these professionals who aren't complying, for there to be penalties setup because clearly they're giving a bad name to those of us who do respect the process, so thank you. >> president hillis: thank you very much. mr. keegran. >> thank you, commissioners, and thank you staff for your presentation. i'd like to start off by saying i do agree with most of what was said here today. we have a problem when people can't understand this very complex system called 317. it is extremely confusing. we need to coordinate and have one single definition of demolition. that is such a common sense request. at the need a modern penalty system. it's not just one system. there's many different variations of this penalty system that we need. we need a professional code of

ethics, and why do we need these things? we need them because we're seeing fracktures in our trust, and the minute we see a frackture in our trust, we have a problem, because our system of approving housing is not that great. it's clumsy, it's awkward, it's anything but nimble and quick, and to make it work in any way, it takes trust. and if we lose that, we're all in trouble. my second and final point is we need a system of rules and policies that aligns our efforts and our energy with our values. if i took you out and i showed you a blind wall condition, and i asked you, is there a one month old stud in that wall, a 100-year-old stud in that wall or a metal stud in that wall, nobody would tell the difference, so how does that add value? so what if it came down?

however, those walls that don't add value, maybe they have a soet set -- a set of values and a set of priorities that clearly have value. get them approved by planning. color code them on a set of plans and have a different set of standards for those walls where value is added. have preinspections on those walls. have a different penalty system for those walls, and any changes to those walls gets routed back to planning. the industry more than anybody, and i know it's staff at dbi, and i know it's staff at planning, and i know it's the community, but i feel more than anybody, we need a clear set of rules which puts the emphasis and efforts of our staff, of the industry, of the community in line with our general and

broader goals and policies. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, please. and if there's anybody else who'd like to speak, please lineup on the screen side of the room. [ inaudible ] >> president hillis: just pull that mic down. we can hear you better. ma'am, will you pull that mic down so we can hear you better. >> i want to thank you all for having this meeting. i want to be at short as possible. i think the consensus today is that there needs to be a qualitative rather than discretionary definition of the word demolition, and it needs to be consistent for both departments. the reason that it needs to be consistent, and the reason that this demolition issue is so very important is because as

joe butler and others have said, the preservation of existing housing is the preservation of the most affordable housing in san francisco. unfortunately or fortunately if you're going to demolish a building and construct another building, the cost of rent is going to increase dramatically. assuming that we can obtain a qualitative definition, my next point is that the definition needs to be enforced, just like all the laws and rules regarding planning and building inspections need to be enforced. as i walk around the neighborhood, and i walk around the city, almost every day, a lot, i can see that there are various projects in various states of construction that do not appear to be consistent with what is on the building permit. if i can see that, others can see that.

and unfortunately, when city agencies fail to enforce their own laws, it leads to a disrespect for the law -- for those laws, and all the laws in the city. and as we all live in increasingly close quarters, we need to engender respect for all of our laws, not to discourage it. finally, i have a suggestion which may seem overly simplistic, and that is when there's an outstanding building permit that some official with some authority be dispatched to review the site of that permit with some regularity. it seems that these permits are issued and no one from the building department even visits these sites until the building is finished. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you very much. any additional public comment on this item? great.

seeing none, we will close public comment. at the all very much for -- for this ongoing conversation. i know we don't have a lot -- but maybe commissioner mccarthy, if we want to go around first with the building commission and take an initial shot at questions andment coulds and then we'll do the planning commission, and if there's follow up beyond that, we can do that. commissioner konstin, do you want to start if you have any questions or comments? >> i was wondering why there hasn't ever been a thought of having an inspection to verify the as built when plans are -- are presented. >> you want to -- if staff wants to respond, that may be helpful. >> yes. that probably has been discussed in the past, i wasn't

part of the discussion. as was mentioned by a couple of the speakers here, when a design professional submits documents to both dbi and planning, they're state licensed, and they're probably should be -- in my opinion, there probably should be conversation about penalty to be truthful, of perjury, but yes, we're willing to entertain any suggestions and make changes as needed to make it better so that we catch these things as early in the game as we can, start of work or preissuance inspections, they're all better ways of ensuring we don't have to deal with from time to time presently. >> thank you. >> not knowing all of my commissioners might want to speak on this, but commissioner, do you want to speak on this?

if you want, then commissioner warshell? >> thank you. chair mccarthy. actually, i sort of want to start with more comments. first i wanted to thank both planni planning staff and dbi staff for this presentation. i want to thank everybody from the public who came out today. i'm really touched by thement coulds that were made, and so these are broader comments and not so much technical questions. i would definitely like to see us moving forward either a joint technical group between the two departments so we can take up many of the suggestions made by the public or get to a point where it's a common definition or two definitions, we have more clarity. i think some of the most important things that the community brought up that i'd like to see explored by both of the departments as well as as builts that what's being brought across the counter is accurate in correct.

i think in particular, too, as we're seeing more demolition used to built more units or displace more tenants, i'd like to look at one, requesting rental information going back five years to see what the tenancy records are, particularly when it comes to rent controlled units. i'd like to see us looking at policies and procedures similar to what the affordable housing community has around what it calls resident briefings and notifications around different stages of development. when we do acquisition of large projects, we're mandated monthly to tell people what's going on. i think we should look at a threshold of x number of units to require these briefings. whether tenants are on-site or off-site.

i'd also like us to take into account that this tool is being used for displacement and for illegal conversions. and i know it's the second agenda item we have, but i think we need to seriously look at our fines and our enforcement authority. i concur that lately with the boom in the real estate market over the last 15 years, we're being asked way more to ask for forgiveness, and not permission. and i think we need to get back to asking for permission. >> thank you. commissioner warshell? >> commissioner warshell: many thanks for the staff and the speakers for providing all this educated and worthwhile commentary. several of the points are also ones that commissioner gilman just mentioned. we obviously need simple, clear, and common definition of what a demolition is, and there is clearly a need for a task

force inform immediately commence to begin work on making this happen as quickly as possible. some of the other points she made, prepermit applications to ensure that we not have surprises, that we're following those things carefully and well are clearly needed. tenant protections, the recommendation providing five to ten years of records, especially where rent control is involved, seem to be quite reasonable and characterize city goals. in addition to those she mentioned, one thing i'd like to bring up is several speakers mentioned it's been 3.5 years since we've had a joint session. and i certainly think that this has been a very productive day,

and i think that we should be looking at calendaring regular joint sessions, whether they be quarterly or semiannual. this is how we should be working together to be sure we're presenting consistent and clear policy to facilitate our standards, to improve housing stock, and to move projects forward as expeditiously as possible with minimal confusion. one of the other things that's very high in my mind, the issue of serial bad actors. i think we have to, at this point, accept that we have some serial bad actors, and our penalties currently are not an adequate deterrent to them, and

we need to immediately begin to look at improving real penalties, and if we need that to be through the legislative path, to work with the land use committee of the board of supervisors to really have some significant penalties for serial bad actors. it's the fool me once, shake on you, fool me twice shame on me. i think we've been fooled more than twice by some people, and there have to be serious penalties. how we develop what those are, whether they include licensing, whether they require more perjury or misrepresentation

penalties, that needs to be seen, but that needs to be addressed. a last issue brought up by people was these historic protections. obviously, historic buildings are a very key piece of our city character, and they are some of the our most vulnerable buildings, and developing protocols in particular for our historic assets is one of the most important things that we can do jointly between dbi, planning, and where appropriate, hpc. thank you. >> commissioner mccarthy: commission commissioner lee, please. >> commissioner lee: thank you for coming to this meeting. i thampg the members of the public, and i agree with what they said and our commission is

thinking about, too. i do agree we should have a simple or single definition of what demolition should be, so that both departments can understand and know exactly what those criterias are, and as well as the public and the project sponsors, for they all need to know what the definition of demolition should be and what triggers it. i also like the idea of our department going out to do a presite or a site visit prior to issuing a permit or allowing a builder to start construction. maybe these should be limited to projects that has a 311 notice, maybe, something like that? i think that's a great idea. i also like what our department's engineer told us about how certain hold items are triggered and may

eventually lead to what we currently call a demolition, and those are very important factors. i think we need to decide whether we need to incorporate those type of code upgrades into the definition of demolition or not. i think the public may misunderstand a few things, and i'd like to plain those. i think a lot of our project sponsors, contractors, engineers, architects may already know this. correct me if i am wrong but when project sponsor wants to alter a building or build something on top of it or horizontal addition, vertical addition, they submit plans to the building department, and those plans are very simple. those plans just show this is what i want to do. i want to add a room here, i want to add a floor here, but that's it. then, the project sponsor, i think sits back and waits until the planning commission rules on whether or not this is appropriate and go ahead and do

it. after that approval is done, then, the negotiation or actually the review goes to the building department, and that's when the project sponsors start learning what code requirements are triggered, right? which walled need to be thickened, which walls need to be taken down and applied back on with weather proofing or whatever. which column needs to be strengthened. these things are then decided before the permit is issued. but guess what? this isn't broadcast to the neighborhood, right? the neighborhood doesn't know that. they only saw the first 311 notice that said hey, we're just adding this. but now, they don't know about the code requirement that triggered, hey, this wall needs to be removed and strengthened. now something has to be done to let the public know about those changes. that's all. >> commissioner mccarthy: thank you, commissioner lee.

commissioner walker, i believe. >> commissioner walker: thank you, staff, and thank you, commissioner, and thank you all for coming. many of us have been in this conversation for well over 20 years. i want to enjoin in the recommendations of commissioner gilman and warshell and especially around there's three sort of elements, the definition, focusing on the definition, implementation, and enforcement. i think that there are relevant actions to be taken and conversations to have in each. the addition of site visits when we are reviewing plans is really an important step. it ties in to the second calendar issue that we have about when you have false plans. it also ties into serial offenders. that's the enforcement part,

too. but we need to make sure that they're accurate plans, and that they're actually -- what is being reviewed by planning when they're talking about it, but it's this -- one of the things that comes up for me in this whole conversation is you go in when you intend to do a -- a demolition, you have a certain process that you use. what we're talking about is those projects that end up being demolitions in the field. a lot of -- a lot happens behind those 8 foot walls that be some was mentioned before, and i want to just put out there, it's not really around what your intention is around demolition. a demolition is a demolition if it fits the definition of demolition by the quantitative measurement. so someone who has to tear down a wall because it's got dry rot

or add a wall because their need support for the addition that was approved by planning, in the field, they determine they have to structure it so that it effectively fits now into the definition of demolition. you know, it's still a demolition, so at some point, it needs to really -- we need to focus on noticing the neighbors, making this information transparent, making sure our staff goes when to reroute it back to planning to review it as a demolition, and, you know, it's a -- it's a whole process that we're counting on the public to tell us about. and this idea of doing regular visits on these projects is probably the best way around this, is to really get people out, especially on projects where we know that there's going to be additional weight that's going to affect the walls, and where we actually can anticipate certain things

happening, we should be scheduling regular visits on-site to have somebody really review what's going on. and i know our inspectors do, but it's -- again, it's not the intention that's important here of whether they're intending to demolish or not. it's the fact of what happens. and so my issue, of course, is because when something is demolished, all of a sudden, you're losing rent control. so the issue of how we use our new permit tracking system to flag this information, to include information about, you know, when flagging us, when certain things happen, if certain permits are issued on-site, that we actually flag to notice neighbors, this idea that i -- i liked from commissioner gilman about actually scheduling regular meetings with folks involved to

preempt issues that might come up, it's a good idea. i mean, it's something that we should -- i don't know that we require it, but it's certainly something that needs to happen. so the -- the five-year history of tenancy is really important. this should be required at the initial stage of permit application. it's something that the planning department should look at, and this information -- you know, the issues that we have around code enforcement and making sure the public knows all of what we're doing when this stuff happened, so the acela system that we have -- i know the planning department already has it, but there's all sorts of opportunities to make information available to the public through that system, and i hope that we take pull advantage of that, working with

what has been suggested of a task force between our departments, but also some representative members of the public to tell us what, you know, their issues are and their ideas are and make it available. because again, the trust issue is because this happens behind walls, literal and figurative. if we have a process that is more inclusive and that people can really find out more information about, it's going to help with our trust issue. so again, thank you all for being here, and i hope that we can do this regularly. it shouldn't take us three years to schedule meetings. we like doing this, so -- and it's really helpful. it helps our staff, and it helps the public trust, so let's try to do this on a regular basis. >> commissioner mccarthy: if it's okay with president hillis, i would like to hear from the planning commissioners before i fold out my final comments. >> president hillis: sure.

commissioner fong? >> commissioner fong: sure. i think it's pretty difficult. i'm in agreement with the public and staff, and i think there's an absolutely need for a modification. i think it's a challenge. i think we should not necessarily blame ourselves. the city has grown a tremendous amount. valuations of real estate have gone up tremendously, so the point that we'll talk about penalties. i don't think penalties have increased nearly for the value of the projects. way 4,000 bucks for a $4 million project in no big deal. stepping back a little bit, i think it's important that we setup a task force, a group with maybe some community members, some of us involved, get that next date scheduled. i have great confidence in both staffs of both departments to be able to come up with some is fresh ideas and fold in some of

the ideas that the public also brings in. one question i've always been kind of concerned about, and this is citywide, and even beyond these two departments is the enforcement teams in which the city -- we sort of respond to problems by phone calls or complaints driven by the public, and i don't know if that's going back to the time when the budget was greater when there was an enforcement team out there, make random checks, have a greater presence on the job sites. i don't know if that has been discussed. i know it's more money, but again we're talking bigger stakes and maybe it would be worth bringing that back. >> i have not seen that as a full potential, but looking forward to seeing that both from staff and the departments. really, this is -- i think we're in a time and age in this city, in this nation where we

need to catch up on some things. technology is speeding up, cost of living is speeding up. if the old days, if you had a question for the architect, it would take a week to come back. the speed of turning things around in efficiency has increased exponentially. i think this is a time where people are pushing very hard, and for good reason. and so now it's time for public policy to catch up for that and frankly get ahead of the curve and again, try to be a little bit futuristic and get ahead of this for now. >> president hillis: thank you. commissioner melgar? >> vice president melgar: thank you. commissioner fong, i think this is not a case where we're blaming ourselves, we're blaming each other. having set on both commissions, i've listened to the discussion on both commissions, you know,

not surprisingly, well, it's, you know, it's the planning department or it's the building inspection department. you know, i think in this case, there's clearly an area of growth in terms of both process and legislation, i think. you know, it seems clear to me that our current planning definition actually encourages folks sort of hedging their bets so that they will come in with lower costs and also not have to come in front of the commission for a c.u., and i've seen people do that, to play that. it's actually an encouragement to the situation we have. it's a powerful economic incentive to play this game, and i think on the building code side, there is the -- just public perception that inspectors will interpret the code in a different way whether or not it's happening, so

vagueness of the code, you know, invites that, and it's not a good thing for the department or the public. so i think you know, i do -- with all due respect, i do think there should be one definition, a very clear transparent definition that's understandable and easy to calculate, and it should be quantifiable as much as possible. we do have the technology to work together. i'm not sure we are using it. i will just point out to spike's comment that in oakland, building inspection and planning, and neighborhood preservation were all in one department. now we're not going to do that here, most likely, but we do have the technology to have a more seamless process. i know it's a complicated problem, as miss waddie

presented, so i don't think there's going to be one fix, you know? i think it's both legislation and process, and i think that, you know, working with our legislative partners, you know, supervisor peskin is already on this and has been for quite sometime. i think that we need to make sure that staff and the department are both involved in that process. because sometimes, you know, between policy and procedure, a lot gets lost along the way, so we have to make sure the legislation hits what we intend in terms of the preservation of sound structures, affordability, neighborhood character. but also that the process works, and that it's transparent, and it doesn't have unintended economic consequences, because clearly, it does, and i think the staff in both departments have enough experience to be able to foresee oh, if you do this,

that's going to happen because we've seen it. and then lastly, i would say that this talk about, you know, recurrent bad actors is something that's been going on for years, to commissioner warshell's point. and i think, you know, perhaps -- and we'll talk about fees and fines next, but i think maybe we can start in this new seamlessly technical collaboration by requiring folks who are those bad actors, we already know who they are, we already have a list, we've seen them over and over, to have that initial inspection. it's an idea that has been brought up. i'm not really sure how it'll work out in -- you know, in practice, because you have to open up a wall to see if the two-by-fours are rotten. so at what point would that happen? do we issue a temporary permit

until the inspection happens? i think that staff really needs to for the kektded

and there are rules for the rest of us. you see very egregious things happening to building where they building beyond what the stated permit shows. we've seen out right fraud.

214 states, 655 alvarado. we've had one on tungsten. the building that was built in its place wasn't according to plans. that's absurd. we actually -- i want to follow that one because we actually had the building cutback. i don't know if they cut the building back or not, but that was the ruling on the d.r. i also think -- the one question that i keep asking is how do these people that keep doing this stuff keep getting permits? there needs to be a flag somewhere that says hey -- i forget what somebody said -- the schmuck's back. i believe criminal acts deserve criminal penalties, and i believe what we're seeing are criminal acts. they may not be criminal by some statute, but what they're doing to people and what they're doing to the process and what they're doing to people's views of us are

criminal. and i'm sitting up here and i feel like we're being compared to the epa from the public. we're in charge of the rules, and yet we interpret them and we break them when we want, and poof, no problem. it pains me to sit here and hear all this stuff. two, i hear -- thank you staff, thank you miss w 5 ddie, mr. o'reardon. coming sn coming into the city after tech in 30 days was shocking. when i hear some of the solutions here today, i take pause because i keep hearing are solutions going to be based on the existing conditions of the organization? we don't have people that have any expertise in structural engineering or whatever, do we're not going to go get it. we're not going to change anything. our law enforcement's based on

public complaints. why? what's that getting us? ourks our enforcement's base -- we're going to be talking about this. it's based on getting them into compliance. what's the effect of that been? it's only encouraged it happening more and more. so i think a fundamental look back in questioning everything we do, from organization structure, like in oakland, all the way down needs to be looked at. everything should be on the table. i think everything that we do needs to have a basis in reality and stop being constrained by what we think we can and can't do. i was sitting in a supervisor's office this week, and we were talking about evictions, and i kept hearing, well, the rent board won't do that, well, the rent board won't do that. and i said, either you get them to do that, or you replace them. we're not there to coddle the rent board, we're here to get something done. i think that's my question

here. i was with staff in a very good meeting, and they said everything else's unaffordable, so what's the purpose of saving anything? i thought that's kind of right. not many people can afford much. i actually looked on the california association of realtors' website, and they actually have a graph. since 1991-2, what's the affordab affordable median rate of housing in san francisco. so the highest it's been, and that was in first quarter of 2012 was 30 -- nearly 30%. for people to say -- and it goes over time based on economic cycles, so we have highs of 30%, and right now we're at about 12. so do we want to just say we're going to freeze the unafford

jabl rate able rate because it was 12% a few years in the past. we need to look at if preserving it is getting us what we want. 17 temple, it was a shack. it needed waterproofing. it needed all kinds of stuff. i had a project around the corner. i used to walk by 17 temple, because it was a d.r., and we had it indefinited forever. it needed a lot of work. now, the question is what do you do with the 17 temples where we see all the building code issues that are there, needs to be weather proofed and fireproofed, and that needs to be considered, and that needs to be considered with what we're trying to do here, the definition of demo, if we're trying to prevent things from being super sized and magnified in value back to the person who's doing the work. so mr. welch raised a very, very interesting point.

with all the discussion around sb 827, housing accountability act and rent control, we need to get a handle on what the definition of demolition really is, because clearly, there's a carveout for local demolition control should the state mandates pass, it's essential for us to have a definition. i don't know now what is rent control or not based on definition of demolition. i don't know. is it taking foundation away, is it getting cfc? is it getting so many hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of work? nobody will tell me, and i think we need to decide that in our work group because this is a real issue and it's causing displacement. i also think that from a process point of view, two things we need to look at: how the definition of demolition -- i'm sorry, the definition much demolition interplays with different state laws. so if we finally figure out that sb 827 or son of sb 827

whatever comes our way -- there will probably be son of sb 827. you put the housing accountability act on top of that, what does that do to our definition of demolition? we've got two projects that are continued, one coming up in may at 792 capp, the replacement project's bringing more units in than one unit and the single-family house. we have one at 137 clayton, as well. we need to understand the interplay between this. i'm suspicious that it's an end run -- even further end run around local control. i also think if we're going to go down this route. we should separate demolition from replacement project. so if truly, there is an issue with housing accountability act, we should look at first, do we want to demothe building, yes or no, and then we look at the project behind it. i think that's key. tenant considerations, number

five. when evictions are happening, they're happening a lot, and it's whether -- we had one out on, i believe it was ninth avenue where the developer pulled in some type of machinery, and it was running on gas or kerosene, and he ran it all day long, and he smoked the tenants out of their units, they couldn't stand it anymore. that's what we're dealing with. the incentive to get rid of tentan tentan tent -- tenants is so high, people are doing a lot of nasty things, and it's creating a lot of issues. the other thing i hear, we don't have the budget, we don't have the people. you have to remember, we have to look at this holistically, and why don't we try to just prevent it up front. lastly, i think they're kind of

the guiding principles around what we're doing, and it's what everybody else said here, i agree completely, clear cross definition of both planning and building demolition is needed. if you're going to demolish a unit, and we can figure out if you're going to add units or not, we need to deal with fraudulent plans and bad actors quickly and effectively, so people don't think this is the way we operate. whatever we do, it needs to be kprensibl kpre comprehensible. clear definition of demolition, alteration, expansion, implementation is key. we need to make sure we minimize fraud and appeals, so i think the give me to some of the people in the development community will be it's going to be clear-cut, understandable. you're not going to get d.r.ed,

automatic d.r.ed on everything, which happens today because people don't trust the system. enforcement, we're going to talk about that, and whatever we do with demolition, alteration, expansion needs to do with how you bring the building up to code the best you can. we need to reverse engineer anything we do and hack the heck out of it and be like one of these schmucks, where is it and how can i drive my truck here through it. >> president hillis: thanks. commissioner johnson? >> commissioner johnson: thank you. i just want to echo all of my colleagues' thanks to members of the public for your testimony and for looking to are true partners with us in addressing this issue and challenge. i will say that this is an incredibly complicated issue but the good news is that we are all aligned. what i've heard again and again

from planning staff, from dbi, from my fellow commissioners, from the public, is we need better tools to address this issue, and we want to work together to address them. i think we absolutely need a good, clear definition of demolition that helps to direct guide folks in the community and folks that are in the field inspecting these buildings, one that is accessible, and so that looks again from builders to our departments are all on the same page. we need to be proceed active, and many fellow commissioners have mentioned the fact that we have ak nolg to be proceed active to flag projects that are likely going to be problematic and help us all work together to protect our end goal, which is affordable housing. i've heard again and again, not only on this issue, but on

other issues, that we need to be better about protecting our affordable housing and being proactive are. again, understanding what the uses of these buildings are before is incredible important. and then finally, being able to hold bad actors accountable. we all know who they are, and we need a process to be able to do that. this issue actually came up in another city that i used to work in called -- in boston, where we had these same types of issues, and what it actually took was an interagency working group coming together, not just staff or elected officials, but folks on the groundworking together, coming together weekly and monthly bringing up projects that are either blatantly against the rules or exhibiting possibilities of -- possibilities of actually going against the rules and making

sure that we're all on the same page constantly. and so i look forward to working with my fellow commissioners and members of planning staff and dbi to address this issue. >> president hillis: thank you. commissioner koppel? >> yeah. thanks to everyone for their very important opinions today. this is a very extremely important topic. i look back at my past in the field. i've built hospitals, i've built commercial buildings, i've built residential buildings, i've pulled permits, i've passed my inspections, and i've passed my fire marshal finals. i do think that calvin welch made a very important comment when he said we're going to keep dealing with all of these topics. this is a small city. we don't have a lot of unbuilt land. whenever we do develop something, there's probably going to be a demolition

involved. both of my parents live here in the city in separate rent controlled apartments, so rent controls, demos, fires, development, displacement, the building codes and more important life safety is what it's all about. if you guys don't trust us, if you guys don't feel safe, that's not okay. dove tailing off the health and safe, i'm not going to talk about jobs, i'm not going to talk about politics, i'm going to protect safety. our codes are the strictest in the world for a reason, and they are the bare minimum, bare minimum to which we should be constructing our buildings. construction shortcuts and sub standard building measures should never be our goal with housing. our safety is at stake, the

importance of this topic, we must remind ourselves that this issue deals with dwelling units where tenants will be sleeping and thusly may not be aware of a potential fire until it's too lite. i wanted to look at a couple specific examples instead of just talking generally about this. i do understand there's two prefabricated modular housing developments in the city, one at 38 harriet street and one at 3830 third street, and i question whether these buildings were built to the local san francisco building code. did electrical, plumbing, fire sign off for the rough end of these build outs? if not, as it relates to disclosure and transparency, were the tenants made aware of this noncompliance? as it relates to understanding what the implications are of

remodels, were the tenants made aware if they open up walls or ceilings that they, at their deem are responsible for bringing their units up to the local building code? if they were great, but i'm just asking the question 'cause they may not have been. they are very, very concerned with the safety of our residents and the safety of themselves, and they need to know what they're getting into when they go to a building's that's potentially on fire with residents in it. at some point, i'd like an informational presentation from

dbi staff regarding these concerns. i think it's in the best interests of the residents of this city to know when and where buildings are not being built to the san francisco local building code. thanks. >> president hillis: thank you. commissioner moore? >> commissioner moore: i want to thank the public, i want to thank my fellow commissioners for a most concise and inspirational exchange of ideas and thoughts. i appreciate that the public, who has not always been fond of us is not showing anger but is basically asking us to take the responsibility of why we're sitting in this place in this seat for the first -- in the first -- for the first reason. there is consensus on developing a single, more stringent demolition definition. this is a first because the history of two different definitions has been around for

an extremely long time, and while there were very valiant efforts in the last two or three decades to come up with additional controls, such as the 317 mp, in the end, it jus wasn't enough control, and the devil was in the details, and unfortunately, the devil went into the details, and we somehow lost control and oversight. we're also having people unfortunately who knew how to play the system and basically outsmarted the system and skirted the rules. i think that is one of the most painful realizations when you sit here today, and you hear that we as two departments need to come together and stop this practice. and then coming down to important elements that lay the foundation for change

practices, and i'm not necessarily quoting them in the order of importance. perhaps the most important one are tenant considerations and protection of rent controlled housing, particularly because older buildings are the target of where these practices by bad actors have been practiced. it is the start of also something which is difficult, given the nature and the age of our buildings. i've picked up on your comment, verified as built, for example of fairly complicated subject matter. i am going through a seismic retrofit, and to produce stilts even more a building that was built in 1950 is going through a heroic act of trying to find a needle in a haystack. those are microfiched records

whi and when you go to the department, you have to first prove -- i'm saying that for the public to understand how difficult the challenges are, for dbi and anyone who tries to do it the right way, you have to prove that the architect who built this building is dead. otherwise, you will not be given the drawings. however, the history of how we do drawings has completely changed, so when i got my drawings four months later, and i happened to know how to look at drawings, i barely recognized my building because the requirement for what is how drawings are submitted today are completely different from what they were at that time. so long story short, to start with verifying a build and clarifying adjacencies and topo graphy needs to be brought into the practice. if somebody who wants to do an alteration has to basically go

through the effort to prove it. it's not some kind of a finger in the wind interpretation but it has to be based on tieing the existing records together with what is being presented, and there's one of the biggest problems. when we have in planning, when it comes to us looking at alterations and the different kinds of alterations which lady to de facto to demolitions, there are all kinds of ways how they are described. and between the world in which we -- this half of the room looks at drawings and this half of the world is basically a huge gap. ours is there for entitlement. if it's reasonably described it can be entitled, and there lies the problem. i sometimes ask additional questions because a drawing, because something looks strange. i say, by the way, does this really work? well, it will be figured out

later, but it's in the figured out later is where the real trap lies. one, it's the devil in the details, but it's two realities which is the general idea which deals primarily with land use and workability to liveability and code compliance. and that is the chasm that we fall into in terms of credibility, the public's trust. the public has to believe that planning and dbi work hand and hand, that it's basically a smoothly layered process, and it isn't. there's a huge gap, particularly when it comes to going into the field and figuring out that the major portions of a building, which we don't work anymore, the building paper, the weather insulation, the completely changed fire code kicks in when you have a major alteration -- and, and, and, and. it's in that gap where i think the entire discussion falls apart, and i think we have to go back to the roots to figure

out how planning approval's entitlements can you closer related to the totality of creating a liveable, safe, compliant building, and we are at this moment not doing that. i think we all are operating with good intentions, but our intentions do not quite meet up. it's not our fault because we are bad people, but the two practices are very, very different. this was a long sentence i needed to add here. i believe that the suggestion about finding and penalizing bad actors have become a real enforcement element in how we look at real penalties. i agree with your thoughts on advanced inspections. i believe that a preapplication joint meeting with dbi may be incredibly necessary, given the

dwindling stock of homes which fall into the category that we're discussing today is getting increasingly smaller. we do see a very serious threat on the decrease on affordable housing and only using those tools can we create more interactive mechanisms by which we are stronger in doing what we need to do. i spoke about -- i believe that an interagency working group to deal with these issues would be a very, very strong thing to do that may be involving trusted structural architectural and other engineering professionals because this gets very, very technical, and i appreciate the presentation by dbi to really show us that there are many things that we just don't know. i am not talking to all of you,

but i believe that many of us were pretty awed by miss waddie's presentation, and we are clearly out of our area of expertise. another idea, but if we are to be establishing more stringent definitions and inspections, is there a possibility to look at a finer-grand definition of what alterations really are? is there a possibility to distinguish between minor alterations, substantial alterations and demolitions? that is not, when you take a whole building out, but when you're so close to changing a building that it starts to resemble demolitions. perhaps the idea of the vertical and horizontal

calculations that currently the department is using that has today proved effective anymore, that provides a more subtle way by which we would look at different percentage ranges for the three types of alterations that we would be able to at least capture those which exceed those amounts that are now becoming critical when they move from entitlement into dbi, and that is i think the ones we are primarily talking about. they're the egregious ones, which are basically saying how could this happen for years and years and years. you've shown them to us, and i think they're more in that latter range rather than that simple kitchen-bathroom remodel, not to talk about the kitchen remodel that mr. hugh

pointed out. i am encouraged that we are all on a same page, similar page, i don't quite know, but i look forward to working with you. and i do hope, and i'm addressing that to both directors, that the meeting frequency by which dbi can inform planning and planning can inform dbi becomes something which is part of standard city operation together with the departments now with more ability to work together. >> president hillis: thank you, commissioner moore. i think -- i won't -- i think a lot of this has been said, so i won't reiterate. the rules are complicated. i don't think they need to be that complicated. i think we've made them more complicated. i don't know if we mental to do

that for design. they work for those who know the rules, but not for the general public. dbi's rules of demolition are vague, and i think planning's are over kind of complicated and difficult to interpret, and, you know, there's that area between the two where you can be not a dbi demobut a planning demo, which just doesn't make any sense. these should be -- the public should be able to look at a building and kind of understand that it's a demo, or not, and it's not clear. the public brought up a building that you can see through, but it's not a demoby anybody's definitions. that just doesn't work. it hassto pass a logic test, and i don't think they do. most planning staff and dbi staff have starts down paths. i've heard comments from commissionersat