>> clerk: this is the regular meeting of the building inspection commission. i would like to remind everyone to please mute yourself if you're not speaking. the first item on the agenda is roll call. [roll call] >> clerk: we have a quorum, and commissioner sommer, you can -- >> the building inspection commission acknowledges that we are on the unceded ancestral

homeland of the ramaytush ohlone, who are the original inhabitants of the san francisco peninsula. the ramaytush ohlone have never ceded, lost, nor forgotten their responsibilities as the caretakers of this place. as guests, we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their homeland. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestors, elders, and members of the ramaytush ohlone and their sovereign rights as first peoples. >> clerk: also, members of the public who are calling in, the listen public comment number is 415-655-0001. the meeting being assess code is 2498-548-8259. to enter public comment on a particular item, press star,

three when prompted by the meeting moderator. okay. and the next item is item 2, president's announcement. >> okay. good morning. can everybody hear me okay? >> clerk: yes. >> okay. please stop me if i should have some technical issues here, and i will reposition. good morning and welcome to the building inspection commission of december 15, 2021. i am president angus mccarthy, and i am joined by commissioners as well as interim commissioner patrick o'riordan. he's running late and will be here in about 30 minutes, and i'm joined by building inspection staff. i am also joined by board of

supervisors president shamann walton. [indiscernible] and on the potrero hill dogpatch merchants association. j.r.'s combination of unique business and community issues and commitment to equality will make him an excellent addition to this commission, and i look forward to working with him. please join everybody, commissioners, this is his first official b.i.c. meeting. we did have a closed session, but please join me in welcoming j.r. to the building inspection commission. coming up in our meeting, we will have an update on the soft story retrofit, which gas lines are embedded in the beam. it was quite a big hearing last time. thank you to the d.b.i. team

led by mr. jeff buckley, who did a great job on this issue and collaborated with pg&e. the report is concise and thorough, and they did a good job on the information, and we look forward on hearing that information shortly. finally, as we near the end of the year, i want to thank the staff of d.b.i. for their hard work in what was a very challenging year of this pandemic. at the beginning of 2021, the department was still closed and looking to innovative ways to issue more permits. now that the over-the-counter service is working well, the department offers electronic plan review for all in-house review projects. we've worked through the backlog, which was very important, and we've got a new executive team in place. so thank you to the team, and i

know that next year is going to be even better. thank you for participating in the virtual meeting today, and participate in the public process. social distance, wear your mask, and get your boosters. happy holidays to everyone out there. madam secretary, that is my comment. >> clerk: thank you, and commissioner eppler, do you have any comments? >> no. i just wanted to say thank you for the appointment and i look forward to working with each of you. >> clerk: are there any public comments? >> operator: there's no public comment. >> clerk: thank you. the next item is item 3, general public comment. the b.i.c. will take public comment on matters within the

commission's jurisdiction that are not part of this agenda. >> operator: there's one hand raised. >> clerk: [indiscernible] just a moment. >> operator: caller six, 415-641, you are unmuted. >> good morning, commissioners. my name is ross lee. i am an architect and 25-year resident of san francisco. i'm calling to address a general trend that seems to be moved to eliminate the administrative bulletins from -- as a portion of building code for the unique conditions in san francisco. this will not only render a lot of buildings in formance with

the code, but it makes a lot of future development virtually impossible because we have a lot of unique conditions here in san francisco. i'd ask the board not to remove the administrative bulletins without input from public process, architects, and public, and city officials. thank you. >> clerk: thank you, caller. are there any other callers? >> operator: there are none. >> clerk: thank you. and then, president mccarthy, you are going to request that items be called out of order? >> if i've got this right, madam secretary, what we wanted to do is take item 6, is that correct?

>> clerk: yes, that's correct. >> and move it to the next item, before item 4. if there's no objection, it's just a scheduling and people aren't available. if there's no objection, i would move that, and we will now hear item 6. any objections? okay. that's fine, madam clerk. call item 6. >> clerk: okay. all commissioners are in favor of calling item 6, so for the listening public, we are now on agenda item 6, discussion regarding 6, discussion regarding information sheet eg-02, emergenciscape and rescue openings to yard for existing or negate building of r-3 occupancies. >> good morning, commissioners.

i am neville herrera, the director of services at d.b.i., and i will be conducting this presentation. i apologize for scheduling priorities. i have a hard stop at 10:50, but my associate, michelle yu, will be here to answer any questions. if you remember the last meeting, eg-02 had been brought to light in that it had been rescinded from our [indiscernible], information sheet from d.b.i. for various reasons. the commission, particularly president mccarthy, asked that it be brought forward to this meeting with an explanation and

update. so eg-02 is an -- has to do with the -- essentially approving emergency rescue openings, which is -- i'll use the acronym eero several times in my presentation. it stands for emergency escape rescue openings. allowing eero on the back of our zero lot line buildings, and basically, without access -- direct access to the public way, which is what the code requires. so next slide. i don't want to get heavy into the code, and this is not a direct code from the code, but the california building code and the san francisco building

code requires that in addition to the means of egress that's required for singing-family dwellings -- and i want to reiterate that this only relates to single-family dwellings. it's not the rest of the occupancies that we deal with. emergency escape and rescue openings are to be provided for the following occupancies. it takes about only families, and it takes about one and two families, which we're going to talk about today, and it talks about residential care-type occupancies. so it says sleeping rooms below the fourth floor are to have no

fewer than within emergency escape and rescue openings. [indiscernible] and there's no other way of using other escapes in the building, so for sleeping rooms in particular to have these rescue-type openings to have a rescue opening. it needs to have access to the public way. so it's either open directly to the public way or to a yard or court that opens to the public way. and as we know, without existing building inventory, the majority of the homes have zero lot lines, and there is no direct passage way to the public way from the rear yard, so next slide.

so this information sheet relates to a significant portion of what comes through d.b.i. or permitting. it deals with vertical and horizontal additions. it deals with vert raremodels to existing spaces, maybe creating or remodelling a bedroom at the rear space of the building, and right now, of particular interest is accessory dwelling units andory accessory dwelling units, a.d.u. -- and accessory dwelling units, a.d.u.s and jadus. it modifies the requirements of the code in the following ways. it allows emergency egress, which is self-rescue of the building occupants into an area

of refuge in the backyard. the code allows this, however, the code allows the area of refuge to be a minimum of 50 feet away from the building. eg-02 modifies that requirement down to 25 feet to essentially accommodate building lot sizes in san francisco, which is typically about 25 to 100 -- it's 25 by 100 feet in lot size. and it also requires that when these types of permits are sought, that we file a piece of paper work that's known as a code modification. in san francisco, we call it a.b. 005, that says that we understand that we are approving this with the understanding that everybody in the future knows that that piece of -- that change was affected legitimately.

and i have a diagram here to show a typical development where there's an addition to the back of the house, and it shows from the back of the house to the lot line. it allows the occupants to hangout in the back while the fire is being mitigated or the hazard is being mitigated, and they can safely remain in an area away from the building. next slide, please. so what changed? eg-02 has been in effect for quite a while. at some point, the state fire marshal made the determination

that these emergency escape and rescue openings off of the back of a building or any emergency escape and rescue opening needed to be accessible to rescue personnel. so the fire department looked at that building clarification and realized that they themselves didn't have a way to get to the backyard to effectuate ladder rescue, which is the primary way of rescuing on the second and third floor, so they effectively couldn't get their ladders to the backyard to effectuate rescue out of these rescue openings. so they determined that eg-02 didn't adequately address their rescue needs and weren't able to support it any longer, and subsequently, that information sheet was rescinded. and what happened immediately,

building and fire understood what the ramifications were going to happen, and we immediately started discussions between ourselves to be kept -- to be able to replace it with something that works for both departments as well as for the public, as well. next slide. we have actually met several times already since october, and so the question is what now? what are we going to do? in the last building inspection commission meeting, and subsequent to the code advisory committee, where we had a discussion about the very same topic, we had consensus with the fire department that we can immediately reinstate eg-02 with a clarification that the project sponsor needs to

demonstrate that that opening somehow takes care of the cape and rescue portion. so if it's on the second floor, that they need to provide some sort of means to safely allow egress from or fire department access for rescue. a code modification request in a.b. 005 will still be required for modified eeros on the buildings that don't have direct access to the public way. this is effect differently the -- this is effectively the way to [indiscernible] however, when there are exceptions, we need to view this in unison, so when it comes to these

exceptions, the fire department will need to concur on the applications for code modification. and then, so after -- you know, during the period of immediate reinstatement, we will continue our discussions to find prescriptive ways to find modifications to certain buildings, and we will be working with the design community and whoever wanted to get involved to establish these guidelines going forward on a permanent basis. next slide. so one of the options is to have a dedicated 3 foot wide straight and protected passage way from the home directly to

the right-of-way. this could be problematic because 3 feet out of a 25-foot-wide lot is a lot of space to dedicate to a space that may never be used in a building's life. and also, we understand that this space potentially could be used for storage and may get cluttered to a point that when it is actually necessary to use it, it becomes essentially unuseable and will delay the fire department in getting back, even though the path is dedicated. in our discussions, it is necessary to have a passage way to accommodate a 25-foot ladder from the public right-of-way all the way to the backyard, so it's not something we can jog through the building. next slide. the other thing is to have a dedicated vertical access to

the area or a flat roof area where the occupants could either be extricated and, like, i said, hangout in the backyard or, if there was a flat roof, perhaps climb up on that roof and wait to be picked off by the fire department at the public way. to through this presentation, there's been various images presented to you, examples of how this could look on a design standpoint. on this particular slide, it shows a roof deck, which could be a different way of, you know, familiarityizing the occupants with the except -- familiarizing the occupants with the exception.

as much as you could introduce the occupants of the building to the rescue mode on a regular basis, for example, if you provide a stairway down from a deck on the yard, this could be their regular way of living and recreating, as opposed to, say, a bolt-on ladder, which they would never use unless they had to. so in this case, maybe it would be the first time they've ever used it, and maybe they have small kids or adults that have never used it, and therefore, a sense of panic and fear sets in. so we want to come up with something that's useable. the other thing that's being proposed is to have a flush bolt-on ladder to the rear of the building. however, fire rescue personnel aren't able to scale these

flush ladders because of their turnout gear, their large boots and so forth. so they're not necessarily able to get up on the window, let alone have somebody on their shoulder to make it down to the ground. so these are some of the things that we're discussing on an active basis, and that discussion is on going. and with that, president mccarthy, that ends my presentation. >> thank you, deputy director. what i'd like to do, madam secretary, if we can get our screen back, is maybe just open it up for public comment and then come back to my commissioners and see if there's any public comment on this. >> clerk: yes, president mccarthy, the call-in for public comment on this agenda item number 6, we've actually

received an e-mail, so i'll read up to the two minutes for this one public comment. and this is from georgia schiutish. it says, this is a very important issue. i became aware of this in a real-world experience with a project across the street from the 463 [indiscernible] street. this project is an expansion of a 1927 marina style house by adding a unit below the existing garage. to do this required a full lot 12-foot-deep excavation. during d.b.i.s review, it was discovered that two of the three bedrooms did not have legal egress. the architect changed their designation to nonsleeping rooms. the rear yard was reduced to near the 25% line and became a

cement patio and was below grade. the first was an internal stair into the garage area, but that didn't fly. the second was light wells into each of the bedrooms and then a deck to the upper unit. this seems very minimal and dangerous. as i've said at the hearing today, i don't think anyone would really want their children or elders sleeping in such a room. i use this example because it is an example being used right now, and make projects like this are considered d.b.i.s responsibility. this requirement will have an impact on the following excavations, light wells, rear

yards. this does not take into effect the matters discussed by d.b.i. commissioners today as pressing and closing, and that is the end of that comment. so is there any additional public comment on item 6? >> operator: there are two hands raised. >> clerk: okay. just one moment. >> operator: caller 5, 415-999, you are unmuted. >> hello. this is jeremy [indiscernible] calling. i would like to suggest this is

a problem that's being created by the agency involved, that there is no epidemiological basis. there has been no sudden uptick in death or injury to firefighters or residents. what san francisco needs to do is protect its housing resources and protect our opportunities to create more housing resources, and to continue the type of pattern that has proved safe, to provide safe housing for so many decades is important for us to be able to do so. otherwise, the sprawl into the surrounding agricultural regions is going to continue, and san francisco will lose the urban aspects that we so love. so i would suggest that we need

to staunchly defend these bulletins and staunchly defend like the previous commenter was stating, that many thousands of hours of very smart people have put lots of time, lots of effort, and lots of money into developing solutions for how we can live in a fully developed environment, and that's what these documents reflect, and for us to allow them to be tossed aside for, what seems to me, for my perspective, for little more than whim, is a nonstarter, and we should push back against it. thank you very much for your attention, and i appreciate all the work that you guys do. >> thank you, mr. paul. next caller, please.

>> operator: caller 5, 415-641, you are unmuted. >> hello, commissioners. ross leavy again, architect and resident. i just want to agree with the comments made by the previous caller, that we have extremely unique conditions here in the city of san francisco. we appreciate the unique conditions that deputy director herrera explained. we certainly don't want to compromise life safety, and at the same time, we want to encourage the urban development that san francisco is known for and is required to produce housing in accord with the state mandates and the new rules and regs and s.b. 9 and 10. so we would encourage a

continued public conversation of these administrative bulletins in the interest of the general public, in the interest of the creation of public housing here, and in the interest of life safety here. once again, breesh deputy deputy -- appreciate deputy director herrera's willingness to have a conversation to modify these existing rules and regulations. thank you. >> operator: there is one more caller. >> thank you. caller? >> operator: caller l.w.? >> yeah. good morning, commission. this is len wisebach. i think russ leavy was using

far too much tact. i think this has caused an incredibly calamitous situation for project planners because they're deeming that any work is going to trigger the requirement for this access. i think the suspension should be immediately revoked, and that while other viable solutions to try to increase fire and life safety, to try to come up with some alignment with the state code needs to happen so that permitting can continue, is going to affect all ends of the economic engine that san francisco architects, project sponsors, engineers --

i think this is going to exacerbate the homeless problem, and with the winter, it is just a horrible situation, and we're just putting more and more costs and more and more restrictions on building housing in san francisco, and it's absolutely the wrong way to go. i think the process was really unfortunate. i think public should have been included in any discussions about this. building commission should have been included in discussions with this, and this was made unilaterally with very little warning is not in the interest of the citizens of san francisco. i'm working with the mayor's office, and we're going to try to have this rescinded as soon as possible so that things can move forward in an orderly time. thank you for your time. >> thank you, caller. can i please have your name one more time for the record,

please? >> my name is lev wisebach. >> can you please it, please? >> certainly, angus. my name is l-e-v, and my name is w-e-i-s-b-a-c-h. >> thank you. >> operator: there's another caller. >> clerk: are you unmuting the caller? >> hello? hello? >> clerk: hello, yes, we can hear you, caller. >> hi. my name is heidi leivas. i'm an architect in san francisco, and yes, revoking

eg-02 affects almost all of my projects, and i understand the safety issues and that kind of thing, and i guess, yeah, my question is have there been, you know, issues with existing and safety and that kind of thing because i haven't heard anything like that, you know, like, why -- what has implemented this revoking? but my second thing is with the e-mail from the first person, i think a lot of homeowners will just call those rear bedrooms offices, and then, we will have a problem. you're putting us in it a really, really difficult position. i have a lot of historic projects with bedrooms not in the front, and it would be difficult to find a way out

without battling historic preservation. i'm glad there's public comment, and yeah, thank you, and please listen to the local architect here. thank you. >> thank you. >> operator: there's one more caller. caller s.q., you are unmuted. >> this is [indiscernible] architect in san francisco, and actually, the previous commenter raised a lot of the issues i was going to raise. it's starting to encourage single-family homeowners to misinterpret what they're using their homes as, starting to call bedrooms dens. if you're doing a small remodel and not making a change or increasing the intensification of the bedroom access to the backyard, this is encouraging a misrepresentation of how people are using their homes, and this is not making things safer. it's actually making things a

lot worse, and i think there's a huge percentage of homes that are immediately affected by this crisis. looking at the housing crisis in san francisco, looking at upsloping lots and down sloping lots, i think there's a disconnect of trying to connect front to back on these properties, and i think the comment that you've heard today is just the tip of the iceberg on what you're going to have on single-family properties and even two-family properties, yeah, so thank you very much. >> thank you for your comments. next caller, please. >> operator: there's no further commenters. >> close public comment. what i'm going to do is i'm going to close it out, but i'll go to vice president tam, please, if he wants to weigh-in on this. >> thank you, vice president

mccarthy. i do echo some of the commenters that san francisco does have a unique architectural landscape, but d.b.i.s main priority is to save life. i'm curious what my colleagues think, and also, the representatives from the san francisco fire department that are here today, as well, so thank you. >> thank you. and commissioner alexander-tut? >> oh, yes, absolutely. thank you. are we able to hear from the fire department because i -- >> okay. absolutely, no problem. yeah, okay, maybe that's the correct order here. is somebody from the fire department here? i don't believe so. >> yes. >> okay. so is this marshal? is this the fire marshal?

>> this is assistant fire marshal rich brown. >> oh, sorry, rich. i did not know you were on the line. i was going to call for fire marshal coughlin. if it's okay with the fire marshal, i can give a little background and a little explanation on what transpired in the last couple months. >> okay. my apologies to my fellow commissioners. i did not realize the fire marshal was also on the line. they were going to come on on another hearing, so i'll backtrack and come back to your comments, commissioner alexander-tut, is that okay? >> yes, please. >> okay. >> thank you, commissioners, for the opportunity to speak on this. yes, we're an important stakeholder on this info sheet

back in 2013, when it first -- i believe the code, you know, 2010, maybe, when this emergency escape and rescue opening came into the code. again, we all know it was a very challenging code, and it continues to be a very challenging code section to design around, especially with our zero lot lines and most of our housing stock. so again, back in 2013, this was an agreement between the previous fire marshal and a previous d.b.i. director. fast forward a few years, some other agency requested a code interpretation at the state level, the state fire marshal level -- basically, let me read it right here. the question was, are the emergency escape and rescue openings in r occupancies required to be made available

to the fire department using ladders? the response from the state was yes. so how do we -- yeah, i can read your mind a little bit there, president mccarthy, very difficult in san francisco. when some of our plan checkers started noticing some designs that were not meeting our fire department access requirements based here in san francisco, and that's the only reason why we look at these r-3 either brand-new buildings or additions, is for fire department access and, of course, do you have enough water for this addition, and water -- we call it fire flow or water flow out of the hydrants.

>> clerk: president mccarthy, there's another caller with the

hand raised. >> i'm going to come back to the fire marshal. let me reopen public comment, and then we will do that again and then close it again and come back, and then, i will go around to my fellow commissioners. is that okay, madam secretary? did i lose you? >> clerk: yes, that's fine. thank you. >> operator: carrie bernstein? >> so i'm sorry i was late. i was on a previous zoom meeting before this. i'm an owner and live in a two-unit building where the other unit is entirely in the back. there is no front option for egress. everything complies with light and air, and i have a direct stair down to the backyard.

this basically would say that my unit has no bedroom. it is no longer an apartment if i were to modify or do other things to trigger this. it has removed a legal unit from the housing supply because there is no front option. the front portion is behind the hill. there's nothing wrong with the unit, and the property has a 15-foot easement -- fire department easement in the back. the whole mid block has this open space, this easement. how is this even going to possibly be the case because it's literally going to remove housing stock, especially from the supply. >> clerk: is that the end of your comment, caller? >> thank you. >> clerk: okay.

thank you very much. >> so, madam secretary, if there's no more public comment, i will close public comment. is there more public comment? >> operator: there are no more hands raised. >> okay. public comment is closed. back to -- does the fire marshal want to weigh-in or does he want to wait for commissioner's comments and then weigh-in? >> i'd like to weigh-in. department fire marshal rich brown. we are made aware of the interpretation. i think some of the examples that deputy director pereira put out there are good, and we are open for alternatives. stair out the back, fire escapes, access openings, things like that, i think we

should be -- we're open to it, and by reinitiating the bulletin by this point is putting it back on the architect to go ahead and design egress. you need to get to the people, like you said, in the back of the building and find out -- a single story in the backyard is not an issue. you can climb out the back window, you're four or 5 feet off the ground. love to hear from the commission or fire marshal brown. i'll be available for your questions. >> thank you. thank you very much. so wanted to go back to vice president tam. did you want to weigh back in again because you wanted to hear from the fire? >> no, thank you, president mccarthy.

it's good to hear that the fire department is open to a meeting of the minds and accommodate our architectural landscape. appreciate that. >> commissioner tut, please? >> yeah, so i think i'm confused about the policy, so i want to some ask questions. as a member of the commission, i've lived in many, many units with zero lot lines, and this is -- that is normal housing in san francisco, with two or three units stacked on top. so what is the current practice if there's a fire in the building with 25 or 50 foot egress and you still can't get

there, like, because of the lot line? what is the current practice for getting a ladder back there? i've only seen them go to a neighbor's roof, but i guess, like, what is the problem because is it seems to be, like, how most housing is in san francisco currently, so i think i'm a little bit confused about kind of what the definition -- kind of what is the current practice with the housing we have -- what is the current practice, and what is the problem that we're trying to solve? i have other questions, but i want to understand, on a deeper level, with real housing, what does the fire department do when there's that situation? >> yeah, appreciate the question. so we have old housing in san francisco. fire department has been around from that time, as well.

we have very skilled first responders that show up. they know what to do. we call them existing nonconforming in the code world. they were built before the code came into existence. these codes and any new projects, it's very difficult for designers to bring existing buildings and design it to today's code because most of the codes were written for brand-new structures. it's very difficult. i've been here a long time, and i've seen a lot of equivalencies. this info sheet lays out an acceptable equivalency when an

r-3 is a single-family addition that we'd allow an escape to an area of refuge in the backyard. we are in discussions with our fire department training facility about, you know, creative ways to rescue -- usually, to your question, if there is a fire and emergency, we do what's necessary at that moment. so again, codes evolve over time because of some event that was unfortunate, and that's why we're here today. >> yeah. the caller that was concerned

about her unit being illegal, we're not concerned with that, we're not concerned about what is now or what's coming if it was approved prior, is that correct? >> that is correct, yes. >> okay. great. thank you. and then, i would like to see the tenant community engaged in these discussions. i am very sensitive both to the architect comments but also the rest of the comments about people labelling things as

nonbedrooms. the people who will live in these are ultimately the stakeholders that we also really care about. that's all i have. i'd like to hear from my fellow commissioners. thank you. >> thank you, commissioner tut. can i have commissioner bito,

please. >> can you hear me? i thank you for the presentation about eg-02. i think that was a really good presentation. i also want to disclose to my fellow commissioners that i communicated with -- as part of the [indiscernible] at the time that this was brought to my attention, this was a single-family residence [indiscernible] at the moment, so i wanted to learn more about the issues around it, but the [indiscernible] deputy director pereira, and the feedback, this was also brought by [indiscernible] mission. and secondly, i felt as the person sitting in the architect seat and as the architect -- and i have had to deal with these variances, but the

concerns of the fire department's operation is just as important as the concerns of the architect, so being sensitive to the concerns of the operations of their firefighters is something that we have to bear in mind and keep in mind as part of these compromises but also our collaboration, so i am very sensitive to that. so that being said, i had a couple of questions for deputy director pereira. along with the comments from mr. weisbach, i think the fire department already clarified that existing nonconforming uses is exactly that. they're not illegal, they're just existing nonconforming. the other concern that i

have -- and i think that the presentation that deputy director pereira provided were examples of creative ways that you can provide access by a deck and a stair so they serve double duty. it's not just a fire access, but there's some recreational use out of it. but i also wanted to express my concerns that the modifications that are being proposed for this, that there's some consistency in how the building deputy renders an approval for the applicant and the architect. the images that we saw were very specific examples. in many cases, when a homeowner is looking at -- not all

homeowners have the luxury that will extra touches. a deck may cutoff some light to the lower level of their home that they may not want to include; and i believe in one of the slides, it was talked about having a much more streamlined process of approval. but having some minimum requirements that the building department and the fire department will have, that they will accept. if you don't have a deck, we'll accept a certain size deck with a stair that's leading down to an area of refuge in the

backyard, so it's creative solutions like that with the building department and the fire department being acceptable, but i think it's coming to the city with an alternate means or alternate amendment to the code.

if deputy director pereira could clarify, for the time being, would could an applicant do to propose a modification to a variant? what exactly is that? >> okay. now i believe, commissioner, deputy director pereira is not with us, is that correct? >> clerk: that's correct, but michelle yu is speaking on his behalf. >> so michelle, could you weigh-in? i believe there's about three

questions there, so michelle, could you weigh? >> yes, hi. good morning, commissioners. i'm going to try to address each of commissioner bito's questions as best i can. so the first question about the consensus overall regarding a prescriptive method, the fire department and d.b.i. have gotten together to think of different solutions, different possible design alternatives, and we will continue, and we are continuing that discussion to ensure that also, and also that the design can't be met concurrently. so we hope to work together and update you all as well as the c.a.c. on our developments.

secondly, with the a.b. 05, initially, with the eg-02, it is required that you submit a local equivalency, and that is required because the eg-02 was not conforming with the california building code, and it's how we in san francisco acknowledge our geographic constraints, and therefore, on a project by project, we are reviewing this and accepting those constraints, and that has been agreed upon by the fire department and us in the

development of the previous eg-002, so hope that -- and going further, we will continue -- sorry. going further, we will continue with any modifications that we have because it will not be conforming to the california building code, so none of that process will be changing. i don't quite remember the third question, sorry. i think it might have answered the third question, as well, but commissioner bito, please, if you can remind me of your third question, i would be happy to provide more clarification. >> i think you answered as a follow up on this prescriptive -- the accepted

prescriptive proposals that architects could make. the question to you and perhaps to the deputy director, this commission has engaged with the a.i.a., is that something that they had in mind to basically get feedback because architects are a creative bunch of people with feedback. these are things that you can

rely on and be approvable. when things are open-ended, then, it becomes an expensive process, and not just in money but in time, so i'd like to pose that question to deputy or director o'riordan. >> thank you for the good question, commissioner bito, and obviously, we appreciate the feedback of the architectural community, and we will be reaching out to the b.i.a. and others for stakeholder engagement to update the eg-02 information sheets, and we're happy to do that, and i think it's the right thing to do. >> thank you. i don't -- president mccarthy, i don't have any further comments on that.

>> thank you. thank you, commissioner bito. commissioner eppler, please. >> thank you, president mccarthy. first, i have a question for ms. yu. correct me if i am wrong, but i understand there could be an internal remodel that would trigger the need for the policy, and could be give us an example -- could you give us an example of what would trigger the compliance and what would not trigger the compliance? >> thank you, commissioner. i want to be as specific as possible because we see so many projects coming through d.b.i., and as commissioner bito stated, architects are very

creative. i just wanted to state that the code states you have this bedroom that needs to lead to the right-of-way and to the backyard, as well, or self-rescue. so that constrains in our majority of lot line -- or if you were to comply with the code, the bedrooms would face the public way. basically, the street. so if you can achieve that, then, you meet the code requirement, correct? so the reason why you may not or the design may not meet the code is if the interior remodel

proposes bedrooms to face the rear of the building, and where the rear of the building doesn't have any side setbacks, that person can go to the right-of-way. if you're reconfiguring the lay out of the floor plan such that, you know, the sleeping bedrooms are facing the rear, then you would fall into the category of potentially requiring this local equivalency of using the rear yard as a means to escape an area to be rescued? but if your design project of reconfiguring your space has the bedrooms facing the public -- the street, which there are many projects that that is the case, as well, then, you don't trigger the

need for this local equivalency. did that answer your question? >> almost. let me get at it this way. let's say i have an interior remodel, little bit of structural because it's 1909. would this remodel then trigger the change? >> no, and we are pretty consistent and -- with the fire department, as well, in that definition of existing nonconforming. so with that configuration, we do need to provide the architect or the design professional will be required to show the existing floor plans, and for existing floor plans where that is already the case where the rear bedroom is facing the rear yard. it does not trigger them the

need to reassess that, so that would not be the case. we're just talking about where the reconfiguration of the lay out where the bedrooms are facing the rear or a new design where the bedrooms are facing the rear. >> thank you for those clarifications because my concerns i think have been expressed pretty well by the other commissioners, but i want to make sure that the hurdles that we're putting into place actually address an existing safety problems, and we have so many existing nonconforming units in the city, and unfortunately, due to age and upkeep and other matters, they tend to be the ones, at least in my anecdotal recollection of the news, they end up needing fire department supports, particularly those that are more dense and have a lot of different units to it, so, you know, we're not materially

increasing safety across a large number of the residential units within the city with this policy, and we're creating another level of, it seems like lack of safety for creating the incentive for creators to rely on that incentive. i hope that what we come up with is actually improving in public safety so that that additional safety gets carried on for your time. that's the extent of my comments at this time. thank you. >> thank you, commissioner. commissioner moss, please? >> hi, thank you. so i have a question about a.d.u.s.

mission housing owns a lot of old housing stock, and they have a lot of only rear facing bedrooms with small housing with the addition of a.d.u.s. as i'm sure you're aware, the upcoming housing requirement requires that san francisco is zoned for 85,000 new units of housing over the next five years, and the mayor as will -- as well as the board of supervisors said that zoning is one way we're going to reach those 85,000 units. so is there any survey being performed of potential lots that could negatively be affected? i know you're just in the initial stages, but i do think we should be conscious of the fact that one arm is saying, we're going to use a.d.u.s, especially in single-family

homes, to add thousands and thousands of new units, where if we're on this side, kind of making it a little bit harder to do that, so i guess i'm just wondering if you can comment on that -- anyone from the fire department. >> yes, thank you, commissioner moss, for your concerns. very aware of the challenges for a.d.u.s. [indiscernible]. >> we see many, many submittals a week, and when we first started seeing these when the proposals were passed, 2015, 2016, the fire department and d.b.i. came together back then, and they have a different information sheet that's published on d.b.i.s websites

that calls out specific needs for a.d.u. information. again, that's a different call-out sheet that addresses our concerns for the eero, so you can look at that, and i think we have solid ground, and all designers are using that info sheet eg-05, eg-05. so i think we're going to keep on that same path. i don't see us changing that at the moment. >> okay. yeah. no more further question requests. thank you. >> okay. thank you, commissioner moss. can i have commissioner sommer, please. >> hi. thank you for this discussion. it was really helpful, and i just wanted to note, as a design professional who also works through design provisions

for very infrequent events, i understand the fire department's concerns. obviously, safe is huge, you know, but i live in one of these conditions, as well. i certainly, you know, want to be able to exit or have help when needed. to me, the thing that i'm hearing, public comment, from other commissioners, is one comment by which this occurred -- and thank you, everyone, for the background earlier when this was created, how this was creates, so it's been in effect not for a very long time, since 2013, and then, sort of rescinded, from what sounded to me, like, kind of quite suddenly. i know we're working through the discussions of an

acceptable way to find some common ground that sort of works for everyone. one of the public comment mentioned that the public should, could really be involved in that discussion. i'm not sure exactly the discussion for how that -- an ordinance, a bulletin like this is, you know, rescinded, per se, and i understand that the fire marshal has that authority and, you know, should have that authority. i'm just wondering if there could have been or would have been some reparations to that process to make it -- to gain some buy in from the community -- different users from the community and also prepare people for a change. i know every few years, we go

through a process, and codes are enacted and policies need to change. that's regarding safety, and i think we all accept that and take those steps incrementally together. i think what i'm hearing is there was sort of a process in place, and then it was gone all of a sudden, so i think to me, that sounds like one of the harder pieces to swallow here. so i know we're on a trajectory, but i don't know that i have anything more to add on that front, but that's sort of my thoughts on this discussion. i'll pass it back to you, president mccarthy. >> thank you to you, miss sommer. and i'll thank you, department pereira and michelle yu, and thank you to the deputy fire

marshal, rich brown. >> president -- i thought you were [indiscernible]. >> no, i'm not finished. i'll swing back, commissioner bito. so, look, i've been doing this long enough to know you never shoot the piano players particularly in situations like this when it comes to our code, and particularly to the fire department, but, you know, what we have is this one size fits all that we seem to suffer from, particularly at the state level where other municipalities are at, and then, we rescind that decision, and you can even see by mr. brown's reaction, we're just not that city, and i think we're very unique, and we've always met that argument, and i do believe before we had a -- and i don't know, mr. brown, if

you were here then, where we had another discussion around fire decks, and everything which was very -- and i know that was a very contentious one, too. i think that the comments from the architectural community was very strong, because when they show up like this and talk in those terms, i think they're not trying to [indiscernible] and i am concerned, and i am getting phone calls from people who are caught in this decision process right now because the plan checking are -- their hands are tied a little bit here, so i am kind of worried

about that, and i think we don't have a lot of time here because [indiscernible] are not moving through the system efficiently because this is up in the air. and, you know, to mr. paul's comments, why not defend the bulletin? we have in the past, and kind of a question more to the marshal on that, because as i look at the options here, and i want to thank the roof deck as an option, i'm sorry, it's really hard to get a roof deck through planning approval in this town right now. as a matter of fact, planning don't want a roof deck as an option. a side yard, a 25-foot is small enough, and now, we've got to

give 3 feet off the side. i don't think that's an option. and i even said it to director o'riordan, what about this flush ladder? it's an option that i could see, and i'm just seeing that this is an option that the fire department doesn't like. but this is an option for the kind of housing that sour see produces, and i think because of the nature of our city, we have to defend our bull engines there, and sometimes, we can't comply with the state because of who we are, and i want to just see what other option do we have to -- what are our solutions if we can't come to a workable solution here? i don't think that can be answered today, but i think -- i'd be very interested in scene of the accident steps, when

you'll be expected to come back here, when it can be resolved? i know there's a dearth of projects that need to be solved. but i know that there is a problem between staff and the fire department, and we need to work on this. i'll turn it back over to commissioner bito, and then, if anyone wants to weigh-in, commissioner or staff, but commissioner bito. >> apologies, president mccarthy, but one of the things that came out of this discussion is that creative solutions came out of these collaborative discussions, creative solutions or alternate equivalencies is that they meet life safety, that any one of those wouldn't be accepted -- wouldn't be included or

accepted unless the fire department and d.b.i. reach concurrency on them, so it was based on that basic premise. the only other question that you brought -- the only other situation you broached, president mccarthy, is if you had the option on the three-foot set back, which is a very big if, there has to be a certain or a minimum or a height limit that it only sneeds to be clear up to the first story. so if you -- it would allow the flexibility of -- of the designer or the applicant or homeowner to cantilever over that yards. so if you're wanting to meet

the egress, a certain height, it could canti lever all the way up to the sky. those were my comments. >> i'd like to say just a few words about what this is, and i apologize for missing the beginning of the meeting. i was in a department heads meeting. so there are two elements to this, and this is state code, escape and rescue. so escape is not the rescue here because people will still have the required dimensions of

the escape and rescue from the new bedroom at the rear. the issue is, as assistant fire department brown can weigh-in, is the rescue. so that is the ability of the require department to get access to the areas with new sleeping rooms above the first floor area. any design that would come to us and be looked at by us or the fire department would have a cantilever of the floors above the rear floors would be acceptable to me, but i also understand that given the geographic considerations of san francisco, we have all of these zero lot line buildings, that if somebody adds a new sleeping room at the rear of the residence, that becomes an

immediate issue. and i think commissioner eppler mentioned interior remodels, and i'd like to weigh-in a little bit on that. so existing is nonconforming and would not be impacted. the only way i could see that would be a concern is if it was a rear model was if it were to be converted to a sleeping room. let's say you had an office at the rear of the building and you wanted to convert that to a sleeping room, then, you would have to have this conversation. of course, we're going to work collaboratively with the fire department and come up with what would be acceptable based

on san francisco's specific geographic conditions with all of these zero lot line buildings, and we would be engaging with the stakeholders, and this is something that would be fleshed out completely, and our design professionals will be given direction on what will be acceptable for approval. >> any ideas as to when you think this would come back to us here because this today is just informational. >> well, as you know, president mccarthy, we've reinstated eg-02, and we're working on a 90-day timeline for closure surrounding this requirement. >> okay. require, do you want to weigh-in? are we going? i think we're good, president

mccarthy. i've taken this all in, and i understand the seriousness and the challenges of it for the homeowners, designers, and contractors. we're responsible for all walks of life in the city, tenants, landlords, and first responders. there's a lot to this, there's a lot we have to take in when we plan review and apply the codes. i'm confident we'll come up with a solution and move forward in an amicable way. we're okay. >> mr. brown, can you give us your feeling on the flush ladder? >> so the flush ladder has been allowed in some cases. one of the main concerns is the maintenance of said ladder, how it's fastened to the structure.

is it bolted? is it screwed? ten years go by, and we've seen this with other members -- other structural members attached to the building. what is the length of the ladder or weight wise? i'm a large man, and when i put on all my gear, will it hold me? and when i rescue someone, that's added weight. so we're putting all of those things on the table. i want to add to my answer to commissioner moss, eg-05, that is strictly for three-unit or more buildings, three units or more. thank you. >> thank you. as always, informative, mr.

brown, and maybe, there could be a certification, which we have to do with our life and safety. and thank you for all of your work, and as i said, i know you're reacting to a decision that was made somewhere else. >> president mccarthy, something else, if i may. kathy harold will be taking over my duties, so please welcome her here as the senior fire department supervisor. >> thank you, mr. brown. will you be retiring? >> let's just say by the end of the year. >> i hope i would get to say good-bye. >> it would be it. >> thank you for all of your

service. >> no problem. thanks for working together. i've been here 12 years, and it's been a great experience. i love working with all of my counterparts at the city. >> so president mccarthy, if i might weigh-in and say what a privilege it's been to work with rich over the years. we discussed anything and everything as it had to do with code as it might affect our customers. the affect he's shown has been incredible, and i wish him all the best in his retirement, and maybe we can talk him out of it. >> i don't think we've seen the last of mr. brown. i don't think so. thank you, rich. thank you, fire marshal, too.

>> thank you. >> okay. now, madam secretary, we did public comment. you want me to make another adjustment, if that's the way i understand it? >> clerk: yes. if possible, regarding item 7, if we could possibly hear that item because we have representatives from pg&e here. >> okay. okay. let's do that. we're going there now? >> clerk: yes, if our commissioners are in favor of going to agenda item 7. so read that? okay. so agenda item 7 is update and discussion on the department's oversight and safety of construction conducted under the mandatory soft-sory --

soft-story retrofit program. >> thank you. and i believe that mr. buckley is make the presentation? >> yes. i'm jeff buckley, and i'm with the department of building inspection, here to present on the report that you should have received already. it was originally heard by the board of supervisors in june where they expressed concerns over gas lines running through beams and structures in the retrofit program. i'm here to present the methodology of our investigative work, our efforts, and the next steps needed to complete the work. so sonia, if i could have the ability to share my screen? >> clerk: it should be coming.

>> operator: there you are. sorry. >> great. thanks, monique. thanks, sonia. so hopefully you can see it all. >> clerk: yes, we can see it clear. >> great. as you can see from this slide, we began with 4,942 projects, which is the entirety of the mandatory soft-story retrofit program, and through the course of our review, we were able to review all of those properties. i'm just going to stop here for a second because i know you're probably focused on the bottom number, which is 75, and i will walk you through -- the purpose of this presentation is kind of

walk you through each step how we got to this number of 75, and then talk about what the next steps will be around it. so after the hearing, i just want to point out that we formed an investigative review team with various divisions in the department, and the group developed the identity to determine where gas lines were running through the beams and any coordinating elements, and then representatives from pg&e will be here to answer any of your questions. we needed that coordination on issues that were really under their jurisdiction. and just as a reminder, their jurisdiction is the gas lines that run through the street to the meter. and so their cooperation was essential to making us be able

to come up with the findings that you've hopefully read in this report and that i will be discussing with you. in addition to that, this group worked with technical services and plan review services to develop an information sheet to provide guidance for design professionals for both current as well as future soft story retrofit programs -- excuse me, retrofits that encouraged or encountered this position. that is included in appendix a, which is at the back of the report that we produced for you. so just very briefly, a little bit about some of our principles because i think our principles are key here. when in doubt, we always erred on the side of caution in safety. so if we could not concluesively rule a property out, we'd keep that in.

in addition to collaborating with pg&e to investigate the issue, it was apparent that pg&e had information that was crucial to coming up with the findings in the report, and then, we also had access to information that pg&e did not have access to, so i think the combination allowed us to achieve the results. in addition, it's very important to ensure is our methods and results. prior to publishing, we doubled back with representatives from

ceonc to provide our findings and get feedback on the conclusions and the next steps, so that work was crucial to being able to advance this effort. what we did, after reviewing all of the projects, we reviewed all the existing projects, we were able to remove about 30% of properties from our investigation, and so we retained 3,497 properties at this point in our

investigation. at that point, we talked about pg&e and engaged with them, and really, we cross-referenced the addresses that we had as well as to determine if pg&e records showed that these gas lines were cased or replaced with newer gas lines and that's upgraded to better withstand earth movement. as a result of that reduction, we were able to -- excuse me. as a result of that review, we were able to reduce the total of 520 addresses.

so then, we focused on the addresses that pg&e records showed had not been upgraded yet, and which our inspection codes indicated have had a gray beam or concrete pour at the address. so we conducted a manual review and checked to see if new grade beams were added in the front or rear of the property and whether there was any possibility that the new beam and the gas line intersected using google earth and paper vision. if it was at all possible they would intersect, we confirmed the locations whether they crossed with a grade beam, and

we were able to further reduce that to 246 addresses. and so our next steps after this is both pg&e as well as d.b.i. conducted in-person site inspections for all of the remaining 246 properties to determine if some were in fact cased, and they were able to conclude 118 properties had not been cased. and d.b.i. conducted, as i mentioned, our own site inspections of 246 properties to determine whether the gas lines intersected or ran through or were near real to where the new lines were affected. so d.b.i. determined that 70

could have the possibility of a gas line running through a foundational element. so 75 properties could not be ruled out at this point in the investigation, so they remained, you know, as part of the focus. so our next steps is that the 75 properties that may have gas lines running through a grade beam at this point, i do want to point out that the 75 remaining properties have had inspections, special inspections and other records that show that these soft story retrofits performed according to code, that those properties have been protected according to code, but to protect those properties and out of an abundance of caution, pg&e has agreed to upgrade the service

lines at those addresses, and they agreed to do that by the end of 2022, but that is dependent on city cooperation to meet that schedule. and you have before you a draft report, so i'm interested in getting your feedback on that report. after this meeting, staff will finalize that report and transmit that report to you as well as to the board of supervisors, and we will do that by the end of the year. pg&e and d.b.i. will collaborate on a letter to any property owners regarding any project activity, and we'll work with public works to obtain any permits. if you have any questions, we

have building staff, and staff from pg&e. with that, i'm going to stop sharing my screen and happy to answer any questions you have or direct them to the appropriate staff. >> thank you, mr. buckley, and thank you for that presentation. if i may first, i'd like to go to public comment, if that's okay with my fellow commissioners, and then, we can circle back and we can close out next steps. madam secretary, can we go to public comment, please? >> clerk: is there any public comment on agenda item 7?

>> operator: no, there's no hands raised. >> clerk: okay. okay. thank you. >> okay. that amazes me. okay. so vice chair tam, please. >> thank you, president mccarthy, and thank you, jeff, for the work, as well as pg&e on the collaboration. i know we talked about this before, but to go from that 5,000 number or 4,942 number to 75, it's significant. when do you think the work will be finished? >> i will say the work is expected to be completed by the end of 2022, but if you want to

hear from pg&e, they can tell you about some of the aspects of city cooperation that's necessary to be able to meet that deadline. >> thank you. that would be great, if pg&e can chime in, just so, you know -- is there a representative from pg&e? >> sure. president mccarthy, can you guys hear me? >> [indiscernible]. >> thank you, president mccarthy, and thank you for letting me joining this day. 75 service replacements isn't anything other than normal than what we would say in san francisco -- would see in san francisco, but it's having to do with a couple of things. if we have to replace the meter

and house line extension, if we can get some help from building inspection so the city is not necessarily in a bottle neck. and then, the other piece was with the department of public works when it comes to encroachment permits. if we're going to replace the service -- typically, if we're going to replace it and there's no encroachment, you're usually talking about one hole and the main and the tee. we're asking for a little bit of cooperation so we can get those 75 done by the end of next year. >> thank you for that. and then, just one more thing. i know with the 75, you know,

remaining properties, the owners or the occupants there, i'm sure they're aware of this -- how has the cooperation been in terms of getting this rectified? >> it's been mixed, you know. some tenants like them, and some don't, and some of them are good about providing access, and some of them don't, and we saw this when conducting our fielding, so it's no surprise that we have a small number of customers that are resistant when performing this work on the property. that's why mr. buckley talked about a joint letter so people have a number to call so they don't have to call a pg&e 5,000 number and they can talk to a

live body. >> president mccarthy, there's a caller with their hand up. >> so we're back in public comment, yeah? >> yes. >> okay. so what i'm going to do is i'm going to reopen public comment for that one caller. please, public caller? >> operator: caller 415-467, you're unmuted. >> thank you. hello? >> operator: go ahead. >> clerk: we can hear you. go ahead. >> commissioners, my name is francisco dacosta, and i've been following this for about the last ten years. in the last five years, we, meaning the department of building inspection and some of the advocates who were

following this issue of soft-story retrofit programs and alternatives found out that this was a very, very, very slow process. i myself was involved with two buildings, one at 4917 third street, and the other one, 152 one-third street. it cost us a lot of money to work with pg&e, which i'll let you all keep mentioning as if they're very cooperative, and etc., etc. this is very important to address. in doing the needs assessment,

anybody who needs a major assessment, and it can be done in many ways, and you all have done it in one week, but i know there are thousands of homes that [indiscernible] but i'm not going to focus on what i know, in my experience in the presidio, where we had a similar issue, so i know how to do the kind of logistics. have empathy on san franciscans when it comes to fixing the problem. it costs a lot of money, a lot of money, and not everybody can afford it.

>> clerk: caller, your -- >> thank you very much. >> clerk: okay. thank you. thanks so much. >> thank you, mr. dacosta. good to hear from you, so i'll close public comment. >> vice president -- there are no other hands raised. >> vice president tam, thank you for your comments. commissioner alexander-tut, you had your hand raised? >> i do have some questions, some clarifying, some asking what you're thinking. so one of my questions is do we

know it -- how many -- how many okay to pour or how many concrete -- how many new foundations -- i think i'm using the right term -- were put in without pg&e sign-off? do we have that number? not who's outstanding, but who's in the global -- you know, like, globally? do we know the number of foundations without pg&e sign-off? >> we don't have that number. >> that number seems important. i guess what i'm trying to understand, i'm not hearing this in the report is, did we do anything wrong? is there any lessons learned here? was there a problem? how widespread was the problem? i see the solution, okay, there's 75 that we don't really

know about, and we're going to take extra precaution of, like, having pg&e come in and expedite their retrofit and to solve any problems but we don't know if there's a problem. that sounds like a varying conclusion to a spectacular kind of board hearing, getting ready for a board hearing. there's a lot of questions about what happened, and i guess i'm not hearing that in the presentation or the report of, like -- like, i hear there was a lot of public feedback, and here's 75, and we're going to kind of do the best we can to make sure these are safe. but i guess, like, was there anything we would have done differently had the -- know

where we are today and if we're going to start over again? like, was there anything we would have done differently? like, i'm kind of looking for some lessons learned or -- i'm kind of confused by that part. >> so if i could take a step back, commissioner, i think the under lying issue that we heard from both the board and the public is they had concerned about safety of the gas lines. the way we were able to address that is based on the information that we had available to us. and so the principal data analyst was able to look through all the inspections, codes that were entered, as well as the notes that were provided to really identify, first off, where did a pour occur? i think that's the first

attempt to try to shrink down this universe to try and identify the particular instances where a gas line was running through a grade beam, and then, i think we were trying to identify where this issue existed in the city. we did not want to presuppose but use the information available to us. ultimately, what we came to understand was that program really, it's understanding where it happened within the city and where it would happen in the city, i think really helped us to address, you know, that safety issue, because ultimately, it's the way that pg&e has to be able to upgrade their gas lines? it provides a flexible line

that gets installed and one through kind of the existing olden pipe? and we felt if an earthquake was to occur, any type of earth movement, would the pipe not be able to have a gas leak occur? and i think as a result of pg&es assurances, i think having that as an important component of this study would go a long way to being able to address that concern around safety. as far as lessons learned, i was not here during the prior effort. i can simply say that i think we would probably agree that increased coordination with pg&e, and that is identified as one of the next steps, as both trainings of pg&e said they would be willing to provide. and i think the info sheet

itself contains certainly clear instructions to call pg&e. i think increased instructions certainly would be better and certainly would have been better in the past. and i think based on that and the info sheet here, we'll be able to see that in the future. >> i guess for the folks that work here, is there any other kind of feedback when concrete is poured and there isn't any pg&e sign off? is there any, any feedback? oh, okay. if not...thank you, mr.

buckley. i'll have to sit with that for a little bit. i do want to ask for clarification from the notification team. i understand that there's construction notification, but i didn't catch the nuances when pg&e, mr. kent spoke. do the 75 building owners and occupants, do they know about this or do they not know about it yet? >> yeah, if i could, from the d.b.i. side, this is also something that commissioner tam asked about. so the investigation we did on the d.b.i. side did not include gaining access to the property, so we have not contacted the 75 building owners. that is something that we will

do in coordination with pg&e, and frankly, at a time to be determined in advance of the construction work. so for example, if we were to notify them by letter in january and the work would start in june or july, that probably wouldn't be an effective communication, so we'd like to do it in an effective time before construction at each of the sites. but to answer your questions, neither the property owners or tenants at this point have been notified by d.b.i. about this particular issue. >> i want to remind folks that it was the last hearing that we had that tenant groups were asking for notification of

tenants, and i tried to make a motion, but it was ruled to be a suggestion, so i'm reminding everyone of the suggestion that was not, i guess, resolution appropriate, but i'm reminding everyone from the feedback from the tenant community that that was something that they wanted to be included on. let me just look at my list. >> commissioner tut, it is our intention to notify the tenants at the appropriate time and make sure people are aware of the activity that's going to occur. i think we're doing this in the least intensive manner possible at the buildings for the work that will be conducted. >> thank you. that eases my little concern. and my final question is, is

this mostly internal, external construction that would be done? there's a question about cost from a previous person. is this something that people are going to have to incur costs for? tenants might have to put out for? how kind of [indiscernible] is the right word, but how big of a deal is this construction is how pays for it ultimately? >> so that's a great question. i would defer to derek kent at pg&e to talk about that part of the work. >> thank you. >> sure. thanks, jeff. yeah, commissioner tut. impact to the customer, generally speaking, is going to be a temporary outage. they're existing structures, so we can't bottle them or tank

them. they may have a disruption in their gas for a few hours a day that the installation is scheduled for, and the paving. the actual, the regular gas service piece, the financial component, we're not completely sold on it, but from this point, it's the due diligence of pg&e to upgrade these lines now that we're aware of the position, so it's not something necessarily that we're looking for the city to refund. we're looking to bring these up

to code in addition to the gray beam casing. does that answer your question, commissioner tut? >> it does. as someone who sits on a policy kind of oversight body, i like some, you know, some kind of element, like, this is what happened, this is how we could have done it differently, or this is a policy -- we're kind of, like, in the weeds but not, like, that much in the weeds in this policy or commission. if that's something that comes up, that's something of interest to me, like, how does this -- how does this -- how does, like, policy and procedures, you know, how can we prevent something, you know, like, a lack of coordination like this in the future? like, but i see the tremendous amount of coordination that

went into this, possibly historic amount of coordination that went into this, but thank you for everyone who worked on this, and yeah, i look forward to hearing other people's comments and questions. thank you. >> thank you, commissioner tut. commissioner bito, please? >> [indiscernible] for a clear and cogent presentation. this is the second time i've heard it, and i heard it the first time at [indiscernible] so thank you. >> commissioner eppler, please? >> thank you, and yes, thank you for the presentation, and thank you, pg&e, for being here, as well. couple of questions for pg&e at the beginning, and this is a clarification on terminology that was used in the report. we have, as part of the gas line replacement program, the

identification of lines that were already cased, and, you know, that's very clear about what that is, and then, we talk about pipelines that are also just upgraded. is there a difference in ways that you upgraded the pipelines or the replacements in the replacement code ram, and what are you going to be doing in terms of remediating the other 75 that need remediation? >> sure, mr. eppler. so typically, one of the questions that i ask is can we move the meter outside of the structure, right? so the -- that casing implement, right, really coming into the conversation that i'm talking about, risers that are inside the structure or inside,

under neath the building. so the first goal is if we can move the meter outside, if there's a location that's acceptable to the property owner, it's acceptable to pg&e, and it's just space because in san francisco we're constrained where we can move this. the first question is hey, can we move this outside, because if we can move it outside with the casing or sleeving, there's no problem at that point. pull the meter set apart, and we deactivate the old steel pipe and insert the plastic pipe in that. >> next question is about this -- the funnel that these

cases were put into to get down to the 75. i note that when we got down to the 246 properties that were identified, pg&e went back in and found 128 of them that had been upgraded as part of the replacement program but had not been identified in the first replacement program and went onto the -- to these properties. were those, the properties that took everything from 2.6 to 128, were those properties that weren't inputted into the database correctly or were they properties that had been identified by the database? >> it can get a little confusing because when we talk about the replacement, we're talking about replacement of main and lateral service levels, but that's not the only

time we replace gas service laterals. if there's other concern, lateral leakage being one of them, we would replace the services, too. so other services have been replaced, [indiscernible], so they weren't on the radar as far as gprp [indiscernible] so the whole block hasn't necessarily come up hot as a scoring for gprp, where some of these 75 may be in areas of -- it's just the main is in good shape, there's no issue there. that's why some of these ended up in locations where we hadn't replaced the whole neighborhood yet. >> so, so the reason why i asked because in the draft report, the department says, you know, of the 246 properties

determined, pg&e determined that 128 had been upgrades as part of the gprp, what you're saying is those weren't part of the gprp but had otherwise been upgraded through other programs? >> some of them may have been through gprp. some of them could have been through other replacement program that we had. copper, for one, so it could have been a different program, not just necessarily with gprp. >> the reason i ask is one of the biggest screens we have here is the database that knocked out so many cases that are under examination so to the extent that there are false negatives that should have been reported, i'm worried about false positives, that we've let

too many properties through as a result of only relying on that database, when we should be looking at what comes out on the other side. >> yeah. now you're getting to the topic of data quality. >> yeah, and there may be a little bit of data quality mismatch on one side of the coin. i'm worried about the data quality on the other side of the coin. as opposed to looking at one side, we have 277 positives, and how many of them were false positives? >> we went by what our records are, not necessarily gprp records are, and that's been fairly robust. we took all of our paperworks that had been digitized and this was historic pg&e paperwork, so all of them have been digitized in the system of

record relatively quickly, and it's that system that we used. if there was a question, we automatically flagged those for further investigation. we didn't necessarily completely automatically discount them, so we're completely confident in the service records, that it's basically accurate. if there was questions, we erred on the side of caution and put it in the field investigate file. >> thank you. couple of questions for mr. buckley. so i know that we are focused on the places where new concrete had been poured -- thank you for my commissioners for suffering with me as i ask some of these basic questions.

are the inspectors supposed to just take a general look at the situation and say that if old concrete had been poured in the past, if that had been, you know, poured incorrectly around the pipeline, that that should be noted and remediated as a part of that inspection, even though new concrete was not being poured at that time? >> commissioner eppler, i would defer that question to senior building inspector matthew green who may be able to answer it based on his experience. >> thank you, commissioner. i would say the inspector would be looking at the job at hand, not necessarily previous pours. >> so we don't have any

visibility into these buildings on the gas lines that didn't have new pours? >> that's correct? >> okay. and one last question, and it would be interesting to see, you know, to me to see for those 16% of identified reference program buildings that noncomplied with the retrofit requirements to see where they are in the enforcement practices and see how long they've been out, i know we've had a completion of work period in 2021, are all of those in that 2021 cohort just a little bit late. or how do they separate out, and what is being done to ensure that they very promptly become client? i'm sure that it's being addressed, and thank you,

commissioners, for bearing with me. >> so i believe the department distributes that on a monthly basis, if not more frequently? so i can say in terms of the noncompliant buildings, we have from those buildings, they're both in tier two, tier three, as well as tier four, so i believe that's where those building lie in terms of the enforcement process, and then, as far as where we are now, you know, i think that's -- we can come back to you as a commission and talk about the enforcement process on a kind of go-forward basis if that's something that you would like for staff to drill down on at a future date. >> all right. thank you very much. >> thank you, commissioner. commissioner moss? >> thank you. no questions. >> commissioner sommer?

>> apologies. can you hear? >> commissioner sommer. >> thank you. thank you for all this information. i don't have any further questions. >> thank you. thank you, mr. buckley, and i can't thank pg&e enough for being here today, you know, and answering questions for us. it's really helpful. and i also just want to thank the whole team at d.b.i. for delivering this report to us here today. fitting at the end of the year, and there was some spectacular hearings around this, as commissioner tut pointed out, and i'm glad to see the results that we had come back with. i do know the next steps is we will make any comments that we have back to your report, and then i'm presuming you're going to bring this to the board of supervisors because i know

that's where the major concerns were where they wanted feedback on, is that correct? >> that's correct. we plan on submitting the final report to you and the board of supervisors by the end of the year, if not sooner. >> thank you. to mr. kent's question, on the 75, which is remarkable depending on where we started [indiscernible] that shocks me, to talk about this start. on that 75, is it possible that they are actually safe, with your current safety analysis right now, and that the 75 might actually be smaller? are we sure that they are ones that need to be upgraded? >> you know, it -- good

question, president mccarthy. we get to talking about what is the grade beam actually doing? it fixes the service pipe in position. casing it allows for some flexibility, some axial motion and some strain relief. we don't necessarily see it as a safety risk or a huge risk unless there's a seismic motion, and that's when you essentially secure the pipe to the structure. i don't necessarily see these as being unsafe, but the question was if there's a grade beam there, we do want to remove any risk associated with it, and when we went through this evaluation, we said oh, these are inside risers that are uncased, and now that we're

aware of it, we went out and it made sense to go out and do that, and because of its current condition today, it makes sense to target these as well as all the other replacements that we do in san francisco. >> and i believe mr. buckley in his presentation is 2022 to potentially have those 75 engaged if there's any, correct? >> correct. we're looking at replacing them

regardless. i think we're going to reduce that number, but yeah, we're very comfortable we can meet 75 by the end of next year, should be a nonissue unless they're really held out by a customer or a permit issue, and that's why we've asked for permission by the city. >> thank you, and i can't stress more, thank you, mr. kent, for working with the city on this. and just to commissioner -- kent green and to mr. buckley, to commissioner tut's question, is there an actual kind of infection, just what procedures are we putting in place to make

sure that we have this kind of buttoned up in the future? >> thanks for the question, president mccarthy. i think the information sheet is a very important piece of this. in addition, we are conducting staff trainings for our inspectors to make them aware of what the information includes, but this one specifically will be focused on, and i'd like to go back and say what jeff said earlier. i'd like to say what he said, the 75 are safe, we believe them are safe, and the installation was done properly, but out of an abundance of caution, and a big thank you to pg&e for working with us on this, and a big thank you to

d.b.i. staff for all the hours in getting us to this point. i think 75 is an amazing number based on where we were, with less ans learned and, you know, we will have processes and protocols in place for dealing with these things in the future. >> thank you, interim director. with that, madam secretary, i'd like to close this, and we will go to item 4, please. >> clerk: thank you. we are aagenda item 4, commissioners' questions and matters. inquiries to staff. at this time, commissioners may make inquiries to staff regarding various documents, policies, practices, and procedures which are of interest to the commission. >> commissioner tam, please? >> i have no inquiries at this time. thank you. >> commissioner tut, please?

>> i meant to unmute myself, not my video. i have a question, and this is more -- this might be something that you may not have off the top of your head, but there is an issue before planning, 628 shotwell, of converting a residential facility into a one-unit building. is that before d.b.i., and if you don't know that off the top of your head, that's totally fine? >> yeah, commissioner tut, these issues typically, for change of use, is what you are describing, they typically go through planning before they come to us for the planning approval before the change of use, so we probably haven't

seen that come through just yet, but i can definitely look at it and get back to you with information. >> yeah, i was just more of a status and is it going to go through planning, and is it going to come before us as well. just more informational. yeah, thank you. yeah, i have no further questions, just, like, shoutout to the housing department, who i imagine is flooded with heat complaints and hot water complaints and all the thing -- flooding and all the things that happen to the tenant community during the rainy season. just -- you note, i note, like, on the tenant side, so just a shoutout to those services. >> thank you. commissioner bito, please. >> no questions.

thank you, president mccarthy. >> commissioner eppler. >> no questions right now. thank you, president mccarthy. >> commissioner moss? >> no questions. >> commissioner sommer? >> no questions from me. >> madam clerk? >> clerk: item 4-b, future meetings and agendas. at this time, the commission may discuss and take action to set the date of a special meeting and/or determine those items that could be placed on the agenda of the next meeting and other future meetings of the building inspection commission. our next meeting is scheduled for january 15, 2022, and there could be a special meeting the week of january 25, but i'll reach out to everybody regarding schedules. >> how is everybody's schedule regarding scheduling? >> clerk: i think it's summed up for right now.

madam bito -- or commissioner bito, sorry? >> this is for future agenda items on our schedule? >> clerk: yeah, you can mention the agenda item. >> the only agenda item that would speak about is i believe we're 90 days out on the eg-02 [indiscernible] for the e.o.r. thank you. >> did you get that? >> clerk: yes. yes, i did. thank you. >> okay. perfect, and if there is nobody else -- >> oh, through the chair. >> commissioner tut, please. >> i don't know if it's anything about the agenda, and i don't know if it's going to go to a.a.b., but are we going to meet in person in january or are we still going to do virtual and do we have to make

a decision? >> clerk: currently, it's still virtual. it's -- once i get the word from the, you know, from the mayor's office and city hall and everybody. i haven't gotten word from anybody yet. as of now, it's going to be virtual. >> and so we have to do the notification, remember how last month, like, we had a 30-day notification? >> clerk: yeah, we didn't do it this time because it was sooner than 30 days. when we met last time, it seemed like it was 28 days so that's why we didn't have to do it. >> okay. and we don't have to do it for january. >> clerk: i don't know. i'll seek advice on that. >> thank you, commissioner tut.

hopefully soon because that's where it needs -- business needs to be done is in the chambers. so okay, madam secretary, is there -- public comment, is it? >> clerk: okay. is there public comment on agenda items 4-a and 4-b? >> operator: there is one hand raised. >> commissioners, i am the director of environmental justice advocacy, and i have been addressing issues, quality of life issues, housing, transportation, planning department, land use, and what i find missing, and maybe i can bring it to your attention, is in view of climate change, the

role of the building inspection is important, and you have to be in synch with the planning department, land use, permitting, but most importantly, in san francisco, we have to embrace our young people, including our children.

>> mr. dacosta, as always, thank you for your comments. madam clerk. >> clerk: next item is item 5, discussion and possible action

to adopt a ramaytush ohlone land acknowledgement, and i believe commissioners sommer and alexander-tut worked on this. >> i'm happy to walk us through it a little bit. >> commissioner sommer, thank you. >> oh, sorry, yes, of course. through the chair. we presented so that this should have been with your -- i believe i sent this out to everyone. it is a draft resolution that is very -- it's similar to a lot of other statements that other san francisco bodies have adopted. if you recall our meeting with dr. cordero, who we invited as a member of the ramaytush

ohlone community, there was a statement that commissioner alexander-tut and i are working with sonia added in there.

>> public comment, please. >> clerk: any public comment on this item? >> operator: there are no hands raised. >> clerk: okay. so this is the discussion and possible action item, so i will do a roll call vote on this item. if there's -- is there a motion to approve and adopt the land acknowledgement motion? >> so moved. >> second. >> clerk: there's a motion and a second. i'll do the roll call vote. [roll call]

>> clerk: that motion carries unanimously, and thank you for your work on this. i forgot to mention. we'll kind of share the duties. commissioner sommer has graciously read the land acknowledgement, and we'll kind of rotate. we're onto item 8, update on the client services subcommittee. >> commissioner bito, quick one you said. >> yes. we had a brief meeting on december 9. deputy director neville presented -- well, actually

back up. deputy director [indiscernible] and megan presented the performance dated from 2019-2020 as a baseline, from which director neville will work from to categorize the various projects and turnaround time, so i was very pleased to see that the information was very clear. i think that he'll find a way to graphically show that so that it is something that we can follow through in 2022. that's it. thank you. thank you, president mccarthy. >> commissioners, if there's no more comment on that, we'll just go to public comment. >> clerk: is there any public comment on agenda item 8? >> operator: there are no hands

raised. >> clerk: okay. the next item is item 9, update on d.b.i. finances. >> good afternoon, commissioners. [indiscernible] with the department of building inspection. this is the fifth month of the fiscal year, and similar to the prior months, we are seeing a steady increase in our revenues, so we're doing better than we did the prior year, but we're still lower than we were prepandemic. the projections are just to budget, and what i will have in december, after six months, i'll have more additional information to make better predictions and also to give you a little bit more information. on the expense side, we're pretty much at the same level as we were last fiscal year. our expenses are usually flat

during the first six months of the year, too, because a lot of our building doesn't come in until after november, and i'm happy to answer questions, too. >> clerk: if i have no qis, i'll go onto 9-b, update on proposed or recently enacted state or local legislation. john? >> can you hear me? sorry about that. >> clerk: yes, we can hear you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. [indiscernible], legislative affairs. got a few items for you. yesterday at the board of supervisors, supervisors melgar, peskin, ronen, and preston made a proposal to

change the building inspection commission. the b.i.c. would be split 4-3 favoring mayoral appointments, but it removes dedicated seats on the building inspection commission, and it would change the way the director of the department is selected, with the b.i.c. forwarding candidates to the mayor, with the mayor making a selection among the candidates, so if that is approved, it would be on the june ballot, so i'm sure we'll have more information for you on that as it proceeds. second, supervisor haney proposed an ordinance combatting wage theft. it would require certain project sponsors to post a bond to cover any potential

violations of determinations of city laid protections. so if there's a charge of wage theft, [indiscernible] investigates and determines there was an instance of wage theft, the bond would cover whatever the wage thefts were. the ordinance would largely be administered by the office of labor standards and enforcement and the controller, but it would require d.b.i. to inform the controller if the permit has been met before we continue with these projects, so it's a condition of permit issuance. and then finally, supervisor preston introduced an item last night deappropriating $200,000 that had been previously appropriating it to the mayor's office of housing and urban development and reappropriating

it to outreach for h.u.d. buildings and other publicly financed buildings, sort of an expansion of what we were doing, i think, through the c-out program, and with that, i'm happy to answer any questions. >> commissioners, any questions on the new legislations that are coming out there, or measures? okay. >> clerk: if there's no questions -- >> sorry. madam secretary, regarding the -- or john, regarding the post bond, that was just introduced yesterday, right? >> yes, and it's largely a police code amendment, but there is a -- there's a small portion in the building code that would -- that basically says that we can't issue the permits for the subject

projects -- the defined projects as it's adding -- adding ten or more units, so if you are adding ten units in an existing units, or if you're adding ten or more units, they would be coming to the b.i.c. to present. >> oh, they are coming to the b.i.c. >> there is a building code involved. >> is it under the 30-day rule? >> yes. >> so it'll come to the b.i.c. here within the next couple of weeks or something? >> it'll come in january. >> and i'm sorry. i know you probably don't have the answer to this, but was there any outreach done as to what this bond looks like and how -- you know, i know a little bit about bonding, and it's a very difficult threshold

to meet in the construction industry, and my first praex p -- reaction is was there any discussion what this bonding looks like? if i understand it right, you can't get your building permit unless you have your bond posted, is that correct? >> yes, yes. initially, what was proposed by supervisor haney was actually making this a requirement of the p.f.c., and, you know, the department did have some concerns regarding that, regarding that to the c.f.c., and we expressed that, and haney opted to go in this direction.

regarding the amount, i'm not sure how they landed on the specific amounts or the bonding, but the point was i think they were looking for sort of a point of leverage, essentially, to ensure that the labor requirements were met. >> i'm just concerned because i know people in that world that are super qualified who can't get bonding, so was there any due diligence done in regards of trying to get bonding, and i'm just wondering, [indiscernible] or continue it further or can you just give me an idea? because i see this as something

that a lot of people are going to have to weigh-in because i don't think they realize the complexity to getting these bonds are. >> well, the commission can certainly make the recommendations for the amendments ultimately. it's up to the board to go forward with the organization. >> i think it's important to, after meeting the minimum, reach out to the supervisor's office because this is something that i know nobody knows anything about, really.

>> my understanding was they had heard from stakeholders on this, but -- >> really? >> -- but i'm not sure which ones or who. >> i know there was conversations around the certificates, but i haven't heard any conversations around that. okay. there are my concerns, and i think it's important. okay. thank you for entertaining me on that, john. >> you're welcome. >> commissioners, if there's no further comment, we'll do public comment, madam secretary? >> clerk: we'll go through the

other report item, so item 9-c, update on major projects. >> good afternoon, commissioners. this is an update on major projects, and this represents the change from november to october. so in november shows a 12% increase in construction valuation over october, and representing also is a .87% decrease in units. that is 396 units, so if you have any questions, i'm available for questions. >> see none. >> clerk: okay. thank you. the next item is 9-d, update on code enforcement. >> good afternoon, commissioners. joe duffy, deputy director of inspection services. i'll quickly run through some of our code enforcement and inspection activity for

november. the housing inspection services, the number of housing inspection services performed were 684. we received, for housing, 322 complaints. our code enforcement team sent 53 cases through for director's hearing, and then, the orders of abatement issued was 20. and the inspection activity for november and interesting inspection division performed 2,568 inspections. plumbing inspection division was 2,739 inspections, and then building inspection division was 4,557. that number's pretty consistent with the previous month. it does usually drop around the holiday season, understandably, and i'm available for any questions. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. there's -- is there any questions? >> there's no questions.

>> clerk: okay. thank you. is there any public comment on the director's report, items 9-a through d? >> clerk: caller 415-667 -- >> yeah, commissioners, let me take your agenda items one by one. so on new legislation, some of you all spoke, the contractors are having a very difficult time with bonding, and we do have the contract monitoring division, we have our city administrator, of course, we have our mayor, and the department of building inspection plays a role in doing a good outreach. bonding is important. not all the contractors are able to obtain the permits

unless they can get bonding. also, they passed legislation -- and i can talk for hours on it, but we don't do too much about it. for example, we know that the department of building inspection can go on building skyscrapers, but where are you going to get the water from? and where is the sewage going to go? now, as part of this legislation, i want to say something. i represent the first people of san francisco, the muwekma ohlone, and you all want to do

some research, you can go to our website, www.muwekma.org. and i'll spell it, m-u-w-e-k-m-a. my name is francisco dacosta. i'm saying this, as with other legislation that is passed, if we do not do our homework, if we are not educated on issues, if we do not have our heart in the right place, then we cannot do our work. >> clerk: thank you, sir. that was the end of your time. >> can i say something important? >> clerk: yes, please go ahead.

>> at this time, i would like to mention a name, a person who played an important role in creating the department of building inspection, my very good friend, joe donaghue. we need to pray for this man and honor this man for doing a lot of good for our city. thank you very much. >> thank you, mr. dacosta, for your comments, sir. madam secretary? >> clerk: item 10, review and approval of the minutes of the regular meeting november 17, 2021. >> motion to approve. >> second. >> clerk: okay. there's a motion and a second. is there any public comment on the minutes? i'm seeing none. all commissioners in favor? any opposed?

thank you. the minutes are approved. okay. the next item is item 11, closed session, action item. public employee employment, director of the department of about building inspection. item a, public comment on all matters pertaining to the closed session. is there any public comment? >> operator: there is none. >> clerk: okay. thank you. then the next item is 11-b, possible action to convene a closed session. is there a motion to convene a closed session? >> so moved. >> second. >> clerk: second? who seconded? i'm sorry. >> second. >> okay. so there's a motion and a second to convene a closed session. i'll have to do a roll call vote on this item. [roll call]

>> clerk: that motion carries unanimously. the time is 1:13 p.m. we will now be going into closed session. >> secretary: held in closed session. >> president: motion to reconvene and not disclose closed session. >> commissioner: second. >> secretary: there's a motion and a second to reconvene and not disclose. i'll do a roll call on this motion. [roll call]

that motion carries unanimously. >> president: okay. thank you for everybody's day and the long hours we have. it's almost 2:00. so i appreciate everyone today. and i just want to convey to the general public that the publicly appointment for the director of the department of building inspection continues and there will be more closed sessions processes going forward in january. >> secretary: thank you. so we are on agenda item 12, adjournment. is there a motion to adjourn? >> commissioner: so moved. >> secretary: and second. >> commissioner: second just so as long as everyone has a healthy and happy holiday.

>> commissioner: happy new year everyone. >> secretary: thank you everyone. >> commissioner: happy holidays. >> secretary: okay. so all commissioners are agreeing on adjourning. we will now adjourn at exactly 2:00 p.m. >> commissioner: thank you. happy holidays. >> once i got the hang of it a little bit, you know, like the first time, i never left the

court. i just fell in love with it and any opportunity i had to get out there, you know, they didn't have to ask twice. you can always find me on the court. [♪♪♪] >> we have been able to participate in 12 athletics wheelchairs. they provide what is an expensive tool to facilitate basketball specifically. behind me are the amazing golden state road warriors, which are one of the most competitive adaptive basketball teams in the state led by its captain, chuck hill, who was a national paralympic and, and is now an assistant coach on the national big team. >> it is great to have this

opportunity here in san francisco. we are the main hub of the bay area, which, you know, we should definitely have resources here. now that that is happening, you know, i i'm looking forward to that growing and spreading and helping spread the word that needs -- that these people are here for everyone. i think it is important for people with disabilities, as well as able-bodied, to be able to see and to try different sports, and to appreciate trying different things. >> people can come and check out this chairs and use them. but then also friday evening, from 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m., it will be wheelchair basketball we will make sure it is available, and that way people can no that people will be coming to play at the same time. >> we offer a wide variety of adaptive and inclusion

programming, but this is the first time we have had our own equipment. [♪♪♪] shop and dine on the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do shopping and dining within the 49 square miles of san francisco by supporting local services within neighborhood. we help san francisco remain unique, successful and vibrant. where will you shop and dine in the 49? san francisco owes the charm to the unique character of the neighborhood comer hall

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legitimize small businesses is a >> supervisor melgar: good afternoon. this meeting will come to order. welcome to the december 13, 2021 regular meeting of the land use transportation committee of the san francisco board of supervisors. i would also like to acknowledge the good folks at sfgov tv for staffing us during this meeting. you have any announcements? >> clerk: the committee members participated in this remote meeting through