>> good morning. the day is wednesday, august 20, 2014. this is a regular meeting of the building inspection commission. i would like to reminds everyone to please turn off all electronic devices. the first item on the agenda is roll call. president mccarthy. >> here. >> mar. >> here. >> lee. >> here. >> mcray. >> present. >> walk. walk. >> here. >> we are a quorum and the next item is president's announcement. >> thank you all for coming to the august 20, 2014 building inspection commission meeting. just some announcements here.

special thanks to the building inspector ping tong team which competed on august 17 against some terrific citywide talent. did you win or lose? you lost. yeah, i heard he's pretty good. we have to do something about that. special thanks to director [inaudible] and the dbi seismic retro fitd staff who's joined with the rent board and with the mayor's director of safety in hosting another free public workshop on august 11 at the main library on the steps of the owners -- free public workshop on august 11 at the main library. the at risk soft story buildings are at risk to retro fit.

more than 175 people attended the workshop, we continue to do outreach to make owners aware of the september 15 deadline for submitting required screening forms to dbi. [inaudible] this building is in violation of the san francisco air quick safety requirements. and i have these signed here. i think we'll be talking about them later on so we'll talk in more detail there. congratulations to director who will make a presentation to the seismic corporation when it holds it meeting in san francisco october 9 in the board of supervisors chambers. the 25th observance of the 1989 earthquake. is taking to improve seismic safety throughout the city. director huey will also have an

article in september issue of sf apartment magazine. thank you to rudy for the plan review he was very professional in answering questions and provided vabl information in making corrections. thank you rudy, for that. kudos also to the records management division, specifically paul boista, stephanie collins, dewayne farrell for providing excellent customer service and assisting customers with the records request. also the plan review services received compliments from a customer on the hard work she did on the lbgt project. they thanked her for her professional and for coordinateing with other departments on this project. big thank you goes out to tom

thomas cane for helping a couple navigate through a long four year process of obtaining their final certificate of final completion and occupancy. they had several delays along the way but now happily married couple appreciates the role. kudos to the mechanical engineer who was thanked by tom similars of the institute of market transformation, washington dc based think tank for his insight, cooperation, participation in helping to simplify new code -- state energy code and increasing likely compliance so thank you for your help there again on that. that, madam secretary is my president's announcements for today. >> is there any public comment on the president's announcement?

seeing none, item 3, general public xhent. the building inspection commission will take public comment on the commission's jurisdiction that are not part of this agenda. >> good morning. i just want to say a couple things. first of all, i want to thank deputy director for coming up to the [inaudible] to see what the traffic flow is like up there. there's a lot of people up there [inaudible] first floor so we really appreciate the fact that we coming through quicker by doing that. i wanted to say that people are truly amazed about the 7% reduction in fees. we can't believe that it's happening so it's great. i want to mention the planning has come back with a bunch of inquiries so i guess that's going to balance out. going to be a couple things i wanted to say. thank you. >> thank you henry.

>> good morning, i'm representing san francisco apartment corporation. if i may, i'd like to provide public comment now. we have major concerns about supervisor chiu's legislation and the building requirements that our units are required to meet when our tenants list them on short term vacation travel website services. there's a difference in the hotel code and in the building code and our residential units do not meet the hotel code. these b and b units are being treated as hotels and they need to be brought up to the hotel code and we have major questions as to whose

responsibility that is, what level of safety the people staying there deserves, if we need to put maps on the doors, how to mark emergency exits, major life safety issues because these units are not up to hotel code but are being operated as hotels. my association represents landlords and in the end we're liable for any injures that occur and it's a major concern for our members so i wanted to appreciate that. ed mention that. i appreciate you considering may thoughts. . that's mostly. ly it. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> my name is dale carlson, i represent the cam main committee that was formed to create a ballot measure.

on the ballot until november of 2015. i know you're aware of the b and b legislation, i'm not sure if you're aware of the problem. we have more than 10,000 units listed in san francisco right now. 75 to 85% of those are not home sharers, they're not renting a spare room in their home. they are entire units, entire homes, entire condos. the problem is growing. the legislation that supervisor chiu has mentioned would make short term rentals to tourists legal everywhere, for everyone at any time without any concentration caps so entire neighborhoods and streets could be innone dated with these rentals. planning commissioners raised

some of those questions. which codes apply and how are they going to be enforced and inspected. those are unanswered questions. i hope with the amendments that the planning commission has suggested, you still retain a role and opportunity to look at this legislation and consider what it means for your city and your department. thank you. >> thank you. >> any further public comment? seeing none, next item. >> if it's okay with commissioners, i request of commission clinch that we could go to the director's report and he will be along here any minute and he'd like to sit in on item 4 and 5. i'd like to recognize

>> and reconcile on our expen ditures in and in july i included a preliminary report that included up through july and we have a couple huge outstanding items that i wanted to give you a good complete picture of how we're in fiscal year 13, 14 so i'll submit that report in september, but i'll let you know what they are. for instance on the revenue side we normally don't get our final department licensee revenues until the last week in august so right now we'

awaiting those. on the expenditure side we have over $8 million and those departments had until the beginning of this week to complete their final billing so instead of providing something that isn't accurate, i wanted to give you a final close fiscal year report. one thing in the report, we're working right now on our deferred credit report and i talked about that be at last month's meeting. although we collect a variety of revenues, our revenues are huge that we collect, but it's for plan check revenues and building permits. we collect those up front and then we have to defer them so we've been working on that over the past couple weeks and it looks like maybe about 13 million or so but once again we're finalizing that so when you get the final report it'll show our collected revenues,

our actual expenditures and what our true fund balance will be once we deduct $13 million or so but once again we're finalizing that so when you get the final report it'll show our collected revenues, our actual expenditures and what our true fund balance will be once we deduct $13 million or so from there. i wanted to update you, we have a temporary six month 7% fee reduction and that is on staff services labor fee reduction and that will take effect on august 30, but effectively september 2. that's the first day of business and so we're working with that right now so what you will see beginning with our --

>> [inaudible]. >> are you referring to the fee study? >> right. >> we're working currently with the consulting and controllers office. we're scheduled to come back to the commission in september to go other that so basically with the 7% temporary reduction is going to do, it's a bridge until we finish that study and come up with the fees should be and then once this end i guess it'll be september through march of the temporary 7% reduction, then we'll be able to enact the new fee reduction. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> item 6b, update on proposed legislation.

>> good morning commissioners, bill straun, just wanted to call to your attention a few items, far example the annual lien property list was at the board for its session on the 29th of july. we ended up with a final list of 228 on that lien property list for this year down from the original 310. so in short we have cases out there this year say compared to last year, but people did get the message and a number of them, i think more than 80 came in and paid off the assessments and agreed to make the changes.

i would point out that from the point of view of the mandatory soft story retro fits that the president mentioned we are getting quite close to our september 15 deadline. the numbers are coming down, which is to say we're getting more submitted screening forms. i think part of that is due -- seems like the workshop we just held at the public library and also number of advertising efforts in community obligations. the reality is that we still have about 2400 who have not responded so we are preparing those code enforcement signs because we do anticipate that

building inspection will be going through the code enforce m process with those property owners who ultimately don't respond, but we are well prepared for that and hopeful that we'll get the numbers down to maybe in the 1500 or 2,000 range before september 15. finally i'll just mention the david shoe legislation because the planning commission didn't meet and had a lengthy hearing. maybe some of you saw that, it lasted about 6.5 hours so there are obviously a lot of diverse opinions on the proposal. planning staff has made 16 recommendations to strengthen the legislation they've sent you. the supervisor, the first one of those recommendations would shift the code enforcement away from building and toward planning.

it remains to be seen whether or not that's going to be adopted and exactly how it's going to be adopted. it may end up being a bit of a divided response type of thing. we're essentially waiting to see -- i'm expecting that another version of the ordinance reflecting at least some of the planning commission's recommendations will come back to building in september, possibly prior to it going to the land use committee. other than that, i think that's about it. if you have questions. >> commissioner walker has a quick question for you. >> i have been watching the planning commission and i've heard from the public on both sides, the landlord and tenant communities and i want to reiterate that i'd like to see it here again with any kind of changes. i also want to remind everyone that we are having a joint

meeting with planning on october 2. >> yes, we hope, yes. october 2 officially confirmed. and the issue of code enforcement is one that we had requested to be on the agenda and this issue, especially enforcement of whatever rules is something that we could discuss with both commissions at that point. so hopefully we can resolve it because i do think that building inspectors are going to have a large role no matter who manages this program, we will be involved and it would be good to get us on the same page and sort of talk through the enforcement issues on this issue as well as other use issues that we run into out there. so i just want to make sure we reiterate, we do want to hear it again here.

>> thank you. >> it was a very long hearing. it was a real strong sense in the room that this is going to be worked out. it was a real kind of -- on both sides of the argument and i think everybody was very understanding of the issues that need to be dealt with so i think it's best to let it take its course, see what is actually agreed on our disagreed on when we have something we can bring it back here to further discussion, but i think it's in a good place right now where it is and we'll let it see where it falls. thanks for that. thank you. >> i'm 6c, update on major projects. good morning, i'm director of dbi. as you see from the major project [inaudible] compared to last month, as i expected it dropped by 2% because

[inaudible]. now you see level off, but this building [inaudible] because [inaudible] we are going to track on that job. we are starting to agree. that's why i didn't put the [inaudible]. right now [inaudible] compared to last mobt. month. any question? >> just one, director. the expired permits on the back page. >> mm-hm >> when you say expired does that mean abandoned. >> it's combination of

everything. somebody may pay the permit and then stop the job in respect to [inaudible], but most -- you know, they come in -- you know, once they stop they pay the extension feet and then some of the project they never, you know, come back. but that would be a very small portion. the way i see last two year, lots of people come back to reactivate those projects. >> [inaudible]. >> comparatively it's 1.36%. >> yeah, that >> what is the period of time that the extension lasts for? was it extended for a year or -- >> depend on the size of the project, the dollar amount. we have the schedule. you know, we change -- >> i think we went through a process over the last few years of extending everything that --

and was there a -- so that -- if they come back do we keep the money? >> we will cancel the project, notify them, hopefully they come back for refund, but it depend on the money we spend. >> i see. so fill whatever time we have -- okay. >> uh-huh. >> okay, thank you. >> thank you. >> i'm 6d, update on code enforcement. >> good morning commissioners. the code enforcement in the dbi monthly update for july building inspections performed

were 5071. complaints received was 272. i just want to add up -- let me add up another list here. building inspections were 5071. within 48 hours of the request date there was [inaudible]. after [inaudible] there was zero percent. we have to do a lot of shuffling around, but the inspections are working very hard to keep it within 48 hours. complaints response within 24 to 72 hours is 224. complaints for first time violation were 38. complaints without notice of violation were 749. [inaudible] were 102. second notice of violations were 39. so out of the complaints

received, the complaints response in 24 hours were 170, that's 63% response within 24 hours. complaints response within 72 hours was 23%, which was 63. complaints over p 2 hours were only 14% or 37. so we had 100% response in complaints last month. for house inging inspections performed was 1203. complaints with notice of violations were 138. abated complaints and notice of violations were 352. [inaudible] were 64. routine inspections for last month were 350. code enforcement cases sent to director's [inaudible] were 7. in your opinion of order of

abatements issued were 19. number of cases under advisement were 7. and number of cases abated were 76. that's for the last month. i just want to report to you too that we've been looking at the complaints and notice of violations for the last five year period. for building there was almost 2,000 complaints for the last five years. we've been working actively to reinvestigate the complaints and abate as many as we can and we got the number to 493 for the last five years so that's hard work my staff and they're doing a good job. >> thank you. >> commissioner lee. >> just a quick question. did we receive any complaints about illegal inlaws or anything like that? illegal second unit in this past mobt? month? >> there's probably complaints for that. that'd be housing. i don't have a specific number

for that. i can find out. >> i might be interested sometime next month to find out what the numbers are. if we have any or none. >> they usually -- always a number, we don't have [inaudible] report to you. >> commissioner melgar. >> yeah. i was just specifically interested too, to see if the legislation has done anything to curb the complaints. if people are taking that route instead or if it hasn't made a difference though. >> okay. there are lots of inquiry about, you know, the [inaudible] and people want to do it and then at least as far -- i didn't come to [inaudible]. we have at least 40 of them go to city planning and then i think they only approve one to three of them only. we are still wapting for them to come back. >> i'd like to recognize commissioner clinch. >> yeah.

>> based on my check in yesterday, besides the 25 to 30 that tom just mentioned, there are three that we think are very close to being ready for actually issuing a permit. so far no permit has yet be issued and i guess this is a matter of going through the process, providing the information to the owners and letting them decide whether they want to proceed or not, but i'm told that we will probably have three issued permits within the next couple of weeks. >> i think you're off the hook then. thank you. >> thank you. >> thank you. any public comment on the director's report, items 6a through d? seeing none, going back to number 4. >> what we'll do, madam secretary, if it's okay with my

fellow commissioners, we'll take 4 and 5 together because i see them as the same and if there's no objection to that. >> okay. that's fine. item 4 is a possible action and discussion regarding a [inaudible] ab 109 seismic evaluation of private school facilities of san francisco building code section 3428 and item 5 is discussion and possible action on revisions to proposed ordinance, clerk of board of supervisors amending the building code to require that existing private elementary schools [inaudible]. >> morning commissioners. director of earth quake city safety for the city. i want to echo the president's comments on the soft story program.

i'd like to commend the staff. they've done an amazing job. this is a really duff cult and unique program and i though know i say these numbers every time i'm before you but there are 60,000 people in these buildings. i'd like to recognize the work by robert chung managing this team. these are some of the the clerks working really hard taking in all these forms. what i want to point out is that this is being done differently than any program in dbi's history. we are tracking data so differently so we'll have analytics we've never had before for a seismic retro fit program. we're going to be able to see where they were in every single part of this process and dbi updates this live on a website on a weekly basis so there's a lot of effort going into this program to provide transparency. i think the communication the

dbi has done with the public has been fantastic as well. all these property owners have received a piece of mail since the program started every single month. inviting them to events like the one we had in january where we had 3,000 members of the public attend and providing financing. i'd like to give you an update on the financing program. we have 330 applications into the public program. we're in the final stages of slektding a partner which will provide a key service for these folks. these are people out of the gate looking to do this. no one is looking to have their building retro fitted at this point. if we get a nice flow going this is a great alternative financing mechanism for property owners. oakland has since appointed my counter