Department of Building Inspection

Code Advisory Committee

DATE: February 16, 2000 (Wednesday)

TIME: 9:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.

LOCATION: 1660 Mission Street, Room 2001

Others present

Alan Tokugawa, DBI, Secretary CAC

Laurence Kornfield, Chief Bldg. Inspector, TSD

Anastasia Yovanoupoulos, Public

Jeannette Lau, TSD

1.0 Call to Order and Roll Call

The meeting was called to order at 9:30 a.m. A quorum was established with eight members present.

2.0 Approval of minutes of prior Code Advisory Committee (CAC) Special Meeting of the regular meeting of January 19, 2000.

The minutes were approved as written.

3.0 Election of the Chair and Vice Chair for the Code Advisory Committee. The term of office for each is one year and will commence with the CAC regular meeting of February 16, 2000.

At the last CAC meeting, Zachary Nathan was nominated as Chair and Ned Fennie as the Vice Chair. A motion was made to confirm the nominations and elect Mr. Nathan as Chair and Mr. Fennie as Vice-Chair for the coming year. The motion was seconded and passed unanimously.

4.0 Report, discussion and possible action on the degree of involvement of the City of San Francisco and Department of Building Inspection (DBI) with the State Building Code development process, monitoring of the State Building Codes, and current status of DBI code development process.

Ned Fennie asked about division of staff labor within Technical Services Division (TSD), who is focused on what issues, and whole Department’s strategy.

Laurence Kornfield said that the Department has just hired a 5208 Civil Engineer for TSD who will be starting at the end of February. The person will be in charge of the 2000 IBC (International Building Code) including other duties like working with L. Kornfield and attending hearings. Three or four staff of the TSD will be going to Birmingham, Alabama in April to attend the IBC Code Hearings. ICBO no longer holds regional meetings. He added that their goal here is to look at what the IBC says and look at what the State is intending to do regarding amendments to it. Then TSD will look at the State amendments and see what needs to be done regarding San Francisco amendments to the IBC.

Tony Sanchez-Correa asked if TSD will be providing the Code Advisory Committee members with information of agenda items for the IBC Code Hearings. He thought that that would be good so if any of the members have questions about such agenda items, they can give them to the TSD staff and request that related information on the topics be returned to the CAC members.

L. Kornfield said that he will be happy to give that information. He also added that he is certain that the City will be willing to support any member of the committee should he/she be interested in attending some of the hearings.

Ned Fennie mentioned a previous discussion of the committee regarding the distribution of upcoming code proposals, the collection of reactions from CAC members and how the group can convey those opinions to a point person who attends hearings. He thought that if members could actually discuss an issue and make a motion that the point person could testify that a code committee of experts in San Francisco have reviewed this and state the views and actions of the group. In doing so, it will add a little bit of weight instead of just representing the Department.

Laurence Kornfield said that he will distribute the agenda items and TSD will review the upcoming topics and let the committee know which ones are important.

Mr. Fennie posed a question on the violation of the Sunshine Ordinance and the Brown Act to use an e-mail distribution system to pass on information and notification of upcoming hearings. Input are being sent out as an individual and not as a committee.

Mr. Kornfield will find out if there are any issues about distributing information by electronic mail from the City Attorney’s Office.

Anastasia Yovanoupoulos thought that meeting schedules should be public information and should be distributed to everybody through a mailing list since not everybody has an e-mail. Ned Fennie added that there is no reason why it could not be posted on the website. Laurence Kornfield said that the internet web page is currently being updated, but that it is difficult to do so since it requires an individual to go through a contractor just to get information placed on the web site.

5.0 Report and possible action regarding coordination of San Francisco Building Code items with The Departments of Public Works and City Planning.

Carolynn Abst asked if anybody knows what is going on with City Planning in regards to changes of personnel and policies.

Laurence Kornfield said that a lot of people are moving and boxes are all over the office on the 4^th and 5^th floor for the preparation of the building addition. Some people are being sent over to 30 Van Ness at the Bureau of Engineering Office. Also, City Planning has an increasingly large staff for long range planning for citywide planning update.

6.0 Report and possible action regarding the Structural Engineers Association of Northern California (SEAONC) Blue Ribbon Committee review of seismic requirements in the San Francisco Building Code.

7.0 Report, discussion and possible action regarding review of standing (existing) Code Rulings issued under previous editions of the San Francisco Building Code. The report will give the status of Code Rulings assigned to the CAC subcommittees for review.

8.0 Report and possible action on status of Administrative Bulletins regarding local equivalencies to California Building Code which are allowed on a case-by-case basis.

9.0 Subcommittee Reports:

a. Housing Code Subcommittee:

Subcommittee Chair: Jim Reed

Subcommittee Member: Jerry Cunningham, P.E.

b. Fire & Life Safety Subcommittee:

Subcommittee Chair: Jerry Cunningham, P.E.

Subcommittee Members: Charles Breidinger, P.E., Carolyn Abst

c. Administrative & General Design Subcommittee

Subcommittee Chair: Arnold Lerner, AIA

Subcommittee Members: Zachary Nathan, AIA, Frederic Freund, Tony Sanchez-Corea, Dorie Lee

d. Mechanical, Electrical & Plumbing Subcommittee:

Subcommittee Chair: Charles Breidinger, P.E.

Subcommittee Member: Jim Reed

e. Structural Subcommittee:

Subcommittee Chair: James Guthrie, S.E.

Subcommittee Member: Andy Forrest, P.E.

f. Disability Access Subcommittee

Subcommittee Chair: (To be selected)

Subcommittee Members: Arnie Lerner, AIA., Zachary Nathan, AIA

10.0 Secretary’s report on upcoming events and tasks for the CAC.

11.0 Committee Member’s and Staff’s identification agenda items for the next meeting, as well as current agenda items to be continued to another CAC regular meeting or special meeting, or a subcommittee meeting. CAC discussion and possible action regarding administrative issues related to building codes.

12.0 Public Comment on items not on this agenda but within the jurisdiction of the Code Advisory Committee.

13.0 Adjournment.

Note: If any member of the CAC has not yet received copies of the 1998 codes please contact Alan Tokugawa at 415-558-6004.