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Committee advances ordinance requiring tenant notice and owner compliance on fire alarms
Summary
A San Francisco Board of Supervisors committee advanced an ordinance that would require tenants to receive annual written notice of smoke-alarm rules and require building owners to file compliance statements after annual fire-alarm testing; the committee adopted amendments and forwarded the item to the full Board as amended.
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors Government Audit and Oversight Committee on Wednesday advanced an ordinance intended to strengthen fire-safety communication and enforcement in multiunit buildings, forwarding the measure to the full Board with amendments.
The ordinance — introduced as Item 2 — would require owners to provide tenants an annual written notice about smoke-alarm requirements and would require building owners to file a statement of compliance with annual fire-alarm testing and inspection every two years. "We are requiring owners to provide information in English, Spanish, [and] Chinese," the ordinance’s author told the committee, highlighting language-access provisions in the measure.
Supervisor Campos, who led the effort and described the work of a task force convened after a string of residential fires, said the measure grew from collaboration among the San Francisco Fire Department, the Department of Building Inspection (DBI) and the Department of Public Health. Campos described a key amendment circulated at the meeting that would require DBI to reinspect buildings where fires caused displacement.
Budget analysts told the committee the Fire Department estimated staffing costs of roughly $670,000 for four positions in FY16–17 and that DBI expenses of roughly $52,000 had also been identified; staff said those amounts were already addressed in existing budget work orders.
Tenant advocates and people displaced by recent fires urged the committee to adopt the ordinance. "We're living in a home now that costs twice as much as the one that we lived in," said Liliana, who testified with interpreter Norman Espina on behalf of Casa Justa, describing post-fire displacement and the difficulty of returning to former housing.
Landlord representatives, including Charley Goss of the San Francisco Apartment Association, told the committee they supported the ordinance as the product of a stakeholder task force but requested a limited amendment: that mandatory seismic retrofit permits not automatically trigger the ordinance’s permit‑threshold requirement. The author circulated amendments during the meeting and stakeholders signaled they could accept the changes.
After agreeing to adopt the circulated amendments and requesting City Attorney review, the committee forwarded the ordinance to the full Board as a committee report. The committee did not record a roll-call vote on the floor; the item was sent out "as amended" by committee action.
The Board will consider the ordinance at a future meeting; the committee’s action directs the item to the full Board with the recommended amendments for further review and any formal votes.
