of interest to the commission. >> commissioner walker, please. >> i put this request to the director. i am interested in an inventory of the vacant commercial spaces and vacant residential units that are in our city. as much as we can. i know that that is a hard thing to put arms around, but we constantly are dealing with this issue and various ways the vacant spaces can create light in neighborhoods. vacant residential units, obviously, in the housing crisis create a problem. if we can get a sense of what that universe is, it would be really helpful. thank you. >> ok. next item is liked him he. future meetings and agendas. you may discuss and take action to set the date of a special meeting or determine those items

that could be placed on the agenda of the next meeting and other future meetings of the building inspection commission. our next regular meeting is scheduled for october 17th. is there any public comment on item four a and b.? seeing none. next item is item five. discussion of possible actions to a point that a member to the nomination of subcommittee that was continued from our august meeting. >> if it is ok, madam secretary, we have supervisor business first and then we can move to -- is it item six? >> five. >> yes. which one is six? >> that is supervisor -- >> why don't we take that one first. ok. we want to make sure your

workday is very productive and you are not sitting in the gallery. >> thank you. i appreciate it. >> good morning. i'm a legislative aide to district 11 supervisor safai. thank you for continuing the item. i want to thank the directors. they have been working hand-in-hand with us to get this through. as well as our gentleman here, rob, he has been helping. i am here and open for any questions or comments or feedback you may have. thank you. >> well, obviously i get it. as we said in the last meeting, there was a lot of unintended consequences. that is primarily our concern when we have good pieces of legislation that come after us. for example, the first thing that jumps out at me is existing

homes who now see their front lawn or they're perceived front lawn as parking spaces. how do we deal with that? >> this is meant to keep the status quo. we have a meeting with the supervisors and followed up with rob as well. this will be complaint driven. it will not be retroactive in the sense that they will have to be out there with paper and pen in hand and visually observing. it is still complaint driven. someone will have to call in and say, my neighbor did this. please come back and check it out. >> in other words, it was regarded before and now all of a sudden it is paved driveway? >> that is correct. so going from the city's attorney office, what we are doing, and this is in conversation with both departments. i also want to thank the planning departments.

the folks agree that d.b.i. is more equipped to handle the enforcement. distance just transferring the enforcement. everything else is status quo. it is still complaint driven. it is still the same trigger. that is what we are looking at. i do want to jot that for you guys. the percentage is 20%. unpaved front yard setbacks. we are trying to come out and create a solution and conversation with planning and to d.b.i. if that is the best way to capture this. obviously it is not working right now. >> )-right-parenthesis -- right. this legislation needs to happen on the conversation needs to happen. there is a lot of people who feel differently about that and they will be upset. i personally think it is the right piece of legislation. go ahead. >> i seem to recall that i have a question about the penalties and the legislation actually

says, civil and criminal penalties. what are those and to will assess them? >> that is where we are speaking -- i will let rob chime in. that his current law. that is already on the books. the civil penalties will be a last resort. it is still not a code violation the person will be given an opportunity to rectify and then only after then, if they do not rectify, it will be addressed. that again is, we are not creating this. this is already on the books. >> this is standard with our enforcement. we always include these provisions at all three different ways you can think about enforcement, administrative, civil. >> yeah, we have rarely used criminal. but it is there. but there is a de facto practice we don't intend to change that or have prescribed for change

either the director of the department or staff that we start going after criminally. the matter is just to start enforcing this. from what we have heard from both departments is that once someone is given an n.o.v., it gets their attention and they immediately call in and we starts -- people give a list of here are some things you can do to rectify the situation. penalties of the sort would be last resort. >> so the n.o.v. will be issued by our department and the appeals will come to our department? >> that is correct. it will be handled by the code enforcement. >> i like it. >> thank you. >> thank you. my supervisor apologize he could not be here. he is the chair of the rules committee and they are in session right now. he sends his apologies and thank each of you for your time and support. we really appreciate it. >> thank you.

>> is there a motion? >> public comment? is there any public comment? seeing none. >> commissioner walker has a comment. >> i move to support this, approve approved this, whatever the language is moving forward. >> we recommend. >> i moved to recommend. >> second. >> who did the second? >> samba. >> there is a motion and a second to recommend this legislation. i will do a roll call vote. [roll call] >> the motion carried unanimously. what is the next item? >> we go to item seven. >> item seven, discussion and possible action on a proposed ordinance to the building

housing, fire and administrative codes and authorize the building and fire department to require the installation of a new fire safety system or the improvement or upgrade of an existing system to current code in addition to other requirements. >> thank you, very much. good morning, commissioners. thank you so much for having me. supervisor ronen could not be here today so she asked me to present. we are very excited about this legislation. essentially, to give you some background, in 2015, one supervisor --dash when a supervisor wasn't supervisor of district nine, there was a horrendous fire. still a hole in the ground. it went -- it led to the displacement of 58 families and one tragic death. had there been other fires as well, as you know in the mission in particular, we have seen really devastating the community and leading to permanent displacement of families. after that, we had a fire task

force that d.b.i. helped convened i was very helpful in coming up with a number of recommendations. short-term and longer-term. the shorter term legislation recommendation is where they did a legislative package with those short-term recommendations that came out. but one of the pieces that was really discussed and we gave a lot of time to think through, was around how do we look at the issue of sprinklers? how do we ensure that our most vulnerable building buildings that are vulnerable to this type of devastating fire, have the strongest possible fire safety mechanism? there was a recommendation that came out of the task force that said we should really consider sprinklers, and in particular situations where we have bad actors or continuous negligence on the part of landlord his.

let's look at if we can craft legislation that can really focus. it is a huge cost to require sprinklers in older buildings. we really took that and have been working closely with d.b.i. and members of the tenant and landlord community to craft the legislation you have before you today that provides d.b.i. and the fire department with a student -- with a tool they can choose to use once a landlord has shown a pattern of negligence or of not debating n.o.v. or allowing multiple, different fire safety issues to continue in their building. it is a very specific and targeted legislation. it is really aimed at providing a deterrent so we can let landlords know that this city takes this issue very seriously. if you cannot continue to be unsafe and you have attendance

in your building. we hope that this is a tool that can be useful to our departments and just in those extreme cases. i want to add that one piece we will add in the legislation that is not here yet is that we realize and talking through with the various advisory committees for d.b.i. and others, there isn't a warning process explicitly listed in here. so we will add that. i think once you have shown that you had to watch a separate n.o.v. of different issues but both related to fire safety, and d.b.i. or fire says this is starting to show a pattern that this actor can become eligible for this very serious fire safety notice and order, that a warning will be sent to the building owner. we will be incorporating data and working with the city attorney to have that before we go to committee. we do want to make sure that people are aware of the consequences and we hope that this can be a deterrent to help landlords really take the life safety of the tenants very seriously and can be useful tool

for the city. >> commissioner walker, please. >> thank you very much for this. we see, in many neighborhoods, the holes in the ground resulting from fires. they are not only -- there is not only the fire in the first place, but there is the rebuilding. i think this will be great. that was my question about looking backwards. are we able to automatically put this into effect and capture all of those who are already serial offenders, so to speak? or do we have to start from the gate? >> once the legislation passes, we can go back and say, you know , you have now had this many n.o.v. warnings of different type of fire issues and we are going to send you the warning and then have a hearing if it feels like you need to be doing something much more serious to address the issue. >> thank you.

>> commissioner lee. >> i have a question about what happens after the order is issued. what happens afterwards? >> after it is issued, there will be a hearing character landlord calms and shows that they have really addressed the issues and they have created their own checklist of things to really show and can prove that none of these issues -- they can determine that you have mitigated the issue. if they have not and they say that you will have to go ahead and do this, then the landlord can appeal. there is a one appeal process. if the appeal does not go through, then they would be required, and the fire marshal and d.b.i. would work together to say what is the appropriate thing that they have to do whether that is the fire alarm system. if the landlord does with clear timeline, if you need to do this

by this day, and whatnot, if they do not, like in any other case with d.b.i., where there is an n.o.v. that continues to be ignored, and if this is ignored, it can go to the city attorney. the difference between this and n.o.v. as we are not making clear requirements of what you have to do. we are saying you need to proactively improve the situation. but eventually, if they continue to be ignored to, it would go to the city attorney. the difference is now, if it does go through a court case, they would still have to create -- builds the fire and sprinkler and implement the fire alarm. it would not just be monetary but they would have to be -- they could be required in that situation distill implement it. >> i asked that question because i would hate to think that a negligent property owner would be ignoring this and not doing anything. and then there is no teeth behind the order. for example, i will order abatement process.

>> it is appealed to us as an order of abatement. it is like a notice. >> ok. i have a follow-up question. what about the other outstanding n.o.v. that lead to the order? >> they will also have to be abated. you still have to deal with those as well. you still have to address whatever issues. but we are staying together that you have shown a pattern of negligence that requires a higher level of seriousness but you still have to be able to build it. >> ok. >> it would just be added on as an item on the abatement appeal? >> i just wanted to clarify that >> i appreciate the question. >> count a land -- can a landlord to be forced to sprinkler a building? >> yes. if the fire marshal and d.b.i. -- this could happen through the fire and d.b.i. if it goes through d.b.i., they still have to consult the fire marshal. if they determine that is what is required through their expertise and really looking at

the case and the certain circumstances, they could be required to. >> just because they got that far? >> depending on the situation. we have seen cases where a sprinkler system is so old and broken down and it is perpetually not working. we could say you know what, this has continued on and we have seen you have also done these other dangerous things. we will require a new spengler system because this broken system is not working. it is actually dangerous because people think there is a spengler system that is not there and it doesn't work. that as an example of what the fire department has seen happen that they wish they could require something beyond just penalties. that is what we are enabling them to do. thank you. >> ok. i think everybody is in agreement. great legislation. we are worried about the implementation of some of these. we are seeing with the a.d.u.

that we are trying to improve the life safety. and they physically won't let us do it. i can see where we will have a lot of situations where it will be hard for us to mitigate but i think at least then we are making everyone aware that we have major issues. i am always worried about the displacement parts and these improvements that come on with it. so i think it is a type of legislation that needs to happen >> we did try to address it. that is why we amended the administrative code so no tenant can be displaced. >> ok. well done. congratulations. thank you for bringing this here today. >> thank you for your time. >> is there any public comment on this item? seeing then, is there a motion? >> commissioner walker has a comment. >> this is long overdue. i really appreciate this is coming forward to. i would like to make a motion to recommend that we support this.

>> second. >> there is a motion and a second. we will do the roll call vote. [roll call] >> motion carried unanimously. we will go back to item five. are we going to go back to item five? >> apologies for having a little sidebar. let's go back to item five now. >> item five is discussion of possible action to appoint a member to the nomination subcommittee. this is continued from the august 15th hearing. >> sam?

you are going to be sam, right? you are not here the last time. so we nominated you. i would have done the same thing to you. >> ok, all right. be prepared that you will be nominated. all we have to do is to make sure you are ok with that. >> i am ok and honoured. thank you. >> thank you. >> that will teach me. >> as their public comment on this item? the item is to nominate commissioner moss as a member of the nomination subcommittee. >> second. >> are all commissioners in favour? >> aye. >> any opposed? thank you. congratulations. the next item is item eight. discussion and possible action regarding proposed ordinance and completion of the code and amending the plumbing code to

the local amendment referring to the san francisco public utility commission. rules and regulations and a section on cross connection control in addition to other requirements. >> who is making the presentation? ok. >> good morning. i'm the supervising plumbing inspector. what we are trying to do is remove something in the code in addition to the code that was put forth by the public utilities commission, water control eat -- water quality control people. when we put it in, it was a good idea, we thought at the time. in retrospect and hindsight is 2020, it duplicates a lot of what we have in the code in terms of backflow protection for buildings, and in some cases, it is far more restrictive. to a point where it has been onerous and we find it very

difficult to move forward to enforce it in good conscious. to be quite frank with you, the planning -- plumbing code is written by a team of medical experts. the team of experts understand the plumbing have launched backflow protection quite well. it has worked famously for decades. what has happened now as somebody has found a better method is better method. we are trying to build a better mousetrap. we had a meeting yesterday with the public public health department and with the p.u.c. people out water quality control and in essence, there is no criteria or judgement. there is no example is that we can cite for this to be more onerous or be more restrictive in the california plumbing code. so we would like to take it out from the plumbing code and fall back on the california code as it was written. most of which is identical and some of which is less restrictive to a very very minor degree.

i have to be quite candid with you. what brought this to fruition is that the salesforce tower came in and they are putting vending machines and many, many floors. i kept getting calls from the vendor is that the device is used to protect the portable system from carbonate errors that would create carbonic poison. the gas mixing with certain types of materials. i said we have the code. it is very clear. at it states this, and fat. it is a device. put it in and we are good. we will sign off on it. i didn't realize after several phone calls that the p.u.c. or the health department were asking for what is called a reduced pressure device. the cost to do that and to install those is astronomical. if you have a vending machine on each one of those floors and added up to five or $600 on the initial valve, not to mention the installation costs in the annual fees, there is no justification for something like that. if we look back in the plumbing code, you clearly has stated that this device is approved. when i asked the health

department and the p.u.c. for their criteria for making this, they had one example. but they couldn't prove what had really gone wrong. there was no evidence to say that this is what failed. they didn't know if they had a device to begin with that veiled that is what got my attention. i said, look, at this point in time, we want to step back. we reviewed this for months and months through title 17 and title 24 and the plumbing code. we found a determination that we would like to retract from the code if, in fact, the p.u.c. or the health department want to put it back in, than they need to come back to the proper channels which is through your board and the board of supervisors to do so. that is what we are trying to do it is as simple as removing a statement from the code but should have been no more as a reference but came in as the body of the code. that is where we stand. >> thank you, inspector. is there any comment? thank you for your explanation

of that. i understand it now. when i was reading it i was a little bit confused. >> it is helpful. thank you. >> very helpful. >> is there any public comment on this item? is there a motion to approve it? >> so moved. >> second. >> there is a motion and a second. i will do the roll call vote. [roll call] motion carried unanimously. >> great. >> our next item is item nine. discussion of possible action regarding proposed ordinance. amending the building code to establish a process for review by the building inspection commission and code advisor to machine -- code advisory committee. in addition to other requirements. >> good morning, commissioners. i am from the legislature of public affairs. this is an item that we have talked about before. it kind of fell through the

cracks between the time that supervisor farrell became the interim mayor and subsequently left city hall. so we have now obtained support from supervisor katy tang, who is willing to reintroduce this. what happened after you heard it initially, and basically supported it, is no land-use hearing was scheduled. so what will happen with your action today, if you support it again, as it will get scheduled for land use, probably later this month or in october. this only codifies the process that we currently go through to make sure that the commission is fully informed about proposed legislation from the board, that may, in fact,, affect operations and budget for the department. we do have a process that we follow already.

at this codifies and provides a timeline. i think it is well worth supporting and moving forward to get into local law. >> ok. thank you. is there any public comment on this item? >> seeing then, is there a motion to approve? >> so moved. >> second. >> there is a motion and a second. i will do the roll call vote. [roll call] >> the motion carried unanimously. our next item is item ten. up debt on just update on s.f. permits and tracking system. >> good morning, commissioners. i am the dt project manager overseeing the project.

there has been an update over the last month or so where there has been a lot of progress on the issues that were not covered in the testing cycle. we are making steady progress forward. i would like to say that a number of the areas that are highlighted as significant problems, we are seeing positive and definite progress on them, including areas like these, they are starting -- there is a big problem with big discovery during the testing cycle that fees are starting to test and look good. performance is looking good. that was another big concern. addresses and parcels, that was actually a big surprise and required a significant architecture as to how that was approached. most of that work is done. there has been some rework required as a result of the re architecture that is still in progress as well.

as the city cio, linda emphasized at the last meeting that we are being very milestone in deliverable focus as we move forward. we want to get the reported issues down to where they can be retested and down to an acceptable level. we want to follow up with some end to end scenario reviews with the business and the vendor to make sure we can see that things can progress beginning to end and fees are properly assessed and the property is properly associated with the permit activity and to see that all work in the permit produced on an end to end basis. if we see the end to end processes work properly, then we will enter a formal testing cycle. [please stand by]

and in fact we're increasing the amount of training that we went on. >> that is great. i have talked to other departments and some of our supervisors and folks in the mayor's office, it would be good to include them in the training outreach as soon as we start up again. everybody is really anticipating this as you can imagine. >> absolutely. >> great, thank you. >> thank you.

is there any public comment on item 10? seeing none, directors report. 11 a. update on dbi's finances. good morning, commissioners. deputy director of dbi. today, i have two reports. i'll start with the second one, that is the final fiscal year budget. in february, the commission had approved a budget we submitted to the mayor's office. the mayor had a chance to review it and it went to the board of supervisors and was recently passed in july. so this is the final. i want to go over a couple of the changes which you approved.

on the revenue side, there were no changes. we stuck with the revenue projections, the only difference in the end, once the final budget, if we have revenues that were needed to make up the full amount of the budget, we'll use our fund balance, so the controls at $5.9 million to get to the full budget. on expenditure side, there were major changes. one was a decrease in salaries. that was primarily due to some increases in attrition. so we had a lot of vacant positions, we're filling them, but others would get vacant. the board of supervisors budget analyst recommended they reduce our petitions from 1-fte to a lower, to save us time. if someone was hired in july, it may be to a .77.

and there was a deletion of you on other position. we can add money for the peer review services. as you're aware for the tall buildings now, the department did an rfq and you have a list of qualified professionals to do the work for us. this is cost covering so the project sponsor will have to pay it, but for us to set up a contract and do appeal, we have to have money budgeted for it. we'll get that money back. increase to the city attorney bill, because that's been increasing. and we added money to handle the hosting and maintenance for the sf program. those are the major changes on the expenditures. i'm happy to answer any questions. well, then i'll go onto the second report. the second report is actual august 2018 report for this

coming fiscal year. it's not much to -- gives you the budget and actual revenues, but as i always say in the first two months of the fiscal year, there isn't that much to do, so the projections are very preliminary. if you compare, you can see that we're pretty much where we were last year for revenues, we were at $10.6 million. this year, we're at 10.5, so not much of a change. the expenditures are exactly the same. that has to do with the way we start off the fiscal year and not getting a lot of things in. so this is very preliminary. on that, i'm actually happy to answer any questions, too. >> see none. >> thank you. >> item 11 b, update on proposed or recently enacted state or local legislation.

>> i did include in our package sort of update on where we are legislatively. you heard just a few minutes ago from both the fire safety ordinance of supervisor ronen and the paving over of the front lawns from supervisor safai, so i think we're on track to move that ahead. i think all of you are aware that we did have a visit from mayor breed early in september, specifically about everybody's efforts city-wide to improve the speed of production of housing with a new executive director at dbi, planning and the fire department in particular, are going to be increasing coordination to try and eliminate immediate backlogs. we have essentially six months to eliminate the backlogs. and then four months for new applications to get processed.

i think given the numbers that we're currently seeing certainly on adu, dbi, internal team, which is already addressing the adus, should be able to make that deadline. and we're certainly making every effort to do so. couple of other items. as you know, we did complete a city-wide response to the new civil grand jury report that came out in july. that also looked at both adu production and modular housing. we'll be going with other members of city departments to the government accounting and oversight committee, gao, which holds its annual hearing. that is coming up sometime later this month, so suffice it to say, we did complete and have now sent to the court our

responsiveness to the grand jury's recommendations in those areas. and i did also want to mention that we've been working closely with the mayor's office of housing. the mayor's office, the fire marshal and the fire department on a relatively new interpretation from the state fire marshal as to what is the definition of a high-rise, including an occupied roof as an occupied floor. this does have immediate consequences for especially affordable housing projects in the city. so dbi is part of the city-wide team that is trying to push back to the fire marshal to emilrate the interpretation that took place, but would be subject to

projects going forward from april 4th of 2018. so we're still in discussion about that and as we have more details, undoubtedly, will come back and update you. we regard it as a serious matter we're trying to address. finally, i'll just mention that the california building officials association came out with a rather strong opposition earlier this month to an assembly bill, 2681, that would call for a required inventory of vulnerable buildings, that every jurisdiction in the state has to produce. san francisco is already ahead of this in many ways, because of the community action plan for seismic safety, because we do have a long-term plan we're currently implementing, but the

way the state legislation is worded, we would probably have to reduplicate that work and actually spend a lot of money to come up with the kinds of inventory data that this state law seems to require. so we have sent letters to the mayor's office dealing with our state lobbying organization and requested that they try and persuade the governor not to go forward and sign this particular bill until it is amended. i don't have any immediate update on whether that bill has yet been put in front of the governor, as you know, he's been rather busy with the climate action summit that was held here in the city just last week. so i don't know if we're going to be successful in putting this off or not, but it is an item that is also of some concern to

us in terms of its requirements. but with that, i'll be happy to take any questions. >> president mccarthy: i wouldn't mind talking to you offline about the issues we're going to be seeing there in regard to permit applications increase. we had talked to dan. we wanted to go back with amendments about that. >> right. i have been in touch with the city attorney's office about that. we're still awaiting some response. but, right, i believe that it is still over in the city attorney's office and once we have that, we can go back and talk to the supervisors. >> president mccarthy: we could set up a time frame to go and make recommendations. and please let me know about that. i'll go to that meeting. all right. >> next item is 11-c, update on

major projects. >> tom wood. department of building inspection. you can see overall, 55% increase, but you pay more attention to filing 6.4% decrease. that's going to bring attention. >> director, i was just thinking, i'm starting to hear -- and this is more street talk than factual -- that a lot of projects, particularly good ones, large housing units, are kind of on hold for whatever circumstance, usually financial i'm hearing and so on. so i guess question one is, traditionally when the projects are approved, how long of a shelf time do they have before they're extended or can be extended or so on? >> depend on the size of the

project. generally couple of years before they start construction. >> president mccarthy: is it your opinion that most of the projects we see here that have been approved and the permits pulled, will be starting construction? >> as you can see from the page 1, you know, complete ones have -- some of them. and then construction also going down. you mentioned if that in fact people are hurt, also in a rumor and the construction costs up jump by 15%, due to the trade war, but this is out of our control. but some of the developers want seriously to develop it, you know, some of them want to, you

know, sell the permit. >> president mccarthy: i'm reading the tea leaves here a little bit. through what we saw there last week, i'm curious some of these projects may reinvent themselves down the road here, become modular, i don't know, because of the construction costs and so on. i don't know what that means to us -- i actually do know, but projects are going to have start all over again, particularly on the dbi side, right? >> that i cannot say. but the talk with the developer regarding the construction, the costs may be maximum savings 10%, only the time frame you will save. but there is limitation from the bad experience we had on some project due to the weather and have to waterproof the construction. that is big effect too. >> president mccarthy: i think the 10% number is a number that

i would challenge based on our last visit to the modular factories. that's why it's important that, you know, as a future project for the department, is to get as educated as we can on them and get, you know, commission walker saying we should visit there and really get an understanding on the cost and numbers. because i believe that is going to be help with our housing crisis issue, along with the cost issues so on. >> construction cost is one thing. the material will be more. i talked to them. and then also job by job specific, depend how you're going to have construction staging areas is very important. that's why i say it's not only one -- >> president mccarthy: there is a lot of moving factors. i get it. >> that end, you're right, staging and city in downtown is hard, but we have 8,000 units at

treasure island. you know, we have a lot of units being built in places that for lack of a better term are basically the suburbs in terms of open land. so i think it would be pertinent for the department to educate itself. >> definitely, we want to -- >> president mccarthy: we're drafting -- this is just me getting in the weeds, we're drafting cranes down to get it. i believe we can get the product downtown with the proper -- with the proper planning. and we asked that question and you know, san francisco, they don't see it as a difficult place. they design around us. so i think as we get more educated, more of these issues will be dealt with. obstacles, the conversations and the objections i hear about modular slowly but surely have been chipped away. >> i would like to suggest that the director add a column on the summary.

on the summary that he gives to us, maybe just list the number of units on each one. >> ok. >> this will help us understand what is going on. >> one of the things that came up in -- >> we can add it up. >> you finished? >> one of the things that came up in our tour is to the cost, and what you mentioned about the cost increases because of the trade war and certain materials cost going up is that with modular, once the contract is into the factory, the cost is set. and so they just produce at the rate they contracted with, so that at least for that portion of the cost, it doesn't change. and that's from them. that's their words and so, it really does make -- give more reason to really evaluate this and find solutions rather than ways of stopping it, in my

opinion, so it's just something to look at and talk to them about as you're touring over there. >> yeah, i understand what you're saying, but also some of the existing, you know, contractors building it, they have a big fight with the subcontractor right now because the cost jumped up unexpected. i just wonder -- >> it's complicated, we get it. but we're kind of at the commission coming around thinking, everybody keeps asking for solutions here, director, and this is to us, based on our first round, is a real strong possible solution to address our housing costs. so the commission is kind of saying to staff and leadership, let's get educated, because the information we're getting out there talks directly to san francisco as a possible solution to the housing problem. and i really -- i mean, i was very doubtful, but as i walked

through the factory, you become a believer very quick. and understanding how this is something that we should as a city adapt and really seriously consider. there is a lot of opposition to it, but there is a lot of people that believe it's going happen in the future. i want to kind of get the mindset that we need to look at that, we need to get educated, director, and i believe you should bring key people out there. >> we arranged to go there, because last time, actually we did some of the job, you know, on first street and then learned the lesson how to improve it. >> and they did, too. and the factories have adapted to those issues as well. so they talked about that. >> yeah. >> president mccarthy: they talked in detail about how there is -- this is not a new concept. it's been around since the 50s.

it's failed in many levels, but now i think we turned the corner. base on what we saw, there is a real understanding this could be a new way of forming housing. i think they worked out a lot of issues. theirs biggest downfall right now is sheet rock on site. that is their killer. >> it's labor intensive. >> yeah, and it slows the whole thing down. five stations for the sheet rock and so on. they're looking at it. if somebody could come up other than sheet rock, we could create -- so right now, just so you understand, right now, the two factory floors there, they could in theory, with enough orders, right now with the production, produce 2800 square feet of finished housing every day. if they had -- they have the

capacity to do three times that with the proper orders in place. so that's somewhere just shy of 10,000 square feet of housing ready, shipped to a site every day. so it's a huge thing. so i really think we need them. i wasn't going to get into that, but we should have another conversation. i really want to stress the deputy director -- >> just to inform you, we've had meetings, there is a large factory built housing going on with mission. we've had meetings. giving them direction. so we could see eliminate some of these obstacles. it's ongoing right now. >> president mccarthy: it's adapt or die. >> [laughter], sort of is. >> president mccarthy: thank you for that. >> item 11-d, update on code enforcement.

>> morning commissioners, code enforcement and dbi monthly update for august 2018. bid, building inspection performed, complaints received 432. complaint response within 24-72 hours, 415. complaints with first notice of violations sent, 63. complaints received and abated without notice of violation, 195. abated complaints with notice of violation, 32. second notice of violation referred without enforcement, 22. health inspection services, house inspections performed 1057. complaints received 443. complaint response within 24-72 hours, 427. complaints with notice of violation issued, 146. abated complaints, 475. number of cases send to director

hearing, 58. routine inspections 154. code enforcement services, number of cases sent to director hearing 114. number of order of abatements issued, 21. number of cases under advisement 7. number of cases abated 69. code enforcement inspections performed 224. number of cases referred to bic, none. number referred to city attorney, one. >> great job. >> president mccarthy: thank you. >> any public comment on the director's report items, a-d? seeing none, item 12. review and approval of the minutes of the regular meeting of august 15, 2018. motion to approve the minutes? >> move to approve. >> second.

>> any public comment on the minutes? seeing none, are all commissioners in favor? any opposed? minutes are approved. item 13, adjournment. motion to adjourn? >> adjourn. >> motion and a second. all commissioners in favor? we are now adjourned. it is 11:54 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 to get your building earthquake

>>s the regular meet of community infrastructure and. the