DATE:

March 8, 2005 (Tuesday)

TIME:

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

LOCATION:

1660 Mission Street, Suite 2039

Note:

Public comment is welcome and will be heard during each agenda item. Reference documents relating to agenda are available for review at the 1650 Mission Street, Suite 302.  For information, please call David Leung at (415) 558-6033.

Present:
Jim Guthrie, S.E.
Ned Fennie, A.I.A.

Other Present:
Laurence Kornfield, DBI
Yohei Kondo, Kyoto University
David Leung, DBI

Absent:
Michael Fretz, S.E.

1.0

Call to Order and Roll Call
Members: Jim Guthrie, S.E.; Chair; Ned Fennie, AIA; Michael Fretz, S.E.

Meeting was called to order at 9:00 a. m.  Quorum established with 2 members present.

2.0

Approval of the minutes of the Structural Subcommittee regular meeting of February 8, 2005.

A motion to approve the minutes. Seconded and approved.

3.0

Continue discussion on possible update to structural standards in 2001 California Building Standards Code.

No discussion.

4.0

Continue discussion and possible action on seismic upgrade of soft story wood-framed  buildings, including review of Assembly Bill No. 304, an act to add Section 19162.5 to the Health and Safety Code,  relating to building standards.

The Assembly Bill No. 304 provided a definition for soft story building.

Identification of the Type V  (Steel frame with masonry infill to be addressed in later phase) soft story buildings  were discussed.

The basic list consisted of R1, soft story 1 or more directions, type V.

From the basic list, the buildings could be further prioritized as follows: 

1.   number of units or number of guest rooms; senior/congregate residences (R1 only);
2.   soil conditions (in or out of liquefaction zone); distance to fault per code,
3.   occupied ground floor (residential; business/commercial ; assembly; pre-schools)
4.   weakness of structures (soft story , 2 direction; cornered building 2 sides)

The standards to which these buildings should be retrofitted to were also discussed.

It may be unreasonable to require the existing soft story buildings to be seismically upgraded to full code or 104F. However, some work need to be done to remove the soft story issue, say 75% of full code or 104F on the ground floor (and any subfloor spaces) only.

Submittals would be similar to UMB: analysis, categorization, plans.

DBI would identify all cornered buildings and send out notices to alert the owners and request engineering report for determination of soft story .  If weakness is identified or no response from owners, retrofit of that building would be required.

Time frames for retrofit were also discussed, say 4 years for 15 units or more

and 6 years for less than 15 units.

Above recommendations would be in the form of  amendments to the San Francisco Building Code, Chapter 16.

5.0

Discussion and possible action regarding proposed revisions, corrections and additions to the 2001 California Building Code in preparation for the 2004 edition of the San Francisco Building Code. The following chapters will be discussed:

VOLUME ONE
Chapter 16E

Seismic Provisions for Private Schools
(Proposed New Chapter)

Discussion building code issue on private school was dismissed.  Instead, the discussion focused on the draft  letter from the Chairperson of Structural Subcommittee to Executive Director of California Seismic Safety Commission.

From the report “Seismic Safety in California’s Schools”,  it appeared that the State believed that there was code language on the private school issue.  The draft letter (to be finalized) was to encourage the State to state and clarify the regulations for the private and chartered schools and develop some interim procedure for local jurisdiction and wrote codes as needed, such that all existing private and chartered  schools would be mandated for the higher standards set for public schools, without regards to the construction date. Some time period should be allowed for  implementation.

The 6 recommendations on page 11 of the report  “Seismic Safety in California’s Schools”  and Section 17322 of the Education Code were discussed. The intent was  clear that private schools built or converted to after 1986 should be designed to the same standards as for public schools.  Conversion of private buildings to private school was also discussed. Currently under  local code, seismic upgrade was triggered when there was change in importance factor, or an increase in occupant load of more than 10% and 100 people.

Jim Guthrie would finalize the letter, with help from Laurence Kornfield.

DBI was currently performing record search to develop a list of private and chartered schools. DBI also plans to initiate preparation of an administrative bulletin and write letters to all private and chartered schools to remind them of their responsibilities and encourage their participation in the preparation of the administrative bulletin.

6.0

Discussion of proposed DBI training programs.

Laurence Kornfield was responsible for all DBI training, including technical training, professional training, anagement training and succession planning training..

7.0

Items 3.0, 4.0 and 5.0 are continued to the next regular meeting.

Next meeting will be on 5/10/2005.

9.0

Public Comment

Yohei Kondo asked why cornered buildings are more dangerous. Laurence Kornfield explained that buildings had some benefits of support from adjacent buildings on the sides.

10.0

Adjournment.

The meeting was adjourned at 10:30 a.m.