something? >> i understand what you're saying about the soil conditions can vary. but couldn't we possibly just say any tall building in the zone regardless of the soil has to be reviewed this way? would that be more practical so people can understand that any tall building in this area -- >> they are going to be reviewed. the thing here i think pointed out, we want to have a peer review that's more than just a single person reviewing the work effort of the technical engineer worker. when we get into higher risk and it's a tall building, those require us to have a better view of this from not just one person but at least two. >> so on top of that --

>> yeah. yeah. needs to be site specific, a map is difficult in san francisco because we have a lot of landfill, a lot of soil line, just tell the experience for myself redesign [indiscernible]

when they do 160 next door, 100 feet away, completely drop. to answer your question, why we put class f, this spell out in the report what kind of soil, and then depend on what kind of foundation you're going to build on those soil. for example sunset or richmond we know the soil type, sand dune and so forth. downtown area is more difficult.

they will be on pile. now look into it with -- a housing project. when you go down to the ferry building, those are lots more complication because bedrock 300 feet down and then few rubble in the area. need to have this requirement for settlement and peer review and all those. we look closely at the

association, we put more geotechnical. that's why we have those stuff, cannot be -- in the old days, design a building and put number of story times 10% for the way of the building, we are different now. we need to depend on the soil type, the soil in the building. that's why these will be cut from the geotechnical -- what parts of soil and base that to calculate all those -- the soil profile, we effect that. >> commissioner lee. >> follow up question, if we're doing it this way, weary lying on the project sponsors soil engineers to determine what type of soil is underneath that land, right? how are we sure their report is

accurate? do we keep the core samples? >> we don't keep the sample. we have -- we have a panel to review it with. if they're class f we have additional peer review. >> you review the report first? >> beside our staff, we have additional peer review for 240 feet or higher. >> if they're not going to bedrock, right? >> we didn't say go to the bedrock, we say over 240 feet they need appear review. if they're class f, they have additional -- technical or civil -- later on they changed

back saying civil engineer with geotechnical background can do geotechnical work. it's a little complicated. >> i'm getting it. if you have -- >> we used to study geologists, rock formation and soil mechanics and all those, for us to understand as a civil engineer, we learn all these classes to learn. >> commissioner lee. >> if you have a geo tech report reviewed first, i assume you'll have a geo tech expert reviewing that. >> yeah. >> will the same be reviewing the entire process or will you have somebody else.

is that why you need more geo tech's on the contract, on the rfq because you're going to need -- you see what i'm saying? >> the peer review is intended to be able to issue a permit and have the confidence that the design professional and the team has executed their work in a professional manner. this process is not intended to have an oversight of the construction process itself. it's for the purpose of issuing the permit. >> i understand that. but to determine if the building needs additional review, you're going to have a geo tech review the report, right? >> it's more than just review.

it's collaboration meaning that i'm -- you can say commissioner walker is the engineer of record retained by the owner to do the geotechnical investigation and produce a report and d.b.i. will hire someone to review commissioner walker's work and provide recommendations in a dialogue. and it's -- they have meetings, they have meeting minutes, they have meeting action items. those are the things we want to have in our records that we have implemented the end of last year. we didn't have the requirements last year. we just had the final letter, now we have the process being documented and captured and put in the system. >> so you're asking -- >> through the chair guys. >> after the review, you're

saying the building or project, the soil is class f, we require you to design a building that whatever the standard is, it is going to be, to be seismically strong. then you're going to go into the peer review, right? that's a separate review. >> no. >> you're going to have the geo tech engineer on the review body as well. will that expert be the same as the first one you hired. >> okay. commissioner lee -- >> director and then come back to you. >> i think he's -- i think you're adding a level that's not in the process. i mean it requires all the reviews. you have the soils person who is hired by the developer, there's a review panel that reviews that report along with all of the

other parts of the application to determine if it's accurate. it's a separate person. you can't have the same geo tech or soils expert on the review panel as you're hiring. >> i know that. but i'm saying -- >> okay. let me explain to you -- let me explain to you the process first commissioner lee. first as a developer, they get the site. then they have the entitlement, before the entitlement, the design team including geotechnical engineer and do all those things and how tall is the building and then meanwhile, most of the time they run parallel to d.b.i. and application meeting at that time, we say just a minute, you're over 240 feet.

we need to peer review. previously we -- those peer reviewers only seismic, now we want to recommend by the association, they have one more geotechnical review now, including the design of the foundation and settlement and all those. then the review panel will be after the process, if we can do it by next year, it will depend on having a pool of people we can pull. and then we say mr. developer, we'll set up this peer review team to review your job. okay? to set the criteria. and then the design team.

and then we review the geotechnical. they find out it's a class f, we say additional geotechnical expertise to review the requirements. after they finish all those, they submit the site permit with the recommendation and so forth and then also with the foundation and superstructure addendum. that's the process. i tried to -- >> what i hear is there's two geo tech reviews, right? one for the soil report and one for the peer review -- it's the same one? >> same one. >> okay. all right. i thought it was two separate. >> no. >> if it's class f you might need to have an additional

expert. >> yeah on the panel. >> the same panel. >> no, i thought it was two separate reviews. >> no, it's just an additional, maybe more than one geo tech. >> we more welcome for the developer to review again, but in our panel, we set up that way. >> right now we have tentative interim controls in place until it's finalized. if we have a building who -- might be performance based or predescriptive, we have controls in place recommending a large building concrete that's heavy or whatever. is that correct? >> yes. that's the number sat information sheet. it's very inclusive and there are a lot more conditions in

there. there are many conditions related to that. >> perfect. thank you. appreciate that. commissioner. >> do we at this point account for cumulative effects on adjoining buildings. >> now you have forced me to read a couple items. so a few of the bull it points are -- considering land slides and other geotechnical site hazards. >> can we get you up on the screen? >> this is s-18.

interim guidelines structural technical design review for new tall buildings. these are the bullet items i wanted to respond to -- i'll just read them. soil foundation structure under static that is gravity and seismic conditions. liquid factions, land slides and other geological site hazards. ground improvement, effects of the watering on the project site

and vicinity. foundation performance of neighboring structures. so numerical model of seismic hazards and soil structure interaction issues, foundation or building settlement and for projects in an area soil class f or the worst soil high risk seismic zone subject to liquid, such would require more than one engineer for the peer review team. >> does that help to answer? >> yes. second question. i understand completely why supervisor peskin was so insistent about changing who hires the peer review and who pays them and on the face of it,

think he's made a good judgment in recommending the separation. i do wonder if there are any legal implications that need to be considered when you change from the developer hires them, selects and hires them and pays for them versus the city has their pool, they select. >> deputy city attorney robb kapla, we discussed some of these with the ordinance that allowed the third party recovery that we reviewed a few months back. the change as with all permit evaluations, the developer eventually pays the cost of the city to review. in this instance, weary moving -- they're still what we pay for, the expert review it's just

we have the duty to hire experts that actually the city wants to contract with to review and provide the information we need and then pass those costs on to the developer. so it is still necessary to process an application that the do developer brings forward. it doesn't change that these are our experts designing a building in anyway. it's still to evaluate what the developer brings forward to the city. it's not intended to change the relationship or any way get the city more involved in the development itself. the developer produces the building designs. these are the expertise we need to evaluate the design and information. >> so the ultimate liability as it were, professional liability is on the primary engineers that the developer hires and because they have had primary.

>> they're not embedded in the documents issued by the department. in other words they don't show up on the plans produced by the engineer of record. >> the day in the pass.

record day in the pass. >> very early on that's what happened. yes. >> okay. >> that's why we now have a separate retention policy to make them readily retrievable. they don't become part of the records, it's kind of logical, right? you render an opinion, a professional opinion and to link the liability back to the opinion by placing it in the contract document, you wouldn't be able to find a design professional who would be willing to participate in the process because i wouldn't. you're not being paid to be on the design team. you're being paid by the department of building inspection to render services to us because maybe we lack a level of expertise in our own staff.

>> the last in your presentation, the comment i want to read it one more time. >> the information sheet or -- >> your presentation. >> when you say you can prove d.b.i., i think i'm good on that. i don't know if anybody has questions on that. questions are answered. any other commissions have anything else to add there. >> any public comment on agenda item 6? seeing none, we're on to item 7. >> to close out on item 6, i have it as an action item but i

don't think we need to take action. i put that in in case we had testimony. i thought we had a good discussion, to the director, there's still a few moving parts. i think the imitations we're trying to put in is what we need. i just want to reinforce with you maybe you could get back to the commission, when would you say, we could get another update, in a couple of months time. i'm trying to figure out the time frame and a letter confirming what we discussed here is now in place and we have all these new tall building procedures in place going forward on -- i want to make sure this keeps on a timely manner and i see a lot of things happening in january, so i just want to make sure the dates are kept and so on. is there something you could give us back towards in january that would work? >> yeah, okay january.

and then to see, you know, can we get the final lines on the recommendation for the 82 and then we can send it through cac? >> yeah. in the meantime, everything we can be proactive in, let's get that in. hopefully we'll have the first round of decisions and in 2019 more updated decisions. is that -- 2019 i think ron said in comments. it's fine. i believe you're going to hear something january 2018. right? >> yep. >> thank you. >> item 7 discussion on the accela tracking system.

>> good afternoon commissioners, i'm project manager at the department of building inspection, i'll be giving our project status report in the absence of shawn today. things are proceeding well. since our last meeting we have accomplished some good milestones, we have concluded our enterprise security audit based on permissions in the last excel implementation. we have brought in an accela report person to work and go through and align our report requirements. and we have been working with a third party company called click software that accela has chosen to help us with inspector scheduling module. that work has started last week and actually wrapped up at this point. that is a very important piece

of software to help with the scheduling of the complex inspections, we have so many requests coming in every day, click software makes it more manageable. we have wrapped up accela citizen access which is the web portal. and we brought all that information up in the current. we'll be able to proceed with that once we hit the build stage. and as far as stage milestones, our biggest challenge is getting things finished up with stages two and three. we expect to have that done by the end of the year, december 28th and we're marching towards that goal line. we have no new risks or issues to report this period. and as far as our current and next month's activity, we are continuing with our sessions

part of the 2-b foundation builds. those are working with d.b.i. subject manner experts. our click software process has been with the excel people making sure click software understands what the needs are and like i said, all that came out very well. the last part is the reporting. we are continuing refining our work on the reporting requirements. reporting requirements are statistical and form related. something like an mov is actually a report. any questions on this portion? >> commissioner walker please. >> are we still getting the staff commitment from our vender? i know they've expanded and signed up a couple more cities.

i just wanted to make sure we're still a priority. >> yes. the team we have is very good. i'm actually thrilled with the people i'm working with. >> they're going to stay? >> they are staying. one of the persons that was scheduled to come off the project is actually been extended to help with the reports. all that is to help pull that timeline and keep us on schedule for our dates. yes, i do not expect any significant personnel issues. >> great. thank you. >> the next thing i want to go over, the ppts process improvements. this is something we're very proud of. this is -- these are the results of the build process. what we have found are some key benefits that are going to affect our staff, it's going to affect our business partners and our customers. i've got a list of about 15

here. i'm going to ask you for your guidance president mccarthy. do you want me to go through each or just do highlights? >> quick highlights are fine if there's no objection. >> that's fine. >> okay. so our first one, number one is based on redesign of the work fill process. we currently have an informal process with planning and fire where we don't track the process in our current system. we brought that into the work flow. all of that will be tracked so customers know where their plans are at any time. another good one, number four, a new process to provide 60 day notice, this is similar to what ron mentioned, where we can expire the building permits automatically but we'll give

advance notice so the benefit to our customers is if they're not familiar with the process, they will get notice so they know to extend the permits. that won't get expired out from under them. number six, we improved and simplified the implementation of the third party inspections. we'll have a better way of tracking all that process through the software. number seven, we're able to apply for no plan alterations and roofing permits via the web. so those are where we were restricted to electrical and plumbing, we'll be extending those permits through the web as well. number 10, code enforcement will be coming into the same module. all of our complaints are going to be following the same type of

formats. our benefit is the management of the whole process, everything is going to be very similar. >> commissioner walker please. >> will issue notices of violation rest in that as well? >> in the complaints. >> great. thank you. >> number 14, our night noise permit for construction will be formally recorded. those will be in the system. and our online inspection scheduling will be extended to the public and not just licensed professionals. right now homeowners are only to schedule those through ibr or contacting staff. they can do it through the web as well. those are the highlights for those. we'll present new ones as each month goes by but i think these process improvements are something we can take pride in and it's an important part of the reporting. any questions?

>> i think that's a good update. thank you. >> appreciate it. >> all good news. >> any public comment on item 7? >> jerry dratler. it's promising to see them taking advantage in the accela system. i see they're in the process of finalizing report specifications. my question relates to, one, establishing b.i.c. reporting objectives to allow b.i.c. to monitor management and provide statistics on questions like hoarding, abandoned property, stalled construction projects and descriptive statistics on serial permit violators.

accela is an enterprise or city wide system and therefore there should be department objectives, board of supervisor, district reporting objectives and citizen reporting objectives. can these reporting objectives, not the reports, be presented and reviewed in a future b.i.c. meeting. thank you. >> that's a great point. >> any additional public comment? seeing none. director's report, update on d.b.i. finances. >> good afternoon commissioners. deputy director for the

department of building inspection. october 2017, year to date financial report which includes revenues and expenses for the first four months of the fiscal year. i'll take a couple of minutes to go over the highlights. on the first page, we have projections as to budget so you don't see differences right now because the numbers are preliminary. it's only the first quarter, barely the first quarter of the fiscal year, we just projected to the budget. we'll start making more accurate projections on revenues and expenses after six months. northernly normally we have a better understanding. basically we're at 21 million and we continue revenues are still strong. and that's due primarily to increases, continued increases in checking revenue.

we're doing well there. also if you look at the table, we're doing well when it comes to evaluation. you'll see we have a lot of permits, a million and over, our change is about 700 million and during the reporting time we had a couple of big projects that came in once again. we're seeing more and more big projects coming in and it's impacting evaluation. on the expenditure side, we're a little less than last year but still about equal. $200,000 less. that's primarily due to work order billings we have not received. so once again, the numbers are preliminary. we'll start seeing a real pattern probably by december and make a better estimate of what we believe the revenues and expenses will be. i'm happy to answer questions. >> seeing none. thank you. >> item 8 b. update on proposed or recently

enacted state or local legislation. >> good afternoon. just mentioned a little update on tier three mandatory seismic retro fits. we have noticed with notice violations and the earthquake warning plaquards now, 218 non compliant buildings. so from the last report i gave you, we had been at about 364 non compliant buildings, we had roughly 40 come in in the last six weeks or so. and we're about 66% through the code enforcement initial round of notification.

once the notice goes up, the owner has an additional 30 days to come in and respond and make the building compliant. maybe by the time of our december report, we'll have better news on the compliance side of things. the only other item i will mention is that supervisor peskin is reworking updating the slope protection act that he original authored in 2008, our office is working with his staff on that right now. he is going to reintroduce that item and i believe he knew understands the department's argument that came from the code advisory committee that the older map from 1974 that includes a hand drawn boundary and creates all kinds of dispute potential is likely to be removed and will go to a digital

map that we are actually already using with the planning department. so i think that improvement will be with us very soon. and also i'll mention, as i think i mentioned before, we're working on the mandatory accessibility improvements and this building entrance program. we now have a finalized initial mailer that will be going out to approximately 10,000 of the estimated 20-25,000 different property owners we think may be in this titlely likely pool. we hope to get that mailing out in the next week or two. and then the department will begin holding public workshops to help explain this to property owners, along with colleagues from dpw and the mayor's office of disability and the planning department.

so with that, i'm happy to take any questions. >> seeing none. thank you. >> item 8 c. update on major projects. >> tom hui department of building and inspection. as you can see, the value for the major project goes down roughly 5% but still okay i think. any question? >> just to reinforce to make sure we have all the policies and new guidelines we're working on, the interim control, new buildings coming down the line falling under the category of tall building. >> yeah, we'll have it to work on. >> any of the major projects, let's be ahead of the curve making sure they're following the interim policies. >> what about issue the tco, we

ask them to do it. >> yeah. thank you. >> great. 8 d. >> good afternoon commissioners. the numbers for october, building inspections performed 6044. complaints received 400. complaint response 24-48 hours, 371. complaints first violation sent 69. abaited complaints with notice of violation 65. second notice of violations 65. housing inspection performed 1,042. complaints received 335.

complaint response 321 within 24-48 hours. complaints of notice with violations issued 150. number of cases sent to directors hearing 33. routine inspections 219. code enforcement number of cases sent to director's hearing 132. number of order of abatements issued 40. number of cases under advisement, 16. code enforcement inspections performed 190 and no litigation committee in october. >> thank you. deputy director. >> any public comment on the director's report?

item nine. review and approval of the meeting of october 18, 2017. >> move to approve. >> second. >> there's a motion and second. any public comment on the minutes? are all commissioners in favor? >> aye. >> any opposed? the minutes are approved. our next item, item d, discussion of annual performance evaluation for the director. is there any public comment on prior to going to closed session? seeing no public, is there a motion to convene a closed session? >> i make a motion to convene in closed session. >> second. >> all commissioners in favor. >> aye. >> we're now in closed session. >> deputy city attorney robb

kapla. we met in closed discussion to discuss items 10 and 11 and move to reopen in open session. >> thank you. is there a motion to reconvene open session? >> move to reconvene. >> second. >> motion and second. we're now in open session. commissioners. >> mission accomplished. so thank you for your patience on the review. we should be more efficient in getting them done and set a more regular schedule to get ahead of that. thank you, thank you for your service and all your hard work. >> thank you. so we -- are we done or? >> move to adjourn. >> next item, adjournment. motion to adjourn? >> move to adjourn. >> motion to adjourn. >> second, we're now adjourned.

it is 12:50 p.m. >> thank you madam secretary. >> thank you. ♪

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>> being a pedestrian in san francisco is not easy for anybody. >> [inaudible] people push tables and chairs outside the sidewalk. >> i have to be careful not to walk the sidewalk. it is very hard. >> sometimes people get half way across the intersection. >> you have to be alert because there is always something coming up that you need to know about. >> i learned to listen to the traffic patterns. sometimes i notice the other

pedestrians, they are crossing, on occasion, i have decided i'm going to cross, too. i get to the middle of the intersection, and i find out that the light has changed. >> we need to be able to work and go from one place to the other and have public transportation. the world needs to be open. >> people on disability has the task of addressing all the disability. when we are talk about the sidewalks, ramps, we have very specific issues. for people blind and low vision, we have the issue of knowing where they are and when the cross. it can be hit or miss.

>> at hulk and grove, that sound the the automatic -- it helps people cross the street safely. >> now we have a successful pedestrian signal. >> i push the button, i get an audible message letting me know that i need to wait. when it is safe to cross, not only am i going to get an audible indicator, this button is going to vibrate. so it tells me it is safe. there is the driller sound and this trigger is vibrating. i am not relying on anything but the actual light change,

the light cycle built into it. >> it brings san francisco from one of the major cities in the u.s. to what is going to be the lead city in the country. >> city working on all sorts of things. we are trying to be new and innovative and go beyond the ada says and make life more successful for people.

>> disability rights movement, the city has the overall legal obligation to manage and maintain the accessibility and right of way. with regards to the curb ramps, bounded by a groove border, 12-inch wide border. for people with low vision to get the same information. the shape of the domes, flush transition between the bolt bottom of the ramp and gutter. >> we have a beveled transition on the change in level, tape on the surfaces, temporary asphalt to fill in level changes, flush transition to temporary wood

platform and ramp down into the street under the scaffoldinging. detectable ramps. they are all detectable. nothing down below or protruding that people are going to get snagged up on. smooth clean that nobody is going get caught up on. >> our no. 1 issue is what we see here, the uplifting and shreufting to concrete due too street tree roots. here is another problem we have with street trees. if i have i was a person blind, this would be an uncomfortable

way to find out. >> we don't want to create hazards. >> sometimes vendors put sidewalk cafes where people push the chairs too far out. >> sometimes it can be impassable. so much foot traffic that there is no room for a wheelchair or walker to go by. >> san francisco is a lively street life, it can be an issue with people with visual disabilities as well. they have these diverting barriers on other side of this tables and chairs area. if people can find thraeur way around it without getting

tangled up, it is still fully accessible. >> we don't want anything special. we want people to basically adhere to the regulations and laws as they are on the books now. people can also, just be cognizant if they have stuff on the street, they thaoed to have 48 inches so we can pass, think outside your own spectrum of yourself that there are other people you need to share the sidewalk with. we will all get along better. >> although san francisco is a hilly place for a whraoel chair user, we seem to be better at most. that doesn't mean we can't continue to improve upon

ourselves. >> the public has a clear are -- of travel. we can't be every to make sure that is the place. we have to rely on the place. call 311. give them your name. that goes into a data base. >> it is difficult, still, um to make the case that the disabled community isn't being represented. in some ways we are not. we have a long way to go. >> the city of san francisco is using the most innovative technology available. these devices allow people to remain out in their communities, doing things like shopping. it is great to be able to walk as a pedestrian in this city and cross streets safely.