aggravating adds a lot. residents experience asthma rates five times higher than those in other parts of the city. to improve the health of residents, decrease the use of health care and emergency departments, bringing housing conditions to a level code, housing department enforcement code violation has been strengthened. providing greater incentive for property owners to make the repairs necessary for these vulnerable residents. thank you for your consideration. >> next speaker, please. >> the reason i'm here, i find that as a property owner you find the things that need to be done. you have 10 instead perhaps do not maintain proper sanitation.

you speak to them, u.s. them to do it, but we have no muscle to do anything about it. yet you know that this unit is infested and we have passed control that tenants refuse. i call the health department. i explained to them. they say that they cannot afford to send anyone out. well, you are collecting fees for that. we could eliminate some of these problems if the health department would follow up on the landlord's request, not 10 and request. thank you. -- not the tenant's request. >> good morning. in the director of the san francisco apartment association. as you hear it -- as you heard here today, many issues are being brought up as related to the owner responsibility and

tenet responsibility. what we thought was a hearing on bedbugs has turned into a hearing about other quality of life problems dealing with rental housing. i would highly recommend to this committee that this legislation be tabled and set into a task force of owners and tenants to work on a long-term solution to the problems that exist in the health code and overlap that exists. and have owners being more responsible in the enforcement of the laws, it needs to be simplified for them. ddi has a system in place already. we work with them to enforce

existing housing code laws. perhaps that group should be brought in with the health department route under one housing code team that can look at combined enforcement rather than two separate departments trying to accomplish the same thing in a haphazard manner. there are complications that have to do with garbage pickup. we just went through a huge change in garbage pickup and the composting lost. many of the folks that were composting in multi-unit buildings are being asked to take it down to the lower floors. this is creating a lot of unintended consequences because the legislation has not -- [tone] committee task force environment where we can solve the problem and seek solutions to make

tenants and owners have a better quality of life in 7 cisco. thank you. supervisor chiu:i am certainly f

abating nuisances and thus are less. if there are annual inspections of sros, you know this involves more than one-half of 1%. first of all, let me speak to the process. although i applaud the author of this legislation's intent, the city has an sro task force. i have been working on that as a member of the public. this is not in regard to the task force.

i would agree with the previous speaker's suggestion, that this legislation be continued and given to the sro task force, so they can vent some of these proposals. secondly, in my opinion, the department of public health is not the appropriate enforcement agency of this legislation. as you know we have standards of care for homeless shelters. dph is also the enforcement agency -- to enforce the standards of care, but for the last few years, there has been no enforcement of the standards of care at homeless shelters. so i have no confidence in dph enforcing these nuisance standards. finally, in terms of garbage

disposal being precluded from 11:00 at night until 7:00 in the morning, i think that is unwise. as you know, sro's have one elevator, at best when there are working. so you have this activity at the entime of the day when tenants e coming and going. it is not a good idea. >> thank you. next speaker? >> good morning, commissioners. i am a landlord. i think you have heard comprehensive testimony about how many landlords are opposed to this today. if you are really interested in giving tools to the department of public health to help in the eradication of bedbugs, then seriously consider including a

tenant as a responsible person under this legislation. if you read through the legislation, making the landlord the sole responsible person insofar as bad bugs, is unworkable. as you have heard, landlords do not go through their building looking for bedbugs. in my own case, it is difficult to get the tenants to apply -- comply with proper medication measures. there are a series of information, pamphlets that we send out to get ready for the system in place. we often walk into the building with the staff that we have hired to do the work and the work is not done. it is not the landlord's fault. if you want this to be more than

just another wedge issue coming from city hall, make the tenant a responsible person. i suggested this to the doctor in a couple of weeks ago. it was rejected. nobody wants to touch the third rail in san francisco. i would also like some clarification on the amendment that was made today on the removal of refuse from buildings. does that mean that before it is removed, it has to be brought down to the ground floor? as the legislation was written last week, this will be a big issue, in chinatown, parts of north beach where you have virtuallyon the ground near the alleyways. i would like clarification on that amendment.

>> my name is andrew long. i am a small property owner. i think this piece of legislation needs to be tabled and reworked. you are making landlords the sole responsible party for bedbugs for a $1,000 a day fine, which is draconian. the reality is, 99.9% of the time, bedbugs are brought into the location by the tenant. there is not much we can do about that. people take free furniture from the city and bring it into their apartment, and all of a sudden you have bedbugs. you have a lot of duplication of enforcement.

we have the department of public health doing what dbi does. to we really need two agencies doing the same job? as it is, we are plighpaying foo agencies that are duplicating a lot of work. i think this whole thing needs to be rethought. we need to have a task force with all responsible parties and come up with a better system. that would be a much better path to go down then this legislation, which is just going to become another wedge issue. food there is no responsibility on the tenet -- there is no responsibility on the tenant's part to deal with the issue. >> good morning, commissioners.

first, i would like to thank you, supervisor, the doctor, for confirming the fact that most landlord to what they can to maintain their buildings and keep them the vector-free, including doing what they can to prevent bedbugs. unfortunately, the landlord is not the person who is able to stop the bad bugs from entering the unit. it is important that we do this. it suggests the tenants within the unit has some responsibility. i do not know how that is going to work, we can have a discussion, but in the cases of the less than 1% that go over 90 days, i am not aware of any of our members who have had that circumstance. what they have run into his the

on cooperation of the tenants to be able to deal with it. our fear is we are going to run into that, we are going to bump into the tenant who refuses to let them into the unit to do what needs to be done. but then the landlord will be saddled with this thousand dollar fine. you can imagine, if a landlord is truly trying to work with a tenant who is not willing to be a responsible party, it would seem to us that there would still be a $1,000 fine. having said that, there is an opportunity here to figure out how that works. i do not think it is a bad idea to hold people responsible for keeping their buildings clean and vector-3, but we need the tools to do that. what we would ask for is the opportunity to address that part of it so that it is not just the

landlord's responsibility. the tenant has some responsibility, too, in this effort. >> next speaker? >> good morning, supervisors. i am the executive director of the housing rights committee of san francisco. i, too, am surprised -- i am surprised to hear so much talk about bedbugs. if you read the ordinance, "bedbugs"comes up in only one place, defined as a nuisance along with rodents and other pests. this ordinance is about overall

enforcement of public health of violations. in housing, it is not about bedbugs. that is just one of the many issues that this issue would cover. we are so tired of hearing complaints about mold and mildew, moisture, things that have direct health impact on people, not just with as much, but those who are immune- compromised. even roaches, you may not know, but they can contribute and exacerbate asthma. these amendments will strengthen the code enforcement on these types of issues. this talk about $1,000 a day, that is making a mountain out of a molehill. the truth is, if you are a landlord addressing the issue,

whether it is mildew, mold, rats, bedbugs -- if you are making a good-faith effort to treat the problem, i am sorry, but that is not where dph is going to focus their resources. the city attorney is not going to go after these landlords that you heard speaking today that went through so many things to take care of the problem. they will be going after the bad actors, and believe me, there are bad actors who say, what bedbugs? you brought them in, i did not do anything. that is what this code addresses. thank you. >> are there any other members of the public that wish to comment on this item?

>> what we need is cooperation and education amongst landlords, tenants, and, i think the most viable thing that we have heard today is how there is not one problem, two problems, but many problems that could be worked out through a task force. with that being said, maybe we should look at all of the issues, the agencies to enforce these issues, and make they miss a bit more streamlined, making it easier to understand the rules and regulations. that being said, i hope that a task force is created to deal with some of these problems we have heard about today. >> are there any other members of the public that wish to speak on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. supervisor avalos? >> i would like to call up dr.

bahtia once again. it has been said that the responsibility of this will fall almost entirely on how the landlord. that is not what this legislation says. could you explain that? >> in two ways. again, it has been department practice, where there are people responsible, to hold people don't irresponsible. -- jointly responsible. we order both the landlord and tenant to take action. but this particular ordinance clarifies that department practice in the following way. in section 580, definitions of

responsible parties, we have amended the definition of responsible parties. responsible parties shall include the owner or manager or any other person having control of the property or anyone else to has ownership and fails to correct. we do not include residential tenants, but all of those categories of people, all persons could be part of those categories. i would say this ordinance does what many of the speakers have been asking to do, which is allow the department to hold multiple entities responsible for a nuisance. in fact, that is the dept.'s current practice. >> it was reported a number of times here at the podium that when there is an investigation, it always falls on the landlord.

tenants are never help responsible for the conditions in their buildings. >> i do not think that is true. whether it is a fact of life of a world of property, property owners are responsible for their property. they are one group of people always responsible for the property. i think there are cases where you know illegal activities are happening but a property owner still bears a responsibility. it is not their practice to hold odors solely responsible, never has been, when there is such a shared responsibility. it is also clarified in the 2006 rules and regulations on control of bedbugs, that tenants have certain responsibilities. that is a four-year-old document. >> and then the belief that

penalties, these could be applied, generally and liberally, almost willy-nilly, for violations. what would be the process? what has already happened, when it comes to imposing a penalty? >> generally, it would be those cases where there is no good faith action to move forward in addressing a violation over 90 days. we would then go to a director's hearing. the director would find out why progress is not being made, are there multiple parties responsible? they may order multiple party to take action to correct a nuisance. i think the case for a penalty would only be there if there was complete disregard for the law by a tenant. it is not our practice, nor

would we recommend to the city attorney, to administrate a polity. -- penalty. it has never been our practice. we enforce many health code issues. it has never been our practice to do that. >> there was also discussion at the podium about potential shared jurisdiction between dbi and dph related to conditions in buildings. i believe we need to have separate functions. they are two different parts of the health code, building code that need to be looked at. generally, dealing with mitigating poor conditions in a building, for health

conditions, do you see an opportunity for fourdph to participate -- an opportunity for dph to participate along with dbi in these conversations? >> i think so. when supervisor avalos introduced concerns about mold, there were held concerns and other structural issues that we and dbi had to deal with. we developed a joint memorandum. dbi is frankly not comfortable dealing with human issues. they are more comfortable with structure issues. they are not comfortable with asbestos, lead, bold health problems. the health department is the state-recognized vector control

agency in the city. so there are jurisdictional issues. we need to coordinate this work. there is the possibility to have a central data system. these policies makes our enforcement provisions more similar. all of these enforcement tools we are asking the health department to have, the department of building inspection already has. i cannot say it is word for word, but definitely some need for coordination. >> i would say the passage of this lesson obviates the need for this. i think it is a benefit when you have apartment owners and tenants talking directly about how to mitigate these problems in the building. certainly, there are other

cities whose difficulties with infestations are much greater than here. what are they doing elsewhere? how are people coming together on different sides of the housing issue to define those cases, the find better practices? >> there are a number of other models. earlier versions of this legislation was shared with the sro task force, but at the time in 2004, we looked at what other cities were doing withç housing enforcement. we identified areas a of substantive responsibility that we were not requiring. we have incrementally tried to work from that. i think los angeles is a good model to look at. it is quite a bit more robust than what we have in san francisco right now.

again, not focusing on bed books, i would suggest a work group to look on how -- at how we can have better roles in the health code. what are we missing that other cities are doing? we generally look at common areas, around the building, and other cities do dwelling by dwelling inspections on a periodic basis. other cities are doing quite a bit more. there are things to look at, and we do not need to copy what every city does, but we could learn a lot. >> i think those communication between different parties would be beneficial to the city, especially looking at the health code. however, i think legislation is a separate matter. it is really about how to bring

modern tools to make sure that we are in compliance. thank you, doctor. i appreciate your time. i would like to urge my colleagues to move this forward today. i think what we have is a great opportunity to bring the tools of the department forward, to ensure we have better conditions in buildings across the city. that will have a great impact on the quality of life for all san franciscans. >> thank you. this matter is still in the hands of the committee. i will start the conversation by saying these are issues are ones that i have heard about in many contexts from constituents. in fact, my office has looked into whether there was legislation to move this forward. when we discovered that supervisor avalos was moving

forward, we decided to wait for that. from my perspective, i think this is a reasonable balance, particularly in that it is not contrary, to popular opinion, does not target of landlords specifically but includes all parties that could be included to alleviate and adjust the situation. i want to echo the comments around the importance of the department of public health working with the dbi and sro task force. i know the model of interacting with paschal others has been an important one. other groups have worked well with tenants to make some good suggestions. i would highly encouraged that as we move forward. potentially, if there are solutions to make the process more efficient and effective, i would be open to hearing that. that being said, i would

support this. there are some amendments that we need to make. are there any other comments that you would like to make? supervisor avalos has circulated an amendment of the whole. is there a motion to adopt? without objection. on the legislation as amended, without objection? roll call vote, please. >> on the motion to send item 12 border with recommendation as amended. [roll call] there are two aye's and one no. >>