Is the Code Enforcement fees and orders of abatement, that takes it into thousands of dollars for assessment of Code Enforcement. Referral to the City Attorney for litigation and possible financial penalty, we have evidence of that here. Our unlawful demolition code prohibits the project from proceeding for five years, in consideration of 317 of the planning code, where theres a bit of a contractor. I think whats important to understand about our code section regarding unlawful demolition, it states when no demolition permit is in place, the unlawful demolition and five years would kick in. But just bear in mind, these jobs have significant permits. They have hopkins had a 650,000 permit. There was demolition shown on it. I would suggest the unlawful demo is probably more tailored to the guy who gets the Kitchen Remodel permit and takers down the building. He has no demolition permit whatsoever. These guys have significant permits. They go beyond the scope, we stop them, we send them back to the agency that approved the amount of demo they could perform. And theyre back in the wheelhouse. Thats how i get my mind around that. Planning department, again, i dont want to overstep what i should be saying here, but the Planning Department usually opens a case and assesses their own penalties. Often referred to as a de facto demo by planning. They talk about section 317 of the planning code for dwelling unit removal. 317 in the planning code talks about removal by merger or demolition or what not. Planning is substantial fair in this. It requires a mandatory review hearing regarding demos and thats what you end up with with the de facto demo. Thats how it goes. To that point, the Planning Commission hearing happens after planning has done their Due Diligence and could be in there for the long periods you talked about. Yeah. And at that point, thats when the applicant gets their opportunity to take in front of the Planning Commission and hear what they propose to do, is that correct . Thats correct. It is declared as a de facto demo and done enforcement work, etc cetera and goes to the Planning Commission. I have experiences with projects that are three years into this. In one case its three years in. But once again, we have no input on that not in the planning process. No input would you be broad enough to testify at the Planning Commission and give your interpretation as to how it was its possible. I havent been. Have any of them d. B. I. Been asked to bring their point of view as to how gregious it is. As stakeholders in the process, i think we often get blamed for the whole process, im asking as a matter of record, have we been asked to a Planning Commission on a demolition but its decided and agreed upon and comes back. Thats where youre going with this, right . We have not been asked. No. Okay. Commissioner walker. I have a couple of questions about this part of it. That is, meanwhile, after all of what we do and planning does, theres this thing hanging in the middle of the air. So are we able to because i do think that money talks. And i think that the more we really like deal with the consequences of this where it belongs, the more we will avoid of it happening. We should be charging a daily maximum of whatever. Thats the problem is that we hear it sometimes in our cases its at planning and we cant do anything. Meanwhile we all have to suffer with this i mean, i dont mean to harp on it. You probably agree with me. Let us know what we need to do to make the penalties real enough that it disways people and they dont choose to do this process of asking for forgiveness and not permission. Looking at this, i would probably do the same thing. If youre going to tell me the wall was bad anyway theres a process surrounding that. I would hope so. The Planning Department requires soundness reports and people dont just should not take down any of these portions of a building that are substandard without providing d. B. I. And planning with the necessary documents to show that, or to confirm that. Yeah, i agree. And also, it does seem like we count on complaints a lot. So my question is, do we need to reevaluate like what district supervisors do and at least driving by serial offenders, we know who they are. I mean if we dont, our new system will let us figure out who routinely goes beyond the scope. And that should be something in any other condition if you get one speeding ticket, its one amount, the judge makes it more next time. I totally agree with that. If we are aware of, you know, whats coming down the pike, we can get ahead of it and get out there and request mandatory start of work inspection, i think thats a big deal. If we get out there and say regarding your scope of work and make it Something Like a project of valuation more than 400,000, create a definition towards it and say that because you have this permit that shows demolition and its more than 400k, we need to get out there ahead of time so we can figure out im going back to the we get the complaint and go out there and we dont do we dont know the permit has been issued as inspectors. We get the complaint and go out there and its gone. Interesting. Any way that we can all figure out a way that we can get ahead of this is good and be out there before some of this stuff happens. Commissioner lee has one question. The subject is very complicated i think. And i think you explained very well a lot of reasons why people may exceed the scope or demolished more than they should have. But i want to ask a basic question and then follow up with a possible idea. In your experience on the ones where people exceed the scope of work and demolish more than they should have, do you find people or the contractor or the permit holder wants to replace back what was there or do they want to change the project, meaning are they going to move walls around and add rooms and stuff like that. Well, i mean when they get caught of course they want to put it back the way it was. Then they know they have a problem, right . So i think most of this is well intended. Theyre looking at structural drawings and seeing a wall or a floor or a roof that needs to be upgraded and most of the times, the contractor is likely to spend more time doing the physical work than going into the nitty gritty of what the drawings show on the different pages and stuff like that. Im not making an excuse for them. They should. So to your question, they do take it upon themselves to do some additional work. But i think its probably well intended. If its well intended, do those projects need to go back to planning . Yes, absolutely. Well intended or not, they exceeded the scope of the permit and calculations on the permit. Lets say if that rule wasnt there, could our department handle it and say you have to build it back the way it was . I think we would need for different reasons, we would need to document whatever it is theyre doing. If theyve clearly gone beyond the scope of the permit, they will need another permit to document im just looking for some way of resolving these type of problems quickly and maybe instead of having these projects go back to planning, stop right here at the Building Department and built back what they demolished. I mean, if thats the case, that might solve a lot of the issues with the neighborhoods. I mean, this will keep the project going, right . Instead of having it go back to planning we probably would need to engage the Planning Department in the discussion. And i i can see a lot of issues that youre going to have with that because the whole point of this is removal of something that shouldnt have been removed. That shouldnt have happened anyhow. Weve had instances of putting it back the neighbors looking at the old ball hanging in the air good question. I want to push it along once again and be cognizant of the people who want to make Public Comment. Inspector challenges, i call it the 911 call, we go out there and the work has taken place. The portion of the building, theres no undoing that. The contractor hasnt scheduled to start a work inspection. After shutting down the job, the neighbors file complaints about security, graffiti, squatters, it causes more impact on the neighborhood. Theres a picture on the overhead of a project back in 2006. It has netting and Everything Else and the neighbors are complaining and you can see the graffiti and Everything Else. Its not a good thing when that happens and it does happen. Shoring to preserve walls, roofs can lead to potentially unsafe conditions for workers. Discussion, penalties based on the current Building Code may not be this is just what im brainstorming here. Penalties may not be severe enough to stop the practice of excessive demolition. If a significant monetary penalty was in place, it might make it prohibitive to engage in grossly exceeding this is an area for the board of supervisors, not here. And referral of mi srepresentation and preventing the occurrences. Conclusion, d. B. I. Stops the work on the projects as soon as they are identified. Penalties are assessed as mandated and allowed by the San FranciscoBuilding Code. The Planning Department based on criteria reviews a new set of permit documents and eventually approved or disapproves a project. Based on substantial monetary penalties could make it prohibited to engage in the misrepresentation. I may have doubled up on that one. Sorry. If you want to ask about that, thats fine. And were open for q and a if you have further questions. Thank you for the presentation. Do you want to make comment and then commissioners we can go to Public Comment and then joel duffy, senior public inspector, i dont have much to add, patricks presentation is pretty good with everything on there. Just a couple of points, im glad to be discussing this issue. The article in the media was obviously there and historic things referenced and stuff like that. Its about time were here discussing this. Weve been dealing with this at d. B. I. For many, many years. These projects are very complex. We had one a couple years ago that fell down a hill, we all know about that one and what happened and accusations were thrown around and stuff. All of these permits are form 3s. That means theyre taken in, about a three year review and the work will start. Maybe you might get it in a year, but between one and two years for approval on these types of projects. They go through scrutiny with the Planning Department to meet 317 of the planning code. We have a sheet here from a set of plans, the demolition calculations are per 317 of the planning code. They need to meet those to get the project through. As patrick said, they go ahead and do that. Theyre not over the contract permits, theyre taken in and reviewed and usually horizontal, vertical addition. Theyre big projects. Theres notification and hearings and appeals. Theres quite a lot of scrutiny on them. The penalty on the two times, we would say to increase it. But i have heard Developers Say fine me. How much are you going to fine them, 100,000. Is that a lot of money on a project like this . Maybe not. Its very difficult. For us penalties might be the way to go butting getting ahead of it would help us. A preconstruction meeting would be helpful and getting the contractor, the person doing the work most responsible. The architect, engineer, need to be telling the contractor, it took me almost a year to get this through planning, dont take those walls down. Guess what, dbr are going to put me through the process of the demolition project that could hold it up three or four years. The penalties whether we do for them or send you back to planning, you can be sure this project is going to sit stopped for a long time. So thats a penalty in itself and a nightmare for us as well. Then we start to get the complaints from neighbors saying theres rats, theres people sleeping in here, there are breakins, the tarps are going i cant sleep. 2006 we did a stop work order on that, an unlawful demolition hearing, i took photographs last week, theyre in rough framing stage in 2017. That was going to be a four story two unit building, if thats not a loss, thats encouraging the housing shortage. We need to think about the consequences of that. Obviously that was an odd one because there are three owners but no one wants to touch them when theyre stopped like that. Theres a lot of good contractors out there, i get contacted and they want us to come out. We look at plans and wall says to remain, patrick touched on this, but a new foundation is required. That might be six feet tall, 12 inches deep. Half the bottom wall is gone but on the plans it shows they have to meet 317. Youre dealing with that as well. Patrick talked about the walls, sometimes by the time you open the walls up, maybe someone has done a remodel without the permit and studs are at 32 inches at center, theres holes in the siding, its zero Property Line wall going against the neighbors property. That wall has to remain. How do we get around the fact that the wall has to remain. I have to enforce water proof codes. It certainly has to come down. Were dealing with that constantly. The good contractors will speak to you. Sometimes they dont and were called out and its too late. Let me ask a question if i may. When you see that, that you want to replace the wall but its supposed to remain on the plans, what do you do . We issue a correction notice and the Planning Department are happy to see that. We have said you cant keep it. It doesnt just happen out there in the field. It shouldnt. Most of the contractors that have a problem with these, they get burnt the Second Time Around theyre all over them. Sometimes we have to say look, that wall has to remain. Lift it up, keep it short, keep it intact, dont demolish it. Sometimes well get a proposal from them. Even on these ones where theres just two walls taken down, i have one, we did a stop work orderer last march for two walls taken down shown to remain. Go back to planning and get a revision, the project is still stopped, going before the Planning Commission in february and the owners are nice people, contractor came in, took down the two walls and we got a complaint and went out and stopped it. So thats thats what we do. Can you imagine ive had homeowners crying on the phone to me because their project has been stopped. Some contractor didnt pay attention. And a lot of times its unfortunate circumstances that cause this and not all is rouge contractor. Sometimes its just somebody not paying close enough attention to the drawings. I get that, but if it happens over and over with the same contractor thats what im saying, doing this concept of mandatory inspection before you start work on certain projects and more in the field review of folks who i dont know how we do that. Thats up to the City Attorney to determine and board of supervisors if theres more strict process but it may be something we can do internally. I know what youre saying. I would like to think theres not people out there just saying take it down, its okay. A lot of the times its not the case. Its something that we deal with. Some of the ones as well, the article talked about Historic Buildings, demolition, that we were allowing the demolition of Historic Buildings. 49 hopkins was a property up there, it was shown on the drawings to be demolished and a modern facade put up there. That was part of the demolition. I read some articles and youre probably going to hear it here, some famous architect built that house. That would have been dealt with on the Planning Department of the review originally. If the project was of historic significance, that would have been dealt with. This is not our job. If you talk to Planning Section 317, its in there for the preservation of affordable housing, i think that day is long gone. Its not for affordable housing. Thats why on 49 hopkins you can build a modern looking building but you have to keep the same Property Line walls that are not to code. It doesnt make sense to a lot of the things we do. They have it suspended in the air, its not historic. 317 is preserving affordable housing. Planning committee is keen to do something about that section and we are as well. Stay close, im sure well have questions for you. Is that the departments presentation. Okay. And Public Comment. Whoever wants to stand over to the side so we can see who is coming. Just a reminder to the public, we like to discuss whats on the calendar today and, you know, im a little uncomfortable with other projects being brought in and named. Whats in front of us today as much as possible. I do understand the bigger picture. Welcome jerry. Good morning. I handed out a schedule that summarizes 10 serious Code Violations by a single Structural Engineer, Rodriguez Santos. The Building Inspection Commission needs to address the problem. The department of Building Inspections weak building Code Enforcement emboldened developers. Developer tim brown removed a three story bay and chimney on 17th avenue without a permit in 2016 and in 2017 demolished 45 hopkins avenue, a house designed by prominent architect. A serial violator who submitted false plans for 241 state street are not disciplined or fined. Why doesnt d. B. I. Submit a penalty for false architectural plans. Why are they not forwarded to t