supervisors, keep an eye on for our outstanding employee performance for quarter one and nominate them so we can elect the employee of quarter one 2018 and announce the winner at our april meeting. madame secretary, that includes my announcements. thank you. >> secretary: okay. thank you -- >> president mccarthy: one other thing. i know commissioner warshell wanted to include some comments. >> commissioner warshell: yes. last friday, we had a meeting called by supervisor breed to talk about the mansion, 930 grove, which is one of the city's true treasures that is in derelict condition. i wanted to thank director hui, bill strong for representing the department so well at that meeting. it went from 5:30 supposed to be to 6:30. there was so much interest, it went to 7:00.

and it was very productive for the entire community. and i really appreciate the department's strong show of support and engagement in saving this historic asset. >> president mccarthy: thank you commissioner warshell for your comments. that concludes the comments. >> secretary: is there any public comment on the president's announcement? seeing none, item three. general public comment. the b.i.c. will take public comment comment that are not part of this agenda. no general public comment. item four, election of b.i.c. president and vice president. >> president mccarthy: thank you, madame secretary. as it is believe it or not this time of the year again. we are as traditionally late on getting this done. i think we are supposed to do it in january. if there's no further comment on this, i would like to nominate

once again commissioner walker for the vice chair seat. if i could get a second on that? >> second. >> secretary: so, there's a motion and a second for vice president. we have to do it separately or together? the item is listed together so we could do it both. >> i would like to nominate angus mccarthy for president? >> second. >> president mccarthy: thank you again and thank you for your confidence in both of us. thank you. >> secretary: we have motion to continue with president angus mccarthy as president and deb what walker as vice president. is there public comment on this item? seeing none, do we do a roll call vote?

>> president mccarthy: yes. >> commissioner walker: yes. >> vice president gilman: yes. >> commissioner warshell: yes. >> secretary: motion carries unanimously. congratulations to you both. [applause] >> secretary: our next item is item five. commissioners questions and matters. inquiries to staff. at this time, commissioners may make inquiries to staff that are of interest to the commission. >> president mccarthy: vice chair walker. >> commissioner walker: thank you so much and thank you for the confidence in our continued leadership of the commission. i would like to put on a future agenda just an update from our department about noticing tenants, especially in the case of seismic upgrades. i have heard from the public that there might be some issues

where tenants aren't being properly noticed about these issues. so, if we could put it on a future agenda, that would be helpful. >> president mccarthy: okay. and commissioner gilman. >> tom, do you have a question? >> no. >> i was hoping when we have our joint b.i.c. meeting coming up, that the issue we were confronted with today around folks moving through the planning process while having notices of violations and abatements kind of what that interplay is so we could get a better understanding. done landlord comes to us staying that might stall or stop their process. i'm hoping that could be an item for our joint meeting which i believe is this spring. >> commissioner walker: i think we have something on there about code enforcements. >> president mccarthy: i will try and -- absolutely.

understood. i know that commission meeting and commissioner walker will back me up on this will be specific to a few details but i'm sure we could tie it in. >> secretary: thank you. item b, future meetings and agendas. at this time, the commission may discuss and take action to set the date of a special meeting and determine those items that could be placed on the agenda. our next regular meeting will be on march 21st. and that's the end of item five. is there any public comment on item five? seeing none. we move on to item six. discussion and possible action to approve and swear in a member of the board of examiners general contractor seat. appointment recommended by the nomination committee is bahman ghassemzadeh. >> yes. commissioner breed and i met

with mr. ghassemzadeh and were very impressed by his qualifications. he's worked on a variety of projects, large and small. he has an impressive academic background. a degree from cal poly. and i have to also say i have witnessed his work on 708, 710 buchanon and was very impressed by how he reached out to the community, how he executed and got a good final result. so, for all of these reasons, we feel he is very qualified. we noted his knowledge in green building and so we are fully recommending him to take this seat. >> if the commissioners have no

questions, i would like to move that we nominate mr. ghassemzadeh to the b.o.e. seat general contractor's seat. >> secretary: there's a motion. is there a second? >> second. >> secretary: is there any public comment on the item? seeing none, we will do the roll call vote. president mccarthy in vice president walker? commissioner gilman, commissioner konstin and lee? the motion carries unanimously. would you like to come forward?

come down and i will read the oath of office for you. >> please repeat after me. i bahman ghassemzadeh. >> i bahman ghassemzadeh. >> do solemnly swear that i will support and defend the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of california against all enemies, foreign and domestic. that i will bear true faith and allegiance to the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of california. that i take this obligation freely, without any mental reservations or purpose of evasion and that i will well and faithfully discharge the duties on which i'm about to enter and

during such time as i hold office of a member of the board of examiners general contractor seat, city and county of san francisco. congratulations. >> thank you so much. [applause] >> i would like to say a few words. i would just like to thank all of you. i appreciate the vote of confidence and the seat. >> thank you. thank you for serving. >> secretary: next item is item seven. discussion and possible action regarding a proposed ordinance. board of supervisors file number 180054, waving and refunding investigation fees imposed by building code 107 for persons

registered with the office of cannabis. >> director of the office of cannabis. thank you for having me here today. thank you for continuing this item one week. i'm feeling much better. so, i appreciate the week reprieve. just to briefly refresh your memories. back in september of last year, the city commenced what we termed as a registration process for existing nonretail and delivery cannabis operators to come forward and make themselves and their activities known to the city. because of this process, the city is now working to move a little less than 250 activities, distribution, testing and delivery into a legal marketplace. at its heart, this registration process was meant to serve as kind of a quasi amnesty process for the operators. and bringing the operators out of the shadows and move them to a regulated and compliance

space. this is the only way to make a legal marketplace work and it is in the best interests of public and consumer safety to do this. i want to give a special shout-out to your inspectors, particularly david, cheryl rose and maurice hernandez, who have served as fantastic partners in this process as has our fire marshal who is here as well. while i'm sure they have thousands of inspections under their belts, my office in particular appreciates their participation in these team life safety inspections of those operators who registered their activities. the process of these inspections is nothing close to normal in the context of everyday city business, but proven to be helpful in addressing life safety issues that are apparent at the time of inspection and getting many of these spaces, most which have numerous violations, that prioritizes

operators. at a time when the city has prioritized moving operators into a highly regulated market and when complying with many new operating standards of that regulatory market, all trying to bring a space up to code is no easy financial feat. we would like to see every operator focus their financial resources on meeting these new standards. not on paying a punitive fee that was not intended to be part of this amnesty process. the purpose of our office and supervisor sheehy bringing this ordinance to you today is because we seek to match our actions to the spirit and intent of this process. again, thank you for reviewing this ordinance today and on behalf of myself and the supervisor, we respectfully request your support and i'm happy to answer any questions.

>> vice chair walker. >> commissioner walker: thank you for coming back. i fully support the concept of this. i have a couple of questions. do we have a projection of what the financial effect of this might be? have we looked at that? >> deputy director inspection services, ed sweeney. we will be getting fees for the permits. this is just to waive the notice of -- we had no way of doing it because the building code wouldn't allow us. i recognize we are trying to legalize an industry. we had a flyer two weeks ago in one of the groves. this person just took off. the owner of the property has never seen him again. that's what we're trying to do.

trying to bring these people in, make them have safe places and try to make it a little easier on them. like i said, we have had fires. we've had various things over the years with these groves. if we have a way forward to legalize them, i'm all for it. financially, the department is prepared to sacrifice. we will be getting some fees for when they come in and get the permits to make this right. so, it's not like we're not going to get any money. just we won't be getting the penalties. >> president mccarthy: commissioner gilman. >> vice president gilman: it seems like it would be nominal from where i sit. but since we just passed the budget and sent it to the board of supervisors for next fiscal year. could you just say if i was in a warehouse and receiving a notice of violation, what might a fee be?

>> it is usually electrical. >> vice president gilman: say i have a electrical error, what would my fine possibly be? >> right now we've done 61 sites. these are from last week. so, we're a little farther ahead. penalties paid, b.i.c. will be getting that money back. $6,200 and penalties not paid it is not huge. >> vice president gilman: okay. it is nominal and to legalize this and make people safe. i'm in support. >> president mccarthy: commissioner walker and then commissioner lee. >> commissioner walker: i think it is prudent for us to anticipate this. it looks like it will pay for staff going forward permitting this. we've wanted to encourage this for a long time. so, i think it's well worth waiving the punitive fees to encourage doing this. i also want to point out that there is a sunset provision that

allows for reinstating these after december of this year. december 21st. so, assuming that that's enough time to encourage all of these to be legal, it's a little late starting. so we could always relook at that. but i think that that's an important thing to encourage quick action on their part and hope we can put this out as a press action so that people understand. because there's 61 you know about. >> well, there's a few we've done so far. >> commissioner walker: yeah. so, we want to education everyone in the city to take advantage of this for fire safety. [please stand by for captioner switch]

. >> and then, miss elliott will send it to the state, and they'll get their papers. >> okay. so if they don't do that, then, the fees don't get waived.

is that it? >> i hadn't thought about in th that -- i can't imagine them not thinking about this. >> right. we have -- >> perfect. >> so we -- every operator who registered their activity will have a file. that file will be closed. that closure will indicate they are no longer involved in that activity or they are moving into that regulated space. we're tracking all of them very closely. >> okay. thank you. >> and you know -- this mostly deputy sweeney, and i think this is important -- this kind of in my opinion very good government, when you introduce new policies and stuff, sometimes, you just have to take -- help people to come out of the shadows and kind of pass legislation, and it might be other stuff that we're looking at down the road, but it's brought out at the staff meeting that sometimes these

are necessary. i know they went out to do their job -- >> quite a bit of these operators had gotten permits, had done the work. they just didn't say it was for cannabis. >> but it's important that it's a clear message sent to staff, that what we ask them to do these, it's -- it's to bring them out of the shadows. >> we have a system that we're doing every day. it's the same three inspectors. we get a lot of support from public health, fire department, and planning. it's going quite well, and i don't know how many total there are, but we're certain on the path to get there. >> but you understand my point. >> yes. >> okay. thank you. >> commissioner walker -- vice chair walker. >> either way. i move to support this legislation. >> second. >> i have a motion and a second to approve this legislation.

is there any public comment? seeing none, i'll do a roll call vote. [ roll call. ] >> okay. motion carries unanimously. okay. item 8, update regarding the permitting process on housing units, their edu's. >> okay. so we've -- this is -- i think it's time that we had an update on this very successful program -- go ahead, deputy, and so i just wanted to invite -- and i thank everybody for coming, particularly the fire department and planning for coming here today to give us a global on how things are going. i think the program has been in place now -- have been out here over two years, is it? >> correct. and the successes we're seeing, and i just kind of bringing everybody to have a conversation about what we've

learned from what we've approved, and maybe kind of read the tea leaves a little bit where we see we might have to improve or where we're going to help some of the stakeholders going forward on their applications and the issues that they're seeing if they do want to do this. which i believe -- the feedback i'm getting from a lot of property owners, they're saying this is one of the better housing policies that's come out of city government in a long time. it has everybody involved, the private sector, and everybody's trying to create these housing and lead them here. it's a good housing policy that i want to make sure it gets all the vetting and help that it needs to make sure these are speedily approved as soon as possible. okay. thank you. >> good morning, commissioners. dan lowry, housing commissioners. it's all agencies that are

involved here. >> and planning, don't forget planning. >> i didn't. >> oh, did you say it? >> planning. all right. what is an accessory dwelling unit? a residence unit that's added to an existing residential building. adu's are permitted citywide. where can adu's be added? in ordinance 162-16, effective september 2016, adu's made possible pernew programmed established in the last years have expanded areas of participation and creation of adu's. specific adu controls and local program. within the existing building envelope, of a single-family home, and no waivers. two, cannot take space from the existing units unless single-family home and no waivers. three, number of adu's allowed

varies. four, represent controlled if the existing building is rent controlled. five cannot obtain administration waiver from some planning code requirement. six, must meet san francisco building and fire codes. i think the most important presentation is this flow chart. okay. so this flow chart really spells out the process here of what to do here, so for -- for additional dwelling units for the ordinary ordinance is a -- [ inaudible ] -- we have a counter aide on the first floor -- [ inaudible ] -- and they have the form, so they have to submit a screening form, and it's really, really important. it's on japgs for dbi and fire preapplication meeting. i think a lot of these issues in the future will be resolved in a preapplication meeting. i think it's very, very

important to have preapplication because every situation is different, and a lot of these issues that are creating problems later on down the line can be discussed and agreed upon at a preapplication meeting. so submit building permit application for adu's with two sets of plans to street tree planning protection check list, the planning department, execute costs of hawkins agreement, and donating administration waiver of planning code requirements. planning will be talking about that. department of building inspection review, fire department review, and building permit issued. building code requirements for legalization of dweelg units in the unit addition. building code requirement for legalization of dwelling units and unit addition, minimum ceiling heights of bedrooms, living room, dining room, corridors of 7'6" per-california code 1208-2.

12.08 is okay for kitchen, laundry rooms, storage rooms, and bathroom. do not use a california residential credit. natural light and ventilation is required for most rooms. mechanical ventilation and artificial light allowed for kitchens, home offices, and media rooms per-san francisco building code 1205-1. not all rooms can be a bedroom. a bedroom requires an emergency escape and rescue window that leads to the public way or opens to a rear yard, 25 foot minimum depth perego sheet.04. [ inaudible ] per-california building code 420-2, and california building code 1020-1. when added or legalized, the building code does not exceed the number of allowed stories permitted by the cbc 504-4. the legalized dwelling unit should not reduce the required

number of exits from other units. sprinkler requirements review, db information sheet se 05. we do have an information that both building and fired signed the se 05. for inspector requirements, a preapplication meeting with the building department and fire department is suggested for safety items that may not meet the letter of the code but meets the spirit of the code. there's a lot of -- in that area, that's one of the main areas where an accessory dwelling unit may not be, where we have to use a code -- they use a code to their benefit, and we also have a unit information sheet that -- that per we're trying to get parody. we do have an ss 05 information sheet that states the purpose of a dwelling unit. >> so that's the ss 05 and

g-23. >> those both are currently signed by fire and by building. >> at the preapp meeting? okay. >> dbi suspends current notice of violation if the owner pursues legalization. this typically should not take up common area spaces previously enjoyed by tenants. speak to the san francisco rent board and consult with an attorney for more information. your property will be reassessed after the unit and property taxes will be increased. things to consider changing from a two unit building to three unit building places you in the jurisdiction. san francisco housing department and the san francisco fire department and housing inspection, periodic fire inspection. it may be difficult to remove legalized units in the future. new street addresses are created after a permit for addition or legalization of

dwelling unit is issued. president mccarthy e-mailed us a couple of questions that he'd like to be respondent to today, and one of the questions is how many adu's shall be approved since the introduction? we're proactive in the adu. we do track them weekly. we have a report weekly, and we try to work with our staff. we have sheets that breakdown all the adu's. we try to trap them where they are to help them with the process. total screening forms received so far year to date is 666. total processed filed 5 # 6. permit status: permits issued is 109. permit approved waiting for the owner to pickup is 23.

work completed is 23. permits withdrawn, revised is 22. permits undergoing plan review is 419. undergoing planning review, under review by planning is 308. under review by dbi, building mechanical is 49, under review by ppc and city agencies, san francisco fire department, 14, dbi, 12, puc, three, permit processing center, one. no routing, owners have not paid fee is 32, so we do a weekly track of this to just to see where they are in the movement of this. >> so just, if i may, so 109 applications filed, right? >> permitted issued is 109. >> excuse me, permits issued. >> okay.

>> 23... >> are done, finished. >> and i can assume the 109, the rest are underway. >> correct. >> okay. all right. >> and then -- >> and the 666 one more time is -- >> okay. the total screening forms. >> so people that just came in for the preapp. >> are 666. the total permitted submits is 5 # 6. >> that's pretty high succe-- >> that's pretty high after that. >> yes. >> we have a weekly stat of what i just presented here. how many adu's are on hold due to light safety, that's one of the questions that you had, and what i did, i went to planning department, jeff lay, i went to one of the supervisors in charge, he's overseeing where these projects are. i would say out of 49, there's 14 that are in review by mechanical right now, so that

leaves us down to about 35, and about half of those are in hold due to exiting, and the other half are just other general comments that they have to comply with easements or other planning review comments here. >> okay. >> okay. and then so what are the projected number of adu's that the city will be able to approve over the next couple of years? we're paying attention to these accessory dwelling units, and we're tracking them weekly. we're also offered -- if an adu comes in, we'll offer over the counter service. so they could bring the plans to the fifth floor and go over the counter to expedite the process. we've had several meetings with planning, with marselle, where they're going to -- she'll talk

about it, where the koska hawkins agreement, and notice of special agreement takes a few months. what they're going to do is approve these plans and send it over to building for our review for building and fire while they're processing those applications, which could indicate three to four months. we're hoping it'll stay that amount of time, so they can do the plan review and fire review, mechanical, where those paperworks is being done by planning, and planning will talk about that, and then, we'll move forward. >> thank you, deputy, for your update on that. okay. yeah. so i'll have -- yeah. let's just stay close. >> okay. >> and then i'll just assume the data that you give us there, but it's very informative. thank you. quick question here? >> how many units -- maximum units, single-family homes are allow index skbl they usually only allow one in a single-family home?

>> where you get over five -- on a sub story where it's five or more units, it's unlimited where it allows in the existing structure. >> commissioner lee? >> do we track my adu's are in the multiple apartment buildings and which one right side from single-family homes? >> planning will have a break done of that. if it's a planning related question, somebody here from planning can talk. obviously, commissioner, if you still want to ask the questions -- so why don't we hear from planning, and thank you, deputy director, for that data. >> thank you. >> good morning, commissioners. thank you for the opportunity to speak today. i have some prepared comments, but i'm also available to answer some questions that you may have that i may not address today.

iing in the being setsory dwelling unit and legalization program, manage the staff, as well, so i'm going to speak a little about streamlining adu's, and its overall permitting process at db i. i'm going to give you -- i know that dan provided some overview of the program. i'm going to give you a little overview as well from the planning perspective 'cause we look at this program as two programs. as you know in 2016, the citywide adu came into approval of an ordinance. we're trying to catch up, as well as make this publicly known to the public to keep everyone up to speed. so those changes really affected the planning code? and really breakdown and impact single-family homes versus kind of the multiunit buildings? is and they really increase

flexiblity for owners to add units and then increase flexiblity in where they can add the units. so really, planning is reviewing where exceptions can be made to the planning code and reviewing for dwelling unit quality as directed by the planning commission. so that's really our purview, and we give the health aleave e life safety to other agencies. on this property, one adu can be added to a single-family home with the exception they have to be planning code compliant, except one unit can be added move density, and no parking is required. so this is the component of really the legislation that brought us into compliance with state law. and so just to give you an idea of how the processing time is working out of planning, the current average approval time for planning staff to review the eligible permits is

approximately 87 days out of planning. the legislation that ordinance 95-17 allows is 117 days out of review and approval for planning. so as you're probably familiar, the planning code would require for any expansion, the neighborhood notification process, so for any projects that are undergoing expansion to add the adu, which this portion of the ordinance does allow, those have a longer timeline, so we are seeing some of those permits. just doing a ruff calculation for this presentation, we have a small number of the single-family homes that are adding the adu's right now. it looks like around about just over 30, and so we're still kind of analyzing those because they have to be planning code compliant? is still is something of figuring out to whether they're actually going to need a waiver ever for some component of the planning code or whether or not

they can work through ordinance number 95-17. so there is a little bit of complexity with these, so just letting you know that sometimes they can take a little longer. but there is a lot of flexiblity for single-family homes to add adu's. i can answer more questions about that or -- >> could you give us an example of what those waivers are needed -- i mean, why, because i would think -- >> sure. yeah. so under the planning code, the five areas where the waivers can be granted or exception would be complexity, parking, rear yard, open space and reduced exposure, so under the planning code for lights, our definition of exposure, the glazing must be facing onto a compliance rear yard or onto a street or other type of large compliance open area?

and under the adu area, that has been reduced to a 15 foot by 15 foot open horizontal area? so for some single-family homes, we're finding on some small lots, you might have a legal nonconforming structure that is situated in its existing rear yard under the planning code and so maybe it just can't meet some of the requirements. so there's still the -- the availability for the single-family home to add the adu? it's just kind of what program it's going to be able to participate in. so talk a little about the kind of other program we have. so this is the -- the kind of familiar program where multiunit buildings, but also single-family homes are participate, and so this is really the citywide program that became established in september 2016? the current average approval

timing in tlplanning for these dwellings which what we call the costa hawkins agreements, so these are approved un1612-16 and 1612-17, and this is the re area i'll focus on. so justin's planning, one highlight that we've been working on is really focused on the costa hawkins, our regulatory agreement, which is in the legislation for these adu projects. so we've stream lined some of these just back of house. you know, looking at how we work on our procedures, kind of internally and these require city attorney review and signatures. so we've done some streamlining here and reduced the time frame for these from, like, months to weeks. sometimes we have a week turnaround, which is pretty impressive, and this time frame

is really for once we receive the signed and noterised costa hawkins agreement until we can return it to the owner. and then, following the costa hawkins agreement, in collaboration with tdi, as we created a new permit routing procedure where planning is starting to release the permits prior to receiving these recorded documents, and recorded documents, that's a new procedure we've developed which planning staff is still working concurrently on receiving the -- you know, working on the recorded document with the property owner, but it allows the permit to start being reviewed by the other agencies, so building, mechanical, fire, etcetera. and then, we just added a new step in the permit tracking that the permit will be routed back. we just check for recorded

documents prior to permit issuance, so this is -- you know, we've just started this, i think less than a month ago, but i've just done some analysis, and looking at these initial stages, the release from planning has been reduced from about an average of 166 days to 68 days. so that's really shortening the review time of the permit. so again, this isn't full permit issuance, but it's really reducing the life of the permit overall, so it's reducing down the line overall at a faster rate. we think this is a huge improvement thus far? and it's been a collaborative process working with dbi on this. >> could i just interject one thing. >> yeah. >> particularly under 1612-17, are you seeing a particular average size that you're seeing on that in. >> when i do the calculation, because we do have one unit and

kind of two unit, i think the average size -- the average number of adu's per permit is somewhere around two, but we see the range of one to nine. >> okay. >> and then lastly, i'd just like to talk about an up coming process improvement that we -- i think dan lowry also may have directed. in this plan, the planning department has outlined our past towards a faster approval for housing development projects at both entitlement and post entitlement permitting issues, so both the adu and legalization permits are called out. currently, planning staff is working through the plan's implementation, and then, one item i thought was really important to today's discussion

is the development of an appointment based over the counter review process for adu and legalization permits. and so the objective really is to facilitate a more efficient review plan. we'll have staff at the planning counter desks, and so it'll allow applicants to make an appointment to get over the counter review due to their required recorded documents for these, we won't be able to do dual approvals, but we will be able to did kind of a soft approval and give kind of final comments with our, you know, trained staff who focus only on these types of permits. and so it also provide a time frame -- a known time frame for applicants, so we think that'll be a huge improvement. so we're anticipating a launch first water of this soon, which we're in february , so that's coming up soon. so that's -- you know, that's where i think we are. i wanted to talk a little about the fact -- i know dan lowry mentioned in dbi permits about

300 are in planning. i just wanted to give a little background on that. last year there were two amendments to kind of the overall adu program, with that, it allowed some flexiblity to permits that are currently on file at planning. and so with that, it ayllowed property owners to rethink their project. it would potentially allow the increase of the number of units? it would allow projects that are undergoing mandatory or voluntary size minimum under the 80-094 program to add ad unlimited amount of units to the lot. it also changed the calculation to prior, the legislation had read you would calculate the number of units by building, by ordinance 162-17 changed that you would calculate number of units by lot, so for some projects, that would change how they would calculate number of

units, number of adu's to be added. it also just changed where you could add the adu's. so a lot of projects are you know, actually in that process of thinking how they're going to be adding the projects, adding the adu's to their project. so i just wanted to kind of give some numbers that about 260 of those permits that are still under review at planning were submitted kind of august 2017 or earlier, so those were all submitted prior to that last amendment ordinance number 162-17. so i wanted to give some background to that number, and about 31 of those permits are kind of the single-family home that we're processing through the ordinance number 95-17. >> commissioner warshell, please. >> two questions. the first one is really getting to the -- how many of these are single-family homes.

adding one unit, it would seem that knowing san francisco's housing stock, that would be the dominant thing. if you have any data on that, that would be useful. the second one is almost like your seismic upgrade question, you know, one of the programs that, you know, i think has been tremendous has been when seismic upgrades are done and soft story garage buildings, when they convert them to apartments and they're subsidized or below market rate, permanently affordable, there are financial incentives to do that, and they're quite good, and many owners have taken advantage of them and there's been a tremendous benefit from that. so i was just wondering, are there financial benefits, you know, that can be identified

that, you know, in particular, complement this program of the seismic upgrade. but in particular, what i was thinking about, you know, you'd mentioned if a building is rent controlled already, then, the new units also will be rent control. clearly, it doesn't cost any less for the owner to do it than in a market race situation. is there any financial incentive or should there be any financial incentive to not only get more housing in the housing stock but more affordable housing that you're aware of? >> so maybe -- let me answer the first question and then i'll come back to the second one and see if i can help shape what i think your question -- >> okay. >> -- may be focused around. so for the single -- for the adu's that be being added to single-family dwellings, the number that i calculated were

around 30, 31 permits that seemed to be on file currently and i believe we've approved three out of the planning departments. so the ordinance came into effect last june, ordinance 95-17 that created the local program for single-family homeowners to add adu's to their home in a simple, easy way that's laid out in our code. prior to that, there was state law from january 2017 that homeowners could utilize to add adu's. so there was the availability, but they had to use state law. so with that, you know, i believe that number's quite low. i believe there are more single-family homeowners who would be interested in adding adu's? so two things, we do have also the legalization program, which currently has, i would say a good number of those -- i don't actually know the number

offhand. unfortunately, i could come back later, and we could talk about that number. but i do know a good number of the legalization permits are legalizing a good number of those single-family homes, and there are a good number of those on file. we can talk about it as a separate unit, but they're kind of legalizing that being assessory dwelling units, so i think really more single-family homeowners have been participating in the accessory dwelling unit program. but with that, planning has received a grant from the friends of city planning to undertake a community outreach program, which we anticipate doing hopefully this summer? which would be focused on adu's, the single-family homes, going out to all the supervisororial districts and doing presentations and outreach to really focus on what the needs of sipping will family homeowners might be as

far as education and how to get started. we do get a lot of questions on how to get started? so really, you know, doing some kind of informational interviews first to figure out what the needs might be, and then doing that type of outreach. so -- first question. second question, i may -- let's -- i'm not sure i fully grasped what the question was, so maybe let's think through. so under the adu program, the -- if the project is what we consider a rental unit, and receives any of the waivers, so any of the exceptions through the planning code, the new adu's would be restricted to rent control through that costa hawkins agreement, our regulatory agreement. so that's kind of the law 69 land as it -- of the land as it

stands? so that's the current status. i believe your question may have been is there a way or is there an intent to potentially restrict them to a below market rate or -- i'm not sure. you may have to refrain that. >> are there any financial incentives to either assist people who are doing below market rate or rent control or even having an option as you're putting in the unit by making it permanently affordable to receive some sort of subide see? >> offhand, i'm not sure, but that's something i can work with the legislative department staff at planning to make some considerations and do some research on that topic? absolutely, yeah, i can make that click. >> thank you. >> okay.

did you want to finish your thoughts? >> no. actually, that's my thoughts. i'm happy to answer any questions you may have. >> i have a few. obviously, planning is very clear, bullish on this program because you're constantly and adapting here. just a few quick questions. >> sure. >> in regards to applications, are you learning a lot what kind of applications might -- even though it would fit your profile, tick your boxes, but you might see you might have some trouble later on when it enters the dbi world that it might exist, and do you discuss that with the applicants at the time, and are we -- basically, are we doing a good enough job saying this is not in stone here; we might run into some issues later on down that you need to be aware of before you go spend a lot of money and then find out that you can't do it? are we having that kind of -- >> yeah. i think that's a great question. don lowry pointed out that

preapplication meetings are extremely helpful? we recommend them at planning? >> because we -- once a project spends time in planning, it goes through the next steps, and we see -- we see many revisions at planning? sometimes revisions that reconfigure two things. they reconfigure the visible facade which requires some preservation review under our requirements under ceqa or change the number of units. and some of these issues we see just like anecdotally are due to egress requirements, due to kind of pg&e gas room requirements, and so this is -- you know, number one, it could be reducing the number of units, which is kind of not

meeting the intent of the program. number two, due to the requirements of the recorded documents, it is also extending the life of the permit review time because we have to rerecord all documents. >> right. >> so i think, you know, for both of these, you know, there -- i think there's a lot wrapped up in there, but there's just some kind of off the cuff frequent concerns we're seeing. >> so -- yeah, and so is there a conversation going on -- i mean, you probably are forced out the gates when you're dealing with this and understanding that issue, is there a conversation going on on how we should, as a unified approach to these type of ones that we predict problems later on down the line, now that we've kind of been doing this for almost two years now, is there a -- any game plan in place involved in how we should address those properties that just might not make it, you know, for one reason or another? you know...

>> a game plan? >> well, i guess -- i mean, i know the goal here is to try and make it happen, but sometimes, i feel that we cannot, you know, because of the nature of the building. it might be in the middle of the block. the gas issue is a new one. i can see how that could trigger off historical, like you pointed out, but gas rooms, the green book requirements, if you move an existing condition, you've got to do it in the new one. and not to mention, pg&e might say absolutely not. so i know unfortunately, you won't find that answer out until everything has gone through the whole process, so i'm just wondering on what's the state of mind of these people when they do try to put in the application, you know? >> yeah. to be frank, we're all -- even within planning, we're balancing a whole lot of policies, and i think every agency is balancing a whole lot of policies, so i don't think

there is one simple answer to this? you know, the permit process as it exists, it's a linear process? it's not a one comprehensive review process? so i don't know if i have a one -- one answer game plan to that. >> do you have a lot of applicants coming back upset with you guys because they've run into that down the road -- further down the road? >> anecdotally? i guess a lot of e-mails from architects who are frustrated, and some of the frustration comes from they don't know how to advise their clients? currently right now, there is lack of guidance coming from what's happening at the other agencies? so the frustration stems from not knowing when to file, not knowing what the answer is going to be on where they -- the number of adu's that can be placed, where the adu's can be placed in the building. >> yeah. >> what will need to happen as

far as corridors or the pg&e gas meter rooms, so there's -- there's a lot of unknowns. >> yeah, but i think the moral of the story is maybe we should be looking at this preapplication, like the deputy was talking about, at the very start -- i use the words face our did he mondaemons when it e construction industry, and maybe we should be doing 134g about th -- something about that. i really appreciate your update from the planning department. and your timelines, i wish i could get those on some of my projects. >> building some adu's. >> all right. thank you. >> thank you. >> so next, fire marshal. thank you.

>> good morning, commissioners. thank you for the invitation. always happy to speak before the building commission and/or the building department -- our partners. we see them as our partners. i would just like to say dan lawry laid out a very good process. it makes a lot of sense, and it's a very good process. i thought he did a good job laying that out. i'd like to just respond to our planning department. we're talking about waivers, that may work with the planning department. the fire department cannot waive fire code requirements. it's basically straight law. we cannot be less restrictive than state law, so i'd like to put that out there. the other thing i'd like to mention as i begin, and i'll be brief, we're all for additional housing, but at some point, when we get started with, it's worth taking a pause to remind

ourselves why we have building and fire codes. i know we all know this, but it's worth mentioning. it's because over the centuries, we've had loss of life and property. we all know that's how that's evolved. it's just worth reminding ourselves that as we move forward. we're all for additional housing. we want that, but we want safe housing. i'd like to briefly talk about scope and jurisdiction. so as with you e all know, the on a three year cycle. the government adopts standards from the international building and fire code. it becomes the california building and fire code. the local jurisdiction from the fire department's perspective asks to or adopts the california code with amendments, local amendments, in san francisco that meets challenges of san francisco due to topo graphy, geographic cal challenges, requirements.

we can be more restrictive, we cannot be less restrictive, so again, when we're talking about waivers, that's outside. when we're talking about adu's, let's talk about adu's. first of all, are we talking about r-3, one and two family dwelling units, or are we talking about ru's. r-3, planning department jurisdiction. r-2, fire department jurisdiction. the onus, when an applicant comes in and has a proposal for an adu, the onus to meet code and the requirement falls on the design professional, falls on the architect of record, engineer of record, etcetera. i cannot agree more with my colleagues here about the necessity for a preapplication process. that's where we sit down, the design professional comes forward, lays his or her plans out and says yes,