System to be able to do that. Currently the department of building inspection will allow somebody to go on the city website now and be able to see whether or not we have an open Code Enforcement Case Department wide on a particular address and what the permit activity is. Its my understanding that it doesnt have it yet. Supervisor scott weiner seems to me that its more of a centralization for the information for the department and the public and the ability of the department to know that other departments that should be involved are involved. Its incredibly important. I think its a big missing piece where you have people from the department doing their very best but you dont have that centralized overarching code about this property or this landlord tenant situation to make sure its addressed. I think its something that we should all be working toward. Supervisor kim . Supervisor jane kim thank you, i had a very specific question but im going to start with a more general question now.
And give them resources and help but at some point, the balance tips a little bit. So how do you address that eventually . Its very complicated in those cases. If there is no movement on the building and the permits expire we can issue another issue notice of violation and we can send another notices and maybe to the City Attorney. Thats a long process in itself too. Supervisor scott weiner how many complaints a year do you refer to the City Attorneys Office . We only can take it so far. As Code Enforcement division, we will issue the notice of violation, second notice of violation, bring it to sharing, bring it to an order of abatement. At the time of order of abatement, the City Attorney will decide to accept the case. Supervisor scott weiner how many of you plural, dbi how many cases a year . We referred two last year to the City Attorney. Supervisor scott weiner out of how many violations did the department determine, how many of those total . Complaints filed for last year were 20
Because the premises were abandoned by the previous tenant. This is the same property in the bathroom. Supervisor jane kim we dont know what happened to this tenant because they abandoned the unit. The tenant left. We had no information otherwise we would try to get the tenant to working with Sf Mental Health association. He just abandoned the property. Supervisor jane kim i know mha has a limited cohort for cluttering and hoarding. But its not a group that we can unlimitly send to. There is more residented that you encounter with dbi that mh can take. What happens to this group . Second, i wanted to follow up last year through the budget process the board asked for dbi to include a line item for Mental Health component for housing inspectors understanding that housing inspectors deal with many tenants and also Property Owners that deal with severe or just Mental Health issues and they alone are not going to be able to address the housing issues if there are no Mental Health services i
Administrative process and again, these codes were developed to operate from a Code Enforcement standpoint independently. So the first thing that one would look at if this is desirable from a policy standpoint would be are all of these codes do they have the same types of provisions with respect to the issuance of Civil Penalties, what is the criteria, what is the administrative process, are they similar, can they work in unison. All of these types of thing will be the first things to ask the City Attorney. We work very closely with the Land Use Division and the Code Enforcement and the groups we work very closely with them in the Housing Division. But i have a legal background and i understand these things in a way that perhaps others might not. So we work with them very carefully, but that will be two things that you will have to look at. Let me give you an example. Section 204 of the housing code talks about Civil Penalties should be considered in such a way that the length and the
Representative, the department of building inspection and department of Public Health and the Fire Department and each department will tell us how they address the code internally and well hear why some properties appear to slip through the cracks and how many codes and cases are received and the number of relevance made and the number of cases closed. Well learn about the departmental recordkeeping practices which is very important in terms of tracking properties with multiple complaints for the years. My hope is that well find out whats working, whats not working and what we can do to improve things and improve coordination and address these problem situations. With that, i would like to offer supervisor cohen my cosponsor of this hearing. Supervisor malia cohen thank you everyone. Its great that you are here. This is an important topic because it affects everyday peoples lives. As i told my constituents, its not one of the most sexiest or glamorous legislation, but its just a critic