letters and addendum to the over the counter applications. >> there is usually one letter that takes care of all issues. >> typically these pre-application meetings are attached to larger projects. once you are in the system, once you cross the threshold you are now full permit and you are under review, the pre-application at this point is used hardly at all. you'd have to get special permission to go back to pre-application. but i think one of the concerns, maybe that's not the issue before us. but there's a lot of projects going through over the counter. it's hard to judge sometimes whether they're big or small. so, so, i think this follows up on commissioner walker's question, is when a field

inspector goes out, maybe there might be more gray area than fire. i don't know all the code. what if a field inspector code goes out and says this thing was stamped, this is not up to code. what happens then? >> [speaker not understood]. we approved it. >> what happens then? >> okay, tom, acting director. as soon as i take over the office since last year and then you see from the website and then we pass out an information sheet, what is a common issue for a small project first, okay. then to resolve those issues uniformly, we have a joint meeting, we have fire department with us and staff that discuss all those issues, i am out, we send information to all staff including inspection. everybody will be agreed. this is the -- because the

interpretation from the code, [speaker not understood] issue and all those stuff, [speaker not understood]. and then by the time to discuss the code, staff can go in there and listen and have objection or opinion and then try to [speaker not understood]. small project, also they sometimes come in for verification. now is substantially big deals because what they call information sheet pass out to the public. then the bigger project, 95% of the time, you know, most of the inspectors, they agreed. if they don't agree, they need to come back to discuss with the senior [speaker not understood]. once in a while some of the field inspector have a problem, go to the individual plan checker to argue.

we stop that. we say they need to go through their senior -- communicate with the plan check manager [speaker not understood] individual plan checker to argue. [speaker not understood] be able to resolve it. you know, because the purification is by the senior member and then, you know, and then there is any ab requirement, it would be -- that plan checker has the senior to sign off on it. sometimes including deputy or me to sign off on that ab, you know, any administration bulletin. that's why i don't fear a big issue. before is, lots of people argue because they don't understand. okay. but i don't think nowadays [speaker not understood], the

fire marshal, we always help together to help those meeting. >> if i could add to that. tom harvey, fire marshal. i think it's overcomplicating the issue a little. when almost every small project and anything that's coming over the counter, even if it's a medium size project does not have pre-application meetings. these are for 40 unit residential buildings. everything is just a high-rise. those are the interpretations and different kinds of methods we're looking at, whether to measure the height of the building. maybe [speaker not understood]. when code comes back from the field, i would go higher than 95%. 99.9% of the time there is never a disagreement about whether this is required or not. it's usually a field change that occurs, and now someone sees something different in the field and then that's what comes back. so, i don't want to

oversimplify it, but as far as once the decision is made on the code requirement and occasionally a plan reviewer will miss something. there may be a room that didn't show a sprinkler head. it's something simple like that. we say, you need a sprinkler head. we don't look at that as a disagreement with the code interpretation. we're helping expedite and get these plans out as fast as we can. sometimes the plan reviewer argues something, the field inspector catches. we have virtually no disagreement from the contractors or designers on those issues. so, i think that, once again, the main reason something may come back in for discussion is because of a change to the field -- in the field to what may have shown on the plans. >> and that will come back anyway. it won't be overlooked just because the letter of approval. >> right.

anything that changes in the field, if it can be worked out in the field -- a lot of times we say if it's a minor thing like adding a sprinkler head, great example because it happens all the time. maybe they put up a wall that's not a load bearing wall. that's building department. maybe they put up some sort of divider or something that loses sprinkler coverage and they add some, we say, look, we don't need them to come back in. we have hydraulic calculation our people can review. but if they say, oh, hey, we're adding this whole area, lots of sprinkler heads, that's a huge one. we say you have to go back in for as built. that is substantial. that is where we rely on the expertise of our field inspectors. they should be able to make a judgment whether this needs to come back into the system because of the revisions or is it something that is not going to have any effect, say, like i say, fire alarm sprinkler system and they can just approve it in the field. >> i'm going to make an example

because this is one that we experienced at a meeting. and i think you were there. there was a project that was a pretty big project. it was many different buildings, interior roads, that type of thing. it was approved by everybody as planned, but there was -- there were some alterations in the field that caused the buildings to be dense or wider, which then narrower -- narrowed the roads, which then made an issue with not enough room for a fire truck to turn around. at the end of the project it came before the commission and it was not okay. i mean, they had to go back and spend a lot of money -- after they had already started building. so, hopefully this process would be able to identify those projected problems. even if it was not included in the clouded area, anything that

would subsequently affect it, like the need to make the buildings wider, the roads smaller, blah ha blah. i think this is a good thing for the project sponsors because it's not fair to approve something and then at the end of the line say woops. i think it's a good idea. we need to pay attention to it to make sure that it's working and maybe as we approve this, to come back and, you know, just let us know how it's working. >> right. and i think one important thing also is the letters -- this is something we've been doing for about 15 years, i would say. include the letter on the plan. so, everybody is reading the same letter because before they used to just get a letter. maybe the field wouldn't see it. maybe the plan [speaker not understood] wouldn't see it. when the letters are on the plan, it really clarifies it for both sides. it helps with the staff plan review and it helps with the design side there aren't a lot

of win/wins in my opinion, but this is one. >> it used to be required on the plan all the purification notes and also the administration bulletin should be on the plans. >> and i've always said conditions that are put on it by the various processes whether the planning commission puts conditions on it or whatever. >> and i think the other advantage of this is it relieves the inspector from having to force -- make a forced decision right on the field. it allows us or the department to make a decision for him and then document it. >> right. and usually these are complicated enough issues. it's not cut and dried. what happens is the design team is not meeting the code requirement exactly as written. if they are, there is not -- nobody would be even raising the issue. in almost every project has something that they want to do a little different.

>> yes, i'd just like to add the people that carry out the pre-application meetings are almost always the most senior. in many times they're at the prop s, they come back. they bring a wealth of knowledge. i've sat in the meetings just to see what goes on and they'll start going back to what happened in 2007 code, what happened in the 2001 code and how we got where we are. and when you start out this is the reason we don't allow it now, then the design time and the pre-application team come up with design criteria that make everybody come for thable. so that's what we're talking about. for instance, it's a vault coming into a sidewalk. we don't allow doors to open up into a sidewalk simple reason. but if it 's involved for pg&e. it will only be open once or twice a year.

it's pg&e staff or building staff. what design criteria is everybody comfortable to allow this? it's things like that. ~ >> i ask want to just thank the fire marshal for coming in today. it was really helpful, your comments. any other questions or comments, commissioners? do we need to do an action item on this? >> is there any public comment first? is there any public comment on this item? seeing none, this is an action item. >> there needs to be a motion? >> move the item. >> second. >> all commissioners in favor? >> aye. >> are any opposed? then the motion carries unanimously. item 8, update on the process to acknowledge an employee of the quarter.

>> that's for you. >> yep. >> bill strong with legislative and public affairs. as commissioner mar referred to earlier, we do have a new employee recognition program that i'm sure he can comment further on. we have a committee of five people. to date i have received about three nomination applications for this first employee of the quarter. the overview of the program is we hope to choose or have nominated and the committee will ultimately choose one employee for each quarter to be recognized for doing outstanding work performance, and this is going to be the kickoff quarter. so, these nominations are due next week actually. i'm going to send out another reminder to people today to see if we can get a few more nominations.

then this committee will meet again at the end of the month and we hope to actually choose an employee of the quarter in early april. that's about where the program stand right now. >> i think i just referred to it briefly in my opening remarks, that we wanted to do this for some of the employees because they've been -- you know, we've had a lot of new employees. also there's been an incredible increase in work load, which is good, because the department's dwelting more building permits and things like that. and we also thought it would be a good idea to have opportunity for follow-up employees to elect each other, their peer. there's been a committee put together that includes myself, president mccarthy, a retired prop f employee, as well as a representative of the human resource department and [speaker not understood].

so, we look forward to doing this. it's mainly a recognition thing that we could do here and we also want to make sure that the employees are acknowledged publicly. >> right. and i would also like to give a special thanks to commissioner lee who in his capacity with department of public works has helped us with the modeling on this program along with folks from the controller's office and dsr. there are multiple city departments that offer some type of an employee recognition program. so, we're just joining that group. >> commissioner lee. >> yes, it's very important that we recognize the good work of our employees. too many times we give too much attention to what the problems are in our department. so, this is an opportunity to show what we're doing right, which employees are doing well, doing excellent work. and when you do and the

department does select a employee for the quarter, i'd like to see if they would come to us and explain why this person deserved it and how that came about. >> thank you. any other comments from commissioners? is there any public comment on this issue? >> seeing no public comment, we'll move on to item number 9, director's report. 9a, update on dbi's finances. >> [speaker not understood] levin, [speaker not understood]. i wanted to go through where we are with the expenditures and revenue.

i wanted to talk about the positions we have hired. so, we continue to receive more revenue than we have in the prior years. we expect to finish the year with about $13 million in revenue and expense savings. that is $11 million in additional revenue in the budget, savings of $2 million in expenditures. $11 million is primarily chargeses for service which we had started last year, providing a graph in your package and a graph up here. and as you can tell, we are almost completely -- we have almost completely filled the little bucket, if you will, of revenues and we have only been four months of the fiscal year. we have more revenue this fiscal year than we had this time last year by about 24%.

and we still have increases in valuation in the projects. in terms of expenditures, we continue to track less than the budget. this is primarily in the areas of personnel. we have -- since -- we've hired since the last time we were here 10 new positions, two promotions and two [speaker not understood]. so, we continue to be trying to get through the process of of filling vacant positionses. we also have 7 housing inspector -- excuse me, building inspectors starting in or around april 1st. we have the next recruitment will be -- consist of electrical inspectors. we are working on the housing inspectors which means that we

now have to take the 60 some odd people that qualify to go to the next process of housing inspectors, which is taking a test. once they take the test, then they get selected, then we'll go through the interviews. so, it's still a little way off. i expect it to be around the july time frame. that's my short presentation today. >> any questions, commissioners? >> item 9b, update on proposed legislation. >> [speaker not understood], legislative public affairs. there was reference made earlier to the mandatory retrofit legislation that has

been introduced. actually last week, the mayor sent over some substitute legislation that cleaned up a couple of items. supervisor breed had an addition of wanting to do more community outreach by the mayor's director of earthquake safety about this program so people are better informed about it. and there was also an additional code advisory committee recommendation to look at two-story buildings rather than just the initial inventory of three or more stories, five or more tune its. they will look at two-story buildings where there may be hillside types of conditions. actually, our head of technical services, david leong noticed this and informed the acting director. we talked to mr. otellini, the mayor's earthquake safety officer about it. it will add several hundreds, at least more buildings that

will be part of this notification process. that process is still being formulated. we haven't yet obtained the list, but eventually dbi will have a list of specific steps that will be conducting in order to implement this program. there was an informational hearing, as i think most of you know, at land use just yesterday -- monday, rather, where a number of issues were raised. some tenants had some concerns about how this program may or may not affect rent control units and that kind of thing. but the overwhelming majority of that testimony was extremely supportive and it looks like the legislation will go to land use again next week for a forwarding to the board of supervisors. and it could be on track for the mayor's signature by, let's say, the time of the annual

anniversary of the 1906 earthquake. so, the middle of third week of april on that particular one. >> you mentioned that there were some amendments made by the mayor's office. what were those? were those in addition to the issues that you just brought up? >> no, essentially they weren't amendments, but i don't think they regard them necessarily as substantive, but they were refinements in the legislation. so, a substitute measure was -- it reintroduced at the board. >> but we don't know what those were? >> yes. well, as i said, one of them dealt with supervisor breed's wanting to do community outreach. >> okay. >> and the other had to do with expanding this inventory base of notification. >> i got it. i wasn't sure those were the ones that were -- >> those were the ones. >> but it doesn't -- the expanding the base is not going to slow the process down or -- >> well, i'll defer to the

acting director on that. >> definitely it will increase them, they will be in our lease. right now i don't know if it's hundred or thousand because they change from three story to two story to the basement and then define the basement, that means our staff need to take time how is the basement, you know, definition. i >> also for the manned industry program, we've already gone through the structural engineers' group to get the proposed fixes on the three story. so, i just -- i'm concerned that adding a two-story would change the pre-scripps-miramar ranch exclusion such that it will delay the process. ~ prescriptive i just wonder about that. >> it shouldn't because most of the retrofit proposed ideas fix the ground floor. >> but based on the weight of the building, it's a three story. this is an engineering issue.

>> we will check the crawl space, the basement maybe, plywood boarding and all those. but more concerned about how many people involvement than -- before i'm thinking about the increased number of staff now. maybe i need to get more and then find space to help that team. >> yeah, i would just say we'll have to control a little more with mr. otellini and see quite what they have in mind. ~ talk a little at some point we are going to receive a database notification from him that he's putting together right now, as i understand it. >> another quick question on the changes. does it also affect the units? is it still five units? >> no, that has not changed. so, five or more units. on other matters, i just would bring your attention to the

fact that the development impact fee deferral program sunsets as of july 1 of this year. as you know, dbi's role in that is we have a collection unit that pamela levin manages. and the planning commission is required to hold a hearing. and as i understand it, they will be holding a hearing sometime in april to look at how the deferral program has been working and whether or not it's going to be extended or not. so, we are monitoring that to see whether that is going to continue or if the board is going to change that in some way. one other new item that i just received yesterday was from supervisor tang. i probably remember last year when supervisor carmen chiu wanted to observe small business week during the month of may and asked that we waived any permit fees for owning

replacement facade improvements. ~ chu we did that. a lot of statistics outreach by the supervisor's office, it still changed. we only had 8 or 10 of these types of permits even with the waving of those fees. supervisor tang has asked us to have this resubmitted. and if i understand it, she will resubmit that legislate at next tuesday's board. so, we may be asked as an incentive for small business owners to make these types of awning improvements. so, that definitely is underway. other than that, i think that everything that i've placed in your packet is self-explanatory, unless you have any questions. >> thank you.

item 9c, update on permit tracking system. >> tom, the acting director. we received the update, revised major project. and then roughly the number -- >> sorry, tom, we have to do [speaker not understood] first. permit tracking system and then we'll do the major projects. >> oh, okay. it will be the next one. thanks. >> my name again [speaker not understood] i am project director for the department of building inspection. on the permit system, we are actually ramping up on the [speaker not understood] such as the data conversion, console design, fee calculation, [speaker not understood], and [speaker not understood]. dbi staff actually participated

actively to [speaker not understood] scenarios and we are getting ready to execute them which is scheduled for -- in april, so, we're all getting ready for that. on the web builder, on the access site of things. we have a stakeholder meeting that is scheduled today at 4:00 p.m. the presentation will be a review to the web portal and to review the data that is going to be available online and online applications and such. the limited quantity of [speaker not understood] devices [speaker not understood] and we are actually beginning to enable those devices for field tests. using the current instruction scheduling system, and we are hoping to get back to you during the april meeting to give you the results of that test. i'm available for questions. >> commissioner lee. >> thank you for the update. i appreciate you coming every month to give us an update.

could you also in the next meeting give us some supporting documents perhaps? for example, attendance sheets to these meetings that you talk about. you mention a presentation at this meeting today i think, right? >> um-hm. >> would you let us see that? >> definitely. >> okay, thank you. >> any other questions, commissioners? p when is the roll out or testing? when is the sample going to be? is it coming up, like the demonstration? >> the demonstration for the public is for today, at 4:00 p.m. >> oh, today. >> there will be additional presentations. next month we have a advisory group meeting, the second one. >> right. >> so, every quarter we have the public meetings and we're going to involve the stakeholders. we are going to be pulling permits, electrical and plumbing permits. we are going to reach out to them so they can participate

actively testing the system. [speaker not understood]. >> right, yes. i attended the one at planning. very good, thank you. any other questions? thank you. >> item 9d, update on major projects. >> [speaker not understood]. we received the updated revised major project lease. the bottom line keeps on rising, roughly 3.8 million, and 5,000 unit on the [speaker not understood]. number of cranes, you know, [speaker not understood] going up in the city. we are expecting [speaker not understood] in the next few months. do you have any questions on those projects? we try to release all