here's a building permit and you can get these by filling out one of those little forms we have over there. micro film records request. right, alan? and you take it to the accounter and say, here's what i would say -- i want to see every record available for my building including the permits, the plans, the job cards because that's where the inspectors sign off on and what else do we have over there. >> well, basically we have building permit applications or job cards or jobs done by district inspectors department to say it's final or not finaled with an expired job card and, plumbing, electrical permits. >> how come -- i thought we

didn't. >> we do have some and miscallaneous documents and letters where people sent to the city and documents tham come through another department before us. now, what we don't have and we have building plans let me say buildings -- most wood frame houses residentials don't have plans in my recollection but commercial buildings almost always there's some plan, if there's a multi unit large residential building will have plans? >> well, i was going to say what we don't have, inspection records, job cards, we have from about 1933 going forward, plumbing permits and inspections from about 1976 going forward and electrical

permits from about 1985 going forward so just as mr. corn field said if you find a tag or something on your circuit breaker box or something and it's old. with a straight edge or something take it off and save it. it may be the only record that something was done at that time. >> yeah, you had a question? >> you have permits for modifications. >> the question is do you make a request for documents and nothing turns up which happens frequently, maybe. where else would we look? where else would we look for the documents. >> the planning has historic files similar to what was said about the inner office between various city departments and ours have not been micro films.

they're still in paper files so we have the originals. they're from about the mid 30s, um... forward. so if like the planning department approached the owners concerned something at that site, we would have our copy of that up there. >> here you go. block book has a notice in it. >> down on the bottom floor of the planning floor at 1660, we have block books that are another source of research. >> this is book number ten. volume ten and right down on the first floor you can see them. there's a huge selection. must be 75 or a hundred for covering the whole city. >> we've got them from 1935,

46, 54 and current ones that are up to 2004. i think they've been updated. in the older sets in the 1935. with a lot the owner of record. also in a color wash is the zoning that existed for that time. pasted in are zoning changes that happened various lots during the 30s and the 1940s when the next set was issued and there are little pencilled in notes, sometimes with permit numbers written in. especially valuable for billboards noted in the books. we will have the build board permit number written on top of

the lot. if there was a variance decision or a zoning decision. >> like a notice of special restriction. >> like from the 1930s i've seen, like the parking for this buildings to be located at this other building because they were under the same ownership at some time. those sort of restrictions that are also suppose to be recorded against the deeds at the assessors reporting office would be also here if if it was a case of some decision. >> some other things you need to know, the dimensions of your lot. 100 by 25 on this side of the street. it does not have the official addresses and all of us will talk about that in a second but it has a great deal of pencilled in information. notes from the planner and

fantasticly valuable so find the old block books and use our free copy machine and make a copy of the page. how can you make sure it's the right building. this is the cities official address street from block 2129 which is,pachako, 2029, and this is maintained by the first floor on this building and this has the official address of the city. the date the address was issued and maybe the date the address was changed and other alternate addresses we may initially applied to the building. when you look for the history of your building not only do you look at every address it might have been called by. example you might ask for both

streets it intersects and always reference block 21, 29 block or block 1f. we're referencing blocks and addresses are nothing but trouble. people make them up. they come and go. 1125 abc. we have tremendous problems so use blocks primarily. >> in addition to map's there's other resources showing characteristics of lots that are very valuable resources. that's title companies. your title companies the major ones in san francisco, all have original copies of the assessors block map's and

changes to those individual blocks which include lot line adjustments and ease meants that often make all the difference in whether another city agency will accept something or agree to a change in that thing. with the -- after the earthquake there was -- and the fires -- many of those records were destroyed in the system and city. the entire ownership was gone. nobody had any records of who owned what. it was all people saying, this lots always been in my family so the board of supervisors after the earthquake and fire created a function to allow ownership to continue. it was could a, makanearny,

which claims ownership as a traditional right over a certain parcel and those are fascinating and historic documents when you come across them. >> so, learning history go to the assessor office in city hall or a title company and have them search for all the documents recorded against your property and if you're city hall you look at adjourning propertys so see if they have east meants or ease meants. if on page 29 you see a notice of special restrictions under the planning code and we would ask you record it and it would be on file that assessors recording office and you can look it up and print this off and you would be surprised and

who has the rights to drill on your backyard or exit across your front yard there are many, easements. >> i would like to add when the as see sore is taxing you on what's physically out there and not what's legally out there, many people come to us and say i have this apartment and this room in the basement -- they get the history of their building from our records management department and say say, there is nothing in the building department that says build this but i'm being taxed on it and again, that's more money for the city because it's more square foot age and they tax you on what's physically out there. >> on page 22 of the hand-out you have is a certificate of final completion and occupancy.

when a buildings put up we currently have and for many years up to -- when to the 50s maybe? >> in 1945 they issued those but unfortunately for every job that was ever done site may say reroofing and give you a,cfc, but it does not say one family or two family, just describes the job and in the 1950s it was five years later that it said only for conditions in the building code. >> so if you -- this document is the key document for us to determine what is the legal use and occupancy of your building so we will always, if there's an issue we will go to the certificate of final completion and occupancy. that's you know, three story

building and that's legally what you have according to our records. if you want to show us a mistakes has been made you bring that documentation forward. this is the key government document. someone mentioned the 3r report. it's a collection of records and not an original source. it's a collection saying yes there was a permit issued on such and such date. it's not the original. just a reference to the originals. if someone says my, 3r says two units but it's three, the 3r report is not the controlling document. it's simply an information compilation. here's a report on page 316. >> again, the 3r report is made up from the dob meants

from the micro film so theoretically they should both match. >> but there are many things were where their are questions if their good. >> is there anything that's good? >> what is this complete compilation. there is no single source of documents and that's message i'm trying give. >> i don't think that you should be or make a blanket statement that people are saying 3 r's are not good but their limited utility. their intended to tell a buyer of a piece of property what the building department thinks it knows at any given time. that has substance and value. it isn't positive about the actual character of the building you need to go to

source document. however if there is a conflict between what exists in the record and the 3r, that's something city agencies and repeal bodies will examine when you present that information. >> yes, sir.? >> you mentioned the certificate of completion and occupancy and the key document. how do we obtain those? >> that is one of the records you can request when you go to the micro film and say give us all certificates of final completion. >> but again not every building has a certificate of final completion and occupancy. one is because we have ns certificates before a certain time. you may say and we take

that's a gospel. >> how do we find out how the building was constructed and you have multiple sources that conflict. how do you come to the truth? >> there are source s we'll talk about. the water department jeremy, right? >> spring valley water company. >> this on page 8 item two describes what these records are and if you go to the water department offices down across unite had had nations plaza on 1155 market street they will bring out the original document and their very efficient and quick and it takes a few minutes. they are all written on pencil on onion skin. you can find out how many horse

troughs were approved and things like that which is often very useful in determining when there are multiple buildings on a residential lot it will help determine if the secondary building has a history of habitant occupancy or what occupancy it was. >> once again you can get those at what? >> 1155 market street. the manager of the water department that time gathers staff while the city was burning and some people were hauling buckets of water and somewhere hauling records out. if your researching a building that's pre 06. that's probably some of the best sources of information about your building that you will be able to find. you will be able to find who applies for the connection.

sometimes it was the owner or the builder and the date it was connected and those go back to -- i've seen some from the late 18 60's. under the address. also the public library, 6th floor history room on micro film, the roll stuff, a copy of the ledgers by street. so if you're looking on 17th street, they'll have the water department will have put in by year, every person on 17th street that came in. so, it's not by address but by street and year. a little odd but across reference. >> so after the original document there will often be

taped and stapled additional service records from various points in time when changes were made and you'll see those on item 41 and 42 and 40 are all these things. in this case they all say the same thing but it gets much more interesting when we're trying to get a chronological stockpile of how a building came to be. this is not saying again, it was a legal change but at,x time in the past, water department official acknowledged a new service hook up for that property, thus many city agencies will honor that's an accepting that's an a date when new water service was provided to a unit or something like that. >> other than the water department what other sources do we have for original

information. >> sometimes the sand win map's. 80's to 96 you can bracket those. so it will show up on the 1899 but not the 1896 map you can narrow it down there if it existed on 1886 map and you don't know how much older than that it is and you can't find a water connection record, there's little hope. but sometimes you will be able to find. there's an 1869u sds,ge odectic, service map

representation that's somewhat accurate, not where lots are provided but there's a little black dot and the whole thing is about 24 inches by 30 inches and covers the whole city. so it's not fine grained but you can say there was blob there in 1869. >> do they have this many the history room? >> yes. if you do a web search you can find it on-line. there's one source where you can actually like zoom in and there's another,us coast map from the 1850s but i would think pretty much any building from the 1850s is already kind of done. >> this gentleman has a question? >> are they consistent block numbers from year to year and

agency to agency. >> they have changes. when the original city was layed out by the city surveyor it was called the 50 bar survey. when it was expanded to market. so up until the teens the city kept those as separate surveys and theres the different surveys in the outside lands which is sort of the western part of the city. >> the uninhabitable part of san francisco. >> they were different surveys and blocks in those. mission block 38 and then in the 19 teens or 20s everything was consolidated into the big block and lot list. so mission block 32 became block 3927 or something like that. >> this is a good time to put

a plug in on the san francisco public library history room. on page 38 you will find a document how to research your san francisco building. they have lots of references to other agencies but quite frankly the san francisco history room in the san francisco library is a fantastic resource and people there are extraordinarily knowledgeable. and page 14 talks about when the photo collection is open. you have to wear white gloves and can look at a couple at a time and they will often have photos of your block or neighborhood or the ones that are fascinating and part of your collection as well. >> my experience with that resource has been really excellent over the years. they really take a lot of pride

in the collection and get excited when somebody wants to use it. i encourage you to use these people as a resource. the street photographs are not the only resource for photographs that are really invaluable. they have a lot of news related photograph ss that are indexed sometimes by dris strict or street but never by address but that does not mean you won't see the address your after. san francisco heritage located in the,li z, 200 franklin street, 441 -- 3000. they have original print version of the sand born map from 1830s. building files and files on

architects that practices in san francisco and major contractors that worked in san francisco their biographies and certain indexes that are not available else where. so i would suggest contacting them. >> and joining. it's a nonprofit organization that preserves san francisco heritage. >> okay i want to flip through some of these other materials we brought along to show you. not the building codes. here today, fantastic book you want to tell us about it. >> here today, is the end results of years worth of research done by the junior league of san francisco.

a book published in the late 1960's and there's an enormous volume of research. architecture, social that went into the making and not every building researchs in the making of this book is published. there are background files that san francisco library history room, the planning department has an index but the library has on their web page the index you can download some you can go by the street and check to see if the number of your buildings listed and they will have a research file on that building. >> -- just to mention i have in, my here today, copy the resolution of boardrd of supervisors adopted this as an

official list of resources in that time. so if you have your property lists or even in the back where there's a listing of olive street all of the shingles are a later addition it maintain as purity of line. especially is the blind window on the side. if your buildings listed in one of these your a qualified historical resource and you may use the space historical building code which provided alternatives to the other building code requirements and this is a great resource for us to approve the most important resources in the city. >> if that window needs to be repairs whoa to you. >> i get a lot of requests to use the state historic building code. it's called the san francisco

golden age postcards and we had a copy of this and i suddenly realized a lot of people came in and they're not listed but i have this wonderful old photograph from wherever it might be. 1930s and i can use this to help document that it's appropriate to use the state historic cold or code and it's showing every aspect. old cable cars and when they were taken out officer vice and put out on the beach to make little houses and all over the city. great book. i'll pass that around. did you want to mention anything about it. >> i was going to touch upon the block book one last time. the library if you look on page 9 of the research guide they've got the block books from 1960,

94, 06, 07', 09' and 10. there was long thought to be along ellipse from the early part of the 20th century but i recently like two years ago found out the assessors office has the 19, 14 all the way through 1974 block books if you find your block and lot you can find out who owned that building up to the 50s i believe. at least through 1946 because we have a copy of the 46 so you can find out who lived there and if you go to the asses ri quarters office and they don't know what your talking about if you're looking straight ahead,

there's a balcony that goes around the upper level and on the far left side there's a column that comes down from the call connie and it's at the base of that column that you can direct the researcher to go to get these micro films. >> talk about secrets of city government. that's great. >> i guess that's what i had to say. there's a little secret document out there. >> in terms of working with these agencies and little places where all this information lies, just as i was talking about how excited people are at the public library history room to help you you will find there's agencies not there to help you research your home as you might find. the assessor is thinking their job is to