affordable and really makes a difference. >> thank you very much for being with us i encourage the viewers not only to checkout the earthquake authority but we'll talk about >> good morning. today is wednesday, october 16th, 2019. this is a regular meeting of the building inspection commission. please turn off your electronic devices. the first item is roll call. (roll call).

commissioner constant didn' ande are excused. >> we have a quorum. >> welcome to the dbi. you'll see a strong tone of earthquake awareness and readiness in my comments today. tomorrow, as most of you know marks the 30th anniversary of the leoma skwaeurb earthquake ae city is hosting numerous events at the marina, as well as holding a table-top exercise at the department of emergency management, include within of ie structural engineers seok and brop is the terminology for that and the annual duck and cover exercise held at city-wide. that's actually an earthquake

event. while much has been accomplished over the past three decades to strengthen buildings seismically. seismically, we must prepare for earthquakes around the world. with our retrofitting program in its final phase, we are at 98% compliance in terms of filed permits and that's quite an achievements. so well-done and 65% completion and that could be stronger but we'll get there. private property owners have invested approximately 250 million in retrofits so far and we reach 385 million by the end of this program. more than 72,000 san francisco people are now living in retrofitted buildings in sanfrancisco and about 111,000 will be at the program's completion in 2020.

so quite an achievement for the city and for all of our other cities around america to take note. we are making progress but we cannot rest on our preparations today. we have to stay vigilant and have to have family plans ready, as well as go-bags so enable us to manage our own for at least 72 hours from the big one. related to our seismic safety efforts, the international code council, icc, will hold a followup seismic roundtable during the annual conference in las vegas next week, october 23rd, and discuss the development of nationally approaches to seismic functional recovery for new construction. also on october 23rd, dbi are -- let me repeat that, dbi and planning staff will meet with a delegation from japan visiting san francisco to learn about building code and planning

requirementrequirements. such a mutual sharing of best practises helps all to contribute to more effective engineering and overall building safety procedures. finally, tkr director huey will create a staff meeting at the end of this month or early november. looking forward to that. >> october, correction, october, stay tuned for the director's aannouncements on this to review the key accomplishments as well as dbi requirements and recognise standing performances by the staff and family. madam secretary, that concludes our announcements. >> any public comment? seeing none, item 3, general public comment? the buic will take comment that are not part of this agenda.

there's no general public comment and our next item is item 4, commissioner's questions and matters, inquiries to staff. at this time, commissioners make inquiries to staff regarding documents, policies, practises and procedures which are of interest to the commission. no items at this time and you can contact me if you have any items for the next meeting. future meetings and agendas, the commission may discuss and set action to criminal item determir other future items for the inspection. the next is on november 20th. >> on that, madam secretary, i know commissioner warsaw reached out about feedback from the planning department on our joint meeting and i believe you can share there. >> yes. i have what's in contact with jonas, the planning commission

secretary, and we will be moving forward with taking steps to try to plan that. the first step is to have an officer's meeting of the president and vice president and we can go from there. >> ok, thank you. to let you know, we are working on that. >> thank you. is there any public comment on items 4a and b? seeing none, the next item is item 5, discussion and possible action regarding a proposed ordinance, file 190842, renewing and extending a prior waiver and investigation fees imposed by building code 107a.5 for persons registered with the office. cannabis through december 31st r decision to other requirements.

>> i'm tom temprono. thank you for the opportunity to address you on his behalf. this ordinance will allow businesses pratting in th partie amnesty program to access fee waivers and will extend fraser s dispensary permits through 2020. following the passage of prop 64 legalizing recreational cannabis in the state of california, the city commenced a registration process with illegal conretail cannabis business operators to make their activities known to the city. this process disclosed almost 250 previously unregulated activities in cul cultivation ad allowed the thank you to move many of the operations into the legal marketplace. this registration process initiated an amnesty process for these operators to bring them out of the shadows and into a

regulated and compliant space. those operators were then able to apply for a temporary cannabis business permit and as a part of that process submit to the buzz's tremendous tremendou. this has an investigation fee for any work performed without a building code permit and in an effort to ensure operators focus their financial resources on coming into compliance president the board of supervisors passed an ordinance in 2017 waiving and refunding this fee. it is important to note that this fee was a penalty imposed on operators who had built a structure within their premises without proper dbi permits, thus minimizing the fee as it is not a regular fee that dbi would otherwise charge. the ordinance waiving the investigation fee expired on december 31st of 2018 and due to un-foreseen delays is the many permitting processes that these applicants are subject to,

some operators were not able to complete inspections prior to that date. this ordinance will extend the deadline for these fee waivers through december 31st, 2020 so the remaining few businesses can pass inspections and come fully into compliance without being assessed fees. it should be noted this ordinance will extend the effective date of the temporary cannabis permits that these businesses are operating under through december 31st, 2020 as the office of cannabis works through the backlog and processes of pelte permanent li. thank you for your consideration. the previous legislation had the support of this commission and we hope to have your support for the extension to allow the successful program to serve the final 17 or so operators who need to complete their inspections. i would like to thank and acknowledge m all who are with s today to answer technical

questions and thank them for the office's work in bringing this legislation to you. >> thank you for your presentation and i do believe you have a question here commissioner wassle? >> no. i, basically, wanted to thank the supervisor and yourself for this work. obviously helping these businesses come out of the shadows and legalize is critically important and we know they've been doing so with good faith and things can move slowly. so i would move that we extend it to the end of 2020 as requested. >> commissioner walker? >> i second that. i really appreciate the work our department has done to help move this industry forward. i think it's really important and interesting that there's work going on to provide

consumption permits so it comes off the street and i feel like i would love an update on the entire program of how many businesses and what's required for those types of permits. it's really important. it's an important industry and it's really important that we're doing it right. so kudos to the department of cannabis and thank you for supervisor mandelman bringing this forward through you, tom. so i second it. >> this is a quick question, more operationally. you said 250 that have come forward out of the shadows. do you have an idea of how many more? >> 250 regulations. regulations, not buzzes. buzzes.

>> i'm m marissa rodriquez. whether there are more unregulated is a different story but our job is to bring those part of the and necessity amnest of the shadows. >> do you have the obstacles they run into? i hear power is a big one. these big buildings don't have enough power. is this a recurrence of one particular type of issue that tt they have trouble meet something. >> for cultivators, we've vaccinseenthe experience in whiy need additional auxillary support and based where the generator was placed, so off-suedoff-side, people with experiences in the place in which the generator was located posing a challenge, so those are

the issues people are running into. >> pg & e, i know on regular day-to-day operations, just to get a 400-amp service is not a big jump. i know you guys are up somewhere in the neighborhood of 1200-amp services. i'm just wondering, is it become abecoming a situation you cannot get it and legalize it? i don't know. i'm curious. >> it's a relatively small number of people who have run into the issue, but we've seen people who aren't able to get the power that they need for sure. >> so they would have to relocate. >> or figure out another solution. >> traditionally how long does a permit take to get compliant? do you have a stat on that? >> i many, it think it depends on the severity of the issues. so some people making modifications in six months. we've seen other operators in which it's taken longer for the

issue you're mentioning where there needs to be a different development with regard to pg & e, if they're relocating a generator, for example, it's taking a lot of tame to get thee permits. there was an instance in which the existing generator was located in the front of the building and it would require them to move to come into compliance. so that was a project taking many, many months to kind of move around and sign off to make sure it was in compliance. >> ok. thank you and thank you for all of the work. >> i would just like to thank the department of building inspection for your support, to dr. huey and michael sweenny is in the back and helping us to get over the finish line. we would be happy to share any of the things we're working on at any point. just invite us. >> do you have much communication with nicole in sacramento?

>> she just called me five minutes ago. >> give her our best. >> there's a motion and seconder to approve this item and any public comment? seeing none, i'll do the role call vote. (role call). >> the motion carries unanimously. and our next item is item 6, discussion and possible action regarding a proposed ordinance, board of supervisors 190974, amending the green building code to establish requirements for new building construction, requiring buildings exutilizeane electricity. amending the environment code to require a new construction of municipal buildings to exclude natural gas.

members of the commission have a handout and i'll not show it on the screen. good morning. my name is barry cooper and i'll be discussing this item with you this morning.

this is to improve public health and safety. san francisco is aiming for an 80% emission reduction by 205 20 and thus far reduced emission, more than 36% and that's in the context of considerable growth and population as well as doubling the size of our economy. there was a resolution of a detective clarratiodeclaration e change on san francisco and a just transition to a fossil fuel free economy in line with this city's long-standing and requested a report within 100 days about what exactly would be necessary. is it technically feasible and how to make progress towards meeting that goal of a

fossil-fuel free economy. the resulting report titled focus 2030 found that it is technically feasible to meet the greenhouse gas emission goals and it's possible, if we were to simply implement policies that are in place today and programs and incentives in place, we would increase an emissions by 2050 and so there is room to meet the goals but requires continued action. in september of 2018, mayor breed was proud to be the host for the global climate action submit and made a commitment to ensure new construction city-wide would be zero emissions no later than 2030 and

that has been followed up by some of the legislation we'll be discussing today. she also made a commitment that san francisco would pursue achieving zero emissions in our entire building stock, including existing buildings by 2050 not affected by the ordinance proposed today. while those goals are ambitious, they really boil down to three key elements. we need to ensure the building stock is efficient with considerable tools to do so and it has the implementation of california's energy standards, san francisco's green building code and offered by utilities contributing to a 10% reduction in gross energy consumption over the last eight years in the commercial sector and expect one

on efficiency. we can't get to zero emissions by using this efficiently but supply ourselves with renewable electricity, . a big milestone has been the clean power sf program. where the city's program have enjoyed this for close to 100 years, now around 80% is supplied by either the combination of clean power sf or hecheche power. so when we look at this, we see someone different effects. the only power available is 100%

clean and renewable, sourced from hydroelectric and solar and all of the operational greenhouse emissions in facilities come from the direct combustion in natural gas or uses district steam which produces natural gas. broadening out city-wood, you c, there's a sta similar phenomenon supplying renewable electricity and now more than 80% of the emissions from broughting the city's building stock come from combustion of gas. san francisco is definitely not alone in looking at these issues and as recently as last summer, uc berkley researchers, on behalf of the california commission and utility's commission looked at the effects of meeting california's clean

energy goal goals, both elittleg enickeremissions and if we lookt the progress we would make by 2050, as soon as 2030, woe see reduction in mor morbidity and mortality and because healthcare is constant and buildings are located everywhere and across the state, those benefits accrued disproportionately to disadvantaged communities in those of greatest need. if we zoom to 2050, the state's projection is zero emissions economy-wide in our building stock, in our transportation

would yield about a 9% boost in the state gdp and three million jobs. an important correlary is not just the economy but resilience. there was a measure to reduce fire risk to the rest of the territory and it's an important question, if we're talking about encouraging electricity use, are there implications for the electricity grid and electricity supply. and the answer is, yes, of course, there are and we'll be glad to talk about them. at the same time, in new construction, nearly all of natural gas-consuming appliances require electricity to brought. so the public safety power shut-off would have affected a building whether using gas for

space conditions, water heating or other common uses of gas. at the same time, pg & e has thankfulfullthankfully been a pn the lifeline's council and this is a summary extract from the 2014 report looking at in the event of a 7.9 skwa*ubg 7.9 7.9o similar to 1906, and the commission is very well aware, the usgs estimates one by 2043. in the event of one of those large situatio earthconfrontatih gas and electricity will be affected and it will be 25% of the city no one week due to temporary measures. on the other hand, with the gas system, it's varied and brittle,

containing a flammable material and it will take longer, approximately six months to restore gas city-wood. city-wide. so in that context, and they're summarized in the slide and in the core of the local policies, in addition to, say, the state energy code, include requiring new construction of ten floors or less to install, based on preference, either affordable thermal system for hot water heating or green roof and ensure there i service for electrical

wiring in the future and in addition, residential projects are continued to meet the green -- achieve great point rate-ins and thirated, energy en title 24 and they were tied to the state building code. in summary. , today, if you pull a permit for a residential scale, if you build it with mixed fuel, it would need to be 10% more efficient than the 2016 code. if you pull the same permit under the policy this commission kaerlcarried through, it would e under a 2019 code and if you build all electric, in order to provide an encourage the provide all electric, no additional margin beyond code required.

there are two additional ordinances pending before the board of supervisors. the one we'll talk about today is highlighted in bold elements of this hand-out. and i'll just briefly mention that separately, supervisor brown, with the support of supervisor mandleman commit to go all electric only in new construction and alterations. the one for your consideration today is a little lighter than that, supporting the idea to choose light alliances but codifies and makes explicit the same requirements in place today for residential and then extends in the nonresidential and those boil down to a simple matter if you build with gas, you need to demonstrate to reduce emissions

and energy use by 10% and if you build all electric, then no additional requirements to be imposed. a key reason for that specific proposal and for this proposal, not imposing requirements in place for residential are, of course, the city's priority issue of the housing crisis we face and so for reference, 97% of new housing units, city-wide on permit activity from 2013-2018 were quote, unquote, highrise by the code. so in other words, the 10% compliance margin that applies to new construction of housing. in order for a community to

adopt a requirement that sets energy standards more strict than, there are legal requirements, briefly and it's necessary to demonstrate they're coast effective and projects to comply with those projects will meet california's energy standards or use no more energy than complying with the code and that it's possible to comply with the ordinance installing energy efficient appliances. and for those following at home bee,the reason for the asterisk, the energy min minnesota minimus are dated and likely to be updated in the short-term and a number of cases is not possible to obtain an appliance as inefficient as one assumes for demonstrating that it's possible to comply. and then for the city's own

facilities, of course, the only litigation is buildings that ard of any type to de demonstrate they'll meet the energy code. so to enable the decision-making about whether it's cost effective to comply with this ordinance, three analyses are completed, they're included by a reference because they were presented to the commission alonalongside the carrie ford legislation and they break down the challenge into looking at residential new construction and nonresidential new construction and these were studies completed at our request but a consensus request with staff from 39 other cities resulting in currently 50 cities considering similar policies to the one before you

today. and so therefore, they represens themselves looked at the types of buildings most representative of new construction state-wide. we also had a separate study that was completed looking at the facility's own facilities and came to similar conclusions. for each of the building types that were studied, for every climate zone state-wood, i statu built it using natural gas, that's one scenario and the same building, same features, building with all electric appliances. for each of those two scenarios, there were three pe permutation. it is a cost effective with all electric meeting code and cost

effective meeting code? can you add aoe efficiency and, perhaps, a outcome of selecting more efficient appliances. the last was looking at adding additional solar p p solar storage. the studies looked at cost effectiveness two ways, discounted utility costs and what would you pay at the bill skph thand as it's measured by e california commission itself, using time dependent evaluation and that includes both the cost borne by the customer and society to invest in energy and

electricity infrastructure. in an effort to make things -- to be merciful, they introduced a lower metric called energy design rating and easier to understand in the sense it's based on zero to one hundred a. and so, to get the to the punchline, they looked system by system and in this case, this table summarizes, if you compare code minimum building, built with mixed fuel versus a code minimum building built with all electric, what's the incremental construction cost? items in orange reflect a net reduction in construction cost. in ththe gist there was a purche

cost that are off-set than the one in piping in the building and bringing the main into the building. (please stand by).

we asked one of those developers , the development corporation why. why were they going all electric in some of their projects. and they said they had done an evaluation and they considered their design objectives of ensuring a healthy, safe, cost-effective environment for their occupants. when they compared her to objectives to what they could achieve with all electric, reducing capital cost, in terms of producing healthy environment. and in terms of avoiding the risk of needing to upgrade the building to be all electric in the future. similarly, the city has also been taking voluntary action in its own facilities.

there are about 18 projects currently in the pipeline. both new construction and alterations that are either being built electric from day one or are in the midst of the conversion. that includes the school district, san francisco state university and a number of the city's agencies. and then i'll leave you -- in your packet is references to both the cost effectiveness studies, that i'm summarizing in this presentation today, that offer a great deal more detail. as well as a number of similar studies that came to similar conclusions statewide. thanks for your time today. >> questions from mr. hooper? do you want to go to public comment? >> clerk: is there any public comment on this item?

>> hello, my name is sarah greenwald, a san francisco resident representing 350 san francisco. we're delighted to see the city government making a start on this action against the climate emergency. and we appreciate that supervisors brown and mandelman, who initiated the legislation, stated that these are only first steps. and as mr. hooper explains, that's absolutely correct. natural gas is methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, as you know. it's toxic. it's flammable. and it can explode. and it makes up about a third of san francisco's greenhouse gas footprint. so we look forward to working with you on further action, to ban natural gas in all new construction. and to retrofit existing

buildings without evicting or displacing anybody, to get methane out of san francisco. so in closing, let me just say that, you know, on the titanic you would not like put a nail through a board and jump in the water and then think about building a lifeboat. and we're not on the titanic in the sense that there will be no other ship to rescue us. thank you. >> thank you. >> clerk: is there any further public comment? seeing none, commissioner comments? >> mr. hooper, i have questions, as you can imagine. [laughter] good morning, mr. hooper. obviously as my opening statement is totally guessing the intent -- of what we're trying to do here for our city. but once again i, as we have in

other past conversations, and how do we get there, what's the unintended consequences. what's the knock-on effect and really the reality of getting the policies and procedures in place. so i'm just interested. one is, and forgive me, because i just didn't read enough of this. but what is the path of -- right now this is going to where next, your legislation here? this is going to go? >> this is going to land-use committee. >> land-use committee. when are you expecting this to be in front of the board of supervisors? >> that's up in the air. it could be as soon as the 17th. [bell dings] of october. >> it's on a pretty fast track, yes? >> yeah. >> and with regard to the outreach, can we talk a little bit about that, because that's one thing that always concerns me in regards to -- >> sure. >> i noticed there was some figures in here. i want to vet those figures and how you came to those

conclusions. i can pull the sheet. if we could go to the sheet. my apolls. -- my apologies. >> this one, right? >> what sheet is that, commissioner walker? >> the cost sheet. it's not numbered. >> yeah. instrumental construction costs. and this has the big word "savings." yeah. thank you. >> yes. >> i'd be really curious single family and multi-family, how you came to those conclusions there. and where you got your data from. >> sure. so this study was performed by the engineering company frontier associates. they were -- the funding for it is from california energy rate

payers. and they used, in terms of they, the building defaults. in other words, what sort of building we're putting these -- puts the shape and form of the building that single-family and multi-family. these are the same prototypes that are used for development of california's energy standards. so it was a two-story, single-family home and a low-rise multi-family garden-style apartment. and the sources for the financial data that's summarize in the table, included the energy cost and future energy cost escalation, that was developed by polling the utilities and looking at the filings that they've made before the california public utilities commission of their rates. the construction costs was developed from a combination of r.s. means, of course, as well as interviews with builders in different parts of the state.

and also the september programs when they're installing these type of equipment, they are making payments and they require documentation of what the cost was of what the materials were when installed. the item that i think -- an additional item was the cost of the gas infrastructure. the gas infrastructure, both the cost of the distribution piping within the building. so that can be addressed by the source i've been mentioning. in addition, the cost of connecting the main to the building, that varies a lot over the state. these are actually are the lowest numbers. and we chose those numbers to reflect that san francisco has an well-developed gas infrastructure. we shouldn't use the numbers from the green field, whether there's a significant extension of gas to install that infrastructure. but it is from the utilities

themselves to get the cost estimates to the gas infrastructure. i would note that the numbers are actually less, so that the cost of the gas extension on the per-unit basis turns out to be -- it was estimated by utilities and reflected in the table is less than the value that was reported by 6 85 florida. so it seems to me to be a robust. it is important to keep in mind, though, we're talking about a comparison between of really two scenarios. so that the question is the incremental construction costs, if you're going to build a building, you will naturally, if you're going to build a new residential unit, it will have a water heater. a gas water heater needs to meet code. that's generally going object in a new construction, power-vented, high-efficiency water heater. common approaches. that's really the context.

we're comparing apples to apples of new construction. >> okay. so as somebody -- i mean, i've been a big solar fan. i put solar in my house west of twin peaks, nobody tells me you get no sun. 16 years ago. so i've got this. i've been on this train for a long time. and that for me it made no sense to do it, because if you did the numbers, it just doesn't add up. that was 16 years ago. i know we have moved a long way since. as somebody building another building right now, fully electric in marin. so i get it. i'm really familiar with these costs, right. i'm curious -- it's back to the problem san francisco has, where one-size-fits-all kind of legislation, that when you talk to other cities and so on, i don't see anything here locally discussed with infill projects to kind of -- infill projects we

have here in the city. i don't see how have we even discussed with -- how does the 25x1000 building become fully electric on a pitch roof? have we discussed this with -- because as somebody who buys projects and the first thing i do, is what's my ability to make this more electric-compliant. i find that i can't do it, no matter what i do, because there's not enough space on that building, because we're land locked, properties and so on. so if this legislation is written up and one of the comments by the public, you know, retrofitting existing buildings. and it's automatically assumed that you won't have to displace anybody. i'd love to know where that -- if that was considered in here. because, you know, we had just another hearing this morning on a basic construction job. never mind rerouteing electrical

paneling, pulling the roof apart, what does it mean to the tenants within our city right now on this. on and on the and on. i could go on and on. i certainly -- as a contractor sees, i have not been asked by your department to come and talk and talk about the potential problems on implementing this. so i'm kind of curious again. it has huge effects to the industry that i sit for. and for somebody who wants to be able to perform what you're passing, how do we do that when we haven't even had a conversation. >> so i heard three questions. so one, just to clarify, to make it very clear. there was a public comment encouraging other policies to address existing buildings. this policy solely would apply to newly constructed buildings, ground-up, new construction. and specifically for the types of reasons that you're laying out.

we do as a community need to talk about how we would address existing buildings. but it is a substantially more complicated matter. and a big endeavor. >> i read this and saw it was new. you have the general public coming up here understanding it's completely for every building. it's to my point on the outreach here. i'm a little bit confused confut the outreach. particularly to my industry. >> so that was one question. an additional question was about zero -- i think might be clarified by talking about a zero net energy building, a building has enough soler to offset the electricity or the entirety of the building's energy use. california's -- san francisco in 2017 adopted requirements that new buildings of ten floors or less had to have solar panels or solar thermal or green roof. and those requirements are a function of how -- of roof area. it's 15% of the roof would need

to be occupied by one of those technologies. and it is not san francisco's -- san francisco's policy -- we did present extensive detail about what portion of energy use that might typically entail, it's not structured to exactly match building energy use. so that's the status quo for a permit applied for today. in 2019 -- sorry, in january 2020, if you apply for a permit under the 2019 energy standards, there will be a change. and that change is imposed by the california energy commission and. and the commission is beginning to require only four residential buildings, newly constructed of three floors or less or single family of any height. they need to put on an enough solar to offset electricity consumption in that building, if that building was built to be mixed fuel. so really the same amount of solar, whether the building has electric appliances for thermal loads or not. that's a state mandate that --

it is the law of the land starting january next year. and so san francisco carry-forward legislation, so separate legislation that this committee has reviewed, backed off of that issue. so, in other words, where the state does not require solar, then we -- we recommend carry forward san francisco's existing requirements. where the state is requiring solar, san francisco's requirements withdrew to instead apply the state requirement. so in both cases, those are different. so building -- for a building to be operated zero-net electricity or zero-net energy, that's really the state's goal. we're supportive. but this legislation is not tied to that concept. this legislation is just encouraging you to build with electricity and it is acceptable

for your electricity use to exceed on-site generation. the legislation addresses a key question, which is what if your site is for low-rise residential is shaded. and so if there's any risk of shading from existing structures, then the ordinance reduces the solar requirement basically to summarize, it requires installing solar where the portion of the building is not shaded. if there's no portion of the building that's not shaded, there's no solar requirement. so that's -- it is not a zero-net energy requirement and not a electric-only requirement. if you use all electric, you're done. if you used it mixed fuel, there's supmental energy requirements. the last point is outreach. so this, of course, has been in front of the departments own committees for some time, since january.

so there have been seven public meetings in front of the code advisory committee and at subcommittees. in addition, we hosted a workshop, bringing together the majority of the affordable housing developers. that was our first stop. and architects and engineers who serve that community. and we reviewed their concerns and that was very helpful, where we found a lot of evidence of voluntary action. the -- this is legislation introduced by supervisor mandelman and was supportive of the mayor's office. and i believe it is the mayor's office that reached out to the residential builders' association. but you're correct. i have not met with them. it was my understanding that that -- they were unsuccessful in coming to a time to meet. so there's been, you know, a fair amount of both notice public meetings as well as direct outreach to affected

communities. it is true it is not the same as meeting individually with all parties across the city, that are involved in new construction. >> okay. well, i appreciate that. i wasn't aware that the mayor's office reached out to -- i'll follow through on that. because i think -- just, for example, has planning been involved in this process? >> they attended -- planning and mayor's office attended the multi-family outreach event. and we've certainly been engaging them all along. in addition, there was a slide i presented earlier that combined the municipal ordinance in -- the ordinance with the building code, that affects the private sector buildings. the concept as a whole was -- has also been before the mayor's green building task force, which brings together representatives of all city agencies that have a role in construction, including dbi and planning.

as well as most of the city agencies that even occupy a building. and it's been a subject of six meetings in front of that body as well, including public participation. >> and i know some of the commissioners have some other points here. i mean, if i -- as i understand how the code is written, particularly planning right now, if you have solar panels and you're the builder that wants to go higher above the building, have they talked about what the consequences of that are? >> the planning -- so planning code section 149 is the portion that imposes -- that relates to the -- the so-called better ordinance. so it's -- if i step back a moment, the function of san francisco's ordinance is the green building codes, administered by the department of building inspection, by default would require buildings of ten floors or less to occupy at least 15% of roof area with solar p.v. or solar thermal. and then planning code section

149 allows the planning department to accept and approve a substitution of green roof for a portion of that area, that could otherwise be occupied by solar. so planning is essentially in a land-use role of determining, you know, what's appropriate use of your roof. and then dbi ensures the implementation of that agreement. the areas that are accepted by the planning department as, for use of living roof in lieu of solar thermal or solar p.b., they also need to be areas that the project applicant is using for compliance with the stormwater management ordinance. and the purpose there is planning doesn't have an engineering function. so has limited ability to differentiate a high quality green roof design, that would be likely to yield stormwater benefits from one that would not. so it's a multi-agency process, which i'm sorry if i didn't explain owl that when i brought

it up a moment ago. my point just being this -- the change -- this legislation has no direct affect on that at all. the change that the energy commission has imposed, by requiring -- by taking away the option essentially to use the living roof in solar of solar, that you have to have solar if you're building low-rise residential, that's policy adopted by the state of california. and we are responsible as a community for adhering to it. it actually has limited effect. one, low-rise residential is 3% of our total volume of housing unit production in san francisco. and, second, it's very rare for a new low-rise residential project -- very limited conflict in practice, if any. so essentially, yes, we're engagedded with the planning department and the ordinances do work together suitably. >> i'm kind of talking about the

smaller infill projects. the state versus the ten stories or more. i have a house with solar panels that's standard, two-story house. that's in a 60-foot zone district. >> yeah. >> and nothing beside you. if you have existing solar panels, the way the planning code is written right now, they have to be moved or relocated, they're going to be shadowed or work it out. it's a problem. >> i'm not aware of a policy that would limit the ability of the -- so if you're developing a building -- can i just make sure i understand the question. >> yep. >> let's say you have a 25-foot home, with solar on top of it. >> correct. yep. >> and then someone in the parringel directly to your south builds a 60-foot home and the solar will be shaded. >> correct. >> that could occur. i'm not aware of a provision in the planning code that would

give you any authority to object to the building -- construction of the taller structure to your south. you'd just be out of luck. so i'm not aware of a mitigation in the city policy. >> so like we kill one person who does it right, so somebody else can have it? >> if that happens in real life, it certainly could be shading of one project by another. >> no special restrictions that -- when you put to let your neighbors know that if you're going to build it up, it turns into -- i'm really curious why planning are not involved in that decision. i mean, that spreads right across the non-profits. that spreads -- anybody who is in the development game, that's another hurdle that you need to get your head around, you know. so, anyhow, you're saying planning never weighed in on that, right? >> when -- in 2017 when we were working toking on -- on the solr requirement, this is an efficiency requirement for mixed-fuel buildings only.

it wouldn't change the nature of the issue of shading. so we didn't have additional conversation about it. >> it's just a knock-on effect. i'm trying to understand what we're approving here and what it means to -- so i have taken up a lot of your time, commissioners. i don't know if you have any more questions. >> i don't have questions. are we here to vote on this today? this is a vote? yeah. okay. all right. >> i don't have questions per se. but, i mean, i feel like as someone who lives in a building that's purely electric to start, you know, it's where we need to go. and i really -- i think we all understand that that sometimes may mean -- i think in terms of, you know, restaurants are going to be upset because most cooks like gas. but, you know, those are not in here. >> what's the point? >> and, you know, it's -- there's a lot of old buildings

that are -- that do have gas. you know, as we tackle this issue of climate change, i personally am very proud that we're in san francisco and in california, which actually takes this stuff seriously. we actually believe science. and that it is really to our credit that we're doing these kind of steps. and i think it's really possible. i mean, i think that as we go forward, the issues of, you know, you described of one building being shaded by another, just begs the point that we're going to have to think sort of neighborhood wide around energy and solar storage and how we use things i think our city is thinking about that, as we grapple with the inefficiencies of our existing power delivery and use. this is a really good step of setting forward in new construction only these kind of

limits. and i would encourage the construction community, the industry itself, to really weigh in on these things. i mean, i -- i agree that there needs to be more outreach with people doing the work to make sure that everybody understands this. the construction industry is going to be a big participant in these kind of changes that will help us with climate change. and so, i mean, i want to be very supportive of this. i am. and i also will be supportive of anything that comes from the industry that will make it more affordable, efficient, and realistic. so i don't see anything in here that will do that. i mean, it means changing -- giving up gas. and i, you know, with all we're seeing around the issues around climate change and how it