to us as well. we heard about cleanpowersf and learned they had commercial rates and signed up for that. it was super easy to sign up. our bookkeeper signed up online, it was like 15 minutes. nothing has changed, except now we have cleaner energy. it's an easy way to align your environmental proclivities and goals around climate change and it's so easy that it's hard to not want to do it, and it doesn't really add anything to the bill. >> good morning. today's wednesday, may 16th.

this is the regular meeting of the abatement and appeals board. i would like to remind everyone to turn off their electronic devices. the first item is roll call. [roll call] >> commissioner mccarthy is expected. we have a quorum. the next item is the oath. [ oath given ] >> each party has seven minutes

to present their case. there's public comment for three minutes and rebuttal for three minutes. the next item is approval of minutes. approval of minutes: discussion and possible action to adopt the minutes for meeting held on march 21, 2018. 1. case no. case 6845 requested a continuance. they were granted a continuance. is there anyone here to speak on that item? seeing none, case number

4020-402219th street. relief from the order of abatement and assessment of cost. >> for the record, commissioner mccarthy is present as well. >> good morning, all. yeah, we had inspection on july 14th regarding work without permits, expired permits, and unsafe divisions on this property. we found all the permits were expired without any inspections for all the work. it was remodeled, kitchens. we found unsafe conditions

regarding faucets not connected and, you know, a lot of things that were corrupt without any inspections. we wrote up an order for this property. we sent it to code enforcement because we gave seven days. the corrective action was to obtain a permit of 10 inspections, and they have not done that. i recommend action to uphold the abatement procedure and impose all the assessment costs. >> got it. >> is the appellant present or representative? it looks like the appellant is not here. is there public comment on this item?

>> i'm from the city attorney's office. i just wanted to inform the commission that this property and this defendant has been the subject of ongoing litigation since june of 2015, including a court injunction since june of -- since may of 2017 which specifically authorized the city to perform quarterly unannounced inspections at this property and other properties owned by the company and the court order as well, the statement issued after trial also specifically found that there was substantial legal construction on 19th street on the basis of the testimony of former tenants as well as then

deputy director daniel lowry, which formed the basis for the probable cause. >> thank you. thank you for that. >> you're welcome. >> is there any additional public comment? seeing none, does commissioners have discussion? >> commissioners? >> based on what we've heard, i see no reason not to uphold the orders and enforce all costs, and i so move. >> is there a second? >> second. >> there's the motion and a second. so there is a motion and a second to uphold the order of abatement, including the assessment of costs.

you're in agreement with the department's actions. is there public comment on this? seeing none, we'll do a roll call vote. [ voting [ voting on case no. 6844 ] >> the motion carries unanimo unanimously. next item is item e, general public comment? is there any general public comment for items not listed on the abatement appeals board agenda? >> there's one. >> is this for abatement appeals? >> abatement appeals. >> okay.

go ahead. >> i want to draw something to the board's attention. it was case 6824. i have brief handouts. this involved an illegal deck structure that was built without the benefit of permits in 2007, not a very -- not something you would think is a modest deck. probably takes up the size of that area right there. it's extremely large. the owner of the property who built that deck, he misrepresented the scope of the work. he had two permits done. he built this deck, saying it was being done pursuant to roofing permit, and then there was a second permit that was to expand the scope and replace some dry rot. there was two investigations that were opened up. there was an order of abatement that was issued in 2015. that was approximately eight years away after this deck structure and staircase had been built. there was the abatement that was

put in place. it came before this board twice in 2017. the second time it came before this board, this board issued a decision that all corrections needed to be made within six months and that the order of abatement was being held for 18 months. it's been 18 months. no permits for the corrections have been approved. no work has been done. essentially nothing has been done, expect for possibly some plans submitted. nothing has been approved. there's been nothing corrected. it's been 18 months. the abatement that was held by this court has expired. the owner of this property continues to use the deck in defiance of his obligations and in defiance of the ruling of this board. he uses it for -- he has open flames on there. he has propane tanks on there. it poses a fire risk.

it poses a safety risk to himself and to the neighbors. i know that on at least two occasions the fire department has been called out there. there was an incident where he had an open flame on august 16th of 2017. august 4th, 2017, and as recently as last month, april of 2018. i would ask that this matter be placed back again before this board, that the abatement be reinstated. the abeyance be removed. and the recommendation that this be referred to the city attorney's office. i have a few handouts that i can provide that would assist the board. it's just essentially showing the document that summarizes what i just represented.

>> thank you. >> thank you. >> we'll take it into account. >> thank you. >> consideration. thank you. is there any additional general public comment? >> seeing none, we have item f. motion to adjourn. is there a motion? >> so moved. >> second. >> second. >> all commissioners in favor? we're adjourned. the building commission will reconvene at 10:00 a.m.

>> a way of life in san francisco. when the next major quake hits, the city hopes a new law requiring seismic upgrades to five story buildings will help keep more residents safe and sound. tell me a little about the soft story program. what is it? >> it's a program the mayor signed into law about a year and a half ago and the whole idea behind it was to help homeowners strengthen buildings so that they would not collapse. >> did you the soft story program apply to all buildings or building that were built in a certain time frame? >> it only applies to buildings built in the time frame of 1978 and earlier.

it's aimed at wood framed buildings that are three or more stories and five or more units. but the openings at the garage level and the street level aren't supported in many buildings. and without the support during a major earthquake, they are expected to pancake and flatten ~. many of the buildings in this program are under rent control so it's to everybody's advantage to do the work and make sure they protect their investment and their tenant. >> notices have gone out to more than 6,000 owners of potentially at-risk properties but fewer than one-third have responded and thousands might miss an important deadline in september to tell the city what they plan to do. let's talk worst case scenario. what happens in a collapse? >> buildings have the tendency of rolling over. the first soft story walls lean

over and the building collapse. in an earthquake the building is a total loss. >> can you describe what kind of strengthening is involved in the retrofit? >> one of the basic concepts, you want to think of this building kind of like rubber band and the upper three floor are very rigid box and the garage is a very flexible element. in an earthquake the garage will have a tendency to rollover. you have to rubber band analogy that the first floor is a very tough but flexible rubber band such that you never drive force he to the upper floors. where all your damage goes into controlled element like plywood or steel frame. >> so, here we are actually inside of a soft story building. can we talk a little about what kinds of repairs property owners might expect? >> it's a very simple process. we deliberately tried to keep it that way. so, what's involved is plywood, which when you install it and make a wall as we have done

here already, then you cover it with this gypsum material. this adds some flexibility so that during the earthquake you'll get movement but not collapse. and that gets strengthened even more when we go over to the steel frame to support the upper floor. >> so, potentially the wood and the steel -- it sounds like a fairly straightforward process takes your odds of collapse from one in 4 to one in 30? >> that's exactly right. that's why we're hoping that people will move quickly and make this happen. >> great. let's take a look. so, let's talk steel frames. tell me what we have going on here. >> well, we have a steel frame here. there are two of these and they go up to the lower floor and there is a beam that go across,

basically a box that is much stiffer and stronger. ~ goes so that during the earthquake the upper floor will not collapse down on this story. it can be done in about two weeks' time. voila, you're done. easy. >> for more information on how to get your building earthquake ready, >> good morning. today's wednesday, may 16th, 2018. this is a regular meeting of the building inspection commission. i would like to remind everyone to turn off electronic devices. the first item on the agenda is roll call. [roll call]

>> we have a quorum. the next item is item two, president's announcements. >> good morning, everybody. welcome to may 16th, 2018,bic meeting. i have some present announcements. please forgive me if i mispronounce anyone's last name. good morning. welcome to the may 16th meeting. welcome to our new commissioner. >> thank you. >> mr. sam moss. i will give you a little bit of background on him. sam is executive director, originally from fresno. then moved east, big east, for a number of years and to san francisco in 2018, i believe. he joined the mission housing in december, 2011, and as an assistant manager and became the executive director in 2013. sam oversees the administration

of all the mission housing, programs, services. since 2012, the staff has grown from under his watch from eight people to 25. now almost 35 buildings. we look forward to working with you on the building inspection committee. sam, if you want to say any words, please do. >> thank you. i want to thank you for appointing me. i agree, this is without a doubt one of the most important bodies overseeing san francisco. i would be remiss, as someone who builds houses, i wasn't excited to see how the sausage is made, for lack of a better term. thank you. >> thank you. welcome, sam. also a big thank you to housing inspector chris grady who received a letter of appreciation from a tenant who lives in a home that houses men,

women, elderly and disabled residents. inspector grady changed our lives for the better. now the sewage leak was repaired and the elevator and the heating. well done for making a big difference to those people's lives. special thanks to dr. huey. supervisor tang and planning. office of small business and the mayor's office of disability staff participating this afternoon in another workshop that's being held at the main public library from 1:30 to 4:00. that's today, right? we'll get you out of here early for that. those channels help appropriate owners and small business understand the need to be done to comply with new ordinance, amend, improve accessibility, and eliminating lawsuits against owners and small businesses.

last month supervisor tang introduced and the board has passed an ordinance to extend the compliance documents, giving additional six months, means january 1, 2019. we're appreciative of the supervisor's support and property owners and small business that will have to comply with this new program. difficult, but it needs to be accomplished. towards the same goal, director huey and supervisor peskin and numerous chinatown leaders partied in a walk on april 26th on grand street. handed out information about aba program and answered questions. aba workshops are being planned for late june in chinatown to make sure property owners understand the needs to be done to improve their accessibility. dr. huey and public works will be doing another merchant's walk with supervisor fewer in the

richmond district on may 31st. again, thank you for the aggressive outreach to inform p property owners what is a substantially complicated program to improve accessibility for everyone. i urge everyone to attend the earthquake safety fair, which will be at the bill graham civic auditorium on june 13th from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. go to dbi website, www.ssdbi.org for details and to rsvp. last year's fair attended more than 600 participants. we're all expecting an equally robust turn out this year. get your rsvp in, please. madam secretary that, concludes my announcements. also, if i may see commissioner gail who is commissioner of the port. she's here to say a few words of

bon voyage to her. congratulations on your reappointment. >> thank you, president mccarthy. i want to take a few moments to thank the whole dbi commission. it was an honor to serve for the two years i served on this commission. accela, i will be looking forward to this. that's what is having that move forward. i want to take a moment to make a couple of statements. to president mccarthy, i want to say under your leadership and guidance, being my first commission, you showed me what the role of a commissioner should be and what that awesome responsibility was. i wanted to thank you for that. >> thank you. >> and hopefully our friendship will remain after the service on this. commissioner walker, you and i

knew each other for a long time but not in this capacity. you've been a fierce advocate for those renters living in sios. i look forward to continuing to see you as a champion on this body for that. commissioner constance, you're so quiet and wise when you make your remarks. it's been a joy to get to know you. i look forward to our continued friendship also. commissioner lee, your random articles and emails you send me on technical matters, i hope you continue because i really enjoyed all of those. i hope that we can have more and more conversations about that. commissi commission -- and the newest commissioner i got the serve with, preservation was something i knew very little about. you opened my eyes to that. i wanted to thank you. director huey, i know we'll continue to work together on

many issues, in particularly partner on a community that dear to my heart as a district three resident, our work together in chinatown. i look forward to that. i want to thank sonya for keeping me on my feet and making sure i got here on time. i thought you started at 9:00. i didn't read the agenda, but sonya would have made sure i did. i want to thank a couple of the dbi staff. i know i am not going to get everyone's name right. if i leave you out, it's not that you didn't do valuable work, but deputy director lowry and deputy director sweeney, thank you for everything you taught me. deputy director madison, just how she manages the financials and the complexities of this multi-layer department was really impressive to me. then there were some other folks, like rosemary bosqe and jamie tamaski.

it's important to make sure everyone lives in safe code compliant housing. bad actors in this housing market who are doing things from illegal decks to illegal conversions really understand that this commission will stop them. i hope to continue to be part of the dbi family. it was a pleasure serving with all of you. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, commissioner. okay. with that, madam secretary that, concludes my president's announcements. >> thank you. is there any public comment on the president's announcements? okay. seeing none i have one announcement as well regarding the agenda. item number 6, file number 171284, has been continued to a future meeting. so if there was anyone here to speak on that, they can speak during general public comment. okay. our next agenda item is item

three. the bic will take public comment on matters within the commission's jurisdiction that are not part of this agenda. >> mr. boskaivich, good morning. >> good morning. i said this before. i want to reinforce this comment. monday i was asked, can you come out and look at this job. i need help. the contractor did something wrong. it went out there, looked at the excavation that had been done. not only -- and i'm quoting someone else, which i won't give his name because he can make his own quote, but not only did they do the front undermine, but the back undermine and the back undermine. they undermined the entire building. we have to come up with a way on certain permits, yes, we'll issue them but within a certain

number of days, the inspector needs to go out and confirm what you're doing that, the person knows what they're doing. they've undermined three buildings, housing above. there are other things we can solve by doing these pre-start inspections. anyway, thank you. >> thank you, mr. boskaivich. >> is there any additional general comment? seeing none, item four. commissioner's questions and matters. 4a, inquiries to staff. at this time, commissioners may make inquiries to staff regarding various documents, policies, practices, and procedures, which are of interest to the commission. >> commissioner walker, please? >> yes, we had a project brought before us at the abatement appeals. i would like to get an update on the status of that. maybe more appropriate for

abatement appeals. >> make a note of it. >> do you want to give the address? >> what was the address? >> 1024 clayton street? >> yes. >> either way, in your update of next meeting, it's something that we made a decision about, and gave them time and the time has expired. thank you. >> no other further inquiries, item 4b. at this time, the commission may discuss and take action to set the date of a special meeting and/or determine those items that could be placed on the agenda of the next meeting and other future meetings of the building inspection commission. >> all right. next scheduled meeting date is june 20th, 2018. >> we're hitting it toward summer vacation time now?

>> yeah, you mentioned june or july. if we need to change that, it will be announced and sent on the website as well. >> i'm away in june. john, you're away? >> july. >> we'll discuss it in the next meeting. any public comment on item 4a or b? seeing none, item five. nominations sub-committee, and access appeals commission (aac) and code advisory committee (cac) vacancies. the aac has a vacant public member seat, and the cac has a vacant major projects contractor seat. >> commissioners, come on now. >> okay. [laughter] >> commissioner and i met last week as the nomination committee. first of all, we want to thank mr. kim blanksa for serving and

mr. garza for serving. they vacated their seats months ago. now there's vacancies on those two commissions. we met and we decided that we will do what we normally do, open up to apply for those two empty seats. the announcement is on our website at www.sfdbi.org. and the instructions on what to do if you're interested in applying and what qualifications and requirements are necessary are all posted on the website. the empty seat is a public member seat on the code advisory -- excuse me. no. no. the seat on the access commission and the major contractor's seat on the code advisory committee. the applications would be due

june 30th, and commissioners will be reaching out to a number of business organizations to let them know about the vacancies and the board of supervisors and the mayor's office as well. if you know of any agency or group that need to be -- should be notified, please pass on the contact information to sonya, and she will contact them for us. >> thank you, commissioner lee. so when do those seats have to be filled by? is there a time frame? >> we asked the commissioner secretary about that. let the department know if there is an urgency, let us know. as of now, there's no urgency to fill that. >> we would like to have this filled within who months, maybe? >> exactly. >> okay. >> okay. thank you for the update. is there any public comment on this item? okay. seeing none, item seven,

7. discussion regarding permit history and investigation of potential violations at 214 states street. the way we'll be handling this item is the department will present this information and will have seven minutes to do so. the project sponsor will present their information, have seven minutes to do so. there will be public comment for three minutes and each side will have three minutes for rebuttal. >> good morning, commissioners. my name is patrick o'reardon. i'm an inspector at dbi. sorry about that. i will start again here. so my name is patrick o'reardon. chief inspector at dbi. good morning to you all.

i'm here to talk about 214 state street and provide an update. first of all, the agenda. number one, 214 state street crinology. the picture you see represents 214 state street. this is what it looked like before any work commenced. and moving on to the next slide, this picture represents the condition of the property as it is now and has been since december of 2015. -- december of 2014. project overview for 2214 state street. significant permit. permit application 2014-08-25

includes the language, relocate existing garage to west side to accommodate existing sidewalk tree. this permit documents misrepresentation. the permit documents showed an existing garage. no garage existed there previously. misrepresentation and beyond the scope. permit application 2014-08-295145 was issued in september of 2014. it showed an existing storage room which did not exist. permit application 2014-08-254675 which was issued in november of that same year, 2014. it showed an existing garage and

an existing storage room. that did not exist. permit application 201408194202 showed the scope of the excavation to create retaining walls at the rear yard. this scope was not clearly illustrated on the architectural drawings. the proposed retaining walls are substantially higher than the drawings show. excavation for more than 10-foot high walls was seen at the site. addition additional graphs show three-foot walls. can i get a picture of that excavation at the rare to be shown on the overhead. >> oh, my gosh. >> just for reference there. that's a shovel in the corner.

you can see it's quite a bit down there. if you look at the stairs, or the outline of where the stairs was, that would probably have been fairly close to the original grade. so we have drawings that kind of represent that wall as being an existing three-foot wall. clearly, it's based on the excavation. we can go back to the presentation. project overview for 214 state street. it is an over-the-counter approval permit. it take longer for review, usually involving multi-agency. so alteration permit application was issued for permit application 20130925-7756 in

september of 2013. this permit had a description of dry rot and bath remodel on it. so form three permit application was then issued in november of 2014. that was permit application 201408255675. that was the one referenced in one of the previous slides. that included the facade work that included the accommodation for the existing tree. seven complaints have been filed between march of 2013 and january of 2017. currently, we have two active notices of violation. one being for the

misrepresentation and going beyond the scope of the work and the other is for a vacancy issue, which i will detail in a further slide. suspensions were requested probably around february of 2015, january or february of 2015. work has been stopped since december 24th, 2014, almost three and a half years. there was some hazard mitigation work that had to take place at the site, which included putting a floor in to connect the two property line walls just for structural safety concerns. so that did happen after the suspensions but for good reason structurally. site inspection findings 214 state street. multiple site visits have occurred since the first complaint was filed in 2013. a notice of violation, 2014, 792

was issued december 2014 based on site investigation for exceeding the scope of building permits and for misrepresentation of existing conditions. additional notice of violation 20178573 was issued for vacant building ordinance compliance. that was january of 2017. that was based on a complaint that was filed. the adjacent property at 126 museum way was undermined at the property line. the project is being monitored regularly by inspectors. for next steps, form 303 alteration permit application 201506163876 is currently awaiting a hearing at the planning commission. [bell ring] >> this outlines the proposed conditions. if the permit is approved and

issued, an inspection will be scheduled for review and direction. thank you. i'm available for questions. >> okay. thank you. >> we'll do the questions after? >> one more time, sonya? >> do you want to have the project sponsor -- >> yeah, do that. what is the procedure on this? >> we just -- we're doing it similar to the abatement appeals, although this is not an abatement appeals. we're going to let each side have seven minutes. then there will be three minutes for public comment and three minutes rebuttal time and commissioner discussion. >> okay. that's fair. thank you. >> all right. okay. you can have a seat. >> thank you. >> the project sponsor, would you like to come up? >> good morning, commissione co.

todd mavis and one of the owners of the residence. we bear responsibility for the mistakes that were made on our permit applications four years ago. that is why you're hearing from us and not our architects. we're no longer working with winter gibson, but we do take full responsibility for past mistakes that were made, and we would greatly appreciate being able to reactivate this project and finish building our home. we're here today because there's a difference in opinion between the planning department and the building department in what is considered a demolition. the building department determined that we're not a demolition. the planning department has determined that we are a demoliti

demolition. while we're not fully cognizant of all the differences in what goes into those two determinations, we understand that there's a task force that was formed to try to reconcile those differences between the planning department and the building department. however, we would like to make very clear that it was never our intention to overdemolition our home. in fact, we think our contractor did as much as he could to try to preserve as much as of the building as possible.

>> this has been a-- nightmare project.

and i know they want to take responsibility but i also want you guys to know that something should be done as follow-up to this. you can say anything that you want that we went too far or whatever, but thi whateva deliberate fabrication of existing conditions and it's just not a little bit. it's an entire basement, driveway, garage, circulating interconnecting stair. it also affected the back of the property and it is all avoid of the bigger picture on how they want to develop the property in the future. adding other units, so on and so forth. i also want to point out that they are not new to this. they've got llcs going on in the city. i've highlighted the two that

are part of this project. which authored our report and 214 state street llc who is on the permit as the owners of this project. you can see that both mr chang and mr mavis, either or are all part of these llcs that you can find on the secretary of state's website. this isn't just my one home where i overstepped and where did something wrong. i knew the rules. they cheated on him and there's all this talk about what happens now? what will the fine spee? will there ever be finds? who will be held accountable? that is what the people in the neighbourhood are asking me and i am asking you.

>> good morning. i'm with the neighbours council. first of all, i want you to come and the chief inspector for a very comprehensive support that actually chronicles how badly you the owner, the gentleman owner that was here slash llc had been behaving all along. this is a case of cereal parenting that was concealing the true intent of this llcs. and it is within your jurisdiction to declare this illegal. this is going to go back to the planning commission, we need your support and we need your verdict so when we go to the planning commission to go through the plans. this particular llc shall be punished and shall not get the

forefoot judge for the house of fine arts that they are building so they can gain and make money off the infractions and off the crimes that they've committed. the people that lived next door, their homes are in jeopardy. how could somebody claimed that they didn't know the contractor didn't know, this person, this is not a person. this is not a homeowner. this is the same sob story that we here. so i am here to implore you. please do give a verdict that we can use to go back to the planning department. this is been a ping-pong. we weighed for you to come up for a verdict so we can have an say, please, commissioners, it is within your jurisdiction to give a bit -- guilty verdict and

punish this bad apple. thank you very much. >> good morning. talking about demolitions for almost four years now. i just want to say, you know, i'm not going to point fingers at anybody, even though they should be pointed but i will say this. i think in the future clark like you did with your joint hearing, you need to work more closely with your staff at the very beginning when you see permits coming in like this. i don't know if they will end, i think they are just beginning. certainly with the adu legislation, it will even get more intense. i think you need to look for two things when these happen. that both stats work together at intake. we need to understand what it is because everybody wants to excavate. were talking about 25 by 114 lots usually. should use lots have that kind

of excavation to do these types of projects? does that work? whether it is alteration or demolition, either way, whether they are honest weather demolition at the beginning and it's an alteration and it's really an alteration. that's what he kind of started to do with your joint hearings with the planning commission. and i think you really, really need to understand what the plans are when they come in for the department. and it'll be easier when you are in the same building but you are all pretty close now on mission street. you need to work together more at the beginning to avoid problems like this. think about it. this property has been sitting empty for four years now. that could have been housing, whether they will live there or not, i don't know. they are probably honest. they could have been housing that could have been on the market now. not something that someone is waiting to make $5 million out

of. these are all practical considerations that i hope that your staff will consider at the beginning. not after the fact. i'm not saying they shouldn't be punished but use this as an example back in 2014 clark didn't feel

very comfortable. we could see enough from the outside to see a substantial portion of the building still remained. so, again, it is misrepresentation of course. but we didn't consider it to be demolition. we wrote it off as stop the wo work, and went back to planning. they've been there for three and a half years now. so that's a substantial amount of time and i don't have anything beyond that. >> thank you. i will open up now to commissioners. >> when you tap there is a project sponsor rebuttal. >> my apologies. >> thank you very much again, i

would like to repeat that we do take full responsibility. >> state your name for the record again, please. >> clive mavis. i want to repeat we do take full responsibility for what has happened on this project. the fact that our architect submitted drawings that were not accurate is one thing, we do take full responsibility because we would like to be able to finish this home and we would like to be able to move into it. it was never our intent to demolition the building. i don't think any of our people working on the building wanted to demolition it. they were trying to preserve as much of it as possible. and this is going to be our home. and by what neighbours are trying to say, this is our home. we designed it to be our home. and when we started this proce process, we are never trying to make an extra large home. you meet about -- you hear about

children who are trying to make an extra small house or make it an extra big win. we were making the footprint of this home smaller than the original one for the work we wanted to do. one of the things he wanted to do and the design of this was to remove the exterior stairs of the front face of the building because it was built in such a fashion that, you know, this stair was raised up well over 1. we wanted to move that and internalize the stairs and make the building actually smaller in size, in footprint size. so i just want to you, i think sometimes, some of these details get lost looking at the big picture. again, i want to emphasize we take full responsibility. we would like to be able to make this project. we have been waiting a long time and following the process that the department and building of

inspections and planning department has outlined for us all this time and we will continue to do so. thank you. >> thank you. >> at this age, -- at this stage we can close public comment and open it to commissioners' comments and questions. >> you know, hearing the comments made today from the public in particular, i understand the concern about what it is we are doing here today. you know, we are not pursuing the legal remedies or anything else. we are trying very hard to learn from this example like the last speaker. i can think a few people have variance this and have the

insight like you and help direct us in reflection in this case as to where we can learn and what additional safeguards, you would with your expertise, recommend, you know. it will never catch all misrepresentations. but having safeguards in place to catch some and to be as quick to see them and is proactive to prevent them from being made in the beginning, is obviously the goal that we are looking at. so if you could share your insights, i think that would be very helpful. >> yes, commissioner, firstly, i think it is very difficult to safeguard against misrepresentation when we had an initial permit that spoke about the façade of the building and he called out existing

conditions that we now know weren't in fact there. so these drawings and permit application is made by a licensed professional. and d.b.i. accepts these licensed professionals' renderings of existing conditions and that their accreditation by the state of california and their licensure tells us what they present to us is meant to be accurate, and that's what's required of them by state of california. that is not a d.b.i. matter looking at the credibility of the design professional in the materials they are providing us. it is a tough one. my thoughts in regard to, if it happened to be more substantive, the permit, then we would probably look at it a little bit

more, but then we have the premise that we are filing in conjunction with that and it all kind of is knitted together to get us to where we are here. it's a tough one. we are looking at these kind of submittals a lot more closely now. especially in regards to as it were, being duped. that is what happened here. i have a senior inspector duffy here today also. he was actually the guy who was out there a lot during the time when all this unfolded. so he has a couple of comments that he would like to make in regards to what it is that happens there that will be probably a little bit enlightening for you as commissioners too. >> that would be helpful. before he does, if you could just comment, in your opinion, a more rigourous system of

preinspection might be something that would preclude the ability to have misrepresentation. and then also speak a bit to your the differentiation between form three and form eight and how that might have impacted this situation, which i believe became, began one way and shifted a year later. >> laura well the more rigourous start of it worked inspection or preinspection, as you describe it would be good. but we don't really know that something that is very minor in nature, like a form eight which i will get into permit, which is, you know, "might be just for replacing subsiding or a kitchen or bath remodel. and then the contractor, whomever variously moves beyond that and we can't predict that they would do that.

but some planets would have it language in them that would be triggers for looking at them a little bit more closely and i think in the future, it probably would be good if we can kind of get a step ahead with those and get ahead of them as it were before it becomes a problem. but in this case, we are starting with a pretty benign permit there for siding and moving a garage door and making an existing garage. we wouldn't know. with the number of permits that are issued annually, in the 50,000 range, we don't have the resources to follow up on the little ones. i think that when we see the identifiers on something, then we should definitely be looking out for those and following up with those. >> one other thing that keeps coming up is serial permitting. do we have any safeguards in place