[speaker not understood]. so, that is a good point if we could -- >> one of the things we are trying to monitor now is we're trying to get the senior inspectors to monitor the time that the individual inspectors -- to watch the timeline of these notices of violation so they don't just sit there either. so, there is direction going forward. >> perfect. >> i think that's a good way to do it, have the seniors monitor it and now we're getting access to get printouts on this, too, so we can print a monthly notice of violation printout and then track them better. >> i had another question. part of the data we were trying to get was the question of are there bad actor out there that are serial novs? i think one of the anecdotal responses we got was it's hard to track serial novs. especially from housing, for example. i feel like there are some apartment buildings maybe or some s-r-os, for example, that

might be worse than others. so, that to me would seem like the easy place to track, a serial violator, because it seems like one big s-r-o or one big apartment building has continuously the same address shows up on your desk over and over again, it seems like that's a big problem there. >> thank you, commissioner. on that issue, keep in mind that when you are going through the code enforcement process, you can have -- let's pick on a residential hotel. you can have a residential hotel that has a history of violations. you're always in the building, you're also always writing notices of violation. we will look at the number of the notices of violation. we will also look at the content of that. and that is usually a prime candidate for referral to the city attorney. we've had that happen in a situation where there's been a history of where things get

fixed and they break. i'm going to give you an excellent example. one of the cases was the grand sutter. we had that situation happen. commissioner walker is nodding her head because she sits on the litigation committee. we had a situation we recommended that case go to the city attorney because we would be out there, we wrote notices of violation. they would fix the items. they would break again. and we had a revolving situation going on. that case -- if that's what you mean by serial situation, that was a case that was referred to the city attorney. now, let me just say that you have to be able to identify and document the violations and you have to give the property owner a chance to fix them because there could be different reasons why things break. and, so, from that standpoint we do that. we document that. and that's why i mentioned earlier that we have a report that tells us on a property, whether there are more than three, three or more open housing cases -- not even department wide -- housing cases.

then we look at that, find out what's going on there. are the permits that need to be taken out? what is the property owner doing, what's happening with the property, and those are some of the ways by which we identify properties that we make the recommendation for a referral. but i also want -- i've heard the term backlog of cases and i think there should be some clarification of this. to me a case that is in our backlog isn't merely an open code enforcement case because we may have taken all the actions and maybe completely up to date with every action we can take on that case short of making a referral. and that's not a backlog. that's just an open case and it may not be ripe for city attorney referral. so, there we'd have to also look at the assessment of costs and those tools doing its job over a period of time making it more expensive for the property owner to have a property sitting out there where there aren't repair. and obviously we do more inspections. we put pressure on a property owner where we have that

situation where it may not be perfect -- ripe for referral or where we may recommend a limited referral given the circumstance of the case. if their capacity or whatever, we may want to refer that. but just because a case is open doesn't necessarily mean to me that it's a backlog. it's an open case. now, what i believe the deputy director and i are looking towards is analyzing what's open to be able to come back and make some recommendations of some things that we need assistance on, such as that anonymous uncorroborated complaint where we've never been able to get in to determine whether or not there is a violation and there's no exterior evidence of it. how long do we keep that case open? if we cannot corroborate that it exists and we don't have sufficient information [speaker not understood] under the law to get an inspection? so, we're probably going to come back with some recommendations to the director and to you about those types of things when we can -- at least

when we finish our tally, i definitely am going to have some recommendations for the deputy director and the director on that. we are definitely looking at that to be able to get input from all of you and the director on those issues. did i characterize that correctly? >> great. >> okay. commissioner lee. >> let's see. i'm not sure if i heard everything correctly, but i'd like to talk about how much time is allowed for property owners to clear that first nov. how do we determine those? because i know some of these novs have multiple item on it. is there a formula for -- >> there is not a formula. the district inspector is the one that normally issues a notice of violations. they'll look at the scope of the work and issue -- say we want a plan and a permit within 30 days or 60 days. if it's too tight of a time restraint, a lot of times they'll come in and say,

[speaker not understood], it's held up in planning. they probably have a lot of these compliance notice of violations. there are plans but they're held up in planning and they can be held up there a long time. >> i see. >> the vertical/horizontal addition, [speaker not understood]. but it's held up for a long time. and, so, as long as the individual is compliant and -- we try to keep the notice of va i laytion open. if we don't see codes of compliance, we issue a second -- >> i see. >> what happens if the permit expires? do you immediately do something if it's attached to an nov? >> when a permit expires we don't necessarily cite it right away. but we have issued notice of violations for expired permits. >> so, if there is a permit taken out to cure an nov and the permit expires because nobody did anything, is there an automatic alarm that goes off? so to speak? >> yes. there are alarms that go off.

not for notice of violation -- the first notice of violation. you can also issue another notice of violation for the expired notice of that. >> okay. >> thank you. any other questions, commissioners, comments? i think this report was helpful. i think we're going to keep it on, revisit it. i think we do look forward to your recommendations. and i think categorizing it, like if it's in planning, that's fine. we should know about it. what we want is the homeowner to move, you know. i think that's what we all want. we want them to move. and as long as they're moving, you know, we're going to get them time. >> this is a point. i will tell you that if we requested or required a building permit and the permit is in planning,ly send the [speaker not understood] over there to find out if they issued a notice of complete permit submittal to see if the property owner hasn't

responded. but all that takes time. that's the problem. it takes time. >> and it sounds like we may want to have a communication with the planning about their process once they get involved. -- in this in so many cases. ~ >> is there any public comment on item 6? good morning, robert davis. i'd like to thank the commission for bringing this up on the agenda. and i'd like to find out if maybe there was some way to get some suggestions from ms. boske and larry about what to do to make the system better. for example, eliminating the second notice of violation, just skipping that step completely. and for closing a notice of violation when the permit has

been closeded, let's say you had an nov and you came down and got a permit for something. ~ from the data that i've seen, there are many novs that are simply not closed even though there was a permit taken out and the permit was closed. that's just sloppy paperwork. and as far as consolidating the novs, you're asking s-r-os and addresses commonality. in truth that's the way to do it. if you look at the james landing case, james glanding ~ had a decision against him by -- from the city attorney's office. i don't know what the details were exactly, but it resulted in $800,000 going to the city for i think over 100 novs. that's the way to do this. you look at repeat offenders. and then just as sort of a common sense idea that i've put forward before about novs and permits, and that is like if you go to the dmv and you have a parking ticket, they don't renew your license or your registration or your paperwork. why not have the same process

here? but, for example, if you have an open nov within reason, et cetera, et cetera, that you can't pull a permit unless the permit is for the nov. for example, the metro pcs building [speaker not understood] in the bayview. so, they had a whole series of novs. they came out and got a permit to put a sign up. the permit came and went, it was approved, it was whatevered, but they had all these other issues that were long lingering. why not do something like that? i'm sure -- just kind of a common sense idea. as far as the numbers go, inspector lowery was very nice and he showed you this year's numbers. but indeed there are over 6,000 open notices of violation since the year 2000. that is for housing and code enforcement and for building inspection. that's the number. these have gone on since the year 1994, which is the year that you became computerized, is shocking. so, what the dbi did last year

or in the last 12 months is it closed out many of the novs from the year 1994 to the year 2000. but the truth is these are lingering. you can't make any more excuses about plans and permits. there is just not enough emphasize on this problem. thank you. >> thank you. any other public comment? nan tucker, civil grand jury. again, bring up an issue that could affect the building department in big time and find out -- as you know, the board of supervisors is planning legislation that will require homeowners of soft story residences to retrofit those for earthquake with a particular emphasis on residential units of, i think it's like five or more. it strikes me that there are

some pretty serious implicationses ~ for the folk of building inspection for the folk that aren't going to do it. has there been any planning in that regard? are you going to issue notice of violations if people don't? has there been any thought for how the department is going to handle large number of what i expect will be noncompliers? >> thank you. >> is there any further public comment? seeing none, item 7, discussion and possible action to consider a proposed revision to administrative bulletin ab-028, pre-application and pre-addendum plan review procedures. >> hello, kirk mains, technical services division, here to talk

about ab-028, -- >> kirk, can you move the mic up a little? >> and this is an existing program that's been around at least a decade that i know of. and what it allows, it's very successful and widely used by the public. but it allows a design professional to do is ~ ha a conceptual idea of the project, but not sure how it -- whether it is really feasible or not. set up a meeting, cup -- couple hour, supervisor or manager's time and discuss a list of options head to like to do before they settle on the design process. [speaker not understood], they present a list of a couple question, sketch he that maybe relate to the project, and they sit down with the manager and supervisor and go through these

item one by one. the outcome of the meeting is a letter that, from the manager that applicant attaches to the plans or reproduces on the plans with the decisions made out of that meeting. so, when the plans are further developed and they go through the regular plan review process, it's already made decisions on these specific thing and those item need to be reviewed by the plan checker. san francisco, since the codes are kind of generally designed for just california in general, san francisco has a lot of very unique challenges in staying with the code, but still making thing happen here. so, it's very frequently used, but minor changes that have been proposed are things that have been brought up over the years and we want to just get them down on this piece of

paper so that people will know about them in the future. one of the problems initially in developing this thing was that they would have these meetings. the letter would come out, it would go on the plan. then it would be reviewed by the plan reviewer. the plan reviewer -- i don't know, that doesn't really make -- doesn't really agree with that outcome. that causes a major problem because it's already -- the client is commit today that design at that point and based on the letter, and then to have it re-looked at causes a lot of problems. so, we put some wording in here that the plan reviewer should honor that letter because it's already -- supervisors has gone through it and that's been in there for awhile. what we added is the additional time the field inspector goes out, closes the job, looks at the job, and he may not agree with the letter. that is even a bigger problem

because the project is already designed, already being built. but language this there was that a field inspector should submit to the decisions that have already been made to the pre-application meeting. the second thing was there has been a question -- a question on that part? >> yeah, i'll wait till the very end. >> the second thing is that there's been a question of how long these pre-application meetings -- how long do they last. are they forever, good for a code change, good for a month? we put some language in there that the state thought as long a the code provisions affecting that, the application letter haven't changed, then the pre-app remains valid. so, just because it goes through a code cycle doesn't mean we necessarily have to throw that away. both stay the same [speaker not understood] the work over again.

then the last item is relating to fees. there are two types of meetings, a pre-application immediating and pre-addendum meeting. pre-application meeting [speaker not understood] board submitted a pre-application so there are no fees have been paid for -- except for through this process in order for us to support that meeting. pre-he addendum meeting is similar, but they submitted for a site permit and it's been through planning and before they submit their addendum all the structural detail, they want to have -- sit down and have a meeting. that meeting we haven't been charging for -- we actually have been charging for it, but not according to this administrative bulletin. we thought that the time spent in those pre-application meetings could be paid for by

the plan review fees that are paid in the beginning, the 25% of the total plan review fees that are paid on submittal of the site permit. it's kind of turned out that these meetings, instead of answering a small list of [inaudible] these are highly technical meetings where concepts are discussed, solutions are discussed, equivalencies to the code are discussed. it takes a senior staff member, manager, someone with a lot of expertise to be able to attend these meetings to come up with solutions to make these projects work. it's way beyond what the normal plan checker would do in just denying or, you know, rejecting or accepting proposals. and we've currently got a couple of senior staff full time, but their entire job is to go to these meetings another

after another after another generating these letters. so, they really need to be paid for just like they're paid for in the pre-application meeting, they need to also be paid for the same type of meeting. takes the same resources. and that's the last item. >> commissioner walker. >> i'll go first. i just want to get a little clarification on the entire process. so, say if i'm an architect -- and i am -- i'm designing a supermarket and i have some questions regarding the plumbing system and how it relates to that. i want to file a pre-application, pre-addendum plan review request. i pay my fee. i submit my plans and a list of questions to the department, right. and the department in 10 days will tell me when a meeting will be scheduled. is that correct? >> that's correct. >> is there a time limit on when the meeting will take place or when it will take place?

>> it's just set within that 10 days. >> pardon? >> it's usually set within those 10 days. >> it's usually -- >> set within the 10 days. >> sorry, tom. generally you submit the package to second floor and then they will give you choose the future days, they will send you a notice -- >> what i'm getting at is how quickly are those meetings -- >> within a week. >> okay. >> actually, you submit the specific question. you cannot just say, okay, my plan is complying to the code. you cannot answer that way. you need to be specific question with the drawings, of course, with your check. generally most -- the project is communicated. then you more find department will be joined together to have that meeting. especially nowadays, lots of

big, major project coming in, high-rise, that's more and more question because the code is not well defined. need to be ironed out before we can, you know, design the job. the difference between this is purification and addendum, you ask the question before you submit. most of the time now, we find out after we receive the planning approval, then they have some bigger issue, maybe fire safety and all those. then they want to ask those question. that's why we add the language to the addendum. then they can ask the question when they want to submit addendum drawings because more time involved. >> the reason i ask, some time the timeliness of our response is very critical to these projects. i mean, i can see where something like with the supermarket example, it could

go to plumbing, it could go to help. i don't know, maybe even go to fire if it involves stoves and things like that. but do they then -- do you collect all these people into one room and meet with the applicant, or they just kind of answer the question and then we can tell the applicant, here are the answers? >> no, there is an actual meeting. we sit down at the meeting with the people involved. >> generally the meeting is, majority of them, is 99% is fire and building. usually they go to health department to ask every question, like [speaker not understood] we can answer it. waiting for the department inspector to come n. mostly they will ask those questions. specific help questions they generally go to help itself. like planning, this kind of meeting, planning have the pre-application meeting also to iron out all this stuff before you submit it. this is a good tool to help the

architect designer to understand a bit more before they submit it. >> i understand that. so, the response time is fairly quick. >> yes. usually we need a week or so because -- not necessarily the time, we need research all the code issues involved before we go into the meeting. some time it's needed for that and sometimes needed for schedule. [speaker not understood] everyone seems to be -- [speaker not understood] >> also, thank you for all your help in order to get those people coming back. hopefully by they coming back, we change some -- that's what my plan, to change some of the [speaker not understood] because during a purification meeting there's lots of questions they ask you. if you don't have the experience, you may give a wrong answer. that's one of them because taskses how to get the experience, plan checker to answer those questions? . >> okay.

>> commissioner walker. >> one last question. how many requests do you see coming? >> i'm not in that division, so i have no idea actually. i just know people are doing it full time. >> okay. >> at least two people are busy. >> i think just about every day five or six or more. that's why it fully occupies [speaker not understood] honor senior plan checker or good leader. >> i see that our fire marshal maybe wants to weigh in on this as well >> tom harvey, assistant deputy chief fire marshal for the fire department. this is -- and i want to thank director hui's staff and kirk with the technical service. they've reached out to us on this. this is one of the best bargains that a designer can have. it helps expedite the process really quickly.

it's not just for code interpretations. most of the time it has to do with alternate methods. the designer either chooses not to or can't meet the prescriptive requirements of the code. so, this is what puts everybody together into one room and it is usually a higher level. we usually have our supervisors with the fire protection engineer in most of these meetings because it's usually really technical. i think what the main issue is on this, we charge the pre-addendum meetings just like a pre-application meeting because, in effect, that's what they are. and if the -- following the pre-application meeting, if the plans went through exactly as they had been planned from the beginning, there would not be a need for a pre-addendum meeting. what happens is changes occur with the design. so, then they have this question about does this still meet the requirements? this wasn't our original agreement. so, if this was not to be a fee

charged by building and like i said, we already charge, if it wasn't charged, we would have people in every day with more and more meetings. and i would agree. i would say that number is probably a thousand pre-application meetings per year and fire joins with building, sends a letter out, and we expect our plan reviewers and field personnel to follow the agreement that the fire department made because it's usually made by a supervisor. >> okay. that was one of my concerns. i can see this being used very often and how quickly can we respond to these questions, especially if a project that is under construction needs a decision on an addendum, we need to act pretty fast. >> so, the question i have around this process is this happens before a project is moving forward and someone identifies those areas, those clouded, whatever the cloud or

-- the issue that i had some concern about is out in the field, if an inspector has an issue with it, he is mandated to follow the approval. but the inspector oftentimes is able to identify that some other issues on the ground changed that make it may be not. so, is there a process for resolving a conflict between an inspector who may have concerns about the approval because either issues have changed or the reality of the site has caused concern about approval? i mean, what's the process if there's a conflict? >> i can speak to that. i think the building department's process is very similar to ours, is that every project changes from the plans to when it gets to the field. if it meets the general intent of the letter, our field

inspector would follow through, approve the project, and move it as expeditiously as possible. if this is somewhat of a major change in their opinion, then maybe it's not meeting what the intent of that letter or agreement was. then they would inform the contractor, whoever they happen to be with, this isn't meeting the requirements of the code in their opinion, nor the letter of agreement from the pre-application, pre-addendum meeting. and they can always appeal through the process and i get appeals, not on a daily basis, but often enough through the process. so, i think as deputy director lowery said was that you can always go to a senior inspector. ours is a lieutenant, and work your way through the chain of command for an appeal. ~ so, things change constantly, like i say, in the real world. and most of our inspectors -- and i'm sure building and

plumbing, electrical, everybody is the same -- we try and approve as avx as we can as long as it is meeting the requirements of the code. and it's really only when it really gets out there a ways, maybe a stair is going someplace or through somewhere maybe it shouldn't. those are the kind of issues that come up that say you can't exit through a kitchen. that would be huge. or even an occupied space. maybe that would be a better example. but for the most part, if it gets approved straight through, but if a client/customer has a question, there is an appeal process that they can make their way through. >> how about the inspector themselves, if they disagree? i mean, if they -- if an inspector says, this did not meet the letter of the letter -- the intention of the letter of determination at the beginning, what happens then? >> at the beginning, you mean within the department you mean or -- >> yeah.