lot of people that do pay a lot of attention. i am one of them. i suppose, if you wanted to have that special, that look, you could spend a lot of money on it. >> i was going to ask you this, final question, but he may have answered it. what is your 60-second the idea

to change the world? it sounds like it is get to the right gear. >> yeah. if you can just get the right gear, you can -- change the world? >> not change it in 60 seconds. >> i don't know. >> say how to change it. >> i don't know. >> for the better. >> just connect. just connect. >> all right. you have 54 seconds left. >> fluffy leggings. >> all right. let's have a big round of applause for larry. [applause] and this meeting of the

commonwealth club is officially adjourned. [applause] ?oo sfoo. >> i'd like to introduce my panel and some department representatives that have been gracious enough to take some time to be here with us today to provide you with information regarding landlord and tenant

issues associated with property maintenance which is going to be the focus of our presentation today. let me introduce senior housing inspectors patrick cars and jamie mckenzie, tomy mecca, councilor from the housing rights committee and in addition to that mr. joel panzer, president of the professional property management association. these individuals along with elaine wolf from the rent board, the executive director, dr. johnson ojo, the environmental house section of the department of public health, yvonne marrin from the city attorney code enforcement

division and tom harvey. let's talk about tenants. obviously the first thing that we always ask when we get a call from an occupant of a building is have you talked with the property owner about those conditions? have you made them aware of what the situation is? and we always encourage you to do that, to communicate with the property owner, and also when a property owner undertakes it make those repairs to provide -- once you are provided with adequate notice under state law to make sure that you make the area accessible within a unit that you occupy so that those repairs can be done in a timely way. and if you find that that response is not forthcoming, then call us and at the very end of the presentation we'll be putting our contact information up on the screen. the landlord's responsibility is to survey their property frequently and that's going to depend upon building design, the building age, the wear and

tear and use of the property. the second thing is to provide safe functional housing. and also to make timely repairs, to get yourself on a schedule that works for you, your building and your building occupants and then if a notice of violation is issued to a property owner by the department of building inspection, to work with the inspector to ask the questions, to get the information you need in which to respond in a timely way. notices of violations do have a time frame for compliance, but an inspector will work with a property owner if additional time is necessary, provided that there is a good faith effort going on with respect to correct violations. so what are the realities that you are facing? we all know that we have aging housing stock. the majority of housing in the city and county of san francisco is older housing. that means that it's not built to what would be the building,

plumbing, electrical code and mechanical code required for today. also we know that we have high density in the city, we have a housing shortage, and with design and construction and the costs to make repairs we know that this is a difficult process. so what do we do to assist you with this? well, we provide training and education. our technical services division provides brown bag lunches and other training. that's also one of the purposes why we're here today. we also try and provide you informational materials. you're going to be seeing more and more of these materials on the department's web site. again, we have a wealth of information here for you in this room and downstairs in the lobby. also we provide outreach and inspector sevamatsu and others here will be talking about the services they provide with respect to that. we also -- you can go back to that last slide -- we also

provide inspections with respect to when we receive complaints or when the code requires us to do an inspection of a residential building or a building that has residential use within it. if necessary, if we do find violations, then we will start the code enforcement process which will also be summarized a little further on in this session. we interact with several different groups, city agencies, to be able to accomplish that. one of those things that we do is to provide outreach and we have several contractors that do that. they provide counseling, training, translation services and mediation. we have individuals within different communities that may be afraid to come to the city but will go to a neighborhood agency where maybe they can't speak english and they need some assistance with that. we provide that service. we also have services provided by experts in assisting property owners in questions

they might have. so this is just a list of those agencies that we interact with and it's some very great larger number of individuals and some of which we have brought here today to assist in the question and answer session. and this is just barely scratches the surface and representative of that which we provide. so now what we're going to do is move on to that portion of the session where we're going to highlight those areas in this green checklist of things that we have encountered and things that we want you all to think about as building owners and occupants as far as developing a good maintenance plan to keep these buildings safe and functional for you, for the building occupants and the greater community at large. with that, let me introduce again senior housing inspector andy cars who is going to talk a little bit about that.

. >> good morning. again, welcome. thank you for coming. as miss bosky mentioned, i'm going to highlight some aspects for you to think about in developing a good maintenance plan. you want to be able to get in and get out of a building. all stairways should be free of any aub sta kels not only to allow your tenants to get out, but also to allow emergency personnel to get in. the fire escapes should also be free of any debris or obstacles. things like this, your escape ladders should be checked and make sure they are operating properly. this is an extreme example of a

dilapidated stairway. check for any decay or deterioration. you want to assure that all your structures are stable and they are functioning properly and, as always, if you are making any repairs you should take out the appropriate building permits. as you know, we live in an earthquake prone area. it's very important to have a shut off tool placed near the gas meters, as well as posting a diagram of how to shut off the gas meters in the public area. all residential buildings 3 units or larger are also required to have fire extinguishers which need to be recharged and tagged on a annual basis.

any residential units 3 units or larger or residential hotels with any central heating source such as a boiler or gas furnace system, the requirements are to maintain a 60 degree temperature for 13 hours a day. the time clock should be set from 5:00 to 11 achl m and 3:00 to 10:00 pm. heat must be provided during those hours. we are now entering the full area and you want to check your time clocks when there's daylight savings time, make sure you adjust accordingly. your boiler system also needs to be inspected and certified and the certification should be posted there for inspectors to see. here are some possible outcomes of deferred maintenance. ceilings and was are deteriorating, mold and mildew

-- there is actually water intrusion in this area, water intrusion through this area. they need to be free of all this, obviously, proper maintenance and weather proofing around the walls. public bathrooms in residential hotels, these are actual pictures. they must be maintained and functional, free of any debris and all fixtures should work properly. maintenance of the bathrooms depends, of course, on the building size and the density and the occupancy load. if you have a high occupancy load you should probably have your staff check the bathrooms two or three times on a daily basis. community kitchens, the requirements are electrical cooking, a clean surface to prepare food, non-absorbent surface. storage for your residents to be able to cook. on the hot water, hot water

heaters, they should be properly strapped, double strapped. the top third and lower third should be strapped, the pressure relief valve should be vented, should be going out to an approved source, vented properly. if this is inside a garage it should also be 18 inches off of the floor. this is what you don't want to do. you don't want to confuse your residents, especially in an emergency when time is of the essence. we never know when a fire is going to hit us and the last thing you want to do is for your residents or occupants or guests to be running down trying to figure out which way do they go, that way or this way. any building 3 stories or higher, 5 units or larger, are required to have fire alarms. it needs to be certified on an annual basis. smoke detectors need to have

battery back-up and they should be checked annually. so develop a good maintenance plan. it prevents injuries, death, building damage and promotes safe, functional and sanitary housing. we only had an opportunity to highlight some of the core items to developing a good maintenance plan. there is at the side of the room some other brochures that you should please take advantage of the maintenance checklist that chief oster mentioned that has 33 items. i'm now going to turn this over to my colleague, pat mckenzie >> why should we do inspections? inspections are performed as part of a complaint or a systematic enforcement program commonly referred to as a routine inspection. once we do an inspection and

repairs are required, a notice of violation is issued to the property owner. typically after inspection 90 percent of notice of violations are abated. however, if they are not, please turn your attention to the highlighted blue cells on our flow chart here. these blue cells illustrate the critical pathway of the code enforcement process. an issued notice of violation describes repairs and corrective actions needed to comply with a notice and gives the compliance deadline. building, plumbing and electrical permits may be required to do this work. it is the owner's responsibility to call for re-inspection. now, all repairs done? great, the notice is abated and we will check to ensure that proper permits, if required,

are also signed off at the time of that inspection. if all repairs are not but the owner is operating in good faith the inspector may grant more time to do the work. now, if repairs are not done, the notice or at this point in time case is referred to a director's hearing. now, the purpose of the director's hearing is to give a property owner what we call in legal terms allows the property owner to show cause as to why the repairs have not been completed. this hearing is open to the public and we hear testimony and evidence there. now, at this hearing, director's hearing, the hearing representative may issue an

order of abatement, may grant more time to comply, or he may refer the case back to staff. once an order is issued, the property owner must comply with the notice within a prescribed period of time. this order is also recorded on land use records. the owner may appeal the order to the abatement appeal board within 10 days of posting and service of the order. now, if an order is issued, the owner is charged assessment of costs for an inspector's time and also administrative time during the code enforcement. and the property owner may be liened if payment is not made. so doing repair work by the compliance deadline will prevent these costs and the

department recommends that owners survey their property quarterly for maintenance and repairs and develop, as previously mentioned, a good maintenance plan. still no compliance with the order, the case may be referred to the litigation subcommittee which is composed of members of the building inspection staff and may be referred to the city attorney's office. the city attorney may file a complaint or injunction against the property owner for not making repairs and charge civil penalties under the san francisco housing code and state law. the city attorney may also recover attorney fees and the housing inspection's code

enforcement costs. after litigation, a re-inspection is conducted by the department to be sure all work is done. and the case will be abated upon payment of fees, penalties and assessments of costs. in closing, i would like to mention two other code enforcement tools that may be used after the initial notice of violation is issued throughout this process. one is the issuance of a misdemeanor or infraction citation. and the other is referral to the franchise tax board, which just allows state income tax return deductions for rental income properties. if you have any further questions, our staff will be available later on to answer questions and if you haven't

already got one, we have a very nice brochure on the code enforcement process over here. i'd like to turn the presentation back pres entation b ack pars3 to the moderator, chief bosky . >> note to self, schedule it next year after lunch because of the photographs. will you put the slide back up showing the code enforcement process? if you do have to do it, we would like during a re-inspection that you are complete with all the work or you are almost there so that we go from the re-inspection to abated. we really, really want to end up here rather than going through and having to use all of those extra steps. so work with us. that i guess is the single message with respect to that. now i'd like to introduce

housing inspector jamie samamatsu who is the code inspector. >> housing inspection services tries to maintain minimum standards of habitability. the code enforcement outreach program tries to foster harmony and cooperation between tenants and landlords. we have seen tenants who file complaints and then won't let the landlords in to perform the work and then litigate. we have also seen landlords who evict tenants who are filing legitimate complaints and are doing so within their rights. we have seen this over and over again a thousand times. a tenant can't be a tenant without the land lord and the landlord can't be a land lord without a tenant. we need each other. so we have established a

counseling service that offers informal mediation for people who need help, land lords or tenants. we try to solve the problem before it becomes a housing inspection complaint case or something much larger. we offer help in mandarin, cantonese, toishanese, spanish, russian, vietnamese and english. many people don't know their rights but far more often they don't respect the rights of others. just imagine if people thought of the rights of others first. communication is important. we urge you to communicate, communicate, communicate. that is your responsibility. and try to imagine how much greater the city would be if we all did that. thank you. >> i think that says it all as far as why we're here today. and now i would like to

introduce junan nu,. >> thank you, rosemary, thank you all for coming and thank you to dbi for having me here. i'm the director of the san francisco apartment association. we're a nonprofit that's been in existence in san francisco since 1917 working on behalf of rental housing providers here in the city. we're parented by the california apartment association and the national apartment association and i believe that we bring a lot of resources to the table to help property owners in many different areas but the area we're here to talk about today especially is building maintenance. there's a couple of things that struck me when i was listening to today's presentation that i wanted to talk to you all about. i've been involved in today's

program and helped start this program, the code enforcement program, along with jamie and others, 10 years ago. i've been doing my job for 12 years and this is probably the one area of my work on a daily basis that i think is the most productive and the most rewarding. and the reason that is is because we truly bring property owners and tenants together to resolve issues and the program is very goal-oriented. it's very non-bureaucratic. it's very non-political and tommy and i fight together on political issues all the time but when we work on this program, we have a common goal and that goal is making sure that a property is habitible and the landlord is not harassed by the tenant and the

tenant is not harassed by the owner. three quick suggestions before i turn the time over to tommy. when an owner gets a nov, they tend to panic. it's like when we come out and see a parking ticket on our car only 10 times worse. they go into panic mode, which means they don't do anything and that nov sits there for a period of time. what i would like to suggest to all the property owners in the room, when you get that nov, you can utilize our services for free. or call the housing inspector, the number is right at the bottom of the nov, call them immediately and start that dialogue going. by not doing anything and not doing that, either calling us in on the code enforcement outreach program or calling the housing inspector, you are just accelerating your costs to yourself and you are accelerating your time to get

to the bottom of that food chain, which is the city attorney's office, which is where none of us want to be. so first do that. it's going to save you money and why this program was initially designed is to not only save a property owner money, but to save the city money. so we can put more tax dollars into programs to help everyone, rather than staff time trying to follow-up and call you to get you to perform what is your responsibility ultimately. so communicate to that housing inspector, communicate to us vis-a-vis the code enforcement outreach program, and, again, in conclusion, this program is about partnering to accomplish a goal. so we will be your partner in trying to accomplish you getting the repairs fixed. if you need help at the fire department, we can access help at the fire department for you.

if you need mental health help because your tenant is having dementia or hoarding and cluttering disorders or whatever, we can access and get you that help. if it's a personality conflict, you know, tommy will work with the tenant, we'll work with you as the owner and we'll bring all the pieces together to hopefully solve the issue in a short amount of time. so that is it and thank you for listening. . >> thank you, jeanann. now i'd like to introduce tommy avacola >> thank you. i think jeanann said a lot of what i was going to say about the purpose of the program and how it works so maybe i'll jump

in and talk about the tenant end of it. basically, a tenant walks into our office, we have counseling 1:00 to 5:00 on weekdays. a tenant walks in, they talk to a councilor, they identify some problems they are having, repair issues, leaks, mold, whatever, one of the options we offer the tenant is the option of c opt. we can see the property along with somebody from the apartment association and we will look at the problem and the apartment association will call the landlord and we will continue working with the tenant. the whole purpose of it is to bring the two sides together, bring the two parties together and get them working together. sometimes tenants don't want to let land lords in to do repairs and landlords have to come in to do repairs. if the repairs are going to get done, they have to have access to the apartment. we will try to facilitate all

that. i thought i would give you a couple examples of the kinds of cases we resolved really quickly. speed is really what we're all about. i had a phone call from a mother with two children whose electricity went out. she had no electricity, no heat. this is in the middle of winter. so i asked her what the problem is. did you not pay your pg&e bill? well, my landlord pays pg&e. she called the landlord that morning and he said he couldn't afford the bill and he wasn't sure when he was going to pay for the pg&e, get the stuff back on. obviously it's a clear violation. so i called greg, who was then working at the association who i was working with and he talked to the land lord and within 48 hours, everything was back on. things are taken care of. it was really quick. but it needed to be. a mother with children in the middle of winter, it was not acceptable that she went without heat and electricity. another case that was particularly interesting was a woman who came in who spoke sph