San Francisco planning and building staff urge unified demolition definition and tougher enforcement after public outcry

San Francisco planning and building staff told a joint meeting of the Planning Commission and the Building Inspection Commission on April 12 that the city needs a clearer, citywide approach to defining and enforcing what counts as a demolition.

"We really need to establish one shared definition for the city and not have this bifurcated set of rules between two different codes and two different agencies," said Liz Waddy, deputy director of current planning, summarizing planning staff's view that the Planning Code's "tantamount to demolition" test (Planning Code §3.17) and the Building Code's demolition definition produce inconsistent outcomes and public confusion.

Waddy and Department of Building Inspection staff walked commissioners through the technical problem: Planning Code §3.17 uses two multi-part calculations (a lineal/facade test and a surface-area test) that require meeting both parts of each clause to trigger a demolition designation. A project can remove large façade areas yet still fall under the thresholds for alteration, producing situations where buildings look gutted on site but are not classified as demolition under the code.

"The key in this definition…is the word removal," Waddy said, explaining how the Planning Code treats replacement of exterior elements for…