>> good morning. today is wednesday, august 15, 2018. this is the regular meeting of the building inspection commission. i would like to remind everyone to please cut off all electronic devices. the first item on the agenda is roll call. [roll call] we have a quorum. and the next item is number two, president's announcement.

>> good morning, everybody. welcome to august 15, 2018t inspection commission. on a sad note, on behalf of the commission, i would like the dedicate today's meeting to commissioner constantine's father, gus, who passed away recently. we send our family our heart-felt condolences and i ask for a moment of silence to gus who contributed immensely to san francisco and the overall quality of life in this town of ours. thank you. i also want to enter the public record, the commission's thanks to director huey, deputy director sweeney, commissioner warshell, who met with the board of supervisor president cohen on july 3 to review and clarify both building and

planning actions tied to 278 monticello. president cohen announced at that june 28 planning commission her concerns about the city review agency's review of permits that the address and d.b.i. building and planning staff were able to show the supervisor the multiple permit reviews that had occurred since the project came to d.b.i. in november of 2012. following this productive discussion, supervisor cohen expressed her satisfaction and agreed that all stipulated city agency policies and procedures had been correctly implemented at this address. i would also submit remaining details of this record to -- to our secretary after our meeting here. thank you. speaking on seismic safety efforts, thanks to chief building inspector patrick o rear don, chief plumbing inspector and the new chief of electrical inspector, kenneth burke, for the department's

most recent six-months reinspection of the life safety system at 301 mission. where they have found the building to be in conformance with the life safety standards set forth by building electric, plumbing and fire codes supporting the safe occupancy. this reinspection took place on june 26. so, thank you for that update. congratulations to d.b.i. staff who have been meeting with the mayor's office of housing and its team working on local code requirements for a factory-built homeless housing promise at 1064 and 1068 mission street. that is between 7th and mission, i believe. where we hope to build 250 studios on land provided by the federal government. a detailed preapplication meeting on this project was scheduled for early september, making the meeting with d.b.i. helpful to insure that local code specifications are all known well in advance. a big thank you goes to

director huey and amorous chan of the central building permit bureau and james xan of the bureau services who received a letter of appreciation from the mayor's office of housings for their stellar public service while working on 100% affordable project that will help low-income families in the community. a survey has expressed strong spoufrts for the seismic retrofit program for soft story apartment buildings and will be part of the giant media event scheduled at the end of august near the size of the retrofit currently in progress. d.b.i. and usgs along with the city's office of resilience and capital plan, using -- [phone ringing] make sure you turn off all your phones -- are using the 150th anniversary of the earthquake from 1868 as the occasion to remind tearful property own that'ser they must submit their permit approximately diagnosis

do the seismic retrofit work by september 15. and thus avoid possible code enforcement penalties and assessment. s. as of our most recent tracking report, 617 out of 998 buildings in the tier four have already submitted their applications. which is a 62% of the total. there are 300 buildings we expect to come between now and september 15 or 38% of the total. thanks goes to dan lowry, steve finnelli, jose lopez, supervisor bernadette perez for working together to help a long-time property owner to clear her complaint and violations until everything was successfully resolve. a remind tore all d.b.i. deputies and managers and supervisors, please keep an eye out for out staning employee performance during this quarter. and nominate them so we can select d.b.i.'s employee of the

quarter to end quarter three of 2018. and announce those two winners in our october b.i.c. meeting and send your nomination to carolanne jane at sfgov.org. that concludes my announcements, madame secretary. thank you. >> thank you. any public comment on the president's announcements? seeing none, item three, general public comment? the b.i.c. will take public comment on matters within the commission's jurisdiction that are not part of this agenda. >> hello, hello. my name is ellen sand.

this is regarding 26052 current large project. mr. green is the owner. he and his team have stated they have a deep connection with d.b.i. office and can [inaudible]. one of his contractor permit [inaudible] says that he has paid d.b.i. offices lots of money as favors. many people told me san francisco d.b.i. is aware of corrupt [inaudible]. from this big [inaudible], d. by. stated the cost will be $275,000 for the site permit. after site permit was agreeing with them at many works [inaudible] new sprinkler system for the entire four-story building, construction of exterior wall and ask the d.b.i. agree that this is not -- a fourth story and not a three-story building and require retrofit,etc. but d.b.i. permit him to continue to claim the total cost remain $275,000. no more. i have been request d.b.i. to let my engineer and myself to rebuild their engineer plant. once d.b.i. receive them.

on may 7, d.b.i. show me and all the way to august 7, i receive an e-mail informing me that i have only 48 hours to review this plan. a very unreasonable demand. my engineer cannot come to d.b.i. on such short notice. i have asked to review them for months. the yesterday no one was willing to answer any questions regarding the plan because each say the plan has been approved. i asked specific questions of why the measurement or the [inaudible] has not given me

answers to my specific questions that prove them. the current architect [inaudible] natural gray. when they realized that that the new project will be existing 40 feet higher then they just raised the reterre haute grade about four feet to circum vent the code. the architect [inaudible] and the state is investigating that and the d.b.i. just continuess to prove that illegal acts. i don't think the correction can be stopped because they have been going on for so long. but i do hope that when d.b.i. not enforce the code [inaudible]. individuals the same should apply to all. thank you, very much. >> can you give me that address? or something. >> i have to send it to you. i just send it to you. >> thank you. >> including my speech. and with exhibits. >> state the address that you discussed.

>> 2650-52 high street. >> ok. and then submit it. thank you. >> thank you. >> president of the commission, members. my name is joe butler. i'm an architect here in the city. it has been a long time since i saw ms. sang at a hearing. i do not represent her anymore but i am aware of the 2650-2652 high street project. there was a number of -- there were a number of things done at the time of the permit submittal after middle stats plans had been exaccused for those of another architect. including showing a basement that was labeled on the plan as an existing basement with concrete floors and walls and steel frame. we took that case at the time to the board of appeals.

one of the members of the board of appeals called far site visit. in fact, the basement was a crawl space. 30 inches deep at the rear of the property. maybe four feet high at the front of the property. mr. greenwood has a long history of doing things that, at the time, everybody looked the other way on. he even won his case at the board of appeals in spite of lying about the basement. his engineer was fined by the state $500 and required to take continuing education classes for having submitted knowingly fraudulent plans. i feel sorry for mrs. sang that she's still having to deal with mr. greenwood and his subsequent architect. i don't know who that architect is and until two minutes ago, i didn't know that she had ongoing problems. but if she has alleged that they have added four feet to the site, to avoid the 40-foot

height limit, it is both illegal to do and it is -- there is no variance for exceeding the height limit. i ask that the department of building inspection come out and make it site inspection and see that not only are the permits in order but whether the surface of the lot has been added to, as she describes. thank you very much for your time. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> good morning. i wrote a letter to you and to the planning commission about 90 woodland. but the other day i got a follow-up e-mail from mr. teague who's the acting zoning administrator until mr. sanchez returns at tend of the months saying that they are aware of this project which is the noitra building. and it sold, the sale is pending. and so that the plan and d.b.i.

can work together to make sure that everything is kosher there. i gave you a copy of the letter. i don't know. here's another copy for the record if you need that. thank you and i'm glad to hear that planning and d.b.i. will be working together to preserve this fabulous -- i went into the open house. it's a fabulous building. thank you very much. >> thank you. next speaker, please. seeing none -- >> ok. thank you. our next item is item four, 4-a, commissioners questions and matters, inquiries to staff. at this time, commissioners may make inquiris to staff regarding various documents. practices and procedures which are of interest to the commission. >> i do. >> commissioner walker, please. >> yes. in conversations around housing in our city, there is always this mention to vacant units of

residential and i wonldser if we could look our records and see if there is a way to not inventory officially but get a sense of what we're looking at. different numbers come from different people about vacant units. i don't know if we keep track of that, but it is something that is of interest. i think as we go forward and look at -- >> [inaudible]. >> yeah. is it you want to see the vacant residential or vacant store front? >> both. yeah. i'm interested in both. i know that we really have an aggressive vacant building program, but i would like to have us look at the inventory of vacant store fronts and vacant residential units.

i know we're not set-up necessarily to do a certain accuracy. but if there is anything that we can do to check our records and provide some data for that. >> ok. >> great. thank you. >> the next item 4-b, future meetings and agendas. at this time t 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 at the next meeting and other future meetings of the building inspex commission. our next regular meeting is scheduled for september 19. >> no objection. >> ok. thank you. is there any public comment on items 4-a and b? seeing none, on to item five. discussion and possible action to approve and swear-in members of the access appeals commission. public member seat, recommended by the nomination subcommittee is kevin birmingham. term to expire is september 15, 2019.

>> commissioner lee and i had the opportunity to meet with mr. birmingham and i would like to both thank commissioner lee for his indispute on this and also all the other applicants that were generous enough to volunteer their commitment to the city to fill this seat. we decided on mr. birmingham because this is the public seat and he offers some very unique perspectives. he has a small company that workd on many accessibility adaptation. issues. and he's highly involved with the roles industry and understands many of the issues especially for property owners. we feel he is uniquely qualified to bring a good

perspective to his colleagues and fill this public seat well. so with that, i would like to nominate kevin birmingham to fill the seat. >> second. >> thank you. there is a motion and a second. i'll do a roll call vote on the item. is there any public comment? seeing none, just one moment. president mcaer thi? >> yes. [roll call] >> yes. >> ok. thank you. the motion carries unanimously. mr. birmingham wasn't able to attend as he's on vacation, but he had a statement that he'd like to be read into the record. members of the building inspection commission, thank you for your consideration of my appointment on the access appeals commission. i regret that i'm not here in person today but i'm on a brief

planned vacation with family. i feel honored to be recommended. my current occupation is a real estate broker. my past occupation was a general contractor specializing on replacing of second dare access stairs in existing buildings. this work was done almost entirely in san francisco. i am well aware of the challenges to attempt to make existing buildings, most of which are more than 50 years old and make them accessible to those with disabilities. the mandatory disabilities work improvement program will work to improve access to members of the disabled community. at the same imtoo, the building department needs to work with the small business community to make this program work for them. i have a background so far dealing with property owner, contractors and small businesses qualifies me for this announcement. -- appointment. at the same time, we all have members of our family and community with access issues. my mother-in-law's disabled and it is important to me personally that she gets to freely access this beautiful city. thank you once again for your consideration. regards, kevin birmingham.

>> thank you. good choice. >> thank you. our next item, item six. discussion of possible action to approve and swear in members of the code advisory committee. don libby, term to expire august 10, 2019. >> again here, commissioner lee and i met and reviewed the applications. and found that his application was stellar. he has 32 years' experience. he is currently a vice president with plant. and given this is the major project member seat, reviewing his portfolio of assignments and accomplishments, we felt he is extreatmentsly well qualified to fill this seat and i recommend his appointment to this position. >> second. >> we have a motion and a

second. is there any public comments on this item? ok. seeing none, we'll do a roll call vote. [roll call] >> the motion carries unanimously. and mr. libby is not available at this time either so he had a statement he submitted as well. please offer the following statement on my behalf. i would like the building inspection commission to know that i am honored to be nominated and if selected look forward to rolling up my sleeves and becoming an active member of the departments of building inspections code advisory committee. as a vice president of a major general contracting firm located in san francisco and licensed civil engineer, i believe i can bring a unique perspective to the committee. as a long-time resident of san francisco, i care deeply about our city and i'm interested in helping to solve some of the challenges we face.

thank you for considering me and i hope i'm approved for vacancy on the committee. >> item seven. discuss possible action for a member to the subcommittee. we have commissioner lee and warshell, but we need an additional merry christmas. >> commissioner walker, go ahead. you have a recommendation. >> i was going to nominate sam maas, but he is not here. >> second. >> it makes it easy. [laughter] sam, if you are listening, you're watching. [laughter] >> he can obviously decline it on the next meeting. as of right now, he is on it. ok. >> so, commissioner maas is nominated. ok. thank you. >> item eight.

discussion and possible action regarding 180778, 578eding the building code to modify the penalty for constructing of impervious surface in the front yard setback without a permit in addition to other right. requirements -- other requirements. >> good morning. do we have somebody here from the -- >> bill is going to speak on that. >> good morning, commissioners. unfortunately the supervisor is out of town because of the august recess and his aid sent a message late yesterday explaining that she could not be here. essentially deputy director sweeney and i met with the supervisor and his aid to talk about an ongoing issue in district 11, which has to do with a number of people without

benefit of permit,paving over front lawn setback areas to present themselves with additional park. we know this has been an ongoing issue for many years. the way this ordinance is structured, we're only going to be dealing with new complaints. this has been in the planning code, planning does not really have adequate code enforcement for it. according to the supervisor and his aid, more than 50% of the complaints planning had last year on this particular type of item, were in district 11. they seem to have disproportionate share of this particular issue. the ordinance will have us responding to complaints as they come in now. if someone doesn't get a permit in order to do this paving over, that would get defered to

planning anyway. which in most cases would deny it. so we would begin a code enforcement process as a way of trying to dissuade this practice ongoing. we think it is reasonable. deputy director sweeney really cleared it, starting with this kind of new complaint basis. it is something that we can manage in our normal code enforcement process. >> ok. so, start with commissioner warshell and then commissioner walker sfj my only request for clarification, clearly there is a permeable issue when you do concrete, pavers or gravel, it's permeable. but you can still park your car on it. give always really quick idea

of that discrimination between that being a permeable surface versus the use still could be the unauthorized parking on what was supposed to be a different use. >> according to the supervisor's office, i understand this is an educational matter that a lot of the people who were actually involved in these violations aren't aware of those al tern timothy mcveighs that you are talk about, that they could approach this and do nit a way that would work. >> but to the point, you know, the p.u.c. would love fit it were permeable because they have the issues with water draining. but are we getting at the issue of the front lawn or front open space. and even if you did it with a

permeable surface, it still really should not be converted to parking space without authorization. >> you know, i hear what you're saying. i guess i would put it back in planning bailiwick if, in fact, that discussion came up. as i said, we're really just at the beginning of initiating this. the ordinance won't be heard at land use until after the september resumption of the board. so i'm expecting this will probably not take effect before the middle or late october. but i suppose between now and then we can revisit that issue and try to get some clarification. >> thank you. >> commissioner walker, please. >> has this been seen or heard or talked about at code advisory committee? it looks to me like it is really more just about our part in the process rather than the

definition of what is permeable. >> right. they did have a session at the code advisory committee just last week. i believe there's a letter from code advisory urging support from the commission on a nearly unanimous vote. there may have been one dissent. essentially they did raise the issues around permeability and availability of actually being able to do this correctly. they did not raise the planning issues that commissioner warshell just raised. >> bill, i'm always concerned when the job is given to you to fight the supervisor legislation. at least the aide should be here. i get the spirit of this and i do understand what they're trying to do here. but it is unintended consequences that we're trying

to harbor around here and i'm not feeling it's fair to put you in the corner to argue those points around. you know? because you're not writing the legislation. if there is -- is there a time crunch on this? in other words, if we were to say we'd like the legislative aide to come back and do the presentation who really is impacted on this? >> i'm sure that would be acceptable. >> i certainly don't want to be delaying a perfectly good piece of legislation. it has been our policy, as commissioners, to really kind of dig into these legislation, make sure that we're not kind of triggering off something that the d.b.i. has to enforce. >> it has not been given any messages from the supervisor that this is fast track and i have to assume they would be amenable to coming back in september and talking about it. >> yeah. yeah. i'm until spirit, i kind of get it. by think to commissioner warsaw, he is harboring around, you know, so if you are parked

there, who tells you to remove -- who tells you to -- >> let's just say your neighbor complains that this has happened. at that point, that district inspector would go to verify the complaint and would write a notice of violation. as opposed to the way it used to work, if a district inspector noticed it, he would refer it to the planning code enforcement and planning code enforcement would have the responsibility of responding. in the supervisor's view, planning code enforcement doesn't have enough code enforcement officers or whatever. they're not able to spend the time doing that. we already have people who are in the neighborhood anyways. so, logically he thinks we could take on this code enforcement. >> you come out and move the car. how do you stop them from parking there again? >> well, good question. i'm short of 24/7 surveillance,

i don't think that's easily done. >> are we -- are we supposed to have a drive-by squad and go around and make sure -- >> it could result, of course, if you didn't get responses during the code enforcement process, you would increase the load for directors hearings and orders of abatement and possibly even referrals to our friends at the city attorney's office. >> it doesn't seem to change the definition of the rules. it just changes the -- who enforces it. who issues the n.o.v. >> look. i'm just getting in the weeds here now. i'm just -- i know people who bought homes who were told that they could park their cars there. right? and it's probably -- you know, how do we notify those people that are misinformed and so on and the code says you're not allowed to and so on. so things like that. i just wanted to know what's in here to kind of put -- >> ok. >> as a mechanism to -- for -- i don't have a slurry of people coming down to the front counter and said we were told this is four-car parking and we bought this house. >> i can understand.

i can go back to the aide and ask if she could be prepared to come back next month. >> i know planning would have it in their quoed as a single family house, as one car parking. >> right. >> commissioner? >> i think this proposed legislation is for the department to enforce whether or not a front yard has been paved over. we're not here to enforce how they use the front lot. right? >> it's planning. >> that's what it is. so, the evidence of concrete on the -- in the front that used to be landscaping, i think is what we're looking for. >> all right. >> yeah. it's just who issues a violation -- a notice of violation is really what the issue is. and when -- i mean, we have this on some other planning issues. when we notice there is a planning issue, we issue a notice of violation and enthen it goes to planning for them to look at it. not for us to determine the outcome. our jurisdiction is just to buy out -- issue the notice of violation.

and collect a fee. that's what this does. >> i do have a question and clarification on the fees. the paragraph on civil and criminal penalties s that the fees? >> i believe they were adding that in. we didn't really discuss that at the code advisory committee so anybody commented on it other than to say that they were more substantial. yeah. >> yes. i'm just wondering who is going to decide -- who gets the power to assess the civil and criminal penalties and who collects. that's the question i have. >> right. i think at some point we'd have to consult with the city attorney about what that trigger happens to be. >> so ok. so, commissioners, i don't know if -- of course we're missing other commissioners and so on. if you were amenable to move this to the next one calendar, would the caveat that we supported in the spirit but we've got some questions. and i think it is more than

fair that somebody whose legislation can be here that we get into the weeds and some of these questions with commissioner lees and commissioner warsaw's points. if it is not under a time crunch bill, like -- >> i don't believe it is. i'll check and make sure about that. >> i'd like to make a motion to continue this to the next hearing. >> second. >> ok. there is a motion to continue the item. to the next hearing. are all commissioners in favor of continuing the item? >> aye. >> ok. then the item will be continued and just wanted to mention on behalf of the aide you just asked -- she did ask that we let you guys know that she did attend the code advisory meeting and i'm sure he'll be happy to come to the building departments inspection. next item is number nine regarding investigation of potential violations at 655 alvarado street.

>> good morning, president mccarthy and commissioners. my name is patrick o deer -- o'riordan. the proposed scope, the agenda includes a proposed scope and approve an actual demolition and notices of violation and next steps. the plan review for this project includes a skoem of work, including three levels of horizontal extension to an existing basement and existing first floor and an existing second floor. along with a new basement below and a new vertical addition above. the building information, the existing building was a type five two-story over basement r3

single residence, no sprinklers. proposed is type five, nonrated, four stories over basement. single family residents, sprinkler throughout. again with plan review. documents submittals include the site permit, addenda, excavation and shoring, site permit review for major life safety compliance includes building information, such as allowable height, story in the area. fire protection and means of egress. a side permit, as you probably know, doesn't constitute authorization to do any work. the stamp you see here on this slide is a stamp that is put on permit documents making customers aware of the fact that they cannot proceed with any work until the necessary addenda or addendum are issued. you will see in the illustrations that the existing

front of the building was one story over an existing garage. but was proposed with two stories over garage. the rear existing elevation was two stories over basement and what is proposed is four stories over a basement. this picture represents 655 alvarado street as it was at the time of stop work october 2017. october of last year. these illustrations i'm going to go through right now were provided to me by the architect for the project, mr. madry. thank you. and i have vetted those illustrations with d.b.i. permit documents to be accurate and reflective of what was approved. and obviously we vetted -- we've seen what happened at the sites so we can speak to that a little bit later. just for context, the building

at the center is a subject property. 655 alvarado with 650 to the east. and that's on your right hand sigh. and 661 on the left, which is the building to the west of 655. this next slide represents the building as it was prior to any construction. moving on, the demolition that was approved on the site permit shows the removal of the rear wall, removal of an area of lightwell at west property line of the building. and removal of a section of the upper floor at the facade. the floors are not shown just for clarity purposes. but the floors were not approved for removal of the side permit. however, the addendum to the side permit did show new floor joist. but, again, it didn't show

removal of the old framing. so the demolition aproved under the structural addendum. in addition to what was aproved on the side permit, you can see here that there were three levels of wall removed at the east property line, towards the rear of the building. and again we're looking from the backyard in the northwesterly direction. at the building. and moving on, you can see the eventual demolition. probably easier to explain what remains of the building. the ground floor wall remained at the facade. there was a section of the east property line wall remaining and then the retaining wall between what was the existing garage and the existing basement also remained. so in regards to demolition, i think the best way of understanding it is, if nothing

else, just looking at the walls. there were -- there was 3192 square feet of walls in the existing building. with the site permit approval, 30% of those walls were approved for removal, which equates to about 957 square feet of wall removal. with the approval and issuance, 44% of the walls were approved for removal, which is 1417 square feet of wall removal. and that the project stop work 27 tractor-trailer -- october of 2017, 88% of those walls had been removed for a total of 2803 square feet of the original total of 3192 square feet. in this next slide, you will

see photos of the property add jacent to the subject property. this is 661 alvarado street to the west and you can see underpinning work taking place. this underpinning work was something that took place because of the excavation work that happened at the subject property. notices of violation. complaint number 20186767-1. a notice of violation was issued for 655 alvarado street for unsafe excavation adjacent to the property lines of 661 alvarado street. complaint 2018-64321 in notice of violation was ish used for 661 alvarado street for work without permit, shoring the foundation and unsafe condition caused by undermining based on excavation work at 655 alvarado street.

in summary, six notices of violation were issued for three properties between august of 2017 and june of 2018. and are all currently active cases. to date, no building permits have been filed with d.b.i. to comply with the six n.o.v.s or notices of violation. licensed professionals. a code of professional ethics applies to all promisings. the architect, the engineer, the contractor, and the subcontractors have an obligation to ensure that approve als are followed. the architect submits plans based on what is reasonable to construct. the engineer then consults with the architect and vice versa to make sure addenda are realistic based on the proposed project. the contractor then follows the approved permit documents. next steps.

the project will be scheduled for the planning commission following this hearing. post-planning approval, d.b.i. will review the approved work based on submittal documents. after permit issuance, a starting work inspection will be scheduled to review permit documents based on current site conditions and to give direction to the project team. a starting work inspection will be required and a senior building inspector will accompany the district building inspector at the start of work, framing and final inspections. the site will be monitored by weekly site visits on an ongoing basis to ensure compliance with all d.b.i. requirements. thank you. and i'm available for any questions you may have. >> thank you, mr. oriordan. why don't we hear the rest of the testimony and please stay close. i see mr. duffy down there. if you could come up close .

i'm going to have questions for you as well. if it's ok for my fellow commissioners to continue with the presentation. next? >> the project sponsor available? >> i just have a prepared statement to give context to this process and a little bit of an update about how the pronltz team is composed today. my name is zack madre. i'm a principle of architect on record for 665 alvarado. i'm here to speak on behalf of john caplan and marcy glazer. the owners and the design team have been working in excess of 10 years to design, document and receive the red cross wi sit approvals for the renovation and expansion of

their family home, which they have lived in since 2002. the product was submitted to a discretionary review to which rations were made and ultimately the planning commission approved the project. the renovation of the home was further developed and documented to meet the requirements of the california building code as adopted by the city of san francisco. at the end of november 2016, the project was issued a building permit and general contractor thompson brooks incorporated began construction shortly thereafter. during the initial deconstruction process, thompson brooks discovered that some elements of the building that were designed and documented to remain were damaged by either fire or dry rot. unfortunately, thompson brooks removed these elements with the intents of replacing them in like time without first seeking a permit to perform that work. this was an administrative error on their part. a demolition work performed by thompson brooks exceeded the scope of the approved building

permit resulting in a notice of vie lailtion and suspension of all building permits. further more, the excessive removal of building elements beyond the scope of the approved permit drawings by thompson brooks caused the project to exceed the demolition limits established in section 317 and necessitate add conditional use authorization. as part of this conditional use authorization, we've worked under the direction of our planner, jeff horn, to redesign the project to contain two units without changes to the envelope, which was approved by the planning commission previously. that the point, the owners and the design team have done everything requested to comply with the ceqa requirements. finally while the retaining walls and foundations have been completed in order to stabilize the site, the owners do not believe it is in anyone's best interest to leave the site in their vacant in their neighborhood as a mistake made by their former and now defunct

general contractor. we'd appreciate whatever you can to get this project completed. >> thank you. just one question for you. is your structural engineer professional here? >> they are not. >> you are the only one representing? >> that is cranberrising. >> the owners are not here? none of the owners are here? >> the owners are not here. >> ok. thank you. commissioners. i'll open it up. i've got a lot to say on it. but i'd rather hear your thoughts and make sure that commissioner walker wants to start. or commissioner warshell. >> thank you very much, staff, for pulling this all together so that we understand what happened. this is upseting to me. we have rules and people are in this profession and need to follow the rules. so, i -- i appreciate that a lot of the movement forward is

going to depend on planning's review of it. but i want us to be able to do whatever we can to dissuade people from doing this. and i'd like to use this case as an example and i don't know if it's exacting as much penalty out of it as possible. but it's just not ok. just looking at the illustrations of what happened. it's not what we want to have happen. so that's how i feel about it. i want to have a discourage this kind of behavior. >> commissioner warshell, please. thank you. >> i couldn't agree more. this was one of the cases presented in our joint session with the planning commissioners. as an example of complete misuse of a system and

exceeding all work. to have double the demolition of even an expanded permit goes beyond, you know, anything that you can imagine. having seen the site to consider it anything other than a complete demolition would be fooling dwro*urs. -- fooling yourself. you know, when i hear this very good presentation by inspector o'riordan, one of the things that i focus on, you know, to date, no building permits have been filed with d.b.i. to comply with the six n.o.v.s, but more than that the section on licensed professionals, i agree that this is a case that needs to send a signal that we are very, very serious about this and this cannot go forward and that all penalties be enforced that conceivably can be in this particular case.

in regard to the licensed professionals issues, that there is a defunction general contractor, that if i understand the comments from the one presenter is being held accountable for most of the problem, i don't agree with that at all. when you have a project of this magnitude, you have a team of licensed professionals and they all have responsibility here and to not adequately have all of them engaged or feel a sense of responsibility towards this is

in conflict with the idea that they are professionals and that they hold licenses that require them to have standards of responsibility. this is a very, very frustrating case and the sake of their neighbors who care about their properties and their foundations stabilize, we have to make sure that that security issue for neighbors adequately addressed. but for all of the professionals involved in this and all professionals who might be looking to understand our feelings about a case like this, i think we need to send the strongest possible message that this cannot be allowed. >> ok. >> yeah.

>> mr. o'riordan, if you could, please. obviously i concur can the commissioners here. i think it is important, you know. we've had two major projects up here, state street which you went back to the planning department ins which you did with your job and being there to explain to the planning commission. how we saw the sequence of events that happened out there. and what we discussed and recommended that you present to them. and so that they would have a better understanding and that was a very important mission that you had that day. and the same will be asked of you if we choose to say to you today that this should go back to planing that we've done our due diligence and we give you a clear mandate there the last day as the department to come back to us as a commission and walk us through like you were a 4-year-old child here of the sequence of events and how this happened. if i may, and commissioner warshell touched on it and i just want to drill this home a libel for more on what he is saying. can we go to the slide that

says the level of wall demolition there is? >> yeah. >> so a site permit was issued. and i know the answers today. but i want to talk and make sure that i'm not misunderstanding. it is important for the public to understand this. when the site permit was ish dwraoued that would mean what the planning would have directed what could be done out there in regard to what walls could be removed, correct? >> that's what planning reviewed and essentially side permits are not for work, they are for the conceptial design approval of the basically envelope of the buildings and it includes such things as the building information regards to size and area, etc. >> and that -- that -- sorry. go ahead.

and it's approximately 30% of the wall square footage as you can see on the table of that slide, equates to 957 square feet. >> yeah. >> so, that would be mostly architectural drawings. >> yeah. that would be an architectural set for sure. there wouldn't be any structural pages. >> so, that architectural drawing has a fiduciary responsibility to present it to the structural engineer and say this is what was structurally approved. drawings reflected exactly of this site permit that was approved? >> correct. so, typically what happens is those architectural drawings are provided to the engineer who will put the structural pages together with the architectural pages and that would be the structural -- as it was in this case, structural addendum submittal package.

>> does that get approved by planning? >> if i may. >> i just asked a question. >> if i -- let me just finish. because it is important that we keep the sequence -- actually commissioner walker, i really want to stay on this here. so, if -- if the structural set of drawings were given a mandate from the architectural set of drawings that has the highest standard because that is what's approved by planning, right, how come a set of drawings come in that was -- that was 1514 square feet of wall removal, 44%? >> there's obviously inconsistency of those numbers and they should marry up and be the same with the addendum submittal. and even so far as knowing that the structural addendum included those additional three levels of wall at the east property line on three levels, it's still brought us up to 44% of wall removal. but it's correct to say that

planning -- >> they did not authorize 1417 square feet -- >> right. >> yes. thank you. >> i'm sorry. so -- so -- so as -- if we have been given a set of plans that is fundamentally flawed, is it your understanding that it's our job to catch this? or is it your understanding that it is a fiduciary responsibility of the professionals who do up the drawings >> primarily it is the responsibility of the professionals who are submitting these documents to provide accurate and representive documents. >> i kind of -- we kind of -- we had a lot of cooling off period here and i was hoping that i was going to hear a testimony from whoever was coming to present here today, that at least responsibility

would be taken. and what i'm hearing from the testimony and commissioner warshell pointed out, it seems to be they're throwing the contractor under the bus here who's now defunct and that everybody else is not at fault here and it is the contractor that's at fault. i want to dive into that. but the team lacked professionalism here. right? would you say this team that was in front of you lacked professionalism with the set of drawings that was give ton you? >> i think everybody has a part to play where it is we are right here. so i wouldn't put it on any one individual, 100%. >> would you concur that the drawings produced by the team lacked any credibility? >> well, based on what it ended up happening, i don't think we can see those drawings as being credible. >> downing it's the responsibility of the design team to know what they're doing on these drawings? >> i think i see where you are going with this. because i think if -- if a set of drawings is being submitted,

it must be considered, is this -- is this something that's build able? if you have a steep, down-sloping lot and you are digging out a basement and proposing to keep all of these walls, then, you know, maybe the question should be asked how do i do that? and maybe knowing ahead a time or maybe indicating ahead of time that it wouldn't need to be additional demolition in order to have this project be buildable. because it is fine to say you are going to put in a whole foundation underneath all of these existing walls on a steep, sloping hillside. but the practicalities are a little bit different. >> but it -- but would you -- it is not the responsibility of the department to verify the credibility of all the departments that's in front of them, is it? >> if a design professional presents us with a project and based on their licensure and

their professional abilities, if they're telling us that the building can be built like it's being shown, i think we will question it, but we will eventually find an answer and go along with their submittal documents if they're found to be in any way credible or credible, i should say. >> yeah. but you're not -- >> yeah. >> ok. commissioner walker, please. >> yeah. i get that. i mean, i think we do count on professionals to do their job. >> mm-hmm. >> but i also have an issue that, if we have access to this information of what has been approved by planning and an abenefit -addendum comes in that has been approved by planning aren't we responsibilities for sounding an alarm? [please stand by] please stand by]

>> our colleagues would expect to see the initial demolition going along with that structural submittal because they don't always look at the structural drawings. they will admit they don't have the expertise to analyze the structural drawings. >> yeah, i mean, to that point -- i have this other question. >> this system is long and drawn out, and it's hard. the amount of permits we process

here, you would image that it's at least the minimum responsibility of the planned officials to submit plans for us to look at and know they were followed. if we looked at all the drawings, we don't have that kind of man power. that's what the design was there for. what was given to them, approved, they should have followed it to the t. i'm just saying we need to send a strong message here. if you're going to get produced and you think you can hide behind it because it has a stamp on it and the first permit gives you more work than the first permit, i think that's a huge mistake, and that's something we need to point out in this meeting, that it's not the intent of the department. it's the respons