2.

President’s Announcements

 

3.

Director Hasenin said that this was his first official meeting and said that he looked forward to working with everyone, including the Commission, staff and other City agencies to continue the process of improvement in the Department. Director Hasenin thanked everyone for being very supportive.

a.  Status of Broadway Street slide.

Director Hasenin called on Acting Deputy Director Carla Johnson to report on this item.  Ms. Johnson gave a brief overview of the timeline of actions regarding the slide and reported that within a week of the slide occurring, some of the emergency hazard mitigation repairs began.  Ms. Johnson said that of the seven properties involved two properties on Montgomery Street were still red tagged.  Ms. Johnson said that further investigation was taking place and even though some residents had been allowed back into their units the entire hill is going to need to have a permanent mitigation implemented.  Ms. Johnson stated that there was still some remaining rock behind two of the Montgomery Street properties that needs to be scaled back. 

 

Commissioner Grubb said that he had a conversation with Board of Supervisor’s President Aaron Peskin and Mr. Peskin had nothing but really good things to say about DBI and the Department’s activity on this issue. Mr. Peskin particularly praised Carla Johnson for her fine work.  Ms. Johnson said that it was a team effort. 

 

Commissioner Theriault said that this area might need some legislation for the establishment of a special district such as Mount Sutro based on its geologic history.  President Walker said that there was a suggestion from Supervisor Peskin to review, not just this area, but all of the areas that are rockslide/landslide prone to see if the Department should evaluate future projects.  President Walker said that this might be the kind of issue that could be identified and discussed at a Planning pre-review as discussed at the joint hearings. 

 

Director Hasenin stated that he had already begun having discussions with Planning about geological issues and looking at them much earlier in the process rather than waiting for the building permit process.  Director Hasenin said that he would be happy to have a presentation for the Commission to show what existing Code provisions there are for different parts of the City.

 

Director Hasenin said that he had an informational item and wanted to let the Commissioners know that the Department has made a request for the City to allow DBI to print 100 hard copies of the annual report as it is often requested by other cities or visiting dignitaries from other countries.  Director Hasenin explained that in order to do that the Department has to go to the Board of Supervisors for permission.  President Walker explained that the Board of Supervisors had passed legislation limiting City departments from actually printing reports and instead made it available on line.

b.      Status of MIS.

Director Hasenin said that in the past two weeks he had been looking critically and closely at the Department’s MIS needs.  Director Hasenin stated that he wanted to assess the existing system to see if any of it could be salvaged or if it is a matter of adding enhancements, additional modules or systems that could be connected or linked to it..  Director Hasenin said that he had seen presentations from staff, met with DTIS and had made field trips to different cities to see what their experience has been in this area.  Mr. Hasenin stated that in the next month or so he would sit down with appropriate staff and managers and make a determination as to what the next best step would be at DBI. 

 

President Walker asked if Director Hasenin had a timeline for how long this assessment would take.  Director Hasenin said that it would be take a month or six weeks to get to the point of making a decision. Director Hasenin said that it was his understanding that there were three distinct projects being discussed with MIS, one is the PTS system, the second is the Addressing System and the third would be the Business Process Reengineering (BPR) component.  Director Hasenin stated that he thought that with some support from DBI staff and some other City organizations that the Department could manage that type of a project as far as looking at DBI’s process internally without having to spend some $2M. Director Hasenin said that his recommendation and decision on that is to not go with an RFP, but to do it in house and look at every aspect of DBI’s systems in detail. Director Hasenin said that he would involve all of the stakeholders and customers who use the system as there are a lot of good things that are happening in many areas. 

 

Director Hasenin stated that with the Addressing System he had not looked into that in detail, but said that this is more of a City-wide issue and it might not be a good thing for DBI to take the lead on that if the Department does not have control over all of the pieces.

 

Director Hasenin said that the Permit Tracking System has been around for seven years and said that after seeing a demonstration of the system he was very impressed and satisfied with what it does.  Director Hasenin said that the system does not do all of the things that he would expect a system to do, but said that he wanted to evaluate what could be saved and added on rather than basically throwing it away.      

 

Director Hasenin said that from past experience he knows that once a Department embarks on replacing an entire automation system it becomes a five to ten year project and the cost is anywhere from $5M to $15M.  Director Hasenin stated that he would be working with Commissioner Grubb over the next few months and would then give a well thought out, detailed plan that makes sense, is efficient and cost effective. 

 

Commissioner Grubb said that he thought this was a good approach to stand back and get an assessment from someone with the Director’s experience.

 

Commissioner Murphy said that he thought this was a good idea instead of spending a lot of money without first knowing what the current situation is and said that the new Director had a daunting challenge before him.  Commissioner Murphy stated that he thought that the Department was going to run into financial problems and said it was good to hear that finally the Department Head is talking about bringing work in-house.  Commissioner Murphy asked why there was such a discrepancy in cost and in the deliverable time.  Director Hasenin explained that there are so many variables and so much variation associated with these issues in large cities that the process is very unpredictable and sometimes it just depends on how lucky or unlucky the Department gets.  Director Hasenin said that he would like the process to be done once, correctly, and slowly. 

 

President Walker said that the process would have to allow for a way that the Department could continue doing day-to-day operations, Director Hasenin said that he wanted the Commission to know that the Department has an MIS staff of 10 to 14 people that are highly, excellent, detailed people and said that he was giving them instructions to make the system better whether that involves security or who enters information.  Director Hasenin stated that he is working with Planning so that anyone coming into the Department can see the entire history of a building.

 

Director Hasenin reported that there has been a slow-down from the previous month regarding inspections performed.  Director Hasenin said that he would be watching all indicators to see how work slow down is affecting not just DBI’s work, but the revenues and expenditures to make sure that the Department is staying within its budget.  Director Hasenin said that there was a drop in housing inspections performed from the previous month, but there was an increase from last year and heat complaints are being met at 100%.  Director Hasenin stated that the plan review backlog reflects the time between the dates the plans are submitted until they are assigned to a review and the statistics do not indicate the overall total time it takes.  Director Hasenin said that he would be looking into the way that the statistics are reported.

 

Deputy Director Wing Lau said that every year for the first three or four months the amount of permits coming in slows down and then starts picking up again in May.  Mr. Lau stated that the Department is not expecting a lot of huge projects as there had been in the past, but said that things would pick up with remodeling projects 

 

Director Hasenin said that he would like to have a discussion about developing different performance standards that better reflect issues related to trends in construction and inspection and the overall performance of the Department.  Director Hasenin stated that he had been meeting with the Mayor’s Office to formalize reports for looking at different types of statistics and would continue these meetings to come up with a set of uniform performance standards that would be shared with the Commission on a regular basis.  President Walker suggested that this be included on a future agenda and that perhaps a subcommittee could be formed to assist in the creation of these statistics.  Director Hasenin said that he could do a presentation of his ideas for the first meeting in May.

 

Commissioner Murphy asked why it takes six weeks to get a permit for an emergency order for demolition.  Director Hasenin said that he would like to agendize this for a future meeting and asked if Commissioner Murphy could submit a specific address as an example.

 

Commissioner Murphy said that when he speaks to people within the Department he asks staff what could be done to improve performance and most of the Engineers tell him that the biggest problem is the submittal of incomplete plans. Director Hasenin said that he wanted the Department to have an official written document listing the minimum intake standards.  President Walker said this should be one of the items that DBI and Planning works together to implement.  Commissioner Murphy said that he wanted everyone to be on a level playing field.  President Walker said that this issue could take up an entire meeting.  Director Hasenin said that this would be part of his detailed look at the processes in the Department and one of the primary ones is how the Department operates on the first floor and how the permit process starts.  Director Hasenin stated that he was planning on setting up a process committee composed of key staff of the Building and Planning Departments who use the system on a daily basis and also would include members of the industry groups and customers.  President Walker said that perhaps Commissioner Murphy would like to be part of that group as he is a user of the system and a stakeholder. 

Director Hasenin said that he would be watching the expenditures and revenues of the Department very closely.  Director Hasenin stated that the year-to-date actual operating expenditures are at $27.1M, which exceeds the Department’s operating revenues of $26.5M by $600,000 and if that trend continues the Department will be $2M short by the end of the year.  Director Hasenin stated that he had given direction to staff to not fill any positions without him looking at them and making an assessment.  Director Hasenin said that he is looking at any type of commitments to the outside, whether it is contracts or consultants and said that he had put a hold on one project for $250,000 that the Department was going to support for some type of research.  Director Hasenin stated that declining revenues is a big issue for him and said he would be monitoring all expenditures.  President Walker said that this was a good thing and said that she wanted to point out that the Department is engaging in studying the issues of tall buildings and emergency response and said that there may be grants available to get some compensation for the work that DBI is doing.

Director Hasenin reported that there is a final draft document that he has reviewed and said that he knew that everyone has been anxious to get this issue resolved and concluded.  Director Hasenin said that there are some final comments coming back from some of the unions that the Department is in the process of addressing.  Director Hasenin stated that his tentative timeline was to get this to the Ethics Commission in May or June.  Director Hasenin said that Judy Chang from the Ethics Commission had done some initial training with staff regarding ethics and the Form 700’s

4.

Public Comment: The BIC will take public comment on matters within the Commission’s jurisdiction that are not part of this agenda.

Mr. Henry Karnilowicz said that he has been a frequent customer of DBI for 30 years and has worked with other jurisdictions in the Bay Area.  Mr. Karnilowicz said that San Francisco is one of the very few cities that have permits with plans approved over-the-counter.  Mr. Karnilowicz stated that this is good for the economy and asked that this practice be continued under DBI’s new leadership. 

Director Hasenin said that he would agree that the more work that is done over-the-counter the better off everyone is and said that he would be looking to expand that process.

5.

Status of Seismic Initiatives.  [Manager Raymond Lui, Structural Safety & Emergency Management Division]

 

Ray Lui said that he wanted to talk about the Tall Buildings Administrative Bulletin (AB-083) which will be a bulletin for the design of new tall buildings using non-prescriptive code requirements.  Mr. Lui said that after review by the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California (SEAONC), and in particular their seismology committee and professional practices committee, the bulletin was returned to the Department with comments.  Mr. Lui stated that the

Department decided to put a moratorium on non-prescriptive requirements or tall buildings using non-code prescriptive requirements sometime last summer.  Mr. Lui said that once the Department reviewed the comments from SEAONC a second draft was submitted back to SEAONC in September of 2006.  Mr. Lui said that highly qualified tall building designers from SEAONC had volunteered over 650 hours in the past four months evaluating this administrative bulletin and had now resubmitted a new administrative bulletin to their Board of Directors for approval.  Mr. Lui said that once the SEAONC Board of Directors signs off on this document it will be presented to DBI and the Director and Senior Staff will look at the document to make sure that it is indeed what the Department wants for San Francisco; the document will then go to the Code Advisory Committee for comments and hopefully by June this item could be agendized for approval.

 

Mr. Lui spoke about the Soft Story Wood Frame Program that is being developed to look at reducing the status of seismic risks of high density residential wood frame construction similar to the kind of construction that collapsed in the Marina district during the Loma Prieta Earthquake.  Mr. Lui said that on February 24^th approximately 150 volunteers fanned out across San Francisco to survey and determine how many of these types of buildings there are in San Francisco.  Mr. Lui said that the City was also developing a Community Safety Element Plan that would not only cover earthquake risk, but would address things like terrorism, flooding and other issues.

 

Commissioner Sattary said that he hoped that AB-083 would be finalized as soon as possible to clarify the policy for projects that are being held up.  Director Hasenin said that he would suspect if these projects had gone through the process up to now there should be no surprises later on and said that he would be willing to entertain proposals from developers, using the document in its final draft format. 

 

President Walker said that there were other tandem issues that come up with tall buildings such as fire safety in these buildings.  Commissioner Sattary said that one major item was related to fire response and fire safety in these buildings and said that the issues had been very well covered by the efforts of the Fire Marshal.  Commissioner Sattary said that there was going to be a meeting coming up with all of the stakeholders on this issue.  Director Hasenin said that the meeting would take place sometime in April and involve all colleagues and stakeholders.

 

Mr. Ray Lui announced that draft #2 of AB-083 was on the DBI website for review.  Mr. Lui said that he anticipated SEAONC’s version of AB-083 to come out tomorrow.  President Walker asked that Mr. Lui e-mail the approved Administrative Bulletin to the Commissioners. 

 

President Walker asked if Director Hasenin wanted to give an update on the Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety (CAPSS).  Director Hasenin said that he did not know if he was going to be upsetting people, but said that he saw the latest document and said that he would have to go back again to the issue of revenues and expenditures and the Department’s core missions and processes.  Director Hasenin stated that he was somewhat hesitant to commit $800,000 or $900,000 towards a research project that he thought was very valuable and good for the City and the citizens, but because of DBI’s financial status did not know if this is the best use of that money.  Director Hasenin said that he was going to be looking at the proposal and what the deliverables are and perhaps slowing the process down unless the Commission directs him to do otherwise.  President Walker said that perhaps this is one of the things that the Department could get funding for through grants.  Director Hasenin said that he would definitely support that and would help lead the effort to get funding, but said he would hate to spend DBI money and wait for reimbursements later from such organizations as FEMA.  President Walker said that this would have to be on a future agenda item before any official action could be taken.

 

6.

Review and approval of the minutes of the January 22, 2007 meeting.

 

Commissioner Romero made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Murphy that the minutes be approved.  The motion carried unanimously.

 

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 022-07

 

7.

Review and approval of the minutes of the February 5, 2007 meeting.

 

Commissioner Grubb said that he was listed as excused at this meeting, but had attended.  Commissioner Theriault stated that Commissioner Murphy was listed as a member of the Appointment sub-committee, but that it should be Commissioner Lee. 

 

Commissioner Grubb made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Murphy, that the minutes be approved as corrected.  The motion carried unanimously.

 

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 023-07

 

Review and approval of the minutes of the February 12, 2007 meeting.

 

Commissioner Grubb made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Murphy that the minutes be approved.  The motion carried unanimously.

 

Review and approval of the minutes of the March 5, 2007 meeting.

 

Commissioner Grubb made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Murphy that the minutes be approved.  The motion carried unanimously.

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 025-07

 

President Walker asked Secretary Aherne to outline the future items as discussed during the meeting.  Secretary Aherne said that the Commissioners had requested the following:

• Presentation on the existing codes for landslides, geotechnical issues, etc.
• Item to change the criteria for the reporting of performance statistics and status.
• Length of time to obtain an emergency order.
• CAPSS
• Ray Lui to obtain a copy of the SEAONC document for AB-083 for all Commissioners.

Secretary Aherne reminded the Commissioners that there would be an Abatement Appeals Hearing at the next meeting and all Commissioners should be present.  President Walker said that the Commission was planning on, as a policy, having an Abatement Appeals Hearing each quarter as necessary.

 

Commissioner Theriault said that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Administration has been conducting raids in San Francisco and one of the fears as a result of these raids, is that immigrants who feel themselves potential targets may hesitate to come forward on matters of law enforcement of various kinds including health or housing enforcement.  Commissioner Theriault stated that a task force has been put together with Wade Crowfoot of the Mayor’s Office to see how the various agencies in the City might reach out to those communities that might be affected to let them know that because San Francisco is a sanctuary City they are protected from any repercussions should they come forward with a complaint.  Commissioner Theriault asked that staff contact Mr. Crowfoot and report back how Building Inspection could participate in this effort. 

 

Vice-President Lee said that the City’s 311 program was up and running and wanted to know how this was affecting DBI, if at all. 

 

Secretary Aherne said that there should be an item on the next agenda to allow Director Hasenin to participate in the many organizations and associations he belongs to, as the Commission has to vote permission for this. 

 

Secretary Aherne reminded all of the Commissioners that today was the last day to turn in the Form 700’s.

 

Commissioner Romero made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Murphy, that the meeting be adjourned.  The motion carried unanimously.

 

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 026-07

 

 

 

Respectfully Submitted,


______________________
Ann Marie Aherne
Commission Secretary