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Fire Commission recommends supervisors ordinance requiring safety postings and tenant disclosures in multiunit buildings
Summary
Supervisor Katie Tangs ordinance seeks mandatory common-area fire-safety postings for buildings with three or more units, annual training for buildings with 16+ units that have resident managers, and written annual disclosures to all tenants; the commission recommended the measure to the Board committee after discussing costs and phased implementation.
Supervisor Katie Tang told the San Francisco Fire Commission on June 22 that the ordinance before the body would amend the citys fire code to require building owners and homeowners associations to post fire-safety information in common areas of buildings with three or more dwelling units, provide annual fire-safety training in buildings of 16 or more units where a resident manager is present, and deliver an annual written disclosure to tenants summarizing the same material.
"In buildings with 3 units or more, we would like to require that in the common areas, there be a posting regarding fire safety information," Supervisor Tang said, describing postings as maps and symbols that could include the dates of the last inspections of extinguishers and escape routes.
The commissions discussion focused on scope and implementation. Vice President Ken Cleveland and other commissioners asked whether the ordinance would require tenants to participate in fire drills (Tang: it would not), whether buildings already equipped with sprinklers should face different rules, and how the city would fund and staff any expanded inspection and outreach workload. Fire department staff and the fire marshal told the commission that plan review would take roughly an hour per map and field inspection about two hours, and that the population of R2 residential buildings with three or more units could be on the order of tens of thousands of addresses, a scale that would affect staffing and rollout decisions.
Supervisor Tang said the legislation was informed by Neighborhood Emergency Response Team (NERT) training and the fire safety task force; she said staff had met with building inspection and tenant groups and that associations could help produce standard forms for property owners to use. She also said the ordinance would require display of the resident manager or landlord contact information in a visible place to facilitate inspections and owner contact.
Commissioners recommended that the ordinance proceed to the Board committee with an acknowledgment that details on phased implementation, revenue for inspections, and coordination between the fire department and building inspection would need to be finalized. The commission accepted friendly amendments and voted to recommend the ordinance to committee.
Next steps: the ordinance will be scheduled for the Board of Supervisors committee consideration, where the supervisors office said it would consider technical amendments and language to align timing and inspection schedules with department capacity.
