until we get these classes in and up to speed, and we will continue to work with the mayor's office and local 798 to see what we do to see if we cannot even get more officers in more quickly to get to our charter mandate. since it is getting kind of stuff the, we will break now. there are cantonese and spanish translators available if anyone's to avail themselves. everyone here is available for questions individually. maybe outside, get a little fresh air. thank you so much for coming. [applause] >> thanks for >> good morning. today is wednesday, june 20, 2012. i would like to remind everyone

to please turn off all electronic devices. the first item is roll-call. [calling roll] we have a quorum. the next item is president's announcements. president mccarthy. >> president mccarthy. president mccarthy: in this the interest of time, i will forgo those announcements. >> present mccarthy, vice president mar, and commissioners, my name is tom.

i have not been able to make meetings, because it has been a busy year and this position. i wanted to let you know who i am and reconnect a little more. i have been a fire prevention and investigation for 20 years. in the fire department 30, and worked as a supervisor when the building department was still on mcallister streets, so we a relationships with a lot of the directors and deputy directors and staff, and in the interest of time, because i know the previous meeting went a long time, i will keep it short. when i asked the commission secretary to do is to distribute our charts for fire prevention. perhaps i can pass one along to president mccarthy. if you ever have any questions or want to work with staff on anything, i just want to let you know i will try to get stuff here on a regular basis, especially when there are agenda

items that may contconcern building and fire together. i just wanted to say hello. >> thank you. >> good morning, commissioners. henry conolowitz. i want to speak about a schematic that came into place last monday. this has created a lot of gridlock. there is no flexibility in the system. before you could take an hour- two hours to get a permit, and now you are lucky if you get it in in one day. examples to start off with. if you went to see planning, you have to go to the information

calendar. -- at the information counter. there are 10 people waiting, you have to wait until your number is issued. so you have to wait to get the ticket. want to get your ticket, they start calling the numbers. on the numbers they have alphabetical notations before the numbers. like a310, d w hatever. you are does waiting and waiting until the number rolled up. -- you are just waiting and waiting until the number is cal led up. they will route you to fire. there is someone they're going to fire who was routed incorrectly. now they are going to fire.

then you are on your way. now you're sitting and waiting and waiting. if you are looking for a clear channel where you want to get this done right away, you cannot. you have to wait. you have to wait until you get to the fire person. quite frankly, it is a disaster. it does work in oakland. but in oakland it is one floor. i have been to the plan checker for the intake, and they say you need to go to planning. you go to planning on the other side, and then they say come back to us in person again. they say come to the same person, and they take care of you, in your on your way. that is not how it works here. here you have to go downstairs. it is very complicated, and no flexibility. there really is not. a lot of people that are architects and engineers, pretty but everyone including the

building department and fire and housing, and no one is happy about this situation. just briefly, i was here a little while ago and said they want to almost five hours to get a permit for commercial. the last time heard number was dropped 31 station and another. -- her number was dropped. >> good morning. i'm bobby sue hood, a former building inspection commission. not a future 1. -- one. the items here also speak about the chromaq-matic system, whichi have experienced for the first

time. since doing my masters at berkeley, i've been very interested in commuter systems the maximize something, but usually for the benefit of saving money, time, and making the overall system work better for anybody in it. if planes were scheduled according to this system, people would be up in the air running out of gas all over the country, because basically to take a global perspective, what it does is to say to go into the system where you might have seven or eight stations that you have to stop at, and each one you have to wait the longest time. whereas, if you know how the various stations work and know there is no one at fire at 8:00, you go in there and get in line of structural engineering plan check, and then there are five people waiting there, but you know it will not take that long to check with fire. so you go over and get that one done, because there is the fire

checker sitting there and nothing he is doing. so his time is being wasted while you were over there and the line waiting for the structural plan checker. instead of it being a system that maximizes it in the sense that it makes staff time most efficient, it does not work. in the sense that you are serving the customer, serving the permit applicants, it does not work either because their time has been extended. it might be not just a factor of twice as long. it might be five times as long because people who are really experienced going through all these different things, as henry was, he knows if he goes at a certain hour, that he can get this done here and that down there, so his knowledge makes the plan checker and the building department's use of

their own time for the same permit fee more efficient. it is a win-win for everybody to revise it. it is on a computer, and it is a software problem. it could be fixed without throwing out the system, and there are plenty of fabulous software engineers in this town who could consider it easy work. that is all. thank you. >> commissioners, good morning. last month, i heard pamela talk about cases that have gone to the litigation committee. i happen to have some paperwork about a building around the corner from my house that had had a directors hearing, but nothing else had happened to it. i got a spread sheet from the

apartment, and it showed the spreadsheet. the information was duplicated, and there were about 2100 open directors hearings. i wonder also how many directors hearings are there that had never been sent to the litigation committee, and what i found was that there were over 750 of those. some of those date back to the year 2000. so i did a little math, and that is on the last page. i sorted all the data, by the way. it is in my hand up. by both the code and by year. the open director hearings go back to 1906. the open director hearings that have had an order of abatement go back to the year 2000. nothing else has happened with those. i was just kind of wondering why it. let's see, what else did i do? i did a little math here.

that is calculated by -- that is on the next-to-last stage. calculated by with the value of the open notice of the violation is. as you remember from a couple of months ago, there were nearly 5500 open notices of violation. i did a little math, like us said, and i can calculate the open notices of violation were worth about $1,100 each. i multiplied that by 2000 open director hearings and came up 0"$ñwith $2,300,000. sec number is the director's hearings that are open that had never gone to the litigation committee or to the full commission, and that is a little bit more than $750,000. again, i would like to ask that the complaint process, including notices of violation and including directors hearings become an agenda item at the building inspection commission. thank you. >> thank you very much for this. is there any additional public

comment? seeing none, item four, discussion and possible action to approve a declaration of financial hardship form for requesting fee exemptions for appeals heard by the building inspection commission in accordance with administrative code section 77.10. >> commissioners, i have submitted a proposed form, which is basically the form that the board of appeals uses. as i mentioned to you earlier, it does not, at least explicitly, provide for an organization to get an fee waiver based on nt being a neighborhood organization. i did a little bit of background research and discovered that under the planning code, to apply for a discretionary review fee waiver, they have

their own form. i found this last night, otherwise i would have sent it to you earlier. it does provide on the form, which is specifically contemplated in the planning code -- they allow for a neighbor's organization to get a fee waiver on the basis of being a neighborhood organization. there are different criteria they use. for example, that they'd be a neighborhood organization that has been in existence for 24 months, and that they are on a list that the planning department maintains. there are different ways that this can be handled, and i would seek your direction and are happy to assist staff with whatever form the commission decides to use. but those are the options. the form the board of appeals uses explicitly applies to individuals, and they are different criteria that they can

check to indicate that they have a financial hardship. the other possibility is that we modify that form to include an option for a neighborhood organization. by virtue of being a bonafide neighborhood organization, and the commission can decide what criteria they would like to create to establish that. so those are the options. as i said, i would be happy to work with staff to modify this form to include a neighborhood organization option or, obviously, the commission is free to adopt this form. as far as in the san, the board of appeals does not have an option for a neighborhood organization to get a fee waiver just on the basis of being a neighborhood organization. nothing in the code section requires you to allow for that. in the planning code, they do

set out that a neighborhood organization can have a fee waiver, but there's nothing that says you cannot have it also. >> i just had a question -- because this one seems pretty clear, but does it preclude it from leader may be adopting one for organizations or for neighborhood organizations? rather than having to table this and modified this, you know, could we adopt this? this is pretty clear for individuals. and then later adopt another one specific to neighborhood organizations? after we get the tax and everything discussed? >> i do not see any reason why you could not do that, have twon individual, and i could work with staff for a form that would be apple -- applicable to neighborhood organizations. >> could someone and make the motion to approve? >> motion to approve. >> second. >> any objection? >> we have a motion to approve

the declaration of financial hardship for. all in favor? >> i think we need public comment. >> and sorry. is there public comment on item four? seeing none, there is a motion to approve the declaration of financial hardship form. are all commissioners in favor? are any opposed? then the form is approved. item five, discussion and possible action regarding a new administrative bulletin, post-a quick repair and the trichet requirements for wood-frame residential buildings with three or more dwelling units. >> could i request we call the

next three items together please? 3 bulletins' together. >> it is your call. >> we are also going to be discussing items 6 and 7. item six, discussion and possible action regarding a new administrative bulletin, post-of quick repair and retrofit requirements for concrete buildings. item seven, discussion and possible action regarding a new administrative bulletin, post-a quick repair and retrofit requirements for 1- and two- family dwellings. >> good morning. i am working with the city administrator's office on the earthquake safety programs. the work that i do is an outgrowth of the work that was done under the department of building inspection over the

last 10 years or so, which looks at overall, city-wide a quick impacts and then proposes ways, methods to reduce the impact. some of them are procedural. some of them require certain types of upgrades. it is a broad complex of many types of earthquake safety measures, and the work we are doing is now -- has not developed into what is called the earthquake safety implementation plan, run under the city administrator's office. we have a 30-year work plan because this is such a big and complicated project, and we can only make incremental improvements, but over 30 years, we think we might be able to make substantial changes, but, you know, earthquakes work on a different time scale than we often do. and i have copies of that 30- year plan as well as the entire implementation plan. for those of you who have not seen this, i put some for the public over here, and i will be happy to pass around for you if

you have not got a copy already. actually, the first two items on our 30-year program implementation schedule are the items that are before you today. not to say we are not doing the other things, but these are clearly some of the most important. what they are essentially our methods of complying, for the most part -- 95% of this is how we are going to comply with existing code requirements in the california building codes for buildings that get damaged in an earthquake. this california building code has a provision that actually copies -- replicates what used to be in the san francisco building code amendments. it is now statewide. it says if a building is substantially structurally damaged beyond a certain point in a of quick, you cannot just fix it back to its previous condition because we are expecting future earthquakes. instead, you have to do certain levels of retrofit. that is in the california building code.

the big issue, as we have seen in oakland and other cities, is that it is very difficult to have an engineering analysis that shows that yes, you have exceeded the damage percentage or you have not, and it is subject to great interpretation an argument between fema and insurance companies and building companies, and what we are trying to do is clarify how we can quickly come to some conclusions as to whether or not you have or have not exceeded these structural damage states. these three bulletin's deal with that. one is for one and two-family buildings. one is for larger wood frame buildings. one is for concrete buildings. they are all based generally on not san francisco standards, but on more nationally accepted standards. we will be following this up with bulletins on other types of buildings -- steel frame buildings, perhaps, and brick

buildings. these three bulletin's before you have taken many years to develop. they were actually one of the specific goals of the program. they were before you once before and continue because some members of the public expressed some concerns, and we try to resolve them in bulletins. we have made a commitment with the code advisory committee and structural subcommittee and the structural engineers association of northern california and representatives of that committee are here today to take the next year to go through these and see if we can help improve them in some way as we develop these additional bulletin's, see if we can tease apart the repair pieces from other pieces. there is one other small piece -- a very small number of buildings we anticipate will meet what we call a disproportionate damage trigger. that is to say if you have a small earthquake and you have noticeable damage that is an

indicator -- a clear visual indicator -- that this is a building that will not perform well in a moderate earthquake, not to speak of a large earthquake, some -- i think a year-plus ago, the disproportionate damage concept, which requires a code change and adding a definition and one or two other small changes came before this commission and has not yet gone to the board of supervisors as a code change. these boards contain the implementation provisions for the small earthquake damaged building, pending the approval of this code changes at the board of soups. but that will be a very small number of buildings. we just want to pick up the worst of the worst buildings in the case of a small earthquake. with that, i would like to give you an opportunity to hear from the public who is here to also support this, i hope. thank you.

and we did receive some public comment, which we will certainly consider -- a letter that we will consider when we go back and review these further. yes, sir? >> thank you for your presentations. you did receive a copy of the letter. >> i did. >> addressing these concerns. >> actually, almost everyone had been considered, but we are happy to further review them. we look for public comment. we like that sort of thing. i will certainly make sure we reconsider that. thank you. >> i have a couple of questions. i did not see the letter, so i do not know what was asked, but my question -- who will first determine whether these criteria are met at these buildings? after an earthquake, there is some damage. besides the criteria are met?

who initiates it? >> these are the bulletin's that set out the criteria, but they do not say how the department will implement each post-quake inspection protocol procedure, who is doing what in the department. that is part of the department's policies that they are developing through the earthquake response programs. there's a requirement in the california building codes that if an engineer or licenses and professional does an analysis to determine structural deficiencies after an earthquake, they have to submit that to the city, but these cannot -- that it could be either? >> that is correct, and i'm sure that somehow or another, that will get folded into the city's department plan. >> then if it is an inspection done by a government spector, and it says the building meets

the criteria and the need to upgrade, if i were the property owner, then i would hire my own engineers to give their opinions to me, whether we met the criteria or not. my question is -- what happens with the dispute? >> i would agree. typically, a property owner will ask for their own professional expert opinion. we tried to make it clear so there's not a lot of technical disputes. as you know, and i was involved in the 1989 and is quick, -- earthquake response, rarely do we have disputes about the technical evaluation of the list. the disputes we have were more about what it means for somebody to go back in or what does that then require the owner to do. but where we did have disputes, we would bring in another -- the city had hired a few outside firms, and they would ask for

opinions -- opinions, and we would sit down in a little hearing. once again that as part of the department's post-birth quick procedures. commissioner walker: thank you for doing this great work over probably close to two decades, i would imagine. i know when i was president back in 2007, we move this forward. the primary source of urgency around this particular set of things is it ties into fema funds. we are at risk of not having federal support in the case of an event such as an earthquake, which is likely. i am really happy that we have gone through this process, and i think that we work hand in hand with the folks on this particular group of recommendations.

i am satisfied that these are pretty solid, and there has been a good discussion with the community that knows and works on these kind of things every day. i also want to thank you because you have really spearheaded this program. thank you for this. >> thank you. are there any more questions? next speaker. >> good morning, commissioners. deputy director of planning review service. we have -- we had these bulletins two meetings before. i fully support this fee to be passed. to answer commissioner lee

regarding the post-earthquake, and i join the city one day after the 1989 earthquake. we go out right away. right away, we -- unfortunately, i get into the marina district. the recommendation, first one to have their engineer rebuild the building. and then, more conservatively, to make sure all the damaged buildings would be safe before they can be occupied. and then this administration bulletin appropriates the damage on the building.

that is why i highly recommend you pass the administration bulletin. thank you. any questions? >> thank you, deputy director. any questions? okay, next speaker please. >> this is public comment. >> is that appropriate? the cake, thank you very much. so is speaking on behalf of the structural engineers association of northern california. we are an organization of about 1500 members here in northern california, predominantly practicing structural engineering and related fields. we have a very strong interest in these because it will be our members that will be out there working with the building department and others to implement them after the next earthquake. we also have a very long history of being collaborators with the building department in local amendments to the building