you are dealing with in terms of the problems it addresses that. the way that i am saying, is it doesn't outweigh the unintended consequences that it will have. i am afraid of that. i, you know, support living smaller. i think we definitely need that for the environment. i'm not sure that this legislation addresses that. i live in a 2700 square-foot home but i live with six people. for that, you know, each person gets about one of 50 ft. , and i think that that is living smaller than most. like i said, families come in different sizes and we use the land differently. i would like to have an approach that is much more targeted to solving our issues. i think the fundamental question that commissioner hill

has asked, and what i think we need to answer is this legislation that prohibits the demolition of sound housing? if that is countered to the densification that we need to have for environmental reasons, then are we not just setting ourselves up for failure? just answering that question, for me, is going to allow us to make progress. aside from that, i would suggest a few things that i would like to see in the legislation. i would like to exempt cosmetic, nonstructural things like cladding from the demo calculations. i would like fines to fit, you know, the crime. i would like things in addition to fines, like process, to weed out bad actors. so we know who they are, we know they are there frequent flyers. we currently do not have a process that codified to disallow them

to keep gaming the system, other than fines. i think we can do that through a process. i would like to have the demo calculations and additions to be more targeted to neighborhoods. i know we have resisted that, but really build housing is very different in bernal heights than it is in balboa terrace. the consequences of maxing out bulk and height are very different in those. i would encourage us to look at that. i would just end by saying, we in this commission see the most egregious things. that is what bubbles up to the surface. as somebody who has raised three kids in the city, and have seen, in my generation,

the outmigration in my entire community and all of my friends, once they have kids, you know at five-six years old and they cannot be housed, it hurts. it hits me in a place where, you know, i sit up here giving all of this time to the city for a reason; to address that. i feel like this is going to make that worse. i want folks to be able to stay in the city, to be able to move in mom to be able to have their kids come back from college like i did with mine. to be able to use theirone a way that they can. i also want to be able to protect tenants. i want a rental registry. i want folks to be able to stay in place and protect that. i fear in this legislation they are. i look forward to keeping this conversation live and to keep

working on it. i want to thank staff particularly for the work they have done prior to this. mr. heppner, i am available if you want to recruit me and draft me too, you know, to be involved in this process. i think we can solve the problem. i think this legislation is not right there. thank you. i have commissioner phyllis on the - >> go ahead. >> commissioner moss. please press the button if you want to talk. >> i want to thank everybody, and again mr. heppner thank you for coming up and hearing all of this. i echo that i do not believe the legislation is there. i am most concerned about the amount of no answers we got whenever specific costs were brought up both to the various

departments. this is wide sweeping legislation that would have drastic consequences for lots of what are now feasible and absolutely necessary projects and i think for us to move forward without having more specific information regarding the costs associated with that would be a little irresponsible, and so i was looking forward to more information being brought to the commissions. i want to thank everyone for coming here today. thank you. >> thank you. >> again, thank you mr. heppner and his supervisor peskin. we took a stab at this a couple of years ago through the residential expansion threshold. many people opposing the suppose that also. we endure many aspects of doubt that i liked and thought were good. so, we get that this is a contentious issue. i agree with the goals that were laid out here.

straightforward process, eliminate loopholes for demo, promote density and discourage monster homes. i don't think it gets there. it may be gets there on eliminating loopholes on definition. i don't think it does a good job at all on the other items. i get it is difficult in some of these things are competing against each other. there are no definitions of monster homes, i know you kind of focused on this 1200 square-foot, which i think is a good sized unit. it is typical of these three flat buildings or for flat buildings. but if we are going to preserve our h1 zoning, 1200 square-foot is not allow for a family. i invite you to spend time with my three teenagers, and my mother who lives with us in 1200 square-foot zoning, i can guarantee you doubling that over the weekend. i don't know if that is the right way to do it, defined advice where you footage of the unit. one way to get at

that is to eliminate our h1 and require everybody to build to the maximum density. he would get rid of monster homes. i agree with the goal but i don't think this gets at it. more so, i agree, i didn't read anything in this legislation that actually promoted density. i think it is doubling down on you can't demo that single family home to build three units. which i think this commission has wanted to do over and over again. i actually think it discourages density instead of promoting density. like commissioner mel garside, i would work with you to inject language, or changes in this legislation that would promote

density. again requiring people to build to the max, ease demolition. allow demolition where people are building to increase density. without example that we showed, it was an okay single-family home but it wasn't historic. if you can get three units in that, that is great we should actually encourage it. there is a house on the street for me that i am familiar with. it is an old single-family home, it is not historic. the builder wanted to build a larger single-family home. the planning department encouraged them to add units so they are doing two units. they wanted to avoid to come to this commission to go to a demo. they could build four units if they had it in adu, incentives and code are all in the wrong place in not doing the right thing. we have seen progressive cities, minneapolis and others get rid of exclusionary single families

and promote density, elizabeth warren running for president, who is progressive is encouraging that. this does not do it. i would expect some of this language, it is more of what palo alto would propose as a solution to some of the problems. again, i think it is courageous to start on this path and work on this. our flat policies should be quantified. i would be happy to work with you to further this. i don't think it gets there. >> thank you. commissioner walker. >> i want to thank the supervisor for putting this forward. i personally have been involved in several different taskforces that dealt specifically with this issue over the last 25-30 years and it has resulted in no real action to help us with the definitions and enforcement around this issue. i think the problem is definitely here. i know that our commission sees projects that

come before us where as a neighbor you see the front of the building go away and then you see all the way to the sky in the back. no pun intended, it is about transparency of the process and making sure what is happening is what the department has approved. it has been really obvious that the issues about getting a common definition of both demolition itself, and the process by which it happens. inspections at the onset of certain projects as well as how to engage our departments both when changes occur on site. those are things that are real and i think need to be handled more administratively than requiring an extra process that actually adds to the cost of housing. i am really sensitive

around tenant issues. i really appreciate the tenants union being here and senior disability action network. those are real issues. the issues of affordability. the issues of eviction. they often stem from these kind of projects. it is really important that also, the improvements and the repairs and the maintenance be made on these buildings so that the places are habitable. not just today, but 25-30 years from now, this housing stock has been mentioned here that most affordable housing is the housing that is already up. it doesn't mean in the state it is in. it means that we must make sure the housing stays up. seismic work, mold remediation, all of those things that people have to live within these old structures where plumbing leaks and there is a lot of work to do. the walls have to be replaced

because of mold. it is real work that is needed. i think i would love the supervisor to focus on how to incentivize keeping rents low when this kind of work happens. i think doing the work is necessary. the pass-throughs are the issue when it comes to tenants itself. having programs, i know that we find a program through tbi called the cover program where we offer low or no interest loans to landlords who need to do the work that can afford it. those are programs that we actually should put out in front to make sure that the rents stay low as well as the housing stock safe. i am also willing to work with you all. i think our code enforcement outreach teams that we found some of the tenant groups on landlord groups would be willing to sit in to make sure what we are doing does not have consequences that we have not

anticipated. again, thank you it is an important issue, i hope that we can really solve this that 30 years from now we are not doing this again. thank you commissioners. >> commissioner johnson. >> thank you. i want to thank staff, i think you did an incredible job making the incredibly complex and technical understandable and easily digestible, so thank you so much. i also want to thank everyone for coming out. i'm going to read my notes because i have a lot to say and i want to be as distinct as possible. there is a reason that we are here, in case anyone thinks we do not understand that there is a problem there is a real problem that needs to be addressed and i want to go through what i think where we can go from here. first of all, i want to bring voice and context that i don't think is represented enough. if you don't own a home and you want to own a home in this city you needed

three hunter thousand dollars down payment grade you have to have an income of $200,000 a year. if you have those things you might be able to get a condo, or a small house that has not been renovated in decades. and then you need several hundred thousands of dollars to make it to the process to do any upgrades. all while paying off student loans, creating a family are taking care of aging parents. if you are a renter in a rent controlled apartment you live in housing that has not been updated since the 60s or 70s. substandard non-code complying housing unable to move because the rent is too damn high and you live here day today that you will be evicted because of an alice act or rent eviction. the issues i'm trying to address today are ones that hurt the entire city. illegal mergers taking off the markets and the need to hold bad actors accountable. so we should really focus on that. one i think there is a better way to do our 311

notices. i appreciate the fact that this legislation tries to address that. you should not need a planning degree to understand what's happening next door to you or down the street. we need our fellow community members, organizations to be able to help us understand when illegal demolitions are happening. i do not envy mr. halder's job, and the committee taking on this issue. i also appreciate in those recommendations that we need to center the folks that are being evicted and the renters, in thinking about how we protect folks as we do look to change our housing and i appreciate miss fevers comments on that. i believe there are cases where demolition is warranted. there is no way were going to get out of this housing crisis without demolishing homes. we have to create the conditions for people to i densify the parcels without illegally evicting tenants. we

need to preserve affordable housing, or housing that is existing, that we have to build more housing we have to allow for the housing that people are living in to be upgraded. one point on demolitions in general, you know what, i would rather let us create the conditions where we can call a spade a spade. if you're going to do demolition here's the building envelope. here's how we want to see tenants protected and the number of units we want to see. make sure there is equity in all unit sizes. i get really uncomfortable week after week when we tell people you can have a parking garage, you can have four bedrooms, but you can't. that's an overreach in my opinion. i like oprah, i don't want to be oprah handling out - - handing it out that way. we really do need a more objective way to do that. saying people can only live in 1200 square - square feet in my mind is

inappropriate. i just want to reiterate, there is a problem here. we have seen scores of illegal demolitions that have come to us. even though both of our departments are working hard there is a clear leak that is demoralizing to advocate, it is demoralizing to staff, it is demoralizing to us. what we need to do is move into codifying the processes we do have. staffing up so that we can do better enforcement. actually helping our community organizations and tenant protections help us as well getting better to make sure illegal evictions do not happen in the first place. those are, i think, really important places to start. i think it has been said in many comments, but often i think because we see the worst cases, we feel like we need to create legislation that really

errs on the side of stopping anyone from wanting to do anything wrong in the first place. we create in some ways a sledgehammer where we really need a scalpel. we need to get very surgical about the places where there are leaks and people are moving to the system and illegally evicting, and illegally demoing and target exactly those places. the good news from all of the fervor that happened today, as we have developers, we have neighborhood organizations, we have concerned citizens, we have folks that are willing to sit around the table and work to come up with those solutions and i feel hopeful that together we can get to the heart of these important issues for our community. >> thank you, commissioner. pres. mccarthy. >> thank you. once again, i echo a lot of the comments from my fellow commissioners obviously it is safe to say there is not

too many sales, building or architect work being done in san francisco today here. everybody seems to be here. i complement everyone coming out here. the architects that came out here, in force today, they are an important part of helping us write this in future legislation hopefully to clean it up and give us consensus where we really need it. i also want to thank the department, planning and dbi working closely with a lot of the inspectors that spoke here today. how frustrated they are doing their jobs, it's very difficult. sometimes this code does not allow them to do it. it puts them in bad positions. i think everybody, at this stage, is a little bit, we been doing this for many years, i'm a little thick skin here, it does hurt me when contractors are blamed for everything, okay? we are an important part to this

family of how we are going to get this housing crisis fixed. i think it is important, what i would like to complement particularly supervisor peskin and mr. lee today for starting the conversation. i think supervisor peskin coming out here, using the terms that we might've bitten off more than we can chew right now, tells me a lot that this is a first draft in which a lot of work has to be done. today, i would call this therapy, which we haven't had in quite a long time in our community. from all sides. i think it's very healthy and i have sat through a few of the sessions over the years, i think i can honestly say, this is one of the better ones and i appreciate this going beyond the 2 o'clock so we could have this conversation. i know we are not going to answer everything here today. we all have our concerns. i think these are real questions that we can address in a property draft that piece of

legislation. with that, i will not take any more time, but thank you to everybody for coming here today. what is the next steps which does not have to be answered now. answering where we go from this, and where supervisor peskin's office would like to go with this. and how this time we stay at it and get it finished and have a comprehensive piece of legislation that gets us to where we need to - we need housing in this town as we said over and over again. i think this might be the best stuff that we have right now to play. i would like to see this through, okay? thank you. >> commissioner fong. >> the architects in the room should be happy since building designers and engineers would be prohibited from participating in this process. that means more work for the architects, i presume. the question - the

goals and the proposed legislation, in my opinion, the perception is a disconnect. the legislation goes way beyond the resolution of some of the issues that are being brought forward as the goals of what is wanted. i think the implications of the legislation are also not being brought forth in the following way. this legislation is basically a non-growth/no growth process. that, i think, is something that needs to be reviewed in a much broader form

>> commissioner lee. >> there are some things i do like on this legislation, i like it tries to come up with a definition of demolition, i like the idea that it increases penalties for illegal demolition, and i like the idea that they considered serial permitting and take those permits into account when trying to decide if something - but, the proposal that i see today goes beyond what i thought we were supposed to be dealing with which was to get a handle on illegal demolition. i'm not going to bring up all of the other things that everybody has mentioned on what is a concern, but i do want to add a few things, forgive me if i jump around, because there is just so many things. the floor area

ratio is part. i don't understand it. i would also like to see replacing structural elements, removing and replacing them, not to be considered as part of the demolition. namely, a lot of these things are structural elements that needs to be upgraded. you won't know, some of these things you will not even know until you start tearing things apart, removing a wall, that brings up another thing about having the architect sign an oath to make sure that the plans are accurate. when you're dealing with renovation projects, a lot of things are hidden. you will not know what is there until you start opening things up. and then are you going to start saying your architect is in violation and is criminal, foundations or

underground, you can't tell how big a foundation is, if the foundation is sound and able to support your addition until you start digging into the ground. common walls or structural walls. if your architect said we expect this to be a 2 x 4 wall and you open it up and you find out, actually if you want to build on top of it you probably have to strengthen the wall if you're architects assume that the wall is already thick enough to hold it, that is the plans you submit. but then when you open up the building you find out both of the walls are too thin, the studs are to short, too narrow. you have to increase your stud size. those are the things that are very difficult to determine prior to

construction another thing about distributing structural drawings and calculations during the 311 process. what is the purpose? i am an architect and i can read structural drawings but the structural accounts are beyond me. i don't understand them. what is the purpose of having the neighbor see the structural drawings and structural calculations? this increases the cost to the project sponsors. they have to produce the plans and then if there is a problem and those need to be change they need to reproduce everything again. and then that brings up the part of distributing the architectural plans, the construction plans to the neighborhood. how does that affect the architects on the engineers copyrights? right now what we want to see, some architects or engineers plans we go through the public records

process we need to architects and engineers permission to actually give copies to the requester. if we provide them out there, in the first place we just threw that out the door, we don't even need public records request. is that proper i don't know. i don't know these answers. i'm just tossing them out there, these are things that i see in the proposal that should be looked at more carefully. >> thank you commissioner. >> thank you. again, i have agreements with very many of the comments and and abroad philosophical way, the comments ms. johnson made some up many of the feelings, and broad issues that i share. i will focus on some rather specific points.

before i get to that, you know, i would also like to be sure that i am expressing a concern that i have that when we were going through these egregious demolitions we all talked very much about this is a terrible problem and that we have different building and planning standards and that allows for confusion and manipulation by bad actors and all kinds of things. we set out that we were going to try to resolve that and to some extent what we had asked of our legislative branch was to really look into many of the things that are beyond our scope such as real changes to remedies and fines and the like that require legislative fixes so,

that we did not come together quite as well as i would have hoped that a commission or staff level to really resolve these differences and come together and say, here's what we really believe is a good way to go forward, i find disturbing personally. you know, i would like to commit to, again, working together so that we do this and that we meet frequently to make sure we are on track and that we are accomplishing these common goals of getting clear fair standards that any good actor can understand, and follow, and any bad actor cannot find loopholes in. that brings me then to the piece that we did

invite legislative assistance on. that in part is the remedies. one of the things we were looking at as a problematic, in our process on demolitions is that one of the primary things that is available to us is the five year moratorium. unless you want to build exactly the same square footage - you know, rebuild a demolition to that square footage and basic configuration, you have five years of having it sit follow. we all know that's one of the problems that we have all encountered, with that, is neighbors come in and tell us "i don't want to live next to an empty hole". they have temporary shoring up that is supposed to last a year or two and now you're going to tell me it's been there for five years and i'm worried about my foundation, and i don't want to live next to a hole anyway. i can completely

understand that. we always sympathize, or often, not always, often, sympathize find that the five year moratorium is putting the burden in the wrong place. one thing i would look for in any further developments that we have is an aggressive pursuit of meaningful and strong remedies that will not overburden neighborhoods and communities but will get ads, especially, the proverbial bad actors that are doing things wrong. next, systematically. we all look at trying to codify anything into 50%, 70%, or 25% of a façade, what constitutes

demolition? we all have problems with it, in part, it encourages people to do their filing so they come in just under. it's all fine. that is really a pretty terrible way to do things. we get something submitted to planning and it meets all of their criteria. if they have, you know, 50% is their standard and it comes in at 49. low and behold us and as we go and open walls and see what is going on, boy, isn't this surprising? despite all the things we thought about how dangerous and prone to problems the blind walls are, and foundations, suddenly we are amazed to find that we have

problems which are unanticipated. i think if i spoke to most of our experienced staff who have been in the field a lot, i don't think they would be so surprised to find a lot of dry rot, deterioration, other conditions. i think, you know, the pre-inspection process for threshold projects, especially with vertical additions. it is really something that we should not be afraid of. it will add to upfront expense, but it will add to overall more accurate filings, and i would actually suspect instead of having to go back 4-five times having permitting and delays, and arbitrations, we may actually see the process move through

faster. really exploring what pre-inspection does for us, is something i would really love to see incorporated into this. similarly, one of the things that always comes up that i haven't seen addressed here, you know, are again legitimate concerns of neighbors. we always hear about, you know, the shoring isn't working, it wasn't meant for this, it has been there too long, it is failing. really being certain that we are incorporating those concerns with great transparency so that any neighbor knows exactly what the shoring plan is has a full list of everybody whether it's a dbi employee to call whether you feel there is a problem, or who is the architect, who is the structural engineer, who is a contractor so that there will be

absolutely no question about how neighbors living next to these projects can feel that they are being respected and that there properties are not in danger. much of what is written about aggressive enforcement for unprofessional behavior with any licensed professional, is something that really is very needed in my opinion. perhaps we have to be a little bit heavy-handed with possible penalties or prescribed penalties, because clearly the bad actors in the field have forced us to do this. how we reconcile that with honest

mistakes, learnings, in process things is something we really need to work out. this really, in many ways, started out the acting two really bad actors. being sure that everything that we have here doesn't unduly burden the 99% of people who are trying to build houses, expand houses, most important they improve their houses when they have a legitimate need for it. stop the bad actors from consistently misrepresenting things, and -, you know, developing a track record. i don't think it is a secret that, you know, many of us can identify some of the bad actors. while we are not going to them today, you know, i really think

that we need strong protocols for reporting to licensing authorities. strong protocols for reporting to the city attorney. and the heightened review of anything submitted by somebody who has a history of violations, where the ordinance comes - calls out some of these things. i think it is something that we really do need. these are many of my concerns, you know - to accomplish all of these things, and to have tenant protections. to really make the considerations with how we densify the city, to really get significant contributions, additional housing. these are all things that i think we are working towards. i think there is not a person here that is not

going to commit their time to working with the supervisor, and is aid to see how we can move forward on this. i share the feeling that this is a very - very, very broad piece of work. it probably should be broken up into pieces addressing first; demolitions, and you know, penalties on bad actors might be one place to first target and be sure we have that under control since that seems to be the focus of where our concerns originated. all of the other things about, you know, integrity of merged units, sizes, other considerations are

very valid, but they may be too much for us to tackle right now. narrowing in the focus will serve us all well and allow us to accomplish something. i look forward to being part of that process. as a final thought - we all know that the city has to engage in major seismic upgrades. so, having incentives built into this as well. we all say there is a need for more space, you know, when you think about when you do a seismic upgrade you are very often taking a 7 foot, no habitation space, and you can make it an eight-foot legal habitation space. when you are talking

about maybe not expanding the envelope, but making more living space and accomplishing a good that we all know is necessary like seismic upgrade. building that into, if you do your seismic upgrade we can work to get you extra living space out of it, as well. there should be ways that we have carrots as well as sticks. being creative, and trying to find those, is a challenge that i think we should be up to. so, again, i applaud the efforts and i do think it needs focus. again, i think

>> my name tom hewitt. first of all, i would like to welcome everyone to come to this fair. this safety fair, we trying to educate the public regarding how

to prepare themselves during and after the earthquake and then to protect themselves for next 72 hours. >> hi. my name's ed sweeney. i'm the director of services at department of building inspection, and we put together a great fair for the city of san francisco to come down and meet all the experts. we've got engineers, architects. we have builders, we have government agencies. >> well, we have four specific workshops. we have the accessible business entrance. >> my name is leah, and i am the assistant manager with the department of small business. i am leading the new accessibility ordinance that helps existing owners better comply with existing access

laws. so all buildings that have places of public accommodation in san francisco, they must comply with this ordinance. >> the a.d.e. was setup by the board of supervisors, and the ordinance was passed about a year ago. >> one of the biggest updates that we have is that the deadlines were extended, so all of the deadlines were extended by six months. >> and it's really to help the public, the business community to be specific, to cut down on the amount of drive by lawsuits. >> so on this workshop, we're going to be covering what the compliance looks like, what business examiand property owne need to know how to comply with the ordinance. we'll also talk about the departments that are involved, including the office of small business, department of building inspection, planning department, as well as the mayor's office on

disability. >> hi. i'm marselle, and i manage a team at the building department. today, we'll cover the meaning of a.d.u.s, more commonly known as accessory dwelling units. we'll talk about the code and permitting processes, and we'll also talk about legalizing existing dwelling units that are currently unwarranted. >> this is the department of building inspection's residential remodelling workshop. my name is senior electrical inspector cheryl rose, and at this workshop, we're going to be answering questions such as do i need an electrical permit when i'm upgrading my dwelling, when do i need to have planning involved in a residential remodel, and what's involved

with the coerce process? we're going to also be reviewing inspection process, and the permitting process for residential remodel in san francisco. there's always questions that need answers. it's a mystery to the general public what goes on in construction, and the more we can clarify the process, the more involved the consumer can be and feel comfortable with the contractors they're working with and the product they're getting in the results. if you have questions that aren't addressed in this workshop, you're always welcome to come up to the third floor of 1660 mission street, and we're happy to discuss it with you and find out what you need to do. >> the program is very successful. the last piece is already 60% in compliance. >> well, we have a very important day coming up. it's sept 15. last four has to be compliance,

which means that the level four people that have to register with us and give us a basic indication of how they're going to deal with their seismic issues on their building. >> i'm francis zamora, and i'm with the san francisco department of emergency management, and today we talked about how to prepare for emergencies in san francisco. and so that's really importantiimportant. in san francisco, it's no secret. we live in earthquake country. there's a big chance we will be involved in a major earthquake in the next 30 years, but we don't have to be afraid. these are going to be your first responders outside of the police officers, paramedics, first responders, these are going to be the people that come to your aid first. by getting to know your neighbors, you're going to know who needs help and who can help in case of an emergency. one of the great ways to do that

is for signing7for nert, san francisco neighborhood emergency response team. it teaches you how to take care of yourself, your loved ones, and your neighborhood in the case of an emergency. information is just as important as water and food in an emergency. san francisco has an emergency text message alert system, called text sf. if there's some kind of an emergency happening in san francisco or your neighborhood, it could be a police action, a big fire, a tsunami or an earthquake. all you have to do is text your citizenship code to 888777, and your mobile phone is automatically registered for alert sf. >> my name is fernando juarez, and i'm a fire captain with the san francisco fire department.

we have a hire extinguisher training system. you want to pull the pin, stand at least 8 feet away, aim it at the base. if you're too close, the conical laser that comes out, it's too small, and the fire won't go out on the screen. if you step back, the conical shape on the screen is bigger, and it will take the fire go out faster. so it can tell when you're too close. >> my name is alicia wu, and i'm the director of a san francisco based nonprofit. since 2015, we go out to the public, to the community and provide training in different

topics. today we're doing c.p.r., controlling external feeding and how to do perfect communications in each topic, and also, i hope that they can bring it home and start gathering all the supplies for themselves to. >> on any given day in san francisco, we're very well resourced in terms of public safety professionals, but we all know in the event of a large scale disaster, it will be hours and days before the public safety professionals can get to you, so we encourage people to have that plan in place, be proactive. there's websites. we have a wonderful website called 72hours.org. it tells you how to prepare yourself, your family, your pets, your home, your workplace. we can't emphasize enough how important it is to be

>> i personally love the mega jobs. i think they're a lot of fun. i like being part of a build that is bigger than myself and outlast me and make a mark on a landscape or industry. ♪ we do a lot of the big sexy jobs, the stacked towers, transit center, a lot of the note worthy projects. i'm second generation construction. my dad was in it and for me it just felt right. i was about 16 when i first started drafting home plans for people and working my way through college. in college i became a project engineer on the job, replacing

others who were there previously and took over for them. the transit center project is about a million square feet. the entire floor is for commuter buses to come in and drop off, there will be five and a half acre city park accessible to everyone. it has an amputheater and water marsh that will filter it through to use it for landscaping. bay area council is big here in the area, and they have a gender equity group. i love going to the workshops. it's where i met jessica. >> we hit it off, we were both in the same field and the only two women in the same. >> through that friendship did we discover that our projects are interrelated.

>> the projects provide the power from san jose to san francisco and end in the trans bay terminal where amanda was in charge of construction. >> without her project basically i have a fancy bus stop. she has headed up the women's network and i do, too. we have exchanged a lot of ideas on how to get groups to work together. it's been a good partnership for us. >> women can play leadership role in this field. >> i tell him that the schedule is behind, his work is crappy. he starts dropping f-bombs and i say if you're going to talk to me like that, the meeting is

over. so these are the challenges that we face over and over again. the reality, okay, but it is getting better i think. >> it has been great to bond with other women in the field. we lack diversity and so we have to support each other and change the culture a bit so more women see it as a great field that they can succeed in. >> what drew me in, i could use more of my mind than my body to get the work done. >> it's important for women to network with each other, especially in construction. the percentage of women and men in construction is so different. it's hard to feel a part of something and you feel alone. >> it's fun to play a leadership role in an important project, this is important for the transportation of the entire peninsula. >> to have that person -- of women coming into construction, returning to construction from family leave and creating the

network of women that can rely on each other. >> women are the main source of income in your household. show of hands. >> people are very charmed with the idea of the reverse role, that there's a dad at home instead of a mom. you won't have gender equity in the office until it's at home. >> whatever you do, be the best you can be. don't say i can't do it, you can excel and do whatever you want. san francisco is surrounded on three sides by water, the fire boat station is intergal to maritime rescue and preparedness, not only for san francisco, but for all of the bay area.

[sirens] >> fire station 35 was built in 1915. so it is over 100 years old. and helped it, we're going to build fire boat station 35. >> so the finished capital planning committee, i think about three years ago, issued a guidance that all city facilities must exist on sea level rise. >> the station 35, construction cost is approximately $30 million. and the schedule was complicated because of what you call a float. it is being fabricated in china, and will be brought to treasure island, where the building site efficient will be constructed on top of it, and then brought to pier 22 and a half for installation. >> we're looking at late

2020 for final completion of the fire boat float. the historic firehouse will remain on the embarcadero, and we will still respond out of the historic firehouse with our fire engine, and respond to medical calls and other incidences in the district. >> this totally has to incorporate between three to six feet of sea level rise over the next 100 years. that's what the city's guidance is requiring. it is built on the float, that can move up and down as the water level rises, and sits on four fixed guide piles. so if the seas go up, it can move up and down with that. >> it does have a full range of travel, from low tide to high tide of about 16 feet. so that allows for current tidal movements and sea lisle rises in the coming

decades. >> the fire boat station float will also incorporate a ramp for ambulance deployment and access. >> the access ramp is rigidly connected to the land side, with more of a pivot or hinge connection, and then it is sliding over the top of the float. in that way the ramp can flex up and down like a hinge, and also allow for a slight few inches of lateral motion of the float. both the access ramps, which there is two, and the utility's only flexible connection connecting from the float to the back of the building. so electrical power, water, sewage, it all has flexible connection to the boat. >> high boat station number 35 will provide mooring for three fire boats and one rescue boat. >> currently we're staffed with seven members per day, but the fire department would like to

establish a new dedicated marine unit that would be able to respond to multiple incidences. looking into the future, we have not only at&t park, where we have a lot of kayakers, but we have a lot of developments in the southeast side, including the stadium, and we want to have the ability to respond to any marine or maritime incident along these new developments. >> there are very few designs for people sleeping on the water. we're looking at cruiseships, which are larger structures, several times the size of harbor station 35, but they're the only good reference point. we look to the cruiseship industry who has kind of an index for how much acceleration they were accommodate. >> it is very unique. i don't know that any other fire station built on the water is in the

united states. >> the fire boat is a regionalesset tharegional assete used for water rescue, but we also do environmental cleanup. we have special rigging that we carry that will contain oil spills until an environmental unit can come out. this is a job for us, but it is also a way of life and a lifestyle. we're proud to serve our community. and we're willing to help people in any way we can.

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