cc1 test message cc1 test message cc1 test message >> good morning. today is wednesday, march 21, 2018. this is the regular meeting of the building inspection commission. i would like to remind everyone to turn off all electronic devices. the first item is roll call. president mccarthy. >> here. >> a vice president walker. >> here. >> commissioner constin. >> here. >> a commissioner lee. >> here. >> commissioner warshell.

>> here. >> we have a quorum. the next item is president's announcements. commissioners gilman and clinch are excused. >> welcome to the bic meeting, march 21, 2018. i would like to welcome back and congratulate commissioner lee on his reappointment here this morning. thank you. well done. with that, i'll just read into the president's announcements. congratulations to the emergency building inspector kevin birmingham, director hewey and other d.b.i. staff who responded immediately to the four-alarm north beat fire on the night of st. patrick's day which made the press. quite an extensive fire there where thankfully ended well with no loss of life. the department is awaiting the owner's engineering report to see what will be required to repair of that building. so looking forward to hearing the update on that. with regard to director and other d.b.i. staff who met with

supervisor kathy tang on the implementation time line and deadline for the new accessible business entrance program, per request from the small business community and the slow response rate to the initial d.b.i. notification to more than 12,000 property owners likely to be in this new a.b.e. program. the supervisor is receptive to extending once more the initial compliance checklist deadline to date beyond the may 23, 2018 required in the current ordinance. d.b.i. staff will provide b.i.c. with the extended data once we hear from the supervisor, so thank you to her for continuous work and helping us through this program. speaking of the a.b.e. program, d.b.i. staff just sent out a second notification and doubled the numbers of the property owner addresses to include property managers and thus to insure and thus to insure and understand that the requirements they must meet. d.b.i. and d.p.w., planning and

the office of small business and the mayor's office of disability also will host a second workshop at d.b.i. at 1600 mission street, the second floor, room 2 201, on friday, march 30, from 1:00 p.m. -- from 12:00 to 1:00 p.m. a free event to assist property owners and small business owners. svp at the website. and finally, thanks to d.b.i. staff and director hewey who will be participating on march 31 with supervisor tang in the annual sunset home remodel question and answer workshop. both planning and d.b.i. staff will be on hand to respond to homeowner questions and the community outreach program that is now in the third year. and madam secretary, that concludes my president's announcements. thank you. >> okay. thank you. is there any public comment on the president's announcements? okay.

seeing none, item three, general public comment. the b.i.c. will take public comment on matters within the commissioner's jurisdiction that are not part of this agenda. go ahead. >> a little traffic jam here. hi. tony from the housing rights committee. and here to talk to you about soft story retrofit and some issues that we are seeing at my office. i think one big problem is we're seeing a problem with landlords telling tenants they have to vacate. they have to leave. and this is happening a lot. especially lately as, of course, the deadline has come upon us in a lot of landlords i understand about 1,000 applications have been filed suddenly because the deadline is upon us. in one case of a very huge building, that i had a tenant come in who lives in this building and she lives in the back of the building. there is two garages, and the tenants above both garages and

the tenant on the ground floor were told they did not have to vacate, but the tenant in the back was told she had to vacate. now, one thing you should know. the tenants above the garage and on the ground floor are recent tenants and paying market rent. the woman in the back is a 40-year tenant. you do the math. you figure out exactly why she has to leave and the other ones don't, right? the problem is, how do we fight this? how do you challenge it? the landlord is saying, no, you have to leave because of work and blah, blah, blah. i am wondering and just throwing ideas out there because we're kind of at a loss. this that case we are going to help the tenant try to fight back, but i am wondering if there is a remedy here at d.b.i. and one thing that came to mind, is there any way an inspector could go out, a building inspector can be called and make an assessment. can something be done at the start work inspection? is it possible that info could be given to the landlord when they apply for permits that talks about how tenants

shouldn't have to be relocated? i mean, these are just some ideas. but i think this needs to be addressed. i think d.b.i. is the proper place to do it. the second problem, because i am noticing my time is short here. the second problem is landlords using the opportunity of a retrofit to then add an a.d.u. and do other kinds of extensive renovations they weren't planning to do anyway as a way to really make it so that the tenant has to leave or the tenants have to leave. so i'm wondering, again, this is a difficult one and is it possible to when a landlord applies for the retrofit and come back and apply for an d.u. that that is put on hold until the retrofit work is done to make shower the landlord is not -- i don't know. i don't know if that's even possible. but something along the lines to monitor what the london lord is doing and try to make sure that their intention is not to push the tenants out. i think a hearing would be really appropriate and really important on this issue because there is also lots of other issues that we can bring up, and lots of information to bring to you. and i look forward to maybe a

hearing happening and for us to work together to try to solve these issues. thanks. >> thank you. next speaker. >> good morning. my name is kathy lips comb and i work with the senior and i would like to add a few comments on the retrofit subject. retrofit is a much-needed measure are sometimes a ruse to get tenants out of buildings. it is our understanding that about 90% of tenants do not have to leave their buildings for seismic work to happen. of course, some landlords are not so much concerned about tenant safety as they are about getting a higher return on their property with richer tenant. therefore, i am sure this commission would be in favor of notification to tenants with some kind of form letter for landlords to use or mail to each

tenant. you can just put slips under the door, which is what happened in my building. the outline should contain, among other information, what the mandatory soft story retrofit ordinance is. just a few sentences. the time phases of the project meaning, for example, lower garages, start date, end date, etc. the landlord must also contain information regarding any reimbursement for temporary loss of parking space, for example. my landlord did that. i'm going to give you the letters he sent. of course, the temporary displacement letter would be different where people have to leave that 10% that has to leave. it would be wise for one or the other of such letters to be available to the landlords when they apply for their permits. so they don't have an excuse. what should i write? i don't know. here is your form letter. and it would be very helpful to the tenant community if on the back of this kind of letter were listed the major tenant organizations in the city in

case tenants have questions. and also, we would like the building inspection department's phone number for questions. i have called asking about the sizing work, and they were very helpful. they told me -- i called an't three times because my landlord would not tell us when it was going to happen. they said, well, lady, we can only say the permits, when they were taken out, but that was nice, and right away they got into the file and found out. so thank you very much for your consideration of our concerns. and i want to leave with you a copy of my testimony as well as the letters from my landlord. is that okay? >> perfect. great. thank you. >> i have some materials for the commission.

i have some materials for the commission. thank you. did you put something there? okay. overhead shot. i did. >> there it is. good morning. my name is jerry drab. my topic this morning is d.b.i.'s failure to properly enforce the building code section 103a, demolition without

permit. i'm going to focus on the definitions of demolition and principle portion of an existing structure, per the building code. demolition means the total tearing down or destruction of a building or any alteration which destroys or removes the principle portions of an existing structure. principle portion means that construction which determines the shape and size of the building envelope or that construction which alters 2/3 or more of the interior elements such as walls, partitions, floors, or ceilings. 655 elvarado and 49 hopkins avenues are two projects with no interior elements. and d.b.i. issued notices of violation for work beyond permit instead of demolition without permit. as you can see from the before and after pictures in both cases, more than 2/3 of the interior elements of both homes were altered.

this is irrefutable. 49 hopkins avenue was a modern home designed by renowned architect richard nutra. the developer tim brown is proposing the remodel. how can you remodel that? expanding the existing 927 square feet to 3,500 square feet. 655 alvarado was a modest 900 square foot home where the owner is proposing a five-story, 5,500 square foot remodel. i handed out a whistleblower complaint filed with the city services regarding the n.o.v. misclassification at 655 alvarado. please read the complaint in the back from planning regarding structure removal. so planning issued a complaint regarding structure removal, yet it was misclassified. if d.b.i. had properly enforced the building code, both property owners would be subject to a

penalty which is designed to eliminate the financial incentive for inpermitted demolition. for five years from the date of the unlawful demolition t only allowable permit to be issued would be a permit for the same or fewer square feet as the building that was unlawfully demolished. i ask the b.i.c. to have d.b.i. explain in future meetings why these projects were improperly classified and how d.b.i. plans to prevent future misclassifications. thank you. >> mr. dratler. >> sorry, i'm -- just because of the public comment, we're not allowed -- and i do share your questions, but because it's public comment, however, but duly noted. >> thank you. >> overhead again please.

>> is your document place there had? there you go. >> good morning, president mccarthy. my name is s. joseph butler, an architect and sole practice for 30 years in san francisco and mainly residential additions and remodels. i would like to thank joanie levy for the glasses. i would like to focus on building code definition this is morning. an addition, for example, is an extension or increase in the floor, area, or height of a building or structure. an alteration is any construction or renovation to an existing structure other than a repair or addition, area, building. is the area included within the surrounding exterior walls or exterior walls and firewalls, exclusive of vent shafts and

cords? areas of buildings not provided with showneding walls shall be included in the building area if such areas are included in the horizontal projection of the roof or floor above. commissioners, 65 # an alvarado has no building area as defined by the building code. it is on the overhead. area is a component of every building. thus, if 655 alvarado has no area, there is no structural or building on the site. as jerry pointed out, any alteration which destroys or removes the principle portions of an existing structure, meets the definition of demolition. without the total tearing down. you can see that they left a portion of the garage wall and from the street it's even more clear that the opening of the garage door with the tile detail. let's go on to structure. that is that which is built or constructed. a building is any structure used or intended for supporting or sheltering -- that's an

important word -- any use or occupancy. a structure could be a bridge or a walkway, a deck or a gazebo. none of these structures shelter the way a building does. building existing is a building erected prior to adoption of this code or one for which a legal building permit has been issued. so 655 alvarado was a building, comma, existing. it sheltered and supported an occupancy. dwelling and auto storage both. but today, today can do so no longer. one property line wall does not shelter. one property line wall does not have building areas. and no stories and no basements as base between the slab and the floor or the slab and a roof. one property line wall cannot legally have an addition as there is no floor area there to extend or increase. one property line wall could be

altered. you could take half of it away. but you can't add or make it a shelter because it has no floor area to add to. with great discretion comes great responsibility. but interpreting the code is not ignoring the parts that you don't like. it's an abuse of discretion to declare that 655 is not a demolition. >> thank you, mr. butler. >> it will show once you put your paper there. >> good morning, commissioners. my name is mary and my brother and i grew up at 651 alvarado

street t home adjacent to 655. i attended a planning commission hearing last month regarding 655 alvarado street. the planning commissioners considered the removal of the building a demolition, stating that 99% of it was gone. while d.b.i. also issued several violations, one of which was beyond the scope. the confusion of this resulted in a continuation of the hearing. 65 # a was granted a permit in september 2016 and the building was gone by december 2016, three months later. in the following three months, they were able to get three permits over the counter which let them excavate 20 feet adjacent to my building and essentially making a hillside flat. on page a3.1 of the approved plan plans it shows excavation

adjacent to the building. all excavation was supposed to be done past my building. the planning department having issued permits all along thinking the building was still there. i was never made aware that they were going to excavate 20 feet adjacent to my building. they deceived the planning department, the building department, and me causing damage to my build iing. now the other adjacent building is showing signs of damage. had my building not been damaged, they would have got away with it. i would like my foundation repaired. i am requesting the building department impose a serious consequence for their grievous actions and the total disregard of others and the city of san francisco's building department process. this will send a clear message to others who are thinking about doing the same thing. i brought some pictures to share with you. this is the front of the

building in september of 2016. this was the rear of the building, and it was gutted and rebuilt in 1989 and remodelled in 2003. i'm sorry. this is -- you have 30 seconds. >> i'm sorry. this is the side of the building. this is the dirt, all the dirt they excavated. this is what it looks like now. and here is where i suffered my damage with my property. and this is what it looks like. that's what's left. this is what it looked like three months after they got their approval of the permit when they got it in september and in december it was gone. thank you, commissioner. >> thank you for your comments.

>> good morning, commissioners. thanks iffer your time. my name is -- thanks for your time. i am john ferati and i, too, and my sister and i and the property owner at 651 alvarado street. i would like to reiterate what you have heard. from day one -- we have no objection to anyone to rebuild or remodel their home. that is to everyone's right, but when you are deceitful, which this property owner at 65 # an alvarado street, it's not good. for one, he's never been transparent. the only one meeting that he semi was was august 17, 2015, which i was present at a preapplication meeting. i was given these plans which i

have here on the projector, on the -- >> is the projector not working? >> it is working. they just have to switch back and forth. there it is. >> and these are the plans that i was given. since then obviously the plans have changed multiple times. this shows no excavation here for the plans. let's see. these plans. anyway, if you look at your records, this property has received multiple violations. one, the most one is exceeding their scope of their permit. trying to deal with this person in the email or phone, nothing. we have been disregarded and there's no communication whatsoever. the permits have been pulled, but yet he's deceived everyone. as of now, he is trying to aploy for a demo permit, and how can you apply for a demo permit when obviously you have seen by pictures there is nothing standing any longer.

and this would haven't came to my attention until we saw my tenants mentioned that we had a problem with the door. we saw the back door, foundation, and is all been affected by his doing. if you look, i received a violation in regards to what he has done. not what i have done. so, i would just like to bring to your attention that he's been deceitful to not just yourselves but to the planning commission, and there should be some consequences. i mean, to move forward with what he is doing and disregard of anyone else, that's not right. there are people that play by the rules, and obviously he's trying to deceive them and deceive you. and one final note, per code 3307, the person making any or causing an excavation to be made shall provide written notice to the owners of adjoining buildings advising them that excavation is being made and the

adjoining building will be protected and delivered not less than 10 days prior to scheduled starting date. never once did i receive that notice. so once again, i would just like to say thank you for your time and hopefully you look at this matter and i believe there should be consequences for deceiving everyone. thank you. >> thank you for your comments. >> hi, commissioners. my name is tony roblas and i represent senior and disability action. just very briefly on the soft story retrofit some of my colleagues have spoke on this earlier. we know that these -- since we do live in earthquake country are necessary, but landlords are taking advantage of that, of the soft story retrofit to tell people that they have to leave, and we know in the vast majority of cases that tenants don't even have to relocate. but it's another, just another way of tenants being extricated from their homes. and we are in a very severe

housing crisis as it is. so we want to bring this to your attention. there is ways that d.b.i. could get involved to monitor or at least trace what landlords are doing. if there are postings that can go on the buildings. and also, if tenants do have to move out temporarily, outreach materials and forming them -- informing them of what their rights are and at the very least what tenant resources are available to them. in the city. thank you. >> i'm talking a lot today. so two things we're discussed in public comment that i have to respond to. the demolition issue is out of control. but it can't get solved by the building department, and not going to get solved by planning alone. it's got to be solved by both agencies jointly fixing 103 and

317. we got to get this fixed. this is just not right. the other issue is this tenant issue with soft story retrofit. i'm pretty familiar with the program. and when i was involved with it, we never assumed any tenant would be relocated. i've done 50 buildings and my biggest inconvenience to a tenant, we came into the unit while they were at work and did the work. so i don't see very many scenarios where tenant should be evicted and when this issue came up under the u.m.b. program and we wrote a tenant protection plan and solved the problem. in those buildings they were doing work in the unit, but on soft story retrofits, you are supposed to be working in the garage, so for a tenant to be relocated should be an extraordinary exceptional role, not this common. there's a problem there.

thank you. >> thank you. >> good morning, commissioners. my name is alex lanceburg, a research and advocacy director with s.f. electrical construction industry. i have been working with colleagues in the san francisco building and construction trades on an issue i think near and dear to your heart and something you covered a few times last year and that is modular factory built housing construction. we have been conducting an extensive amount of research into the legislative history of the factory build housing law and the state building standards law. it's become quite clear and i have a white paper explaining this that the modular construction is indeed or the local building standards do indeed prevail with regard to modular construction. modular manufacturers and developers have been trumpeting the loophole that's exempt from local construction in a way to

essentially externalize the risks of substandard and unsafe buildings onto the public. the fact is that by not complying with san francisco's building electrical, plumbing, seismic, fire codes, what these manufacturers are doing, as i said, is externalizing these risks onto the general public. first responders are going to be the ones who have to deal with substandard buildings. residents are obviously going to be potentially endangered by it. neighboring property owners are also going to be affected. and all of these stakeholders are being asked to bear the burden of this loophole. what we'd like to ask you to do is move forward in closing that loophole. so i'm going to submit this white paper and hopefully it will be copy of it will be made for you all. we've submitted a copy to the mayor and will be sharing some with other members of the board of supervisors. but what i think is absolutely

imperative for the building inspection commission to do as soon as possible is actually follow through on i think what president mccarthy sort of mused about in november which is asking staff to put together a comprehensive report as soon as possible for the next commission meeti in meeting.

-- right now modular is proposed for homeless housing and it's dwing to move into m.m.r. and it's going to ultimately create a tale of two cities and we're asking you guys to stop it and to ensure that it complies with our safety codes. >> thank you. >> there's no additional public comment and our public comment is closed. item 4. commissioners, for inquiries of staff and the commissioners may make inquiries with documents and policies and procedures that are of interest to the commission. >> commissioner walker. >> yes, in response to our public comment, a couple of issues. one is the issue of tenant

noticing regarding our seismic upgrade programs. if i could request that staff and our tenant outreach organizations that we work with with our code enforcement outreach program to come up with some ideas for making sure that as was always stated in our public comment that tenants aren't in advertently affected a program that we think shouldn't affect tenants, especially around evictions or relocating, that we have a noticing policy that provides more access to information and assistance and connection to our outreach programs to guide people through that. both the landlords and our tenants that are involved. so i'd like to see that on the next agenda if we could. and i also -- i than the

president will also bring this up. this issue of modular housing, it's really up because people are looking to it as a way of containing the time constraints and costs of building much-needed housing but we do need to do it in a way that doesn't create two sets of housing, those that are safe and those that are not so safe, so we need to make sure that our local codes are complied with the housing that comes here and we need to do it sooner than later and i request that we do an update with that on the issues brought up, the white paper that is provided, is informative, so i think that we want to resolve this so if we could have that one on the agenda as well. and this other issue of the 665 alvarado, i'm concerned because

we might see it as a course before us and i don't know how to agendaize it, other than the -- the president could weigh in on that. >> and in regards to 665 alvarado it's only of great concern so i have requests, without getting too deep -- through the director to have a hearing on that to bring it to the commission which is not traditionally what is normally done but in this particular case i think that it would be in our best interest to get to the bottom and to really understand where -- where -- where the department could have done better and where we did, you know, you know, what are the issues here and, obviously, the bigger question is -- i think that it was brought up is this continuous disconnect between the two departments and planning and d.b.i. on these policies.

you know, we need to have a conversation about that. and so director, i did request it. and obviously i don't think that we could do this next month because of our joint hearing but i being that th think the follo, unless that has changed for some reason, because the giant hearing calendar is not necessarily set by us and it's set by the planning department. we have our two points that we are bringing up on stuff -- >> one which is code enforcement which i might say does include this. >> no, no, i agree. >> the public should probably be aware that we're having a joint meeting with planning and that they would be well advised to be there and to let us all know. >> yeah, i just can't guarantee that it's going to be on that particular item. but i am guaranteeing that it will be here at this commission on the following month. so we can really have a further discussion on that. so that's that. and in regard to the modular

factory built housing and i think that it is time that we should have this conversation and obviously i'll calendar that as well for the following meeting after the april meeting, if that's enough time for the staff. and i think that the goal here is as called out is how is a product like this going to fit into -- you know, our city is unique in many ways and it's not your traditional city. i am a believer that, you know, one size doesn't fit all and san francisco is one of those cases and i see this as a product that i have a lot of questions about and i have concerns in regard to where it does fall in regard to the planning and with regards to inspections like life safety and what impact it means to people living in these buildings down the road, but to the commissioner -- to the vice chair walker's point, it is coming and so we need to have a good understanding where we stand as a department on that. so i'm looking forward to that conversation. and what other one do we have here? obviously, on the -- on the

displacement of tenants -- i definitely thank we should have a good conversation about that. i do concur with some of the comments here that it is suspicious that some people are left and others aren't and i think that, you know, once again this is a program that is important to pass and to be successful. so i really want to make sure that everybody is protected as it was written. so an update on that would be very helpful. commissioners, any other comments? >> i concur with all commissioners walker and mccarthy's comments. these are really critical issues and i want to thank everybody who takes their time to come in here and to make public comment. i mean, it is absolutely critical and we really do appreciate you making that exitment. as commissioner mccarthy has just indicated we will do our best to address all of these

issues and get them calendared. i am very much looking forward to the joint d.b.i. planning meeting next month and again invite you to join us. so, again, we thank you for your -- taking your time, bringing your very educated observations and increasing the awareness on all of these critical issues and the only comment that i was going to try to interject out of order before -- when i was hearing the concerns about 655 alvarado, as we know that currently the legal resources are somewhat limited. while there is interest from supervisor peskin in evaluating what other changes to

legislation could have a more effective or practical set of legal recourses, you know, right now the five-year moratorium is one of the most strict legal remedies and as has been pointed out one of the issues is it's usually not enforced by planning because they have so much neighborhood opposition to having a five-year empty hole sitting next to their homes. so given that we have have owners very nearby and impacted by this situation it would be very interesting for them to consider is this a case where they would actually like to see

this remedy enforced and what other issues in terms of securing their foundations, repairing their foundations, nonnuisance upkeep of the property during the five-year hiatus. if that's a path that they'd be willing to pursue it would be interesting to discuss given that as current law exists or at least as i understand it that it is most severe and compelling remedy that we have until there are other modifications. so i would invite all adjoining property owners to really consider that and to understand, you know, what they're asking for and whether this remedy is

possible as far as they're concerned. but, again, thank you all for coming and we really do appreciate you taking the time. >> thank you. no further comment? >> future meetings and agendas at this time the commission may discuss and take actions for a date for a special meeting and determine those items to be placed on the agenda at the next meeting and future meetings with the building inspection commission and the next meeting is on april 18, 2018. any public comment on item 4, a or b? okay, seeing none item 5, discussion of possible action regarding a proposed ordinance for the supervisors found 171284 to have the city slope protection act and clarifying the scope of this application to the properties exceeding a 25% grade. and mandating review by the

department of building instruction and re-enacting and modifying the paragraph in the sub-section regarding the type of supposed construction of the application of the act which was omitted inadvertently in addition to other requirements. >> good morning, mission members and commission president mccarthy and director huey. from peskin's office who is proposing amendments to the slope protection act. you are receiving right now some copies of a report from the state of california that i'll address in a moment. just some quick background on thonthe amendments before you t. supervisor peskin offered the original act and it was passed by the board of supervisors that year. as introduced the slope protection act made reference to 25% slope, that was how it was

introduced over the course of the legislative process and that 25% threshold was replaced with a reference to the hazard zone map released by the state of california. so the back story is that the 25% was in there, it was removed and replaced with the seismic hazard joan map. that hazard map was released at the time by the state of department california, departments of mines and geology, that's the report before you, and in that report actually it makes explicit reference to the 25% slope. so that's actually where the 25% slope came from. i provide that background by way of sort of addressing and maybe anticipating some of the comment from the code advisory committee. i hope that the chair harris is here as well to provide some of the prospective of that committee. as to the 25% threshold, well, first let's just go to the easy part and that is that we are

reinstating a paragraph that apparently everybody unanimously agrees and i met with d.b.i. staff and the code advisory staff agrees that this erroneously omitted paragraph should be back in there. so that's the easy part. as to the 25%, the code advisory committee issued their recommendation against that. and the basis for that as they put in an email to me that i hope is in the packet before you is that the cost delays and the added work were -- if those costs delays and added work were necessary for public safety we'd consider the proposal more favorably but as they saw it there wasn't enough proof or showing that the 25% threshold was necessary. at the time that i met with the code advisory committee i was just picking up this item from an outgoing staff member. i did not have this california report before me. i admit to being a little bit lost as to where the 25% came

from and so i would hope that the inclusion of this report at this time provides a little bit more of that background clarity. so i'm happy to address other comments and concerns as they arise now. >> so in layman's terms as we say for us here, this 25% was existing no matter what, as we know it we would have had to have deal with this -- a small lot would have had to deal with this before we're updating this existing legislation as we see it today? >> that's my understanding, commissioner. and it was just incorporated by reference to this outside map. so i don't think that our office sees it as a drastic shift. i think that there's consensus within the department staff and that the blue map needs to go. and that is something that was

in there at some point and it was incenterred after reference to the seismic hazard zone map, that the blue map was being relied upon and everybody agrees that needs to go. we thought, well, let's just refer back to the 25% threshold and understanding that that may create some implementation on the back end of this which i think that our office is willing to collaborate with the department in making sure that that is as smooth as possible, that project applicants understand, you know, clearly and easily whether they fall within that 25% threshold. >> so -- >> sure. >> so most of the people that i think that would be impacted on this, first of all i get the spirit of it and on the legislation, but there's unintended consequences that we can work with sometimes. is it geared to smaller -- so, for example, is there any of the legislation that points to lots of 25 feet by 100 which is standard lots size here in the

city. is that 25% from the back of the lot or measured from the front of the lot? because there's big impacts that it could have on particularly smaller projects. i do understand, you know, that you have to go get a peer panel and you have to have standards and six, seven months, maybe longer delayed. there's a cost there. so we're trying to make sheriff that it's justified. >> absolutely. >> is there any language in that that talks to that? >> so on page 3 of the amendment -- and this is not changed at all -- but the applicability would be to structures having over 1,000 square feet of new projected roof area and horizontal or vertical additions having over 500 square feet. that has not changed, if i'm incorrect, somebody will correct me i'm sure, but i'm pretty certain that part is -- has remained the same. and that would be relative to the size of the project, the

thresholds there. >> so help me out here -- what size a project would that be? is anybody from the department here to talk -- >> new roof area. >> so that could be -- >> so theoretically if you talk a 2500 square foot lot than the size of the project would be the roof area 1,000 squire feet so a ratio of 1 to 2.5 of the entire lot. i don't know if it's -- yeah, it's not an f.a.r. calculation... >> well, okay, okay. that was always in there, right? >> yeah. >> okay. okay. fair enough. okay. please continue. >> well, really that's all that i have and unless the commission has other questions or other comments i'm happy to provide a brief rebuttal before the commission takes a position. i'd be grateful for your support of this legislation today. but, otherwise, we'll stick

around. >> so, essentially the criteria is the same, just instead of referring to an old report that is outside of the legislation itself that it reiterates the same criteria within the legislation? >> that's correct. and i think that in my conversations with staff really the problem that it poses is, well, do we have a 25% map existing. and the answer to that i believe is that the planning department creates similar maps. they rely on a 20% slope threshold for a couple formulas, so the -- i don't think that it would be terribly challenging to construct a 25% slope. we discussed at some point decreasing the slope threshold to 20% and based on the seismic -- or the information before you from the state of california we didn't think that there were grounds to reduce the slope threshold from 25% to 20%.

>> so, would your boss, the supervisor and you -- if we were to just kind of quantify the sizes of the lots and things like that as added language, as this goes through the process, that would be something -- that a few amendments like that if we were able to establish more of a tighter criteria and the understanding of the 25%, above and beyond the size of the roof? >> yes, absolutely, we're here to solicit your input on the legislation as well. there's certainly time to amend this at committee. we are certainly not interested in watering it down, but if there are amendments that for the clarity for the public, absolutely. >> it's more geared towards the smaller projects who normally probably wouldn't need to go to this expense and delay normally on a project. but it's not going to be watered down and it's just a criteria that jumps out at us if you see that you're going to trigger off? >> yeah and i might suggest too

at risk of just running my mouth and negotiating against myself -- but i did discuss with d.b.i. staff at one point that, you know, for smaller projects or for projects that are going to be very low risk in despite the slope, and the substrait, what have you, if there's a way to expedite the review for those very low risk projects in a way that we maintain a paper trail and a justification for, you know, something like a tentative opinion that says you are very low risk and by virtue of that we're not going to, you know, put you through a four-month wringer or foreign process. maybe there's a way procedureally to expedite review of some of those very low-risk projects. >> yeah, it might be a particular size or type that would trigger it off in the smaller projects, things like that. >> sure. >> so, yeah. so what is the timetable on this, how fast is this moving here? >> i think that -- well, this is the last procedural hurdle

before bringing it to committee. you know, i think that we are ready to bring it to committee as soon as we get the recommendations from this commission, one way or the other, or with qualification. and there's certainly time before it gets to committee, even if it's a couple weeks to hammer out and clarifying amendments if that's what this commission prefers, absolutely. >> okay, great. we can't ask for more than that, thank you. thank you for your presentation. >> thank you. >> is there public comment? >> so this is why i'm actually here. pat buskovich, the practice and challenge of practicing since the 1970s is that you have seen it all and i was here when the bloom came out and there's a misunderstanding of -- a scary misunderstanding -- you may want to give me my three minutes.

the bloom map which is basically the city and two bridges and a big circle, it's huge, about 40% of the city, that was the state of technology in the 1970s. it wasn't that great. but when everyone looked at the blue map they'd understand that there are dots on the map and when you have made copy after copy after copy, the dots disappear through the copy fax problems. so no one knows that the blue map has dots on it. and that the dots represent 100 landslides. and there's an accompanying book which i have and i have given to the building department because they didn't know that there was an accompanying book that shows the map on a city block within the accuracy of a foot. so we know where the slides are down to a foot using this book. and then when frank -- or upgraded it by seismic hazard map act he took this book of 100 maps, thres a big circle with le

dots and created very specific locations where we know where the slides are. so going back to this 25% threshold is going way back in technology. when we know where the slides are because the blue map, which is a big circle saying, hey, you've got to know that there's a slide here and there were numbers attached to it. so the current map, the current seismic hazard map act is the latest state-of-the-art and the 20% is going back 40 years. i don't know why we would want to do it. and it's extremely complex. i was the appointing body in the 1990s when i was the president of seon, and the public hearings, they require a lot of work and they'll probably start requiring full-time employees to manage. and they went about $50,000. i'm not really sure how much design problems we have except for one building and this thing

doesn't even apply to that building because it's a flat lot on piles. so as a practicing engineer and i pretty much know that i have my hand on the heartbeat, there aren't design problems. there's construction problems in the field where people are digging below people's homes but i'm not aware of any substantive design -- these are like 30, 40, $50,000, and the other issue is going to come out is the liability issue. i'm not sure that the city is going to be willing to extend their liability protection to private design consultants doing peer review. and pretty sure this is going to come out soon that people who have done sacs are not immune from a lawsuit. so right now you have a challenge getting retired people to do them on really targeted buildings where we know that there is a side here because we have the -- a slide here because we have the map and we have the map down to addresses. i have the address book where i can look up an address and say

you're in it. and now we're going to do a 25% blank, there's not enough engineers to do this, and it's the full employment act for engineers and there's not enough to do it. so you're going to dilute good quality work with a lot of work. so if they want to change some of the requirements, great, but use the latest state-of-the-art and we know where the sides are, the 25% is going back in 50 years in technology. >> thank you. >> kirk main, c.b.i. and steve harris for a couple comments. >> mr. harris, welcome, thank you, sir. >> thank you for your time.

the advisory committee is concerned about this proposal because there's no evidence indicating that the current trigger which is based on the usgs and the map is inadequate. that is, that landslides have actually occurred on lots that were steeper than 25%, that were not shown within the areas indicated on the map of landslide hazards. we have no evidence of the particular choice of 25% is justified. we're concerned that the proposal would result in significant increase in the number of affected properties. this would mean delays in construction, additional costs to owners, considerable additional workload for the structural advisory committee and for d.b.i. if the costs and the delays and the added work were necessary for public safety we would consider the proposal more favorably. however, we have seen no evidence that that actually exists.

>> mr. harris. >> to the point there in regards that you actually have the mechanisms in place to show where your danger areas are, would you concur or disagree? have you seen this book? >> yeah, i concur. it's very clear where the problems occur. >> yeah. and what would be the problem -- i'm not making that 25% connection and you know where the problems are. the chances are that it's going to be -- if i have a project in this area it's going to be in it no matter what. so if i have a project -- okay, one map says you're in it and then this is the policy and procedures going forward, what's -- why are we pushing back so hard against the 25%? >> the reason that we would pushback is, first of all, that it affects a very large proportion of the city, many of which -- much of which is not

unstable. and, secondly, where does that number come from? it's just a nice round number. it has no fiz physical meaning. >> yeah, but it was it was written originally and we have lived under those circumstances and i have never had anybody in all of the years that i have done it, i have never had anybody complain about it before and that's both here in these chambers and outside from the private sector. >> no one has complained about the version of the 25%? >> yeah. >> that may be just -- that may just be because no one has tried to build on those lots. as time has gone on and construction technology has improved and the available space has been diminished i think that we see more and more housing that are actually getting built on those lots. so that may be -- the fact that there's not been complaints in

the past may not be an indicator of the future lack of problems. but the big thing as we see it is that we now have much better information than we used to. why not use that information? there's no need -- there's no evidence that says that that map that we have from usgs and cdmc is not adequate. we have seen no evidence of problems there. why not use that good science that we have? if we decide that, in fact, that map is not adequate, that there are, in fact, landslides that have occurred and damaged houses outside of that area, then where is the basis for 25% as a slope that is a trigger? maybe, you know, if there is a problem, maybe that basis should be a different number and maybe it's 20%, pain it's 30%, i don't know. i'm not suggesting that we use a

strict slope measure as a means for determination in the first place because some areas of rock are much more stable than others, but the 25% just seems to be -- to me to be a very arbitrary number with no basis behind it. >> wasn't it included in the map that you're discussing as a criteria? >> it was in -- the older criteria, yes, before we had the good information that we have now. it was a number that was based upon judgment at the time. >> now we have more detail about where specifically the danger might occur but we don't have information that changes that percentage other than being able to locate more at risk? so i would say that it's -- >> the current information -- the current information is based upon both the slope and te