build a taller building.is a great organization. we hate losing old buildings, but spur of all organizations is careful about the historic value of the city. there are the pictures of the building that will be a terrific building. let's look across the street. >> talk about the small one first. >> if you go in there it was my offices for a number of years. if you go in looking for the braces they don't exist because they're not there. we used moment frames to hide the braces from the architectural statement of the building. just because you don't see braces don't mean the building hasn't been retrofitted. i as an informed owner didn't want to see the braces. >> the braces are the big diagonal thing. he put very large, like a big vertical and steel column with a big beam across and welded it up and hid it inside the frame of the building. >> you won't see it if you go in there and have lunch. the new owners opened up a lunch place. >> it just opened up. i don't have a chance to say yes or no. >> after this we

class, go over some buildings and how you assess buildings. you already had classes on utility controls, correct? how about medical? did medical? okay, as i said, my name is alec, i'm on truck 11. let's go into some light search and rescue. before you start, what do you do? stop, look, listen and think. any time you pull up to an incident or you see something, you take a breath, assess the situation, use all your senses and think about what you are going to do. those are all components of what we call the size-up. there are many components to size up. what's one of the components to size up? gathering facts. you want to assess the type of damage there is. what kind of situation is it? what is the issue? is it a medical problem? if it's a medical, is it a big hurt or a little hurt? is it a rescue situation and if it's a fire, do you have the resources to control or extinguish that fire? how about your situation, do you have all your people? do you have all the resources that you need? have you collected all the material that you need if you are

building. when you go on a tour of the offices, you really are impressed with the difference. not that the russ building is a wonderful building, but it's a different type of building and most of the growth has occurred south of market precisely because we can build these types of buildings. and the market will pick up, as we saw during the dot-com boom when every possible commercial space was grabbed, and this is boom and bust. but overall there will be a big market, and we want there to be a rktmafment we want to re-attract business to san francisco, where it should be, not in san ramon or somewhere else throughout the bay area, where people have to travel for miles and miles to get to work. and that's another point. there was some talk about the fact that there would be traffic congestion. i think there's only 54 parking spaces allowed for this building. so we're not talking about a residential building where people will be coming in and out of it. almost everyone who works there would come

a lot of apartment buildings. >> those are mostly steel framed buildings. in the 50's and 60's, they wanted to create open floor spaces and they went to concrete spaces and thought it was great until the san fernando earthquake and the earthquake came and the building disappeared. they said, oops and changed the code immediately. >> we look at it and say, it didn't do what we thought. the codes are rarely perspective. how can we make that happen? they wait for a catastrophe and then change it >> just to clarify. we don't have instrumentation to record the shaking and to do a computer simulation is difficult to do without the data. we only learn through events. not all the records we have are indicative of how every earthquake shaking event will be like. >> we have recently amended the code to have instruments in them so we can record and how much the earth has moved. that's terrific. not many existing buildings are instrumented. one the things we will look at, at the caps program is to retrofit them. we can look at other after earthquakes. it had similar ty

buildings in the city. and it would also require them to submit annual reports to the city describing, documenting their energy usage. the energy audits would be rolled in over a five-year period so as not to require all of the buildings to conduct the energy audits in the first year. it would require the largest buildings in the first year and then phase it in over the next five years for the remainder of the buildings. the energy performance data that would be reported to the city is the ordinance requires that they use the same software that is required by the state statewide legislation. that is the outline of the ordinance. i'm happy to answer any questions. i have mark wes lin from the department of the environment and barry hooper from the department of the environment that can answer questions, as well. >> anybody have any questions? >> you said you want to use the same applications at the state level. does that mean they have to purchase a software application for their computer to use this, sore i

this is a building permit. for them to bring up their suspicions, this is not the proper area. >> you need his vote. >> i am not trying to be disrespectful. it appears we have admission by the tanlt -- >> i get it. your point of view is that their issues are irrelevant to this. the only issue we should consider according to you is whether or not this work is necessary. maybe i am the only who feels that way, and you will be lucky, but i doubt that. i think our concern is how it is going to effect the people in the building. >> one, there is no eviction action. we haven't had any discussions. how would mr. mccarthy be held harmless if they tenants insisted on staying and something happened to them? it is too premature to get into those discussions. i am sure at some point we probably will get to those discussions if it gets there. at this point, i am i am saying, i don't mean to be respectful -- >> that must have been a froudian slip. you said i don't mean to be respectful. >> i mean disrespectful. >> i know. >>

for a building after 1906. here's a building permit and you can get these by filling out one of those little forms we have over there. micro film records request. right, alan? and you take it to the accounter and say, here's what i would say -- i want to see every record available for my building including the permits, the plans, the job cards because that's where the inspectors sign off on and what else do we have over there. >> well, basically we have building permit applications or job cards or jobs done by district inspectors department to say it's final or not finaled with an expired job card and, plumbing, electrical permits. >> how come -- i thought we didn't. >> we do have some and miscallaneous documents and letters where people sent to the city and documents tham come through another department before us. now, what we don't have and we have building plans let me say buildings -- most wood frame houses residentials don't have plans in my recollection but commercial buildings almost always there's some

commercial buildings and residential buildings . so what are the requirements for a commercial building? we break them down into two major classes. mid-sized commercial, midsized is 5000 to 25,000 square feet. and we have another category here which is large commercial, over 25,000 square feet. ok. what about smaller buildings, less than 5000 square feet? are they covered? no. they are not. they are apt to be covered in the future in some way, but they are not. the midsized is for new mid-size buildings, and this is for new large commercial, over 25,000 square feet. all high-rises. not that big a building in san francisco for commercial. this applies to certain classifications. b, m are the two main classifications. b is a business. any kind of business occupancy. m is work. places where you sell things -- mercantile. there are places that are not covered. institutions, hospitals, and schools are not covered. certain types of assembly occupancies are not covered. i think that they might be covered. and part of the reason that these

building. take a look at the block of howard street one block east. there is nothing particularly historic about that run-down walk. it's in pretty bad shape. and you can continue down that line for a while. so i understand and i would have object fundamental the base of the building was higher than the historic building next to it. i think that gesture, if one wants to put it that way, is the correct way to go. i think the re veal separates the rest of the building to an extent. the tradeoff of putting the bulk into the middle tech shown -- i don't think if you reduced those floor plates the 500 square feet would make any difference to the actual building other than the viability, perhaps. but i don't think the objections that we've heard here today would be changed whatsoever. i actually like what the department recently did, even though it caused a redesign of the building. i think the tower works out better than the pictures i've seen of the former design. i think it's a better building. i'

this is the building at the front, the building at the rear, and the subdivision. we found there was no hardship other than that imposed by the property owner in constructing the building at the front of the lot. they are seeking aid variants for a property right that is not bound by others in the neighborhood. we only found three that were less than a thousand square feet. this is in fact larger than the 25 square feet in the lots. this would not be typical of the pattern but of the typical pattern. this would establish a substandard lot condition. currently they can maintain this as it is. they would also be granted a right that others don't have been in the area of. finally, the appellant has made a request to some of the arguments about previous or other decisions. the first is not a precedent- setting. each is unique and each has a set of circumstances. in the cases that were represented by the project sponsor, this is about 9-10 blocks away. this was about 37.6 feet by 100 feet. this was not the standard size. the property on webster -- >> on that one that yo

and the new building? >> it is kind of tough to tell from this picture because the perspective is kind of skewed. what i found helpful for a reference point is -- i guess that is the deck fence. it corresponds right here. if you look at the same top fence, it ends right around here. also, you can use this from here to here and here to here as a reference point to show how dramatically. commissioner hwang: how many feet? >> 7 feet. commissioner hwang: thank you. i still do not understand the little girl picture. thank you. president peterson: commissioners, are there any further questions for the appellant? should we call the permit holder for a rebuttal? >> i wanted to address the satellite dishes up on the roof. there is to because my client is indian. he is from india. one dish is to get his native language hindi and all the stations that they get for that. the other one is english. at any time, whenever we have had inspections or whatever, we have invited the inspectors or whoever miss

so the cea builds up a reserve. they can't build up the reserve otherwise. that's how their building it. the national flood insurance is a public pool. the same thing is true there. they didn't have enough in their reserves to pay out the returns. congress had to pass legislation to authorize the replenishment. that's how these pools are set up. government is involved in how the additional funding comes. i am not specific with how it works in california. part of the reason states are putting this up as opposed to a company that does this. >> so, how do we as a homeowners or renters know who is a sound structural engineer? >> how about i answer since i'm not an engineer. you can take comfort, we in san francisco have the largest community of seismic activity and structural engineers. we have a lot of concerned citizens that aren't engineers that are asking questions like you're asking. i think the essential questions on how your building is going to do, there's going to be a lot of consensus on any group of engineers on how your building is likely to perform

have a worse building and not a better building. and that's the reason that you ask for exceptions. and ironically i think a building half the size would still have -- generate a lot of the complaints about light, shadow and view, because half the size would also block my view. so anyway, i'd just like the neighborhood to get on with itself and let's finish. thank you. president miguel: thank you. is there additional public comment on this item? public comment is closed. commissioner moore. commissioner moore: i'd like to ask architect fifer to explain to the commission why you think, personally speaking, the taller building is indeed better relative to the architect you're intending to do, and could you comment of how the code-compliant building does or does not realize the architect's vision? i think the project is very interesting, and could you please explain if your architectural vision can only be realized in the non-code-complying building. if you could step to the microphone and explain that to us. thank you. >> i think that

the building. once the building was undermined, it could no longer state occupied, and the decision was made to remove the building. as you recall, it made headlines. eventually, the building was removed and a new wall was built. the lot where 22 once sat is still there. there are big disputes over whether it can be developed safely predict -- developed safely. and the filbert street stairs, because of the rockfall that occurred, new stairs were built, and they were built in a manner that when rockfalls occur, that actually lift out the stairs and put them on the ground and allow the crane to get back there to access the rockfall. >> beyond that, the building that we see at the bottom of the rockfall was actually designed to allow barack to fall off and be compounded by the building -- actually designed to allow barack to fall off and be impounded by the building. >> that is the corner of sansome and green. every couple years, there is a rock fall that occurs behind that building. >> now we are on

unreinforced masonry building. safe building or not such a safe building? not safe at all. you have deep set windows, arched windows, metal plate, then we can work. weak morter, what is that? brick on top of brick on top of brick. there's an ample of the header row, you see how they are turned perpendicular to each other, you can see the header rows in this one, see the brick going the other way about every 5 or 7 rows. deep set windows. here's a close up of one of those plates. a parapet wall is a clue that this building is an unreinforced building. which direction can that building go? right back out. this building, brick or wood? what are some of the clues? okay, what are the windows? they are deep set. there's a clue right there. deep set. deep set window, unreinforced masonry. can you see the metal plates? there is a metal plate right over there in the corner, there's another one over there. hard to see. also has a parapet on it. deep set windows. even though it has stucco on it, don't be fooled that that's wood up above. it's all brick because it's deep set windows. h

building. thank you very much. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> members of the board, good evening. my name is jill, and i currently rent the house at the dilapidated 112019th street. i have been a tenant of ron and rose manabat for the past three years. if i had not previously known about the t.i.c. relationship between the manabats and hughes, it would have never occurred to me that the buildings were actually two structures on one lot. the buildings appear completely separate since the fence line clearly marks the boundary between the two. the manabats have expressed their desire to maybe repairs to the house. on several occasions they have shared their desire to subzwi the property for repairs. they expressed concern that a con do conversion would take several years to complete. frankly, i don't think the building repairs can wait much longer. the house is in need of immediate repair. siding needs to be installed. deck repaired, roofing and irrigation. as far as landlords, the manabat

and you could see the building without the additional fourth floor is very old building. they trying to build ads chron keet board, glass, stainless steel. that would destroy the consistency and look of the ally. >> thank you. >> actually i wanted, one more thing. we try to compromise with the project owners,, and to -- and to ask them to stop back more to avoid the privacy issue and the height issue. nothing happened. it seems like they don't want to compromise. thank you. >> thank you. >> speakers in favor of the d.r.? >> if you could both speak into the microphone. otherwise, i can't pick you up. >> [speaking foreign language] translator: translator: i lived there for 20 years. frans he feels like the building higher is translator: he feels like the building is higher than what it is supposed to be. translator: he's concerned about the sunlight that -- that is stopping for his building. translator: that is -- to having the building built higher than -- [speaking foreign language] translator: he feels the higher the building is, it is going to effect, and effect the air

and build a 50 story building. and you thought you were just going to dig out the sand, the film, and haul it to another site. now you come to find out the material you were going to move at $8 per ton is now going to cost anywhere from $40 to $78 per ton. the has a significant impact -- and has a significant impact on the cost of your project. if you are out on the sunset and vine a single-family home, just have the geotechnical engineer come out and say it is on earth quicksand, the building will probably settle three-quarters of an inch. have the structural engineer look at the frame and say, you have a serious soft story here. lawrence, expected that. you might want to put in some clips and fasteners and sheer walls to stiffen it out. as you move east, you have not only the soft issues, the structural issues, but you have the hazardous-waste. if you recall as a kid, every intersection had for gas stations? now you cannot find a gas station anywhere? those four gas stations had leaky tanks. now we also have to l

if your building is -- here is what it might say. you are building a residential building. you have to use the regular code. we had to bring about stuff in. interesting to me is the fact that the residential code was developed by the state with the concept of basically providing the same level of construction and safety, fire protection, as the regular fire -- as the regular code. maybe we are more restrictive. nonetheless, we had to go through in every case where they were more restrictive. >> it is curious to me. if you are building a two-unit building, you would have this as an alternate, but we are required to enact more restrictive requirements into our code? >we always make our commitments to the state code but it seems like the residential code would be an alternate. >> it is a hybrid, a mix of both. >> yes, you could always use the original code, as it was intended to be more restrictive, but it turns out, they did not pay attention to all the details. i think there are 25 carry- forwards. >> i wonder what other things that i did not see when i was looking through i

here is a building in europe. this is a building in austria. this building was meant to celebrate the designation as the cultural capital of europe. these are some of the ideas we are exploring. within the building, at the transit center, commuters will have a clean, let, naturally ventilated spaces. at the platform level, they will also be clean and modern and will see a natural sunlight through the opening of the light colorado. in this way, the transit center will change your idea about what an urban traffic center will be like. sustainability has been an important component and has been one of our core missions for the project. in this cross section, we can see the energy techniques that were deployed. the building is on track for a gold leaf reading from the u.s. building council, a tremendous achievement for a transit building. the new station will consume 25% less energy required by the state due to its efficient lighting, ventilation, etc., and will draw most of its heat from one of the largest geothermal locations. here you see the lig

this is the building. the more stories you put on the building, greaterer the mass of the buildings. that's one of the reasons they pose a greater hazard. here's a soft story building we don't know -- >> it could be steel frames in it but we can't see it. that's what you look for where they have glass on two sides. >> a typical problem hopefully retrofitted. i want to point out, Ñithis bui rtion not vul national but they have commercial uses on the ground floor. if these are destroyed, these buildings might collapse a floor, not a huge pile of rubal the likelihood, like in the marina, they come down on the soft story. >> no. what happened in the marina, most buildings got rolled over and crushed the cart. okay. the rest of it stood up. i walked into a bunch of them, you could -- the floors were doing this, but you could walk through the floors but the ground floors didn't exist. >> so we don't want to lose or neighborhood serving businesses as well that's another reason those are important. >> another thin

so we build a building and the life span of a building in san francisco is essentially unlimited. we don't say we expect buildings to last 30 years and then we're going tear them down and build a new building like they do in japan and other places. we say, once a building is built we expect that it will be able to be maintained. and once it's 50 years old, it's likely to become a historic resource of some sort. the problem is then that buildings might have shakes and shangele -- shingles that are good for 30 years but the paper underneath it might be, you know, have a 10-year or 15-year or 20-year warranty or life expectancy and the fasteners mible own -- might be only reasonably good for 15 or 20 years and the window might have a 20-year warrant and this stuff does not align. and we see this especially as a problem with new buildings where we have a new building that -- where we have a facade that we expect to be secure for 30 years to 40 years before it needs to be reteared but underneath it has -- it has some membrane that's a 20-year membrane. that's an issue that we're all wr

the department of building inspection will review the application for building code compliance prior to any permit issuance. it is believed that the impacts are within limits and accepted for propertys in a dense urban environment and that the legalization in -- and modification of the dormer, the legalization of the windows and the rear trellis would cause no significant impacts to the light, air and sun slight of the properties. the design team concluded that the design of the project is in keeping with the subject character and the surrounding neighborhoods and that the project does not contain or great any exceptional or extraordinary circumstances. the department recommends that the commission not take d.r. and approve the project. >> d.r. requester? >> good evening. my name is marilyn. i oppose the project due to the fol -- first the conversion of the attic. this permit application is for the to legalize a dormer, it has been labeled as a dormer. it is actually an approximate 262 habitable space with a full bathroom that was built by the current owner, probably around 1992. it

25% of the building and basically chopped the building up just to put units in front of it. the challenges are light and air that it produces but we did get 18 studio units, how none of which are the size to be a two- bedroom units. also accessibility is making this project difficult because we are trying not to do further damage to the exterior. in the adaptive reuse scenario, we actually look that keeping the front and two side walls of the building as much as we could. this permitted us to have as many as 23 units. we assumed that the building would be set back in order to provide insurance into the building and access with a very efficient steam. we would also be leaving you with the front and side prickles for better enforced. in both cases, because it was a comparison, it did as soon the 0.75 parking places and the under a brick building and providing parking would be difficult. this does little for the neighborhood, this does not provide the 40% or does it provide any real creation of the neighborhood fabric. >> thank you. >> i have handed you a copy of what i have to

this building card. most clerks when you approach them and ask for that they will send you to a computer monitor so to see what they have on-line. stand firm. you want to see the source document. they'll do it if you push them to do it. >> okay. couple more resources here. >> when you find out the people that used to live in your building, you can then go to the san francisco directories and their available that public libraries and they have many many years worth of these and you can find out that lawrence fox was married to betty who was a stockbroker and presided at 42 pacific avenue. you can find out if the owner was also occupying the building they owned so you can start to build a biography of the people that lived in your house through these city directors. >> i wanted to mention the building department has miscallaneous records of all sorts and let me just, a lon the length of letting you into the inner city secrets of records being kept. this is the unreenforced masonry building survey. we have

the building. it is possible, and that was a statement i made at that meeting, that a relocation of the building for the structural work can be done. i want to apologize to commissioner garcia for not coordinating the briefings between the attorney and the report that i wrote. the intent is to do a seismic upgrade. perhaps we should have been slightly more in tune as to we presented the scope and implementation of that scope. having said that, anything is possible structurally, but it costs a lot of money. a did he formation of 11 inches of one corner is not marginal. if we were to jack up that one corner, that would generate a dramatic c.a.c.ing of the building. it would be a different thing to explain to the tenant of that unit how we can prevent windows from popping. this particular exercise in this building is unusual in the since there were two buildings that were combined in 1918. so we have a national hinge. structurally this is a very complicated project. what is in front of you is a seismi

>> existing building, if people try to implement it. they may have to sprinkler their buildings. you can built the building bigger or more area. or bring your separation a little closer together. there's a lot of advantages to the designer. and i think we may see some of these buildings putting them in they they don't have to get the advantages. particularly the ones downtown. you try to put the sprinklers in and they get to take advantage of the code. >> the new code doesn't consider the post earthquake. we have an unfortunate loss of water pressure after an earthquake. the local jurisdiction are a little bit concerned about over reliance on sprinklers instead of fixed assets because of lost water. >> my main fire protection engineer, he's concerned and wants to implement if you have a tank in your building, you have the water supply, sprinkler system. they have to have some back up water already >> high rises need them. >> except, it's supposed to be 30 minutes for your most demands >> that's a lot of water. >> the minimum is 15,000 gallons. i think 25,000 was the last one i sa

i'm so happy to be here today where we will be building a new building for the puc and contributing to the green movement in our state. it is a wonderful place to be. i will be introducing a number of folks, but i want to start with introducing my commissioners. as i mentioned, this is one of those things where the puc has trained about a new headquarters building for i do not know how many years. buying one or building one, but it was always sitting out there because we have people in different parts of san francisco renting space, and that is not a good thing for ratepayers ultimately. we are one of the leaders in green technology and water and energy conservation, and we should showcase that in our new building, and this building will give us a chance to do that. one of the proponents of this building since day one who was very excited to be here was a major gap in -- mayor gavin newsom, and i will turn it over to the mayor. [applause] >> the spirit of this announcement is the creation of literally hundreds of jobs over the next several years because of this kickoff of sorts on this

the back of this building looks just like a normal blind wall building. it's a big clear stand wall, you know, stucco or something. and here, it appears to be and i don't know what the actual structure is. it appears to be stone below and a log building above. >> [laughter] >> with a big balcony deck on these giant beams that projects from the building. >> these are low beams and the real structure is hidden inside and for that quality of construction, they probably have pretty good flashing details. >> tremendous problems with water intrusion when you have that many horizontal members. because the water's going to want to get in to each and every one of those cracks between the horizontal boards of this. -- log building. we have a variety of different kinds of balconies and decks here, all of which have extreme waterproofing issues. it's a very, very modern one on the right. requires a very highly sophisticated flashing and waterproofing detail. >> i would say the one in the middle. and i know that building. i don't know if that particular building has b

from the building department.r department where you give addendums, changes in your approved plans. commissioner hwang: that might have been for a curb cut. commissioner fung: a curb cut. if you want to speak, speak at the microphone. >> this is very clear. commissioner fung: it is not clear. your documentation is not clear. your paperwork is not clear. thank you very much. i understand what you're trying to say. what is elsewhere is not equivalent to what your paperwork shows. >> you can ask the building department. commissioner fung:

buildings fit more reasonably in these larger complex buildings. so you get to choose. the standard is, in 2010, right now it is certified, a minimum of 50. plus special requirements, and in 2010, it is green point rated with 75 points. and special requirements are with production, storm water management, and reduction. so we tried to keep it as simple as we could, simple categories for residential. we have not seen it too many problems yet. we have had a whole lot come in, as you can imagine, providing paperwork. we will talk about paperwork in a second. we have new commercial, new residential, and one more category. it says a new large commercial interior or major alteration to existing buildings with b m and r occupancies with more than 25 a square feet. basically, we're saying, there are two things. either the first kind of improvements in a building, or some other kind of alteration. first time improvements have to make reading requirements, being certified. when you look to achieve a lead rating for commercial improvements, you do not try to

it is not just an old building. it is an old building that has been invoked under standards through the residential design guidelines of the secretary of the interior, which affect the whole project. commissioner hwang: thank you. vice president goh: it seems like if we deny the permit we are denying the repairs to the foundation for at least a year. i am not willing to do that or to force the permit holder to go through the emergency application process. i think continuance makes sense to the earliest possible date -- the earliest possible date after the board of supervisors. commissioner fung: i am in agreement. it is up to the permit holder to take whatever action he has under his control related to either withdraw will or requesting a disapproval. it is up to him to make a case with the building department, whether it is an emergency safety issue. what is before us is the fact that we cannot act. therefore, we must be consistent in that respect and continue this. i am prepared to accept the day that was discusse