Building Inspection Commission
BUILDING INSPECTION COMMISSION (BIC)
Department of Building Inspection (DBI)
Wednesday July 18, 2001 at 1:00 p.m.
City Hall, 1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, Room 408
Adopted September 5, 2001
MINUTES
The meeting of the Building Inspection Commission was called to order at 1:10 p.m. by President Fillon.
1. Roll Call - Roll call was taken and a quorum was certified.
COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT:
Alfonso Fillon, President Denise D’Anne, Commissioner
Bobbie Sue Hood, Vice-President Esther Marks, Commissioner
Roy Guinnane, Commissioner Rodrigo Santos, Commissioner
Debra Walker, Commissioner
Ann Aherne, Commission Secretary
D.B.I. REPRESENTATIVES:
Frank Chiu, Director
Amy Lee, Assistant Director
Jim Hutchinson, Deputy Director
William Wong, Deputy Director
Tuti Suardana, Secretary
2. President’s Announcements.
a. Report and discussion on the Performance Audit of the Department of Building
Inspection by the Controller’s Office dated June 11, 2001.
President Fillon said that he wanted to remind the Commissioners that DBI had supplied them with an action plan, which was issued in response to the concerns and issues raised by the audit. President Fillon stated that this plan provided timelines to address those issues. President Fillon asked for feedback from the Commissioners for the Director and the Department. President Fillon asked for the Controller’s Office to step forward with their presentation.
Controller Ed Harrington introduced himself and thanked the Commission for allowing his office to present the report. Mr. Harrington said that last month the Controller’s Office issued their report on the Department of Building Inspection and said that he would be making some brief comments and then turn the presentation over to Mr. Mark Tipton, the Audit Manager, who actually worked on the report full time. Mr. Harrington stated that audits, by their very nature, often seem negative and the immediate response is to feel negative or threatened by it. Mr. Harrington said that the audit actually had a number of positive comments in it and stated that the Controller’s Office feels that the comments that were not positive just mean that no place is perfect and there is always room for improvement; the negative comments were stepping off places to be able to do some things different for the future. Mr. Harrington said that, in general, the audit says that the customers of DBI and the staff of DBI all believe that DBI is extraordinarily customer focused and there were some very positive results because of that focus. Mr. Harrington said that the risk of being so customer focused can mean that the customer friendly aspect of how the Department does business overwhelms the enforcement aspect of how DBI does business and there are two ways that the report points out as to how these things could be improved. Mr. Harrington stated that the documented performance measures typically focus on productivity measures; how fast does something happen in that part of the world and does not focus on the quality of the regulatory aspects of what the Department does. Mr. Harrington said that the audit says that, while the Department does some of the regulatory quality control checks, they typically are not documented, they typically are not widespread and they typically are not the way that DBI monitors the way they do their job. Mr. Harrington stated the Controller’s Office were suggesting ways to do that better and one of the ways that DBI should look at how they are doing their job is not just quick, but accurate and enforced. Mr. Harrington said that the second issue that came up a lot is that the audit is saying that a sizeable number of the staff that responded say that improper preferential treatment may have been provided to some customers. Mr. Harrington stated that his office is providing a number of suggestions and said that, basically, if there is a perception or a reality the Department must address it. Mr. Harrington thanked the Commission for allowing the Controller’s Office to be present and said that Mark Tipton would walk through the report.
Mr. Mark Tipton introduced himself as a performance audit manager with the Controller’s Office. Mr. Tipton handed out copies of the transparencies that he used for his presentation to the Commissioners. Mr. Tipton said that he trusted that the Commissioners had a chance to review the audit report and said that he was going to briefly go over the highlights, the key findings and some of the recommendations. Mr. Tipton said that the Controller’s Office did an audit that complemented an audit that was contracted for with KPMG. Mr. Tipton said that the results of the KPMG audit were a companion to the results of the Controller’s audit. Mr. Tipton said that KPMG found that the Department’s permit issuance process has minor quality control gaps that raise the risk of substandard construction. Mr. Tipton said that they found process and technology issues that delay permit issuance and insufficient use of quality control and technology that hampers the productivity and responsiveness of inspectors. Mr. Tipton stated that KPMG found that the front line contact with customers is less efficient and convenient than it could be. Mr. Tipton stated that the complete results of KPMG’s audit were included as Appendix E to the Controller’s Office report.
Mr. Tipton said that Chapter One of their report talks about the fact that the Department, although it gages the efficiency of its efforts, it should also measure the effectiveness of its work. Mr. Tipton said that too many measures exist for evaluating promptness and productivity as there are twenty-four performance measures for the permit services program and fourteen for the other two programs, Inspection Services and Administration. Mr. Tipton said that the Controller’s Office were recommending that the Department focus on fewer key efficiency measures and that would reduce the data collection burden on staff who aggregate all of this data; however, the Controller’s Office were also recommending that the Department institute some measures of effectiveness that show how it fulfills its mission to enforce the City Codes. Mr. Tipton said that some ideas for effectiveness measures were measures that access how thorough and accurate plan check is and how thorough and accurate inspections are as these are the two key functions of the Department. Mr. Tipton stated that there was some detail in the report as to what those measures might look like. Mr. Tipton said that the audit recommended that the Department should tie its performance measures to its mission, goals and objectives in the form of a comprehensive, strategic plan. Mr. Tipton said that he thought that the management of the Department was aware of the value of strategic plans and endorses the concept, but stated that he thought is was a matter more of resources rather than of will. Mr. Tipton said that he understood that the Department had already taken steps in the direction of a more strategic plan. Mr. Tipton said that under this chapter the audit found that the Department should implement policies and procedures to better ensure that services are delivered fairly. Mr. Tipton said that the survey of employees found that 20% of Plan Checkers and 46% of inspectors responding said they had witnessed customers receiving improper preferential treatment and further two-thirds of responding Plan Checkers and almost one-third of responding Inspectors had seen expediters receiving such treatment. Mr. Tipton said that, as stated in the report, the audit could not define what form this treatment may have taken or if it is real, or perceived, but if nothing improper is actually occurring then some employees need to be informed as to what constitutes proper and improper treatment of customers. Mr. Tipton said that is why it was recommended in the report that there be a written policy defining and prohibiting improper preferential treatment; that there be a process to allow any whistle blowers to report their concerns and that there be a change to the authorized agent form that the Department uses so that the customers clearly understand that DBI won’t give expediters preference.
Mr. Tipton said that another major area of the finding had to do with the impact fees that DBI provides to the Municipal Railway and the School District in referring and identifying projects that are subject to these fees. Mr. Tipton said that the audit found that there is no management review built into the process for identifying and referring projects subject to transit impact development fees and the school fees. Mr. Tipton said that there are a few automated checks that the Department uses and the policies and procedures that the Department has are old and inadequate to fully inform staff as to how to do this job. Mr. Tipton said that the audit found that the School District and the Municipal Railway have no way of knowing if DBI has referred all of the projects that it should, because DBI does not compile permit data to total up how much residential or non-residential space is created in a month, a year or whatever. Mr. Tipton said that a review of Planning Department and DBI records led the Controller’s Office to conclude that the Municipal Railway had not billed or collected an estimated $3.5 million in transit fees since 1985. Mr. Tipton said that the audit did a test of selective permit records that showed that the School District might have failed to collect hundreds of thousands of dollars in school fees.
Mr. Tipton reported that Chapter Three had to do with some of the personnel and fleet management practices of the Department. Mr. Tipton said that overall it was found that DBI had not adequately recorded or monitored employee’s professional certification, training or evaluation. Mr. Tipton said that Department records were inadequate to show compliance with the State law that requires certification and training for certain employees of local building inspection agencies. Mr. Tipton said that it specified Plans Examiners, Construction Inspectors and the Building Official. Mr. Tipton stated that if these personnel were not grand fathered in and had not worked for the Department for a certain number of years, then they are required to have this certification. Mr. Tipton said that although the audit found that most of the employees in the Department who should be certified were certified, some employees had not completed the certification process by the end of the year 2000. Mr. Tipton said that for the twenty-four employees that were identified as requiring certification the Personnel Services Division of the Department were able to collect documentation showing that 75% were certified, 8%, which is two people, were not certified and 17%, which is four people, had no information provided. Mr. Tipton said that of the eighteen people who were certified three had not obtained certification by the date that was required by law. Mr. Tipton said that according to the employee survey, most which is 60% of employees in the Department, reported that they had not had a performance evaluation in over a year and 19% reported that they had never had a performance evaluation. Mr. Tipton said that another item in this chapter had to do with the unpaid car benefit. Mr. Tipton stated that this is a benefit that is added to an employee’s paycheck when they take a car home at night and Federal Law requires it. Mr. Tipton said that over one-half of the ninety-one employees who have the benefit are not having it reported and that is a violation of Federal Tax Law. Mr. Tipton stated that the Controller’s Office had made management aware of this and management will take corrective action. Mr. Tipton said that fleet management procedures could be improved; specifically, if the Department is assigning cars to employees who may not need them everyday and these cars are being used in a carpool sort of way, this procedure should be formalized. Mr. Tipton said that the Department has no policy for assigning its cars and the City has specific requirements for justifying when cars are assigned to individuals and those were laid out in the report.
Mr. Tipton reported that Chapter Four focused on the Department using inefficient, unreliable processes for recording and reporting information on its productivity and promptness. Mr. Tipton said that the Department has a lot of performance measures and the audit team went though and tested how those statistics are compiled. In some cases, Mr. Tipton said that it was found that there is too much reliance on manual processes to calculate performance statistics; in some cases, the Department is using its automated system, the permit tracking system, for this purpose less than it used to before the conversion was made from one platform to the other. Mr. Tipton said that this was found especially true in the Plan Check Services Unit and doing it that way is more time consuming and makes the results more subject to error. Mr. Tipton said that therefore, it increases the likeliness of inaccurate figures and these figures are used to assess the performance of the Department. Mr. Tipton said that the Controller’s Office were recommending that the computer system be used to do more of this work and to generate reports so that staff, who in some cases are compiling things in spiral notebooks and writing out data, could have this data captured by the system earlier, someone can press a button and generate a report. Mr. Tipton said that the MIS folks in the Department feel that there is a lot of potential to make this happen. Mr. Tipton said that the MIS staff needs to know what staff needs in terms of reports. Mr. Tipton reported that Housing Inspection Services should improve their reporting of performance results and their record keeping. Mr. Tipton stated that the Chief Housing Inspector agreed that Inspectors could more accurately record how they spend their time on code enforcement cases, which is used to bill violators. Mr. Tipton said that Housing Inspection should establish performance goals that better reflect its objectives to see that code violations are corrected as opposed to the bills having been paid or cases closed. Mr. Tipton said that he had skipped the productivity of building inspectors and stated that the audit found that this was overstated. Mr. Tipton said that the audit was based on how most statistics are compiled and found that approximately 23% of the activities that are counted as building inspections might not be. Mr. Tipton stated that the audit tested for one month and found out of 5,000 reported building inspections there were actually activities such as: permit expired, no entry, no progress, correction required, certificate of final completion and occupancy issued, and reinspection required. Mr. Tipton said that these are all valid things that the Building Inspectors do, but counting them as discreet inspections did not make sense to the auditors.
Mr. Tipton said that Chapter Five dealt with the Department’s customers and employees expressing general satisfaction with the Department. Mr. Tipton said that he left the nicest thing for last and stated that the Controller’s Office did a survey of the Department’s employees and contracted with an institute at San Francisco State that administered a customer survey for the Controller’s Office. Mr. Tipton said that the surveys of customers and employees showed that they are generally satisfied with the Department and reported that some highlights were that 65% of customers said that they receive good or excellent service; 86% said that employees were helpful and courteous in the application process. Mr. Tipton said that employees generally feel positive about their jobs, that the quality of their work is high and that the productivity has improved in recent years. Mr. Tipton said that some customers expressed concern about the level or quality of certain services and these items were laid out in the report. Mr. Tipton said that the items that were reported most frequently were: inspectors were inconsistent, permit approval takes too long; permit fees are too high; inspection scheduling is too difficult; plan check process is inefficient, etc. Mr. Tipton said that most employees’ concerns were related to outside influences on the Department and to workplace and employment issues. Mr. Tipton said that, as mentioned already, some employees felt that the Department has allowed some customers, including expediters, to affect adversely the ability of permit processing and building inspection staff to perform their jobs in a professional manner.
Mr. Tipton said that he would not go through the recommendations individually as they are outlined in detail in the report. Mr. Tipton said that he would just go over the area in which they fall and these fall logically from what he had just discussed. M. Tipton said that first the Department should better gauge how well it is accomplishing its mission and its mission is to do effective, fair, and safe code enforcement, not just efficient. Mr. Tipton stated that the Department should identify and refer more effectively the construction projects subject to impact fees owed to the Municipal Railway and School District; ensure that employees are professional, certified and trained in accordance with State law and more consistently evaluate their performance; use more efficient, reliable processes for recording and reporting performance statistics and do surveys to obtain and use valuable comments on its operations. Mr. Tipton said that he thought that the Department could follow up with the efforts that the Controller’s Office undertook and stated that he knew that management was interested in getting feedback. Mr. Tipton said that the recommendations of the KPMG report were included and should be given equal weight and should be implemented. Mr. Tipton said that he would be happy to answer any questions as to how the Controller’s Office did their work or why they reached their conclusions.
Vice-President Hood said that she had a question about the outside influence. Vice-President Hood asked what percentage of the employees were respondents. Mr. Tipton asked if she were asking about that item or if she was asking in general. Mr. Tipton called on Mr. John Haskell to answer. Mr. Haskell said that there were 284 employees; surveys were distributed to all of them and 137 were filled out. Vice-President Hood asked what percentage of employees who responded mentioned the problem of outside influence affecting how people were treated. Mr. Haskell said that it was a very small percentage when the total was considered because it only included Plan Checkers, of which there are about twenty, and Inspectors. Mr. Haskell said that among those twenty Plan Checkers, six of those people said that this was a problem. Vice-President Hood asked if other people could not answer that question because typically there are clerks and other people who observe that process. Vice-President Hood asked if that particular question was limited to the Plan Checkers. Mr. Tipton said that the outside influence that was expressed by employees was expressed in written comments as people were afforded the ability to write in concerns. Mr. Tipton said that questions were asked specifically of Plan Checkers and Inspectors regarding improper preferential treatment, but in terms of the general concerns of outside influence, the reason there are no numbers in the report, and it is discussed in more general terms, is because it was based on write-in comments. Vice-President Hood asked how many write-in comments were on how many different forms. Mr. Tipton said that most of the surveys had write-in comments, but he could not say how many people expressed concern about this problem specifically. Vice-President Hood said that she would like to know specifically what those numbers were and said that she would like to know of the seven form responses was that for Inspectors and Plan Checkers. Vice-President Hood said that would be considerably more than twenty people. Vice-President Hood stated that she thought that this was a very serious charge and wanted to know how this was being followed up, either by getting more evidence of it or whatever because when it is reported this way, it sounds really bad. Vice-President Hood said that if 1/3 of the people who could know said it, it sounds really bad, but if it is a much smaller percentage it could be just office politics. Vice-President Hood said that she felt, as a Commission, the Commissioners need to get a handle on how serious the problem is to know how to go about solving, it if it really exists. Vice-President Hood said that Mr. Tipton stated that this problem could be either a perceived problem or an actual problem and stated that she agreed, but if it were a perceived problem it is not likely to go away no matter what is done. Vice-President Hood said that it could be made clearer to people what the standard of behavior should be and when it is a violation so that there is some way of reporting it when it is close enough to the action to solve it. Vice-President Hood said that she felt that more information was needed on this, as it sounds so bad, and yet it is hard to tell from the information received. Mr. Tipton said that the auditors did take pains to put in the numbers of respondents related to the questions that were asked on improper treatment and said that those appeared on page 16 of the report. Mr. Tipton said that it reported that seven of twenty-two responding inspectors said they had an expediter ask them for and had seen an expediter receive improper preferential treatment. Mr. Tipton said that these figures reflect a broader trend for all customers of the Department. Mr. Tipton said of the twenty-one Plan Checkers responding to this item, six or 20%, said that they had witnessed customers receiving preferential treatment, improper preferential treatment, and 25% said that a Supervisor had asked them to give a customer such treatment. Mr. Tipton said that the report goes on to say that twelve of the twenty-six Inspectors responding which is 46% said that they had witnessed customers receiving improper preferential treatment and 37% said that a Supervisor had asked them to give a customer such treatment.
President Fillon said that he had a question about a statement that was made that there are no procedures in place in the Department for whistle blowers and stated that he thought that there was a citywide procedure for employees that want to blow the whistle on their department. Mr. Harrington said that the Ethics Commission has a whistle blower process that they go through, but some people view it as easy and others view it as very difficult. Mr. Harrington said that the audit was recommending that the Department should make sure that their employees are aware of this and that it is a reasonable outlet for them to respond if they see something improper. Mr. Harrington said that it was not for the Department to set up its own process that avoids the City process, but it is just making sure people are aware that it is available to them. President Fillon said that it was his understanding that at the present time there is a lot of protection for people who want to do that. Commissioner Walker asked if were more about the Department not educating DBI’s employees and giving them information. Mr. Harrington said that it was not just DBI, but most City employees do not know about the process. Mr. Harrington said that the audit is saying that DBI should make their employees more aware of the process and how to access it.
Commissioner Walker said that most of the recommendations for improvement on most counts deal with using DBI’s computer system more especially around the proficiency and efficiency in Plan Checking, Permit and Inspection. Commissioner Walker asked if DBI’s computer system was able to be adopted to accommodate that and asked if when the Controller’s Office was talking about MIS were they talking about knowing DBI’s system or systems in general. Mr. Tipton said that the audit was talking about DBI’s system; the auditors spoke with the MIS staff and said that MIS staff were confident that the information is either already in the system or could be put into the system at an earlier point and that it is more a matter of forming report generation protocol so that the non-technical person could do a few keystrokes and generate the report that they would like to generate every week, month or quarter. Mr. Tipton said that some of these things are automated to some point now, but it was found that in some cases clerks are going around the system by recording information manually and then putting it into a stand alone spread sheet. Mr. Tipton said that in other cases the information is being drawn from the system. Mr. Tipton said that the MIS staff seemed to be very willing and able to cooperate with the people that want the reports. Commissioner Walker said that as a follow up to that, as the Department responds to the audit, would it be appropriate to have the Controller’s Office give input to the Department as far as creating that system. Commission Walker asked if it was a function of the Controller’s Office to help the Department solve some of these problems. Mr. Harrington said that the Controller’s Office would be willing to assist in anyway that is appropriate for DBI, and stated and the Controller’s Office has a special projects team. Mr. Harrington said that after the Controller’s Office finished the audit of another department there were several issues that they asked the Controller’s Office to come back and assist them in doing. Mr. Harrington said that the Controller’s Office would be quite willing to do that should DBI need that kind of assistance.
Commissioner D’Anne asked what was the methodology of the audit, were surveys done or observations or were direct interviews conducted to get the data that was compiled? Mr. Tipton said that all of those things were done; the auditors did extensive interviewing of staff especially managers and looked at large amounts of data both documents and directly accessing the permit tracking system; two discreet surveys were done, the employee survey that was sent to everyone where the auditors compiled the results, and the customer survey which was contracted with a professional survey research institute, San Francisco State who gave the results of the customer survey. Mr. Tipton said that this customer survey was certified and the firm hired stands behind the results. Commissioner D’Anne asked if the auditors did any direct observations at any time with some of the employees to see their work methods. Mr. Tipton said that the auditors did to some degree, but KPMG did more of that and that is one of the reasons why it was not done again. Mr. Tipton said that KPMG did ride-alongs with Building Inspectors and the auditors observed activity at the front desk, at the Permit Center on the first floor, and visited with the people who work in the One Stop Program.
Commissioner Santos said that it was indicated that the productivity of the Inspectors was overrated, or they were doing things that they were not supposed to be doing such as tracking permits that may have expired and asked that this be explained. Mr. Tipton said that the audit did not assert that the Building Inspectors were doing anything that they weren’t supposed to be doing, but said that the way Building Inspectors, and only Building Inspectors, not Plumbing or Electrical Inspectors, record their activities is basically the problem, as it is not a good method for recording individual building inspections. Mr. Tipton said that some of the categories that he mentioned are valid activities that they should be doing as there is more to their job than just showing up on a job and doing inspections; they have to fill out paper work, etc. Mr. Tipton said that when filling out a piece of paper work counts as a building inspection the statistics get skewed and that is the point.
Vice-President Hood stated that she had a question about the measurement of quality. Vice-President Hood stated that several years ago, shortly after the Commission was formed in 1995, the Mayor made a decision that has been continued by the Brown Administration to do a form of management survey, which has been conducted every year that was based by requirement on quantitative factors. Vice-President Hood said that the Commission rates the performance of the Director who in turn rates other people, who in turn rate other people. Vice-President Hood said that the only measures that were given were quantitative because those were the only ones that could be measured by say 95% or 85%. Vice-President Hood said that she would like to have better measures of qualitative work, for example a way to tell if a plan is well checked because if a plan is well submitted then one would expect very few changes in the field as a result of not having a Code problem. Vice-President Hood asked if the Controller’s Office recommended any such measures of qualitative achievements. Mr. Harrington said he would respond and then have Mr. Tipton speak to the issue if he had additional comments. Mr. Harrington stated that the Pay for Performance Program that the City implemented several years ago was intended to be as quantitative as possible and that is where that impression that the Department could only count things came from, so to speak. Mr. Harrington said that the program was trying to be measurable so there was an attempt to say that a Department should not be basing a bonus for Senior Staff just on general feelings. Mr. Harrington said that there should be things that someone could look at and agree to accomplish and end up doing the task or not. Mr. Harrington said that the Controller’s Office was saying that there are measurable ways to talk about quality; for example, in some parts of DBI some Supervisors do spot checks to see if the quality is appropriate in terms of what has been done by a subordinate. Mr. Harrington said that this is not documented and is not put into a system that allows the Controller’s Office to say that they found that 99% of the work being checked is accurate or 93% is accurate, or the finding is that there are five mistakes when something happens. Mr. Harrington said that the Department can look from a qualitative perspective, but now the Department is looking at, did it get done on time or did all of the forms get checked; it is much more that kind of quantitative control. Mr. Harrington said that there can be quantitative measurers out of qualitative ideas and that is what the Controller’s Office.is pushing for, to have DBI look at things from a qualitative perspective and think of whether the inspection had to be redone or when someone did a spot check at the inspection, did they find the original inspection was done appropriately 95% of the time, 50% of the time or 100% of the time. Mr. Harrington said that this would give both aspects. Mr. Harrington said that on Pay for Performance it is allowable to do qualitative types of measures. Mr. Harrington stated that for his staff, and in a number of City departments that he has reviewed, there is a mix. Mr. Harrington stated that the mix is there of some quantitative and some things that are basically going to be more of a gut feeling of the qualitative nature of what has been accomplished and those are acceptable. Mr. Tipton said that to expand on that, the answer is yes, the audit does recommend qualitative measures and those are described in Chapter One as he had alluded to regarding the accuracy and the completeness of inspections and plan checks. Mr. Tipton said that management of the Department says that they do review these things and it is not a matter of not being done, it is just not recorded or demonstrated as well as the auditors would like; this is what they are recommending. Mr. Tipton stated that the qualitative measures should go hand in hand with the quantitative measures; effectiveness measures go hand in hand with efficiency measures. Mr. Tipton said that he would like to return to Commissioner Santos’ question and said that the point of the finding regarding the activities of Building Inspectors is that when things are counted as inspections that are not inspections, it makes people look more productive than they are. Mr. Tipton said that in every inspection unit of this Department there is a standard of eleven inspections per day and what the auditors were trying to say is that if the Department is exceeding that; it is great, but if 23%, as they estimated, are counted aren’t really inspections, then the Department is not doing as well as they thought they were. Vice-President Hood asked if eleven was the standard for people in general or was that just the number that came out of DBI; are they trying to do eleven inspections in Oakland and San Jose. Mr. Tipton said that KPMG looked at some other jurisdictions and tried to get comparables, but found that some cities had much higher standards of inspections per day for Inspectors, but didn’t feel that it was fair to compare San Francisco to places like Phoenix where there is a large amount of growth and the inspections are for tract housing and sort of cookie cutter stuff; whereas his understanding was that in San Francisco there is a great deal of the permits issued for remodeling and altering existing structures that is more complex. Vice-President Hood said that first the Inspector has to find a place to park.
Commissioner Guinnane said that in Chapter Two the audit discusses the Municipal Railway and the School District and the shortfall of $3.5M. Commissioner Guinnane asked if there was a list of the actual projects in question. Mr. Tipton said that they did compile a list. Commissioner Guinnane asked what was DBI’s responsibility to the Municipal Railway. Commissioner Guinnane said that he understood the fees to the School District, as there is a fee paid to the School District, the contractor gets a stamp and then the permit is issued, but asked how fees to the Municipal Railway worked. Mr. Tipton said that he would let Millicent Bogert who did this work give the explanation. Ms. Bogert asked Commissioner Guinnane if he was asking what DBI’s responsibility was regarding alerting Muni about these projects. Commissioner Guinnane said that with the School District so many square feet are assessed on the project, then the contractor pays the fee to the Board of Education and gets a receipt to come back to DBI and that is another requirement that gets squared away, but again asked how the Municipal Railway worked. Ms. Bogert said that when somebody applies for a building permit, the permit clerks at that initial point of intake are supposed to either contact Muni or have the customer contact Muni. Ms. Bogert stated that Muni has a designated Transit Impact Development Fee Administrator and that person figures out what that project will owe, so that is how that happens. Commissioner Guinnane asked if this was for every project. Ms. Bogert answered that it was for the ones that get referred by the clerks. Commissioner Guinnane asked if the clerks knew which ones to refer. Ms. Bogert said that it was office buildings that are within a certain portion of what is defined as the downtown area, so it is the Financial District and part of South of Market. Commissioner D’Anne asked if there was a process to retrieve these fees retroactively if the Department has missed collecting them. Ms. Bogert said yes, if the project was not built more than three years ago. Ms. Bogert said that if a project was never told that it owed these fees, DBI could now tell them. Commissioner Walker asked if a list was provided to DBI so that the Department could do that. Ms. Bogert said that the auditors did have a list of that and also conducted another project that had those buildings included. Ms. Bogert stated that yes, there was a list. Commissioner Santos asked if there was an actual case where they have actually gone back and collected the money. Ms. Bogert said that this had not been done, but it was something that Muni was working on. Commissioner Santos asked if there was any court case yet. Ms. Bogert said that she did not know how far along Muni was with this issue and did not want to mislead the Commission by making it sound more definite, but stated that she did know that Muni had been actively working on recovering some of these back fees.
Commissioner Marks said that she thought that the report was excellent as it will not only help the Department’s operation, but said that having participated in the budget cycle for the Department, she personally felt frustrated as she did not feel that budget decisions were necessarily made based on concrete information. Commissioner Marks said that she was not saying that were any errors, but said that she really valued identifying areas where it would help the process.
President Fillon asked if there were any plans for Mr. Harrington’s staff to meet with executive staff of the Department to do an exit review. Mr. Harrington said that this had already been done and said that this was a standard part of the audit. President Fillon asked if there would be any follow-up. Mr. Harrington said that the Controller’s Office does a standard six-month follow-up where they inquire with the Department as to their progress in implementing the recommendations and the Department reports if the recommendations are fully implemented, partially implemented, or not implemented. President Fillon asked if there were any concrete deliverables that the Department was required to do. Mr. Harrington said that they expect a response to their follow-up inquiries and that is done at six months and one year. Mr. Harrington said that, by that time, most of the recommendations should be implemented. President Fillon said that on behalf of the Commission he wanted to thank the Controller’s Office and stated that it has been over a year coming and felt that the audit was of great value to the Department and the Commission.
President Fillon asked for public comment on this item.
Ms. Anastasia Yovanopoulos introduced herself as a resident and tenant of San Francisco. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that she had a couple of comments to make and referred to Page 43 of the audit. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that she was very glad to have received a packet to review which she did while the presentation was going on. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that what she picked up was two other properties, and stated that this was in paragraph two of page 43, that have been reinspected multiple times but violations continue and such cases can remain unresolved for years. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that if one of the goals is to get these things abated why isn’t something like this referred on to Code Enforcement and how does the link happen; why do cases just sit and sit and sit. Ms. Yovanopoulos asked where was the Code Enforcement and how does the Building Code tie into putting sanctions on these property owners. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that she had a comment to make about the daily goal of eleven routine inspections. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that this seems unrealistic to her and would go hand-in-hand with making Inspectors just say that they are issuing a correction notice by just looking at a picture, but not really going out and making the inspection. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that this would be an easier thing to do and the Inspectors are under pressure to make that goal and if they don’t get out there and do it they are just going to say that they will rely on what someone tells them. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that this is something that should not be counted as an inspection and said that she agreed with the presenters about that. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that these things have to stop and if there is an issue it has to be resolved. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that another thing that came to her mind with the sophisticated systems that the Department has and about getting information that is at the push of a button is what is the security factor and who has privilege to enter the system. Ms. Yovanopoulos stated that this really needs to be controlled. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that this was a wonderful report, very informative except that she would like a legible copy of Appendix E.
President Fillon asked Ms. Yovanopoulos to contact the Commission Secretary for a copy of Appendix E. Vice-President Hood said that she thought it would be a good idea if all of the Commissioners got a clear copy of this item.
Commissioner Walker said that she did have a question, but was not sure whether it should be discussed at this point in the agenda or in questions to the staff. President Fillon asked if the question was related to the item. Commissioner Walker said that it was related to staff response to the audit. Commissioner Walker said that she was sent an ad that apparently ran in the Examiner and stated that she was not sure who paid for it. Commissioner Walker said that she received a couple of very strong complaints about the Department running that ad in response, in such a way that seemed, as if the Department were trying to spin the situation. Commissioner Walker said that she did not have a problem with the Department promoting itself or whatever, but said that she would hope that in the future the Department would think about things better. Commissioner Walker said that the ad just basically takes the positives and spins them. Commissioner Walker said that as a Commissioner her response is that there is still work to be done and the Commission is committed to doing it. Commissioner Walker said that she did not know if the Commission was supposed to be involved in these kinds of decisions about public relations (PR), but said that she had a personal issue with it. Director Chiu said that this was part of the ongoing DBI process that has been planned for years and that is to do outreach. Director Chiu said that there were several versions of articles in the Examiner, one about Housing Inspection Services and another about Earthquake Preparedness. Director Chiu said that this is the Department’s attempt to educate more people, as the Department and the Commission have been working very hard to educate the people about what DBI does. Director Chiu said that most of the information in this article came from the annual report, which had been sent to all of the Commissioners. Director Chiu stated that the next version is going to be a continuing effort on the part of the Department to inform the public about what they have to do to make sure that their property is well maintained. Director Chiu stated that this was just part of the ongoing outreach program. Commissioner Walker asked if there was some sort of contract or an RFP (Request for Proposal) where the Department advertises. President Fillon said that he thought that this was off of the agenda item and asked Commissioner Walker to bring this item up later in the meeting.
President Fillon asked for the Director’s report. President Fillon excused himself from the meeting and Vice-President Hood took over.
3. Director’s Report. [Director Chiu]
a. Update on the review and findings of the approved plans for 4733 - 18th Street.
Director Chiu said that Item 3a was on the agenda so that he could give the Commission the status of what happened at 4733 - 18th Street. Director Chiu said that at the last meeting some time in June, there was a neighbor who came in and complained to the Commission and to staff about the way the property got built. Director Chiu said that at that time the neighbor felt that the plans that were given to them as a proposal on the property were not according to the approved set of plans. Director Chiu said that William Wong, Hanson Tom and himself went out to visit the site to verify exactly what was built and then came back to look at the approved set of plans. Director Chiu said that according to DBI’s records this particular project was filed back on September 14, 1998 and finally got issued on June 14, 2000. Director Chiu stated that an addendum was submitted and approved on September 22, 2000. Director Chiu said that he believed what happened was that at the time when the site permit was submitted the designer was not aware of the second means of egress or the requirement of any time that there is a four-story building there is supposed to be a stairway to the penthouse. Director Chiu stated that this was asked for by the Plan Checker and was submitted to the Department, and that plan then got referred to City Planning. Director Chiu said that for some reason Planning did not renotify the adjoining property owners regarding this particular penthouse. Director Chiu said that this is one issue and the other issue is the discussion of the rendering plans that were sent out by the Planning Department or the project sponsor to the neighbors, and somehow it shows a partial or incomplete front elevation. Director Chiu said that as a result of that it shows a three-story building, but if the plan is looked at in detail, the plan did show the four stories with the penthouse. Director Chiu said that from the public’s standpoint they received something in rendering they felt was a three story building only, but technically speaking Director Chiu and staff felt that the project was submitted, reviewed and processed according to procedure and is in compliance with the Code. Director Chiu said that last week, or two weeks ago, this matter was appealed by the neighbors to BPA (Board of Permit Appeals) and BPA ruled that they had no jurisdiction because the appeal was filed way after the fifteen days of the permit issuance. Director Chiu stated that the District Inspectors verified that the project is proceeding according to the approved set of plans. Director Chiu said that he did have concerns that the plans were sent out to the neighbors with the rendering that only showed three stories, but the actual approved set of plans showed four stories with stairs to a penthouse. Commissioner Walker asked if Planning approved plans and then DBI amended them to be Code compliant. Director Chiu said that was the case, but when the project sponsor came in with the revised plans that showed the staircase, those plans were sent back to Planning Department for their approval. Commissioner Walker said that was normal procedure, when DBI changes plans for Code compliance, if the plans are changed, it reroutes back to Planning. Director Chiu said that is the case if there is any change to the outside and the stairway was an outside change, therefore the plans were referred back to Planning. Commissioner Santos said that it is up to the discretion of the Planner on a particular job to decide whether the neighbors need to be renotified. Commissioner Walker asked if this was the Planner from the Planning Department who had to decide. Commissioner Santos said that was correct as the modification came from the Structural Plan Checker. Vice-President Hood stated that this project was being used as an example of deficient notice in the reviews being done for better ways to notify people of remodeling and alteration permits. Vice-President Hood said that rules are being set for what has to be shown on the notice and how clear it has to be. Vice-President Hood said that in the past the looseness of that has made more room for either human error or human intentions to make the actual intent less clear than it should be. Commissioner Santos said that the ultimate issue was that the neighbors received a letter from the Department of Building Inspection that their fireplace and chimney was not in compliance as they were immediately adjacent to a structure that was much taller. Commissioner Santos said that he suggested a couple of meetings ago that he was going to meet with the neighbors to suggest a new scheme so they would not have to construct or build a stack or tower that would have to project beyond the property in question. Commissioner Santos said that he met with the neighbors and an architect who developed a set of architectural drawings that shows a self-venting chimney that will not have to use vertical projection. Commissioner Santos stated that this would not have to go to Planning and said that the neighbors were quite satisfied with this solution. Commissioner Santos said that he had just met with the neighbors two days ago and they were willing to go along with this plan; even though they filed an appeal they were willing to keep at it to get in full compliance by building a new chimney, which is self venting. Commissioner Santos said that this aspect of the conflict has been resolved and said that there may still be issues with Planning.
Ms. Sue Hestor stated that she was present not about the chimney issue, but the staircase issue. Ms. Hestor passed photos to the Commission. Ms. Hestor said that there seems to be a conflict of reports about what kind of ruling happened on this issue. Ms. Hestor stated that she knew that the Building Department records show that the revised plans were not routed back to Planning. Ms. Hestor said that she could not show these to the Commission, but stated that she had them. Ms. Hestor said that the Planner at Planning said that he never got the Plans while they were coming through, but got them after the fact, after issuance and said yes, this should have gone out on another notice. Ms. Hestor said that she has asked for and gotten from the Building Department yesterday was a DBI memo, and the last memo for updating routing was dated February 1, 1993, and it doesn’t talk about revisions that happen after the project is approved by Planning. Ms. Hestor said that the memo talks about the things that get routed to Planning in the first instance, but doesn’t talk about things that have to go back. Ms. Hestor said that this Department has to follow the Planning Code as well as the Building Code and cannot obliterate the Planning Code by saying well, the project has to conform to the Building Code and therefore the Planning Code doesn’t make a difference. Ms. Hestor said that the Planning Code requires that notice go out if the building envelope is increased, up, out, or whatever. Ms. Hestor stated that if the envelope is increased, the City has to send out a Section 311 notice. Ms. Hestor said that what is going on at these large, monster buildings, as some people are calling them, they are hitting the Fire Code requirement of having to go onto the roof. Ms. Hestor stated that she had two cases that came through in the past week where a controversial project all of a sudden had a new staircase. Ms. Hestor said that one was a violation of Planning Code conditions as the permit was issued last Friday, people saw the plans on Monday that were in total violation of Planning Commission conditions and a penthouse and a staircase were added onto the roof just as in this property. Ms. Hestor said that they are being hammered as being a Fire Code enforcement issue. Ms. Hestor stated that first of all, it is not a Fire Code issue that says that there has to be these mega staircases going to the roof, there can be an internal staircase and still comply with the Building Code. Ms. Hestor said that there has to be access to the roof and this can be a drop down staircase, but apart from that the process has not been resolved. Ms. Hestor stated that Building and Planning are not on the same page and it is not acceptable to say that is just the way it is. Ms. Hestor said that the public has rights as well as the contractors, as well as the developers and as well as the property owners. Ms. Hestor stated that the rights were codified in Section 311 of the Planning Code; Section 311 was explicitly adopted to implement Prop M which was adopted by the voters and that is how the City enforces neighborhood character. Ms. Hestor said that this is not acceptable to have projects not go back to Planning, as they are illegal.
Director Chiu said that he would disagree with the public comment about this particular penthouse stairway. Director Chiu stated that he had in front of him a record of the approved set of permits and plans that were submitted to change. Director Chiu said that the revision talks about the extension of stairs and penthouse revision. Director Chiu stated that this was submitted to DBI on December 12, 2000 and the approved set of plans were submitted along with that. Director Chiu said that DBI’s Plan Checker approved this on January 12, 2001 and Planning Staff actually saw this information before DBI did on January 10, 2001. Director Chiu said that this particular application was submitted, reviewed and approved by Planning and DBI. Director Chiu stated that he wanted the record to reflect this information. Vice-President Hood thanked Director Chiu for the clarification.
Vice-President Hood said that one of the points that she wanted to let Ms. Hestor know is that the Unlawful Demolition Committee is trying to revise the Planning and Building Code so that any change to envelope explicitly has to go back for a 300 foot radius notice and this should not be a problem in the future. Vice-President Hood said that she had a question about since the stair tower has been such a problem with neighbors she wondered if anyone has talked with the project sponsor to see if they would be willing to put another type of device to get up to the roof. Vice-President Hood said that from the project sponsor’s view they have a legally approved permit, but since it seems to be such an ongoing problem Vice-President Hood said she wondered if anybody had given this any thought.
Mr. Jeff Dama introduced himself as the homeowner at 4745 - 18th Street and said that he did speak at the last Building Inspection Commission Meeting. Mr. Dama said that the neighbors were advised that issues that were raised at that time were complex in nature and were out of the Building Inspection Commission’s jurisdiction and that they should retain legal counsel. Mr. Dama stated that the neighbors have retained legal counsel with Sue Hestor. Mr. Dama said that a substantial amount of documentation has been put together that shows that the procedures that would have required the neighbors’ being notified when the plans were altered did not appear to be followed. Mr. Dama said that the neighbors have been at Planning, at the counter, for a number of months pulling things and asking questions, talking with Tom Wang who has since admitted that this should have gone back for a Section 311 notice. Mr. Dama said that Mr. Wang signed off for the changes in theplans. Mr. Dama stated that the original architectural renderings that were submitted and passed around the neighborhood grossly misrepresent the building that is being constructed, although the plans that accompanied them did in fact show that it was a four story structure. Mr. Dama said that at no time were the neighbors ever advised that there was going to be a fifth story penthouse. Mr. Dama said that in the morning he went up Kite Hill with his binoculars and the roof of the building is being prepared for a roof deck. Mr. Dama said that there is no ongoing communication with the owners or the architects because they are at complete opposite ends with the neighbors. Mr. Dama said that the neighbors have hit a point where they have simply been told by their Supervisor and the Building Inspection Commission, as well as Planning, is that the project is so far along the neighbors need to retain an attorney. Mr. Dama said that at this point what he is trying to understand, and what all of the neighbors are trying to understand, is what are the rights that the neighbors have now given that the proper notice does not appear to have been given, construction is continuing and there is a very large fifth story penthouse that is probably about 10 feet deep, eight or nine feet wide, that has a stairwell with a full door going out to the roof. Mr. Dama said that the rooftop is being prepped and there have been people there working on the rooftop for the last couple of weeks. Mr. Dama said that it appears that nothing has stopped, nothing has changed and there are no further rights or nothing that the neighbors can do at this point to challenge or to attempt to have that altered significantly because it is an eyesore.
Commissioner Marks said that she would like Director Chiu to respond to the public member. Director Chiu said that he did not know where to begin and said that as he stated before he was not too happy with how the rendering showing three stories or not showing the four story addition, but the approved set of plans did in fact show the proposed work the way it was intended. Director Chiu said that the penthouse was reviewed first by DBI and Planning. Director Chiu said that he did not know what else the Department could do about this situation. Vice-President Hood said that she would attempt to answer Commissioner Marks’ question. Vice-President Hood said that the Building Department is not responsible for the notice to the neighbors and the Planning Department signed off on the stair tower before the Building Department got it. Vice-President Hood said therefore, there is nothing that Building could do as the way things are now, it is not Building Department’s responsibility to tell the Planning Department that they need to notify the neighbors. Vice-President Hood stated that this is something that the Planning Department is definitely supposed to do. Vice-President Hood said that if Commissioner Marks were asking about what the Building Department is doing about the conversion of the roof to a deck she would also like to know what is being done about that. Director Chiu said that if the project sponsor is going to use a roof deck then the Department wants to know how it is going to be constructed and maintained. Vice-President Hood said that the Department should look into whether the building was designed for a deck load, as well as a roof load. Director Chiu said that at this point the Department only has plans that show the roof with the required four-story penthouse. Vice-President Hood asked if the Department could check this out right away and stop it if is being converted to a deck. Director Chiu said that he met with the adjoining neighbor when he conducted a sight visit and told them that the only issue that remained was that the project sponsor did illegally convert the roof to a roof deck and the Department would take action against any illegal use. Director Chiu said that in response to Commissioner Marks’ concern as to what the neighbors could do, Director Chiu said that he believed that that the neighbors need to consistently talk to the Planning Department about what else they could do. Vice-President Hood said that it was a Planning issue and it is not the Building Department trying to pass the buck, but it is truly is a Planning issue. Commissioner D’Anne asked if having a roof deck complied with Code. Vice-President Hood said that it would be possible if the project sponsor had an approved plan. Vice-President Hood said that she did not think that there was anyway that they would ever get that approved plan because of all of the protests that have been raised. Vice-President Hood stated that if someone was going to use a space as a deck instead of a roof, a permit has to be gotten because the structural requirements are different and there are requirements that have to deal with the strength of the railing and so forth. Vice-President Hood said that there are different Code Sections that have to be met. Vice-President Hood said that the meeting needed to move on.
Commissioner Marks said that she would like to ask Deputy City Attorney Judiy Boyajian about what happens when one Department has not complied with the requirements, for example giving notice, and then a project moves on to another Department. Commissioner Marks said that she finds it hard to believe that the second department doesn’t have a responsibility to take immediate action on an error that was made. Ms. Boyajian said that it would be up to the Zoning Administrator to request the Department of Building Inspection to suspend the work and Mr. Badiner often does that. Ms. Boyajian said that she did not know what Mr. Badiner’s feelings were about this case. Ms. Boyajian said that she understood from Director Chiu that this has been to the Board of Appeals and they have refused to accept jurisdiction over the permit. Commissioner Walker said that it was refused only because of a time issue. Ms. Boyajian said that she did not think that anything could be done if the project legally complies with the Code and Planning has not asked the Director to suspend or revoke the permit. Vice-President Hood said that it really is not in DBI’s bailiwick. Vice-President Hood said that the Committee is desperately trying to get stricter standards about notice to avoid this in the future.
b. Update on 50 Mason Street regarding work started without a permit
Director Chiu said that Item #3b was brought to the attention of the Commission a while back by Supervisor Chris Daley, actually June 4th. Director Chiu said that the Department also received a complaint from the adjoining property about converting an existing classroom type of facility to a dancing establishment. Director Chiu said that the Department immediately responded to the complaint and a Notice of Violation was issued. Director Chiu said that the latest report he got back a week ago was that the project was stopped and has not been in operation. Director Chiu said that the Department would continue to monitor this project. Director Chiu said that as of a week ago no permits were filed to legalize this establishment.
c. Report on the status of Section 102.2 and 102.3 of the San Francisco Building Code as it relates to Tenant Notification and Notice of Director’s Hearing.
Director Chiu said that this item was carried over from the previous meeting. Director Chiu stated that at that time there was a brief discussion about the Director’s Hearing Notification Requirements and title search. Director Chiu said that a meeting was held on June 11, 2001 and staff is now doing their own title search. Director Chiu said that he wanted to thank Amy Lee and her staff and the Housing Inspection Staff for doing a good job by coordinating with the Recorder’s Office. Director Chiu said that now DBI has the MIS people programming in such a way that this information can be attached to DBI’s data and this can be done from DBI’s office. Director Chiu said that this started last week. Director Chiu stated that he understood that this was working well and not only was the Department getting these reports more efficiently, but the Department was also saving a lot of money. Director Chiu said that again he wanted to thank the staff for doing the title search in-house. Commissioner Walker said that she wanted to thank Director Chiu and Amy Lee as well for responding to that issue.
d. Report on Technical Services recommendations regarding changes to the Lead-Paint Requirements in the SFBC as outlined in the proposed ordinance dated 5/23/01.
Director Chiu said that Item 3d is just a staff recommendation to give the Commission a heads up as related to the working proposal to expand the existing exterior lead paint program into interior lead paint. Director Chiu said that there was an extensive detailed report that was written by Laurence Kornfield that reflected discussions with public members, whether at the Public Advisory Committee or at the April 19, 2001 Brown Bag Lunch. Director Chiu said that the concern from some of the public members and staff is that this interior lead based paint requirements would have a great impact on staff in terms of resource staffing and the actual enforcement. Director Chiu said that the way it is written is that almost anything that is done to a property even a kitchen or bathroom remodeling or any painting job would fall under this ordinance. Director Chiu said that the ordinance says that it would only be enforced when there is a complaint, however, there is concern given the history of DBI’s enforcement of the exterior lead paint where the Department responds to approximately 300 cases a year. Director Chiu said that there are approximately 4.5 personnel working on that program and the Department issues 57,000 permits a year with permitted projects. Director Chiu said that DBI does not know how many more painting jobs or minor repair work that people are doing could trigger this lead based paint enforcement. Director Chiu said that there is potential concern of problems trying to enforce this ordinance with existing staff. Director Chiu said that he wanted to bring this to the Commission’s attention so that the Commission could help staff determine how to enforce this ordinance should it become law. Commissioner Walker asked what was the status of the proposed ordinance. Director Chiu called on Alan Tokugawa who has been working on this issue. Vice-President Hood asked if the Code Committee had looked at this and given a recommendation.
Alan Tokugawa of Technical Services Division introduced himself and said that he was speaking on behalf of Laurence Kornfield. Mr. Tokugawa said that he believed that the ordinance was still in draft form and came before the Code Advisory Committee (CAC) approximately one year ago. Mr. Tokugawa stated that it was not really reviewed by the CAC because a letter was received from the Chairman of the Lead Hazards Committee requesting that the CAC delay review of it until a further draft could be done. Mr. Tokugawa said that the CAC had not yet received that new draft so the CAC had not reviewed it. Commissioner Walker asked who actually drafted this legislation. Mr. Tokugawa said that the legislation was drafted with the help of the Public Health Department and their attorney, as well as with the Lead Hazards Citizens Advisory Committee. Commissioner Walker asked whom the Citizens Advisory Committee representatives consisted of. Vice-President Hood said that there was a whole lead focused group of people. Vice-President Hood said that they have come before the Commission previously and said that the Citizens Advisory Committee are very active State-wide, as well as locally, and have gotten a number of Codes implemented in the past couple of years. Vice-President Hood said that there are people who just do this full time, sort of lead lobbyists. Commissioner D’Anne asked if this had been publicly noticed so that communities could discuss the issues or is it just one little group who are making all of the decisions without public input. Vice-President Hood said that there is a lot of public input, as some of the members are involved in tenants organizations and the group gets a lot of publicity and does a lot of outreach. Vice-President Hood said it is not as if this is an esoteric group. Commissioner Walker asked if the Commission was supposed to comment on this at this point, as it is not on the agenda for action. Director Chiu said that his intent was to keep the Commission informed as to a potential ordinance that might come in without the Commission being proactive. Commissioner Walker asked if this could be agendized. Vice-President Hood said that she would like to ask Mr. Tokugawa to contact the people who wrote this proposed ordinance as it is out of date and is already being revised. Mr. Tokugawa said that he believed that this was not the latest version as the last one that the CAC had was dated July 2000. Vice-President Hood asked if Mr. Tokugawa could contact the group and find out where everything was in the process. Vice-President Hood said that she would also ask that the Department look into where ICBO was with this same set of concerns. Vice-President Hood said that it sounded like it was sort of overwhelming in its present state. Director Chiu said that he wanted to make a correction and stated that the package that was in front of the Commission was pretty much updated as the draft revision date was May 31, 2001. Director Chiu said that he thought that Alan Tokugawa was talking about a similar version that went in front of the CAC last year and at that time the author asked people not to comment on it until it was further revised. Vice-President Hood said that if that was the latest version it should go to the Code Committee for their comments and put it on the agenda in about a month.
Commissioner Marks said that in reading all of the documents it appeared to be pretty recent and up to date. Commissioner Marks said that from what she could see there was one report from staff saying that they thought that it would not be as labor intensive to enforce the interior paint provisions as had been estimated by the Citizens Advisory Committee, but reading the report dated May 23, 2001 it is pretty persuasive that for the Department to be able to be able to be effective in enforcement, they would have to prioritize what they want to do. Commissioner Marks said that otherwise she would agree with the Citizens Advisory Committee that it is just a wasted effort. Commissioner Walker said that she would agree because as it is written she was not sure that it included input from the BIC. Vice-President Hood said that the BIC has a procedure that anytime there is a Code change; it comes to the Commission to review. Commissioner Walker said that she was not talking about the Commission, but the Department. Vice-President Hood said she understood that, but wanted to explain what the Commission’s policy was. Vice-President Hood stated that the Commission gets it which could be today and then the Code Advisory Committee takes it and reviews it and they make a recommendation to the BIC before the BIC reviews it again and decides what, if anything, the BIC wants to do with it. Vice-President Hood said that she thought that what needs to happen, that hasn’t happened, is that the BIC needs the CAC to read it and then get back to the BIC with their recommendations. Commissioner Marks said that they have read it and made comments that they are concerned that this legislation is moving along and no input has been requested either by the Citizens Advisory Committee or the Commission. Vice-President Hood said that is why she is saying, let’s ask them to give a report on it. Commissioner Marks said that what was in front of the Commission was their report. Commissioner Walker asked who "they" were. Commissioner Marks said that it was the Citizens Advisory Committee. Vice-President Hood said that she was talking about the Code Advisory Committee; the Code Advisory Committee looks at things from a very technical point of view and how it fits in with all of the other codes that they look at. Vice-President Hood said that because the Code Advisory Committee has a broader representation of technical expertise than the BIC they give the BIC a report on it; the BIC then reads their concerns and recommendations and then the BIC hears from citizens groups and whoever else, then the BIC makes a determination. Vice-President Hood said that then the BIC makes a decision as to whether they want to recommend that it be adopted or not adopted or changed. Vice-President Hood asked if a month was enough time for the Code Committee to get back to the BIC. Mr. Tokugawa stated that the Code Advisory Committee had just met so there would not be a meeting until next month where this issue would actually be reviewed. Mr. Tokugawa said that it would probably be best if this were agendized for two months from now. Vice-President Hood asked the secretary to note that this item should be agendized for a meeting in two months, or one and one-half months. Vice-President Hood suggested that Mr. Tokugawa send the draft to the Committee now and ask the members to review it for the next meeting. Commissioner Walker said that she would like to make sure that this Citizens Committee is not preparing to take action prior to that and asked if this was going to the Board. Director Chiu said that he would recommend that it would be a good idea to calendar this item for a later meeting and invite this Citizens Advisory Committee who drafted this legislation to the meeting to make comments. Director Chiu said that the Commission should write a letter to the Citizens group to let them know that the Commission plans to have a hearing and that the Commission is concerned with the way the legislation is written in its present form. Vice-President Hood said that the group should respond to issues about enforcement before that meeting.
Mr. Tokugawa said that he would make sure that the May 31, 2001 draft is the latest version.
Ms. Anastasia Yovanopoulos stated that she had been at last month’s Code Advisory Committee meeting and said that when Mr. Kornfield presented this item the climate there of the property owners and the experts were concerned. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that actually it is the Department of Public Health had gotten some legislation enacted and this is where this legislation emanates from. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that if this is a health and safety issue and now it has come to be placed in the hands of the Department of Building Inspection from the viewpoint that this is a health and safety concern and there are laws on the books, let’s not throw out the baby and the bath water. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that babies are the people that get affected by lead if they eat it in the house. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that she just had to say that when Mr. Kornfield brought this up, he was not that concerned that this law gets implemented and she is, because at the time that the ceiling in her dining room had to be scraped she did not know if there was lead paint or not. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that she called the lead abatement unit at DBI and they were very helpful by telling her how to use plastic sheeting and how to make a slit on one side to get through the door with a flap on the other side because she didn’t want those scrapings going through her window opening into her kitchen, bowl of cereal or her pantry. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that she had chips and dust there before and she has been through it. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that this is a really important concern and how the Department is going to determine who is painting inside is something very problematic. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that on the outside an inspector could drive by and see and tag it, but on the inside what is going to be done. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that if this is a law now that the Public Health has put out there, the Department needs to abide by the law and implement it at the Department of Building Inspection level.
Mr. Bruce Bonacker said that he was present as a member of the National Association of Remodeling Industry (NARI). Mr. Bonacker said that while the NARI supports the idea of children’s health, the organization feels that there probably are efficient ways to accomplish this and there might be other ways that might not necessarily be so efficient. Mr. Bonacker stated that he was not sure that there has been any law above and beyond that which exists at the State level that the Department of Health has accomplished in getting passed Mr. Bonacker said that he thought that this was the proposed law and stated that Ms. Yovanopoulos might be mistaken in terms of saying that there is a law and it must be enforced by the Building Department. Mr. Bonacker said that what is of concern is that, as a person representing the remodeling industry, the industry has an interest in this and said that the Citizens Advisory Committee has not knocked on NARI’s door. Mr. Bonacker said that he thought that there needed to be some further outreach and citizen input, both from the remodeling industry and the homeownership industry. Mr. Bonacker said that he knew that the Citizens Advisory Committee has landlords represented on it, but said that he did not know that it had any homeowners represented on it and it may or may not have the painting industry represented on it as well. Mr. Bonacker stated that many of the comments that Mr. Kornfield submitted to Mr. Chiu indicate that there might be all sorts of ways that the Department can focus on the vast majority of where the problem is. Mr. Bonacker said perhaps that would be within districts of the City or within use types of buildings, rather than apply this blanket throughout and increase the enforcement staff by 150 to 200 people. Mr. Bonacker said that even an addition to 1660 Mission would not accommodate more staff. Vice-President Hood said that it would have to be a twenty-story addition. Mr. Bonacker said that there might be another discretionary review on that addition if that was attempted. Mr. Bonacker said that he was looking forward to a very, very specific discussion that the BIC might make sure happens on this issue because it could be extremely problematic. Mr. Bonacker said that he sees a catch 22 for the remodeling business, if it were complaint driven, because complaint means only after somebody has done the work. Mr. Bonacker said that those who were professionals know that a law that is complaint driven basically puts those professionals who comply with the Code at a disadvantage in the marketplace and this would be no good. Mr. Bonacker said that then only the bad people doing the work, instead of the good people because people are not going to get the permits unless they absolutely have to and if it is only on complaint then they don’t get the permit. Mr. Bonacker said that he wanted to encourage making sure that the BIC gets a lot of public input before it goes anywhere and stated that this needs to be done with dispatch.
Vice-President Hood said that she remembered at previous meetings regarding lead paint abatement that a number of people came forth and wanted to make sure that those people knew about this issue. Vice-President Hood said that she would like to request that the Department have somebody on staff look into what the current requirements are. Vice-President Hood said that every time she tells a client to be careful about lead paint she gets all of the pamphlets that are available in almost cartoon fashion that tells the public what to do and who to call. Vice-President Hood stated that there are some very good materials available and said that the Commission needed to consider a whole range of ways of preventing this serious problem. Vice-President Hood asked if there were any further comments from the public.
4. Public Comment: The BIC will take public comment on matters within the Commission’s jurisdiction that are not part of this agenda.
Ms. Anastasia Yovanopoulos said that she lived at 3718 - 24th Street, which is a six unit residential building. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that she has been coming to the BIC since November 1997 talking about heating that doesn’t meet the Code requirements. Ms. Yovanopoulos stated that the Department has put in a lot of man-hours trying to get the issue resolved. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that when there are non-cooperative landlords and there is a heating system that has been inspected by independent contractors and the flow of the heat is insufficient to bring a sufficient amount of heat to the front room she is stuck with heating that doesn’t work. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that she is also stuck because the Department does not have it on record that the weather stripping is not good in the front room, so if is not warm enough the system is not working, right plus, there is a draft and the only person who has been there and looked at it recently was Ms. Stansfield. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that Ms. Stansfield commented that the weather stripping is not good, but dating back to the time when an inspector came out and it got inspected and approved Ms. Stansfield tells her that there is bad weather stripping. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that the combination of the two put her at a disadvantage when it comes to the wintertime and her health is affected. Ms. Yovanopoulos said that she appreciated that the current inspector, Mr. Greene is working on this problem with her.
At this time the Commission took a break. The time was 2:45 p.m. Commissioner Guinnane did not return for the remainder of the meeting.
The Commission reconvened at 3:00 p.m.
Commissioner Marks had left the room for a few minutes and Vice-President Hood said that the Commission would hear Item #6 and then Item #5 as Item #5 was requested by Commissioner Marks.
6. Update on Unlawful Demolition Committee Meeting of June 19, 2001. [Commissioners Hood, Santos & Walker]
Vice-President Hood said that as the Chair of that Committee she would give a quick report and then Commissioners Santos and Walker could add to it. Vice-President Hood said that the Demolition Committee is working closely with the Planning Department and the Building Department who have organized sort of an in-house group, which includes neighbors. Vice-President Hood said that the group has expanded the area of inquiry beyond demolition, which is seen as a sub-heading of a larger problem. Vice-President Hood stated that the larger problem was the clarity of notice and documents, and the Code with respect to major alterations. Vice-President Hood said that she thought that everyone has come to the consensus that it is better to notify more groups of people about alterations than not. Vice-President Hood said that the group has learned from studies done by the Department of Building Inspection that there are about 1,000 permits per year that would be affected by this larger notice process and at first people thought it was going to be too burdensome to do this, but once they got this information they realized that this more thorough notice to a 300-foot radius could occur. Vice-President Hood said that one of the checks on the form is going to be demolition so the form will be the more strict form and will cover horizontal and vertical extensions and goes beyond what the previous notice requirements were. Vice-President Hood said that the things that still remain to be done are to define what the rules are for the notice document itself, and that is where the group is right now. Vice-President Hood said that she would allow Commissioners Santos and Walker to comment, however, she wanted to add that there is a remarkable degree of cooperation between all of these groups that in the past have had difficulty getting on the same page for one reason or another, and the staff is giving them terrific backup. Vice-President Hood stated that it was a public, City, joint effort and includes neighborhood groups and technical people as well as the two departments.
Commissioner Santos said that he would agree with Vice-President Hood that there is a great deal of enthusiasm among all of the members, not only on the Commission’s Committee, but the people representing developers and citizens. Commissioner Santos said that another thing that has been talked about on numerous occasions is the importance of improving documentation on the part of consultants. Commissioner Santos said that the consultants will have to create structural documents that are clear and comprehensive, that will not create a situation such as 18th Street and issues like that. Commissioner Santos stated that it would be a lot more substantial in terms of the amount of information that will added to the plans, but at the same time it would be understood by people who don’t have to have a master’s degree in architecture. Vice-President Hood said that it would be verbal at the top and then have boxes to be checked off that will be very clear. Vice-President Hood said that it would be just one form that everybody will get that will check off the things that will occur; it will describe them verbally and also with drawings that are all of the same scale. Vice-President Hood said that this was something that was particularly used on 18th Street as the four-story drawing was at half the scale of the existing documents. Commissioner Santos said that it was just very confusing and this would protect developers as well. Commissioner Santos said that developers are excited about this as it will protect them because once all of the documentation is provided and people have time to review it and it is noticed to a 300-foot radius, the neighborhood will have had its chance to object.
Commissioner Walker said that currently the information coming through the Committee is huge and is a big document, but it deals with not just creating the language, but from the Department’s perspective, also creates the process through the Department, which is just as important. Commissioner Walker said that it is not just setting up the rules, the notice and the forms, but also how it moves through the Department, so there is not the situation that may be occurring where things are falling through the cracks. Commissioner Walker said that this change does serve everybody; if everybody realizes what is going up and there is a chance for communication and input at the beginning of projects, the projects that get approved will be supported. Commissioner Walker said that it is hard at this point to go through the process and have to stop it, but that is what is being done now and it is problematic for the public and the contractors and developers. Commissioner Walker said that hopefully this could be distilled down to actually come up with the law, the application and the process through the Department within the next month or two.
Commissioner Marks said that the other Commissioners who are not part of the Committee have not been getting the documents that have been forwarded to the other Commissioners and said that she would like to request that be done. Commissioner Marks said that she missed the last two meetings because of time conflicts, but said that she did not know what the status of the definition of demolition is yet. Commissioner Marks stated that she knew when she appeared at the Committee she was not supposed to participate in the discussion and asked Ms. Boyajian how she could give input. Commissioner Marks said that at one of the first meetings, one of the members of the public did present the definition used in a landmark situation and there were four criteria, of which she felt three were pretty good in defining demolition. Commissioner Marks said that she did not know if the Committee had carefully considered that and said that she wanted people to know what she thought. Vice-President Hood said that Commissioner Marks could write a letter to the Committee and express her opinion.
Commissioner D’Anne asked if the Committee had gotten into the enforcement or penalty phase of this issue. Vice-President Hood said that the Committee was just touching on that and said that the decision had been made that the penalties are going to be at least as strong as they are right now. Vice-President Hood said that the problem in the past hasn’t been so much that the penalty wasn’t strong enough, because not being able to use your land for five years is very strong, but that it wasn’t enforceable because the law wasn’t enforceable. Vice-President Hood stated that as a minimum penalty it is going to be as strict as it was in the past and there was also a recommendation that if someone is caught doing a demolition that has not been approved in advance, then the building would have to be rebuilt to what it was before and that would be a really major deterrent. Vice-President Hood said that right now someone can just think that it is going to cost them $2,000 and five years if they want to demolish a house and it costs two years anyhow just to get the demolition permit along with another three years of interest on the land. Vice-President Hood said that she was sure that goes on quite a bit. Vice-President Hood said that with the new way, the project sponsor would be right back where they started. Vice-President Hood said that there was not consensus on the Committee yet that this would be a good thing to do, but wanted the Commission to know that the Committee is looking at really serious enforcement. Vice-President Hood said that the Committee is looking at that if somebody misses one of the steps on the way to having this done right, there could be a penalty right then like a red flag that goes up. Vice-President Hood said that the Committee was looking at sort of a gradual thing so that something can be done before the building was gone, so it would be like a smaller penalty that might be easier to make for a lesser violation on the way through these steps that have to be made. Vice-President Hood said that the Committee was looking at both of these approaches, as the severity of the penalty in the past has actually been a deterrent in its application before the Board of Permit Appeals. Vice-President Hood said that finally, the Committee was going to have a joint meeting with the Board of Permit Appeals, the Planning Commission and the Building Commission to go over the whole penalty thing, as it is very complex. Vice-President Hood said that she did not believe that the Committee possessed the expertise as the Commission does not get the appeals, the Board of Permit Appeals does, and the Committee was going to get them involved for their input. Vice-President Hood said that she did not believe that this would be done in a month as given past history people worked on this for years and did not get to where the Committee is now. Vice-President Hood said that the Committee was working with all due diligence and meeting a couple of times a month. Vice-President Hood said that the Committee would be happy to send all of the materials to all of the Commissioners.
There was no public comment on this item. Vice-President Hood announced that the Commission would return to Item #5.
5. Discussion and possible action regarding DBI keeping the Commission informed about any policy changes in Housing Inspection Services. [Commissioner Marks]
Commissioner Marks said that she would like to say that it wasn’t just Housing Inspection Services that she was referring to at the last meeting; it did involve Housing Inspection however, and said that she felt that the message was made clear to Director Chiu at that time. Commissioner Marks said that for any major policy changes within each of the divisions the Commission and the public should be advised. Commissioner Marks said that Director Chiu’s response was that he would follow-up with an agenda item with a recommendation. Commissioner Marks stated that she appreciated the information that Director Chiu provided about the Housing Inspection Division tasks as it is very important for the Commission. Commissioner Marks said that she did have faith that the Director will instruct his staff that if there are any changes within the divisions, not just Housing Inspection, both the public and the Commission would be advised.
Director Chiu thanked Commissioner Marks for her comments. Director Chiu said that his intention was to keep the Commission as aware as possible, but there may need to be a definition of what is a change of policy versus housekeeping. Director Chiu said that, for example, in the Housing Inspection Services there are a lot of housekeeping things that need to be addressed. Director Chiu stated that in his opinion he did not believe that some of these things were policy changes, but from the Commission’s standpoint they may consider them policy. Director Chiu said that in the future when he gets information from his Deputy Directors or Managers about improvements they are making, or some of the issues they are looking at, he will make it a habit to keep the Commissioners informed. Commissioner Marks said that she would appreciate that. Director Chiu said that in his mind a lot of things that are being done with Housing Inspection are not policy changes, but said that some of the Commissioners felt that Housing Inspection were doings things differently and they wanted to know about it. Director Chiu said that he would do his best to keep the Commission informed and said that he wanted to take this opportunity to let the Commissioners know that Housing Inspection had been getting a lot of attention for the past few months and changes are being made. Director Chiu thanked Commissioners Roy Guinnane and Debra Walker for their input. Director Chiu said that if there were other areas that other Commissioners were interested in he would ask them to call him and said that he could always use more input.
7. Update on the Litigation Committee Meeting of July 9, 2001. [Commissioners Guinnane, Santos & Walker]
Vice-President Hood said that Commissioner Guinnane was not present and asked Commissioner Walker or Santos to give a report. Commissioner Santos said that the Committee has been quite productive as the Committee goes through several cases at each meeting. Commissioner Santos said that one particular issue came up at the last meeting and Commissioner Guinnane was quite adamant about it. Commissioner Santos said that it was related to the SROs and the Department of Building Inspection being charged for something that Commissioner Guinnane considers being more of a rent control issue. Commissioner Walker brought up the issue that perhaps this was a mandate from the Board of Supervisors where DBI was mandated to do the inspections and to control the inspections, and at the same time may have been obligated to pay for those inspections. Commissioner Santos said that there was no resolution at the meeting, but the Committee decided to discuss it with Assistant Director Amy Lee or someone else who would be able to assist the Committee on this issue. Commissioner Walker said that she thought that the Committee asked for an assessment from the City Attorney’s Office as to what the responsibilities were. Commissioner Walker said that technically there was a Code Enforcement legislation that went through that gave the responsibility of enforcement to DBI and said that was her reading of it, and clearly her interest is in serving the tenant community that she represents. Commissioner Walker said that she felt that it was admirable that DBI was engaged in the enforcement of all of these Code Enforcement issues and said that she thought that the issue is specifically around musical rooms’ enforcement and that it was a Building Code issue. Commissioner Walker said that Commissioner Guinnane’s position was that DBI should not have to pay for it. Deputy City Attorney Boyajian said that this is not in the Building Code, it is in the Administrative Code, but DBI is charged with enforcement. Ms. Boyajian said that DBI does collect an annual hotel fee from all of these hotels, but that nowhere near covers the cost of the program. Commissioner Walker said that this was something that the Commission could ask the Director to look at increasing, in order to actually cover the costs and asked if it would be legal. Ms. Boyajian said that it would be legal, but said that politically she did not know if it would fly, particularly from the single occupancy hotels or from other hotels as all hotels pay the hotel fee even the Marriott and the Clift. Ms. Boyajian said that the problem is the litigation and that is what drives the cost of the program through the roof. Commissioner Walker said that it was the attorney fees that Commissioner Guinnane was upset about. Ms. Boyajian said that a lot of that cost is recovered. Commissioner Walker said that one of the issues was that the billing that DBI gets does not distinguish between the musical rooms issue or other Code violations. Commissioner Walker said that she believed that the Committee asked the City Attorney to separate these items out when the bill is done. Commissioner Walker said that this is something to look at, as it is an important function. Commissioner Walker said that she thought that the Department should be proud to be contributing and participating in this program, as it is really important. Commissioner Walker said she did not have an issue with this, but certainly Commissioner Guinnane did. Vice-President Hood said that the Commission could address this when Commissioner Guinnane was present.
8. Update from site visit to 767 - 769 North Point to investigate drainage issue. [Commissioners Guinnane & Santos]
Commissioner Santos said that he and Commissioner Guinnane visited the site together and said that Commissioner Guinnane was quite courageous in getting up on the roof and jumping to the neighbor’s side to be able to compare the roofs. Commissioner Santos said that one of the issues that were brought up by the neighbor, Mr. Ausseresses, was that no one had gone up to that section of the roof and had not done a full inspection. Commissioner Santos stated that Commissioner Guinnane did that and reviewed the condition of the roof and any sort of waterproofing issue. Commissioner Santos said that he and Commissioner Guinnane made the determination that it is compatible with the findings of the Department of Building Inspection, in that they did not think that this is a waterproofing issue as they felt it was properly waterproofed. Commissioner Santos said that he and Commissioner Guinnane did not think there was a valid claim that anything needs to be done by the neighbor to prevent or to modify the routing of the water in that area. Commissioner Santos said that when he spoke to the property owner, the property owner brought up the issue that the stair tower was not built according to the plans and was in fact placed closer to his property. Commissioner Santos said that he instructed the property owner to bring that issue up to the Planning Commission as he and Commissioner Guinnane were there purely to assess the validity of his claim that there was a waterproofing issue on the roof and they felt that there wasn’t.
Mr. Ausseressses introduced himself as the owner of the property at 769 North Point. Mr. Ausseresses said that he wanted to thank Commissioners Santos and Guinnane for coming out to the property and inspecting the drainage system. Mr. Ausseresses said that it was the first time in about eighteen months that anybody had looked at it. Mr. Ausseresses stated that previously he had a contractor who is considered quite an expert on drainage in the San Francisco area and said that his expert was not wholly in agreement with the findings of the two Commissioners. Mr. Ausseresses stated that in particular, the contractor stated that the gutter does not capture the run off water and lead it into a drain, as the water runs freely down the wall and into the property at 769 North Point Street. Mr. Ausseresses said that it appears that an old interior drainpipe serviced the gutter from a few feet below the eave line and was originally connected to the gutter. Mr. Ausseresses said that this line has been removed and the top covered over. Mr. Ausseresses said that his contractor was generally in disagreement with that and stated that he did not know how he was going to resolve this, as even in the last rain the water ponds up on the gutter up there. Mr. Ausseresses said that he has a digital camera and could show the Commission, at some time if it were necessary, where the water just keeps dripping down through tar that has been placed up there. Mr. Ausseresses said that when the water drips like that and dries, it turns everything to kind of a moss color and it is very slippery. Mr. Ausseresses said that in his old age he does not appreciate anything slippery out there on the concrete and stated that it is something that has to be corrected. Mr. Ausseresses said that he did not believe that it was his responsibility to correct this since it is not on his property and all the creation of this is from the property next door. Mr. Ausseresses said that there was a lot of dispute over this with the previous owner and there was litigation, but it did not specifically involve the drain. Mr. Ausseresses said that the litigation had to do with dormers built on this property when they renovated it and the dormers are not built in accordance with the plan approved by the Planning Department. Mr. Ausseresses said that it becomes a matter of the question as to who has the authority to change these plans in the field, is it the Building Inspector that has the authority to say that it is all right. Mr. Ausseresses said that these dormers were not built eight feet which is required by the Planning Department and if they want to build it nine feet does the Building Inspector just say go ahead and do that. Mr. Ausseresses stated that this is exactly what the neighbor did; they built it oversized and then instead of keeping it back at least six inches from the eave line they moved it down to within four inches; in order to do that they came into the Building Department and got authorization to remove the parapet and in place of it put in a kind of a flashing to use as a gutter. Mr. Ausseresses said that in joining the gutter to the regular parapet they dabbed it all together with a mastic coating and when the sun beats down on this coating over time it dries it up and it is going to break apart and leak worse than ever. Vice-President Hood said that Mr. Aussesseres had to wrap up his comments as his time was up. Mr. Ausseresses thanked the Commission..
9. Discussion and possible action to appoint a committee to work with the City Attorney’s
Office and the Rent Board regarding notification of repair work and permit issuance to tenants of burned out multiple units especially to tenants of residential hotels. [Commissioner Walker]
Commissioner Walker said that she brought this issue up at the request of the tenant community. Commissioner Walker stated that currently when residential hotels experience a fire or some sort of situation where tenants are temporarily displaced and they go elsewhere, if there is a demolition hearing or some significant hearing regarding the building the tenants are not notified. Commissioner Walker said that only the surrounding property owners are notified of this. Commissioner Walker ststedthat a member of the tenant community asked if there was a way to amend the notification process so that the tenants of an existing building who have been displaced would receive notice of any hearings regarding the future of that building. Commissioner Walker said that it was suggested that the Commission form a committee to make recommendations to facilitate changing the notification requirements. Commissioner Walker said that there was talk from the public that were present at a Commission meeting that some of these hotels have actually never reopened and are sitting idle and unresolved. Commissioner Walker stated that this was a separate issue and one that the Commission needs to talk about, but not incorporate into changing the notification. Commissioner Walker said that she would like to make a motion to form a committee for the purpose of amending the notification regarding hearings of multiple unit buildings to the tenants who might have been misplaced. Vice-President Hood asked if this would require a committee or said that Commissioner Walker could, as a representative of the Commission, interact with the City Attorney’s Office. Vice-President Hood asked if Commissioner Walker needed more than one person involved. Vice-President Hood said that it seemed very straight forward for rewriting the language about how to notify tenants that are misplaced, but deciding what to do with people that are just left out might take a committee. Commissioner Walker said that she thought she could talk with the Deputy City Attorney to come up with a draft and then out of that process it could be determined from the Community if a committee needs to be formed. Commissioner Walker said that vacant multiple unit buildings that don’t get reentered into the housing inventory could be another agenda item that would warrant public input. Vice-President Hood said that this could be agendized for the next meeting. Commissioner Walker said that there could also be an agenda item to review or approve the draft that she and Ms. Boyajian comes up with. Vice-President Hood said that the Department and the City Attorney’s Office could help by letting the Commission know if there is anything existing in the Code that would cover that situation.
10. Review of Communication Items. At this time, the Commission may discuss or take possible action to respond to communication items received since the last meeting.
a. ADVOCATE Newsletter dated June 14, 2001 from The BOMA, San Francisco.
b. Notice of Public Hearing from the Housing, Transportation and Land Use Committee, San Francisco Board of Supervisors regarding File No. 010455, Resolution adopting interim controls that would, in the Mission District in the area bounded by Guerrero Street, Cesar Chavez Street, Potrero Avenue and the Central Freeway prohibit actions as outlined in this measure.
c. Ordinance No. 126-01 [Equal Access to City Services for Limited English Speakers]
d. Copy of letter from Mr. Nick Elsner of Bureau of Street-Use & Mapping to Mr. Richard C. Millet, Architect regarding 598 Missouri Street, DPW Order No.
172,926A.
e. Thank you letter dated July 5, 2001 from Director Frank Chiu to Assistant Director
Lee regarding the annual report.
f. DBI Newsletter.
g. Thank you letters received from the public commending DBI employees and Director Chiu’s response letters to the public.
There was no comment on these items.
11. Review and approval of the Minutes of the BIC Budget & Organization Committee meeting of January 23, 2001.
Vice-President Hood made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Marks that the minutes be approved. The motion carried unanimously.
RESOLUTION NO. BIC. 035-01
12. Review and approval of the Minutes of the BIC Budget & Organization Committee meeting of January 29, 2001.
Vice-President Hood made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Marks that the minutes be approved. The motion carried unanimously.
RESOLUTION NO. BIC. 036-01
13. Review and approval of the Minutes of the BIC meeting of June 6, 2001.
Commissioner Walker made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Santos that the minutes be approved. The motion carried unanimously.
RESOLUTION NO. BIC. 037-01
14. Review and approval of the Minutes of the BIC meeting of June 20, 2001.
It was determined that there was not a quorum of Commissioners who were present at the June 20, 2001 meeting to approve the minutes. This item was carried over until the next meeting.
15. Review Commissioner’s Questions and Matters.
a. 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 Walker said that she had a question for staff. Commissioner Walker said that when she was in the Department the other day she noticed that there is still a reference to a Multi-Media Division and asked if that division still exists. Director Chiu said that at one point there were a number of applicants who came in to the Department to seek applications for this type of work and now with the downturn in dot.com Director Chiu said that he was not sure if there were a lot of people coming in and applying for those permits. Commissioner Walker said that she was just curious if this still exists as a separate division. Commissioner Marks said she wondered if there was enough activity to warrant having a special unit. Director Chiu said that there never was really a separate unit, but the Department still has this same unit that does other work. Commissioner Walker said that at one time it was set up separately with a front desk and everything. Director Chiu stated that at one point there were lots of applicants that came in to get permits, but right now there is probably not enough activity going on to focus on multi-media and this needs to be taken out. Commissioner Walker said that she just wanted an update and if the multi-media unit is not there she would assume that the staff has been shifted to other places. Director Chiu said that employees were never solely dedicated to doing multi-media as they were supposed to do other TI work. Director Chiu said that Commissioner Walker was right. Vice-President Hood said that this could be taken away now that it is no longer used.
Commissioner D’Anne said that she had been asked by a handicapped person to ask about the meeting date for the brown bag lunches as there is a handicapped meeting that happens on the same day. Commissioner D’Anne asked if there was a reason why the meeting is on Thursdays. Director Chiu said that he thought that Commissioner D’Anne was referring to the Public Advisory Committee (PAC) Meeting as he has had the disabled access community call a couple of times and try to see if the meeting could be moved. Director Chiu said that he did bring this up at the last couple of meetings and this issue will be revisited again. Director Chiu said that the disabled community reported that there was a conflict with some of the meetings they attend on Thursdays and for some reason DBI could not find a date to shift the PAC meeting to accommodate everybody. Director Chiu said that he spoke with Richard Skaff and told him that he would revisit the issue again with the people who attend the PAC. Commissioner D’Anne said that she thought it was the brown bag thing. Director Chiu said that maybe the brown bag lunches too, but specifically there have been two people who have called him about the PAC.
b. Future Meetings/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.
Commissioner Marks said that in terms of the action plan in response to the Controller’s audit she thought it was great that the Department had what goals it wants to accomplish and a short term, intermediate and long term plan. Commissioner Marks said that she would like the Commission, as these changes are developed, to be kept informed. Vice-President Hood said that this could be done in some regular way as typically there is a quarterly report and maybe the primary data of that quarterly report could be an update on how the implementation of the goals on the chart are moving along. Vice-President Hood asked if this would be all right with Assistant Director Lee and the Director. Director Chiu said that would be fine and said that he wanted to go one step further. Director Chiu said that some of the action plans are going to require the Commission to become involved; for example, Item #A is the strategic plan and this is something where the Department and the Commission need to work together. Vice-President Hood said that item could be agendized. Director Chiu said that he would advise that each of the Commissioners take a look at the items and stated that he would be happy to have any Commissioner involved in whatever particular goal they are interested in. Director Chiu said that he wanted this to be a working session between the Commission and the Department to achieve all of these goals and would welcome the Commissioner’s expertise and participation. Director Chiu said that he not only wanted to keep the Commissioner’s in the loop, but also wanted to be able to pick their brains as to how the Department is doing, not just in terms of a timeframe, but how effectively the goals are being met. Commissioner Walker said that she would hope that there is a place to include the Controller in the solution because the Controller’s Office deals with these issues. Commissioner Walker said she believed this to be true especially around the computer and report issues. Director Chiu said that this was included in Item 3A where the Department identified certain areas where the Controller’s Office needs to get involved and the Department certainly wants their input as the Controller’s Office were the ones who brought some of these items to the attention of the Department; it would be good to have them be part of the solution. Vice-President Hood asked if the Controller’s Office services were free or if the Department was charged for their time. Director Chiu said that he was sure that the Department was charged for that. Commissioner Walker said then that the Department would carefully consider getting the Controller’s Office involved. Director Chiu said that the Controller’s Office were with the Department for about two years.
Commissioner Walker said that she wanted to bring up the Department’s purpose or mission as far as PR and advertising. Commissioner Walker asked if the Commission could get Director Chiu to present what the plan is and stated that she would like to know what processes have been gone through as far as that, specifically the PR and stuff. Commissioner Marks said that she would like that too and said that even when there was the discussion of Special Assistants at the last meeting, even though the positions are going to go through a Civil Service process, she personally has questions about the Department needing a public information officer and this would go hand in hand. Vice-President Hood said that this could be an agenda item for the next meeting and asked if the Director would prefer it being on the meeting in one month. Director Chiu said that he would be happy to discuss any issue, but would like some direction as to what to focus on, as these are two different issues. Commissioner Walker said that there is PR, advertising and that is sort of a public relations policy as far as dealing with the public and said that she wanted to know what the Department’s plan is or is it just responding to Controller’s audits. Commissioner Walker said that she did not know, but that is how it looks and said that she did not mean to hammer the issue. Director Chiu asked if Commissioner Walker had seen the first two other articles that went out. Commissioner Walker stated that she only saw the last article because somebody mailed it to her. Vice-President Hood asked that the Director get copies of all of the materials that have been in the paper and get a report from the Department about what the goals are for the future. Director Chiu said that he would be happy to do this. Commissioner Marks asked that this be tied to the budget.
15. Adjournment.
Commissioner Walker made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Santos that the meeting be adjourned. The motion carried unanimously.
RESOLUTION NO. BIC-038-01
The meeting was adjourned at 3:45 p.m.
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Ann Marie Aherne Commission Secretary
SUMMARY OF REQUESTS BY COMMISSIONERS | |
Check on conversion of roof to roof deck at 4733 - 18th Street. - Vice-President Hood |
Page 15 |
Proposed Lead Paint Ordinance, where is ICBO regarding this issue. - Vice-President Hood |
Page 18 |
Agendize Lead Paint Proposed Ordinance for 2 months from now. - Vice-President Hood |
Page 19 |
Future Agenda Item - Litigation Committee regarding fees charged by City Attorney’s Office for musical rooms enforcement issues. - Commissioner Guinnane |
Pages 24 -25 |
Future Agenda Item - Burnt out vacant multiple unit buildings not re-entered into the housing inventory. - Commissioner Walker |
Page 27 |
Review draft of changes to notification of tenants displaced in SROs. - Commissioner Walker |
Page 27 |
Approval of minutes of June 20, 2001 carried over to next meeting. |
Page 28 |
Department to work with the Commission regarding DBI’s strategic plan in response to audit. - Commissioner Walker |
Page 29 - 30 |
Future Agenda Item- Public relations and advertising goals for DBI as it relates to the Budget. - Commissioner Walker & Marks |
Page 30 |