. >> good morning and welcome to the san francisco planning commission and building inspection commission joint hearing for thursday, april 12, 2018. i will remind members of the public that the commissions do not tolerate outbursts of any kind. please silence your mobile devices that may sound off during these proceedings, and when speaking to the commissions, if you care to, state your name for the record. i will take roll for the planning commission.

[ roll call. ] >> and for the building inspection commission. [ roll call. [ roll call. ] >> clerk: very good. commissioners, we have your special calendar, 1(a) and(b) for demolitions, and fraudulent fines, fees and penalties. >> good morning president mccarthy and hillis and members of those commissions. i'm liz w addie deputy director of planning. we are looking forward to having the opportunity to discuss the challenges that we are all experiencing with demolitions and major alterations, and to collaborate on working towards a productive

solution. joining me today in delivering this presentation is chief building inspector pat o'rear don. we are joined by cory teague as and dan lowry, and joe duffy, senior building inspector. today's presentation will cover the following topics. we have four primary items that we would like to cover. after overview of the current demolition regulations, inspection issues, dialogue about unauthorized demolition processes, including penalties and fees that currently are in place, and our general key take aways of what the major issues are that we're facing. so as all of you are probably aware at this point, the city has a handful of demolition controls, and before we begin into what we see are the

challenges, we wanted to go through a little of a technical overview. although normally i try to steer clear of this technical jargon in any kind of public presentation, i think it's critical to really set the stage of understanding what the challenges are. so first, i'm not going to go into a lot of detail. this is the building code definition of demolition. chief inspector reardon will go into this a little bit more, but it is important to know that the building code does have a definition of demolition, and that is something that again, pat will go into in a little more detail. what i'm going to be focusing on is the planning code definition of the definition of demolition. what the planning code states is there are two ways that a project can be considered a demolition, and once that's considered demolition, it's subject to a conditional use

authorization. so the first is if dbi considers it a demolition. the second part is what i am ache going to focus most of my presentation on, and this is when an alteration permit is considered tantamount to demolition, this is considered tantamount to demoor 317. there are two ways to do this, and those are highlighted on this slide. each of the two ways is a two-part clause. each of them is an "and" clause, so you have to meet both before it can be considered. the first, lineal feet of the foundation level, removal of more than 50% of the sum of the front and rear facades, and removal of 65% of the sum of all exterior walls. you need to meet both for it to be considered tantamount under the lineal calculation. the second is a square feet

calculation, and that is a two-part clause, removal of more than 50% of the vertical lomt and more than 50% of the hort who a horizontal elements, think flooring and roofing. the keyword in this presentation is removal. so what is that defined at? it's defined as with reference to a wall roof or floor, the d dismantling of a wall near or close to it. this is an example. this is a sidewall that's taken off and it's put back on. this is dismantling it. this is a graphic demonstrating building a new exterior wall, so perhaps they kept their old exterior wall, made it an interior wall and built a new

exterior wall close to it. what's equally important here is what is not removal under the definition of tantamount to demolition, and this is i think one of those challenges that has resulted in a lot of consternation by members of the public and a lot of public perception issues to be perfectly honest when you're in the field. this definition in our code says when an exterior element of the building is removed and replaced for repairs and maintenance in like materials with no increase in the volume of the building, it's not removal. so in practical terms, if somebody is in the field, and they discover that an entire exterior wall is termite infested or has serious dry rot and it needs to be repaired, the developer dcan take that down, put it up with fresh exterior materials, and that is not counting against their demolition calculation.

that is our current code language, and obviously there's a dialogue and conversation that has to happen for that to be analysised and reviewed between the building inspector and the planning department, but that is allowed under the current code. again, this slide is a little bit for visual effect and a little bit for some technical information. there's a lot on this page that i'm not going to go into, but the gist is is this what this when a plan comes into the planning department. most of this is information that we ask the architect to provide us, so we can determine whether the project is or is not tantamount to demolition. so this first slide aligns with that first definition, the lineal square foot removal. and in short, the top aspect of this slide, the front and rear facade requirement, you'll see on the -- this is effectively the foundation footprint. it demonstrates that the fool elevation is removing part of the foundation.

22 feet, specifically in this table. the rear elevation is removing the entire facade. that's a total of about 78%. the threshold here is 50%, so for this, the front part yes, it's looking like a demo. the part two, you look at the total foundation, how much of the total foundation is being removed. in this example, you'll see most of the sidewalls are staying intact and aren't being removed. when you review this, the percentage of removal is 49%. the minimum for a demolition is 50%. so this project is not a demolition under the first criteria. so we go onto the second criteria. it could still be a demolition based on the surface area. the information on the left is relating to the horizontal calculation, the information on the right is the vertical calculation. with experience working on this, i always train our staff,

start with the horizontal, it's an easier calculation. if it's no after doing the horizontal, it's not a demo. so on the horizontal calculation here, you'll see that the grand total is 45.5% removal, and that equates to the picture at the bottom left where there's a little bit on the second floor on the right-hand side highlighted with a red box just for ease of quick review here, bits and pieces on the third floor and then the entire roof is being removed, so that grand total of 45.5% removal is under the 50% threshold. since it doesn't meet the first part, we don't need to go on because it doesn't meet one of the two clauses for demolition. so all in all, this project which is doing a lot of work, is not demolition under tantamount to demolition. i do also think it's important to take a quick step back to find out how these controls came into place. they came into place about a decade ago for many of the same

reasons that we're facing today and some real challenges, some things that don't make sense in the real world or make sense from a common sense perspective, and we tried to put regulations in place that would solve and recognize the policy objectives that existing housing is more relatively affordable housing and to preserve neighborhood character, so those were really the intent of the policy going into it. and i think it's very, again, timely that we're now looking back about a decade later to assess were those policy objectives met or were they not? so moving forward, from a planning department's perspective, there's a few challenges on the planning department's regulations. the first is there's a very strong incentive to be an alteration. once you're a demolition, you're pretty much with a few exceptions going to be going before the planning commission for a conditional use hearing. that's significant difference

between just a processing permit. equates to a significant amount of time, money, uncertainty in the outcome of the process. secondly, the regulations are not effective. again, going back to those policy perspectives of preserving relatively affordable housing and preserving neighborhood character, we certainly don't feel those are being addressed through this specific policy. similarly as i went through that example, on most typical san francisco homes where you have a zero sidewall building, if you keep your calculations, you're going to result in an alteration. if you just keep the sidewalls when you have a zero lot line neighborhood, you're seeing through the building, but technically again as we went through those democalculations, you're not meeting the code rule that we have to follow for implementation. lastly we feel like in the planning department there's a misalignment of rules and responsibilities with the

current regulations. the demolition analysis is that responsibility is placed onto our staff and planners are not experts regarding construction and building code requirements. it's hard when you're putting our expertise pitted against what a lot of the building inspectors and plan checks really understand how buildings go together and how you can build them in the field and so we'll kind of come full circle at the end of what we see as some of the direction that we would like to move forward with. and with that, i'd like to turn it over to pat o'reardon. >> thank you, liz. good morning commissioners. my name is patrick o'reardon. i'm a chief building inspector at dbi. first of all i'd like to say thank you to both commissions for giving me the opportunity to both on dbi on this very important topic. one of our suspect right lane engineers at dbi will also be a contributor in the

presentation. firstly, as liz did, i'd like to emphasize the challenges presented to dbi in record to the inspections we perform on these projects. existing walls are often deficient in weather resistance, fire resistance structural and seismic. must be upgraded throughout percode. electrical and hvac work is required, and i think what's really important is when we have shoring that's required to preserve walls, floors and roofs to comply with the demolition calculations, this can often lead to unsafe conditions for workers who are working in the area of the shored components of the existing building. and demolition calculations are determined by the architect and approved by planning. site permits often approved

without lots being completely vetted. there's a disconnect between architecture and engineering outsets. it's common to have unexpected field conditions, for example dry rot that would require additional demolition and may with the new filing of a permit trigger a conditional use hearing at planning. continuing with the inspection perspective, vertical additions, building permits for vertical additions are the most common source of unauthorized demolition. an estimated four or five instances of exceeding the approved demolition are substantiated annually. substantial upgrades of the building's bearing elements is needed to support an additional story or sometimes maybe two -- two stories, that is. means and methods to add upgraded structural components from time to time. unanticipated conditions, again

such as the dry rot we previously mentioned are found at initial approved that's gov

san francisco building code chapter 14. section 1403.2, performance requirements for weather protection, exterior walls shall provide the building with a weather resistant exterior wall envelope. the exterior wall envelope shall be designed and constructed with the walls suddenly providing a water resistant barrier from the existing wall. as you can see from the diagram or picture from the top left, that's a code complying weather

protect wall assembly. you have the exterior wall siding. after that you're supposed to have building paper and flashing on -- with the sheathing. then you have the stud insulation, vapor barrier and your interior finish. so on the bottom, as an example of an exposed exterior wall of older building, you can kind of see the extensive dry rot due to insufficient weather protection. so what the contractor did wassub in the existing wall. they did their due diligence in situ, without removing a value. however this is still not a code compliant weather protected exterior wall. next i want to talk about fire protection, specifically fire protection exterior walls. this is governed by san francisco building code chapter 6, section 602, fire resistant rate of requirements for

exterior wall based on fire separation distance. example i'm going to use is your typical two family dwelling, nonrated, three stories. bottom story, you have garage, and dwelling unit on each of the top upper fluors. if you look on the top left, fire resistant rating for fire walls based on fire separation, because typical san francisco we have zero lot lines, your spice distance is zero, and because this is a minimum occupancy, it needs to be a one hour rated assembly. so the bottom -- on the bottom left, this is what a typical one fire tested and approved one hour exterior wall assembly looks like. you know you have your stud, your insulation, and you have basically five eights type chip board on each face of the studs, so your minimum fire protection perbuilding code

exterior wall cannot be left as is if they're undergoing renovation. basically, this could potentially lead to health issues from, you know, mold infestation or growth within the cavity walls. it is possible for the gyp board -- [ inaudible ] >> this becomes life safety possible issue. [ inaudible ] >> so next, i want to talk about the structural requirements for substantial alternatations. so picture to your left.

basically, this is a demolition plan which shows the demoof some interior walls to open up the kitchen, enlarge the bathroom. this appears to be a simple and basic kitchen bathroom remodel, but this can turn out to be substantial alteration. existing structures are governed by section 34.047.2, this says they basically have 30% of their tributary roof or structural building, that kicks you into 3401.10, lab reports design requirements for existing building kicks you to section 1604.10, and then basically, that requires a full wind and seismic detail of youren tear building perasc 7. so the point to take away from this is the 30% rule. if you're doing a remodel and it affects any structure of

your bshlgs you have to provide a full lateral strengthening of your entire building, okay? so example i like to use is a simple third floor remodel. again, i'm going to use a two family dwelling, wood framed nonrated building, numbers three -- three stories. so you look at the picture on your left, this is existing condition, you know, idealizing existing condition of your building. you're trying to open up the kitchen so it's open to the living and dining room. 50% of your load goes to the interior wall for tributary area and exteriors take 25%, so hypothetically, let's say we get rid of that interior wall. now you have the bottom left condition where then the load gets transferred, distributed evenly into each of the walls, so 25% to each of the exterior

walls, right, so your load increases from 25% to 50% of the exterior bearing walls, right. that's 100% increase of the loads for those walls, so which is greater than 30%, so that kicks you to full lateral strengthening of the entire building. so what do you need to do? so you need to -- for this kitchen remodel, you need to strengthen the existing exterior walls. so here you have a picture of the contractor doing work. what they did was they -- they double up or they tripled up the studs of the exterior wall. they sistered two new studs to each of the existing studs. potentially this could -- you know, you have to strengthen the studs all the way down to the ground floor, and this might lead to a foundation upgrade, as well, so these walls also need to be exposed to basically run the electrical and plumbing associated with this kitchen remodel. the problem with that is these are both considered unlawful demoby definition of the planning department 317 because we're not doing repairs, we're

actually upgrading these walls, right? so the structural integrity of the existing walls is able to be complete. next example is a vertical addition. this is a substantial alteration due to vertical addition. the example i like to use is your elementary physics principal, force equals acceleration. so the acceleration or ground shaking of your building, that's subject to the location of your building to the fault line. what type of soil your building sits on, some like bed rock, that's less kind of -- less subject to shaking whereas if you have sand or clay you know that's higher subject to shaking. so basically, when you add the -- if you add the additional structure -- if you add that addition on, that increases the mass you're building which actually increases the innertial force of your building that it has to

be withstand. there's a direct linear relation between mass and force exerted onto your buildings. so with the vertical -- [ inaudible ] >> -- which is the gravity. how do you support that addition on your building and strengthen your existing building to support that addition and also the lateral component too because you're adding more mass to your building, so how do you strengthen the rest of your building to actually hold up that new addition. so i mean a lot -- so the vertical addition involves exposing the majority of the building, so that's practically unchiefable without altering the existing building envelope. again, considered unlawful demoby planning. bottom left, you see a picture of a new moment frame installed at the ground floor. ceiling of that exposed, walls of that exposed to basically connect that into the skeleton

or framing of your building to make it a coherent building system. in summary, it's practically p -- [ inaudible ] >> so i was nt it to be clear, full code compliancy, these are just minimum standards by the building code. these are the bare bones for life safety and building performance. so stakeholders spend all this money on a remodel and addition and they still end up with a substandard building because it doesn't meet regulations of the planning code. so you end up with insufficiency. in the interests of public safety, i feel like there has to be a compromise on the restriction of code 317 and the minimum life and safety

requirements of the building code. >> thank you. >> thank you, cyril. those are just the basics of the building code that cyril put in front of us. the goal is to have a good building, solid, strong, and weatherized. dbi's definition of demolition, the san francisco building code is 03(a).3.2 under definitions states demolition, the total tearing down or destruction of a building containing one or more residential units or any alteration which destroys or removes as the terms are defined by the building official of the department of building inspection, principle portions of an existing structure containing one or more residential units. and it goes onto define

principal portion as the construction which determines the shape and size of the building envelope, such as the exterior walls, roof, and interior bearing rmts or that construction which alters two thirds or more of the interior elements. san francisco building code 103(a).3.2, this hear re is an example of a demolition where the scope was exceeded back in 2006. it was deemed to be an unlawful demoby dbi. the picture on your left shows the building two years later in 2008, and again, the picture on the right shows how it was in october 2017. now, i drove by there last week just to see if it had progressed any, and it's pretty much still like the picture in

the slide shows of the october 2017 picture. in regard to these projects, when -- when they're abandoned, we receive a lot of complaints. the initial complaint is about exceeding the scope of demo, but when there's no activity and no progress towards moving forward with the work at the site, we get the complaints about blight on the neighborhoods, the impact on the neighbors, we get the complaints about graffiti, which you can see the graffiti in the picture. roof drainage becomes a problem because they usually tarp these buildings, and god only knows where the water's going to shed. is it going to go on the neighbor's property? going back to the tarp, the tarps are flapping in the breeze, and this is another complaint. this is what we end up with. unauthorized demolition, dbi and planning work together to resolve complaints of

unpermitted work. penalties are one part of this process. unauthorized work and work beyond the permitted scope, the current process is dbi performs a site inspection, confirms work beyond the scope of the permit or work without permit, knows the violation issued, stop work. the site is secured and weatherized. by weatherized, i mean whatever components of the wood frame building remain, they're required to be weatherized for their preservation or potential preservation. design team then usually visits dbi for direction. permit holder is advised to contact the planning department for next steps. that's typically new permit application with plans, and they're back into their review wheel house. in regard to penalties and fees, the dbi portion of this

is the stop work order is issued on the project and it's routed to planning for next steps. the specific penalties, penalties for exceeding the scope of the work are based on table 110(a) and table 1(a) k of the san francisco building code, and the penalty is two times the issuance fee for work exceeding the scope of the permit. the penalty for when no permit exists is nine times the permit issuance fee. now, monetary penalties are typically small because the evaluation of demolition work is not very great because it's just a few guys going in there and taking down walls or whatever they're doing, and hopefully it's not what they shouldn't be doing. but the penalties are typically small. code enforcement fees, however, and orders of abatement and assessments bring the penalties up substantially, and then we're into the thousands of

dollars. but the code enforcement effort is only of course if they're not being proactive and engaging in the process of trying to get the necessary permit and get back on track with whatever it is they need to do, engaging the planning department and ourselves and so forth. we can have a referral to the city attorney's office for possible litigation and possible penalties. the unlawful demolition order prohibits the project to proceed unless they put the building back in the same -- to the same envelope and the same as it was before. so i'm going to turn this planning portion over to liz and go back to one more slide before i finish up. thank you. >> sure. thanks pat. so on the planning side of the penalties and fee equation as pat mentioned, our goal is to seek compliance, not to be punitive, and that's really the

code language in the planning code is setup as it relates to the enforcement. so in a perfect world, as soon as the issue has been brought to the building department's attention, the applicant comes in, they file a permit to correct, and that is immediately routed over to the planning department. our first job is to assess where are we? is this deviation and scope of work under or over that tantamount to demolition threshold? plenty of projects are significantly under that threshold, and in those instances, we would review it, verify, and we would sign off, they would move forward and continue with construction. in those instances where they are right up to the wire on being under that threshold and this work now pushes them over that threshold. this is where we really get into a tough situation mt. planning department. in both situations, we would then tell and let dbi know that work needs to stop. they need to file a conditional use authorization, and thee they need to go through the planning commission process,

which can add somewhere in the ballpark of fou

very scope of demolition. that would be helpful so we could at least at plan review stage see exactly what it is being removed and what's being kept. so that's a discussion that --

that's probably being had. refer structural addenda to planning for review. give the planning department a chance to see what additional work is being proposed on the addendum to the site permit. evaluate addenda with site permit to ensure consistency and feasibility. and i think one of the big ones here is require site inspection by dbi at start of work to review permit and site conditions for vertical additions with evaluation of more than $150,000. i'm available for questions when liz finishes her part of the presentation. thank you, commissioners. >> thanks. so just one last slide here. basically to wrap things up, we want to acknowledge this is a tough topic with no easy

solution. we've been down this road before, and i think it's very timely for us to take a step back and look at new solutions to this problem with a legislative fix. i think we all have a tendency to jump into the technical solutions, and before we do that, we all really feel we need to take a step back and take a look at this and establish a real policy objective. from our experience there are three main points of contention that tend to get recirculated around the issues of demolition, and those are issues of neighborhood character, issues of affo affordability and issues related to upgrading our housing stock both from affordability standpoint and safety. we really need to unpack each of these top particulars. they mean different things to different shake holders, and we need to gain consensus what are we trying to solve around those three. lastly we need to have one

shared definition for the city and not have these bifurcated codes between two different departments with the city. so thank you for bearing with us. there's a lot of technical information in that presentation, but we want to make sure you know what we're dealing with as professionals in the field every day. we're here to answer any questions or comments you might have, and we're looking forward to getting your thoughts and directions on where to go for the next steps. >> president hillis: thank you. we will open this up first to public comment and then we'll have commissioner comments and questions, and i've got a number of speaker cards, but all are welcome to speak. you'll lineup on the screen side of the room. mr. wittig, you're first. nancy, rose, spike, kathleen, and anastasia.

[ inaudible ] >> president hillis: we'll go three minutes is our typical. all right. mr. wittig. >> hello. my name is george wittig. i'm the president of the coalition for san francisco neighborhoods. thank you for having this joint hearing. the issue before you today are what the community has been wrestling with and brought to you for years. we believe that you've seen enough, and it's time now for the community and the commission to come together to fix those problems. this endeavor requires one legislation regarding definition of demolition; two, implementation; three, enforcement. the community is inviting you to join us in pushing for all three categories of those above fixes.

legislation regarding definition of demolition, there should be a new definition for demolition, and it has to be clear, easily calculable, quantitative, measurable and live in both building codes. what currently exists in section 317 of the planning code is formulaic but not easily calculable. number two, implementation. whatever we've done in the past has been open to interpretation and hardly bulletproof, as prior speakers can attest to. this requires specificity so that our building inspectors and planners know what their roles are. the planning and building departments are public

agencies, and as such, we expect them to be accountable to the public. the roles and responsibilities of the two departments might be delineated enough for projects that go perplans, but when a developer misrepresents the plans or goes beyond the scope of the permit, which of the departments is taking charge of these issues to rectify them? planners may think it's not their job to fix plans that are not accurate. enforcement -- this is my own personal one because i have felt for a long time planning has dropped the ball on enforcement and says well, we'll go to building inspection. well, when you look at building inspection, building inspection's rules are so vague, they're subject to

almost any interpretation whatsoever. so you have a situation i see where neither agency is able to really work with the other. >> secretary ionin: thank you, mr. witting. >> president hillis: thank you, mr. witting. >> hi. good morning. i don't know if you read what was in the packet that i sent. i sent to you a packet, but you know, there were those e-mails back from january 2015, and i didn't intend those to say, like, oh, my god, this has been going on forever, 'cause it has been, but this -- no one's really responsible. i feel responsible because i didn't push more for the planning commission to adjust the numerical calculations and the democalcs. that could have been helpful in the 317, but maybe not based on what miss waddie presented this

morning because of how tricky they are. you have the groupings. maybe if they are all ors, that would be good, but it's still arcane. with all respect to the good people, who thought one definition of demolition would solve the problem, i respectfully agree. clear-cut demos, flat lotting, demos like that that now skirt the rules, demos that don't skirt the rules under the now tantamount to demolition. if you look back in 2007, the reason for tantamount to demolition, the reason was to avoid people doing things in alterations. if the goal was to preserve housing and prevent demolition of sound, relatively affordable housing, the city needs two definitions as i outlined in my handout which it in your packets: one for planning and one for building, but both

staff need to be able to use both definitions as needed. a revised tantamount definition must be understood by neighbors, by all city staff, reviewing a project and by enforcement, and it must be one that can allow for reasonable alterations. as i said, that was the original intent of section 317, to prevent demolitions while allowing for reasonable alterations. prior to 317, you had one definition. is that what you want to go back to? why did you spend nearly eight years coming up with section 317? rewrite section 317. do not get rid of it. fun amount it doesn't matter if building material is replaced or windows are counted. that should only matter in repairration or strict remodel

of a property. please keep two separate definitions. the one as it is currently in the building code and write a new, improved one for the planning code for tantamount to demolition as i first suggested in it october 2016 and both departments coordinate use as needed, and here's what i wrote in 2016, and on the back are the projects since i wrote the memo in 2015 that i think you ought to look at. >> president hillis: thank you. >> should be enough for all of you. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. >> good morning. my name is paul webber, and i'm a resident of north beach. i have some general comments and then process comments. first of all, both departments must have a common definition of demolition, and have a common time for demolition permitting. the activities of b.i. should

be in furtherance of a common definition, the details which were explained today should be solving for x, and x should be a common definition. b.i. should monitor a ground to see that the project on the ground matches the application and shut it down for variations. permit complications including plans should be submitted under penalty of perjury. deviations should be met with severe penalties and not serial permits. the definition of demolitions should be formulaic not qualitative and be objective, easy to apply and simple to understand, so as to leave no selective judgment in the hands of reviewers. periodic on-site reports should be submitted to inspectors or senior management under penalty

of perjury as the project commences p. now as to the process, for seeking a conditional use permit from planning for mergers, conversions or demolitions, the application review criteria must be changed. currently, they are called considerations, which are a number of different sets of factors, depending upon the authority being sought, with no direction as to what to do with those considerations. it just says thou shalt consider these, up to a size 20, but it doesn't say what you should do with them. these considerations should be converted to findings based upon substantial evidence, meaning that they must be met, not just considered. and these will need to be hashed out, i'm sure. not all considerations should

be fining, but then should be eliminated, but the following should be in all cases included as findings, and if they cannot be made, the permit should not be granted. the project is in compliance in all material respects while relevant design guidelines or other controls, and there should be no demolition of any existing unit which is autopsied by a tenant or with a five year look back meaning if the tenant has occupied the building for the past five years, that would be a building that is not eligible for demolition. thank you very much. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, please, miss courtney. >> good morning, commissioners, and many thanks for having this meeting. kathleen courtney, russian hill commission. 15 years a project was proposed on russian hill to add a fourth story to a 35'3" story building

with six rent controlled units. the building was built in 1917. the plan called for the removal of 4 feet, and then construction for an additional 9 feet for a total of 40 feet. when the neighborhood asked how they could verify that the building could be built within the 40 foot height limit, the project sponsor said that they had as built plans, and they extrapolated from the as built plans. the city planner did not request the as built plans or any verification of the metric. when we appealed the process, the director of planning who was then acting as the planning commission did not request as built plans and did not request any verification of the metrics. we appealed further, and there was no request for as built plans or any metrics, so one evening, a neighbor jumped from one building to the proposed project, lowered a ball of

twine to a third neighbor on the sidewalk. we took the ball of twine to the then director of the department of building inspection, who sent chief inspector carla johnson out to measure the building, and carla's report that neither the structural nor the architectural plans showed a building that could be built within the 40 foot height limit. so his credit then senior planner jonas ionin wrote to the russian hill commission in august 2005 and said thank you for your persistence in creating an accurate record of events. shortly thereafter, the building was sold, the new property owners lowered the building 18 inches in order to add the additional foot. neither the developer who authorized the fraudulent plans nor the architect who performed

the fraudulent plans was penalized or fined, and i got three nails in three of my tires in this situation. in 2005, peskin advised members of the rhda, quote, be vigilant in assisting city government to uncover any misrepresentation in applications for construction projects and to assist government officials to require all construction projects comply with the planning and zoning codes. that's the reason we're here today. we have to do something. it's not working. thank you very much. >> president hillis: thank you, miss courtney. >> good morning. i'm anastasai yanopolous, and i live in noe valley. it's been over three years

since the building and planning commission met, and it's high time we discuss this topic. and i suggest before you leave today, you commit to the next -- a date for the next joint hearing. there's so many issues to be discussed between the two of you and demolition is only one. okay. i've read the supervisor peskin's letter to you all. i hope you've read it, and you said there's been a lack of will to do anything about this. so we have to light a fire under you to do something about this problem angus mccarthy, when i went before your commission a couple years ago to request something be done, you said, well this isn't a really big problem. i get a lot of calls, but there aren't really a lot of unlawful

demolitions happening, and i big to differ, and so do many members of the public who have come here today. first of all, you've got a building code and a planning code with two different definitions. you've got bad actors who misrepresent their plans. who's checking them when they first come in to see that what they're saying, oh, this is what we're going to build, even in the case of an edu that came before the appeals board? he misrepresented, and what they said was oh, i think a site visit is required here. why aren't there site visits to check? why are you just relying on a checked box that there are no tenants in the building? why aren't the planners and the inspectors doing due diligence? this is really important. let's get it straight from the start. then, the as built -- the what

is actually represented on the plans and what comes out are two different things, and in the process, a building is built that's nonconforming and who makes off like a bandit? the project sponsor. there's going to be a will, and there's got to be one definition. i agree with paul webber. he's got lots and lots of good points that you need to focus on, and i agree that this legislation for demolition is something that has to become law. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you very much. next speaker, please, miss wilson. >> good morning. i'm usually not here in the morning 'cause you always start at 1:00, but any way, i am very

interested in this topic because first person came up or second person who came up said there's section 317, and now it was worked on for years, and now we have two definitions, one for building and one for planning. if we started one definition at planning and it wasn't working, and you made another one, and it wasn't working, it seems like if you have one or two, it doesn't matter. so it seems like we're back at square one, what is the definition. miss waddie was very good at sorting out the definition of demolition at planning, which is is falls on the building official. now, i don't know what that means. does it mean the on call duty official of tuesday, wednesday or thursday? i don't know but any way that's demolition at billions. then you've got planning, and it was the formula that miss waddie mentioned.

that was one portion of 317. under 317, overhead please, you also have article ten. so that's the text of article ten, and it has a different formula for article ten buildings. so those are measurements, but we're not talking about. it wasn't mentioned in here. but i also have a question because there's something that we see here:ed code and there's something that the public doesn't see, and what the public doesn't see is what happens with staff, and how they determine these things? i don't know how they determine these things? what kind of list do they operate from? it's hidden from the public. we need to come up with something. if it's a list, is it going to be a check list. if it's going to be a formula or an equation -- what happens it you put a bunch of walls in and then when you take them out to make this expansionsive open modern space then you've got to have the beams in to take the

load. then, someone comes in and says oh, i'm going to divide this up. does someone come back and check on all the walls that they're putting in to see what happens to the load? t what about the administration code, and the green code? then you've got department of public works. what do you do with that? they don't have a commission. and then, for historic, how do you determine when it's a historic? what happens with category b buildings that aren't historic, so there are you go. you hope you solve there, and there you go. >> president hillis: thank you. >> good morning, commissioners. jeremy schab of schab leigh

architects. i want to thank everybody here for being here because this is an important topic. i guess my main consideration i want everybody to be talking about today is what is the goal of all these democalculations and what are we trying to -- you know, what's our end goal? are we trying to preserve neighborhood character, affordability or are we trying to create a lot of process that works towards those goals without ultimately reaching that? so i know the planning department and the building department had been working on a floor area ratio calculation, which i believe is the simplest and purest way of reaching what we want to reach, of having somewhat affordable homes and also reflecting the neighborhood design guidelines. if we spent all our time as architects working on calculations, and then it turns out during a site visitor site

inspection, the actual scope of the work has to change, then we end up with a serial permit, which is not what anyone wants to do, either, so i think if we admit that yeah, some neighborhoods like noe valley or something should be limited to three stories, then let's just go ahead and say that, instead of just coaching it in we can only add x percent to a building or we can only add the front bay of a building. it's not helping if we're just going to piece meal one building at a time and every stud. so i just want to keep in mind what the end goal is here. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. mr. bosskovich. >> president hillis: you know, we didn't have general public comment on this, too. now's a good time, too, because we didn't have general public comment on this. >> okay. i'll try to do this in three minutes. what is being discussed today

is much more than 317 and 103. it's about two critical departments working together with the public trust. way more than what we're talking about, and if you don't understand it, you're missing a lot of things going on right now. why do i care? i was born here. my dad was a steel worker. he could afford to live in the city as a steel worker. my mom was a see's candy lady. we lived in kind of bad rent controlled housing, but we lived here. the thing that concerns me is the kids can't afford to live here. i'm housing six kids in housing that i own. it's hard, but it's a privilege because i get to see them grow up. what is 317's goal? i thought it was to preserve affordable housing. it doesn't work. it doesn't. i'm a civil engineer. i'm out there, i see it. we haven't killed someone, but

one of these days, a part of the building hung up in the air as a remodel is going to drop on somebody and kill them. we've got to start-up on a new approach to 317. maybe you want to demoit and put an edu unit in. we've got to rethink this. 103 of the building code, that was there in the 80's. judy borgen wrote it. it was for richmond specials. people were coming in with an over the counter pink, no plans, and they said they were going to remodel the kitchen. they tore that building down and all that was left was the kitchen. that is what 103 was written for. so now, to apply that to drawings that are prepared and they exceed those percentages, which to be honest, the percentages in 103 make no sense, to apply that to a set of