seeing none. thank you motion to adjourn. we're now jurnd it is 11:44 a.m. we're taking a break approximately 10 minute break and we'll reconvene as the building inspection >> special.

>> good morning today is wednesday may 15, 2013 this is the regular meeting of the building inspection commission. the first item is roll call (calling names) we have a quorum >> thank you all for coming here this morning. the commission has congratulations for the senior clerk who is retiring after 29 years. and acting director paid tribute

to her and good luck shirley with argue retirement and your you invaluable service to the d b i p the commission thanks the building inspector neil who was thanked publicly in a letter to the san francisco chronicle on may of the building inspectors nothing but helpful. thank you it's good when we get something good out of the chronicle. and a customer sent in a thank you card your compassion and kindness restored my faith in

people your obviously a busy guy calming me down and let me walk out of this with dignities and smiling. thank you steve for air customer service. congratulations and thanks to evelyn who provided great customer service. and congratulations to kari who provided auto standing customer service to a person who sent acting director a letter thanking kari for her professionals and another one to

commissioner who participated at the annual festival the staff and commissioners r07bd to many questions about the permit and code inspection process. and a reminder in early june the staff will receive a nomination for more outstanding employee awards were p. and that concludes my announcements madam secretary. and comments? okay seeing none. >> just as a requirement the

public may commit not to exceed 3 minutes and the remarks should be made to the commission as a whole. >> again, this is general comments. >> good morning tom san francisco fire department i want to let you know since i've been coming to your meetings i'm going to be retiring in june so i have 31 years but i've had 20 plus good years working with the staff it was bureau building inspectors. and anyway, i think about leave the folks we helped to get the

sprinkle ordinance that was the best achievements working with the community to get that done. the lady in the back is helpful to try to make thing work and we always cooperated with the c schedules sometimes, the scheduled with change its table and he'd be behind the times on that. but i enjoyed working with all of you and my lieutenant my associates we're working on the fire code changes and that's another huge job that comes quickly. i know that director huey is going to have his hands full. we're very close to getting things done and we're trying to

get it all done once it starts it's process the board of supervisors has a thirty day wait and, of course, it's always over the holidays. i really enjoyed working with the whole department and commission >> really congratulations. there any further public comment? seeing none did you want - >> if i may commissioner we're against the clock and if it's okay if we go to director's report number a, b, c, and d and take them off the cleaned and get an update and if we could

move item 7 sworn testimony for with that i'll move to director report 4 c. good morning commissioners project director department of building inspectors >> we are continuing to make progress on the several gaps were being logged and corrected. at the same time we're planning for round two of the testing

would be the permits requested which will include a wider group of projects. and also along the same lines we're getting ready to in all the mobile applications on the devises. i can answer questions >> is there public commit? >> seeing none which item is next? if we move to item 5 update on the search >> i'm the lead recruiter on the recruitment. just to give you a quick summary

i've interviewed commissioners on the information go and that should be approved and at that time, we will post the position and we'll send invites out to our targets. the resume deadline is june 28th and i will send everyone an updated timeline for your files as well and i'll life it up to madam secretary and that's it >> any questions? i'm in shock. >> i have a couple of questions where will the process be advertised within the local area and also for the phone calls in

the department who might be interested no applying for this position how will that process be made available to them. >> to answer your second question first, we're working with h.r. to post the position. and the avenues we're working on but it's going to be a full list and we'll post on linkedin and i guess you've got most of the questions answered >> if there is no other comments i'll close. thank you for waiting. and is there any public comment

on item 5? seeing none. which item number 8? >> yeah. and discussion and possible action amendment code section 16 a-2624 and health code 220 through 2012 and to expand the boundaries for which testing is required under specified circumstances and amendment the code. remembering session codes and making environmental you finding >> with legislative public affairs. we have the folks from the

mayor's office and from the planning department that will give you an overview. we've been working with the department of public health to get where we're at right now >> anyway, here's kelly. >> good afternoon. i'm kelly i'm pleased to be here on behalf of the mayor's office to support this legislation. simply put this item will increase protection for health and safety and the groin water in the city more predictable before i i hand this over i'd

like to take the time to especially thank director huey and shawn for their work. the staff and their public health are here for questions. i'd like to turn it over to paul >> timing and members of the commission. i was gotten going to say good morning but it's afternoon. the item before you is a proposal to amend certainty provisions of the buildings and health code. the ordinance was adopted in 1986 it is a public health and safety ordinance. and it's set up a regulatory process for identifying and handling contaminated soils.

the ordinance applies i'm going to put a map on the projector here. it's a little hard to read but the existing ordinance applies along the eastern shore of the city the area in blue. that's an area of historic fill it was known to be contaminated and the process was established when someone was applying for a building permit if they have 50 cub it parts of soil before the building permit can be issued the applicant is required to investigate if the soils at the site are contaminated and if so

how to handle the soil and what level of clean up. this is handled under the department of supervision. and it only happens at this zone. and in the orange there are other areas of the city that have a high lick will i hallowed and we have public health and safety in x portion to the soldiers. and it's in the area of the marine and all those represent

storage tanks that could be leaking if the soil is contaminated and also elevated freeways up to the golden gate bridge. elevated freeways are the tamed soil. there's no codify process how to determine the process of disturbing soils. so the department of health and the planning department we have a process through the environmental review and sequa documents mitigation projects are attached as the conditions are required to go through the same process through the sequa process.

and that resigns on the sequa process is cumbersome and it also means we currently have two different procedures for dealing with the same issue. one area required by code is blue zones and the orange areas where it's you know the process happens through our sequa review. the planning department and department of health are proposing to update it and we want to be update. there is one codified process that deals with everything that. we want to expand the boundarys so it would be in the blue and

orange and other zones. the ordinance will update the department of health procedures to recognize what's happening that there are health levels that are determined by the state. and it also recognized that was health department test the ground water in some situations. it is more likely that the health and safety is protected and provided better service to the public. and the department of health involvement will be tied in directly to issuance and we'll become more certain and provided better services to the public it could be identified at the

outset and it would be more transz parent and the public would have access to this information >> the update would eliminate the need to have measures to deal with the procedures in this city. with that summary we're asking the board of supervisors adopt this owners and the owners was refused and it was recommended by the committee and we also have staff here from the health department if you have questions more specific to them. >> thank you commissioner walker. >> you said it eliminating the need for mitigation can you explain. >> those areas in orange where

there's not a codified process we're concerned with the potential exposure of the public but that only happens when a project is in review when it we have a mitigation process and if that were codified it wouldn't be needed because it's required by law. >> any other questions commissioners? i keep calling you commissioner picking up. 50 county yards is not a lot of space, you know. when you say d b i? >> it's a building permit complication. >> can we talk that through.

for me that's late in the game of this overall policy. so why there why not planning when the planning application is filed? why not when the environmental application was filed in. we would still through our sequa review identify that there are in a zone let the applicant know there's a code requirement and they at this point would still have to go to the department of health to deal with this issue. but the original set up was that a permit wouldn't be issued until the department of health

had reviewed the permit and reviewed it. and to provide certainty this would have to go through the process to provide that certainty >> and that's kind of my point because i have heard cases ♪ particular zone where there was situations and it can take a long time to remedy. it could take a month or year and in the meantime, your building permit code and that permit is only good for - in other words the time could take a long time and the permit

expires. >> the planning department and no one is going to tell me when i file the building permit when i file for mitigation; is that correct? it this ordinance were adopted this map would become available to the public. and we intend to set up if you put a cursor over our parcel it will show you the prospective applicant people would be notified through the permit tracking system whether they would be subject to this requirement

>> yeah, but did you understand my question with regards if you pull up a 12 month building permit and i know in one case it took two years how are we helping people? that you i guess i feel like my point is d b i is too late. why do we have to have is a building permit could that not be triggered off a building process. at the end say to a building permit person it's up to you to make sure you do it >> anytime a project is not exempt from environmental review

the categorical exemption but anything larger than that comes into our office even the small projects our staff would review the project site grins the map and at that time, identify to them there's a requirement that they to go to the health department and investigate whether there need to be any soil mitigation. in fact, when we would apply this issue would get flagged for the planner to work on. again the reason it's tied into the permit is to priority certainty before the permit is

used this process has been gone through and the department of health is satisfied. in the area today there's no change in this process >> but it's substantially expanded now so a lot of places in the city will be expanded into this program and in all those. >> in all projects sites in those erroneously zones for a permanent applicant they're supposed to go through this program because of sequa. the only difference is it's going to be required by code rather than the sequa process it's not newark for a permit applicant it would be tied into

the permit process in a way that it's not tide in now >> i don't know but 50 cub it yards is going to trigger so pretty much every project will have to comply. >> everyone project that stirs the soil. >> and d by you are saying we can't issue you the permit and we need you to go and mitigate it for the department of health. >> well, they don't necessarily need to mitigate but they need to go to the department of health whether there's soil

contamination at their site. >> this could open up, you know, you'd have a remodeling permit and all of a sudden at 50 cub it yards your project stops until this is mitigated. but the key say you note the location it's mostly around the sequa areas but this expanded now pretty much to citywide. so you could in the mission and you could be remodeling and i go beyond the cub it areas that project has to stop >> i don't believe the project has to stop. while the applicant is working with the department of health

and what to do about soil contamination - >> but i know it could take 5 months or a year. >> nothing about this ordinance would change the amount of time. >> because of the expansion of this i want to be clear i want to look around the corner and obviously everybody arrests with this ordinance but what does it mean to people who pull permits and find themselves in the new expanded area? that you it's our intention. >> it's our tennis that while the department of health is working with the applicant