department of public health and in some we have paid for the entire project to get through the front door, get to the check-in desk, the public restrooms, get through to the back clinical areas, the restroom and examine room and drinking fountains and exam room in each functional area, whether it's dental, medical or prenatal. we did one very smart thing, adding an elevator in all the two-story buildings. the second floors used to be occupied by storage.

so we're very proud of that program. and i did mention that the bayview is under construction. bayview opera house. this has been a big-passion project for many departments in the city, including the arts commission and of course the neighborhood. it is an historical facility. mta, the arts commission, the former redevelopment agency, the former mocd, us, many departments the puc have all chipped in to try to make this project happen, while also creating new exterior public plazas and make it seismically

safe and accessible and it's a $4.5 million chip-in by the other departments in addition to our $800,000. we expect this tillstill to take about a year to complete the work because it's a complex project. it's just a difficult building to partially disassemble and put back together again without damaging the historical fabric. one more project is our cultural center for the latino art, fully pad by mod, approximately $1.5 million. it did undergo renation back in the '80s -'90s, but focused on the ground floor. ironically, there are two and a half more floors in the building and no toilets. so on the third floor, was the children's programming. that became the big craft fairs with hundreds of kids up there on any day of the week on the

third floor and would have to go down to the first floor for toilets. luckily, it had an elevator, but this is also -- the center has a world-renowned screen printing program and graphic arts program, that is very famous. here we're doing toilets, lots of toilets, happy toilets. [laughter ] and we're also adding the wheelchair lifts. so somebody in a chair can get to the graphic arts program. we're correcting doorway widths and also, they have a foodservice bar for pre-functions. we're going to change that out, because that has been a very successful addition to each one of the cultural centers since the neighborhood living room. so that is a complete -- what is going on in our ada transition plan for this year. >> thank you very much, mr. scott.

i have comments from co-chair zarda. >> thank you so much john paul scott, this is such a comprehensive and detailed view of all the upcoming construction we can expect and thank for putting it together. i just wanted to ask a few questions and part of this is just so i can learn more about the process and kind of educate myself. so what is the process like? and maybe this is in your area or not for negotiating coverage of project budgets -- sharing between departments? i saw you -- i heard you mention during different construction projects this is being shared with the departments and this one is solely done by the mod. can you share a little more insight how that works? >> part of it is the relationship-building that we do with some of these departments.

the one-on-one personal relationships. program access, i can look at my problems in their entirety, move the program as round, be flexible, but we had a good feel as to what was necessary. and plus, we have a main mission of accessibility and it's not our main mission to do illustrious and move the programs internally and reconfigure them so they have nicer offices. so when they get that idea and while we have got our idea, during the capital review process, which when we have a capital committee and every year, all of the directors of major departments meet to discuss projects. it's then the second-tier people are all working with one another to match up our projects and see how we can pair things up and get synergy,

because that is what we want. the more we can get done at one time, the less expense it is for the city. >> just to follow-up on that, in your view, what has that process been like over the past years in other departments understanding of what the mod's responsibilitis are? and understanding the importance of building in access and also maybe how much easier it is to be do it while you are renovating? >> okay. mod is very well-liked and they see us coming to the table with money when we talk capital projects. but you know that there is a vast amount of construction work and design work going on throughout the city, through bond programs and through other capital projects. and of course, every time we do new construction or doing alteration, we're getting 100%

accessibility, all projects are reviewed by an ada coordinator, an expert in the field and then we also do inspections. and on these other projects, especially the ada transition money plan projects, when we have made their requests to the committee, we have been diligent spreading our ask out -- our money comes from the same place homeless shelters are funded from, health care. so we needed to be very judicious how we spread out our work and prioritized and we came to the council to ask priorities. what should we fix first before we move through this program? and our requests are always floating to the top in the capital system. sometimes we have had to give money back, give projects back, but the projects don't go away;

right? we come back and say you defunded us, we want it back. simple as that. i would say bayview was a good example of a project that started. it got defunded because of the economic crisis and then when it restarted several other departments said we have to get this done. this is too important. we need to get the heart of the bayview fixed and that was one of those examples where it happened not only outside the capital process, but inside the capital process, that people joined together to make it happen. >> i would just like to add one piece, which is that the mayor's office on disability has a lot of credibility with the other department heads, as well as all of the different support staff that work on these projects. and i really credit john paul scott for having developed those relationships and shown

he can identify a project, develop it, tweak it to fit within the budget and deliver something that is not only accessible, but in many cases quite beautiful as well. they are enhancements in so many different ways. so it's really over those -- we have been in business now at mod for 16 years. we don't really have to be making the argument as much anymore, that this is required. it's the law. this is our obligation and we'll be sued if we don't. so we do get a lot of cooperation and support from the board of supervisors and the mayor's office on these projects. >> if it's okay with the council, i have one more question, just because this is such an interesting field for me. early on in your presentation you mentioned sometimes when -- with regards to the elevator, when a contractor falls through, you have to pull some of the financial resources

and allocate to the one where the contractor fell out. in regards to that and moving forward on these different projects, what is your view of how that process is handled? and how to make sure that the contractor that you get to take their place is getting the most effective or quality contractor around for the buck? and not just somebody fell through and i know this other contractor? i'm sure there are processes in place, but if you could enlightenen me on that. >> okay. the city's contracting process is complex and very thorough. and the bidding process is very thorough, very above-board. we put in a lot of bidder requirements into those bid documents before they go out. but we have to accept the low-bid, if they have qualified and have all of their permits and licenses in place, that is what we have to do. in the case -- it's very rare for us to have to cancel or

relieve a contractor for a condition. in our particular case san francisco general hospital knew that we were going to do rehabs on those elevators in buildings 80-90 with all the clinics, substance-abuse clinics and aids clinics and family clinic, prenatal, so we have highly vulnerable populations and we have to keep the clinics open and they said we have to do infection-control and hazmat-control as if you were working in an operating room. that came after our bid documents went out and the contractor said we simply don't have the expertise to go that far. but we said we have to do this and that was our release for convenience. that meant the emergency had to

be declared, and all of the departments that were partnering on that, the department of public health, the department of public works, and mod, and the city attorney's office all had to come together to say we have got to fix this. it was on december 24th. >> wow. [laughter ] . >> seriously because we already ordered the elevator equipment with $800,000 worth of equipment already onorder. it was a scramble. we have certain contractors that are already under contract with the city on an as-needed basis and there is a limit to what they can do and this emergency, it was agreed upon in the system that we have, in the regulatory system, that we could bring this contractor in place, but we had to bridge the funding until any bills with first contractor had to get

resolved. that is where we knew we had a design leeway in what we were doing in other projects on campus; that we could bring it, but it costs. and so that is where we went back to the capital committee and said, we still have these projects. we need these funds back. and that is the cost of doing business. and they agreed. so we did our homework. we talked to the right people. everything was above-board. and you can only say yes or no, and they saidyes. >> thank you so much for the explanation. i appreciate it. >> any other councilmember comments? seeing none, anything from staff? >> we are extraordinarily lucky to have john paul scott as our deputy director of physical access at mod. >> is there any public comment on this item?

>> i agree with that. >> okay. john paul is still at the plate with another presentation for us. >> oh,yes. >> new city playgrounds. our second presentation is on policy initiative that the mayor's office on disability is developing in conjunction with the department of public works,

and the recreation and parks department, as well as the landscape department that is in dpw. under the 2010 ada standard, a lot of recreation elements were added into the civil rights law, the access board had been working on these things since 1994 and it took all the way to 2010 to make it happen. at the same time, the core philosophy behind this was that place should be inclusive and should be available to everybody. and one of the things that we needed to do in order to make ourselves successful as a city, and as a recreation provider was to develop planning tools to teach the staff how to do it

right. it's rocket science. play isn't rocket science although we're going to build one of the it was education and consistency will get us a good project, simple as that. the playground that you see in the photograph by the way is brand-new. it's at glen canyon and that is not sand. it's all rubber surfacing. it's climbing structure, but there are a number of play elements that are down within wheelchair-usable range and reachable range and it also benefits toddlers and using that rubber surface allows parents to engage their children, their siblings and friends all to play together. so the second thing that happened has been the state of california pulled the 2010 ada standard into our california building code. so playgrounds came into the building code .

we didn't have them in the building code before. so now we have a very strong, double-hammer on regulatory compliance and we want to be sure we're doing it right. so the main goal is of the 2010 standard is social integration and inclusion and to have a good play experience, not just being near something, and on the photograph that you see here, this is out at the st. mary's recreation center. what the designers did at this particular park was put in a lot of tactile elements, reactive elements that were all within the ground-plane and this particular one has sign

language interpretation of the alphabet all done in tactile images. what does the standard mean? we're trying to get elements in the playground that are reachable and we want to be sure that we have enough types, so there are types and quality of play. i just don't want tubes. there has to be some good share of play experiences, and then 50% of the elevated things because many times we're talking composite play systems and play structures. and in most of those, they are reached by transfer tiers, elevated play elements. and now the standard, because it's written by adults, doesn't really want to get into designing play and doesn't

want to get into designing play elements, and we can design the mechanical elements and those who know how to design play, design those. so in this particular photograph, this is again at glen canyon park. where you can see it's a set of stairs, with a handrail. leading up into this wooden play structure. but off to the right-hand side is the actually transfer tier, where a child can transfer out of chair, onto a raised deck, and there are hand grips. so that there are things to hang on to while you are doing that functional transfer. however, you are trained or however you learned to do the transfer. and then the steps are a certain height or within a range. so that you can kind of butt-bump into the play structure to play with your siblings.

i call it the butt-bump. [laughter ] . >> it works. >> again this particular structure is out at st. mary's, i believe. when there is over 20 play elements, then of the elevated ones that are up inside the play structure, 25% of those can be reached by transfer tier, but then 25% must be reached by ramp, for a total of 50% or more play elements must be in that kind of accessible reach-range. but one of the things that i think, as adults, we are realizing we have reach-ranges for adults in ada and reach-ranges for children as a voluntary thing. we didn't have reach-ranges for somebody sitting on the deck. so if you are on the deck and the play element is 48" in the

air, it's not usable. so that is where we got together with our ada coordinator, the department of public works, kevin jensen, and also talking with some of the designers in the landscape department, who do most of the play areas, and came up with recommended guidelines for these and where to put hand grips and maybe where to increase the number of play elements just to enrich the experience? and we're looking to finalize those, as a voluntary standard, because otherwise we would have to go to the board of supervisors to do a mandatory standard. it's better to have consensus and voluntary compliance, always. so where do we stand? because of our foresight and because some of us were involved in the development of the accessibility guidelines going back all the way to 1992, when the current generation of

ada coordinators came on-board, back in about 2000-2002, we already knew what this thing was going to look like. so we were requiring all of the playgrounds to be designed to already be in compliance with these standards, and that was eight years before they came into law. so in 2014, we have 194 play component things, composite systems. right now we're at 119 in full compliance with the 2010 standard, or exceeded. that is 61.6%, prettyi i don't know that means we don't have to do barrier removal on these things; right? now with the 2012 clean and safe parks bond, which the engine is just rolling and all the design work is happening. there are community meetings going on all over the city for

the projects that are happening throughout the whole process. we will be up to 198 play areas and when it's complete we'll have 155 play areas that will be fully compliant and up to 78.8%. we get donations. and some other departments sometimes build play areas like the puc. but we have a lot of community groups that ban together and want to change a small park into a play area. a good example is woods yard out in dog patch and it's actually a puc site, but young parents decided that they wanted to take this concrete plaza and give it some life, because they didn't have a nearby playground. so of those, we're going to see about -- what is that? about another 12 appear very quickly. and they will be complete by 2017. some of these are big. some of these are $5 million and $3 million and those will

take longer. the small ones get delivered in 4-6 months so we'll be up to 211 play areas and 86.1% will be complying. this does not include the unified school district sites. every play area, every playground in their entire system is fully compliant with the standard or it exceeds it. that means we're using the rubber surfacing. we're use the whole concept of ground-level play elements. if it's big enough it's wheelchair-access into the system and just being smart about how we're creating opportunity for inclusion. so what this led to, we developed a handout. we have a form that we asked the designers to fill out, because now they have to put the playground into the construction drawings and get a

building permit and everybody gets their fees in the process >> but we wanted to explain it, because it's new. and we wanted everybody to do it right in the beginning and have an understanding about it. how it works? and how to be better? you know, we want to encourage people always to be better. so we developed a four-page brochure -- i think it's four -- and it explains the process and gives good design tips. and now we're doing training on this, with different departments. and our next step is to meet with leads in the building department, plan department, in dpw to have consensus about the building permit process; that if one of our ada coordinators reviews and signs off on this play area, accept it, please accept it. we know this is compliant or better. and so accept our judgment. let's get this permitted as quickly as possible.

and our goals are inclusion for both child, parent and playmates and second, we want to be better than the ada, we always want to do better. and third, we want consistency between our play-area designers and the people who build these systems. here is my final slide. and as i said, this is a partnership between departments and i think it's a very successful program. i really encourage you, if there is say a public meeting on a recreation site or community of opportunities grant program or the failing playgrounds that are the wooden structures, attend a public meeting and make your voice heard. thank you. >> thank you, john paul.

comments from councilmembers? co-chair zarda. >> thank you for the presentation. i was excited to learn more about accessible playgrounds and how ahead of the curve san francisco is and how you said always trying to exceed requirements for the the ada. where are the brochures? where you mentioned as well the guidelines that you talked about during the creation process of seeing there weren't guidance in place for youth trying to access certain handrails? are these documents available online? in electronic format? just in case people want to learn more about them. >> we will be putting them up on our website. we wanted to be sure we had agreement between the various departments rather than rushing it. so it will be up fairly soon and that is where you will find it in our

architectural section and put in a highlight in the "what's new."? >> sounds great. looking forward to that. another question for the upcoming meetings with the upgrades of playgrounds, where is the best place to find information about these, in case somebody didn't come across this information haphazardly, where would you find out about the playground access meetings? >> there are several different meetings, but the first one is your neighborhood community group. almost all the neighborhoods have a community group of some sort or another. if you don't know your community group, can you call up the planning department or call 311 and ask for a call-back from the planning department. because they keep track of all of these various community groups out there. then secondly, the recreation and parks department does a lot

of advertisement, not only through the website, but through the community groups and through mailings to inform people when these meetings are coming up. and at that meeting they will let you know when all the subsequent planning meetings go on. like dolores park are over 200 community meetings and if you have seen, dolores park is under the bulldozer right now and moving along. those are the two paths i would take. >> thank you for your presentation. considering all the different elements that come into with play areas and playgrounds and i like the fact that you are staying ahead of the curve and taken into consideration the people who actually use the playgrounds. thank you. >> any other councilmember comments? anything from staff?

donna. >> john, one of the things i have heard is the surfacing on the playgrounds and the concerns about having to replace it after it was been used over and over again? do you have a sense of how often that happens and what the costs associated with that is? >> like any surfacing, things will wear out over time, especially if they get a lot of use underneath the swing on a playground. the carpet, for example, wears out and we have to replace it, but the rubber surfacing, which is all impact-attenuatation material, that is how we design the things from a 6' fall. i would say in typical use areas, anywhere from 5-8 years, but what recreation and parks will do