Greetings from Director Tom Hui 
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As the city continues to have a building boom, it is impossible to stroll down the streets of San Francisco without seeing a glimpse of a crane hanging in the skyline, or contractors in hard hats and safety vests hard at work. We are experiencing one of the largest construction booms the City has ever seen, bringing new residential units and exciting new commercial buildings. The Department of Building Inspection has been hard at work as well to ensure all the building growth and development in our City is constructed up to code standards. This past fiscal year, we issued over 68,000 permits and performed 154,000 inspections, thus continuing our efforts to protect life and building safety in the City.
To encourage more property owners to legalize existing illegal units, Ordinance 146-15 was approved to waive the plan review fees for both DBI and the Planning Department. These fee waivers can save owners up to $3,000 in plan review fees. This ordinance is expected to take legal effect early next month.
We are also anticipating the final passage of DBI's new fee tables, which are expected to take legal effect in this Fall.
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Meet Our Code Experts 
Do you have a code question? Need help with code interpretation? Please come visit our technical code experts! The Technical Services Division (TSD) consists of DBI's code experts who can assist you in code interpretation. TSD not only focuses on code interpretation, but also code and policy review and development, major emergency response planning as well as representation at official bodies such as the Board of Appeals, and the Code Advisory Committee. TSD is located on the first floor of 1660 Mission Street, and can be contacted at
TSD is currently hosting a
Brown Bag Series every other Thursday, focusing on accessibility and other various topics. We hope to see you there!
Read more.
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New Task Force on Fire Safety
Just this past Tuesday, August 18th, the first meeting of the Emergency Interagency Fire Safety Task Force was held. This group was established by Ordinance 90-15 in response to several fatal fires that have struck San Francisco earlier this year, which also resulted in displacement
of
tenants. The
task force
will meet over the next 3 months to review and make recommendations on potential fire-related legislation and discuss other solutions. Task Force members include representatives from DBI, the Fire Department, the Department of Public Health and the
San Francisco
Public Utilities Commission.
Read more.
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Deck and Balcony Safety
In light of the fatal tragedy that occurred this summer in Berkeley, DBI would like to remind property owners the importance of proper deck and balcony maintenance. Property owners of multi-unit apartment buildings should proactively inspect all exterior appendages such as balconies, decks and stairs for structural weaknesses that can easily result over time. These problems may occur
due to
weather-related exposure, dry rot and other degradation factors. DBI requires owners of apartment and residential hotel buildings with exterior decks and appendages to have decks, balconies, stairs, or other attachments inspected every 5 years by a licensed professional. The owners must provide proof of compliance by submitting a
Compliance Affidavit and returning it to DBI's
Housing Inspection Services. As summer winds down and we find ourselves spending more time outdoors, it is important to assure the stability and safety of our exterior decks and structures.
Read more.
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DBI is the regulatory building safety agency responsible for overseeing the effective, efficient, fair and safe enforcement of building codes for the City and County of San Francisco's more than 200,000 commercial and residential buildings.
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Codes Corner
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Read up on our most recent code updates below:
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Events
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| Legislative Watch |
Stay up to date on the most recent proposed and passed legislation affecting DBI. Here are some of them, which we have listed below:
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Yvonne Ruiz - Permit Technician I,
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