No SF Sprinkler Mandate

Inaugural Fire Code TAC meeting – Friday, 9/18

The first meeting of the Fire Code Technical Advisory Council (TAC) considering the fire sprinkler retrofit mandate was held at 10 am on Friday, September 18th in Room 408 of San Francisco City Hall.

The agenda for the inaugural meeting started with “housekeeping” items. (An official copy of the agenda can be viewed here.)

Roll Call (Agenda item 1)

Ten of the eleven Council members were present. Members in the first 5 seats are public members selected by the Board of Supervisors as nominated in the July 13 meeting.

  • Robert Eaton – Seat 1, Property owner
  • Grace Geary – Seat 2, Renter
  • Ann Miller – Seat 3, HOA representative
  • Christopher Ingram – Seat 4, Fire protection contractor
  • Brandon Bracamonte – Seat 5, Construction professional

Seat 6, Professional architect, is currently awaiting appointment by the Board of Supervisors and Sup. Sherril stated hopes that the seat would be filled officially by the next Council meeting. Linas Stempuzis, who had been nominated for the seat at the July 13 meeting, apparently was unable to serve.

The remaining seats are people representing various City departments.

  • Ben Becker – Seat 7, Controller’s office
  • Fire Captain Tracy O’Keeffe – Seat 8, Fire Department
  • Mark Walls – Seat 9, Dept. of Building Inspection
  • Bill Teahan – Seat 10, Public Utilities Commission
  • Sup. Stephen Sherrill – Seat 11, Board of Supervisors

Welcome and Introductions (Agenda item 2)

Sup. Sherrill made opening remarks, starting out “The goal for us meeting here is to work collaboratively, get to a better position for everybody, and possibly go through the open process that may not have happened previously.” He thanked Fire Chief Crispin for advocating that all TAC meetings will be televised on the SFgov site.

He went on to “level-set the purpose of” the Council. “This is not a legislative body. … It is an advisory body. Our goals are to advise the Board of Supervisors and the Fire Department on the criteria and types of evidence the Fire Marshall shall consider.”

Sherrill then read off “eight things written into the law that created the Council.”

  • Evidence that the Fire Marshall shall consider in determining whether to approve alternative methods and materials.
  • Waiving specific individual requirements or granting necessary extensions of time.

“Equally important,” Sherril said, “is defining five terms that are specifically listed in the legislation.

  • “Reasonable degree of fire protection”
  • “Alternative protection”
  • “Not physically possible”
  • “Disproportionate effort”
  • “Undue hardship”

“We’re going to be spending about 90 days,” Sherrill said.

Electing Chair and Vice-Chair (Agenda item 3)

Council member Ann Miller nominated Supervisor Stephen Sherrill (Seat 11 – Board of Supervisors) as Council Chair. He was elected unanimously.

Miller then nominated Fire Captain Tracy O’Keeffe as Vice-chair. She too was elected unanimously.

TAC Powers, Duties and Procedures (Agenda item 4)

Deputy City Attorney Sarah Fabian took the floor to review with the Council various city and state laws that pertain to the Council’s work, including the Brown Open Meetings Act and the California Public Records Act.

Review TAC Goals and Future Agenda Topics (Agenda item 5)

Sup. Sherrill opened this agenda item saying, “The goals written down in the legislation are pretty clear.” Further, he said, “I think it’s kind of hard to come up with those unless we have decent definitions for the five additional terms that are mentioned – ‘reasonable degree of fire protection’, ‘alternative protection’, ‘not physically possible’, ‘disproportionate effort’, ‘undue hardship’.”

Sherrill went on to recommend the next meeting of the Council “get into the Budget and Legislative Analyst’s report, as well as potentially discussing other data sets that might exist.”

Council member Ann Miller said, “The BLA report was very broad and did not just focus on these (specific) buildings. So who are these buildings, how are they made, specific fire stats for these buildings.”

Council member Grace Geary asked, “Where will this data come from? Who is going to collect this data? How is it going to be presented to us? Are we responsible for getting the data, or is the Fire Department going to get it for us?”

Fire Captain Tracy O’Keefe said, “Our high rise inspectors have a lot of knowledge and information. We do have a database on some of these criteria.”

Sup Sherrill said he would ask his staff to work on assembling data sets.

Council Member Christopher Ingram, the fire protection contractor, commented, “The buildings I’ve looked at … each is its own case. I’ve seen that dramatically through the buildings I’ve looked at. They’re all generally the same structure – concrete and steel, there are no wood buildings that tall.” He went on, “I’ve walked one building and the water supply was great and it would work well. I walked another building and it would need a complete new water supply. One had a lot of existing infrastructure that would work, another had none. … They’re not cookie cutter. It’s very case dependent on the buildings. The potential solution would range dramatically.”

Member Miller commented that the Council needed to look at “affordability.” Sup. Sherrill noted that other parts of the city code, such as those concerning “affordable housing” have definitions that might be relevant and he would try to gather them.

At this point, public comment was opened for item 5 of the agenda.

Public comment for Item 5

Twenty three people came to the podium to address the Council. Some examples of their comments (apologies for any name misspellings):

  • Ellen Bowie, Fontana East – “The statistical study could be really simple. … How many people have died or been injured in the past twenty years in concrete high rise buildings?”
  • Robert Pasma, 999 Green St. – “I’d like the Council to consider ‘undue hardship’ in its broadest context. Not just the expense that would be imposed on owners as the result of the sprinkler mandate … but other expectations that the Board of Supervisors has, such as addressing seismic deficiencies in these buildings.”
  • Linda Mantell, “high rise building in Tenderloin” – “Our specific building is a working class building. We have teachers and nurses and lots and lots of retired people. Any special assessment or displacement would be not only a hardship but pretty much impossible. … Please help us.”
  • Melissa Draper, 1001 California St. – “I think it would do a disservice to San Francisco if we didn’t look into other technologies that might solve this problem.”
  • Neal Bardak, The Comstock – “I want to address a comment I heard a Supervisor make, ‘We’ve provided a five year window so the boards and owners could begin to collect the money’. … If you’re living on a fixed income it doesn’t give you any solace to have five more years. … Five more years is a false comfort”
  • Steve Stiller, 1940 Broadway – “This unfounded and unfunded mandate attempts to fix a problem that doesn’t exist. … In addition to fixing a nonexistent problem it places an extreme financial burden on each and every one of the affected residents, exacerbating the unaffordability of living in our great city”
  • Bob Vesner, 850 Powell St. – “What you’re doing will never work out fairly. … probably over 90% of the residents want you to repeal this mandate. You would save more lives and extend more lives if you allow us to spend our money on health care instead of this useless sprinkler ordinance”
  • Neils Pearson, 1101 Green St. – “Subsection 3 of the ordinance that creates this retrofit says existing high rise buildings also qualified as ‘historic buildings’ … shall only require sprinklers when as is needed by the California historic building code. … I would guess that a majority of the 129 high rises that are subject to this ordinance fit into the 50 year or older (definition).”
  • [No name or address stated] – “Proponents of this mandate keep saying this will save lives. … Sprinklers work by automatically activating only when the ambient temperature reaches 135 to 165 degrees. They serve a purpose in protecting access to escape routes … but a human exposed to that degree of heat for more than a minute will have lost consciousness. … Installing sprinklers throughout an apartment might mitigate physical damage but will not save lives.”
  • Michele Koresh, [no address stated] – “In 1991 my home burned to the ground. I lost 26 neighbors and everything but the clothes on my back. So I have a personal appreciation for fire safety. … In the absence of any evidence that (the sprinkler mandate) provides a public benefit I urge you consider if this is a requirement you would adopt today.”
  • Joanne Hurley, 1001 Pine – “I don’t know how you can address everything that’s wrong with this ordinance. … I think your best option is repealing this ordinance. Start over with something that is clear and (makes) sense, and addresses real issues in the city.”
  • Mary Gassert, 66 Cleary Court – “I would like the Council to come up with something that is digestible, easy to follow, and fair. … I think what you need to come up with is ‘does this make sense’ and when does it make sense?. But don’t give us pages and pages of technical details which will be subject to interpretation and difficult to follow.”

Many other commenters shared similar sentiments to the above examples.

Future Meeting Schedule (Agenda item 6)

Sup. Sherrill proposed an every-two-weeks meeting schedule, which met with no objection. He reminded the Council that the creating ordinance charged it with delivering recommendations within 90 days, and suggested the final date for doing so would be December 17.

A list of scheduled TAC meetings, which will be updated as additional meetings are scheduled, can be viewed here.

General Public Comment (Agenda item 7)

Most public attendees who desired to make a comment did so in connection with agenda item 5, so only a handful stragglers made additional comments in this later opportunity. Comments were along the same lines as those made earlier. One request was for a bigger room for future Council meetings. Other examples include:

  • Michael Healey, 1200 California – “I understand the Fire Departments position. I lost someone in a fire. I alo know that what we’re dooing right now is misguided. I urge you to do what others have said, to repeal the legislation, start over again, and do it right”
  • Leona Fitch, 1001 Pine St. – “It’s important also to consider young families in San Francisco. I got married two years ago right here in City Hall and I desperately want to raise my family here. I want to have a family. I don’t know if I can, if the costs keep piling up this way. I don’t want to leave San Francisco or California, and I hope this cost is not another driver of my family to leave.”
  • Mark Cane, Fontana West – “I’m a retired firefighter. … I think someone looked at this as a payday, and I just wish you guys could repeal it.

District 3 Supervisor Danny Sauter was the last public commenter. He said to the Council, “I appreciate the work you’re doing here. I think you’re going to be answering the questions that should have been pondered and answered many many years ago. … I cannot get in the head of our predecessors who passed this. I don’t know what they were thinking to pass something so significant without any care, without any consideration, without any planning. … Every single other municipality that has sought to do this over the past few decades has run the other way when they started to look at the details, and when they’ve seen the massive costs it would incur on residents, the potential for displacement.” He concluded by thanking the Council for all their work to get things up and running.