Inspection commission. [roll call] very good. Commissioners, we have one item, item one for case 21802728 for the controlled demolition merger conversion and alterations. This is an informational meeting. Before you start, i wanted to go through for a couple of things of how this is going to go this morning. Good morning and welcome to our commissioners. I missed many of you. So what we are going to try to do is have this is a very complicated piece of legislation, and folks have a lot of opinion about the different aspects of it. We, the president mccarthy and i, want to give as much time to the public to opine. So with that being said, we only have a limited time. So what im going to ask first is that there is going to be times after each section that staff can pause and allow for commissioner questions. I beg my fellow commissioners to ask questions of clarification only. Lets leave the comments to the end. So please keep your questions short and succinct, so we can allow everyone to ask questions for clarification, and allow as uch tim much time for Public Comment. After staff presentation, we will open it up for Public Comment. Please fill out a speaker card. I will try to get through as many of those as possible. You will have two minutes to make your Public Comments known, and we will hopefully get through everyone. We will leave 30 minutes at the end of the meeting for commissioner comments. Hopefully all your questions will have been answered by then. And i will also, again, because there are so many of us, ask that we keep it short and succinct as well. I encourage you to write down your comments as we go so we can get through it expeditiously. Do you have anything to add, president mccarthy . In, thank you, madam commissioner. With that, i think we can go straight to presentation. Thank you. Good morning, commissioners, audrey maloney, Planning Commission staff. Before we give the planning presentation, supervisor peskin is here to speak. Thank you. Chairwoman welcome, supervisor peskin. Thank you, president melgar. President mccarthy and commissioners, good morning. I will be very brief because im actually in the middle of a Committee Hearing downstairs, and let me thank you for vetting this piece of legislation. I think we all agree, and have agreed for many, many years, that there is a problem relative to definitions of demolition in the code relative to demolitions. We all know the numbers. The reality is, as we see in the housing balance report, for every two units of Affordable Housing that we build, we lose one, probably more than one, if we counted the numbers a little differently. It is not just about the highprofile things weve seen in the meeting, like 49 hopkins, and the willis polk house. It is a larger, systemic problem. I am not the first supervisor who has tried to fix this. It has been attempted by many people. My former colleague, jake, teamed up, unlikely though it may have been, with Alice Barkley to solve this problem almost 20 years ago. But i think we all know that there is a problem. We all want to stop these types of demolitions. We have attempted in this legislation to incentafize it. Whether it is higher densities that were seeing throughout the city i will be the first to admit that perhaps i have bit off a little more than we can all chew here. But what i would like for you and the public and my somewhat dejected staff to do is to really figure out a way where two siloized departments, building and planning, can work better to stem the tide of the demolition of sound housing, which is the most Affordable Housing that we have. If you have better ideas, we want to hear it. But there is a problem, and we can all come together to fix it, whether it is as simple as vastly increasing fines an andpenalties for bad behavior the vast majority play by the rules. But there are a handful of player who soil it for everybody. I know, mr. Mccarthy, you dont condone it. But we have to find a way to get rid of the bad apples because they screw up the whole thing. With that, i have to go downstairs. Chairwoman thank you, supervisor. Hold on just one moment. Technical difficulties. All right, well there we go. All right. Before you begin, audrey, thank you. For those of you who are standing in the room or sitting on the floor and you cannot find a seat, the north light court is being set up as an overflow room. If you make youre way downstairs to the first floor, the north light court, you will be able to view and hear these proceedings. When your name is called to submit your Public Comment, feel free to come up and enter the room. And if those of you with a seat who submit your Public Comment would be so courteous as to then leave the chamber and make your way down to the light court to allow others to enter the room, that would be appreciated. Thank you. I appreciate your cooperation. Again, anybody who cant find a seat will need to leave the room. Again, commissioners, good morning. My name is audrey maloney. Planning department staff, i work on the legislative and policy team. With me is elizabeth watty, and patrick oreardon, and cyril yu. Were not going to be making any kind of staff recommendation today, but we are highlighted our concerns of the ordinance as it currently stands. And we have done our best to condense and simplify this ordinance, and with that being said, it is a very dense ordinance. And well be breaking this up to more digestable segments. And we also wanted to warn you about the amount of information youre about to see on these slides. We broke all of the power point rules, and there are way too many words. That was done on purpose. Again, this is a very complicated piece of legislation. We dont expect either yourselves as commissioners or the public to be able to digest every single piece of what is going to be presented here today. The slides were designed with the intention to be able to take them with you, both you and the public, and be able to read them on your own and understand them without somebody explaining them to you. Sorry there are way too many words on these slides. After the final conclusion, as commissioner melgar said, we will be taking Public Comment after all of the segments of the staff presentation have been given. First the good news we all agree that there are some major issues that were trying to solve, and there are some common goals that we are trying to reach. The first of which is to develop a straightforward permitting process for residential projects. And the second is to eliminate loopholes that result in illegal demolition. And the thirdto go into the background of this particular ordinance, back in september, supervisor peskin introduced the original ordinance, and since that time, supervisor peskins office has been working with the Planning Office on almost a weekly basis to try to address some of our concerns and listen to our requested amendments. On may 7th, the ordinance was reintroduced, and some of the planning was adopted into that new ordinance. With that, ill turn it over to patrick oreardon from the planning and building inspection. Good morning, commissioners. My name is patrick oreardon, chief building spectoinspector at d. B. I. I want to extend my thank you to the Planning Department for working on this legislation. The effort is very much appreciated. To start with d. B. I. s mission, to serve the city and county of San Francisco and the general public by ensuring that life and property within the city and county are safeguarded. We do this through the effective, efficient, fair, and Safe Enforcement of the city and county of San Franciscos building, housing, plumbing, electrical and mechanical codes. These codes are updated every three years as we learn more about safety hazards, and new Building Techniques and materials and technologies and developed. Im giving this last bullet a little emphasis. D. B. I. Wants owners to do everything in their power to upgrade their buildings to make them safer, healthier, more efficient, and more accessible. Why do we want to do this . Primarily it is because of our aging housing stock. If you look at the picture on this slide, i believe this is monterey boulevard, taken some time in the 20s, and so youll see all of those houses were there, much like theyre still there today. Housing stock in San Francisco is aging, but the vast majority of residential buildings were built prior to 1950. Because of this, building inspectors often see obsolete and unsafe components or conditions in residential buildings. We see damage due to dry rot, pest infestation, and water intrusion. We see old, unsafe wiring, and oftentimes we see old and ineffective plumbing. Now, this next slide shows is in relation to unsafe electrical systems. As you can clearly see, this is old nob and tube wiring. And this is an example of deteriorated knob and tube wiring, which possess a fire hazard and is often unable to cope with modern electrical demands. Related to outdated plumbing, this section shows sections of old plumbing in need of replacement. Problems are old led and joints that are leaking and are not properly supported. You can see the rust, which is a sign of leakage at the joints. Blind walls we know them as blind walls. Some people refer them to as Property Line walls, as side walls, but essentially they are walls that are at the site of buildings here in San Francisco that maybe zero lot line buildings. In other words, theyre buildings that are between adjacent buildings and there is limited or no space between those buildings. Usually it is an inch of space or maybe even less in some cases. Blind walls or properly aligned walls where little or no space is left between buildings. They present a specific set of challenges. Because of their location, work to bring them up to code requires significant alteration or temporary removal. In the case of vertical additions, they often need to be reinforced or replaced to safely hold the increased load of an additional story that may be added. Continuing with blind walls the frequent problems that we encounter. We see that there is a lack of proper fire protection. You can see from the picture this is a wall with the interior finishes having been removed, and an additional stud has been added next to the old stud. But as you can see, there is evidence of deteriorated building paper there. So that would indicate that this wall would be prone to leaks. Obviously, we see no insulation. It is unlikely there was insulation when the surface and lath and last properly was removed. This is what was uncovered. Obviously these walls are susceptible to pest infestation, also. When insulation and drywall is added to the interior of the blind wall but the original exterior remains, it can create mode mold problems. Upgrades for fire safety and weatherization are impossible without temporary removal of the wall. It is impossible to add overlapping paper at the exterior of the wall without its temporary removal. So plainly said, it is the wall you just do not have the peace between the outside of the ask tear wal exterior and the adjacent buildings wall. So it is impossible to upgrade its exterior. The next slide is pretty dramatic, but this is an actual event that took place about three years ago on mission street. It gives a little emphasis to the importance of the firerated walls at Property Lines. This fire did spread to an adjacent building, and several people were displaced from an s. R. O. The buildings did not have the firewalls that we see in buildings that are modern buildings that are constructed today. So the benefits of these blindwall upgrades homes are healthier, more energyefficient, and safer. New walls are better able to support greater loads. Theyll have fire protection, allowing more time for firefighters to stop the spread and residents to escape. At this point, im going to turn it over to my colleague, cyril yu from d. B. I. Im not cyril yu. Going into the first thing this ord nan wil ordinance when we talk about noticing and permits, these are the amendments to section 311. Throughout the presentation, you can see this format, and on the righthand side, the way that the ord na ordinance is currently written, will change the procedures. I wont focus too much on the way it is. I will highlight the major points about the way it will be. For neighborhood notification, known as section 311, the legislation generally would expand the items that would require 311 or neighbourhood notification, and how quickly a poster must be placed on the site for certain applications. It would also expand what must be included in the packets that are mailed to the public. And all of those items listed on the righthand side, the renderings, engineering, calculations, construction drawings, those are all now new requirements that would need to go into the packets mailed to the public for notification purposes. This is another slide youll be seeing a lot of today. To try to go over some of the Planning Departments anticipated impacts and concerns, we used more of a diagram model. On the lefthand side, youll see a grey circle, which is some of the planning implications. On the righthand side, the orange circle is some of the anticipated presumed impacts for the public. In the middle, we have general significant impacts to both the Planning Department and the public. For the neighborhood notice example, some of the biggest impacts would be increased cost to applicants, due to consulting, plan drafting, and application fees. And the permit applications that require neighborhood notice would take much longer to process. Looking at the new requirements for permit submittal and review, they must verify d. B. I. And the project would have to comply with the residential guidelines as they existed on the day that this ordinance became affective. Some of our largest anticipated impacts with that new set of permit su submittal guidelines are that the Planning Department are not engineers, we dont have that skill set, so verifying a department of building inspection, demolition or structural plan calculation is not something in our skill set, and this ordinance would require us to do that. It would also be a substantial shift and how d. B. I. And planning currently process these applications. It would take a very long time for us to put this new system into place. So we envision that that will cause some delays. And once the system is in place, it does impact our procedures in that we have many more things that we need to examine, with trans pe transfer permits back and forth. On the public side, some of the biggest changes are, again, that applicants must hire an architect to submit those plans, and the plans and structural drawings are now required at the front end of an application. Right now it is just a site plan because we know that planning is usually going to come around and ask for changes and reiterations. So, again, the biggest impact would be significant delays in permit processing, and an increased cost to applicants because of all of these changes. With that, i will turn it over to cyril from the Planning Department. Hi, commissioners, im a supervisor with the plan review surface division. Currently you require Building Permit for New Buildings and demolition and grading. What is so great about our entitlement process, youll need architectural drawings, and these are conceptual drawings to establish the building windows. The application will now require structural drawings and calculations to accompany these site permit conceptuaconceptual design. This is for d. B. I. To review it and for means and methods and construction. And the application will need to include a sworn declaration and testing to the accuracy of the submitted plans, and stated impact on the tenants, and construction means and methods. Currently in regards to permits, when d. B. I. Has determined that the work has gone beyond the scope of the permit, we issue a d. U. V. The project sponsor must obtain the additional permits for the work. When d. B. I. Determines that work has been done without a permit, an n. O. V. Is submitted. With the new ordinance, d. B. I. Will no longer be able to issue these after the fact, permits for additional work. So before a permit is issued, the sponsor will have to file another permit to remove the legal work prior to putting back the seated work. Does that kind of make sense . So preexisting condition, it is not welldefined. We dont know what that is. If you were to pull a permit to bring it back to preexisting conditions, we dont know, is that preapproval of the permit or preissues . Now well break for commissioner comments and questions. Okay. So i do you have a question to commissioner mccarthy, and then we will allow for the rest of the commissioners to ask clarifications. My one question was i was a little confused by the staff presentation packet that came to us before this meeting. Before this meeting, there was an item of dryrot removal that would trigger the definition of demolition. I read the legislation, and i did not see that in there. Can you clarify where that came from . Is that related to the contacts . We will be covering that in the demolition section of the presentation. If you dont mind waiting until we go over that slide. Chairwoman no problem. We do cover that in the demolition section. Chairwoman thank you. So were going to come back and ask questions on the second phase of the presentation. Chairwoman they may have been answered during that presentation. Mr. Reardon, i have a few questions for you. Thank you. So if we could go back to the slide i kind of just want to walk through it to make sure i have a really good understanding, particularly to the blind wall section of the presentation there. If you could if john could come up there, or somebody, and get that back to that slide area. And then i have kind of as i was reading last night, i was preparing the question for you. I want to be sure i have a clear understanding. In most older homes or buildings that waterproof is broken down or ripped or isnt performing anymore, can you explain to the public what happens when you take these older, leaking walls, and fill them with, say, insulation and sheet rock, as described by the code, what is likely to happen . So the best weig