Talking points
for 2/23/25 Board of Supervisors hearing
If you attend the Board of Supervisors hearing and choose to speak (please do!) here are talking points you can include in your talk. Talks are limited to 2-minutes.
Please make your points personal and in your own words. Other than the first four points below, these are not in any order and not everything below needs to be mentioned. It is recommended you touch on the first four points.
And please, be respectful. It’s best not to alienate the supervisors needed to pass these deadline extensions and soon needed to approve further legislation on this matter.
Criticial talking points
- Thank you for the opportunity to be heard.
- I ask you to vote to pass the proposed new fire code with the five-year extensions to the compliance deadlines, which allows the City and homeowners more time to thoroughly understand and address the impact of the fire sprinkler mandate.
- This is only the first step of the City making responsible decisions on this matter. These deadline extensions, while helpful, are NOT the solution needed to mitigate the crushing effects of the sprinkler mandate.
- When the City passed the mandate in 2022, they did so without any proper outreach to owners and residents. They also did so without updated estimates on the financial burden to residents or the effects of displacement of our residents.
Optional additional talking points
- I strongly encourage you to vote for this short-term relief, but more importantly that you consider the impact to us as you move forward.
- None of the people in leadership roles in the City (the Fire Marshal, Chief Crispen, Supervisors or Mayor) were involved in the passing of this mandate. While it is not of your creation, we are looking to you all to help us stay in our homes and in our City.
- No other city or state has similar retroactive sprinkler requirements. In fact, many cities and states have reversed this requirement after trying to implement it, for the same reasons we are raising with you today.
- Mandates such as this greatly impact the affordability of living in San Francisco. Mention any effect to you of having to bear the cost of the required construction and long-term relocation.
- Mention how displacement, either short-term or permanently, would impact you.
- We are not large apartment owners. We do not own multi-unit buildings. We do NOT have the ability to finance our portion of the cost of this requirement.
- Our buildings are Class 1, fire-resistant buildings built with non-combustible materials like reinforced concrete and protected steel.
- Many, if not all, of the affected buildings have asbestos in their concrete and interiors and the health implications of releasing this asbestos as well as the construction debris into our apartments are significant and will increase the cost, delays and relocation requirements during any construction work.
- In 2016, the City issued a thoughtful report on the feasibility of mandating retroactive fire sprinkler installations in existing residential buildings. It concluded that it was not, but it identified other measures to improve safety, with which many if not all affected buildings have complied.
- These are our homes and we want them to be safe for ourselves, our families and our first responders. This is why we have invested in all the reasonable fire safety measures recommended and/or required by the City.
- If over 120 buildings are doing this at the same time, we are talking about major displacement where tens of thousands of people must temporarily relocate from their residences.
- The fire sprinkler mandate is essentially a $2 Billion tax on condo, co-op and apartment building owners and was passed without meaningful outreach to any affected party. A lot more outreach is done when the City wants to change parking meter times or move parking spaces than was done on this issue.