san francisco's code. i want to talk about these changes, the calgreen code. as you know, san francisco adopted its own green building ordinance a couple of years back. we were way ahead of the state with regard to buildings. the state this year has adopted a california green building code and included language that said any local jurisdiction with their own code, they can continue their authority with local requirements, as long as they are at least pass strict as state requirements. what that required us to do is to take this state building code and look at our own, and for each provision, is this as strict as the state? if not, we need to bring it forward. in order to do that, we need to do a complete matrix for each provision. the city cannot have any code that are less restrictive than the state. either equal or more restrictive. what we ended up doing with the california green building code was bring in into our previous green building chapter, 13c, the environmental concerns chapter, and bring forward those more restrictive provisions in the state code -- and there were many -- and as well integrating our own

buildings and hotels. >> when you say industry professional, i believe and what section are we looking at in the housing code? >> ok. that is in section 604 of the housing code. >> 604. the san francisco building code be the way. this book is the san francisco building cold. -- code. ok. structural maintenance section 604. >> the housing code is available online by going to sfgov.org and going to the municipal codes and clicking on the being code and going to the san francisco housing code query by section 604. and the actual section is in that notification restated as it is in the code. >> now, people have questions they can call the housing inspection services and ask them and what is the phone number? >> 415-558-6220. and if you have any questions on that, you can do that also as we're sending this out to the property owners, the district inspector's phone number right with that package and the organizational chart of the entire division is also online and every single phone number for every inspect, myself, is all on there. so you can call any of us and we'll be more than happy to help you with that. >> this ordinance requires inspection be done by a licensed general contractor an

right now, there is a requirement in the san francisco building code required to take your demolition construction debris to a registered facility, and they are required to do a recovery of some percentage. >> 65%, and you need a registered for any thing greater than a single axel picked up. >> of their committed to a recovery rate. we have recovery, but we're talking about deconstruction come up with the park that will be reused. -- the construction, -- deconstruction, with the part that will be reduced. so there is a regulation, and they put it in place, and that is all. especially with the green toad. san francisco's green building ordinance, and we both word about the -- wrote the ordnance and dealt with implementation with a small number of people, and it primarily relates to new buildings. i will go through the ordinance quickly and buried will help fill in the details. let's turn to table one. the table inside this ordinance. it focuses on two major topics. commercial buildings and residential buildings . so what are the requirements for a commercial building? we break them dow

took all those elements that we come were more restrictive and put them into the regular san francisco building code with a key that says that it is from the presidential code. -- residential code. we were concerned about having two separate codes, builders would have to carry two separate code books, engineers would have to understand two different codes. the regular california code standard for fire, protection, the egress, for all buildings in the city, so that we do not have a double standard. >> are we required to comply with the residential code, which was developed for smaller writ -- jurisdictions -- does that not mean that smaller jurisdictions are required to comply with the codes that we comply with? >> buildings that fall under the residential code, if you have a building, like in the downtown area, they have to use the regular california code. >> if you are using a one, two- unit building, you have to stick with the regular code? >> at this point, you do have to stick with the regular code. however, it does have some caveat. if your building is -- here is what it might say. you are buil

. >> item 5, discussion and possible action regarding and what it is amending the san francisco building code by adding section 105a.3.10 to require that an agenda and packet of materials for each matter to be decided by the access of appeals commission shall be sent to the mayor's office of disability at the same time and in the same manner as they are sent to the commission member. >> i do not see anyone here from the supervisor's office, so i will summarize what had been at thecac -- at tehe cac meeting. it was determined by the code advisory commission that we should amend the proposal to only include those items which the mayor's office on disability has input into, such as publicly funded buildings or any other buildings that they would have control over. otherwise, the plan check duty for disability access remain within the department of building inspection. so we decided that it would be appropriate to send the packages to the mayor's office on disabilities, that they do have some control or plan check on, and that was the recommendation in a letter that was sent to the commission. wa

buildings energy performance ordinance. this is an ordinance in many of the san francisco environment code -- to adopt the san francisco existing commercial buildings energy performance ordinance. >> thank you so much for the invitation to present to you today. mayor newsome introduced a new ordinance on august 10 called the existing commercial buildings energy performance ordinance, so we'd like to give you an overview of that today and solicit your comments and feedback. as you know, buildings account for 45% of greenhouse gases in san francisco and of that, commercial buildings and city operations account for about 2/3 of those greenhouse gases. last year, mayor newsome brought together a task force of local experts on existing and commercial buildings to help the mayor and the city think about ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase efficient in those existing commercial buildings. the existing commercial building task force included 19 stakeholders from the building industry and from the energy efficiency building ownership developer financial and general business sector. they met for several months and in dec

. >> the building code in san francisco says that we can approve products that are not specifically required or meet the requirements of the building code, if can be shown to us that there's a rational basis for approval, that they're meeting the intent of the code. we can approve an alternate method or material and we do that a lot now, especially with new materials flooding the market. we have to look at things on a case by case, use by use basis, and we would consider this sort of thing. protective glazing, wired glass, we see traditionally all over. >> so we've got wired glass here. you know, it's a product that we used to sell a lot of. but almost a product whose time has come. i mean this is an obscure wire glass, with -- it's rated 45 minutes for fire. but the problem is there's no impact. so this is not -- at one time, you could put this in a fire door, only in a -- there was a time when they put this in shower doors. and so clearly that's not legal anymore, with good reason, besides the fact that all of the wires rusted. there's some pretty nasty-loo nasty-looking shower doors that

san francisco heritage. >> okay i want to flip through some of these other materials we brought along to show you. not the building codes. here today, fantastic book you want to tell us about it. >> here today, is the end results of years worth of research done by the junior league of san francisco. a book published in the late 1960's and there's an enormous volume of research. architecture, social that went into the making and not every building researchs in the making of this book is published. there are background files that san francisco library history room, the planning department has an index but the library has on their web page the index you can download some you can go by the street and check to see if the number of your buildings listed and they will have a research file on that building. >> -- just to mention i have in, my here today, copy the resolution of boardrd of supervisors adopted this as an official list of resources in that time. so if you have your property lists or even in the back where there's a listing of olive street all of the shingles are a later addition it maintain as purity of line. espec

. >> san francisco has adopted the 2007 california building code. section 108 appeals board is part of this in the city did not file an amendment. this section has the force of law and the state mandated to be uniformly used by each party. by creating your own laws, you have prevented rights to an independent housing or local board of appeals as stated in section 108.08. under the police power granted by the constitution, the county and the city have authority to govern subject to the limitation that the exercise this power within the territorial limits insubordinate to state law. there is an appellate court court case that ruled local governments must adopt this pursuant to state law. california health and safety code section 179.60 article 1 -- the building department of every city and county show and force within its jurisdiction all the provisions published in the state building code standards code. the california department of housing and community development has adopted section 108.08, and they state "prior to making any modifications or esta

what we're doing with this right now is the san francisco housing code requires the city and county of san francisco to do inspections of participate buildings and hotels at least once every five years. so while we're going thus thru this process, we're inserting this particular affidavit and notification in the appointment request letters going out to the property owners so that we could have a field inspector actually explain this process. this is not meant to necessarily be always done at the same time. we're just introducing it this time to get the information out to the property owners so say that know that this particular requirement exists. why do we put this in the code? we put it in the code because we realize that the -- with the amount of buildings we have out there, their type of construction, the age of these buildings and the amount of inspectors we have, we can't really get at the issues with decks, failure, dry rot and all these issues just with the staff we have. so one of the things that we're wanting the proper owners to do, to regularly survey their buildings for this kind of problem, get a licensed industry professional

. >> the map could ultimately change building codes throughout san francisco. >>> usds say a new computerizedering process has enabled them to create maps that would allow state officials to focus on areas most closely monitored or retrofitted for earthquake safety. >> and we don't have to worry about 80 miles of the pipeline. just have to worry about where the pipeline crosses the river channel. >> the maps focus on areas prone to lick faction, a process in which a strong quake combines with water saturated soil to dislodge aboveground strike tours. liquidfaction destroyed homes in the mission district during the 1989 earthquake. while scientists here have long known san francisco, oakland and alameda communities built on landfill are vulnerable to this the new maps better let them pinpoint which neighborhoods will be most dangerous during a quake. >> this is alameda creek. it has a very large watershed. so it has young deposits that are saturated with groundwater and susceptible to liquidfaction. >> this tape of data allows you to go into a community and develop a plan and focus on those pe

you have the advantage, we in san francisco have not asked for that amendment. we just go with what the california building code says. >> the new california building code into into affect january 1, 2009. and it relies on fire sprinklers. can you think of any? >> 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. t

building of any kind is a miracle in san francisco right now. i'm going to suggest to you that it would be just as much of a miracle if it followed the code. i would welcome a building on this side, especially one that followed the rules. if there were a grocery store included, i would probably come down here and cheerlead for it. it is an important consideration to have a building on that lot. we just want one that works for our neighborhood and our community. commissioner miguel: thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i want to talk a little bit to you this afternoon from the perspective of the corporate occupier and the users of these buildings. i am part of a practice that represents large corporate users in san francisco. i work with other users in san francisco, who you probably know are a rare commodity for this city, users who are building and adding jobs and who need space and contribute to the tax base. from someone who has been involved with san francisco since 1987, how special that group of corporate citizens are, maybe a little counterintuitive to think about a building being -- coming forth and being asked for approval

level landings: the building code says it should be level so you can come to a stop when you get in the door. that can often be a problem in san francisco where the sidewalk is existing and it's hard to have fully level landings. this is moderately compliant with those requirements, looks pretty good, and this is actually a fairly good installation. look at the door hardware, that's that loop hardware. great hardware for a door. hardware is cheap. look, here is a non-complying lever hardware i will talk about. hardware is relatively inexpensive. we just bought this lever hardware, it's a whole lot better than a round doorknob for a lot of people. doesn't matter if you are blind or me. my mother, who is 84, cannot grab a doorknob. the code says you should not be providing hardware that needs to be tightly grasped, turned or pinched. so this is good. lever hardware is good because you can hit it and move it and pull it or push it. this kind we see here, this loop hardware, is extremely good for that. the reason this is not compliant, anybody know? it's in the state fire code. it's not in the building code. it says the levers have to retur

building code about how they have to be. >> the angle and width. i believe that's all covered in the handout. >> typically san francisco fire escapes and we will see, had angles of somewhere between 60 and 72-degree ladders. i can't from this angle tell what that is. the state has made it clean that 60 degrees is what they consider to be the maximum safe angle. most of the existing ones are steeper, up to 72 degrees. and these hand rails and they step down on to a landing and you walk around and go down. at the bottom, this is the way to get to the ground. this is great. this has something called a counter balance ladder. it means that as you walk down to the bottom of the fire escape, there's a ladder sticking out horizontally. it will go down because there's a weight. >> it doesn't go all at once. >> so counter balance ladders are what the code currently require. but as we walk around, you will see many of them don't have counter balance ladders, they have drop ladders and accordians and all that. this is an excellent type of ladder. you can see from the end of counter balance ladder, there's a chain. if you follow the chain up. it goes up to a p

san francisco. in the last 10 years, there has been a sea change within the bureaucracy, the building and planning departments, where the attitude has been very proactive in trying to help property owners bring things up to code and to save these old, illegal units, rather than force them to be abandoned. the attitude of the city has really changed a lot and people are more likely to get help from their building inspector rather than enforcement. >> what i had hoped we could do is look at this little hand out for further discussion. starting on page one, it is from a website, home remodeling magazine, there is a long list of things supposedly san francisco-based, adjusted for local conditions, and how much of the cost you can expect to recoup for the work you're doing in the building. if you're doing work because you want to live there and you want to appreciate the improvement, that is different. if you're doing work with a clear eye to how much you can get back, i am shocked to see under the column that says "cost recouped," there's not a single one of these things that says you can get back all of your cost, not one. some of them you get back a lot. most of them you do not do too well. is there anything wh