Good morning today is tuesday, september 22, 2015. This is the regular meeting of the abatement appeals board the first item on the agenda is roll call. Commissioner clinch commissioner mar commissioner mccra good morning today is tuesday, september 22, 2015. This is the regular meeting of. Good afternoon today is wednesday, september 23, 2015, this is the regular meeting of the b commission please turn off all Electronic Devices commissioners, the first item on your agenda roll call. Commissioner president mccarthy commissioner Vice President mar commissioner clinch commissioner lee commissioner mccray commissioner walker city manager commissioner president melgar is excused next it president s familiarities to you to the commission to skrauft their schedule to host the september 2015 bic meeting in convenience felt obvious advance of the loma prieta kudos to dbi staff for the additional requests to launch the dbi seismic safety outreach preamble and supervisors of district 5 and 10 and awarded arrogance if working groups radio underway in helping San Francisco prepare for the next big one thank you to director huey and others that participate in tomorrows working group on the adus which will be held at the firehouse in fort mason on 6 00 p. M. By the Apartment Association that is an opportunity to explain explain the dbi process for the initiative by the mayor and the board of supervisors to increase the more Affordable Housing city to encourage the Property Owners to provide more Affordable Housing and the mayors that the planning review fees for those who voluntarily legalize a occupant in Early September this means the owners participating in the program can save 3,500 with the legalizing a unit we look forward to an increased number of issued permit thanks to the reductions and im sure my my fellow commissioners that address that and thanks to david of the plan review service for assisting the owner by guiding him in the process and state in his letter he was helpful congratulations interest for our service and a big thank you to the Directors Office that provided a Great Customer service with issuing the permits and thank you for your professionalism and the members of the public anytime dbi wed love response thanks to the Fire Department and wanting. Ss puc who just convened the Public Meeting the board ordered the Fire Safety Task force with 3 more public mergers the task force have about recommendation to improve fire and life safety in old multiunit buildings we know are at risk for fatalities and serious injuries a Task Force Public hearing on october of and october 27th and a final meeting november 10th prior to the issuance of the Task Force Report thanks to all dbi and all in the training class that taco took place place into september 4th to september 27th and by participating dbi staff is better to implement the safety codes that are so important to San Francisco special thanks to ron tom and beginning emergency corresponds who are preparing for a rehearsal this october with dbi Department Operation center to enable staff to have response skills so were ready for the next major earth additional a final not the simulations of the dbi for the quarter 32015 please send our nominations to William Strong at City Government as soon as possible to enable the employee recognize committee to choose their member and madam secretary this concludes my announcements. Any questions on the president announcement item 3 general Public Comment the dbi will take members of the public on issues not on the agenda seeing none, item 4 the 5th street floor and overthecounter process. Good morning commissioner president mccarthy and commissioners thank you for giving me the opportunity for the overthecounter process at our last Commission Meeting on august 14th commissioner Vice President mar had questions we hope to answer those questions through our presentation and its processes so what do we do before i start, i want to give you quick facts of the occ process is on the affirmation floor by 45 plan checkers and there are 14 within those 45 plan checkers are standard plan checkers and 7 mechanic engineers assist by 24 collects clerks that includes the bureaucracy not overthecounter a public counter this is located on the first floor and gives direction and fist floor in take and payment section as mentioned we patrolled all of permit for occ on the fist floor the first and second floor are wherewith the submitted plans go on the forgives floor the permit application requires one hour to process for a discipline sometimes you can break it up for mechanic and one hour for structural and slide 4. The occ process on the forgives floor a fast and efficient not only it dbi occ locked on this floor were joined by public works and puc and public works and planning because of this many permit are approved on the same day and they can rapidly go to the process it is a one stop process within a timely manner weve gotten great feedback from the customers on it number 5. Number 5 is a general overview of the overthecounter process it shows what you what the minimal amount of stoogsz to navigate the help desk it is staffed by three or four clerks they give a very quick review they dont scan only to simmer you get the right form that is filled out properly and if someone has a question about a block theyll find it if everything smekz checks out youre allowed to go overthecounter and starts at the 2, 3, 4 take it is much more in depth ill speak more on this and shows you go to the actual plan check your issued comments if you get approval youll go to the payment counter that is where the permit is issued slide 6 okay like i say those are 3 points of in take start at the first floor if it is an involved job with planning conditional use you will be directed to the Central Bureau your plan is in taxed and submitted and usually outside the department the Planning Department if this is not and deemed small enough to be looked at within the one hour rule your directed to occ open is first floor on the fist floor im sorry on the fifth floor the in take they friday morning assign you a number youre in the system they look for a plan size, they look is it okay is this plan okay for to be scanned and micro filmed that at a later time they check for font size and check the index and they dont give you a plan check on everything but the code if it is deemed acceptable you get and number and allowed to go to plan check. The applicant now may proceeded to lane context for the project is a signin sheet on a first come first there theyll to fill out the name and if no response to the name the applicant must start at the bottom and after the plans are marked approvaled a written plan is approved and it is kept on a log for future checks when corrections are made the applicant may reassign the list for project review they have the same plan and engineer or same plans extraordinarily for completeness when the applicant wants to see the same folks it is the recheck a reviewed as far as the records retention the clerk book on fist floor and those records are kept for one year the sign in sheets 86 are reviewed by the floor manager and sent to the second floor by the Deputy Director the sign in sheilas sheets are kept up to 3 years. Once you have an approved now our permit will be approved you go to payment this is issued thats the difference after it is approved the payment collect clerk on the fifths floor should verify that every item matches the submitted application and the clerk should sign occupy the sign in list in order to verify architect and engineer and add contractor if not already added or add the owner for the database and the documents provide the sufficient documentation fire and planning and fire inspection and San Francisco public works dpw street spaces and mta and sidewalks a number of pages on the plan and then also, if theres a fire only permit you charge for the Fire Department not the building inspection you enter the information and po s to check the scanner are the clipper card it swiped and the permit is printed and now done and thats number 7 a list that was asked and its if august in august we in dbi we this list claims we did one. 739 i hesitate some are doubled counted but i can with confidence ill tell you we did well over a billion dollars in august for approvals and as you can see we have what 87 pages and it is every permit that came interest dbi in august and captures two paid for the permit firm name, the roll, the contractor, the owner, the building address pretty comprehensive and thats it if there are any questions i object to take them. Thank you Deputy Director and ill say we have recognition first, the staff for this comprehensive analysis to give us the data we need to have this decision and commissioner mar. To first of all, Deputy Director sweeney and huey i wanted to thank you guys for putting together this report i was the one that asked for it before i get into the harder questions he want to say the sheer number of permit issued is a very good thing in the sense the amount of work this department does and i wish that our sisters and brothers in planning maybe did a little bit more and we would not be forced into kind of a gridlock situation and sometimes it is the numbers we have to do i think which is kind of raises why i asked for to report and the harder questions ill ask as a followup one of the things my fellow commissioners know i was one of the fans for the fifth floor when we killed q masking a lot of questions from the homeowners and Small Office Spaces saying how are were going to disprove what weve been accused of the preferential treatment for contractors and previous rental treatment some for the purpose get theyre quickly and some people wait in line i think this is recognized by the mayor and how much revenue we bring in the reason i asked for this report is there is sill still concerns the reason he keep push weve got to o get to last night on the agenda i did is with this kind of data the only way to disprove some of that the public transparently see this is the permit we give out this is who checks that and this is the person we check that for i only asked for one 90 month this is a lot of work i apologize to staff i know they did a lot of work to put this together and i know that some commissioners complained how heavy their packet is because of agenda. But it is here on behalf of the appellant and we killed a lot of trees and in color at the same time there is still questions i have so for example, you know one of the first questions he have is this reflective of all the overthecounter permits in august any way because you talked about a 3 step process you come in and go the fifth floor and get triage we used to call it triage if this is being small enough you can head up to the fist floor but complicated or has ottawa other issues written e lifework variance you have to go to planning we understand that but ive also been told that a lot of people dont have to go do the fist floor walk in and call somebody heal ahead of time and walk their appointment to the plan checker im asking if he because no sign in for the first floor not data for who comes. The first floor is triage. Yeah. If we looked at every permit in august hundred percent overthecounter. I believe they are. Hundred percent. Yes. Thats what i asked to be provided. I want to stop here. Do we want to hear Public Comment or then im open do you want to. I thought we were going to go first. Im just open okay. So commissioner walker please yeah. Great. Thank you really for putting this together i know it is a lot of information and to support commissioner mars request we deal with it and its good to have all the information to look at the volume of work and if it is working or not especially number two, of the fact we tried to deal with the issue by putting in q masking did work were trying to make sure were following up and doing Due Diligence to provide equal opportunity and equal service to every member of the public this is great i know it is a lot of work we appreciate it here i have a question because there is a lot of issues around land use conflicts i know that is a planning issue but as i live in an area that has a lot of pdr which is you know manufacturing and industrial a lot of occasions tech offices come in that immediately causes problems for the manufacturing and the art eric businesses we use as we look at this schart there is a point at which the occupancy is evaluated do we take the word of person applying for the permit as the use, huh . How do we determine what a company is do if their mosque into an Industrial Area he personally know there is a lot of office use in pdr i want our department to help with so how do we deal with that. First off you live in the north mission and yeah. Most of buildings built before 1940 we dont have the original plans and lets it is a it when it was Industrial Property nobody living there before you my time nobody cares it is Industrial Property and maybe the building inspection went down there the building inspection and Planning Department are having conversations i believe were putting together a map similar to the south of market map for other displacement because we have problems with the people going into the old Industrial Property turning it into residential we have a moratorium distinct south van ness and market i believe bryant so the Planning Department and builng inspection are talking putting together a map for the north mission let me back up any pdr district. It is also along the waterfront. Planning m right direction r disrespects south of market there will be like a check once you see the check oh, because your not pdrs you have to go to planning. Oh, thats great. So there wont be any overthecounter per say until you take care of that. That is a very good solution i think i mean it seems to me looked at the history of permit and what not getting us here people call it whatever they want to on the application we try to help i am not in a different world it didnt matter but certainly now and appreciate that we need to do that on a lot of issues on planning. Right now what happens it is looked at briefly on the first floor theyre triaging half the thought people are coming down and saying hey, im going open of an additional or i have a technical question realtors come in and say y where do i go. Some people are told point blank you have to go to the Planning Department so a lot of the stuff is that and a lot of is like homeowners they dont know what this is and have to be told we do not put pressure but on the first floor into in take thats one of the things like for the story we require them to look at google although this is not the greatest it is a down hill lot you they dont see the two stories we try our best a lot of items on our people everything on the form 348 is verified the best we can so so you. So theres a point they check that against the r data so unit numbers or those types of things and if there is a conflict we send to planning. You have to get documentation educate youre saying an f two everything were shown those are Storage Units we dont agree youll say have to show us a cf c sometimes, we dont do the best job in Records Management to update. Especially in older buildings not a history of permits. What not yeah, okay. Thats great appreciate a quick followup besides this being a complete form 8 for the month does everybody have to come in. 3 years. Oh, do they have to come through everybody has to stop at the first floor first theres a lot of people with experience and they head straight up to the fist floor. Youll be surprised a lot of people stop and engineers they kind of want to know whats union on our database okay. This is an right direction r 3 and in take says its an r one so they have to start on the fifths floor anyway. Im concerned the sign ins i know there is a signin sheet which you know still rubs me the wrong way thats okay there are plan checkers on this second floor. It is appointment only thats in take or nc c they can call you up and say ive got our corrections can i see you a troushgs or 1 oclock. How do we know that checkers waited in line or are those for recheck. He get our number through a clerk not a billing kindly. That number it is q masking if comes on the board were talking about a paper signin sheet basically. Its been a long time since i was on the fist floor but a simple signin sheet sometimes in terms of who is signing. From time to time i find them. I think youre asking if you make an appointment on the second floor without going to the first floor. Youre not supposed to. It is possible. It is possible. Can we capture the numbers. It is against the rules for any of my plan checkers to entertain anyone for occ youre going around the system if we catch you, your in trouble. Sorry commissioner mars point this reoccurs were trying to get to the transparency process somebody couples and there say they go back to a Different Department it is in the same swoop that person might go back to that plan checker. Thats okay. I dont want to interpret it as starting over. If someone makes a comment about our initial in take. Your finishing on the job. No objection. No. Can i get the overhead. Then lets talk about if i may about the policing of it obviously like every large i mean the vacuum im not going to say that someone tries