attorney. in 2013, 20 notices of violations issued because of reinspection we found additional violations and because of the nature of violations we'll sometimes issue a specific notice for heat or illegal occupancy and separate notice for the maintenance items because they have a separate item for compliance and we take it through that process. some of the cases maybe opened because the work has been done but not seen the payment of cost and this is an overall participation in the city task force case. now, let's talk about what happens as far as civil penalties and cost award. this was not collected but $2.3 million. what was collected $100,000 a little less than that and is still in the process of being collected. when you see these types of awards, other

property owners might take notice. when we got the branding award, it gave other property owners that might behave in the same way pause. when we filed the lawsuit in the 600 units out there in the bayview area, i can tell you i had three other planned unit development file $1 million permits each to do compliance because they thought they were next. for those property owners whose unexpected consequences but it was good, we know that when we file lawsuits other property owners take note of that. let's look at some before and after. this first one is supervisor kim's district, a residential guest room before and after. we

have an extreme case here. this is when the property owner didn't know what was going on. >>supervisor scott weiner: what street in in district 8? >> this was on san jose avenue. >>supervisor scott weiner: how long did it take? >> the homeowner abandoned the property. these are ditch -- difficult cases to deal with. the department is working on a pilot program working really well in boston. we had one of our first training sessions on this a couple fridays ago where we are working with

code enforcement and trying to identify and inter seed on these types of properties before they get this bad and get people to say the sf mental health association has an excellent peer group that deal with hoarding and cluttering because we don't want to see someone displaced but we also don't want to have a situation where you have a lot of health issues, egress, fires, it's. in this case, the property owner was able to get in and do this and clean this rather quickly but it was because the premises were abandoned by the previous tenant. this is the same property in the bathroom. >>supervisor jane kim: we don't know what happened to this tenant because they abandoned the unit. >> the tenant left. we had no information otherwise we would try to get the tenant to

working with sf mental health association. he just abandoned the property. >>supervisor jane kim: i know mha has a limited cohort for cluttering and hoarding. but it's not a group that we can unlimitly send to. there is more residented that you encounter with dbi that mh can take. what happens to this group? second, i wanted to follow up last year through the budget process the board asked for dbi to include a line item for mental health component for housing inspectors understanding that housing inspectors deal with many tenants and also property owners that deal with severe or just mental health issues and they alone are not going to be able to address the housing issues if there are

no mental health services in training the inspectors. i'm wondering what happened with that budgetary item as well? >> i can tell you in partnershiping with them and bringing this program, the department of building inspection took $15,000 of that set aside of that supervisor to initiate the first year expenses of this pilot program where we are partnering with dos. in these types of situation, they are very difficult to deal with. we want as much information in assistance to the person upfront as soon as we find this out. there was a lot of tools in this training in that individual from boston is coming back. i would invite anyone of your staff to come back and i will be happy to let you know when that was. there were a lot of things

discussed and this is geared towards code enforcement but doing it in a way that is as sensitive as possible where a program and occupant are having to face. >>supervisor jane kim: thank you. >> now we are looking to repair of the exterior of properties. this was a city attorney case in district one. this is in district eight. the front of the building. it needed major renovation. with that, the first consideration we talked about the code from an abatement standpoint and the mechanism from a complaint standpoint as the complaints come in. i would love to not only be able to see actions taken by the department but

other documentation by any photos or other reports etc that would allow us to have a much stronger code enforcement citywide. if these cases have to go to the city attorney and get litigated, i can tell you a judge or jury is going to look at them much more carefully if they see the weight of the departments from the fact that these are important violations. >>supervisor scott weiner: in terms of referring to the city attorneys office obviously there is a cost involved. can you comment on to the extent to which that impacts departmental willingness to refer. i'm not saying there shouldn't be a cost. legal services are not free. but i have heard not just with dbi but other departments as well sometimes the hesitation to

refer. i'm sure the department of the resources the need to do code enforcement. >> i will give you an overview and i'm sure the individual departments will address that. with dbi one of the things to consider is we are on the general department. we are not part of the general fund. when we send a case to the city attorney, we are funding that initially. the city attorney is going to bill us. we have to be able to address the city time and effort should we not be able to collect on that case. some cases aren't always winners but you have to get them over there depending on the situation. you have to have funding to be able to address that. that could be for certain departments that is going to be definitely they are going to have to look at. a couple years ago we were in a deficit and sending the case to the city attorney was one thing the litigation committee

would have to look at whether we have the funds and staffing to support that referral. if we are dealing with a general fund department then obviously can the general fund address that as well. in overview, those are some of the things that the departments have to look at. once the case gets over to the city attorney, that's just the binge of that process. there is reinspection, a documentation, they may have prep for workers production, depositions, trial appearances. if the case goes there or if it doesn't go, a lawsuit gets filed and it doesn't go to court, then we also have to do the reinspection to implement the injunction or stipulated agreement. all of those things are the types of elements that a department has to contemplate whether or not they have the resources and staffing to be able to

support. >>supervisor scott weiner: thank you. we'll now move to mr. lourey from the building division. good afternoon supervisors, dan lourary, deputy director of inspection services for complaint process and procedures. filing a

complaint. a compliant is received by telephone, e-mail, referred from another dbi agency, from the board of supervisors office, 311, visits to the counter, department of building inspection, letter of complaint. building inspection. the evaluation occurs within 72 hours of receiving the complaint. currently within 48 hours. site investigation. building inspector attempts to gain access. regarding the validity of the complaint. if there is a code violation apparent. if access is not possible, leave notice to request access. if

adjacent property where access is granted. the case is closed if violation doesn't exist or continue the case for violation. this is a sample of notice for violation. request for access. this is a sample of a door hanger we use when we can't gain entry. results based on investigation, if a violation is verified, a notice of violation is issued. if a violation is not verified, the case is closed. if documents are requested for enabling appropriate action. if access is not possible, a request for access is left at the property door, door hanger. a letter is also sent to the owner and a letter to gain access is scheduled. if a second attempt is

unsuccessful, another request for access is left for the property. another letter is sent requesting access. requirements for compliance with those violation. time of filing, object obtaining work on a permit established, documents, monetary fee documents. >>supervisor scott weiner: i have a question, so i understand you have a very well delineated process, but we've had some situation and i can only speak for my district where there have been some pretty extreme, i'm sure there could be more extreme but some very significant situations where it drags on. i can think of one at 23rd and castro where they removed a huge chunk of the building with

some project that then stopped and it turned into annen campment and i remember seeing it when i was campaigning bay in 2009 and we got a call a few weeks ago that it's the same and we got another call where one portion of a building was removed including the staircase and there was a complaint and seemed nothing was happening. i guess question is, is the process working in terms of getting actual enforcement where you have these extreme situations where a chunk of a building is removed and a project is started and never ends. i'm not talking about six months later but years and years later. why are those, why do those sometimes not appear to get addressed? >> a lot of the complaints you are talking about is they

exceed the scope of the permit and we stop the job. it then gets referred to planning. sometimes it could take a long period of time to be approved through filing process. >>supervisor scott weiner: that's one situation where a project stops where someone exceeds a scope and you order them to stop and refer it to planning. but i know there are other situations where people for many reasons have nothing to did with the scope and they may at some point run out of money, there could be a million other reasons why a project stops in the middle or there is no project and the building is falling apart where it's a blight to the neighborhood and a danger. there might be a variety of situations, planning may or may not be involved, but regardless, it's just to the outside observer living in that neighborhood, it's

incredibly frustrating that years go by and nothing is happening. why does that happen? >> it could happen as you mentioned, supervisor, a project could run out of funds, it could sit there for a while. sometimes they lose their funding. i noticed a couple projects where the banks were going under, a lot of these large projects they sat there for a couple years and they got refinanced. some of the smaller projects, if they run out of funds, they can sit there for a while until they get sold or refunded to complete the job. >>supervisor scott weiner: if i have a building and start to work on it and i remove half the building, i'm not exaggerating but the entire building is removed. it's no

longer a structure, obviously with the intent to rebuild, for whatever reason i run out of money. it's not habitable, at what point, okay, 6 months, a year, what if it's 5 years or 10 years later. what is the ultimate way of addressing that situation. i agree we should be very tolerant with people to give them an opportunity. we want to give people every opportunity to get their building in shape and give them resources and help but at some point, the balance tips a little bit. so how do you address that eventually? >> it's very complicated in those cases. if there is no movement on the building and the permits expire we can issue another issue notice of violation and we can send

another notices and maybe to the city attorney. that's a long process in itself too. >>supervisor scott weiner: how many complaints a year do you refer to the city attorneys office? >> we only can take it so far. as code enforcement division, we will issue the notice of violation, second notice of violation, bring it to sharing, bring it to an order of abatement. at the time of order of abatement, the city attorney will decide to accept the case. >>supervisor scott weiner: how many of you plural, dbi how many cases a year? >> we referred two last year to the city attorney. >>supervisor scott weiner: out of how many violations did the department determine, how many of those total? >> complaints filed for last

year were 202967. code of violations were 120, new cases shall cases for director was 1238. order of abatements issued were 298. you have to look at this last statement, cases closed were 1161. we were able to work with them to get compliance and close the cases. >>supervisor scott weiner: is referral to the city attorneys office last year do you think that is low or do you think there should be more? >> it's low, what we did is we doubled now the director sharing and code enforcement. during the budget cut we lost

1/3 of our staff. now we slowly got our staff back we doubled code enforcement and doubled the hearings to be heard and we issued more order of abate ments and working with the city attorney now. >>supervisor scott weiner: is two referrals to the city attorneys office lower in the past years. and by the way, the way we fund your department is ridiculous. you lay off a bunch of people when the economy slides and you don't have enough people when the development activity picks up. it's a bad way to fund but unfortunately it's the way we fund. how does that compare to other years? >> back in 2012 we had 7 referrals. 2011, 8 referrals and 2008 we had 4. >>supervisor scott weiner:

okay. how many cases are currently unresolved and pending? >> i don't know how many cases the city attorney has. >>supervisor scott weiner: not the city attorneys, but how many cases are unresolved right now. >> if you take for 2013, we received 2967. of those, we had 1078 that have orders of abatement issued and of those in total 1078, 970 went to -- about 400 of those would be vacant buildings. >>supervisor scott weiner: but my question is not how many are a result from a time

period. because presumably if something isn't resolved for one calendar year, it will keep on the books. i'm saying currently today whether it was filed last year or 10 years ago how many current unresolved or pending matters are there in the building division? >> in the code enforcement division where all the electrical and plumbing cases referred there is 1078 outstanding now. the balance then at the various stages where they have permits issued they could be held in planning and if they are not resolved, then they are going to be referred to the city attorney. some of them will be minor issues, but anything that involves major issues they are going to be referred to the city attorney. >>supervisor scott weiner: that's about 2 or 7 or 8 a year. >> you maybe aware of the last

year or so there ma has been a major focus that have developed as a result of the down turn. we had inspectors laid off. we have inspectors over the inspection smaller in complaints. now our balance of inspectors are back. we are anticipate over the next 2014, we assuming that you approve our budget, we are anticipating anne enormous number of referrals to the attorney. in the number of 12 months clearing the backlog, wait for all of those resources towards for the city attorney which receive a lot of staff time. i'm really glad that we are having this hearing today because that will give us a launching pad

to justify referring a lot more to the city attorney. >>supervisor scott weiner: as part of the budget process i will refer dbi to work closely with the mayor's office to ensure that that particular need is taken into account. because as a member of the budget committee knowing that if there are any challenges, because we work with the mayor's office budget a lot in a collaborative way and i think this needs to be a priority. >> and things we can do to encourage to enormously increase the budget for the city attorneys we really appreciate that. >> we also work with the city attorney right now. they come to help us review cases that key be reviewed for future litigation. >>supervisor jane kim: i don't have a copy of the presentation here. did you say that 2,000 cases went to

directors hearings? >> cases scheduled for directors hearing was 1248 last year. >> as a directors hear you heard 1200 cases. >> last year we heard 1238 cases. >>supervisor jane kim: that's a lot. >> we doubled the hearings. we had housing and building on 1 day and now we have separate days. we've increased it to the point that as much as we can do at this point. >>supervisor jane kim: that's a lot of cases. >> that's why we are working

with the city attorney to see which are preferable for litigation. >>supervisor scott weiner: i don't think you need to go through every single step. i think we have a general understanding of that. >> okay. do you want me to continue? >>supervisor scott weiner: you can continue. i think mr. sanchez has to lee shortly. we are going to get to him after you are done with your section. >> in non-compliance code violation? if the property opener owner fails to comply a notice is scheduled for the directors hearing. the directors hearing is a transition to enforcement which leads to inspection and

potential order of abatement. directors hearing for monitoring fee review. outstanding fee review. filed reviewed by inspector for directors sharing and date chosen. the hearing packet at least 10 days prior to packet imposed and property. after the directors hearing and order of the abatement imposed at the property. if improved the case can be referred for the city attorney referral. finally when all permits are complete and assessment cost are paid the order of abatement is revoked. complaints received 2013, the number is higher to this if you have any questions. tip cass types of complaints. work without permit, work exceeding the scope of the permit, unpermitted change of use of occupancy.

construction sites, vehicle damage to the building, building fire damage, landslide from storm impact. problematic cases, cases where adjacent neighbors are not willing to assist and filing multiple complaints and cases with serious impacts on properties. night noise impacting residents from construction sites. access would not be likely. home owners do not have the financial means to comply with the violation. vacant building cases where the owner doesn't have the resolve or interest to comply. the steps to refer to the city attorney. notice of violation issued, referral

to code enforcement, order of abatement issues, approval by litigation and obvious and serious life safety impact. recordkeeping: complaints are tract. mandated time frames are adhered to in order to adhere to expeditious compliance. maintaining records electronically. what's being referred to as the city attorney, cases with serious life safety impact when enforcement is stalled or no longer effective. where building structures and failures involve immediate action the city attorney legal direction. landslides where there is a serious potential for imminent hazard where the

city has potential liability. >>supervisor scott weiner: i think we covered the city attorney referral. great. i think supervisor cohen has a question before we let you go. >>supervisor malia cohen: thank you. okay, so we've actually as i mentioned before in my remarks had a very detailed report for the civil grand jury and i'm going to refer back to some of the issues that were raised. in particular, while i didn't agree with everything that the grand jury reported out, their findings did warn some of the findings did warrant a follow up. i have two questions, my first one is the grand jury report found that only the dbi housing division was collecting monthly violations fees in the fees in the effect of $52. the code enforcement, the building and plumbing and inland empiral