>> ok, motion carries unanimously. item 10, discussion and possible action regarding drafted number 5 of a proposed new administrative bulletin number 078, criteria for waving special inspection requirements for science, awnings, and canopies. >> thank you, madam secretary. is there public comment on this? deputy director? we cannot keep you away from the microphone now. [laughter] >> good morning, commissioners. dubie director. i highly recommend to pass this administrative bulletin to help small business, because awnings --you know, we have the criteria, certain items. for this one, the waiver, especially inspection for a

design and all those, especially in the city, we put it in writing. from now on, people will follow this particular rule. >> i am sorry, commissioner walker, you look like you have a question. commissioner walker: know, i am just reading. >> the motivation would be signs and awnings at a certain weight. >> right. >> basically from your experience and where you're sitting in the department, it is overkill having all these inspections that are special. >> traditionally, we do not require it. now we put it in the administration bulletin to make it more formal. commissioner mccarthy: ok, so we are cleaning this up for housekeeping. any questions from the commission? seeing none, can you call the question, please?

>> we need to have a motion. >> motion to approve or support. >> second. >> call the question. >> who did the second? >> i did. >> ok. this is a vote for the motion to support this legislation. are all in favor of this item? are there any opposed? seeing none, the motion carries. item number 11, discussion and possible action regarding proposed changes to the san francisco building code sections 106a.3.7 applications expiration, 106a.3.8, disapproval of application, 1 06a.3.8.7, withdraw the

application, 106a.34.4, a permit expiration, and corrections. >> this came from our public advisory committee meetings and the need for a permit applicants and permit holders to have a longer time span to complete their work in this economy. and what it does, on the larger projects, it extends the time limit for the amount of an extension that can be formally granted from one year to two years. so that the larger projects do not have to keep coming back in every year, trying to get a permit extension or an application extension on a project that might take them several years to get all of their agenda submitted, such as a high-rise or another project

like that. what happens is the site permits issued and then they have a certain amount of time to submit all of the adenda into the other departments, that time limit rapidly gets exhausted. and they're coming back every year and paying an extension fee. it is burdensome on the department. it is not efficient. and we really did not need to collect the money every year on its these huge, large projects, because they are not submitting the work, otherwise they would not need the extensions. so we're not doing the work for the amount of the money out of the extension, so it is not fair to the larger projects to charge them every year for work that is not being completed by the department. that is about charging permit

fees or extension fees. >> and does it require some activity on the part of the permit holder to get an extension? i mean, can they do nothing and just come back in a year and say, you know -- they decided not to build it or something, can the permit remain in effect for this time span even if there is no work being done or no activity? >> there might be activity occurring in the engineering department. >> right, behind it. >> they might not be submitting it to us because the time limits to take so long for some of the structural engineering on a large project. it could take up to a year or two years to do the structural engineering after the site permit is approved. >> i get that. i am saying they cannot just do nothing. >> no, they submitted a letter to the director or to the unit

stating what they have been doing on the project and certifying that they are not abandoning the project. quite frankly, we have extended a permit applications due to financial conditions. they are trying to get loans. some people haven't submitted copies of loan applications, which -- some people have even submitted copies of loan applications, which we do not really need. but they're trying to prove that and things like that. it is not fair to cancel their permits immediately on jobs like that. so we are trying to rewrite the cancellation process also to get the permit applicants and and the permit holder 60 days instead of the 21 days that is currently in the code. because, quite frankly, we cannot get a certified letter out and picked up and returned to us in 21 days. in the meantime, the permit

expires. so in the current code is written, it does not get the post office enough time even to notify the certified mail- holder, the project sponsor, that they have a letter out there. by the time it is returned to as for non-delivery, it is two months later. we're figuring 60 days would give staff enough time to actually retrieve the letter if it is not picked up, tried to contact them in a different manner, and make more effort to be user-friendly with the permit applicant on these permits and not have its show up as a big surprise. 21 days and i picked my letter up yesterday and my permit is already expired. we want to avoid that. that is one of the reasons that we put a logger notification time in this. and the public advisory committee thought that 60 days would be enough time to do that.

and the other things that we decided or talked about in the public advisory committee and brought forth in this legislation for your consideration is the fact that other departments weigh in on building permits. and the application expiration time and originally extended to include every agency that touches the permit. that time limit is unreasonable. we have some of the permits that go to department of public works and their held up for a tree for maybe two or three months while they decide what kind of tree they need and how they're going to planted. by the atomic it's back to us. so we decided to -- by the time in against back to us. we ask that only the time spent in the building code only refer

to the time that the building is planned checking the permit and not the other agencies. so if it does sit in and other agencies such as health or the mayor's office on disability or another plan checking department other than building, and the associated building, mechanical, or egg -- or if they need plumbing or electrical from us, that would be the time frame that we would start counting the days on. that also extends the time frame a little bit and gives the permit applicants some more time. it is treaty on our part to calculate the time, but we have a way of doing that. we devised a way of doing it. the other thing, on the fee table is, what was actually discovered back in 2007 when the thief the tables -- with the fee table for a revised is that the

plan and check for the inspection fee for alterations was less than the inspection fee for permits that had no plans. so what was happening is people that had violations on their property were coming in, drawing up a set of plans, and getting the penalties reduced on the erroneous amount that was in the fee table for plans. it was not the minimum fee. we have corrected that, and it has taken us almost three years to do it, but we have corrected that finally. another correction was the amount of an appeals hearing for the -- for this board. and it was originally $170. we increased it to include the city attorney's time, which was never considered in the fee nexus before. and when we overlooked it, when we went back through the fee nexus study, it was inadvertently left out. we did increase it, but we only

charged another fraction or another hour on the the fee table. there is little corrections throughout, just to make -- another one was that for appointments, for over the counter plan to check, we had a fee in there that was $400 + 50% of the plan jacheck. it was supposed to be a flat $400 fee. so i reduced it in some cases. i reduced all the charges in the records department to match the sunshine ordinance for distribution of copies. if it is coming out of a computer, it is a copy, so it is 10 cents, not $3 or whatever. in some cases, the fees are reduced, but it is not going to

be a significant amount of fees. basically, the department is to stay in coal. >> when we notified the permitee that there permits are going to expire, do we just send them a letter or is there a form they need to fill out that accompanies the letter that they have to return to us? >> no, there is no form. we send a letter out to the project sponsor and the project owner. it actually gives them the amount if they wanted to extend the feet. they, in turn, it tells them how to extend the permit if they want to extend it, by writing as a letter accompanied by the fee. however, we do have a process that if the permit has been more than three years approved by planning, ladies in the permit back to planning to make sure that they will allow the permits

to be extended. so far, we have been doing this now for almost five years. there has been one permit denied. that is why normally any permanent extension is granted by planning. any entitlement on a small building. the larger buildings have a different process. but the larger buildings are being approved by planning, their entitlements also. and it was a direction of the mirror to make sure that we continue trying to get these buildings built the best way we can. in a lot of instances, we're bringing them up to 2010 codes as much as we can. if it was an older permit. so we are trying to spur the economy, so to speak. and this will be another help to permit applicants, plus a help to the staff. >> commissioners?

>> just briefly, well done it to staff. obviously you have listened to our clients, our permit-holders, and this was a continuous problem for them. you have addressed very well. i think the public likes to see that and it is very efficient. congratulations to the director for putting this together and seeing it through. i look forward to this type of analyzing and seeing what is best for the department overall. and of course the citizens to go down there and need the help you give them. thank you for this. really good stuff. >> thank you. >> with that, can i have a motion to approve? >> so moved. >> second. >> call the question. >> is there any additional public comment on item 11? c. ignagni, there is a motion to support the legislation. -- seeing nine, there is a motion to support the legislation.

those in favor? anybody oppose? the motion carried unanimously. item 12, discussion and possible action on capss implementation team proposed new administrative bulletins ab-098, post- earthquake repair and retrofit requirements for what french residents of buildings with three or more dwelling units, ab-099, post-earthquake repair and retrofit requirements for concrete buildings, and ab-100, post-earthquake repair and retrofit requirements for one and a two-family dwellings. public comment? >> i guess his republic. i work for the city, but i am public. yes or formally with the to permit the building inspection for many years, now working with the city administrator's office

on the earthquake safety net implementations program, which is the implementation of the capss recommendation, which was a 10 to 12-year study with the department of building inspection. i am here at the moment just to say these bulletins are a major step forward. we have no opposition. however, it was requested by a couple of the agencies, outside groups, a structural engineers association, and others, if we could continue for a month while they do more formal review in their committee. so i am here to request a continuance to the next meeting of the building inspection commission. thank you very much. commissioner mccarthy: i believe there is more public comment? >> no. >> that is all i have to say. thank you very much. deputy director? >> good morning, commissioners.

deputy director here. first of all, i greatly appreciate lawrence who just spoke. 50 years on it this capss program. he did a fantastic job, d telling the bulletin. i highly recommend to go forward with this. yesterday, we had a 7.4 earthquake in mexico. i remember when i joined the city one day before the earthquake, i got the training. right away, and went to the marina. that is why we do not know when the earthquake is going to come. we may have a problem later. even approving it today, we should have it, too drafter whatever so staff can use it.

that is my recommendation. no document will be perfect, but we will try to implement something to help the public and also our employees to perform any of those post-earthquake events. thank you. commissioner mccarthy: thank you dubie director. commissioner walker: yes, i really appreciate the work of lawrence and many in at the staff working on this issue. i know i have been working on this as long as i have been on the commission. the recommendations that are coming forward are really important, and i think once that we will eventually, probably unanimously, support. but i would like to move to continue this to the next meeting to get the added input

from the structural engineers, especially that have been working as partners on all of these projects. just to make sure we get everything right, to really make these changes and recommendations the best they can be. and the structural engineers especially have been working really hard to help us establish the standards and the criteria for making these changes. i would like to honor the request and continued this item to the next meeting. >> second. >> call the question. >> was there a second? >> yes. >> ok. motion to continue item number 12 to the next meeting. are all in favor? any opposed? ok, then the item is continued. number 13, directors report. 13a, update on dbi's finances.

>> pamela, department of building inspection. i will make this report very quick because i know it is late for everyone. i am still going to use the graph, but i will move through it very quickly. overall, we continue to do well. we had quite a bit of activity this last month, february. we, in terms of the apartment license fees and the rental, those things that come in with the property tax. as any of you who live here painfully know, we owe our taxes in the beginning of april. so we will know a little more at

the end of next month, although it will not be reflected in the march report. but i will report on it. we're still waiting to see how that comes in. charges for service. as you can tell from the graph, we have 84% of our projection, our budget for charges for services, and the other -- only about 67% of the year has gone by. as you know, it is not an incremental amount every month, so you cannot straight line it, but we're doing better than expected. in terms of -- i will skip this because it is a small amount of our budget. in terms of the mou's, these are our interagency agreement for the large projects. and the original projection was based some money coming in from mta. i think it is actually coming from the federal government for

the central subway project, and that is going to be delayed until around august. so that will go on into next fiscal year. i am not very concerned about the fact that we have only received about 56% of what we originally estimated. in terms of the expenses, as you know, the majority of our expenses are related to personnel. we have been trying to fill positions. in fact, we have about 20 requisitions i got approved last friday that proposes a challenge for us. some of those are tested already and we are waiting for results. some of them there are not in the testing, so we will have to move through a process to hire the people, that we're getting recognition from the mayor's office and from dhor that -- from dhr that it is vital to

provide the service. non-personnel-related expenses, yes or not particularly concerned about this one either, because a lot of these are contracts that we have -- i am not printed clearly concerned about this one either, because a lot of these are contracts and licenses. those kind of happened at the end of the fiscal year. charges for services -- i am sorry, services of other departments. those are work orders. people are historically slow in providing us the bills for that. this is primarily the city attorney and real estate, who are the majority, and of course at the department of technology. and then, the program expenses, that transfers over to the projects. so i will be talking a little more about the projects which

are predominantly i.t. projects when i come out the next time. i just wanted to point out that we continue to have a large increase in evaluation of our issued permits. it is about 18% more than this time last year. and to as tom mentioned, we're getting kind of the middle sized, the smaller projects. we are above, as the chart says in the report, we have 29 more million dollars or above valuation of our issue permits, but i think the majority are the smaller ones. so we feel pretty confident that things continue to show a slow recovery. and i would be glad to answer any questions. commissioner mccarthy:

questions? >> i just had a question about some of the open position that we cannot hire for because of either the testing or the backlogs in human resources. have we moved on bringing back some retirees under prop f, especially for the permit approval area, and i know there is a backlog in some of our data entry -- i know we're trying to update records and there is a huge amount of files under the old system that need to be entered. >> so, i will kind of address the first question about the testing and how it has been a debacle to hire a lot of our positions, especially the clerks. -- hallett has been difficult to hire a lot of our positions. we will get results at the end of this mnning of next month. many existing employees took the test, and we're optimistic that they will be placed on at the

list in an area -- if you want to talk about four tiles on the list that we can actually reach to. those are pretty confident that we will be able to get that done, hopefully in april. because those are already approved and we just are waiting. prop f position, they're not positions that you can just do not going to the mayor's office. we have gotten approval for two of them. one of them that i think is still in human-resources gear because even though the mayor has to approve it, i am meeting them on a weekly basis to try to get these things moving. but we did get an engineer position back, and we are getting it -- we're still discussing, but we think we will get sonya some help.

for data entry, i hope we can fill the clerical positions. it is an uphill battle for, you know, both regular positions and prop f. prop f is even harder, because you have to justify how and individual is really going to improve significantly, significantly ion as compared to into a real recruitment process. and i, as many of you may know, we have many, many mou's with the unions in negotiations currently, and one of the universal questions being asked -- is prop f and temporary exempt positions, how those, you know, are used as opposed to going through the regular hiring

process? the short answer is, yes, we're trying our best to get these filled and look at prop f types of positions back. but if there are individuals that want to do that but we're also trying to get ongoing