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 years ago boo supervisor peskin because of the trip and fall slip hazards street coverings had to be brought up to nonskid standard. can you tell us about that? >> this is piggybacked on what we had existing with regards to the official sidewalk grades. or official i'm sorry -- special sidewalk surfaces where they required to keep -- they are required -- look at that.

2 water meters. >> they are required to -- in 2004 peskin introduced an ordinance and adopted the ordinance to also include these metal covers that you see pretty much in a lot of the older parts of the city. most of of them are elevator hatches for subsidewalk basements. but in certain cases like this one there is a utility under there. >> if you are on a steep hill with one on ask its raining boy can you take off. >> what is the new requirement >> the new requirement is the property owners are required to bring these into compliance. get tests run. if they won't site them if our inspector feels this is too slippery. we don't have instruments to determine that.

yeah. there are things you can do. you can sand blast it to roughen it, epoxy coatings and things you can do to adjust it. certain things are exempted. the exceptions are the sewer vent covers. 4 inches 4 inches. those are exempt [inaudible]. one other thing before we leave this we have seen 2 fire hydrants the new fire hydrant, an old fire hydrant and across the street, laurence. this is part of the high pressure water system develop indeed san francisco after the 1906 earthquake when the board of supervisors passed legislation to prevent the failure of the water system. this was the blue top is part of the separate system that's tied

to reservoirs in the city and can be pumped directly out of the bay through this pump station. there is one by the ballpark where they pump live sea water into the system. >> let's go see when the date. >> well -- i don't think so. 1905. 1909. yeah. okay. >> the thing about this is this is under high pressure. if a fire truck hooks to this into a regular fire pump this water will flow through the fair truck and back to the regular fire hydrant hooked to the regular drinking water. there is an issue after a fire of flushing the water system. >> let's look at market street. this is an interesting sidewalk condition.

>> this is a huge public works project to repave and redo all of market street years ago. it was. and -- >> there it is brady street. that's not facing the same direction earlier? >> that was part of the beautification project. [inaudible] >> which included 3 grades. all the paving. >> granite curbs. crosswalks, a lot of crosswalks further down that are different colors. and you know most other parts of the city where you have a regular concrete sidewalk we were mentioning the property owner is responsible for those sidewalks. along market street the city is

responsible for the sidewalk. maintains all the brick sidewalks on market. if you see damaged brick sidewalk call us and we will will fix it. >> go ahead tell us. >> briefly, what we see in san francisco is varying conditions because of things that happened over time. the city of san francisco has an initiative called the better streets plan the idea is to make standards for grand boulevard, small streets, standarding that will address the conditions for the streets so we don't have this unplanned things populating the public streets. if you want to be involved through the planning department and the mta. and sf better streets. org. >> you are part of that. >> i'm on the citizens advisory board.

>> we should explain permeable landscapes relates to the sidewalks there. >> what was being pointed out with that tree we looked at where nick explained you have 4 feet right-of-way. outside the 4 feet can be adapted for other uses you can put tables or chairs out. you can change the sidewalk surface. you can do sidewalk landscaping. permeable landscaping refers to the fact that the water ends up in the ground not the sewer system. >> this sidewalk this runs in the curb and the -- >> that catch basin for water it goes to the grate. >> we will look at a framed

signs and other stuff. thank you very much. >> we want to talk about a few items here as we end this little talk. first of all we have an a framed sign, moving must sell. >> [laughter]. >> do you need a permit for a moving sale sign? >> those are actually illegal. there are no permits, that's right. there are no permits that can be obtained for those signs a framed signs. >> we see them all over the city. >> thank you. >> currently its under the police code. >> okay. >> you know as we know the police have more important

things to do. if they present a hazard ask also public works inspect ors have been assisting the police department. if we are inspecting the tables and chairs such as this and see they have an a framed sign. we will tell them to remove the a framed signs. >> how about the news racks. there is a problem to replace them with standardized news racks how's that program going? >> it's going well. grace moore is the news rack coordinator. if you have abandoned news rack necessary front of your business and want them gone you call our office. we will will notify the newspaper company. i'm not sure of the timing.

if not removed that news rack within that time frame the city will get our trucks here and we will will remove it. >> what was your question? >> who is the contact? >> grace moore. >> what's the phone number. >> i don't know. >> 554-5810. >> good. and now we have, i know the board of supervisors over the last decade has tried to produce policies that encourage the use of sidewalks for tables ask chairs. i think that's a great policy and how are we implementing that? >> it started with back at 399 [inaudible] where we only had approximately 10 restaurants city wide that had these per missable permits. the guidelines were strict, public works rieequirements and

planning requirements. very few restaurants the only the establish restaurants that had a lot of interior seating could get permits to do out door seating. the board of visors. that is the noiseiest, the -- that orange trolley. >> it's italian. >> okay. sorry to interrupt. >> that's part of that same permit. in 1993 we were approached by the golden gate national restaurant association. everybody knew there were more than 10 restaurants that wanted to put out tables and chair exactly like thousands.

this went to the board of supervisor asks at the time was an interesting topic of discussion. you know both of them wanted it. supervisor ma wanted no permits required, no enforcement, you know, people could do what they want. supervisor pier on the same time wanted enforcement but wanted an easier process. >> right. >> somebody in a restaurant wants to put tables and chairs they apply for a permit. >> the department of public works. >> do they have to block it off? >> yes, they do. that is part of an agreement with the disability community and the mayor's office of disability. a blind person cannot detect there are people eating there in

tables and chairs we refer to -- >> diverters are required, is there a limit how far they can come out to the sidewalk. >> a minimum, 6 foot clear path of travel for all tables and chairs permits. >> you pay for this. >> 6 foot clear. >> there is an annual processing fee ask occupancy fee. >> you inspect this. >> yes we ve commercial inspectors who are assigned to commercial type permits which in our office are considered the tables ask chairs permits or the sidewalk display permits. >> how much does it cost to get a permit for that. >> the processing fee is 120 dollars, the occupancy fee is 4

dollars a square foot also annualy. >> right. >> okay. have a question here? >> block those -- to block those streets so you put the chair there; right . >> correct. >> the curb cut right here and obstruct the top of the curb cut. >> not allowed to do that. >> that bucket may be obstructing the curb cut? >> there is not only that our tables and chairs guidelines require a 5 foot corner clear zone. when we walk from the corner ever the building not the sidewalk but where the corner of building meets the sidewalk we measure back 5 feet.

they have their tables too close to the curb ramp. they need to be 5 feet. >> we will come had back and can write them up later. [laughter] okay. all right. any final questions before we finish up? >> [inaudible]. [laughter] if somebody has a complaint who do they call? department of public works. no. [laughter]. 554-5810. >> thank you very much, nick. appreciate it. >> you are welcome. [applause]