documented and approved by the planning department. penalties. two times penalty is based on the valuation of the work performed in access of what was approved. so if the number is $10,000 just for example and they do an extra $1,000, it's two times based on the 1,000. it's limited and that's what the code allows for. we can't go beyond our code. those are the tools we have. the nine times of course is -- we hardly see this, but when somebody were to go out there and completely tear down a building and have no permit at all. i don't know if i have ever seen that. monetary penalties as we're saying are typically small based on work valuations. what does add to the penalties

is the code enforcement fees and orders of abatement, that takes it into thousands of dollars for assessment of code enforcement. referral to the city attorney for litigation and possible financial penalty, we have evidence of that here. our unlawful demolition code prohibits the project from proceeding for five years, in consideration of 317 of the planning code, where there's a bit of a contractor. i think what's important to understand about our code section regarding unlawful demolition, it states when no demolition permit is in place, the unlawful demolition and five years would kick in. but just bear in mind, these jobs have significant permits. they have -- hopkins had a

650,000 permit. there was demolition shown on it. i would suggest the unlawful demo is probably more tailored to the guy who gets the kitchen remodel permit and takers down the building. he has no demolition permit whatsoever. these guys have significant permits. they go beyond the scope, we stop them, we send them back to the agency that approved the amount of demo they could perform. and they're back in the wheelhouse. that's how i get my mind around that. planning department, again, i don't want to overstep what i should be saying here, but the planning department usually opens a case and assesses their

own penalties. often referred to as a de facto demo by planning. they talk about section 317 of the planning code for dwelling unit removal. 317 in the planning code talks about removal by merger or demolition or what not. planning is substantial fair in this. it requires a mandatory review hearing regarding demos and that's what you end up with with the de facto demo. that's how it goes. >> to that point, the planning commission hearing happens after planning has done their due diligence and could be in there for the long periods you talked about. >> yeah. >> and at that point, that's when the applicant gets their

opportunity to take in front of the planning commission and hear what they propose to do, is that correct? >> that's correct. it is declared as a de facto demo and done enforcement work, etc cetera and goes to the planning commission. i have experiences with projects that are three years into this. in one case it's three years in. >> but once again, we have no input on that -- >> not in the planning process. >> no input -- would you be broad enough to testify at the planning commission and give your interpretation as to how it was -- >> it's possible. i haven't been. >> have any of them -- d.b.i. been asked to bring their point of view as to how gregious it

is. >> as stakeholders in the process, i think we often get blamed for the whole process, i'm asking as a matter of record, have we been asked to a planning commission on a demolition but it's decided and agreed upon and comes back. that's where you're going with this, right? >> we have not been asked. no. >> okay. commissioner walker. >> i have a couple of questions about this part of it. that is, meanwhile, after all of what we do and planning does, there's this thing hanging in the middle of the air. so are we able to -- because i do think that money talks. and i think that the more we

really like deal with the consequences of this where it belongs, the more we will avoid of it happening. we should be charging a daily maximum of whatever. that's the problem is that -- we hear it sometimes in our cases it's at planning and we can't do anything. meanwhile we all have to suffer with this -- i mean, i don't mean to harp on it. you probably agree with me. let us know what we need to do to make the penalties real enough that it disways people and they don't choose to do this process of asking for forgiveness and not permission. looking at this, i would probably do the same thing. if you're going to tell me the wall was bad anyway --

>> there's a process surrounding that. >> i would hope so. >> the planning department requires soundness reports and people don't just -- should not take down any of these portions of a building that are substandard without providing d.b.i. and planning with the necessary documents to show that, or to confirm that. >> yeah, i agree. and also, it does seem like we count on complaints a lot. so my question is, do we need to reevaluate like what district supervisors do and at least driving by serial offenders, we know who they are. i mean -- if we don't, our new system will let us figure out who routinely goes beyond the scope. and that should be something -- in any other condition if you get one speeding ticket, it's one amount, the judge makes it more next time. >> i totally agree with that.

if we are aware of, you know, what's coming down the pike, we can get ahead of it and get out there and request mandatory start of work inspection, i think that's a big deal. if we get out there and say regarding your scope of work and make it something like a project of valuation more than 400,000, create a definition towards it and say that because you have this permit that shows demolition and it's more than 400k, we need to get out there ahead of time so we can figure out -- i'm going back to the we get the complaint and go out there and -- >> we don't do -- >> we don't know the permit has been issued as inspectors. we get the complaint and go out there and it's gone.

>> interesting. >> any way that we can all figure out a way that we can get ahead of this is good and be out there before some of this stuff happens. >> commissioner lee has one question. >> the subject is very complicated i think. and i think you explained very well a lot of reasons why people may exceed the scope or demolished more than they should have. but i want to ask a basic question and then follow up with a possible idea. in your experience on the ones where people exceed the scope of work and demolish more than they should have, do you find people or the contractor or the permit holder wants to replace back what was there or do they want

to change the project, meaning are they going to move walls around and add rooms and stuff like that. >> well, i mean when they get caught of course they want to put it back the way it was. then they know they have a problem, right? so -- i think most of this is well intended. they're looking at structural drawings and seeing a wall or a floor or a roof that needs to be upgraded and most of the times, the contractor is likely to spend more time doing the physical work than going into the nitty gritty of what the drawings show on the different pages and stuff like that. i'm not making an excuse for them. they should. so to your question, they do take it upon themselves to do some additional work. but i think it's probably well intended. >> if it's well intended, do

those projects need to go back to planning? >> yes, absolutely. well intended or not, they exceeded the scope of the permit and calculations on the permit. >> let's say if that rule wasn't there, could our department handle it and say you have to build it back the way it was? >> i think we would need for different reasons, we would need to document whatever it is they're doing. if they've clearly gone beyond the scope of the permit, they will need another permit to document -- >> i'm just looking for some way of resolving these type of problems quickly and maybe instead of having these projects go back to planning, stop right here at the building department -- and built back what they demolished. i mean, if that's the case, that might solve a lot of the issues with the neighborhoods. i mean, this will keep the project going, right? instead of having it go back to

planning -- >> we probably would need to engage the planning department in the discussion. >> and i -- i can see a lot of issues that you're going to have with that because the whole point of this is removal of something that shouldn't have been removed. that shouldn't have happened anyhow. >> we've had instances of -- >> putting it back -- >> the neighbor's looking at the old ball hanging in the air -- >> good question. i want to push it along once again and be cognizant of the people who want to make public comment. >> inspector challenges, i call it the 911 call, we go out there and the work has taken place. the portion of the building, there's no undoing that. the contractor hasn't scheduled to start a work inspection. after shutting down the job, the neighbors file complaints about

security, graffiti, squatters, it causes more impact on the neighborhood. there's a picture on the overhead of a project back in 2006. it has netting and everything else and the neighbors are complaining and you can see the graffiti and everything else. it's not a good thing when that happens and it does happen. shoring to preserve walls, roofs can lead to potentially unsafe conditions for workers. discussion, penalties based on the current building code -- may not be -- this is just what i'm brainstorming here. penalties may not be severe enough to stop the practice of excessive demolition. if a significant monetary penalty was in place, it might make it prohibitive to engage in grossly exceeding -- this is an

area for the board of supervisors, not here. and referral of mi srepresentation and preventing the occurrences. conclusion, d.b.i. stops the work on the projects as soon as they are identified. penalties are assessed as mandated and allowed by the san francisco building code. the planning department based on criteria reviews a new set of permit documents and eventually approved or disapproves a project. based on substantial monetary penalties could make it prohibited to engage in the misrepresentation. i may have doubled up on that

one. sorry. if you want to ask about that, that's fine. and we're open for q and a if you have further questions. >> thank you for the presentation. do you want to make comment and then commissioners we can go to public comment and then -- >> joel duffy, senior public inspector, i don't have much to add, patrick's presentation is pretty good with everything on there. just a couple of points, i'm glad to be discussing this issue. the article in the media was obviously there and historic things referenced and stuff like that. it's about time we're here discussing this. we've been dealing with this at d.b.i. for many, many years. these projects are very complex. we had one a couple years ago

that fell down a hill, we all know about that one and what happened and accusations were thrown around and stuff. all of these permits are form 3's. that means they're taken in, about a three year review and the work will start. maybe you might get it in a year, but between one and two years for approval on these types of projects. they go through scrutiny with the planning department to meet 317 of the planning code. we have a sheet here from a set of plans, the demolition calculations are per 317 of the planning code. they need to meet those to get the project through. as patrick said, they go ahead and do that. they're not over the contract permits, they're taken in and reviewed and usually horizontal, vertical addition. they're big projects. there's notification and hearings and appeals.

there's quite a lot of scrutiny on them. the penalty on the two times, we would say to increase it. but i have heard developers say fine me. how much are you going to fine them, $100,000. is that a lot of money on a project like this? maybe not. it's very difficult. for us penalties might be the way to go butting getting ahead of it would help us. a pre-construction meeting would be helpful and getting the contractor, the person doing the work most responsible. the architect, engineer, need to be telling the contractor, it took me almost a year to get this through planning, don't take those walls down. guess what, dbr are going to put me through the process of the demolition project that could hold it up three or four years.

the penalties -- whether we do for them or send you back to planning, you can be sure this project is going to sit stopped for a long time. so that's a penalty in itself and a nightmare for us as well. then we start to get the complaints from neighbors saying there's rats, there's people sleeping in here, there are break-ins, the tarps are going i can't sleep. 2006 we did a stop work order on that, an unlawful demolition hearing, i took photographs last week, they're in rough framing stage in 2017. that was going to be a four story two unit building, if that's not a loss, that's encouraging the housing shortage. we need to think about the consequences of that. obviously that was an odd one because there are three owners but no one wants to touch them

when they're stopped like that. there's a lot of good contractors out there, i get contacted and they want us to come out. we look at plans and wall says to remain, patrick touched on this, but a new foundation is required. that might be six feet tall, 12 inches deep. half the bottom wall is gone but on the plans it shows they have to meet 317. you're dealing with that as well. patrick talked about the walls, sometimes by the time you open the walls up, maybe someone has done a remodel without the permit and studs are at 32 inches at center, there's holes in the siding, it's zero property line wall going against the neighbor's property. that wall has to remain. how do we get around the fact

that the wall has to remain. i have to enforce water proof codes. it certainly has to come down. we're dealing with that constantly. the good contractors will speak to you. sometimes they don't and we're called out and it's too late. >> let me ask a question if i may. when you see that, that you want to replace the wall but it's supposed to remain on the plans, what do you do? >> we issue a correction notice and the planning department are happy to see that. we have said you can't keep it. >> it doesn't just happen out there in the field. >> it shouldn't.

most of the contractors that have a problem with these, they get burnt the second time around they're all over them. sometimes we have to say look, that wall has to remain. lift it up, keep it short, keep it intact, don't demolish it. sometimes we'll get a proposal from them. even on these ones where there's just two walls taken down, i have one, we did a stop work orderer last march for two walls taken down shown to remain. go back to planning and get a revision, the project is still stopped, going before the planning commission in february and the owners are nice people, contractor came in, took down the two walls and we got a complaint and went out and stopped it. so that's -- that's what we do. can you imagine -- i've had homeowners crying on the phone to me because their project has

been stopped. some contractor didn't pay attention. and a lot of times it's unfortunate circumstances that cause this and not all is rouge contractor. sometimes it's just somebody not paying close enough attention to the drawings. >> i get that, but if it happens over and over with the same contractor -- that's what i'm saying, doing this concept of mandatory inspection before you start work on certain projects -- and more in the field review of folks who -- i don't know how we do that. that's up to the city attorney to determine and board of supervisors if there's more strict process but it may be something we can do internally. >> i know what you're saying. i would like to think there's not people out there just saying take it down, it's okay.

a lot of the times it's not the case. it's something that we deal with. some of the ones as well, the article talked about historic buildings, demolition, that we were allowing the demolition of historic buildings. 49 hopkins was a property up there, it was shown on the drawings to be demolished and a modern facade put up there. that was part of the demolition. i read some articles and you're probably going to hear it here, some famous architect built that house. that would have been dealt with on the planning department of the review originally. if the project was of historic significance, that would have been dealt with. this is not our job. if you talk to planning section 317, it's in there for the preservation of affordable housing, i think that day is long gone. it's not for affordable housing.

that's why on 49 hopkins you can build a modern looking building but you have to keep the same property line walls that are not to code. it doesn't make sense to a lot of the things we do. they have it suspended in the air, it's not historic. 317 is preserving affordable housing. planning committee is keen to do something about that section and we are as well. >> stay close, i'm sure we'll have questions for you. is that the department's presentation. okay. and -- >> public comment. >> whoever wants to stand over to the side so we can see who is coming. just a reminder to the public, we like to discuss what's on the calendar today and, you know, i'm a little uncomfortable with

other projects being brought in and named. what's in front of us today as much as possible. i do understand the bigger picture. welcome jerry. >> good morning. i handed out a schedule that summarizes 10 serious code violations by a single structural engineer, rodriguez santos. the building inspection commission needs to address the problem. the department of building inspections weak building code enforcement emboldened developers. developer tim brown removed a three story bay and chimney on 17th avenue without a permit in

2016 and in 2017 demolished 45 hopkins avenue, a house designed by prominent architect. a serial violator who submitted false plans for 241 state street are not disciplined or fined. why doesn't d.b.i. submit a penalty for false architectural plans. why are they not forwarded to the structural engineering licence office. the statement frequently made by d.b.i. and planning department employees that the time delay a developer experiences in getting their project approved because of their illegal actions is penalty enough is nonsense.

this is like saying the drunk driver who crashes their car should not be ticketed and fined because the loss of their car is penalty enough. the newest system will not fix these problems. it is my hope that building inspection committee can develop a work plan to address these problems with specific objectives and due dates. a good first step is ask director hui to compare to the current code enforcement process. i would like to make one comment, i think there's a mis representation going on here. many happen before the permit department permit is submitted. then it's like wow, this thing

ain't here. don't jam them together and say they're one thing when they purposely pars them so they're not. >> thank you. >> good afternoon commissioners. i have been practicing 38 years and i want to get to 40 years, a year and five months. most of my comments will have no affect on me, i'll probably be retired. the unlawful demolition in the building code was written in the 80s to deal with not intention of this use. that's all there is. that doesn't make it good. 317 is intended to preserve affordable and historic buildings written with a set of calculations that the planning department developed. you have planning definition and

building definition. it doesn't work. and d.b.i. goes out three months after the permit is issued. it's too late. there needs to be a joint workshop in rewriting the two codes so they integrate and work. and the people who are going to enforce them will be in that room to get something that actually works. coming out after the permit is issued, it's gone, it's too late. they talk about a pre-construction site visit, no, it has to be before the permit is issued, there needs to be the building inspector out there, the contractor, the architect, the engineer and possibly the owners so they're all there and there's no finger pointing between your plans show this, something else. you have to integrate the structural drawings with the

site drawings, they're different sets of drawings and the inspector there three months later, there's a piece of wall in the air and i'm concerned we're going to kill someone one of these days when the piece falls. we have to rewrite it and this is a big statement but we need to rethink code enforcement. thinking the building inspector can deal with this, he has 15 minutes, running between projects. the senior, no. we need to have a dedicated staff person to address these issues, someone trained to deal with referrals to state agencies, issues like integrating between planning. these are complicated cases and the people on the other side are very good at these issues. so if we can rethink how we do code enforcement, we'll solve the issues before they get so bad it's what do you do.

anyway, thank you. >> good morning i'm marianne dresner to speak about 248 state street and i'm speaking to embellished to what this individual said. it's another property in which santos provided false plans that enabled developers to far exceed permits. the project was presented to neighbors as an interior remodel of avenue 1912 remodelled single family building. the property owners claimed only one plan was made, to enclose two balconies in front of the building and asked for support to do that.

permission was granted with no neighborhood objection. nevertheless, the building was soon put on risers and a tree on the street was removed, the house was completely gutted. in november 2014, bulldozers began carving at the foundation. tons of bedrock was hauled away and the entire foundation was removed. all street level walls were demolished, including a foundational wall next door without advanced notice to adjacent neighbors. d.b.i. was contacted and stop work order was issued in december 2014. at that time neighbors became aware of plans that had been fabricated by rodriguez santos that there was a basement garage

when no ground level space existed. this work done without permits caused damage to neighbors of mine who live immediately adjacent to the property. it is their opinion and mine that if there were more penalties in the terms of more money that were assessed when people that are property owners vastly exceed the scope of their permits, this is less likely to occur. it would be somewhat of a deterrent. thank you. >> good morning. i live at 18th avenue directly behind 25 17th avenue. i first became aware of the

issue with what the construction going on at 25 17th avenue when i was invited to a neighborhood meeting less than a year ago. and came to find out that the developer tim brown with his structural engineer santos pulled a permit to do foundation repair on that building. instead of just doing foundation repair, they demolished a bay and deck that surrounded the property. and the staff has implied that some of these people are pulling permits and accidently doing work that exceeded the permits and that's not the case in this situation. i have some familiarity with the process of permitting and dealing with the department of building inspection, i was a developer in san francisco and i've had two permit experiences in my home, one of which required a neighborhood meeting. when i went to the neighborhood

meeting, the developer treated us with zero respect, they had no architectural drawings and lied about the number of square feet and treated us like we didn't matter because they believed they had relationships with the department of building inspection and we were irrelevant to their process. that's what is going on in the city. these people think they can ask for forgiveness instead of permission and it works. mr. santos and mr. brown have been fined about the same if you parked in a bus stop. something needs to be done to enforce the laws of the city. they're serial violators and showing no respect for the law in this city. it's incumbent upon you to do your jobs and enforce the code and respectfully request you do that. >> thank you for your comments.

>> my name is kathryn. due to a fluke, conditional use lot merger 841 chestnut decided the illegally demolished was on the planning commission agenda august 21st. planning commission made a decision. we decided to appeal that decision to the board of supervisors. we appealed on december 5th. that was the result -- the result of that was the chronicle article with other areas mentioned. the problem is what went wrong, why did the city's safeguards

fail to protect a historic building. the penalties in the building and planning code, the lack of coordination and communication between the department of building inspection and the planning department. the lack of comprehensive, transparent and publicly accessible process and the absence of penalties for such demolition that would dissway them of the cost of doing business and my personal recommendation, serial contractors and developers should be barred, barred from doing construction in the county of san francisco for five years. it's not a financial penalty. get them out of the city and let them go some place else. in the excellent summary of the project at 841 chestnut, planning director john ram and i

sincerely request you consider reading this details the flawed process and between 2012 when the property was purchased for $4 million and 2016 where the property was appraised for about $30 million and yes there was a $400,000 fine but that's the cost of doing business, john ram details 21 permits on the property. 21 permits -- one after another and the response is the planning department and building inspection are noted, it's evident from the permit history that approvals were based on incomplete, insufficient or inconsistent information and plans which call into question the adequacy and professionalism of both the planning department

and the building inspection department. and as far as we're concerned, what we really need to know is if the remaining historic cottage still exists. nothing is mentioned of that. >> thank you for your comments. >> president mccarthy, director hui, i'm joe butler, an architect, hired in 2003 to look at chestnut, it was designed for the widow of the judge, the guest cottage referred to was a separate structure built after the earthquake and fire as probably temporary house for judge wright's widow and his and her daughter. later they subdivided the lot and built the main house. the main house is the historic resource that was demolished by the contractor.

in 2014 as we understand, the permit submittals came as a result of a new owner from 2002. so 12 years later, somehow magically that planning approval stayed in place. that planning approval was sent to restore and retain -- i'm trying to think of the right word, preserve the existing northeast and west facades. so in winter 2014, the neighbors began to complain in the early winter of 2015, a neighbor said the front wall of the building which was to be preserved was hanging in space. this call came to d.b.i. so the investigative process we saw moments ago would have had d.b.i. on site and planning notified that this permit is now

suspended, notice of violation, stop work. no. no. no. the building -- the contractor told the building department it was rotten and needed to be taken down. the building department took it upon themselves to keep every permit application submitted after that fact to themselves. joe duffy took one of them in. a permit to alter a building that is going to remove all the framing and he didn't catch that -- it went to the building departme department officials joe duffy thought it should go to. it didn't go to planning and then who cleans it up, do the qc on it. if you look at the structural drawings that call for the framing to be new and the

preservation of existing historic building, you know you have a problem. why didn't d.b.i. know they had a problem? this was in the winter of 15 and by the summer of 15, that building was gone. we're not talking about a wall left. we're talking gone. planning was notified. it took them 6 months to drive two miles to hear out the complaint. >> thank you next speaker please. >> good morning commissioners, neighborhood council. before i go through my preferred comments about 49 hopkins, i just want to take issue with some of the presentations and what was said, we're not talking about section 317, a planning code. we're here discussing the building code definition of demolition. there is such a thing. granted it's not the same as

section 317 and maybe that is a problem. we would like to harmonize the definition of building department demolition and the planning department demolition. however, the cases that we are discussing today under item seven, these are demolitions. they're not outrageous demolitions. they're illegal demolitions and you do have penalties for them. we're not talking about monetary penalties, we're talking about what is in the code. which is five year moratorium or building the building with the same square footage as it existed. in the case of 49 hopkins we're talking about 927 square feet and after the developers busted for making an illegal demolition, the case goes back to the planning department but my question is this, what about the penalty? there is such a thing on the

building code that poses penalties for illegal demolition. my experience with 49 hopkins is, the day after the article was published, i was alerted to a meeting being held at 49 hopkins with the neighbors. it was raining and frankly i was concerned where i was going to be standing, over the rubble of 49 hopkins. luckily there was a neighbor that gave us her garage. and the meeting was between the project sponsor and neighbors and he was presenting the new plans. yes, the new plans. and the new plans post demolition involve 3500 square feet of luxury dwelling. so the elephant in the room was of course the illegal demolition. so i approached the subject and asked the project sponsor if he was aware of any penalties.

he gave me the usual well, it's penalty enough that we'll have to go through two to three years waiting for our permit. when i asked him who the developer was, he refused to answer. later on we found out that this is the same developer that did 25 17th avenue. surprise, surprise. i didn't know that. what i would like to ask you in the short time i have left, please impose the penalty. force him to go back to 972 square feet. that is only just, especially with serial violators. >> thank you for your comments. >> good morning commissioners. i'm president of the liberty hill neighborhood association

and historic district. we have the privilege of being in two districts, we serve both district nine and district eight. i think much of what's been said has already been said and i support and concur with all of the previous comments here. but i think one of the things that needs to be highlighted that seems to have come out in this hearing is the fact that the planning department and building department need to synchronize or agree on what is a demolition. the fact that we have these two different definitions has already been talked about, but this is really the essence of the problem. the fact that during this past year, the planning department was actually trying to get rid of section 317 in the planning

code, i think sort of speaks to the underpinnings of this problem. as far as historic structures go, there's article 10 with a completely different definition of what consists of a demolition. i think the real issue is get together with planning. it has been talked about in commission hearings, i think it would be great to see something actually begin to happen on that. the problem of enforcement has also been talked about here. it does exist in the building code, five years, go back to the original square footage. not a problem. we need to discourage this. i just wanted to give you some idea of something in district nine. overhead please.

this is the kind of stuff that keeps us up at night. on the left you have this house, you went by a couple years ago, that's what it looked like. now on the right, this is what it looks like. this is exactly the sort of thing that makes us ask what the heck is going on. and we urge planning and d.b.i. to get together on both strengthening enforcement and to come up with a good definition that everybody can use on what is demolition. thanks. >> thank you for your comments. if i see no more speakers -- public comment is closed. commissioners, i open it up to the commissioners and we'll take it from there.

thank you. >> i want to thank all of you in the public for bringing this up -- i mean a lot of us have been involved in these conversations for a long time. i personally think i have been involved in two processes within our department trying to grapple with demolition. i believe there's a bag full of documents in the secretary's office that are the notes from one such grouping probably 10 years ago. i think that the presentation by staff and the recommendations that they included are ones we have talked about and the public would support of revisiting the penalties, having our departments staff work together to come up with actual concrete changes that we can support and

then move on to the board of supervisors. i think that the issue of inspecting before permits are issued is important to determine what's there. i don't know if we have staff to do that, but i think it's something we should be looking at. and i do think the issues of serial or repeat offenders are real. and i know -- i know we don't do -- we rarely do referrals to the state agencies or what not. but it's serious. if people think they can get away with it and know how to gain the system, it seems like they will. and if our response is to just slap hands, it becomes a situation where they will do something and ask for forgiveness instead of doing the right thing. and this, this reflects on us.

i imagine that staff when they notice it don't like it as much as we don't like it here on the commission. so i know we have been trying to schedule a joint meeting with our commissions, the building and planning commission for a while now. i think it's really time. i think both commissions should weigh in, the leadership of the departments needs to have a discussion and set the tone and then ask staffs to work together. we're going to be occupying the same building soon. so i think it's really time for us to act like one department. effectively we are. we deal with development and even though we have different responsibilities, we have the same mission. and so, i think there's enough in here to get going with these kind of meetings and i would encourage us supporting that with our departments. >> thank you.

commissioner warshell please. >> much of what i have to say is reinforcing my colleague's recent comments. discloser, i should mention as well as serving here, i'm president of san francisco victorian alliance, which is preservation organization and so hearing these concerns about demolition of historic properties is more than troubling. it's infuriating. along with all the citizens who contributed to the good journalism that brought the awareness level up on this and the good journalism of the chronicle in making us more

aware of this and bringing it to our attention, these are things i think we cherish and i think we should take this moment as there is no point in time we can now go back and say we're not on notice, that there is something very, very wrong here and we need to address it. all of the concerns about deficiencies in the current legislation, which have insufficient penalties, we need to relook, we need to cooperate and work with our colleagues, such as supervisor peskin who is

fortunately expressed strong interest in getting resolution to strong reform on this. i share the concerns that bad actors that seem to come up frequently seem to do so by being able to write off as minor the repercussions. perhaps if we pursue a much more aggressive set of procedures where by we establish clear records of who these bad actors are, documenting their actions and as we've said, your first offence is one thing, your second offence is tougher and third offence is tougher.

and, you know, maybe it really does become an issue of money doesn't seem to be the big motivator, $400,000 fines, when something goes from 4.5 million to 40-some million. it's something you write off as cost of business. maybe if it's your licence at stake, that's a little more meaningful to you. so i do feel very strongly that we have systematic problems, we have coordination problems between d.b.i., planning and city attorney and legislatures that we need to resolve. the time is now for these cooperative joint meetings to occur.

there really can't be anymore reasons for delay. this is the time to do it. there's no way this can go on as is. if we need permit inspections issued to protect historic properties, we should find out what legislative or code changes are necessary for that sort of thing. we're about to go into our budget cycle. in the past where we've seen

problems, we've looked to fund an independent internal resource who will focus primarily on this problem and make this their sole focus, so i will ask the director when he comes into the budget discussions to consider if funding an independent person in the department to spearhead this effort is something he would consider a good step forward and so for all of the people who have spoken, all the

citizens who have come forward, i thank you sincerely. and i do hope we are able to take this as a very sober time to take a look at systematic problems which can be solved and elements that through bringing all the players together that need to be part of a solution can commence now. thank you. >> thank you commissioner warshell. >> i'll close out comments. obviously thank you all for coming out and having a meaningful conversation about a topic that kind of haunts our building community for many, many years. so i -- mr. duffy, you wanted to say something?

>> just before you finish, joe duffy d.b.i. mr. butler referred to me on a building permit. i want to say it was temporary shoring of a building. those do not go to the planning department. we need to approve them, when it comes to someone on the third floor, we're doing the process and refer to engineers for approval. so the permit he's referencing that i was so wrong on, i was actually right on. a temporary shoring permit. i wanted to correct on that item. >> thank you mr. duffy. i do get it, there's a lot of permits out there. i think in the spirit of the conversation, it's hard to monitor and track, but thank you for clarifying that. >> and just one other thing -- the misrepresentation on plans

is as big of a problem as demolition. i don't know if you're getting all that, that's one of the issues that we deal with a lot. someone shows something in a building as existing that's not there. that's a huge issue for us and that's something that -- i'm a senior building inspector, what do you do with -- like if the city attorney wants to get involved, go ahead. i don't think anybody at d.b.i. will ever object to that. and if you want to change the codon the penalties, go ahead, that's fine as well. we're all for that. >> thank you mr. duffy. in regard to, i would close out the comments here but -- first of all thank you for the speakers coming out and discussing the conversation that was badly needed and it's been an ongoing blackmark for our department we have been trying to deal with for many years and i concur with all commissioner comments on the next steps.