>> good morning, today is wednesday, december 18, 2013, this is the regular meeting of the building inspection commission, i would like to remind everyone for turn off all aoe electronic devices the first item on the agenda is roll call. >> president mccarthy? >> here. >> vice president mar? >> here. >> commissioner clinch? >> here. >> commissioner lee? >> here. >> commissioner mccray. >> present. >> commissioner melgar. >> yes, here. >> and commissioner walker >> here. we have a quorum and the next item is item two, president's announcements. >> we are having a quick meeting and so i am going to pass on the announcements, >> thank you, sure. >> next item is three, general public comment, the bic will take public comment on matters in the jurisdiction that are not part of this agenda.

>> good morning, commissioners this is not related to the building inspection commission, but i thought that i would tell you a story, back in 1969, during the dark days of the cold war, for 7 months i lived in cape town. before going to a new journey across the african continent, across the bay in cape town was robin island where incarcerated was nelson mandela, back then, no one would have dreamed that he would one day become the first black leader of south africa. even after having been served 27 years, he did not seek revenge, and served only one term. and this is what i am asking for one minute of silence.

>> and so on a happier note,

happy holidays, everybody. >> thank you, henry. >> thank you. >> >> is there any further public comment? >> okay, seeing none, item four, >> just before we get into item four, i would also like to kind of pay condolences to commissioner walker, so i am sorry for your family's loss. >> thank you, commissioner. >> item four, director's report. 4 a, update on dbi's finances. >> good morning, commissioners, this is gale rebel and i am the acting chief financial officer for dbi and for our finances, there really isn't a whole lot to report our revenue is coming in higher than expected. and if you see in your report we have received about over 60

percent of the charges for services for this year. we are only about 41 percent of the year so they are coming in higher, that is to be expected this year, with the code cycle, a lot of people are trying to get in their projects before the end of december and the close cycle changes and the requirements change, so we do expect to see a few more projects come in higher than expected and taper off, which also does for the winter months any way. you will see in the report, that i am projecting a little bit of an increase or a lot of increase in revenue for charges of services before the end of the year, we are going to come in 9 million dollars over what we budgeted for the year which is good, it is better to be higher than lower and shows that the projection and the things have slowed down but not as much as we expected. we have not received any revenue for apartment rentals that comes in with property taxs that comes in next month's

report and the other revenue category, have not seen so much of it because it is a transfer from the fund balance to cover the projects and so we have not needed to do it yet and so a lot of that revenue is just interest that is come ng higher than normal, but it looks low because we don't have the transfer from the fund balance. in terms of expenses, if you look at our expenses they are a little lower than the 41 percent of the year, and employee salaries is 34 percent which lower than the 41, because we do still have the vacantcies and we are working on those vacantcy ands and we have a little bit of savings in salaries but i am not projecting any yet and hopefully we will be able to fill some of the outstanding vacantcies, and the departments are closer and non-personal has a lot of supplies in it and we have orders in it for safety related equipment and code books that have not been paid yet and i expect that to be closer to the 40 percent once

the things are paid. and that is basically it for the finance report. and i did also want to mention that we are working on next year's budget, so at the next meeting we will get the budget from the department, if you have anything that you would like us to include in the budget, before it comes to you, please let us know, you can contact me directly, otherwise we will give you the department's budget at the next meeting. >> thank you, again. >> and item 4 b, update on proposed legislation. >> good morning, commissioners bill strong, legislative and public affairs. and we have got two or three new pieces of legislation that i have included in your packets, and starting with supervisor jane kim's

resolution dealing with certain south of market street areas where we discussed this last month there is going to be essentially a one year period of when the building permits are issued in these areas where there may be commercial and office, but there will be residential and the building's department responsibility will be to when we issue the permit also to issue a notification in each of the three languages, and some resident is living there, there is a planning department hot line, number, to call and essentially to make them aware that if this work might displace them or effect their residency, they have this 15-day window for appealing that permit. and so, supervisor kim seems to think this is something that will help maintain affordable properties that people may be

leaving in south of market, and it passed and actually took effect this past monday and so we are in the process of flagging those types of projects. >> walk and her then lee. >> i just wonder if in the conversation, there was talk about what about other areas? i know that the mission is experiencing a lot of displacement too or thinking of expanding it or was it just restricted to the area south of market? >> it definitely was restricted to this and i guess that i would interpret it as kind of a pilot and similar to what supervisor weiner had talked about with authorization of legalization for inlaws. >> and that was actually the second piece of legislation where david chiu and cohen and weiner introduced the legislation to legalize a lot of in-laws on a voluntary basis.

and that is about to go to land use, that will come up early in the new year. but, supervisor kim's legislation actually went immediately into effect. >> my question is really about notification. when a property owner or applicant applies to do this conversion, doesn't the planning department require a notice that someone applied? >> yes. >> so that should, or will be posted on the building as well, right? >> right, but i think that the idea was to have planning and building trying to emphasize this notification period to make people more aware, as the general impression, i got because whether or not people may be living in some of those types of buildings, but just are not really thinking that it is going to effect their residency and now it might be given the other things that we have seen recently. and so i think that we are just being very cautious about trying to move this forward.

>> and any way, besides, david chiu's legislation, the only other one that i wanted to mention too was on the mandatory retrofitting program, we have now had 416 screening forms sent to the department, and 159 have been accepted, 55 have been sent back for redoing and not accepted we have had 6 options approved and 11 permits filed and 7 permits actually issued. i would also say that november 21st, a third of our public workshops on trying to educate home owners, contractors and professionals p about what is required for the new retrofitting program and so people, we had a total in the last three months about 900

people who have been informed about this new program and how it works and we will be part with the mayor director earthquake safety, in a program that bill gram haul is going to be kind of a trade fair set up and meaning a lot of different tables that owners and contractors and professionals can come to and become familiar with what is required on the mandatory retrofits. we at the department are looking into doing a chinese language briefing, possibly at the chinese cultural center. some time in january or february, and then, subsequently we will probably look into doing one in a spanish speaking neighborhood as well, just to make sure that we reach those owners who might not be using english as their primary language, and hopefully reaching as many as we can. and one final thing that i want

to mention, is the new code cycle begins in january, the state's energy commission voted 4-0 about a week ago to delay, enacting a number of energy efficiencies until july first. and this raised some question about the green building code which is a separate code. so as we are meeting right now, the building commission standards commission in sacramento is also meeting and there is a staff recommendation to go ahead and implement the new green building code, january first as planned. if the commission chooses not to do that, we would no longer have a green building code that would be in effect, since we have already had the board eliminate the old code, in preparation for the new. and that would mean that we would have to go to john, and

his folks and have some help from the supervisors, and immediately introduce new legislation in order to continue the 2010 code, for green building it would probably mean a 6 to 8 week period where we would not have a green building code. i'm expecting a phone call from of one of our mechanical engineers who is in the sacramento meeting today, and so, maybe before the end of this meeting we will actually know and at least some time today we should know whether or not we are going to have to take a legislative initiative in order to reintroduce our green building code. >> commissioner walker? >> so in that case, where there is no active state code, can't our chief building official make a determination on his own, even though it has not been accepted, there is a lot of leeway that our cbo has.

>> one would think that would be something that our city attorney might tell us about, i am not really sure if he has that authority or not. but i would like to say yes, but yeah,. >> but what do you think? >> john, almar from the city attorney's office. if there is not an actual legislation, and building code, the director can't implement a law that does not exist. >> all right. >> we are prepared to move this quickly as possible. thank you. >> all right, thank you, bill. >> but i have a question. >> okay. >> john? >> this case, what should i do, you know, with ethics, or eight week's time when there is no code? >> i suggest that we talk about it after the meeting. >> okay.

>> good question, okay. >> i don't foresee a data permit tracking system. good morning, commissioners ame canti project director for dbi, we are actually in the user acceptance testing phase round two it has been in progress for the last three weeks, continuing through the end of this week, we received great feedback from the subject matter experts and as we find the bugs, they are being fixed but we expect all of the bugs to be fixed in the next three to four weeks and we are going to get into the next round of testing we also had our citizen advisory group hands-on testing yesterday, and we received excellent comments back from the members who attended and tested. so we have a long way to go, as we can see, and we are going to continue to make changes on the

public facing side of the product and make some functionality changes, and the look and feel, we have got some good comments and we are going to implement those and we are also planning for round two, i am sorry round three of user acceptance testing which is schedule for the third week of january and following that is going to be training. >> commissioner mar? >> so, i was lucky enough to attend the training yesterday, so i just want to thank the staff on both sides of our staff as well

benchmarks, from planning. about when an applicant or a designer or an owner can expect a response. and so, you know, it is great to say, it is in planning, that pops up on the computer screen, but if it keeps popping up whether it is for four weeks, four months, or a year, it does not help to me the person who is on that project. i don't know and maybe the other commissioners are more involved in the business would have some feedback and that is one of the first questions that i have, you guys have some bench mark and when should a customer start calling, not calling, but, you know, e-mailing and calling and checking up? if there is no bench mark and

they say that it is in planning and the good thing that there is a planner's name attached and that helps and then you can at least, the public can hound a particular person. rather than just a whole department. but i think that those or some kind of bench mark would be helpful. >> commissioner walker? >> i want to piggy back on that that has been our desire in working in planning that they give an estimation of how long it is going to take. and then, they are responsible if they are going to not make that, but, i hope that we can as a commission, support, asking planning for that. and it does not seem like a lot, also, as to the tracking, and knowing that it really depends on what you put in there, when we have these new initiatives like the noticing for tenant displacement, hopefully, we can track that.

and if we have that system set up properly, and in our data management system, then, if it is a pilot prom that works well, we can easily expand it city-wide and so i am hopeful that we can do those types of things easily and because i think that that is the important part of any of these programs, is having easy access from any place not just us, but, any public person can go in and say, these are all of the projects that are displacing people so that there is a proactive response instead of after the fact. and so, i'm hopeful about our system and its ability to customize. >> a comment on a couple of these things. the first concern about having all of this ability to track information that is correct and it is our responsibility to insure that the information is

actually entered correctly and only then it makes sense and we have to work on that and the second part is planning, i can take that comments back to planning, however, there is a difference being in the existing system and the new system, there is a minute level of travel that says every step of the way, any action that has been taken on any review, today it is filed and accepted and it stays for six months and you don't know where it is, and whereas we go and we call and they will give us details on the different actions that have been taken on the plan of review and the review of the plans, in the new system. the way that it is designed is every action that has been taken is recorded in the system and at least you know that there is something happening and that is another way to get a feel for where your project is, how long, that is something that i will take it back on the noticing, there is the system is very flexible. and any type of notice, or information, that can be tracked, recorded,

geographically, as well as by project, names, and times, and so it is quite flexible and we have all of these comments and feedback that we have received that we are going to make sure that it is in the system. >> great, thank you, thank you very much. >> you are welcome. >> and thank you, when is the next round, i missed it. >> it is schedule for the third week of january. >> the third week of january. >> perfect, thank you for that. >> okay. >> item 4 d, update on major projects? >> as you see in the hand out, you know, regarding this major project, and roughly last month, i remember, you know, going to have a comparison, on the cd and i asked you to work on those and i still don't have the information yet because it is difficult to us at a city to

get all of the information. >> right. >> they were working on it. >> and any other question? >> yeah. >> is there a decrease in the larger projects being filed? or... >> just about second to last month, you know, right now, is a little bit stable, and then, you heard, you know, the people trying to submit their report and even if they are not ready to keep the old code. and i expect a few more jobs coming in, before the end of the year. >> okay. >> and just we were just talking about the new tracking system there and the time frames and where the planning kind of, and we don't know, and are, when you submit a set of plans, are we given our stake holders or the applicants kind of a time frame as to when the full plan check can be done? is there a time frame put in

for this? >> for our staff? >> yeah. >> we have two weeks, you know, maximum that we assign and in the two weeks you can check it depending on the size of the project. and the site permit use or it is a small job and me trying to expedite by either they going to the service, you know, to get, or leave a small bag and all of those, we will move it faster, by going through the counter. >> but the larger projects are kind of getting response within two weeks after submital. >> two to three weeks. >> yeah. >> and that will consist of a list of next rounds of questions and stuff that the engineers would need. >> faced back because of the huge project that would take the time and i don't want for some in tjpa and you cannot give the comment right away and do it in time to finish it. >> yeah. >> even if you could, and in

planning too, if there was like within three days we will have an estimated time of it, and you know, somebody could review it and see how complicated it is and you know, put it in you will have it in two weeks or you will have it in four weeks, you know? >> and i think that is really, what i understand the development community is asked for. not even expediting but really knowing, which is really important for their scheduling. >> i am not hearing too many comments about something dragging out. >> it is pretty efficient, i guess, the larger projects i can see that they can be difficult if you put them into the plan check and a lot of stuff kind of comes out for the unforeseen, the smaller projects seem to be efficient and a lot of people get the permits out in a month.

>> in dbi, not planning. >> and yeah, the dbi and i am huky to have been to help me to track every week, to give them notice, or even to start this job and so forth, by looking in the backlog. >> yeah. >> indeed, in the pac meeting, i called the planning, and like you mentioned two weeks, but they never come back to me, when can they stop? >> yeah. >> and they promised two weeks, but never this week. >> and i don't, i might be a little bit off topic but it is relevant to time, have we ever got a conclusion with the last conversation that we had where editing that must be and it has a change and it has to go back to planning if there was a revision? where did we leave off there? >> yeah, i asked, them, okay, for example, in the small jobs, a lot of contractor or designer that they use in the old site permit and then package together with no changes and they should not go back to

planning and some of the big jobs, of course, we need to go back to them but say still we don't apply what to do and they go back to talk with john only. >> so we don't have it from them, if they are reviewing instead of the plans and it has not changed and we know that and they have not said that it is going to take a week to get back to you. >> still. >> and where is that going to end up? is that going to be revisited or coming back to us with that? >> yeah. he promised that it will come back, but, they did not show up last, and you know, nothing else to ask. >> okay. i can talk to john again. >> look forward to hearing something in january on that. >> okay. >> might i suggest that we think about having a joint commission meeting at some point to address these particular issues involved with our permitting system? >> have we ever done one of them? >> yes, we did a couple of them, several years ago and it was really helpful, because, you know, often times, the

commissioners don't know the details and if there is direction from that level it might help. >> usually, it takes a long time to set up. so i remember, and i would really like to do it if the other commissioners could find it helpful. >> would you float the idea if they would be interested in having a joint meeting. >> you can talk to the president of the commission. >> should i... >> yeah. >> why don't we do that. i will and i will report back in january. >> perfect. >> and if i get an answer. >> okay. >> item 4 e. update on code enforcement. >> it should come up.

>> good morning, commissioners. >> consultants, >> thank you, very much, i appreciate that. >> bid, building inspection performance measures for the last month, for inspections performed, there is 4,060 inspections. and inspections performed in 48 hours of the time request was 99 percent. there was only 33 inspections performed after the 48 hours request, i would like to get it to my staff for the hard work for that, that is a great response to have it, a 99 percent response in the time frame that is allowed. complaints received, there was 263, complaints, and 155 were response in 24 hours, 57, were in response within 72 hours. complaints response every 72 hours for 51.

and the complaints no response is zero. so that means that there was 100 percent response in complaints, 59 percent response in the first 24 hours, so i want to commend my staff for that, too. to be very watchful at this point. >> complaints received and abaited in the same period is 111. complaints referred to the code enforcement division were 12. the first notice of violations were 60. complaints with the second notice were one. and the complaints received and abaited without notices of violations were 107 and no violations were 166 f, and abaited complaints within these were 26. he is not present