Skip to main content

tv   Government Access Programming  SFGTV  October 24, 2018 8:00am-9:00am PDT

8:00 am
3,000, but not too many tall buildings. many shaded in green shows the structural steel. the 1994 northridge earthquake about 25 years ago pointed out some unexpected problems. this was down in l.a. with welded steel frames and the tendency to get fracktures from the connections. again, building codes and messages and designs continue to advance. in particular, things came out of it, the berkeley tall been initiative, these performance guidelines entered in 2007, you see a lot of buildings shaded in red built since then, but these are generally employing more advanced methods of analysis. so the recommendations, we have 16 of them. we kind of characterized them into ones that could be implemented, we think in the
8:01 am
short-term, midterm, or long-term. short-term would be ones within city departments, they could be implemented through things like administrative bulletins. midterm recommendations would require more input from a number of stakeholders, could be practicing professionals, and buildings, and so forth. we have 16 of them. also looking at the issues with the steel molded frames that may have been damaged in the loma prieta earthquake 29 years ago today, also looking at post earthquake inspection provisions, particularly what's unique about tall buildings and some recommendations coming forth from that.
8:02 am
and then finally, a few of the selected recommendations i'd like to mention. the first one dealing with the damage that occurred -- well, that was observed following the northridge ear northridge earth quick. these fracks aren't identified immediately. they were uncovered in a few buildings, and over the weeks and months that followed northridge, i think it was 60 to 100 buildings had these types of fracktures identified in them. so since they weren't identified immediately, the question is did any of this happen in the type of buildings that were in existence during the 1989 loma prieta earthquake.
8:03 am
based on that, one of our recommendations is to enforce the existing building provisions, which is to find and repair earth quick damage. we recommend developing an administrative bulletin to look at how to implement this fema document that has these inspection procedures. we recognize that some of these buildings may have already had damage identified in them, and in fact, some have been repaired, but not systematically, but we also recognize, especially 29 years after the fact, being sensitive as this gets rolled out in a thoughtful way to really focus on where the problems are, rather than just making a large make work effort. like to switch gears to think about post earthquake inspection. san francisco, of course, has been very proactive, working with the state that has the
8:04 am
seismic action program. several departments, emergency management, public works, and d.b.i. calling on these volunteers organized through d.b.i. who will eventually, after a large earthquake, go in and inspect buildings and give them a green, yellow, or red tag. and the d.b.i. also has the b.r.i. program to kind of accelerate this inspection process. so a couple of the concerns here when we think about tall buildings are, for example, the a.t.c. 20 document as a guide that's used to inspect the existing buildings. whether the volunteers who are trained to use a.t.c. 20 are trained well enough to address the specific issues in tall buildings. also, well, the b.r.c. program
8:05 am
is a fantastic program, will it work as intended? is it stream lined, and also are there opportunities to improve that program? so a few recommendations is to think about there being specialized teamed developed who know what to look for in tall buildings and do that in conjunction with d.b.i. the next is to look at the b.r.c. programs -- b.orp progra, but also thinking about doing a simulation exercise, kind of a dry run to engage the owners and the engineers and the d.b.i. interaction to see -- it's never gone through a fire drill, to see how well that system works. in the case of rather tall buildings, it's currently a voluntary program, to maybe
8:06 am
require it for more buildings, encourage a requirement for large tenant space if there's large tenants that are coming into a tall building, and also just go beyond basic safety and tagging, to go into functional recovery. if you walk into a building that's safe to occupy, elevators, are they safe to be working? and also just to clarify the roles that the different city agencies have, in tall buildings, anticipating some mighting damaged that require barricades around them, just to understand what's in charge of that process, what are the triggers and so forth. the fourth item, a longer range effort to look at a comprehensive recovery program for the downtown district. this slide shows there's many tall buildings and the number continues to increase, but they're kind of mixed in with
8:07 am
low-rise buildings. the number of buildings doesn't tell the whole story, so it's really to take stock of what can happen to downtown under scenario earth quiquake study a what could happen. again, thinking about this risk of cordons and what that could entail, how that could impede emergency routes through the city, and then to think about the challenges and recovery, thinking about the financial capital that will be needed. and also, the density in the downtown with these tall buildings to think of the reconstruction planning and logistics, so this recovery plan, this would be a longer range study to think about the agretate effects. what's the chance that buildings
8:08 am
will be damged, tall buildings will be down, and they'll affect residents that are in them? or when if a building is closed, and residents are not able to return to their homes or businesses, how that affects the socioeconomics of the neighborhood. if you think of our utility systems in the roadway, what might be the impact on some of those systems or some older buildings on shallow foundations, and just think what can happen.
8:09 am
cries chur christ church new zealand, a focus was on system liquefaction. we see this could be a -- this sort of study might be one where you do a first kind of cut through it, a triage, and going back more detailed as you start to discover kind of hot points in the study. so finally, i'd like to introduce shah vindani who will talk about the topic of new foundations. >> supervisor peskin: doctor. i know the answer to this because i attended the meetings of the tall building initiatives. can you tell us why you chose
8:10 am
240, because if you look at the chart, you can see a whole bunch clustered between 200 and 240. >> we chose 240 because we had to cut it off somewhere. in some of the buildings, there's something that would trigger these provisions, special lateral systems for resisting earthquakes that are not permitted above 240 feet, so there's kind of a building code trigger there. that was a practical measure. if you look on that database, there are about four buildings that are 239 feet, so that's just a starting point. one of our recommendations is this database continue to be on-line and filled out with more and more buildings. >> supervisor peskin: thank you. >> good afternoon. my name is shah vidani, and what
8:11 am
you see here on the screen is tall buildings, color coded with respect to their foundation system. the blue color means these are shallow foundation, mat foundation directly supported on compacted soil or rock. the black color indicates buildings that are on drill shift going all the way to bed rock, socketed in the bed rock. and the pink color is the buildings that are supported on concrete mats, supported on compacted sands, but they don't go all the way down to bed rock. these are all accepted ways of supporting buildings. the way the foundation is evaluated and designed depending on such factors as depth to bed rock, soil type, building height
8:12 am
and weight, seismic loads, number of basement and proximity to shorelines, among many other factors. at the moment, presently, they do not have codes providing guidance for selection of type of the building, foundation, and its design. the practice, the best practices among the best practices, geotechnical engineers, very considerably along the practice. few years ago, structural engineering community decides that -- to bring consistency and uniformity to seismic design of tall buildings, there should be some guidelines, so they created ab 33 -- 83. the bottom is that definition of that document, is the
8:13 am
requirement for new tall buildings. so these documents provide guidelines for structural site of practice, not the geotechnical, not the foundation. we are of the opinion that we should have another ab companion to this other ab 83 to add to foundation issues in addition to structural issues. basically, our recommendation one, a, attempts to bring consistenty and uniformity to geotechnical practice for design of tall buildings by establishing guidelines for best practices. the intense is not to adversely impact the cost of the buildings nor the project that is scheduled but again bring consistency and uniformity to
8:14 am
our practice. what would be recommended? first and foremost, acceptable limits of total and differential sentiment. perhaps differential settlement would be more important than the total settlement. we can discuss that if interested. next is information of -- site characterization, field investigation that are existing, how many borings do we need, how many borings, how many samplings they're boring, and finally what type of appropriately elaborate testing they should do to come up with a robust testing, we would like to have design and numerical calculation and
8:15 am
evaluation of short-term and long-term settlement. [inaudible] >> -- how the soil and the structure would impact each other in terms of the foundation for each other in tall buildings. and lastly, design consideration related to sea level rise. these are partial list of what we think should be covered by this new ab and guidelines provided to practitioners such that there's consistency and uniformity across the board. we think if there's an ab and guidelines, this would strengthen d.b.i. in assessing the appropriateness and completeness in foundation design recommendation presented in geotechnical reports for tall
8:16 am
buildings. >> supervisor peskin: obviously, ab 83 post dates 301 mission street and it was years in the making. as to recommendation 1-a, it is -- or i should say -- well, there's two 1-a recommendations. one is training and check list, and the other is development of geotechnical regulations, which i assume is the administrative companion to 083. and that's a midterm recommendation, and i guess my question is, as we continue to build more and more of these, how fast -- what's midterm mean, and how fast to a companion midterm amendment be developed? >> i'd like to have -- i'd like to answer the question, but also d.b.i. to chime in on this. i think it's a matter of six months to a year that we can -- the recommendation that they have developed needs to be
8:17 am
locally peer reviewed, and that development takes time. i would guess six months to a year would be a good time estimate for that could be implemented. >> supervisor peskin: yeah, we never had geotechnical review on 301 mission street. mr. tom, you want to jump in on that. >> good afternoon, supervisors. ron tom. the process is established with our department. the -- it begins with someone coming forthwith this idea that we have now in front of us, and then, going to the core advisory committee. that would, in turn, assign it to the structural subcommittee for review. now of course that opens up the whole process of vetting with
8:18 am
the public and with design professionals, as well. and through that process, which is -- had to be scheduled, announced and prepared in the proper manner so that everybody has the opportunity to come and speak on the subject matter, that process does take time, so there's an -- something in that process as cannot be determined. but as you can see with the length of time it took with ab 082 and ab 083, the entire design community does start to weigh in. and so the process, once it is decided what the content of a new administrative bulletin should contain and what parameters it's going to establish for -- as guidelines and requirements for the design community, then, it would go to our -- through our process of going to our building inspection commission. now having said that, only this
8:19 am
morning our building inspection commission approved the final revised ab 082, which has been in the making for a while because it did have to go back to a committee in order to have the proper input that we need to have from that design community. the ab -- the companion we're talking about would go through probably the same process, but it would eventually reach the building inspection commission, and then, it would then be adopted and passed, and we would implement it, and the design community at the same time would be notified of its requirements, but we would try to do a proper socialization of the requirements ahead of time so it doesn't become a burden to the design community. that's the process it takes. i would say it's easily six months to a one year process at the minimum because of all the steps that it goes through and
8:20 am
the veding that it properly provides for opportunities. if you want more information on that, we also have our manager who's over our technical services division, mr. david leon, he can drill down a little more detail if you would like, but that kind of gives you an overall sense of what it would take to achieve an administrative bulletin. that is why we currently exercise and use the method of information sheets to bridge the gap for -- in terms of time to achieve some of the goals that we have already established, as you know, since 301 mission street manifested itself in terms of its problems. >> supervisor peskin: thank you, mr. tom. mr. vidani, please, do you have anything more to present? >> no.
8:21 am
>> supervisor peskin: okay. so are we going to mr. hooper now, who's next. >> well, that's what we had to present. we just -- there were 16 recommendations. we talked about five or six of them. we'll answer questions on any of them, but we have no more presentation, but we'll welcome any questions that you may have. >> supervisor peskin: if you for that. some of these, colleagues, are things where if you look at the recommended actions would require legislation by the board of supervisors. some of them do not. some of them might, and i think we should talk about that and -- but let. >> board member casciato: madam city at stor, maybe we can talk about what your thoughts are and what your guidance would be relative to the implementation of all of these recommendations, including the ones that are before the board. i am interested in a number of
8:22 am
them, particularly 3-b, which is something i think -- it's what i referred to the other day as low hanging fruit, and it's something that we can, i think, require in all new construction, but let me turn it over to you. >> sure, supervisor peskin, naomi kelley. in response to 1-a and 1-b, i also think -- i know we just heard from the department of building inspection from the process of administrative bulletins and informational sheets, but i also think there is a possibility where the department of building inspection now has geotechnical inspectors on its peer review panels and it'll be a lot of
8:23 am
best practices in these reports, and they can use them in evaluations. it's something that can happen immediate, take information now and start looking at these best practices. >> supervisor peskin: yeah, i appreciate that. i had to say, and i'm not trying to freak people out, but when i was listening to mr. tom, the thought occurred to me that if it's going to take two years, and meanwhile, we're permitting and building all of these buildings, i should just have a moratorium on all new buildings until we've erntered the dawn o the 21st century. just a thought. >> that's why if there's a lot of best practices, we can start having our peer review panels look at that now. in regards to the building -- actions for existing buildings,
8:24 am
there are different pieces of legislation that we would also look at in amending the building codes with regards to -- if there is in the reports, there's different areas that they're looking at to seismically strengthen these buildings, so if there is an existing building that has certain alteration triggers or certain acquisition triggers, i think there would need to be more conversations about it, about strengthening that building code, and that might be through the triennial building code update, or it might be now. >> supervisor peskin: and right now, the existing trigger is refurbishing an existing
8:25 am
building. so acquisition trigger would mean any time somebody buys and sells a building, they would be required to do the seismic retrofits, say, what mr. -- professor deerline was referring to relative to moment frame examination and repair if necessary, and as i recall, relative to the sail of downtown large tall buildings, the 156, at least, they are rarely sold in their -- generally, people sell a 49% in in them. >> yes, and so that would be something i think we should look into, and that would be something that i think we should partner with with the assessor recorder's office and look into, what is the right percentage of ownership that would be
8:26 am
triggered, that this seismic evaluation should be triggered. i'd also say that it's not just mandatory retrofits because some buildings are in better shape than others. maybe it's a mandatory evaluation. maybe it's a -- different levels, depending on the side mistake nature of that building and how seismically strong that building is. so that's something that i think would also be taken into consideration, that is something we could look at between now and the triennial building code update. >> supervisor peskin: and the triennial building code update is coming up this next year, 2019. >> that's correct. also, there is another issue that we could be looking at with the fire department, is
8:27 am
increasing the local water supply for the automatic fire suppression systems in tall building. >> supervisor peskin: recommendation 2-d, and currently, you have to have auxiliary water to last 30 minutes, is that correct? >> that is correct. and so -- and that is in case in the event of an earthquake, the earthquake cuts off the water supply to the municipal water supply, so there should be further numbers -- and this is an arbitrary number i'm throwing out there, should it be 45 minutes? should we look at how we get residents out of the elevator systems, so that is something we could look at right now in possible legislation and also studying. to your question about extending and improving the building occupancy presumption program. >> supervisor peskin: i'm sorry, miss kelley, can i interrupt you for a second? i think the 2-d question is an
8:28 am
important question. it's still 30 minutes for new buildings, 30 minutes for old buildings, so this would preemably be a code amendment for new buildings going forward. >> that would be correct. >> supervisor peskin: all right. >> that would be correct. looking at actions for reducing seismic risk following earthquakes, we talked about there was a lot of conversation about the state assessment program and the s.a.p. program, so administratively, we co the ?
8:29 am
>> you know, i am going to let
8:30 am
someone else answer that. >> brian strong. yeah. that's about right. we also have public buildings that are part of the borp program, around ten of them. the port has created their own borp for a number of the structures along the waterfront, as well. i think professor deerline mentioned this is started after loma prieta. we have found, and the studies that it points to, the recovery time savings that you have just by participating in this program because you've -- part of it is you get the inspection done more quickly. part of it is you've done this homework up front, and it helps you understand where the issues are going to be, and it can reduce the time significantly, saving us money, because we're saving owners money, as well as getting people back into the buildings. >> supervisor peskin: so can you just explain -- i understand it means you have engineering on
8:31 am
retainer, but if you can just let everybody know what it is. >> right. what it means is you have structural engineers, architects, and attorneys on retainer, and as soon as it happens, they go to that building. they do not have to wait for the department of building inspections or anybody else to go there. they are precertified by d.b.i. to clear a building or determine whether a building should be red, yellow, or green tagged. that's the real benefit. you don't have to wait for someone to be assigned to it, they're precertified, so they can go and do this work. they also understand what the condition of the building is, so if there's a crack in the building that was there beforehand, that will be noted in the reports that they have on hand. they don't have to spend time trying to figure out if that's a new crack or an old crack, and they'll have that data. that help? >> supervisor peskin: it does.
8:32 am
>> okay. and actions for seismic risks following earthquakes, there is also a recommendation to kind f of -- a housecleaning recommendation to make sure our city building code is consistent with the state building code, and so i know over the years, the state has increased its seismic -- looked at seismic issues. we have looked at seismic issues, but we have not gone back and cleans that up to make sure that we have consistent codes. that can also be done. >> supervisor peskin: miss kelley, one of the more controversial aspects of the report, which is settling on what the amount of allowable drift should be, would that be in the 2019 triannual update?
8:33 am
>> i think that's something that should be discussed. >> supervisor peskin: professor deerline? >> i think that's under b. what would be the allowable -- what couldi be done, so the allowable drift could be one such thing, but there could be other provisions for nonstructural components. i think that kind of falls into the category of a nonstructural bulletin. some of the administrative bulletins are how to implement what's currently in the building code. if this recommendation would go above and beyond what's currently in the building code, it could require an a.b. plus some sort of a trigger that could be in the building code. >> supervisor peskin: that's more of a long-term recommendation, and it seems it
8:34 am
should be a more immediate term recommendation. >> i'm trying to think what we listed it there as. yeah, it is in the longer term. it's not a short-term one. it would require as a minimum -- you know, how is medium and long. you know, but i think it's more of an issue than the geotechnical a.b. we talked about before, because that's really talking about codifying, if you will, what's good practice now. what's recommended for these new buildings, higher performance, this is going beyond good practice now. >> supervisor peskin: yeah, it's controversial because it's
8:35 am
expensive. miss kelley. >> so two more under seismic risks following earthquakes. this one can be done administratively, but it may be one you're interested in legislatively, and this is post the 1989 loma prieta earthquake. as we found the northridge earthquake with welded steel frames, it's not readily visible, after northridge, it took years to figure out there was damage on those, and we may or may not have that same damage here in san francisco. so because it's a post earth quick inspection, we already have the ability, the department of building inspection to go in and inspect different buildings. some of -- there are other -- some -- since -- since 1989, there have been buildings that have been purchased, retrofitted, and this may or may
8:36 am
not be an issue, but we don't systematically know, but that is something that the building department inspection can continue and do. >> supervisor peskin: this is limited to the universe of prenorthridge moment moment -- welded moment frames. >> that's correct. after the earthquake, the code and the building code design change. we were aware this was an issue, and buildings since are built to code and don't have that as an issue. >> supervisor peskin: and remind us in our world of 156 higher than 200 foot buildings that are welded. >> 60. >> supervisor peskin: and do we have any idea if any of those were retrofitted and if so, what was the potential of the moment frames? >> no, we do not have data on
8:37 am
that. so it's something that -- that d.b.i. should and will look into. >> supervisor peskin: i guess just relative to whether this bored should legislation that or not, insofar as d.b.i. does have the authority to go and inspect, but as we know. d.b.i., no offense mr. strong or mr. tom or mr. ho, is generally a reactive organization as we've learned in the 301 mission case, complaint driven. they may need a little bit of legislative push with cost recovery. >> i believe that the policy called for this, board of supervisors. and then, another thing that we were -- that this report would be recommending is requiring existing buildings to file recovery plans with the city, and i think legislation would be part of that. as for actions to improve the
8:38 am
understanding of its tall buildings and seismic risk, as professor and his students helped create a tall buildings database, which was a huge effort, and there are certain things that they'll be asking permit holders or those seeking permits to file with us, and we would like d.b.i. to develop a supplement cal data form and expand the database. we will be working on a comprehensive recovery plan for the entire financial district, not just all the tall buildings, but all the buildings in that neighborhood. >> supervisor peskin: yeah, so 4-a and 4-b. so just one of the things that professor said that is not in this report, is the fact that we
8:39 am
have thousands much smaller nonductal concrete buildings that are threatened, are vulnerable. i can't remember our compliance rate, but it seems like we're halfway there or so. what are we doing, if anything, relative to a long-term strategy about retrofitting nonduct cal concrete buildings? >> thank you for bringing that up. with our implementation safety plan, you correctly identified many of the areas that we focused on first following the
8:40 am
1989 earthquake, but you left out school retrofitting. >> supervisor peskin: they're not subject to the field act. >> now that we are done with this tall buildings report -- not done, but had the study done, and now we have the implementation phase of it, our next face, we're looking at nonductal concrete buildings, working with a.t.c. and looking through a way similar how we approach the soft stories on looking at a way to find the inventory of those buildings, assess those buildings and figuring out a strategy and coming back to this board of supervisors with what would be a program to evaluate aassess, get the data, and start infilling soft story buildings.
8:41 am
>> supervisor peskin: here is a philosophical question, miss kelley. now that we have this report, i rory about that it not sit on a shelf gathering dust or be partially implemented. so what are your recommendations because supervisors and city administrators come and go to make sure it has a robust life and is over the decades to come, fully implemented? >> well, absolutely. i think there is legislation that we identified which means that it won't sit on a desk or shelf and collect dust if there is legislation that has passed. we need to start socializing this with the chamber of commerce, boma, to get stakeholders to get a lot of buy in. i think there is a lot of conversation internationally about downtown san francisco and its tall buildings. we take advantage of that, and i
8:42 am
think those who live and work in these buildings are preefsh tiff of this, and we worked collaboratively on this -- appreciative of this, and we worked collaborately on this to get this together. going into future budgets, we will going in saying this is a priority, making sure we have enough inspectors, recovery plans that we've worked hand in hand on the state. i don't think this is one that will be on the shelf, collecting dust. >> supervisor peskin: i want to say this is not one of the most exciting things, but it is an impressive body of work, and if you have the time to drill down to it or look at it on our data portal. you'd think we have all of this information one place, but these buildings have evolved over
8:43 am
decades. it's a press impressive piece of work, and i just want to acknowledge that, and we don't want to have any more sinking and cracking buildings, and we've got to start addressing them in all of the ways set forth in the report. i don't know if any of the other participants from any of the departments or mr. hooper or anybody from d.b.i. want to add anything. you are welcome to do so at this time, but i know my colleagues would like to eat lunch, and so -- but let me just use this opportunity quickly to ask the department -- please, come forward. >> good afternoon. my name is david friedman. i'm a practicing structural and safety engineer in san francisco. i spent nine years of my professional life doing the bay fit retrofitting of this
8:44 am
building. i'm afraid, supervisor peskin, you stole all my lines, 'cause i wanted to reinforce the appropriateness of this study as being prudent, thoughtful and almost basic in terms of advancing us. you also mentioned some of the other elements of hazardous buildings in this city, and i implore the board of supervisors to continue to put impetus under the earthquake safety implementation program. and i'll finish just with i wear multiple hats. i am the immediate past chair of spur, practicing engineer. i am the current president of the earthquake engineering research institute which chases earthquakes around the world to
8:45 am
study them, learn from them, and learn what can we do to mitigate the risk of earthquakes. it doesn't take an engineer to read the headlines of super storms and earthquakes and tsunamis around the world to understand the importance of what's happening in our globe. we can't do anything about natural hazards, but we can prevent natural disasters. and i think that's what you're trying to get at hear, and want to applaud you and give you an extra nudge forward to continue this important work. thank you. >> supervisor peskin: thank you. zm goo zm. >> good afternoon, supervisors.
8:46 am
just wanted to reinforce the point that representing our committees, we are encouraged by this move towards a more resilient response towards an earthquake and really looking forward to working with the local agencies. we have a roster whom we would be ready to deploy in the event of a seismic event, either local or elsewhere in the state. and so just reiterating it, we do want to keep tgoing, and looking forward to everyone in reviewing and assisting and implementing these recommendations, so thank you. >> supervisor peskin: thank you. and colleagues, i will continue to work with the city administrator and d.b.i. and bring to you a package of those legislations that should be done now and then work with d.b.i. and the city administrator who
8:47 am
figure out what things should be rolled into the 2019 update of the building code. with that, i don't know who the appropriate person is to talk to about the soft story progress or lack tlf here of at d.b.i., or don't know if you want that, mr. strong -- well, we can have stron or strong, whoever wants. >> you can have both and have a duet. yes, on the seismic retrofit program, we're probably about 50% compliant all the way through. tier four, which was the one that had a september 15 deadline this past year is about 70 or 80% compliant. i believe we still have about 70 buildings that are noncompliant and they've been referred to our
8:48 am
code enforcement process. you may remember there were about 1,000 buildings in tier four. they were deliberately left to the last tier to give the business owners opportunity and minimize the negative impact on the businesses. some of them are combining it with accessibility modifications so they meet code requirements on that, as well.
8:49 am
>> we're 98% compliant on tier three, i know that. there's more and more of those noncompliant buildings that are coming in. >> supervisor peskin: and just to remind everybody, the deadline for permit filing for tier four was last month. >> it was september 15, and typically, what happens is the inspectors will then go out and issue a notice of violation that would give the owner an additional 30 days before we would affix that bright placard that goes on the building that says earthquake warning. subsequent to that with we would schedule a hearing for the representatives or the owner to come in and explain why they're slow in responding. >> supervisor peskin: thank you, mr. strong, i want to go quickly, and then, i will let you go, colleagues, switch gears to the millennium and ask d.b.i.
8:50 am
some questions with regard to the window on the 36th floor which subsequently was the substance of a -- and it's good that the professor is here because he's been able to review the millennium tower's consultant report, including a -- i don't know if you reviewed the previous rather about the curtain wall, but i just wanted to hear from you folk on that and have you explain to all of us why you think it's safe and not related to the differential settlement and ask why the homeowners association remained the scaffolding in contravention of your order. >> ron tom, assistant director, department of building inspection. currently today, the fremont facade, the inspection of that -- visual inspection
8:51 am
utilizing window washing equipment began this morning. we anticipate a very timely conclusion to that, and then, following that, a report to be issued and sent to us. typically, what we've done, we've been doing with 301 mission, we have consulted the seismic safety expert engineering panel for stance in evaluating any of these reports, and that included the one that you made reference to regarding the assessment of the cracked window that faced onto mission street, and that was in unit 36-b. the removal of the scaffold on fremont street occurred without our knowledge. we were advised about that situation, and we immediately
8:52 am
send out our inspector to stop the remova t reached the corner of mission and fremont. subsequent to that, in contact with our chief building inspector, patrick o'reardon, he has been on top of that with his staff, his senior staff. and the agreement was to accelerate the inspection of the facade because the window washing equipment had been repaired, allowing the homeowners association to retain the services that accelerate and originally anticipate a schedule which was more in the neighborhood of november . so we hope to receive a report very shortly on fremont street. and we will then provide that information to our consultants
8:53 am
on the seismic safety engineering panel. we will review that in-house, as well. for the -- for the mission street facade, they are scheduled to begin that work in november . >> supervisor peskin: this is the window replacement? >> yes. but they also will continue to, because the equipment is available, inspect mission street in order to substantiate any findings that they have with respect to safety. but the actual replacement is waiting for a piece of window glazing that is coming from shapg fr
8:54 am
shanghai. the -- since the incident of removal on fremont street, we have our district inspector there monitoring that, any activities that may occur. >> supervisor peskin: okay. and then, with regard to the issues about the integrity of the curtain wall back in 2017 and was the subject of a report that d.b.i. issued also based on an a.b.b. study that the d.b.i.'s inspection service division report was adated august 2 of 2018 -- was dated
8:55 am
august 2 of 2018, and the unit that was the subject of that separation curtain complaint is unit 31-b, and this is going to be a question of mr. deerline. i'm not trying to play gotcha, but the a.b.b. paperwork that they submitted and the analysis that they did was on the other side of the building and on the d stacks, and i'm wondering why that is the data that is being relied on for the b-stack on the opposite side of the building. am i making any sense to you, gregory? does that make any sense? >> yeah. the latest report that i looked at is the cracked window report, the a.b.b., and this is the report that they filed in the last month or so, right, the last few weeks, which everything on that was on the cracked window, so that's what i've
8:56 am
focused -- >> i have not looked at that for a couple of weeks, but my recollection was appended to that was information that they garnered from their investigation from a number of units, and they found, if my recollection serves me, that the curtain was performing well in the e and d stacks of the building, on the south side of the building, whereas these are on the mission side of the building. i believe that information was repeated in the a.b.b. report. i'm trying to get to the bottom of why nobody is getting them to investigate curtain wall separation issues where they should be investigated, which is on the b stack. >> b stack is on the south? >> b stack is on the mission street side. >> that's where the crack is. >> that is where the crack is, correct. >> yeah. so their report that they
8:57 am
issued, again, they inspected the cracked window, they inspected from the inside and the outside. they pulled some finishes off so they could inspect the attachment wall to the building. the question posed to our committee wasny the cracking associated with the -- was the cracking associated with the settlement of the building, so that's what we focused on. again, the a.b.b. report looked at the outside and the inside. they had an opinion that the damage that's cracked partway through the glass from the outside suggested that it was caused from some sort of impact from the outside. but they also looked at where the curtain wall was attach today the floors. and they did note there that several of the windows were slightly out of alignment, you know, from perfect alignment, but they -- in looking at how
8:58 am
the attachments were, they didn't see any evidence that things had moved. their conclusion, which sounds very legitimate, was the curtain wal was installed that way. they -- wall was installed that way. they did some surveys of flatness at that point. if sliding was causing this, you'd see some settlement in other areas of the unit. those were the things that i focused at. >> supervisor peskin: suffice is to say, you agree with their conclusion that this is an isolated one-off incident and is not related to the instruct wal performance of the building. >> is not related to the instruct wal performance and the settlement. whether or not there's some systemic issue with the curtain wall itself, materials, the wall, the glass or something, we
8:59 am
didn't -- i didn't say anything on that because i didn't investigate that. that's outside my expertise. and i should point out, there's other supporting evidence. one is i talked to another member of our safety committee, another structural engineer. you know, and all indications are this is a very stiff building, so the differential settlement that's been occurring, and there's the settlement of the mat, there's the monitors up the building, there's the analysis that several companies have done, the settlement, we would expect -- there's no evidence that's causing differential drift that would cause this to occur to the windows. also, an engineer from lira, who's hired by the homeowners, he made an inspection, too, and there's a letter to that effect. >> supervisor peskin: and just to be clear, you were hired by us. >> yes, by the city. >> supervisor peskin: thank you for that. the only reason i said that it
9:00 am
was a little unclear in something that d.b.i. sent out, so i just thought it was important to say that for the record. mr. tom, any concluding remarks before my colleagues get more mad at me? >> no, i think we looked at this matter today as much as we can, but we can certainly make ourselves available, whether it's within these chambers or in your office or with other agencies together. >> supervisor peskin: okay. and you are aware that there is a unit owner who was not interviewed by a.b.b. who has spoken about hearing creaking for long before that window cracked, just f.y.i. -- just, mr. strong is aware. okay. to be continued madam chair. if there is no