they are on our dpw website. there is a list of city maintained trees. if not mistaken these are city maintained trees. the city if determined the city maintained tree is uplifting the sidewalk in this case we look at the roots and figure it out. this is the city's responsibility to fix the sidewalk. >> how do people find out go to the website? >> yeah, go to the website under bureau of urban forestry. sfgov. org has a link from there to all the departments much department of public works and bureau of urban forestry. >> watch your step here. >> general cleaning -- >> not allows to broom the debris to the gutter and walk

away. >> unless the morning of the street cleaning. >> you can sweep to the gutter when they street sweep. >> does this clean that up. is gum a problem is this too messy to the city's standards. there is no code involving sidewalk cleanliness. should be in well maintained condition as the code states. with a number of sidewalk defects around the city, you know -- particularly on -- >> how about when somebody wants to use their own paving do they need approval. >> its allowed it's a sidewalk surface permit. it's required to comply with american standards of protective materials -- we have a minimum code for friction it will need

to meet. [inaudible]. over to the 10 plus yearses we have compiled a list of surfaces that are splitted to us or the city used in various projects that do comply. that -- >> including epoxy coated paint. >> those are specifics in the downtown areas. you have the old sidewalks where you are walking on the ceiling of the basement below laurence mentioned earlier. a lot of times wear and tear, weather. alot of property owners will experience leaking, rainwater leaking to the basement causing health problems maintenance problems et cetera. once every 2 years what they do is take one of the polyurethane

coatings with a paint brush or roller and over the sidewalk and tell be like a waterproofing sealant it lasts for a year or 2 depending on the weather. we recommend that they redo it properly under the current codes where they redue the structural slab and have a 3-1/2 inch concrete topping slab on top. if the sidewalk breaks ever in the future you don't have to go to the replace the stushthureal slab. >> we are talking about slip resistance when they put the coating on top they have to use the right slip resistant material. >> exactly. >> let's walk up here ask see what else we see. we are at brady alley and otis. we have a bunch of interesting

things to see. >> the smell. >> thanks. >> we have this old fire hydrant which has the break away added. >> the reason i know about this is my brother is a san francisco police man. this is to tie the horses up. not the police man's horse the fire man's horse. that's why they have to here and the fire engine would be hauled by horses. they tie up the horse to keep the horse here and hook up the water to the truck. you can tell the vintage of the neighborhood you are in if you start seeing these you are in an older neighborhood. when you get to the richmond or sunset you will not see any of these generation. >> they put the post to keep people fwr driving into it.

probably its been hit a couple of times and got smart and got tired of fixing can. >> let's look at cap nets we have the utility cabinets all over the street they are putting them in daily. >> that brings a whole another issue up. it might be good idea to have a separate brown bag on that. a lot of the old utility boxes are almost like grandfathered in. all the public utility companies, pg and e, at&t, the new telecoms. thermal, nrg which handle the under ground steam pipes they have a franchised right to have facilities in the public right-of-way for free. they pay for community permits which are cheap but with regard

to having their utilities run under the pavement in the past have these boxes in the right-of-way. but ever since then we developed we are in the process of developing a new policy with regards to surface mounted facilities. because with the new technology nowadays we are getting everybody from comcast to at&t to pg & e to any other utility company you can think of requesting not to put anything this big but it come attaching boxes to poles. we have the sidewalks are crowded enough as it is. >> in fact, there is a citiless policy in the planning, general plan of the city that says keep stuff off the sidewalks so people can use sidewalks much the more we put stuff on the

sidewalks the more we have to consider is this keep nothing the city's general plan. its a big issue. here is an old one. a lot of times you are taking utilities that were previously under ground in a vault where they get on their knees and work on and putting them in a cap net because it's easier to service. is this worthwhile for the city to give them this long-term opportunity to occupy city property for the convenience of their service people? you had a question? >> this was one owned by at&t could you require other companies to share it or once its at&t's they keep everybody else out. >> that's an issue we are exploring not only cabinets but the conduits downtown. we are looking for potential

subway and they are doing a utility relocation study. you can't imagine how many utilities are under there. on some streets you could take off the pavement and walk on the street on the utilities. we are working not only to share these cabinets but also conduits. >> i want to point out the street name. on the sidewalk here. brady. otis is there. on the other side. >> do you know why? >> i know -- i'm an expert on the history of san francisco streets. after the 1906 earthquake and where everything burned no one could find where they were. they passed an ordinance it's the 1906 quake and fire that you

have to put the street name in the concrete. if and when we have another major fire you can go to the intersection ask say, oh , i know where i am i'm on brady and otis. >> let's walk on up the street here. we had a question about encroachments we will talk about encroachments as we work our way up the street. one of the first might be this pipe that we see sticking out of the side of the wall of this building. do we consider that an encroachment to the public right-of-way. >> no. because it is more than -- well -- i'm not sure its close. approximately anything 10 feet above the sidewalk surface, 8 feet for aunings is under the jurisdiction of the building department. >> and planning. planning it is not allow you to

hang anything so far across the swaik sidewalks. as we look up the street and see bay windows. >> bay windows are part of building permits and planning requirements. >> beautiful arrow that served the old car repair shop is that an encroachment is this >> no. it requires a permit. >> from the dbi and planning. [inaudible]. >> no. it either has to be flushed or high enough for a blind person to detect it. ask also we would look at the remaining paths of travel. typically, a foot of a properly done tree well, properly done. this is not properly done. either has to be flush with the sidewalk.

could be a tree great and that could be used as the top of travel. >> minimum of 4 feet, that is required by american with disabilities act. at pinch point where you have situations like street light poles, no parking signs or things like that, that 48 inch can be reduced to as little as 32 inches. >> how does that comply here. what would -- >> they would have to either raise this, >> how high is this >> about a foot. there is no regulation as far as height. >> [inaudible] has to allow water to pass through it. 6-15. >> 6-15 inches high and allow water to pass through to meet the new [inaudible]. okay. >> is that 4 feet wide you are standing on?

>> right here? >> the trick is most are roughly 39 inches by 39 inches much that looks like a 40 tops. may be i'm wrong. >> 45. >> you were getting close. >> if they made this flush to the sidewalk we would sense ibly have to clear -- >> paving surface in the well. >> okay. >> this has a wide sidewalk could you have planter boxes against the building and then 4 feet and trees on the other side. >> yes. >> doesn't matter where [inaudible]. >> should be a straight line. should be a straight shot. like if your neighbor has something similar it should be because when a blind person or a person in a wheel chair come up from the curb ramp they expect a straight line and not a zig-zag.

>> i want to point out the most beautiful pieces of sidewalk and would aboutingent reese much this is gorgeous and perfectly done absolutely gorgeous, when are the elements that make this so good and comply. under the ada the building department requires a landing on the outside of any entry that's level, considered quarter inch per foot or 2 percent. as you know this san francisco we have a lot of sidewalks that are a lot steeper than 2 percent. the trick is, how do you acomidate a landing a flat landing at an entry in the middle of a sidewalk that happens to slope -- >> away from the building. and longitudinally at a slope

like this? it wasn't easy but we created guidelines with regard to feathering out the sidewalk. >> you can look at this one. here we are. here it's 2 percent. this is this meets the definition of level. more or less. 2 percent and meets the slope. what was previously a sloping sidewalk but you see over here they raise today a bit to make a smooth transition to the existing sidewalk. >> also raised the curb to make it flatter in this direction and the feathering going down is nicely done. >> it is. >> very difficult to do. >> the curb height transition was basically required that if the curb stayed at its original height probably 2 inches lower than it is now.

this slope on the sidewalked have been too steep and a person in a wheel chair like this gentlemen could have easily tipped in this direction. that's, you know, when we are raising curbs we are looking out we check what is there. if there is no parking at any time that's our favorite. there you can go to daylight you can do an 8 inch curb, typically. >> that's the average curb height is this >> 6. >> 6 is considered the city standard. if you stand here ask look at that end the curb is 3 inches high much here its 7. down there is drops to 4 or 5. they gracefully raise today ask feathered it out. >> this is an interesting piece of curb. take a look at this.

here we have the new concrete curbs ask here we have an old piece of granite. anybody know more details of that. we used to have granite curbs around the city are we replacing them? >> typically the old the narrow granite curbs if they are in shapes like this we typically remove and replace with concrete. >> 8 inches downtown, >> exactly. downtown in the civic center and historic district is one location. you will see curbs that are wider may be the width of my foot. 12 inches wide. in cases like that. the city considers those historic curbs they go from way back >> this is historic in its own way. >> in its own way. >> the interesting thing is is this is an interesting color of

granite this is atypical color because it has orange. >> let's look at another issue all over the city and it has to do with this door. this is a door that's hinged to swing out over the sidewalk. we have that all over the city with the metal graets and security bars is this allowed? >> they are allowed. we look at the neighborhood pattern. we look at the part of town its in. it is as long as its see through. required by the planning department, and as long as it -- we know it springs out feet and self closing mechanism, on a spring. on brand-new ones we require an audio alarm or a flashing light. audio or video alarm that if a

blind person is walking along the sidewalk they don't get hit but somebody opening their door. >> there is a conflict with the building code that says you can only have a door swing 12 inches over the sidewalk. i know we are trying to bring this in for awhile. >> before you leave there is something important you show show everyone on the sidewalk. >> the graffiti spray paint? what is this on the sidewalk. point it out. >> these are under ground service markings. state law requires any time anybody excavates. may be because they have a building permit? >> demolish a single family dwelling. what do these represent, what's the white? the proposed scope of work.

>> under ground service alert. they are a notification center which all utility companies subscribe to as well as the city so basically they have a data base when they get called when their operators get calls 1-800-227-2600. they send a dispatch to 8385 brady. if you have utilities in the area mark them. >> here's the best part its free to the users. the utilities don't want you breaking their gas line. before you dig call usa and get your utilities marked. >> each utility has their own color. >> [inaudible].

>> water department has not been out here to mark it. >> okay we will continue to walk up here. i'm not sure where we will stop. >> one of the big issues we see all over the city are garages where there is a slope down into the garage. here is one of those slopes is this an encroachment ask how do we improve. >> this is an encroachment. >> old building. >> old building and old encroachment. this probably was never approved. >> what is the current standard for allowing to slope the sidewalk. >> current standards we have historic buildings in san francisco and we are getting

requests for essentially putting in a garage a basement. based on existing bay windows you might have a beam right here. probably do and >> if they can do it they get a permit. public works code allows to slope 25 percent of the sidewalk width. in this case we have -- >> the sidewalk is not a good wide tth to begin with. >> correct. >> this is 80 percent. >> typically under current conditions, under this existing width with a curb cut, and we may not even allow them to have an encroachment because you have to maintain the 4 foot unobstructed path of travel. if you construct a curb cut and

a 2 foot encroachment here that leaves 3 feet of level sidewalk ask that is not allowed. >> you have the tree in the middle of the path of travel. >> that would be where the curb cut would be off the street. >> curb cut is a driveway. >> that's a curb cut. where you see they cut the curb down. >> standard to the everyday driveway. 7 feet with 18 inches on both sides that's the width, 3 feet in. come up from the asphalt up to 5 inches and its 3 foot 10 inches. >> 18 inches is the sloping. >> no the sides where it wings up. the wing is that little portion there. and you can park in that wing unless you pay the city a fee

and the city will paint the wing red and you keep people from parking in your wing should allows you more width to turn the car in. >> can you paint the stuff yourself? >> no. >> [laughter]. >> this is a drain that connected to the building sewer i'm sure. ask try to keep the water from going into the garage. they built up little concrete rise here to collect it and drop it to the sewer to keep it out of the garage. >> if you were to do something today and made all the requirements you would put a trench drain in front. >> like a long drain so anywhere the water will flow and go to the drain. this looks like its the building sueir. >> the original tract. >> and the sewer under ground. >> i have a question. understanding all of what it

would take to correct it, nothing would trigger the requirement to correct it will unless you do something to the building or -- >> generally the laws in the city are that you are allowed to maintain existing conditions if they were complying the time they were constructed. they were be considered kisting noun conforming conditions. only when the board of supervisors specifically adopts retroactive legislation do we enforce existing condition upgrade. something like this or if we determined by the director of public works that the codes is a hazard we are allowed to upgrade. this is no legal mandate to site people for existing conditions if legal when built. >> many times. they require brick buildings to be upgraded. >> require certain types of

locks for apartment buildings. of there are requirements in the housing codes of certain things to be brought up. >> streets and sidewalks is this >> not charging everyone use the sidewalk. >> is it anything with a minor sidewalk encroachment is this >> not anything. any new encroachment after august 29, 05. in commercial areas like subsidewalk basements those are retroactive. >> the basement is an encroachment even though it doesn't affect people. >> you are on city report. >> if you build a wharf here the city will charge you. >> thank you. >> what is city property? >> where is city property?

>> the property line is the face of the building. there is an easy way to figure it out. by often the report line is related to the face of the curb or the center line of the street. and so you can go to the public works. >> go to public works we have maps for the whole city which establish official sidewalk widths most go back to 1909 for every sidewalk and every street in san francisco. in some cases even if the street is not built you go out and there is a dirt road, it will have an established sidewalk width so when a developer builds his property and builds the street they have a sidewalk width to build to. >> here is a nuance. since san francisco follows a lot of spanish rule if the city

abandoned this street the center line of the street reverts back to the property owner. you can see that because when you go to grant street ask walk down grant and you go to china town and the street narrows and look in the maps pre06, people on the first 6 blocks of grant decided to pull their buildings back to widen the street to create a grander boulevard and gave that land to the city and retained the rest. in china town they chose not to do that. if the city abandons the street it ends up in the property owners. >> you can go to the department of public works and find out how wide the sidewalk or the street and measure from the face of the curb back to the building ask you will almost know very, very closely -- >> exactly where the property is. >> or go to the corner and do a

line of sight. >> all the buildings lineup her that's pretty much the property line. >> let's walk up here we travelled a block and a half. >> we have a wheel chair and you say this is too steep and can't pass does that create a nonconforming condition the city will will address? >> yes. if we get a complaint on a site even if its an existing condition we will log it in and we will address and site the property owner that you you have an existing noncompliant condition. >> they have to fix it in a way that at least allows minimum compliance for disabled access is this >> exactly. >> we have a very old historic sewer here. isn't this wonderful. ask san francisco dpw san francisco made in mexico. >> this is new.

this is probably 06. there was a grate and complicated drainage system. this is probably one of the oldest grates i have seen in the city. >> the way this works there would not have been the drop. >> grate on top to clean out. >> right. >> this probably predates this -- the oldest one in the city. i don't see too many of these anymore. >> landmark. landmark -- walk up a ways here. >> there is legislation enacted