2.

President’s Announcements.
a.  Update on foundation detail review.

President Hirsch said this item should be agendized for a future meeting because he

would like it to be reviewed by Tom Hui, specifically what the technical issues are in terms of the entire building design.   Commissioner Guinnane asked President Hirsch which item detail he was talking about.  President Hirsch said it was the same one Commissioner Guinnane was referring to.  President Hirsch asked if they were talking about the fact of the demolition issue.  Commissioner Guinnane said no that there were actually two issues, one being the James Li issue and the other was the calculations being written versus being computerized.  Commissioner Guinnane stated that he believed Mr. Li’s detail resulted in defective foundations because of the doweling in.  President Hirsch called for public comment.   

Mr. Joe O’Donoghue of the Residential Builders Association said that he was surprised that President Hirsch did not know about this, and said that there are buildings in the City where the public is in jeopardy due to those defective foundations.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that there was evidence brought to the Commission and there was no disagreement with the fact that plans came through the Department with defective foundations on which those buildings were built.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that if an earthquake or an accident happened tomorrow then DBI could be criminally liable due to the defective foundations, including Commissioners on this Commission because this had been brought to notice months ago and Mr. O’Donoghue said he was amazed that this matter had not been dealt with in a prudent manner.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that this needed to be aired immediately and the investigation continued, as the staff is familiar with the case. Mr. O’Donoghue said that he did not know what details President Hirsch was looking for as the evidence was already presented.

 

b.  Report on pertinent Commission matters highlighted in the Good Government Guide, An Overview of the Laws Governing the Conduct of Public Officials.

 

President Hirsch said that last week a new good government guide came out which incorporates for the first time duties of persons serving on Boards and Commissions, and said he would urge everyone on the Commission and the public at large who are interested to go through it.  President Hirsch stated that among other issues raised for the first time in written form were some restrictions on Commissions.  President Hirsch said that for example, each Board or Commission relative to the affairs of their own department should deal with administrative matters solely through the Department head or his/her designees.  President Hirsch stated that any dictation, decision or interference is prohibited on the part of any Board or Commission, which shall constitute official misconduct.  President Hirsch said that in other words all Commissioners should go through the Director before speaking with staff.

 

President Hirsch said that the issue of Robert’s Rules of Order had come up and asked if the Commission had bylaws.  Secretary Aherne said that the Commission did have bylaws and Robert’s Rules of Order governed anything not covered in those bylaws.

 

Commissioner Hanrahan said that she wanted to note that she had read the new book, but said that she wanted to explain that she believed her role on the Commission included and involved ascertaining different amounts of information being accessible to different people.   Commissioner Hanrahan stated that she saw her role as being active and said she did not want to be limited in her ability to get information and to talk to different people.   Commission Hanrahan said that she did respect the chain of command of the Building Department, but said that she wanted to go on the record saying that she wanted to be able to be accessible to people in the Building Department and wanted to be able to go out on-site at different job sites and things like that.  Commissioner Hanrahan said that she believed that she needed to be able to do independent investigation and needed to be able to speak with people when she deemed it necessary.  President Hirsch said that he did not think that the good government guide prohibited that, but just simply stated that the chain of command is through the Director.  Commissioner Hanrahan said that she respected that, but said that she did not want to limit her ability to ascertain information to let her do her job as a Commission and to represent her constituents.  Deputy City Attorney Judy Boyajian said that she did not think that was the intent of what the City Attorney said, and said that she would follow up on it and give further specific advice to the Commission. 

 

Secretary Aherne referred to an item in the booklet that said that a Commissioner should not ask the Commission Secretary for individual reports, favors or special considerations and said that no Commissioner had asked for any special consideration, but said that she was often asked for information that she goes directly to DBI staff to obtain.   Ms. Boyajian said that perhaps everyone was reading this booklet too conservatively and said that she would follow up on this question also. 

 

Acting Director Lee said that she thought that the City Attorney’s Office was trying to avoid    having staff directed or have the staff feel undue influence because a Commissioner might ask that a certain plan be approved rather than just asking for the status of a project.  Ms. Lee said that this document should not limit the Commissioners to speak with staff for informational purposes.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he receives many calls from the public and said that he also sees things going on out in the field.  Commissioner Guinnane said that if he sees danger he calls the Department to speak with one of the Senior Inspectors.  Commissioner Guinnane gave the example of the property on 19^th Avenue where a house was going to collapse and the Contractor himself did not see the liability or know exactly what he was doing.  Ms. Lee said that she did not think that this situation was the kind of thing that the booklet was addressing.  Commissioner Guinnane stated that he did not think that the Commissioners should be limited to just speaking with Acting Director Lee because she might not be available and there might be an emergency.  Ms. Boyajian said that if any Commissioner in reading the book had a questions as it pertains to their role on this Commission that Commissioner should fee free to call her or ask a question at a public meeting and she would follow up to get the answer.  President Hirsch said that he would encourage all Commissioners to read the booklet.

 

Commissioner Romero said that he thought that ultimately this was going to be up to the interpretation of the employee who is being addressed by a Commissioner whether or not they feel as though they are being moved in a compromising direction or not.  Commissioner Romero said that if an employee feels as though they are being directed in a direction they are uncomfortable with at least there is some recourse for that employee.

 

Secretary Aherne said that she did copy the section of the booklet dealing with Commissioners and said it was available for the public. 

 

President Hirsch asked for public comment.

 

Mr. Joe O’Donoghue of the Residential Builders Association said that he thought this item ought to be agendized for public comment.   Mr. O’Donoghue said that he did not think that the conduct of Commissioners should pertain.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that there has always been a rule in the Charter that no Commissioner could interfere with the administrative functions of any department.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that Commissioner Guinnane took action when he stopped an injury from occurring last week by notifying the Department, who did nothing on his first notification, about a building whose foundation had been undermined out in the Sunset.  Mr. O’Donoghue said Commissioner Guinnane contacted an Inspector because of the lack of action taken by the Department and this avoided not just one building from falling down, but two.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that under the technical interpretation of this new section, Commissioner Guinnane could be brought forward on misconduct because he went around the Director to talk about it.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this was the reason why a public hearing should be held on this item especially considering the conduct of some Commissioners in the past regarding members of the public and especially towards members of the RBA where Sue Hestor could stand up and call the members squealing pigs and there was no action for comment.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that on the other hand Commissioner Hirsch was very fast with the gavel when he considered what the RBA might have said.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that the rules need to be applied fairly because this Commission’s function is to ensure that the policies as promulgated in the Charter are carried out and it is not to protect employees and not to curtail freedom of speech.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that if the City Attorney is going to promulgate rules, then those rules need to be instituted so that no Supervisor or Supervisoral Aid or the Mayor himself, has the right to contact any employees of this Department or any department. 

 

President Hirsch said that he wanted to commend the Department of Building Inspection and in particular Mr. Laurence Kornfield for the remarkable job that was done on the recycled building that was erected in Civic Center Plaza.  President Hirsch said that this was quite an undertaking and said that he hoped the Commission would join him in commending DBI and Mr. Kornfield for their efforts.

 

3.

 

 

Acting Director Lee reported that in June there would be many public hearings regarding the budget, as well as meetings with the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors.   Ms. Lee said that DBI included over 47 new positions, the majority of them budgeted at 1.0, which is significant because it allows the Department to start full time hiring on July 1, rather than the normal policy of budgeting a position at .75 which only allows hiring starting October 1.  Ms. Lee stated that the majority of the new positions are in the Permit Services Division, which has quite a backlog.  Ms. Lee said that 22 new vehicles were budgeted.  Ms. Lee encouraged the Commissioners and public members to attend the budget hearings to support DBI. 

 

President Hirsch asked if the new vehicles were energy efficient.  Ms. Lee said that the Department would be getting hybrid vehicles as well as some trucks for downtown.

 

Ms. Lee said that last year over $5.6M of DBI’s money was transferred to Planning and this year that was reduced to $1.16M.  Ms. Lee said that it would be difficult for her to discuss the appropriateness of this transfer as there is a lawsuit going on and the Department will have to wait to see what the courts say about the transfer.  Commissioner Guinnane asked if the Department was agreeing with the transfer of the $1.16M.  Ms. Lee said that the Department was not agreeing with the transfer.

 

Commissioner Guinnane asked about the 47 new positions and said that there were 20 of those positions in permit servicing. Commissioner Guinnane asked about the request for the 16 new positions for the Hunter’s Point project that was to be requested by a supplemental.  Ms. Lee said that those positions were included and said it would be difficult to do a supplemental because that would occur during the budget process.  Ms. Lee stated that this was why the Department decided to request the positions at 1.0 and said the Department was allowed to have temporary authority and said that by the time the hiring process occurs, it would take the Department that long to hire. Ms. Lee said that these were new positions over and above the vacant positions in the Department.

 

Commissioner Guinnane asked where the Department was with hiring the additional 16 positions for Hunter’s Point.  Ms. Lee said that the Department was in the process of posting the Building Inspector’s positions because enough applicants were not found in the first posting.  Ms. Lee said that DBI was moving forward with hiring Housing Inspectors, Engineers and clerical positions and said that these were permanent positions.

 

b.      Update on policy of deferral of fees for City funded projects.

 

Ms. Lee said that this issue was previously discussed and said that the Department was told to give notice to applicants about the deferral of permit fees until time of issuance.  Ms. Lee stated that prior to Acting Director Jim Hutchinson, Director Chiu had along standing policy of certain fees associated with nonprofit housing being deferred until the time of issuance so that the nonprofits could maximize state and federal dollars prior to the permit issuance.  Ms. Lee said that she believed that Acting Director Hutchinson declined requests to defer these fees.  Ms. Lee stated that she had been requested by the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Redevelopment to defer these fees until the site permit is issued because it would allow them to build more housing.  Ms. Lee said that she wanted to revisit the policy and encouraged the Commission to approve the deferral of the fees for the housing projects.  Ms. Lee said that she was going to approve the deferral of those fees for local and state projects if there is an approval letter from the Mayor’s Office of Housing.  President Hirsch asked how long the fees would be deferred.  Ms. Lee stated that it would depend on the project and said that it could be several months or up to one year.  Ms. Lee said that the Mayor’s Office of Redevelopment had representation at the meeting so perhaps those people could talk in more detail about this, but said that this would allow the City agencies to maximize Federal dollars available because most of the projects require matching funds and said that this pot of grant money would sunset in about 1½ years.  Ms. Lee said that she wanted to bring this to the Commission again and said that this is consistent with past practices.  Ms. Lee stated that the Department had not given notice to these agencies as requested by the Commission and said that she wanted to let the Commission know that she was going to move forward with this as long as the project has the permission and signed authority by the Redevelopment Agency or the Mayor’s Office of Housing and allow the deferral of fees.  President Hirsch said that this was in fact giving these agencies a loan on the money and asked if there was ever any consideration given to charging interest.  Ms. Lee answered no.

 

Commissioner Guinnane said that he would strongly oppose this move and said that he had opposed it before.   Commissioner Guinnane stated that if the Mayor’s Office is concerned about this, the Mayor’s Office should put the money in place from the general fund and then the agencies could pay back the general fund.  Commissioner Guinnane said that there was over $1M in deferred fees given for City Hall and asked if that money was ever paid to DBI.  Ms. Lee said that she would have to check into that situation.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he was very concerned about this because if DBI has a shortage the Department cannot go to the general fund, but the Department has to raise fees.  Commissioner Guinnane said that these agencies should pay the fees just like everybody else.  President Hirsch asked again about charging interest on the fees and Commissioner Guinnane said that he did not know if that would be legal.  Deputy City Attorney Judy Boyajian stated that Acting Director Lee had asked her to check into this situation and said that she would get back with more information.  Ms. Boyajian said that the Planning Code does allow projects to defer fees for certain types of projects.  Ms. Boyajian said that she would look into the issue of deferring fees and also charging interest. 

 

Commissioner Guinnane asked what projects were currently looking for deferral of fees.  Acting Director Lee said that it was Parcel A with the Octavia Boulevard projects, Parcel A with the Central Freeway Project and a project on Clay Street that is nonprofit sponsored housing.  Commissioner Guinnane asked who the nonprofit was and how much money was involved.  Ms. Lee asked a representative from the Redevelopment Agency to speak on the issue.  Commissioner Hanrahan asked if the Department was speaking about deferrals or waivers.  Commissioner Guinnane said that it was supposed to be deferrals, but stated that he believed City Hall was a prime example of where the Department never received the money.  Commissioner Hanrahan said that it would be good to have a list of past waivers.

 

Mr. Olson Lee introduced himself as the Deputy Executive Director of the Redevelopment Agency.   Mr. Lee said he was present to speak in favor of the issue of the fee deferral.  Mr. Lee stated that the Redevelopment Agency and the Mayor’s Office of Housing are the primary funders of affordable housing in the City, which is one of the greatest issues in San Francisco.  Mr. Lee said that the agencies were in the process of trying to build a variety of affordable housing for San Franciscans who are homeless or for those seniors who are in need of just lower end housing overall.  Mr. Lee said that in this process the agency pays for predevelopment money for a large number of projects so that they can develop plans from an architectural standpoint to get better estimates of what costs might be in order to be competitive in leveraging resources for funds from agencies such as the State of California Multifamily Housing Program.  Mr. Lee said that this is a very competitive market and the faster that San Francisco can get into the cue, especially for the State funds, the greater chance of success the City has to leverage the local resources to the greatest extent possible.  Mr. Lee said that Parcel A of the Octavia Boulevard project is critical to advancing the creation of affordable housing because this property is one of 22 parcels that are vacant because of the demolition of the on ramps to the Central Freeway.  Mr. Lee said that in an agreement with the State, San Francisco acquired one-half of those parcels at no cost for the development of affordable housing; in exchange for those parcels the proceeds of the sale of those parcels are used to fund the construction of the boulevard.  Mr. Lee said that Parcels A and C were conveyed to the City with the specific requirement that they would be for affordable senior housing.  Mr. Lee said that this was a joint venture between a for profit company, A.F. Evans and a nonprofit organization called Chinatown Community Center.  Mr. Lee stated that a deferral would be part of the predevelopment budget to help determine if there is indeed a real project and without this outside funding there would not be a project.  Mr. Lee said that there would be approximately $75,000 that would be deferred for nine to twelve months.  Mr. Lee stated that this amount would ultimately be paid especially if the Redevelopment Agency knows it can go forward and be competitive.  Mr. Lee said that the deferral would impact the predevelopment funding for several projects. 

 

Commissioner Guinnane asked how many units would be built in Parcel A.  Mr. Lee said that it was between 102 and 106 units.  Commissioner Guinnane asked Mr. Lee if the Architects or Engineers that are hired for these projects defer their fees until the project is built.  Mr. Lee answered that they do not.  Mr. Lee said that the Mayor’s Office would speak to this issue and stated that this is not just a Redevelopment project, but is a project for the entire City and is part of a large City plan to facilitate the development of more affordable housing.  Mr. Lee stated that other City departments have deferred fees in keeping with the larger City plan overall.  Commissioner Guinnane asked when the deferred fees would be paid to the Department.  Acting Director Lee said that it would be when the first permit is issued.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he had no objection on allowing the fee deferral on this project.

 

Mr. Joel Lipsky of the Mayor’s Office of Housing said that he would not belabor the points that Mr. Lee had made, but said that it is an established City policy in the housing element that urges all City departments to improve the delivery system for affordable housing.   Mr. Lipsky said that it was in this spirit that he was asking for the Commission to allow these developers who do not have deep pockets and who rely on Cit money for this beginning phase of the development to wait until that point in time when they get their construction loan to pay the full fee.  Mr. Lipsky stated that when the permit is picked up all fees are paid and said that even if the project were not to go forward DBI would be paid the fees. 

 

Commissioner Guinnane asked Acting Director Lee to follow up on the fees that were deferred for City Hall, as it was $1M.  Ms. Lee said that she would report back.

 

Mr. Joe O’Donoghue of the Residential Builders said that the housing element that Mr. Lipsky spoke of was passed by the Planning Commission, but was rejected by the State so it was not an adopted policy.   Mr. O’Donoghue stated that the building industry had no problem with the deferral of these fees, but said that the repayment of these fees should be tied into the permit of occupancy.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this was very common in the industry that before anyone can get a permit of occupancy all fees must be paid and said that this was only fair.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the private sector had demonstrated that it does have deep pockets when it comes to joint ventures and said that Cassidy Construction demonstrated that with the Tenderloin Housing Project.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that Cassidy Construction paid all fees and every expense up front and was able to hand over to the Tenderloin Housing Clinic a building with no indebtedness whatsoever.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that if one section of the private sector can do it, so could another.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that he had brought it to the attention of the Acting Director that there was an outstanding fee of $1M associated with the refurbishing of City Hall and said that the Department would have to be careful not to open up the floodgates.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that at the same time, the Department has to have some flexibility on a case by case basis, but said that this would have to be watched very carefully because when the flood gates open up and interest rates go up there could be more bond financing than approved by the voters and this Department could end up carrying the whole bargain at the expense of everyone. 

 

Commissioner Guinnane asked about Mr. O’Donoghue’s suggestion of tying the payment into the Certificate of Occupancy (CFC).  Acting Director Lee said that the fees would be paid to the Department earlier with the first site permit rather than waiting for occupancy.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he did not want the Department to lose track of these fees.  Ms. Lee said that she would work with the Redevelopment Agency and the Mayor’s Office of Housing to make sure that she had verification that a project is a State and Federally funded project.

 

Commissioner Fillon asked how it was determined which projects or developers are in need of assistance.   Ms. Lee said that she did not know how the previous Director made that determination, but said that she would establish a procedure where a letter would be required from the Redevelopment Agency or the Mayor’s Office of Hosing in order to verify the amount of public funds involved. 

 

Deputy Director Jim Hutchinson said that as a point of clarification he would agree with the Acting Director that there was a long-standing policy in the Department to go ahead and issue deferrals on a case-by-case basis.  Mr. Hutchinson said that when he was Acting Director he dealt with nonprofits asking him for deferrals and said that in looking at the issue of preferential treatment he did not think that the nonprofits would meet the same criteria as the Redevelopment Agency or the Mayor’s Office of Housing.  Mr. Hutchinson said that he thought that it would be better to go ahead and look at changing the Code to allow for agencies to have these deferrals legally so that it does not have to come to the Director or the Commission.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that he would recommend that the Commission consider changing the Code so that is it a fair system that takes out the questions of preferential treatment.

 

Commissioner Fillon said that there was no litmus test that makes this the same for everyone, as it is the Director that makes the determination.  Acting Director Lee said that this was her first time dealing with this issue, but stated that the prior Director, who was Director for about eight years so he had made the determinations.  Ms. Lee said that she would request assurance by a cover letter from the Mayor’s Office of Housing and said that she could draft a procedure to show that the Department has some sort of standards and look into making the Code changes to handle this. Commissioner Fillon said that he was personally in favor of the program as these are great projects and DBI needs to help out.  Commissioner Fillon stated that he was concerned that developers might take advantage of the situation.  President Hirsch said that the only thing on the table now were City funded projects.  Ms. Lee said that she would be happy to report back to the Commission on any projects that come before the Department.

 

Commissioner Hanrahan said that she thought that everyone really wants affordable public housing, but said the question was whether this Department could sustain help over the long term. Commissioner Fillon said that he would like to get a presentation of the projects as they come through the pipeline.  Commissioner Guinnane said that this would be a good idea as the Commission could keep track of the amount of money that is being deferred.

 

c.

Status on handling of Special Inspection’s reports.

 

 

Acting Director Lee said that at a previous meeting one of the Commissioners mentioned that there was a delay of some sort in terms of the Department being responsive to the special inspection reports.  Ms. Lee stated that the Department did lose a very well trained clerical assistant who would put this information into the computer and also distribute the information to the relevant Plan Checker.  Ms. Lee said that the Department did find a new clerical person to take over these duties and said that she understood from the Deputy Director of Permit Services that there was not much of a delay at present.  Ms. Lee stated that the Department received over 500 general special inspection reports of which 200 were final reports.  Ms. Lee said that these were being approved within two to three days.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he asked for this item because he was getting calls from the public that it was taking over two to three weeks to get these signed when previously it would only take two days.  Ms. Lee said that the turnaround time was back to two to three days.

 

Mr. Henry Karnilowitz said that it was true that at one time this process was slow, but now the Department is right on as he had a Special Inspection the previous week and it was done in a couple of days.  

 

d.

Update on hiring DBI staff and its process.

 

 

Acting Director Lee said that there was some concern from the Commissioners that the Department received 57 applications for Building Inspectors and only interviewed 17.   Ms. Lee said that the Department was doing a new, more extensive posting as only four candidates were selected from the previous pool of candidates.  Ms. Lee said that the determination of who gets interviewed is generally done by herself and the two Deputy Directors who in turn give the applications to their Managers or some of the Senior Inspectors.  Ms. Lee said that whoever would be sitting on the interview panel looks at the applications.  Ms. Lee stated that DHR also reviews the applications to make sure that employment and other information on the resume is verified.  Ms. Lee said that there is a lot of time involved with posting the job announcements, reviewing the applications and doing the actual interviews. 

 

Commissioner Guinnane said that he asked for this item to be placed on the calendar because there were 57 applications received, 17 people were notified for the interview, 14 people showed up for the interview and out of those 14 only 3 were selected.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he got a call from one of the applicants who said he was never notified to appear for an interview. Commissioner Guinnane stated that he could not figure out how this individual was not qualified when he is an actual Building Inspector in another county.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he thought that the percentage of non-qualified applicants was way too high.  Commissioner Guinnane asked who picked the panel to interview these applicants.  Ms. Lee said that she and the Deputies selected the panels.

 

Commissioner Guinnane stated that DHR only screens the applicants for verification of employment and did not screen whether the Department needs the staff person or what skills are needed.   Commissioner Guinnane said that if the person is not qualified they do not appear on the list approved by DHR, but once they get over that threshold he thought that a larger percentage should be interviewed.   Ms. Lee explained that key DBI staff does the interviewing and it would be difficult to have Wing Lau, Leo McFadden and William Wong doing interviews for one week. Ms. Lee stated that she would come back to the Commission with the reasons why so few applicants were interviewed.  Commissioner Guinnane said he was troubled by the fact that one of the applicants was a Building Inspector in two different counties and did not even get to the interview process.  Commissioner Guinnane said that something was very flawed.  Commissioner Guinnane said that there were nine openings, five permanent and four temporary for the shipyard projects and said that it was difficult to hire on a temporary basis.  Ms. Lee said that the Department was using temporary funds for the first month, but all of the positions would be permanent on July 1^st or October 1^st and all of the applicants were notified of this. 

 

Acting Director Tom Hui said that he did not review all of the applications, but said that some of the applicants did not even write down their driver’s license information.   Mr. Hui said that he expected an asphalt inspector to do very well in the interview because this applicant had all kinds of certificates and licenses, but he could not answer a simple technical question about ceiling height. Mr. Hui stated that an Inspector from South San Francisco did very well and said that the Department was in the process of hiring that person.  Commissioner Guinnane asked how many out of the three Inspectors being hired are women or minorities.  Mr. Hui said that there was one woman from Residential Plan Check that would be moving to Building Inspection.  Mr. Hui said that there was also one woman selected to be interviewed, but said she did not show up.  Mr. Hui stated that just submitting an application did not guarantee an interview.  

 

Acting Director Lee said that the hiring process takes longer when someone from within DBI transfers as that position then has to be backfilled and the interviewing process starts all over again.    Commissioner Guinnane said that it still troubled him that some of the applicants that he considered qualified were not interviewed.  Ms. Lee said that if the Commissioner would give her the name of the applicant, privately, she would look into the reason that person was not interviewed.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he believed that there were some individuals that were on the list that were well qualified and were never even called for an interview so he thought the process was very, very flawed.  Ms. Lee said that even though some individuals might be well qualified they do not fill out the applications as well as they should and might omit information that would make them stand out to get selected for the interview process.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he thought the Department should go back and look at the applications again and do a process of elimination.  Ms. Lee said that the Department was in the process of doing that right now. 

 

Commissioner Romero said that for clarification, if someone believes that they should have been interviewed there is an appeal process through the Civil Service Commission.   Commissioner Romero asked that any information that the Department shared with Commissioner Guinnane be shared with all of the Commissioners. 

 

Mr. Joe O’Donoghue of the Residential Builders said that the City has rules that are completely different than the private sector and said that with the City an applicant is guaranteed objective criteria on the basis of selection.   Mr. O’Donoghue state that if 55 applicants filled out an application, the rejection of 40 of those applicants has to be done under a methodology that is totally objective.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that with the actual examination the examination questions similarly must have the same criteria so that everyone is measured on a point system.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this is why he previously brought up the absence of any Black or Hispanic women Housing Inspectors.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this is what the Supreme Court calls institutional racism.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that if there is any segment of any minority groups eliminated even though the intent was not intended to discriminate the fact that the result was that none of them were able to get into that particular occupation meant that it was in fact institutional racism.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that there are artificial barriers within the system eliminating a segment of the population out there from being able to apply for those jobs.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the Residential Builders would be attacking this from the outside sector and would be filing suit in Federal Court to bring out the whole examination procedure. 

 

Mr. David Herring introduced himself as a Housing Inspector with the Department of Building Inspection.   Mr. Herring said that he wanted to mention that there is one Hispanic female Housing Inspector out of the 16 current Housing Inspectors.  Mr. Herring said that in the Lead Abatement Division there is an Asian Female Housing Inspectors. 

 

e.   Update on DBI’s public outreach programs.

 

Acting Director Amy Lee said that this item was in response to an issue raised by one of the Commissioners about the Department’s public outreach program.  Ms. Lee reported that currently the Department has an opening for that position and the job description is being finalized so that the Department can hire someone.  Ms. Lee stated that the Department does have employees that do public outreach, but said that she would like to have a more centralized office or person to coordinate the outreach.  Ms. Lee said that this job posting would be ready within the next few weeks.  Ms. Lee stated that the Department has a Code Enforcement Outreach Program (CEOP) and said that two weekends prior the Department coordinated a public meeting in Chinatown, which she and a Housing Inspector attended. Ms. Lee said that the Department spends $300,000 a year on this program through non-profit organizations.   Ms. Lee said that Department employees also attend many community fairs and DBI holds monthly brown bag lunches to keep the public better informed.  Ms. Lee said that she thought the Department could benefit by having a centralized staff person not only responding to public inquiries and press inquiries, but being more active in going to the many, many neighborhoods and giving them information about the Department.  Ms. Lee stated that she did not think the Department did a good enough job publicizing all of its services.

 

Commissioner Lee said that he had been at the Green City Expo the past weekend and said that many City departments were represented.  Commissioner Lee said that he thought that having a representation at these types of events would actually improve the Department’s connection with the public and would allow the public another opportunity to interact with DBI.  Commissioner Lee stated that the Department should start to think about shaping messages for the Department instead of just reacting to inquiries or complaints.  Commissioner Lee said that the Department should be more proactive and start telling people what DBI is about.  Commissioner Lee said that having a Public Information Officer or somebody like that would be very beneficial.  Ms. Lee said that she would agree wholeheartedly.

 

There was no public comment on this item.

 

f.   Update on discontinuation of 1660 Mission Street surcharge of 6.5%.

 

Acting Director Amy Le reported that for many, many years there has been a surcharge ranging from 3.5% up to 6.5% added to the cost of a permit.  Ms. Lee said that she wanted to put everyone on notice that effective July 1^st DBI will no longer be charging this surcharge so people will see a reduction in the cost of permits.  Commissioner Guinnane asked what was causing the reduction.  Ms. Lee said when the building at 1660 Mission was occupied or purchased there was a schedule of payments, but now the Department no longer has to pay these monies.

 

There was no public comment on this item.

 

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 Karnilowitz said that he was a licensed General, Plumbing and Electrical Contractor, held an Associates degree in building inspection and was a member of the International Codes Council.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that he wanted to echo what President Hirsch said before regarding the scrape house that was built across from City Hall.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that he wanted to commend Mr. Laurence Kornfield for being behind this.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that he looks at DBI as being like a small United Nations and said that he enjoys not only the staff at DBI, but also the customers.  Mr. Karnilowitz stated that he processes some $100,000 worth of permits a year, if not more, and said that he recently had a situation with a Residential Hotel and said that the City is going to master lease it.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that the permit called for common bathrooms on each of the five floors at the back of the hotel for which he estimated the job to cost $150,000.  Mr. Karnilowitz stated that a Plan Checker told him that DBI’s policy would not allow a permit being issued over the counter because of the dollar amount of the project.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that each floor was exactly the same and there was no structural work at all, only partition walls and mostly plumbing and electrical work to be done.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that if he could mot get this very simple permit over the counter he would have to wait for a month or two to get it.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that he thought this was something that the Commission should look into.

 

Secretary Aherne asked President Hirsch if a communication item could be moved forward on the agenda, as the public member who wanted to speak had to leave the meeting to go to work.  President Hirsch asked which item it was.  Ms. Aherne said that it was a letter from Ms. Castillo regarding problems at 601 Dolores Street, a Homeless Shelter.  President Hirsch granted the request.

 

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.

 

c.  Letter and attachments from Ms. Carmen Castillo to President Hirsch regarding problems at 601 Dolores Street, a homeless shelter.

 

Ms. Carmen Castillo said that she was speaking on behalf of everyone that lives around the Dolores, Guerrero, Valencia and Twentieth Street areas.   Ms. Castillo said that people are having problems with the facilities at 601 Dolores Street and as a result many neighbors have moved out. Ms. Castillo stated that the neighbors have had meetings with the people at 601 Dolores Street and showed them photos as proof of the problems, but these people seem to have a “don’t care” attitude.  Ms. Castillo said that there were a lot of transients around the property and said that she felt like she was living in the Tenderloin.  Ms. Castillo said that at one time Dolores Street was a beautiful street, with tour buses going to Dolores Park, but all of that had stopped due to the transients.  Ms. Castillo stated that the building at 601 Dolores Street is not safe in the case of an earthquake and should really be shut down.  Ms. Castillo said that the neighbors wanted to meet with the Commissioners to discuss this matter.  Commissioner Guinnane asked what was the biggest problem that the neighbors were having.  Ms. Castillo said that it was harassment by the transients.  Ms. Castillo stated that she had been harassed by the transients many times because they know that she is totally against what they are doing and said that she had been hit by the janitor of the facility.  Ms. Castillo said that several of her neighbors had also been assaulted.  Commissioner Guinnane suggested calendaring this as a separate item and said that he would meet Ms. Castillo at the property.  Commissioner Guinnane asked Acting Director Lee to look up the actual status of the property.  Ms. Lee said that this was a UMB building and said that the Department had issued two NOVs.  Ms. Lee said that this item could be agendized for the next meeting.  Ms. Castillo said that this shelter had been running without a permit since March 2003.  Commissioner Guinnane asked Ms. Lee to look up any violations other than the violations as a UMB building.  Ms. Castillo said that the neighbors would like to meet with the Commission.  President Hirsch said that the item would be calendared and the neighbors could attend.  President Hirsch stated that he had looked at the pictures and read the documentation and said that he agreed with Ms. Castillo, but the question would be what jurisdiction the BIC had over this property.   Deputy City Attorney Judy Boyajian said that the City Attorney’s Office was also involved because there is a City Attorney Code Enforcement Task Force that gets involved when a problem might overlap multiple jurisdictions.  Ms. Boyajian stated that the City Attorney organizes the various departments to go out and determine what jurisdiction covers this matter.  Ms. Boyajian said that she would not be surprised to find out that there is something already being done involving all of the various City departments. 

 

Commissioner Hanrahan said that she had tried to call the Pastor, Ed Miller to see if he was going to appear at the BIC today, but said that the number rang, but there was no answering machine.   Commissioner Hanrahan said that she would be willing to go with Commissioner Guinnane to try to find out what is going on.  Ms. Castillo said that the building is not safe and said that the neighbors would like the building shut down.  Commissioner Guinnane asked if the building had been red tagged.  Ms. Lee said that it had not been officially red tagged yet and said that this property has had many years to comply with the UMB ordinance.  President Hirsch asked how long it would take to red tag the building.  Ms. Lee said that she did not know, but would find out. 

 

There was no further public comment on this item.

 

5.

Report on Plan Check Division Activities. [Tom Hui, Acting Deputy Director]

 

Acting Director Lee said that Tom Hui would be giving a presentation, but said that she wanted to acknowledge that there has been a backlog in Plan Check Services, but said that the Department was getting more staff and also being more proactive in training as well. 

 

Acting Deputy Director Tom Hui thanked the Commission, Acting Director Lee and Deputy Director Hutchinson for their support in getting more staff for Permit Services.   Mr. Hui said that over the past year staff was down by 10 to 20% due to retirements, sickness, death and the fact that the Department was not able to replace staff.  Mr. Hui stated that morale in the Division was low, but said that things were getting better with the filling of positions, including clerical staff. 

Mr. Hui said that he was going to summarize the activity in the four divisions in Plan Check by giving the number of permits that had come into the Department in the past twelve months, the number approved, the number pending and the number of permit not yet touched.  Mr. Hui said that the major problem was in Residential Plan Check and said that Department was hindered because there were two very important positions that are vacant, the Residential Plan Check Chief Building Inspector and a Senior Inspector position.  Mr. Hui explained that the Department was in the process of hiring for these two positions and said that this would greatly help with the backlog. Mr. Hui said that he compiled numbers to show how many hours a staff member actually spends on Plan Checking allowing for vacation, sick leave, counter time, etc.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he was looking at the numbers presented and said that he could not buy off on them because he had been receiving a lot of complaints from the outside.  Commissioner Guinnane said that the numbers showed that in Mechanical there were 425 plans submitted, yet it shows 428 approved.  Commissioner Guinnane asked for clarification of the numbers.  Mr. Hui said that the numbers were monthly averaged.  Commissioner Guinnane stated that he understood that, but said that he thought there were two problems, one in Plan Checking and one in Engineering.  Commissioner Guinnane said that there needs to be accountability as there might be one employee who is doing a great deal of work and another who is doing nothing.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he wanted to have accountability of the employees to see exactly what everybody is doing.  Mr. Hui said that he did not do the report by individual employee and said that this would not be good for the staff as morale was already down.  Mr. Hui said that he did not want to embarrass staff.  Commissioner Guinnane said that if Mr. Hui did not want to embarrass staff then Mr. Hui or management was going to get embarrassed at the BIC meetings.  Acting Director Lee said that the Managers also need to be better accounted for and said that she had spoken to the Managers about needing to know if staff is not producing and said that this would be reflected in the Managers performance evaluations. .  Ms. Lee said she is working with the Deputies to make sure they are managing the Managers.

 

Commissioner Guinnane said that he thought that the Department should come back to the Commission with a format on accountability and a plan in place.   Commissioner Guinnane stated that he was not enthused by the numbers.  Ms. Lee said that the numbers reflected less than 50% approval.  Commissioner Guinnane stated that he did not know why morale was down in this division and said that the Department has lots of money and should staff up these two divisions, Plan Checking and Engineering.  Mr. Hui said that morale was better now, but said that in the past staff were afraid to approve plans at the counter.  Mr. Hui stated that many of the staff had worked overtime to get plans approved, but said that there was a limit to the amount of overtime people could work.  Mr. Hui said that he wanted to thank Wing Lau and Laurence Kornfield for lending their staff to him to catch up with some of the backlog.  Mr. Hui said that some of the Plan Check staff is very conservative and some too liberal and said that he wanted to find a way to find a happy medium.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he was confused by the statements that morale is down in the Department and that Plan Checkers are scared to make decisions. 

 

Acting Director Lee said that she thought it was great to highlight this issue and said that morale has been down the past year or so, partly because this Department has been putting itself in a very political light.   Ms. Lee said that this affected all staff, not only at the executive level, but line staff as well.  Ms. Lee said that the Department does have the resources, good work space and are able to buy materials and supplies and whatnot, but said that the Mangers need to do a better job of managing and need to be more accountable.  Ms. Lee stated that the Deputies and herself need to make sure that the Managers are accountable.  Ms. Lee said that there is some very real fear because Commissioner Guinnane asked that figures be submitted per Plan Checker and said that this would be demoralizing to publicly acknowledge that a certain staff member was or was not doing their work.  Ms. Lee said that was why she wanted to avoid listing specific individuals.  Ms. Lee said that she would try to be more responsive about the Commissioners concerns without having to name people.  Ms. Lee said that another issue of morale is that staff has been scared in the past because they are afraid that their name will be publicized at the Commission and said that there is also the perception, real or unreal, that some staff gets preferential treatment in terms of performance or nonperformance.  Ms. Lee said that the Mangers need to be more accountable and said that there have been incidences in the past where a staff member has done something wrong and nothing is done to follow-up on it.  Ms. Lee said that this is demoralizing to staff who are performing and Ms. Lee stated that Managers need to be more responsive to those kinds of situations which is separate from the activity or the day to day and said that general management is now addressing this issue.  

 

Commissioner Guinnane asked how the political arena plays into Plan Checking and Engineering. Ms. Lee said that when there are comments in the paper over and over again customers talk to the Plan Checkers and they are talking about what is happening politically in the papers.   Ms. Lee stated that this does take away from the Plan Check time and even in the Department or in staff’s private lives people talk about what happens politically.  Ms. Lee said that those things are extraneous and said that the Department is trying to move forward and away from that to focus on policies and programs.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he was only interested in getting the backlog resolved and said that he did not care about the names of employees, but said that the Department needs to keep the customers happy.  Commissioner Guinnane said that customers are complaining about how bad the Planning Department is and are saying that DBI is going to go the same way. 

 

Commissioner Lee said that in the agenda package there was a packet for 3-R reports with procedures on what the staff does to complete those reports.   Commissioner Lee asked if there were any such detailed procedures for the Plan Check Division.  Ms. Lee said that the Department has lengthy guidelines and procedures for Plan Check staff.  Ms. Lee said that the Department is working on updating and simplifying those procedures.  Commissioner Lee stated that this might help the Mangers to separate the political part from the actual work. 

 

President Hirsch said that he had a technical question about calculation submittals and said he had received a written report, which states that the Department would accept reasonable hand calculations and/or computer analysis.  President Hirsch said that this answered only one part of the question that he posed.  President Hirsch said that the most serious part was that a Plan Checker said that he or she did not understand the moment distribution hand calculations that have been accepted for over forty or fifty years.  President Hirsch said that he would find this to be unacceptable and said that he wanted to make sure that staff understands that if they do not understand something to go to a senior person who does understand it. Acting Deputy Director Hui said that he has made it clear to his staff that if they do not understand something they could come to him or to other senior staff.

 

Commissioner Guinnane said that he wanted Acting Director Hui to know that he would support him 100%, but said that he wanted a little help to keep the public happy and a little accountability. Commissioner Guinnane stated that he did not want to embarrass anyone, but wanted to make sure that there are enough bodies and money allocated to resolve this issue.  Mr. Hui thanked Commissioner Guinnane and said that Laurence Kornfield and Hanson Tom had been very helpful in providing more technical training for junior staff as building is getting more and more complicated and there is more peer review.  Commissioner Guinnane asked the Acting Director about allowing a trained Plan Checker to transfer to the Building Inspection Division.  Ms. Lee said that Management would make temporary assignments to make sure there is no net loss.

 

President Hirsch asked for any public comment.

 

Mr. Joe O’Donoghue of the Residential Building Association (RBA) said that productivity is down 50% and this was one of the reasons why it was not only RBA members that were unhappy, but also the big downtown developers are unhappy.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that RBA members are now building high rises, not just single family housing.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that political publicity has never hurt productivity and said that if it did the RBA would be way down in their productivity.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the RBA has expanded enormously and said that what was wrong was the political activity that came with the political publicity.  Mr. O’Donoghue spoke about the Mayor’s Office and their actions to purposely ignore what was budgeted in positions for this Department.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that the Mayor cut the number of Inspectors that were budgeted for, despite the fact that the money was coming from the revenue generated by DBI and not the General Fund.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that even positions that were already approved were never filled and said that the Mayor’s Office purposely in collusion with members of the staff at DBI decided not to have those positions filled.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that there was no negative publicity coming back in terms of advocacy from DBI staff or from the Unions themselves who are representing these employees.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that morale was low because of the overload of work falling on the existing employees.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this was wrong and the cost was productivity at the expense to the general public and all of the builders from the largest corporations down to the small builder.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that this was an outrage and was in violation of good rules, good government and good business.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that now suddenly these positions have been filled because of the enormity of the Hunter’s Point Project so the Mayor has no other choice but to fill the positions.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that there was a case in court for the $10M which the RBA might be withdrawing from and letting the Unions pick up the cost.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the RBA might be challenging the lack of nexus for the fees.

 

Mr. Henry Karnilowitz said that there was a policy in place right now that whenever someone had plans for moment frames projects they would have to be logged into the system.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that many of these projects involved residential buildings and were voluntary seismic upgrading.  Mr. Karnilowitz stated that he thought that projects such as these should be issued over the counter and that would be something that the Commission could look at to make the approvals go faster.

 

6.

Report on DBI’s ability to initiate litigation through the City Attorney’s Office to overturn decisions made by the Board of Permit Appeals.  [Deputy City Attorney Judy Boyajian]

 

Ms. Boyajian said that she had put her advice into an official City opinion and apologized to the Commission for not getting it to the Commission until this morning.   Ms. Boyajian said that the opinion said that the Department and the Commission cannot sue the Board of Appeals directly, but could request the City Attorney to do so through a letter of request.  Ms. Boyajian stated that the City Attorney would then review the case and if decided a suit were warranted and would sue the Board of Appeals on behalf of the City.  Ms. Boyajian said that cases where the City Attorney has sued the Board of Permit Appeals were very rare.  Acting Director Lee asked Ms. Boyajian if there was any other way, separate from an official lawsuit from DBI to appeal decisions made by the BPA.  Ms. Lee said that recently a decision of the BPA substantially hurt DBI’s ability to litigate a matter.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he wanted to comment on this issue and said that the property in question was 323 – 26^th Avenue.   Commissioner Guinnane stated that with this particular property the whole house was 99.9% gone and there was no dispute about that.  Commissioner Guinnane said that DBI held a hearing and this was declared an unlawful demolition; then it went over to the Board of Permit Appeals and like some of the other cases that decision was reversed.  Commissioner Guinnane said that the whole issue is that the law is the law and the penalty is a five-year ban or the property has to be put back to the way it was before.  Commissioner Guinnane said that the Board of Permit Appeals based their ruling on the fact that this property would now become an eyesore to the neighborhood and that the five-year ban was too severe.  Commissioner Guinnane said that the Board of Permit Appeals Commissioners should uphold the law, as that is their duty.  Commissioner Guinnane stated that it was his opinion that the BPA made a bad call and said that he should not have to put this on the calendar to try to get it referred as the Director, Amy Lee has the power to initiate action to the City Attorney to reverse it.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he understood that the Department could not sue, but said that he was sure that an outside individual could sue to reverse it if the City Attorney opts not to do it. Ms. Boyajian said that only a party to the case before the Board of Appeals could sue the BPA.  Commissioner Guinnane asked if a neighbor could sue.  Ms. Boyajian said that not unless the neighbor was a party at the Board of Appeals. 

 

Commissioner Hanrahan said that this was deeply disturbing because the underlying reality is that this was an illegal demolition and if the City is trying to preserve housing stock, there can not be a politically appointed Board allowing people to break the law and destroy housing.   Ms. Boyajian said that what she said in her opinion was that if the Board of Appeals did in fact not follow the law that is a ground upon which the City Attorney has sued them in the past.  Ms. Boyajian said that until a request is made of the City Attorney and until he reviewed the records the BIC could not make a decision about whether it is appropriate to sue or not.  Commissioner Hanrahan asked who would make the request.  Acting Director Lee said that she could make it or the BIC could make that decision.  Commissioner Guinnane said that the Director has that authority.  Commissioner Guinnane recommended that the Commissioners go out to the property to see that the whole house is gone and said that if this case stands, there would be a lot more unlawful demolition and they would be reversed.  Ms. Boyajian said that the Board of Appeals knows very well that they cannot change the penalties if they find unlawful demolition or that they have to have some basis for finding that it is not.  Ms. Boyajian said that the BPA always looks at the plans that were approved and whether in fact the Department has actually allowed that much demolition to take place.  Ms. Boyajian stated that sometimes plans are inconsistent so there will be drawings that show things being removed whereas another part of the plans do not.  Ms. Boyajian said that she did not know upon what basis the BPA made their decision, but just because the building is gone does not mean that the decision they made had no basis in legality. 

 

Acting Director Lee said that she was not aware that the Director could make a referral to the City Attorney’s Office and said that now she was given a device to do that she would refer the matter.   Ms. Boyajian said that if a matter is really important to the Department and it is coming up before the BPA the Department could ask the City Attorney to present a brief in writing to the BPA in advance.  Ms. Boyajian said that this would help the Department make a good presentation to the BPA so that they have something in front of them when they make a decision.  Ms. Lee said that she would like to be more proactive in the matter because as she mentioned before the decisions made at the Board of Permit Appeals are hurting DBI.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he had a couple of other issues to discuss in order to put a stop to this.  Commissioner Guinnane said that there were penalties in place if it is ruled that an unlawful demolition has taken place.  Commissioner Guinnane stated that there is a five-year ban and a penalty for the owner and for the contractor.  Commissioner Guinnane asked if and how the Department was enforcing the collection of these fees.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he also wanted something in place for the contractors out there who go against the plans and permits and demolishes an entire house.  Commissioner Guinnane said that there should be a mechanism in place for the Department to make a referral to the State License Board and take their license away. Commissioner Guinnane said that he could see that this was getting out of hand and would become a real problem.  Ms. Lee said that she wanted to let the Commission know that a few weeks ago she spoke with the Deputy Directors, as there is an Administrative Bulletin that allows the Department to make referrals to regulatory agencies.  Ms. Lee said that she was not sure why or whether there was every an instance to do so, but said she believed that the Department had never made such a referral.  Ms. Lee said that she would be bringing something to the Commission shortly to approve the process. 

 

Commissioner Guinnane said that there already was a policy in place that was put on quite a while ago.  Commissioner Guinnane said that this called for the Director make a referral to the Litigation Committee which consists of three Commission members and then that would be the final stop and they could decide whether to move it forward to a local agency.  Commissioner Guinnane said that this was done to avoid selective prosecution.  Ms. Lee said that those changes have been put in place and the policy was adopted several years ago, but the Department has never acted on it.  Ms. Lee said that she spoke to the Deputies to make such referrals.  Commissioner Guinnane said that the end result was that DBI was making a request to the City Attorney on 323 – 26^th Avenue to look into the possibility of bringing an action to overturn the Board of Permit Appeals.  Ms. Lee said that was correct.  Commissioner Hanrahan said that in general the whole concept is if somebody is violating Department policy and Building Inspection Codes and doing illegal demolition there has to be a mechanism where they do not profit from that.  Commissioner Hanrahan said that even with the five-year ban it is still profitable for someone to do an illegal demolition as opposed to doing the demolition legally.  Commissioner Guinnane said that going by the avenue of illegal demolition someone can circumvent the law, save time and make a lot of money and said that this is not fair for everybody.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he wanted everybody to be playing on the same level field and said that it is only a select group of people that are doing this and that is why he wants to put a stop to it.

 

7.

Acting Director Amy Lee said a report was prepared to look at this Division’s turnaround time and to look at what other jurisdictions required for 3-R reports.  Ms. Lee stated that this Division has been probably the hardest hit in terms of staffing.  Ms. Lee reported that the 3-R Division has had to rely on temporary staff because new permanent staff was not allowed in the past few years. Ms. Lee said that this Division was also hit very hard with sicknesses and absences.  Ms. Lee referred to the report that gave additional information about what jurisdictions required for a 3-R report and the cost associated with that.  Ms. Lee said that DBI was going to try to include language in the Building Code Amendments to make the report of a residential record more efficient.  Ms. Lee said that the report included procedures to show the length of time that it takes to deal with a 3-R report because it is not as simple as just printing it up on the computer.  Ms. Lee stated that one of the things that has been problematic and that the Department was looking into fixing was tracking in the computer changes that were made and who made those changers.

 

Commissioner Guinnane said that initially the fee for a 3-R report was around $32.   Ms. Lee said that now it has increased to $53.25.  Commissioner Guinnane asked why there had to be a 3-R report, as every county does not have one.  Ms. Lee said that the requirement for a 3-R report has been in the City’s Ordinance for some time but perhaps the Department could revisit the need.  Ms. Lee said that looking at the report provided to the Commission it shows that other jurisdictions do not require a 3-R by Ordinance, but do charge a significant amount of dollars in providing information to customers in other jurisdictions.  Ms. Lee said that if there were going to be any changes it would be important to have a very public process in terms of getting feedback from the Real Estate community.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he would like to eliminate the 3-R report in its entirety. Commissioner Guinnane said that customers are waiting three weeks to a month to get a 3-R report and many times it is inaccurate.  Commissioner Guinnane referred to a report on 337 – 28^th Avenue where in a 3-R report issued on January 14, 2004 the report showed the property as a single-family dwelling.  Commissioner Guinnane said that a report issued on January 13, 2004 shows the property as being three units.  Commissioner Guinnane stated that the 3-R reports create an avenue for corruption.  Commissioner Guinnane said that with these two reports one showed the producer’s name and the other one did not and the one that did not had a more favorable report.  Commissioner Guinnane said that if the report could not be eliminated it should at least be issued within 72 hours.  Ms. Lee said that the Division has significantly changed the turnaround time with 3-R report production because of staffing issues.  Ms. Lee said that part of the problem is that some Real Estate Agents do not request a 3-R report when they get a listing of a property, but wait until the last minute and that causes a problem with staff.  Ms. Lee stated that there were serious integrity problems with the 3-R report, but some changes have been made and the new Manager has been doing a great job.  Ms. Lee stated that the turnaround time was now seven days.  Commissioner Guinnane said that this division along with Plan Check should perhaps be overstaffed. 

 

President Hirsch asked if the 3-R report was a legal requirement in the City’s Charter.   Ms. Lee said it was mandated by Ordinance and said that the 3-R report is useful to Realtors in selling a building.  Ms. Lee said that while other jurisdictions may not have a local Ordinance requiring a 3-R report they do charge more than San Francisco for providing the same information.  Ms. Lee said that if the Department did not have the 3-R report the Real Estate community or the community at large wants the information so the Department would still have the do the research, but would only be able to charge $.10 per page for records.  Ms. Lee said that this might open the door where the Department would still have to provide an enormous amount of service but not have the revenues to provide the service.  President Hirsch asked if a 3-R report is ever prepared prior to someone making request for it.  Ms. Lee said that the report was provided upon request when a property is being sold.  Ms. Lee said that if the home or building has changed hands within three or six months the information is more readily available and more accurate.  Ms. Lee said that when a home is sold for the first time a 3-R report is prepared and becomes a matter of public record; if that property is sold within a year or two that 3-R report still exists and just requires updating.  President Hirsch said that aside from being in the Ordinance this is a convenience for the Real Estate community.  Ms. Lee said that it was an assurance to the buyer as well. 

 

Commissioner Guinnane said that there was no assurance if a customer gets information that is inaccurate and said that he thought the Department should seriously look into eliminating the 3-R in its entirety.  President Hirsch said that it is required by Ordinance.  Commissioner Guinnane said that anything could be changed.  Commissioner Guinnane said that his main concern was that turnaround time should be shortened up from three weeks down to three days and said that this Division should be overstaffed and the computer system fixed to make sure the reports are accurate.  Ms. Lee said that she agreed with the Commissioner.  Commissioner Guinnane said that there should not be a lot of research involved in this thing.  Ms. Lee said that the problem is not so much with the newer buildings, but with the older buildings where there is conflicting information so sometimes the Department has to go and do a physical inspection.  Commissioner Guinnane asked if there was any mechanism for the public to complain if there is a discrepancy with the 3-R.  Ms. Lee said absolutely.

 

Mr. Joe O’Donoghue of the RBA said that he thought that 3-R reports are important and said that there was understaffing so new staff were never brought up to par.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that there should be full staffing throughout the entire Department and said the problem is in the budget and with the Mayor’s Office continuously shooting this Department down despite the fact that this Department is independent of the General Fund.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this Commission should seriously take a look at taking the bull by the horns on this issue and saying that the Mayor’s Office has no authority under the Charter to cutback positions where the Department can demonstrate that it has those funds to support those positions.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that until such time as this issue is resolved legally, this Department would have this political conflict continuously with the Mayor’s Office.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that he thought that the Commission should ask the City Attorney’s Office to file a lawsuit to make the determination that this body has the right of sole independence because it would save going back to the Board once again for additional amendments to the Department.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this was what was intended when the construction industry funded this Department; it was independently funded ever before any other Department in the City.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that this was done when Angela Alioto was President of the Board of Supervisors and it was done because the building industry knew that work is cyclical and knew that budget cutbacks would come eventually because of the nature of Government.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that to make DBI independent the Department was set up in a system of independence so that when the General Fund gets depleted and diminished DBI would not be impacted.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that now the surplus is being grabbed and that is why there is a present lawsuit.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that he thought the 3-R report was very important, but said that it need to be updated.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that he thought that the Commission should set the independence of the Department with the City Attorney’s Office.

 

President Hirsch asked if the 3-R division had a full time staff.   Acting Director Lee said that it did, but what happened in the past two years with the budget was that positions from the Department were deleted rather than increased even though the Department showed the need for employees and that the workload warranted new positions.  Ms. Lee stated that she had spoken with each member of the Board of Supervisors Finance Committee to explain the needs of the Department in detail and had also spoken with the Mayor’s Office.  Ms. Lee said that unfortunately once again it was politics that affected this Department. 

 

Commissioner Guinnane said that since a new year would start on July 1, he thought that the Department should take a serious look at all the divisions and fully staff all divisions as the Department is way understaffed.    Ms. Lee said that the Department was understaffed and said that the Managers need to be better accountable.  Ms. Lee said that there was current staff of 267 positions and the Department was looking to increase that number to 315. 

 

Mr. Henry Karnilowitz said that 3-R reports are important in many ways, as it tells the owner what they have on their property.  Mr. Karnilowitz said two or three years ago people got 3-R reports that showed 2,3 or 4 units and now when requesting, a new 3-R the reports are showing use “unknown”.  Mr. Karnilowitz said sometimes Planning gets involved when there is a discrepancy in the number of units and said that sometimes Planning requires that a set of plans be drawn up.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that back in the 1940’s many permits did not have plans and said that a competent Building Inspector should be able to go out to the property to determine how many units the property has and then issue a CFC.  Mr. Karnilowitz stated that then the CFC goes to Records Management and a 3-R report is issued and everyone is happy.  Mr. Karnilowitz said that 3-R reports are very important.

 

Acting Director Lee said that she wanted to clarify that as well as in terms of occupancy the Department does have set procedures for the 3-R process.   Ms. Lee said that if a customer provides additional attachments there are certain documents that will be allowed to determine occupancy, but if they do not exist then a Housing Inspector or a Building Inspector will be asked to go to a site and verify the number of units. Ms. Lee said that there are general specific rules about procedures for doing a 3-R report and it is not left up to any individual staff person. 

 

8.

Discussion and possible action to adopt an Ordinance amending San Francisco Administrative Code Section 10.135 to increase the Cash Revolving Fund of the Department of Building Inspection from $200 to $600. [Diane Lim, Administration & Finance Manager]

 

Ms. Diane Lim said that she was present to talk to the Commission about the revolving fund.   Ms. Lim stated that the Controller’s Office performed an audit on the cash revolving fund that provides an opening cash fund for each of the Department cash registers for each day to provide cash change for clients and customers who come into the lobby.  Ms. Lim said that right now the Administrative Code allows $200 in the fund, but as a result of the audit it is recommended that this amount be increased to $600 to allow the appropriate cash change for DBI customers.  Ms. Lim stated that there are six cash registers in the Department and the total of $200 is inadequate.   President Hirsch said that it would seem inadequate.  Ms. Lee said that this was just a procedural thing. 

 

President Hirsch made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Guinnane, that the Cash Revolving Fund of the Department of Building Inspection be increased from $200 to $600.    The motion carried unanimously.

 

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 031-05

 

9.

Status of previous inquiry regarding 838 – 46^th Avenue. [Deputy Director Jim Hutchinson]

 

Deputy Director Jim Hutchinson showed the Commission pictures of the property at 838 – 46^th Avenue and said that this was another case of unlawful demolition.  Mr. Hutchinson said that on March 21, 2005 the client came into DBI and received a simple over the counter permit to remove no more than 25% of the sheetrock in order to look at the structure of the house.  Mr. Hutchinson said that the client indicated that they were looking at either demolishing the building to build a new building or doing an alteration.  Mr. Hutchinson said that this was a permit to do exploratory work to determine what to do so an over the counter permit was issued and no inspections were called for at that point.  Mr. Hutchinson said that on April 5, 2005 the customer returned back to DBI and asked for a permit to do a voluntary upgrade of the foundations which met the parameters of an over the counter permit.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that on April 8, 2005 the Department received a call regarding the condition of the building and at that time Inspector Kevin McHugh went to the site and found the existing condition.  Mr. Hutchinson said that he wanted to thank Inspector McHugh and Senior Inspector Sweeney for their work on this project and for preparing the report for today’s meeting and for taking the steps necessary to correct the problem.  Mr. Hutchinson said that this case was different in that the owner will stipulate that he did unintentionally, he says, create an unlawful demolition and will accept the penalties as outlined in the Code, however, the Department still needs to hold a hearing.  Mr. Hutchinson said that he had talked to Judy Boyajian about this issue and by virtue of the fact that the project sponsor is willing to admit that they did create an unlawful demolition does not allow the Department to circumvent the process.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that the Department still needs to go ahead with conducting a public hearing, assess the findings and log this against the owner’s deed.  Mr. Hutchinson said that this would mean that the project sponsor could only rebuild the property to the approximate square footage that was removed, which is what the Department must now try to ascertain. 

 

Commissioner Guinnane said that he had been out to the property site and said that this case is different than some of the other cases that have come before the Commission.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he was told, and did not have any reason to doubt, that apparently the project sponsor was going to put an extension on the back of the house and brought in a large machine that the operator was not familiar with and then apparently hit one of the center supports; the operator then got scared and got out of there and the whole center of the house collapsed.  Commissioner Guinnane said that this was not an intentional thing because apparently the permits that were issued were to strip all of the walls on the inside to evaluate the studs and the ceiling and put a foundation upgrade down below to go out with an extension.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he spoke with several of the neighbors and that is what they told him.  Commissioner Guinnane said that the operator tried to get to the back of the property, but hit the column and the house came down.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he did not believe that there was any fraud or deceit in this case.  President Hirsch asked what this machine was trying to do.  Commissioner Guinnane said that they were trying to put an extension on the back of the building.  President Hirsch said that they did not have a permit to do that.  Mr. Hutchinson said that they were doing work on demolishing the concrete slab and brought in this machine and apparently the machine caused damage to the main support of the structure and the structure fell upon itself.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that no one from the Department was present so he could not say if that was or was not the case.  President Hirsch said that he would raise an eyebrow on that.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he did too, but when he went out to the property this is what the neighbors told him, as he could not see how someone would bring in a machine that would wreck the house.  Mr. Hutchinson said that he thought that if anybody knew the law they would not intentionally want to do this as the penalty is a five year ban of putting the property back again and putting up a building that would be substantially smaller than what they had intended.  Mr. Hutchinson said that he was waiting to meet with the owner and said that he wanted to make sure that the owner knew that the Department would have to hold a hearing for the owner to submit a report so the Department could proceed with the process to hold a hearing and have something for the record. Mr. Hutchinson said that the neighbors would have to be notified and would have the opportunity to testify, but said that the Department is going ahead with upholding the law.

 

Commissioner Guinnane asked how long it takes for the Department to hold a public hearing once the job is shut down and to give public notification.   Mr. Hutchinson said that in this case it would be quicker than usual because the owner is stipulating that an unlawful demolition occurred so the Department would not have to do a lot of research.    Mr. Hutchinson stated in the normal process it is usually a three-month process from start to hearing.  Commissioner Guinnane asked if the owner was stipulating that this was an unlawful demolition did the penalties of $1,000 for the owner and $5,000 for the contractor still apply.  Mr. Hutchinson said that was correct, but said that the owner was accepting the penalties, but not the five year ban because the property would be rebuilt according to the square footage that previously existed.  Mr. Hutchinson said that this case was like 425 Junipero Serra where the owner agreed to build to the square footage prior to the unlawful demolition.  President Hirsch asked if the Department knew what the original square footage was.  Mr. Hutchinson said that the Department would have to go back and look at the Department’s and the Assessor’s records.  President Hirsch said that it would be a footprint of the existing foundation.  Mr. Hutchinson said that was correct. 

 

Commissioner Hanrahan asked if there was a requirement for the contractor or the owner to get permission to complete the demolition.   Mr. Hutchinson said that he spoke with Senior Inspector Sweeney and said that the Department allowed for the site to be cleared of debris with two walls still remaining on the sides.  Mr. Hutchinson stated that the remaining two walls would have to be part of the package submitted on a form six.  Commissioner Hanrahan asked if there was any Building Inspector present when the demolition occurred.  Mr. Hutchinson said that there was not, but had the Department been notified that there was an emergency the Department would have had Inspectors out there, but that was not the case.  Mr. Hutchinson said that the Department heard about the incident after the demolition occurred and the owner had piled the debris on the lot.  Mr. Hutchinson said that at that point a neighbor called and Inspector McHugh said that this was an unlawful demolition; the owner did not have permission to do this. 

 

President Hirsch asked how many beds, dressers, automobiles, records collections, photographs, paintings, etc. were in the debris or was the house empty.   Mr. Hutchinson said that was a good question.  Commissioner Hanrahan said that she was very concerned because for a developer this sounds like a very good deal because the penalties are not high enough to discourage this type of thing happening and the property is worth a lot more when it is rebuilt.  Mr. Hutchinson said that perhaps ten years ago when Supervisor Hongisto was on the Board the Department’s penalties had a cap and the Contractors were just building that into the job costs so the Department removed the cap and made the penalty nine times the work that was done.  Mr. Hutchinson said that the penalty could be $1,000 or $100,000, but said that this Commission might want to look at changing the Code through a public hearing process.  Commissioner Hanrahan asked if this case could be used as a specific example.  Commissioner Hanrahan said that she would like to know what the property would have sold for on April 20^th and what it would be worth rebuilt including the penalties.  Commissioner Hanrahan stated that she did not think that the penalties were sufficient to prevent developers from demolishing buildings.  Mr. Hutchinson said that the Department could look into that.  Commissioner Hanrahan asked if the Department could stop this person from rebuilding.  Mr. Hutchison said he would have to defer to the City Attorney.  Deputy City Attorney Judy Boyajian said that the Department could not stop somebody from filing an application to build what is allowed by the Code and said that the Department would have to exercise discretion.  Ms. Boyajian said that there was no penalty in the Code to say that someone cannot build at all, but they would have to rebuild what was torn down.  Ms. Boyajian stated that no amount of penalty ever stopped anybody and said that it was the five-year ban that was supposed to stop people from doing the demolition because usually someone wanted to build a larger building than the one being torn down.  Ms. Lee clarified that the five-year ban did not apply if the contractor was willing to put back the same amount of square footage. 

 

Commissioner Fillon asked if the replacement building would have to go through the regular process of a new permit, starting from ground zero with Planning approval.   Mr. Hutchinson said that it would and said that as Commission Hanrahan pointed out earlier the Department would need a form six to remove the two walls that are remaining because the Department’s records indicate that there is an existing structure and this would have to go through the neighborhood appeals process.  Mr. Hutchinson said that the owner would also need a new form 1-2 for a wood frame building for the building that is going to be put up to the same square footage. 

 

Commissioner Guinnane said he was curious about something that Deputy City Attorney Boyajian mentioned and asked if he had a 10-unit building that was built in 1920, but under today’s zoning only a four unit building would be allowed and he tore it down, would he be allowed to put back a 10-unit building.   Ms. Boyajian said that any builder would have to comply with the existing Planning Code of only four units. 

 

Commissioner Hanrahan said that she thought that any time buildings get torn down the City is creating a situation where the lower income people are much less likely to be able to live in the City.   Commissioner Hanrahan said that people have to fight for affordable housing piece-by-piece, lot-by-lot, and apartment-by-apartment and that is why it is so important because the City is losing its housing stock.  Commissioner Hanrahan stated that this is dramatically changing the culture of San Francisco and said that people who work in San Francisco cannot afford to live here. Commissioner Hanrahan said that she knew of a building on Capp Street that was bought for $900,000 and is now being sold for $1.6M.  Deputy City Attorney said that this is why the Planning Commission has their demolition policy that requires a rigorous hurdle to go through with soundness reports and all that. 

 

Mr. Joe O’Donoghue of the Residential Builders Association said that the Molonari demolition ordinance was not intended to preserve affordable housing; when it passed in 1986 or 1987 there were two other demolition ordinances that were put into the Planning Code and one kept in the Building Code.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that in years subsequent it was intended to take all of these ordinances out of the Codes, but when the two were removed from the Planning Code the one in the Building Code was forgotten. Mr. O’Donoghue said that these ordinances had nothing to do with affordability and said that when the amount of demolitions was restricted the price of property increased.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that he could make a very good mathematical argument to demonstrate that the demolition ordinance of restricting demolitions has had an impact opposite of what it was intended to do which was to preserve housing.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the City has lost the middle class, as that is the group that is leaving the City.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that it was delays in getting buildings approved that is impacting prices.  Mr. O’Donoghue stated that under the Brown Administration 25,000 new units of housing were slated for development and very few of those units that were approved for development have been built because of the slow process that is within the entire system.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the rate of production should be 3,000 to 5,000 units per year, but the average is only 1,200 to 1,400 maximum for the last several years.  Mr. O’Donoghue said that the whole housing policy needs to be addressed at the Mayor’s Office, which of course is not being done. 

 

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.    Copy of Memorandum dated April 25, 2005 from Director Frank Chiu to All DBI Staff thanking the staff for their friendship and support.

b.    Letter dated May 10, 2005 from Acting Director Amy Lee to the BIC, Mayor’s Chief of Staff and the Board of Supervisors regarding new items on the DBI’s website.

c.     Letter and attachments from Ms. Carmen Castillo to President Hirsch regarding problems at 601 Dolores Street, a homeless shelter.

d.    Copies of letter received from the public commending DBI employees and the response sent by the Acting Directors.

 

President Hirsch asked if there were any comments on the Communication Items. 

 

Commissioner Frank Lee said that he went onto the DBI website over the weekend and asked if the Department tracks all inquiries or only complaints that are verified.  Acting Director Lee said that the Department tracks all complaints.  Commissioner Lee asked if that included frivolous complaints.  Mr. Lee said that the Department has to follow-up on every complaint.

 

11.

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

 

There were no inquiries to staff

 

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 Guinnane asked the Department to check on 2570 – 19^th Avenue and said that he was not exactly sure of the address, but said that Deputy Director Hutchinson knew of the property located at the corner of Nineteenth and Ulloa.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he wanted to know what happened out there with this site where the job was shut down.  Commissioner Guinnane said that the Contractor went to DBI and got a permit to shore the corner house and said that he wanted somebody to show him in the Code where shoring is used in lieu of underpinning and how the actual shoring drawing was approved.  President Hirsch asked if items such as these could be presented with a technical plan, such as the calculations, plans, etc. because otherwise there is a lot of verbiage like in the James Li case.   Commissioner Guinnane said that he would be deferring to President Hirsch on the engineering detail. 

 

Commissioner Guinnane said that he had asked about the accountability on Plan Checkers and Engineers and said that he wanted the Department to come up with some kind of a plan. 

 

Commissioner Guinnane stated that he believed that were some 50 jobs done by Engineer James Li and said that he would give President Hirsch a couple of addresses to look at and furnish the drawings so that President Hirsch could make a determination.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he had outside engineers look at these drawings and they supported his contention.

 

Commissioner Guinnane said that he wanted to discuss the Department’s vehicles and the shop bills and asked for the bills for over the last four years.

 

Commissioner Guinnane said that the wanted to know where the Department was with the ’05 – ’06 budget as there were some hearings coming up.

 

Commissioner Guinnane said that he was requesting an organization chart showing all of the divisions within the Department showing what the fully staffed number is versus what the current staffing is.  Commissioner Guinnane said that he wanted to look at the problem areas to see if overstaffing could solve some of the problems.

 

Commissioner Guinnane said that he wanted 601 Dolores Street on the next agenda and said that he and Commissioner Hanrahan would take a look at the situation and report back to the Commission. 

 

Commissioner Lee said that he wanted to learn more about the Access Appeals Commission.

Commissioner Lee stated that he looked at the website to learn more about the AAC and said that the website shows different information than the membership listed on the agenda.   Commissioner Lee said that he wanted to review, which seats are active and which are not and if there are vacancies he wanted to know how the Commission accepts applications.  Secretary Aherne said that she received three applications and had sent them on to Commissioners Ting and Fillon for them to review.  Ms. Aherne said that it was important to appoint someone to the Access Appeals in order to have a quorum and said that the person would have to be someone with technical knowledge. 

 

President Hirsch said that he had two items to put on a future agenda; the first being letters of recognition and commendation to Commissioners Bobbie Sue Hood and Rodrigo Santos.   President Hirsch stated that the other item he wanted to agendize for discussion and possible action was the Community Action Plan for Seismic Safety (CAPSS).  President Hirsch said that he would like to put that on the agenda for discussion and possible action to move it forward.  Commissioner Guinnane said that in talking about CAPSS there were actually three parts of CAPSS.  President Hirsch stated that he wanted to activate and complete Phase II.  Commissioner Guinnane said that Phase II was never complete and Phase III was never touched.  President Hirsch said that was correct so he wanted to puck up Phase II, wrap it up and proceed to Phase III.  Commissioner Guinnane asked who was going to fund that.  President Hirsch said that it was fully funded and said that the funds are sitting there. 

 

There was no public comment on this item.

 

12.

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

 

There was no public comment.

 

13.

   Adjournment.

President Hirsch made a motion, seconded by Commissioner Guinnane that the meeting be adjourned.  The motion carried unanimously.

RESOLUTION NO. BIC 032-05

The meeting was adjourned at 12:05 p.m. 

 

 

Respectfully Submitted,



______________________

Ann Marie Aherne
Commission Secretary