item 5: discussion and possible action regarding proposed ordinance file no. 130369-22 amending the building and health codes to expand the boundaries and types of projects for which soil testing is required and to require testing of groundwater under specified circumstances; amending the public works code to eliminate soil testing provisions; renumbering code sections in the health code; and making environmental findings. continued from the bic hearing of may 15, 20133 >> okay. begin with item no. 5. sf 51234 >> thank you, president mccarthy, members of the commission. we were here last month and here to answer any questions that may have been brought up. i will walk through the points and please interrupt me if you would like any elaboration or clarification. my name is kelly president -- press with the mayor's office. first question

is regarding when the ma har process began when it was triggered when the building permit was filed and if there was an emphasis on make insuring it was triggered at the soonest possible point in the process and we absolutely agree any applicant would be notified that they are within the expanded ma har zone at the first application filed whether it's planning or environmental application or smaller projects. we have from the planning department that that first interaction with the applicant that they would be in the ma har zone. all parcels in the ma har zone are identified and that's publically available at any time to any member of the public. >> next question is whether any

issues are appealable? yes. any building permit is appealable under the board of appeals. and in the department of public health staff when establishing the testing and remedial procedures. there is an opportunity between further interaction between the staff as they work through the ma har procedures. next question is work stoppage if the work is stopped within the permit, i want to be clear to any applicant is not prohibited under other building permits already issued even if it received an application for a work site. if there is multiple permits one which would include

excavation and another that doesn't, that could move in the process an that work can begin while the permit that can work through the dbs process. there is no hold on any application. it's the application that would disturb soil that would need to go through the ma har process. several questions regardingen insuring proper information given to applicants as soon as possible. planning department will notify all applicants in the ma har area. and planning will make available information to members of the public. further discussion was had about bringing any unnecessary hardship to applicants. we want to make this as predictable and

expeditious as possible. information being publically available to anyone, through the parcel information map and working with both planning and building inspection to notify applicants as soon as possible. in addition what we are calling interim period. the bend of public health will have a staff information, at least a two days per week to search -- to answer ma har questions. there will be a staff there to assist any applicant who might need further information. there were also questions about how long compliance with ma har takes with review and the decision making process at dph. one of the purposes of letting applicants know as soon as

possible in the politics process is to allow for the dph review process to check by dba planning. db review involves certain steps and they are to be deemed compliant. not every project needs to go through all steps of the ma har process. the first step is a site history which takes about 4-6 hours. it is required that d ph respond within 30 days. if there is no indication of hazardous substances at the site, the db could be deemed compliant and that's only step of the ma har process. if there is further work need to be done, a second sampling should

be done. if the sample shows no reason to include that hazardous substance is present then it can be in the second process. typical length of time is 8-12 hours and respond within 30 days. finally with that 3rd step if needed would require a preparation of site mitigation plan as well as a final report. typical length of time is 8-12 hours. statutory requirement of a response within 30 days. next question regarding dph case load and staffing. there is a case load and staff member that oversees this, there is voluntary and

remedial and this involves projects that come through the ma har area and storage tanks and not in the ma har area and how many staff are devoted to the review process and to accommodate whatever the case load is as implemented. currently as we stated at the last meeting. dph has 5.8 staff, they are 1.5 staff located to the local program under the grant. those staff could be moved to the expanded ma har program if that need arises that is grant is expiring. in addition i will note that applicants in the ma har area do need to pay a fee

when submitting application and that fee pays for the review of the documents. the expanded documents increase significantly over that threshold. that associated revenue will also increase and review the documents. in addition and finally dph has the flexibility within the environmental health programs. we are committed to working closely to make sure that review ma har related projects is appropriately staffed. that concludes all the questions from the last commission reading and i'm more than happy to answer any other questions that you may have. >> thank you for going back over the tape and pulling out our questions. i appreciate that. we express our concerns in how this is going to interact with the world. the

fee, do you have an idea of what that fee is going to be in ? >> i do. that fee is adjusted by the controller. if you have a copy of that ordinance it's on page 19 of the draft ordinance. section 22a 19 of the health code. the initial fee is $600 and additional fee of $200 per hour for document process and review. >> that $200 an hour and you might be able to answer this question traditionally what that adds up to a traditional ma har is $1500-2000? >> i have to look.

>> good morning. i'm stephanie curbing with department of environmental health. most jobs, i just finished doing one came out to be about $3,000 which is a drop in a bucket for those very large projects like that. so the largest that i have worked on is the former 49er rebuild mall. that was $8,000. also that included meetings. >> okay. thank you. mr. melgar has a question for you? >> it was for kelly. and i was going to say thank you very much kelly for doing this. we appreciate it. i actually had a

couple of subsequent questions after i talked to you. like i said to you it's not the large projects that i'm worried about at all because those guys can afford it and usually have the resources. it's the smaller ones that i'm worried about. it was after reading the ordinance as proposed, i'm wondering if there are any ways to circumvent this if there is an emergency for example replacement of a sewer main which is common for older buildings that might require significant excavation. how does that look? if someone needs to do it right away. and the other thing is i'm wondering if there is any guiding plan in terms of site history, are there companies

vetted or what you are the qualifications for someone to produce that site history and subsequent to that, a related question, is it possible if the health department is really taxed or if we get to the point where there are a backup in terms. we know there is a lag time between need and subsequent putting together a list of hiring an inspector. if there is anyway to have the private inspector come in and produce some sort of what the health department would in terms of the inspection of the soil, the analysis of the soil and what those -- what the guidance would be in terms of meeting those standards? >> thank you. i will start with the last one and work my way through. the question is if

there is a significant backup and that lag time between identifying the back up and being able to bring someone on board. what i think and i apologize, i don't think i as i said it as clearly. that dba has a certain ability to move within the environmental health department is one way to address that. staff that are already on board with classification would also be able to address this need. i think that is quickest turn around response should something like that occur. moving to about qualification about site preparation. the ordinance does include a very high level of what a site history needs to include, what types of information should be included so there is that guidance for the actual product. but i think as part of putting together we are all anticipating together putting a fact sheet or guidance on what

is expected and it would be absolutely important to include a list of consultants or group of work that have done this type of work and provide that for the public's consideration. on the question regarding emergency work and remains a great example of that, i looked at sarah jones to answer that question. >> thank you. i believe commissioner mccray has a question after that. >> good morning, commissioners, sarah jones, acting environmental review officer for the planning review department. i think answering all the questions that i'm hearing might be able to take a small step back and remind you around the issue that as the regulations currently exist, these are projects that as they go through the building permit

and associated planning reviews, they are projects that are triggering significant environmental impacts and then need to be dealt with through a higher level of environmental impact review of ceqa review. they are otherwise exempt from ceqa that are needing to get mitigated negative declarations because of the soil condition. that represents a substantial increase in the time and in the cost of the building permit review on these projects. so by including this ordinance and addressing this issue via ordinance rather than by need to go apply mitigations through the review process, it would substantially review for these projects the time and cost of

their permit reviews. and that is something that i would say we probably have -- we see about a dozen projects a year in a require this higher level of environmental review solely because of hazardous conditions on the site. that can be ten times order of magnitude in their environmental review fees, ten times order of magnitude increase as well as an increase of many months even up to about a year in their permit review. so that is really the difference that we are talking about. things that for projects that are already, these projects that we are talking about are already under going review, it's much more time consuming and much more costly. the other issue is that under ceqa you can't go forward with any other aspect of the

projector approvals durt the ceqa project. you have to look the end -- entire project. while the rest of the work going around the hazardous materials, that is not possible, but under and ordinance system that would be something that could be a possibility. so i just wanted to raise those two points to sort of talk about the difference between how it is now and this ordinance relative to the concerns that i hear being voiced. >> what about my specific questions about an emergency of a sewer main? >> that would be a situation where there would be standard conditions as i understand as access that public agencies

would need to take as public right of way. it shouldn't delay the process. >> this would not be a public agency action. i'm asking specifically about the home owner or property owner who says has an aging, a sewer main is a common repair that needs to be dug up through the basement? >> sure. i you need ed to do that repair myself. that should not trigger -- paul reminded me that there is an emergency exemption provision so emergency situations would be trigger to that and there is 50 yards of soil excavated which

is more soil than needed for that project. >> it's an excellent question that commissioner mar -- melgar is asking because some home owners are asked to replace the -- there was a time where the city would take care of that but now there is one that don't replace traps. with most traps because of the basement homes they can be anywhere to 10 feet deep. you would have more than cubic yards. if that property was affected, you would be exempt? >> as an emergency repair, yes. again, i'm well aware from

personal experience of the trap issue. also, miss accusation cushion -- has brought an example of what this soil looks like. it can be brought up to see that. >> so this 18 wheeler truck that's being loaded in the photograph, that accommodates about 20 cubic yards of soil. so it would take two 1/2 of those. that's not your standard, that's a full size 18 wheeler haul truck. it's a substantial amount of soil and it's not expected that these types of repair would trigger

that. >> miss jones i have begun to speak to understand the bullet point on our presentation that dph would have flexibility in adopting practical and effective protocols. so when you begin to think about ceqa and other protocols there is this weaving and ability to do that. i think it's important. that's when you came up, you spoke to what i was saying. >> okay. commissioners? >> commissioner mar. >> a follow up question. that 30 day statutory date where they have to respond to the developer or homeowner, is that per step of the process because

that could take a long time too. if every time you miss one of the steps you have to wait another 30 days. >> right. you are correct. that is 30 days per step. not 30 days total. that is of course d ph response time. generally it's faster than that but it's broken out into 3 steps in a maximum of 90 days. what that doesn't take into account would be should there be response back and forth. that is a statutory requirement for dph response to commission. thank you. >> commissioners? >> well, in some ways, thank you very much for answering the

questions. i think the commissioners, we understand it's a very important legislation and the spirit of what needs to be done and implementation to be implemented in our city. we want to be cognizant of the fact when they are i am implemented that they are done in a constructive manner and the inspectors are dealing with this. our biggest concern is the smaller person who wouldn't be normally involved in this situation and they get the help they need to get it done when it does happen. the larger developers would be able to take care of themselves. i'm really happy to hear that there is an exemption because i believe we are going to see a lot of them. with regard to the map what is here is complicated. you can't really see the whole area. would we

expect for it to be running within the system where it would be lieltd -- highlighted in the system where it would be flagged? >> commissioner, the planning department. the map is basically ready to be available to the public as soon as the ordinance were to be in place. >> yeah. as we look at the map, it will be defined by lot? >> yeah. yes. it would be available on a personal basis block and lot. >> would this be updated? >> yes. a live data base. some on and some taken off in the future. yes. >> commissioner melgar? >> one more question. i'm wondering as part of what you are planning if there is a data base. if you get a site history from property owners if that can lift somewhere so a

subsequent property owner doesn't have to go through all over again. i'm wondering if this is going to build the knowledge base of what's in the city. >> does that go in one's title? >> that's what it would be around your title. >> we don't have a date of these. we scan all our documents. so when people usually do the first site history, they are welcomed to contact us and we burn a disk for them and they take it home or give it to their consultant and that's how they can start their site history. it's always, it is a living kind of knowledge that we have that if we build upon it as years pass so as we know more we can let some projects go and remain. that's how we do it currently.

>> that might be good to have in legislation. >> if i can add to that. the department, our data base in the future would reflect that a site had gone through ma har process but in the second step if the underlying soil would be at the health dechlt -- department. that would be available to the public. >> okay. commissioner mccray? >> it just hit me when i pull a title on a piece of property does it show that it's in ma har? >> once you've gone through certification process, there could be a deed restriction filed if there was some limitation if your property were approved for industrial or commercial use but not residential use, that would

show on a future title report, yes. >> commissioner walker? >> just a couple of questions. thank you for explaining some of the questions we had. the issue of the timing of when this applies, if approved and when it rolls out and if existing land owners would receive a notice that they have been put in that or is that only triggered when somebody applies for a removal of soil, that's the first thing and second related to that as far as timing, have you dealt with the training of sort of flexible classification of employees to make sure you cover the work load if there is an onslaught of applications that need to have this done. have you dealt with the

timeliness of cross training and working with unions to make sure that's approved etc. i just want to make sure the timing of staffing of this type of project is resolved? >> thank you, commissioner. kelly with the mayor's office. first the question regarding timing. it's assuming that this item is moved forward from the bic today, it is likely that it would be heard at the board of supervisors barring any continuance or further discussion likely it would heard before a recess moving through before the end of july. because it is an ordinance it has a 30 day period before it would become effective. assuming all of those likely steps end of august would be

effective. i want it to be clear that it would make no requirement of an existing homeowner who now as of august 28th, their in ma har. they wouldn't have to do anything proceed actively. it would be building permits filed, building applications filed after that date. the second question regarding flexibility and training would be just -- and i wasn't specific enough. these are existing in environmental health working in soil and hazardous materials currently. i'm happy to talk to dph now to ensure that trigger or advance work is in place to have the type of flexibility that we are discussing of course it's more than complicated than moving someone's desk. i'm happy to ask them to move that as soon as possible. >> no more questions.

>> commissioners, i would like to thank the staff from environmental for working on this. in this stage, is this an action item? do we vote on it? >> it is an action item. is there any public comment on this item? okay. seeing none, there is a roll call vote. >> question, i want to follow up on the timing. so it would move from, if we approve it, it moves from us to the board of supervisors and would there be a land use hearing and from here and then to the board? >> exactly. if it were to move forward. this has already had a hearing in the planning commission as well as the health commission