>> turn off your phones. sfgov-tv ready to begin. good morning, today is wednesday, october 17,, 2018 and this is the regular meeting of the abatement appeals board. i invite everyone be to turn off electronic devices and the first on the agenda is roll call. president warshell. commissioner konstin. commissioner mccarthy, commissioner moss. commissioner walker. commissioner clinch is excused. we have a quorum. and item b, the oath. will all parties giving testimony today -- excuse me -- please stand and raise your

right hand. do you swear that the testimony you're about to give is the truth to the best of your knowledge? okay, thank you, you may be seated. information for the presentation of the cases. the department will present its case first and then the appellant and each side has seven minutes to present their case and then there will be public comment and members have three minutes each to speak. lastly, there's rebuttal time of three minutes for the department and then the appellant. >> okay, since these two cases that we have today are so related, the 75 fresno and the 300 columbus. what we're going to do is that we'll allow each of you to have your seven minutes but we'll hear the case as one in the

interest of coherence. so perhaps we can begin on 300 columbus and, of course, the department if necessary has doubled their time allotment as well. >> clerk: for the record, it's 6850: 300 columbus avenue, and peter and paula abowd, and more time to enable them to fix the wall. and case 6851: 75 fresno street. and the owner and appellant, doong family trust, kwok ho, betty bow, c doon and more time needed to fix the wall. >> good morning, everybody. good morning, commissioners. so, yeah, back in 2 2010 we hada complaint on safe conditions and we had a brick wall that is

connected to 75 fresno and 1224 -- 1224 grant. and the inspector had a notice of violation for hazardous conditions which he advised the owners to provide an evaluation report and to correct the situation. unfortunately, these three properties involved on the case, it's 300 cocoa lum bus and 75 fresno and 1224 grant. and we have to tie all three property owners. at this time back in 2017, since we had still no correction of these notices we had to refer this case to code enforcement division. then we provided a note of abatement, and it's to uphold the abatement and assess the costs. we still have the unsafe

condition. >> commissioner warshell: is the third party still -- >> there's a notice of abatement on that one. and it seems that the other property owner is not willing to comply. >> commissioner warshell: oka okay. any questions? okay. so for 300 columbus first. >> the cases are identical, all three cases are identical. i represent two of the owners, 300 columbus and 75 fresno. and this wall is a remnant of a building that is skewed to columbus. it was not torn down, it was left in place and the adjoining buildings partially use the wall in different spots but a section of the wall is freestanding and a section of the wall on the exposed side, the brick is

deteriorated. that brick needs to be repaired. we received the complaint. we have been working with the building department since 2013 when the complaint came in or 2010. and one of the owners wants to fix -- i'm sorry, two of the owners want to fix the wall. one of the owners has a belief that it's not his responsibility or it's not his wall or it's not on his property, even though that we have a survey. so we have submitted plans for -- well, i created a set of drawings for the entirety of the wall. those plans have been submitted to the building department. 75 fresno, the permit number is 2013-01-14-7849. and 300 columbus, is 7850. they're sequential. the drawings are sitting there.

we have gone through and ready to be issued. the price to repair the wall is not significant. but we can't fix someone's wall that we don't own. this is owned by three parties. so after working with the building department until last year we requested to be sent here. we were not -- this is not something that you guys did to us, we asked to come here to have an order of abatement filed against us so that we could appeal it and get in front of the building commissioner abatement appeals board. the third owner did not appeal the order. he didn't do anything. so there's an order of abatement on one of the properties, the guy who has a belief that it's not his responsibility. and we've been trying to work with him for over the last five years and got nowhere. on the other two owners who are here participating, we have been

in discussions with contractors and we have a price and the plans are ready to go and if we could just get him to say yes we could move forward and have this solved in two months. what we're here asking for both cases is that you continue our cases for 12 months or whatever, and then on his case, which there is an order, it's not appealed, it's sitting with the building department, you guys refer to the litigation committee and take a look at it. now you'll ask why, why do you want to get involved in a civil matter. this wall in my professional opinion, i'm happy to report, doesn't pose a failure mechanism under soil. it needs to be repaired but this wall is not going to fall over because the soil behind it is pushing or the surface of the brick has deteriorated. i am extremely concerned that there's a portion of this wall that is in an abandoned previous

building that is about a 25-foot canilever. and having it sticking 25 feet up in the air in an earthquake is a classic failure mechanism. the people at 75 fresno, it's a 20 unit s.r.o. there's 20 housing units put at risk. and the wall on their building is actually bearing for the building. so it's making their building an unreinforced masonry building. we have submitted alternate plans to try to work around that issue but it's creating an unreinforced masonry building and it's permitting us from doing a seismic on that building which also needs to be done. so it's posing earthquake challenges from retrofitting a 20-unit s.r.o., and on the canilever portion, 300 columbus is a 70-unit building that is below this wall.

so in the event of an earthquake, and i think that there's an article in today's paper that we're back to a 65% chance of an earthquake in the next 20 years, that's a hugely optimistic belief, the fault slips every 100 years plus or minus 10 and we're 13 years into the plus side. so i believe that we're going to have an earthquake soon. knock on wood, not too soon, but it's going to happen. these earthquakes are not random events and they're due to strain and release of the strain, which is an earthquake. so when there is an earthquake i'm very concerned that we'll have a portion of 75 being damaged and desperately needed housing and 300 columbus, crushing down and taking a portion of the building out. so we want to fix it. we're asking your help. for the 1224 grant to the city

attorney and maybe the city attorney can put enough pressure on this gentleman so we can fix the wall. it isn't that hard to fix. but i can't go on to someone else's property, we can't trespass on someone else's property, no matter how good the reason, and you just can't do it. but with your help, and this is why we asked to be brought here, we requested this. with your help maybe the city attorney can motivate the owner that it is his responsibility, there is a survey, and we provided it to him. so it's basically our presentation for both buildings. owners, do you have anything to say? they want to fix it. just can't figure out a way to force this gentleman to do it. but maybe the city attorney can motivate him. it's just putting too many people at risk. >> commissioner walker, you had a question?

>> vice-president walker: can you bring up your diagram and on the screen point out to me the properties and where the wall is. so name them. >> this triangular is 300 columbus. and this lot here and the yellow line is the wall. >> okay. >> 1224 grant. and this area right here is 75 fresno. >> all right. so 12 -- the one in the corner is the one that has not responded? >> and it's the one who has some belief that it's not his or you can't make me do it. >> what is that building, what is the occupancy? >> it's commercial. believe it or not i think many families live there. >> it's residential up above? >> yes, on the second floor. >> okay. >> yeah? >> so it looks like that wall touches a fourth property. >> yeah, the good news is that

wall is not showing any deterioration there and it's going uphill so the height of the wall drops so i'm not worried about that property. and the city wasn't worried about that property. this area right in here that had the deterioration and had the 75 sitting on it and acting like a bearing wall and the portion right here is posing a hazard to 300 columbus below. so hopefully you could give us some briefing time while the city attorney moves forward. but the drawings are done and we have the contractor wound up to go. >> any other questions? >> was this complaint driven -- >> actually filed a complaint to try to get this fixed. >> i see. i got ya. >> he filed a complaint, got it. >> got it. >> okay, discussion?

rebuttal? >> i'm sorry, public comment. public comment first. any public comment on either of these items? seeing none, and the department's rebuttal. >> yeah, the department hasn't got rebuttal. we just want the building to be secure, all three propertyings. i mean, -- properties. we have done everything that we can and we assessed all of our options now. i mean, the problem that we have is that it has a little bit of a condition here that we can't, you know, make the other owner say, hey, you've got to play nice with the other owners and take care of it. >> but your experience is two have cooperated in getting this done -- >> yes. and that's why it took so much time for us to send it to code enforcement. they asked us to send it to code enforcement because the owner is

not complying. >> okay. >> yeah, so this is unique. i mean, usually we're sitting here and you're saying you want us to uphold your order of abatement. in this case it's slightly different. i think that -- for the purpose of the -- if we were to, like, uphold the order of abatement and to give time to implement, it's a different -- it's a difference than continuing these cases. normally we would do that. but it's a challenge for me -- i need to look at that and see, does it make more sense for the two to continue? or to have us uphold the order of abatement and give some time to implement. so do you have a feeling about that? >> no. the only thing that i was talking to with the inspector is that if it was continued maybe the department can request the

-- because this thing has been sitting with us since 2010. you know, we know that there's a permit filed. but yet we feel more secure that we have a report -- >> but nothing has happened. >> it leaves a temporary measure to say, look, in the meantime we can provide temporary measures and that would be possible. >> okay. any other -- >> what is the total cost of the repair? >> for the entire section, including removing the brick on their building, to make it ununreinforcement masonry building and reduce the canilever and the repair of the sections is like $50,000. in this world to pose a risk to 90 occupants -- any amount of money would be insane -- but for that amount of money is crazy. it's not a multimillion dollar

repair. >> you're trying to share the cost? >> there's got to be an agreement on how they want to do it but we can't get acknowledgement that it's my wall. >> thank you. >> and do you have -- is there -- are you settling your rebuttal? >> is there any hardship issue with people who own the property? >> no, no. like i said the other person has been not responsive to all of the notices that we send. i mean, they basically keep saying the same thing -- not our wall. and even though we have put an order of abatement on the property. >> my sense is that -- i mean, this has all of the signs of everybody trying to do the right thing even though it's kind an upside way of doing it. but to the point about utilizing whatever tools we have to get this person to the table so that they most understand, you know, the financial issue, then that

can be discussed. but at least they have to participate here with this because ultimately this has to be dealt with. in 2010 we have been doing this. and this is obvious that given more time doesn't resonate at all. if anything, the strategy which is most unusual which is like a self-suicide type of thing, bringing it up to the board of abatement of appeals is unusual but i do think that is a good strategy. this is ultimately where it will end up. so my motion is to uphold and to forward it on to the board of abatement. -- of litigation committee, excuse me. >> and i think -- i think that just to sort of follow-up on that we have these two that we're hearing that have been trying to resolve the issue, so it's -- i'm nervous about doing

that because of the penalties that could flow that don't seem to be directed, and if somebody is trying to do the right thing it's not really -- the situation is a violation, their actions aren't. so i'm trying to resolve that because if we do uphold it, then -- i think that the other case is automatically been -- they didn't appeal it, so there's a notice of violation that has an active order of abatement on it. and that we can actually in our litigation process look at moving forward that case legally. i mean, that would be -- >> you know, i get it. and maybe we can help with reducing -- but i think that we need to do all equally. we need to distribute this out equally so that when the city attorney is involved in this and sending out everybody is getting that same letter.

that's the way i really feel about it. because i think that -- yeah, please go ahead. >> and rebuttal time. >> i understand the frustration with the two. we're trying to fix it and to get an order of abatement on all three properties and saying all three properties are doing the same thing. we have plans. we have filed it. if you guys want to uphold the order and delay it so we don't get it recorded, so uphold it but don't record it against two innocent parties. one is an s.r.o. and they don't want an order of abatement and they're moving forward to add accessory dwelling units. if there's an order of abatement they can't add those housing units. that's a challenge. we have plans to do a work around of the unre-enforced masonry building to solve the 75

fresno. so we're doing everything that we can. but if there's an order of abatement the a.d.u. is not going -- is it one or two -- one a.d.u. so if you want to uphold it and continue it for 12 or 18 months, bring it back here. we'd be happy. the other thing is that with an order of abatement we can't do work on 300 columbus. permits are turned down -- >> if it's filed? >> yeah, but that's -- this is the risk when you went down this roaroad when you go down this rd you can't just -- >> but the issue is really it doesn't really flow until it's filed. so if we uphold the order of abatement and then hold it for the process to move forward, and then we can deal with the other one and discuss it in a

different venue it move it forward. >> i want to just make sure if we're going to strategize about this is how we're going to get -- i'm interested if the city attorneys would weigh in on this and see what you're feeling would be. to me, if we have to stay the course and keep it equally distributed, if we're sending to uphold and we're kind of taking one portion of it out and saying, okay, the party who is not cooperating we'll going to go strictly after them. to me it just doesn't sound like we have that flexibility to do these types of things, do we? >> bradley russi, city's attorney office want. >> the third party is not here and their order has already been filed because they didn't show up and appeal it.

>> so help me to get off this. if we're going to have something upheld, right, do we have to do it equally? >> well, the third party didn't appeal -- >> so we're going to send them to -- if we're going to process this -- i'm trying to look for the right words here. help me, commissioner walker. if it comes in front of us it comes in front of us as one notice of violation. >> what we're looking at is they filed the complaint and got us involved and the wall is the problem. the violation is on fixing the wall. they're here because they haven't fixed it because they can't fix it without the third party who has the same notice of violation and they haven't challenged it. they didn't appeal the director

ruler's ruling to fix the wall. so they already have an abatement because of the notice of abatement and the failure to act. so what we could do is uphold the order of abatement, uphold it, and hold it in advance for a year or whatever, and then with the other case it's already a legal issue for us because they failed to show up or do anything and there's a notice of violation on that. i mean, we do have a situation where two parties are working towards a solution and one isn't. and we cannot take legal action -- >> exactly my point because they're all in this together and it goes off to litigation, right and we choose -- >> refer it. >> refer to the city attorney. how does that work when they're all in the same package here?

because i don't see how you don't get that same -- >> i'm not a code enforcement attorney. but there's no guarantee that even if you refer this case to our code enforcement division of our office that they'd bring it. but i assume that it would have all of the parties involved. >> the way that it's going it's going to go to litigation committee, right? >> it doesn't mean that they'll bring the case. i don't understand why they can't bring the case themselves apart from the city regarding this issue to clarify rights of that wall. >> say that again one more time. >> i'm not sure if they have explored bringing a private lawsuit against the neighbor to clarify the rights regarding that wall. but we can speak to that question. >> why are the owners -- >> excuse me. >> i wanted to ask a question.

>> just a second. >> day one when we made this request -- >> i'm going to explain what i think that the situation is. the way i see it is that the appellant is essentially asking for more time so that the order doesn't get recorded so they can reach out and try to convince the third property owner to get involved and fix the wall. how they do it, i don't know. but he seemed to imply they'd like to go to the litigation committee and ask for help to reach out to the third party. so that's what i'm hearing. okay, now -- before you answer i would like to ask the question and i think that is brought up by the city attorney. what has -- what has the two appellants done to try to reach out to the third party?

can you explain that. >> we have been talking to him for five years. we had contractors. >> i'm charles reiss. good morning. i'm the owner of 560 broadway, the actually 318 columbus, lot 13. ever since we received the notice of violation we reached out to all of the four property owners. and received immediate cooperation from the owners of lot 16. and immediate denial for lot 14. because of the denial that the property was on their wall we incurred the cost of i believe $12 you had how to to do -- $12,000 to do a survey which established that the property was on his property and we

forwarded that survey to him. at that time he had an attorney and we forwarded an agreement to them to permit access to allow the work to be moved forward. and they ignored that for years. subsequently the owners of lot 16 have negotiated with the owners of the lot 14. two months ago i sent an updated agreement, a much shorter, simpler agreement to them. we thought that we had a tentative agreement that they would move forward. in the last week they have reneged on that and sort of gone sideways. so we have been and we are ready to go forward and we're ready to pay. we have a contractor. and one of the problems that we're experiencing is that i have a hotel tenant who is

trying to upgrade bathrooms and upgrade rooms and can't get building permits because of these orders. and so, you know, recorded or not, he's having permits kicked back. and i don't want him to do works without permits. so i respectfully request that there is a vast substantive and practical difference between the three parties. two of them are trying to help. i don't see the situation as three parties being equal at all. all we need is help with one of them. we'll take care of the rest. i'm sorry. >> you said that you had a very close point -- >> i'm a little hard-of-hearing. >> my apologies. you said they went sideways on you recently and you thought that you might have some -- any insight why they'd go sideways and come to the table and go away like that. >> i should have elaborated on

that. first of all we had an allocation of the funds as the three sections of the wall and how the contractor divided up, how the costs were allocated. and in the section between -- i'm trying to get to this -- the section between lot 13 and lot 14, there was a specific allocation of the cost. and we were going to split it in half or two-thirds to me and one-third to him. and last week he came back, no, i want to pay half of that and i don't want to pay all of that. so we have talked about, listen, to get this done this is a safety issue and this is stupid. we'll pick up some of that shortfall with the costs. now he's come up with, well, even though the wall is on my property, i don't want responsibility going forward. and i want either to deed it to

you or be held harmless for the wall. these are not easily legally possible. and we're trying to deal with those things. but what it is is simply a continuation of delays. we would move forward in 30 days with the contractor and we made commicecompromises with this otr party. we have to stop open defiance of the city procedures and refusals to let this work go forward. with respect to the previous question about civil litigation and stuff, i'm an attorney, i had my firm take a look at what they estimated that it would cost for just civil litigation for lot 14. the estimate of the legal expenses were one and a half

times of what the cost of the repairs are. and it was just -- they said to me, are you nuts. go to this guy and compromise with him on the money, thootd fine, but -- that's fine. but you need access and legal right to get there. that's the hold up and i wanted to give you a flavor of that. we'll do almost anything but it seems silly to litigate over something with less involved that would take a lot longer than doing the repairs when we have some 90 units affected by this. so we respectfully request your effort to bring pressure on the 1224 grant, and, please, if you can to see the way not to uphold an order with us because this is causing tremendous complications with building permits. and just i can't think of what more we could have done and we

would hope that you would be supportive of those efforts. but we respectfully request if you would consider those issues. >> we're all in the same boat with him again. that's been the problem. we're in this boat with someone with denial. until you guys differentiate us from him, we're going to be at this for years. but if you differentiate us and he's on his own now -- >> i think that we understand, okay? >> final comment. i don't know if us sitting as the abatement appeal board can compel or influence the third party in any way. but i seem to think that we could honor the appeal and hold the abatement and give the

appellants time to work things out with the third party, whichever way they choose. >> commissioner walker? >> so i think that we we uphold the order of abatement and hold it in advance that is treating these folks differently because the current -- the people who are nonresponsive already have an order -- an active order of abatement against their property which will lean and create problems. i mean that is really the pressure that we have already exerted on them which doesn't seem to do much. what we do with that property owner is up to the litigation committee and not us. and i think that it probably will be discussed. but i think that i support that

concept of upholding the order of abatement to bring everybody into this and then hold it in advance for whatever time you all who are -- you know, builders, think is an appropriate time. realizing that some of this is complicated. but, i mean, that's what i think is what we should do to get a resolution here. >> yeah, no, i really appreciate the explanation. please don't get confused by the fact that i don't want to get this resolved, but i am a little bit nervous about how this is getting done. and what's the unintended consequences and so on, and i think that normally people get their lawyers together and do it outside and get it done. what we are asked to do here is to get that done for them. i get the fact that we're trying

to get to the bottom of that, so i'm a little bit uncomfortable with that part of this equation here. but that said, you know, i would be really interested to see how this plays out as an example of a model looking down the road. but i just -- i want to go on the record, commissioners, that we're kind of -- we're kind of going off a little bit -- off what we normally would do and how we get things done here and i want to put that on the record that it makes me a little bit uncomfortable but commissioner walker -- >> yeah, most of the time when we have dealt with these issues and we have a shared property line, retaining walls and that type of thing, all of the people show up, right? so this is a unique situation where there are people who are trying to resolve something -- >> yes, yes. >> there's somebody standing in the way. i don't think that it's us getting involved in their issues and it's us acting on the notice of violation. >> but the way that -- it's

self-imposed. >> i got ya. >> and we encourage people to go figure it out. i agree that one of them is not participating. and one of the appellants, property owners, you know, explanation -- i totally get it. and so let's -- you know, i am kind of been on the fence about it but i'm willing to take this journey. and commissioner lee expressed it well so let's call the question. >> clerk: did you want to make a -- >> well, uphold the order of abatement and hold it in advance for 12 months. and do we need to discuss anything like that? >> are there fees associated

with this? >> yes, but they're monetary fees so they're minimal fees. there's no actual penalty or anything. >> all right. >> we have a motion. a second. >> i'll second. >> okay. call the question. >> clerk: the motion on the second to uphold the order of abatement that includes -- >> would the basis for your motion be that -- what is the abatement? >> the department ordered the issue of abatement properly. >> this is for both cases. >> 300 columbus and 75 fresno. >> deputy director? >> yes, one thing that comes to mind is if we're going to be a year out possibly from the fix on this, my recommendation would be to obtain an engineer's

evaluation for mitigation of any potential seismic. >> perfect. >> okay. >> so amend that. >> thank you. it could be part of their motion, -- that can't be part of their motion, right? we'll take the roll call vote. president warshell. >> yes. >> vice president lee? >> yes. >> commissioner konstin? >> yes. >> commissioner mccarthy. >> yes. >> commissioner moss? >> yes. >> commissioner walker? >> yes. the motion carries unanimously. and item b, general public comment for orders not on the abatement appeals board agenda. okay. >> they were both together. >> seeing none, item e is

adjournment. motion to adjourn. >> second. >> clerk: so all in favor? >> aye. >> clerk: we're now adjourned and it's 9:47 a.m. and we'll reconvene at 10:00 a.m.. good afternoon, everyone, my name is naomi kelly and i'm the city add straight to be. thank you for joining us here at the marine memorial.

i'm pleased to share the summary of recommendations from the tall building's safety strategy. this was a report that was commissioned by our late mayor edwin lee. who asked myself and the director of the department of the emergency management to work with outside consultants to help us preview our existing tall buildings in san francisco. copies of the summary and the recommendations and summaries are available here and will be postponed online at one san francisco.org/resilience/sf. it's a pioneering effort by the city of san francisco is the first of its kind in this nation. and it represents 14 months of city wide collaboration with the san francisco tall building

stock. having this information available is a huge step forward and our ability to think collectively and proactively as a city about the seismic safety and the resilience of our tall buildings in the implications of their surround be neighborhoods. here today, we have with -- we just came from a tall building panel discussion and discuss our strategies with us today is professor greg deerloin and a member of the applied technology council. he is an author of the study many of we also have mary ellen carole the director of the department of emergency management and angus carty and oohed like to bring up professor to discuss a little bit about the recommendations in this report. >> thank you. i've been working on a team with the applied technology council

with the team of other academics and technical engineers to develop this. there's 16 recommendations in our plan. i won't a at the present time to go through all of them. a few of the high points, first to get a handle on the issues with tall buildings, we initiated developing a data base of how many tall buildings are there in san francisco. what are their occupancy and about what types of materials were they built out of. depending on the age and materials of the buildings, we learned things through subsequent earthquakes. with concrete structure and in 1994 north ridge earthquake and l.a. we learned about fracture issues with frames. in the existing building inventory of tall buildings there's many of those tall steel moment frame buildings in the city. so from that, we developed recommendations and some of these are related to what we can do better on new buildings and there's some related to putting

more pre and there are looking at tall buildings and recognizing current building codes just to protect life safety of a building. they don't address recovery. thinking that tall buildings, especially those that are residential, are housing increasing number of people on the city and offices. on tall buildings, who we think of upping the seismic design requirements to address the issues of recovery to reduce the risk of damage and down time of the buildings. we also have a number of issues that are related to what you can do before an earthquake to address the existing building stock. one of these is looking back at the types of buildings that these welded steel moment frames that were damaged in the north ridge earthquake, the earthquake occurred years before that here in san francisco and there's never been a systematic reassessment of those buildings. some of the connection fracture

was not obvious. there's a start to look at the existing problem to go back and recommending to. there are things on existing get a better handle on older buildings that may have deficiencies that are the trigger the building code can use to. when major buildings change hands, that might be a time to do an assessment of it and there's a major new tenant lease or something like that. there some of the recommendations for the new buildings and building eveners and commercial owners have insurance or other financial capital where when there's damage they'll be prepared to repair their buildings for their own ache and collectively for

the community and liking and recognizing the stressors after earthquakes and the set of recommendations is looking at what we can do and anticipating inspections after the earthquake. and of course, california the city of san francisco emphasized a lot doing post earthquake buildings inspections, training people and getting volunteered lined up and so fourth but are there issues to tall buildings or systems that can be more proactive. san francisco has pioneered a system program building occupancy program that is voluntary that any building owners can lineup ahead of time and do studies and inspect and recover and to exercise that board program and run a field exercise and think about if it should be required or some version of it be pride for some,

tall buildings or gone back to existing ones. there's a number of sort of recommendations on being better prepared to following an earthquake and to inspect tall buildings and if there's damage to tall building and sometimes that can trigger larger assessment and retro fits and to again, reassess whether those triggers in the building code and how they apply to the inventory of tall buildings that exist there now and also the steel frames, concrete building and they're specialized guidelines that have been developed over the years to inspect those to make sure that they're part of the program here. finally, our last set of recommendations is to continue to enhance this data base of tall buildings with more buildings and with also getting more information, different types of information on the buildings and in fact, then to use that to look at a plan for dense parts of districts three and six with low rise and just

to kind of go through and anticipate what some of the issues might be better prepared for those issues. that's a snapshot of those 16 recommendations. >> are there any questions? we'll open up for q and a. >> yes. >> so, there were 156 tall buildings, why now? and why not before now? >> well, i'll just say this, san francisco has had one of the most -- some of the most stringent building codes in the country. there's been and we always are looking at how do we improve those codes? just saying that in what was different now is that we're looking at existing buildings. we're always moving forward in improving our code for new buildings. now we're going to go back and look at existing buildings and see what can we do to go back

and make those more resilient. not just making sure that we can get out after a major disaster. but now that more and more people in this area, what can we do to make sure everyone stays in place. >> two years ago, when there was a huge attention to tall buildings. as a result, we want to make sure there's trust in government. the trust in our regulators and we want to make sure we do it in a transparent and un bias way and that's why we asked the -- that's why mayor lee asked us to reach out to some of the academics and engineers who weren't conflicted and worked on some of these tall buildings in the downtown san francisco area. they helped us with our review of our existing building codes. and see what we can do to even go above and beyond what we already do. and again, just look at the resilience. we would like to stay in san

francisco when the next one, the next big one hits or anything else and so we want to make sure that we're able to stay and live here in san francisco. and be a safe place for our residents and tourists and visitors. >> thank you for the question. also, i'm one of the authors of the study. i have a team. so, this type of fractures that occurred in the 1994 north ridge earthquake, occurred in a time of welded steel program popular for buildings of various rights

uheights. from the 1970s up to the northridge earthquake. that was the type of construction used throughout, especially the western u.s. it would effect los angeles, seattle, oakland. it's not unique to san francisco. that would have occurred in all of these cities. i think this is kind of one of the first efforts i think to really look back and start to address and be proactive about starting to look more carefully at assessing those buildings. i would emphasize, you hear in the news and l.a. has an ordinance on the book for non ductal concrete buildings the level of risk in those is much, much higher than what we expect in the welded steel moment frames. it's reasonable that it wasn't on the top of the list but now, because of the large inventory of them here to be proactive looking at them is why now? >> is there a priority?

how do you prioritize it? there were 15 major recommendations. what are the priorities with the top? are you going to enact them all at once? >> let me turn it back to naomi. in our report that you have there, we listed the end, out of those 16 recommendations, short, medium and long-term. we didn't feel we could prioritize them. they're all important. the short, medium and long-term, we prioritized in terms of which were low-hanging fluid that you. the others would be long-term. we provided that input to the city. in terms of priorities, my sense is that needs to be a continuing discussion amongst agencies. >> sure, we can. but i have another question over

here. >> what about buildings going down -- >> we did look at that. that was a question we got. so a few things. first, in the building inventory, we tried to identify of the existing 156 buildings what foundation types they have and we have to look at the numbers but out of that 156, there's three or four that have the drilled shafts that go to bedrock. we point out in our reports, one of our recommendations is to for a group to put together an administrative bulletin or information sheet to take the best practice in geo technical engineering and the foundation design is less pre descriptive

in the building code. it's to try to get the best practice from the geo technical engineering community and others to kind of agree on that and for the city to have kind of a incorporate that they're building code or to have that as an administrative bulletin. part of that answer you would get from every geo technical foundation engineer is whether or not a foundation goes to bedrock is building-specific. it's very site specific. so while in the popular press, it might say every building should do that there's no reason to do that. it would be a number one a waste of resources to do that every case and there's also even in more environmental impacts when you are going down to those depths. >> don. most of the -- out of those 156, except for three or four, some of them are on shallow foundations, map foundations that might be on rock or shallow stand layers and some of them

are on pile foundations with the mat. >> are they the most vulnerable? >> going through the site exploration, i mean, geo technical engineers and this is not around san francisco and around the world. this is something geo technical engineers focus on. what's the best foundation type. there's important cost implications in performances so the community at large does a good job on it. what our recommendation does is helps san francisco and the building department here have their own set of a little bit more pre descriptive or requirements on good perhaps that will building departments look at that. >> yeah. well, the current building code

requirements, these are two in san francisco and across the u.s., it's based on a national standard. it says that under an expected earthquake, which is sort of the one we assessed in the studies we did, that buildings can drift two percent. that means that under this very large earthquake, if you had a story height that was 100 inches, two inches. and under more severe quakes it's more. that's a level where it damages the non structural components. interior partisan walls. curtain walls. they are designed to accommodate that drift and not lose the facade but drop it off. it could cause leakage problems. one of our recommendations is to revisit that and to think about tightening it up. part of why we do that for tall buildings too, because of a variety of design constraints we did a survey of many of the tall building that's have been until the in san francisco, los angeles, seattle and other

cities, and many of the buildings don't approach or don't typically push that maximum limit of that 2%. some of them are close to one or one and a half percent. we're asking look at that and if that could improve the recovery of these buildings to think about imposing that, here in san francisco, it's along the lines of these initiatives to have functional recovery or recovery based or occupancy and it's going in that direction. not yet. when we bantered around, it might be a number of one or one and a half percent instead of the two. but that is something i think, our recommendation is really in san francisco it has a long history of this is to bring together groups of engineers, structure engineers to really talk about that and sort through the issues and come up with a consensus on what a good number it would be.

>> all new buildings are safe. all existing buildings are. all the recommendations are important. the example of puerto rico, you know, we've been reading about in the news media how the biggest loss of life in puerto rico from the hurricane was not during the hurricane but it was the slow recovery for the year after it. part of our recommendations here so to make sure the areas of california can recover better so people get emergency care and all those things. there's not a direct relationship between any of these and say lives. >> i think from our perspective,

and the recommendations that apply to emergency management and response, are around accelerating our ability and resources to do assessments. so we can determine the extent of damage. again, we expect that, as the professor states, we don't expect to have complete failure of these buildings. our bigger concern, probably is the longer term recovery and when we can get people back in the residentses and businesses back up so we're looking at that from that perspective. it will take a lot of resources to get engineers to do the type of assessments we need. and then we're looking at -- we've committed to putting together a financial, a specific financial district response plan because there's some, with all these buildings there's a unique environment and particular challenges that will have as far as that goes. so working with building owners

and businesses residential and neighborhoods in these areas to look at longer term recovery and immediate response. >> i really wouldn't add anymore to that many of this is the type of thing that keeps us awake at night. how we can get better at this. the program we have in place we're evolved and trying to improve that. we have a program we're trying to influence new building owners to participate. it will help us and the recovery. getting people back into their buildings quicker and sooner. this is the thing we're always evolving and trying to improve on.