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HomeMy WebLinkAboutTC Minutes 2012-10-03TOWN COUNCIL MINUTES CALL TO ORDER Mayor Fraser called the regular meeting of the Tiburon Town Council to order at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, October 3, 2012, in Town Council Chambers, 1505 Tiburon Boulevard, Tiburon, California. ROLL CALL PRESENT: COUNCILMEMBERS: PRESENT: EX OFFICIO: Collins, Doyle, Fraser, Fredericks, O'Donnell Town Manager Curran, Town Attorney Danforth, Director of Community Development Anderson, Building Official Lustenberger, Town Clerk Crane Iacopi ORAL COMMUNICATIONS None. CONSENT CALENDAR 1. Town Council Minutes - Adopt minutes of September 5, 2012 regular meeting (Town Clerk Crane Iacopi) 2. Town Council Minutes - Adopt minutes of September 19, 2012 regular meeting (Town Clerk Crane Iacopi) 3. Town Investment Summary - Accept report for period ending August 31, 2012 (Director of Administrative Services Bigall) 4. Biennial Update of Town Conflict of Interest Code -Adopt resolution updating Town's Conflict of Interest Code to reflect changes in state law (Town Attorney Danforth/Town Clerk Crane Iacopi) 5. Lyford Drive Parking Lot Project - Authorize Town Manager to negotiate and execute easements for PG&E electrical infrastructure associated with the Lyford Drive Parking Lot Project (Town Attorney Danforth/Town Engineer Nguyen) Mayor Fraser asked to remove Item No. 4 for discussion. Council concurred. Town Council Minutes #,19 -2012 October 3, 2012 Page I Vice Mayor O'Donnell made a correction to the September 19 minutes, page 10. He said that he was in fact in favor of the [existing] angled parking downtown (and at the new Lyford Drive lot) but not the angled parking along Tiburon Boulevard as proposed by the consultant. The Town Clerk said she would correct his statement in the minutes. MOTION: To adopt Consent Calendar Item Nos. 1, 2, 3, and 5, as amended. Moved: O'Donnell, seconded by Doyle Vote: AYES: Unanimous ABSTAIN: Collins, Item No. 1 (September 5 minutes) Fredericks, Item No. 2 (September 19 minutes) 4. Biennial Update of Town Conflict of Interest Code - Adopt resolution updating Town's Conflict of Interest Code to reflect changes in state law (Town Attorney Danforth/Town Clerk Crane Iacopi) Mayor Fraser asked several questions about disclosure categories and boards that are covered by the Town's Conflict of Interest Code. He asked what triggered the change in the disclosure category for Heritage & Arts Commission since the last review by the Council. He also noted the addition of the Building Code Appeals Board to the list of required filers. Town Attorney Danforth said that all Town board and commission members who participate in the making of local government decisions are covered by the Town's Conflict of Interest resolution. She said that during the recent review of the Code, she and the Town Clerk had discussed the appropriate filing requirements of the Heritage & Arts. She said their recommendation was to make narrow the filing requirement for the Commission; that the previous disclosure requirements had been unnecessarily broad relative to the scope of duties performed by the Commission. The Mayor asked whether the Joint Recreation Committee and Library Agency Board were also covered under the Town's Conflict of Interest Code. He said that he had not been asked to file a Form 700 after his recent appointment to the Joint Recreation Committee as a voting member. Town Attorney Danforth said that the above entities were separate agencies (formed through joint powers agreements). She said she would look into what their filing requirements were. Mayor Fraser noted that decisions made by both agencies affected the town and that it would be useful to know what the filing requirements were. Town Clerk Crane Iacopi said that she was aware that a conflict of interest code existed for the Joint Recreation Committee. She said she also believed that the City of Belvedere had accepted the Form 700s for the Library Agency, at least initially when the agency was fonned. She said it was her understanding that the Library Board Clerk was now the local filing official for the agency. Town Council Minutes #19 -2012 October 3, 2012 Page 2 Town staff agreed to follow up on the questions raised by Mayor Fraser. MOTION: To adopt Consent Calendar Item No. 4 (resolution). Moved: Fredericks, seconded by Collins Vote: AYES: Unanimous ACTION ITEMS 1. Residential Building Report (RBR) Update - Receive update on the County-wide review of the RBR process for possible standardization/modification (Community Development Director Anderson and Building Official Lustenberger) Director Anderson gave the report. He said the purpose of tonight's report was to bring the Council up to speed on the progress that was being made on direction from the Council to look into standardization of Residential Building Reports throughout the County. Anderson said the Town was pursuing two tracks-a review of its own internal measures as well as a collaboration with the other cities in Marin. He reported on the current status of the RBR process review as follows: ➢ The Tiburon Building Division has begun taking steps to develop and implement process improvements and procedural changes intended to streamline and standardize the Town's RBR process. Progress so far includes work on developing a revised report and inspection form, ongoing collaboration with other Marin County jurisdictions in developing and, hopefully, adopting county-wide standardized inspection processes and standards, and developing ways to integrate both of these efforts in such a way as to make the Town's RBR program more efficient, user-friendly, and customer-oriented. ➢ Among those steps is the preparation of a pre-printed checklist format, wherein the most common life-safety deficiency items usually observed at the site inspections can be "checked off' on the form at the first inspection, with the results immediately available to the applicant, thereby eliminating the up to ten-day waiting period for the results of the inspection in most instances. The form will also have space for the inspector to include any high-concern life-safety item that is not one of the standard checklist items, and for the identification of potentially un-permitted work, which will require up to a three- working-day time period for records research and investigation. The goal of this proposed checklist format is to significantly reduce the turnaround time for RBR reports, reduce Building Division staff time spent on generating them, allow for greater transparency regarding the types of compliance items that will be of concern with the RBR process, and enhance the consistency and uniformity of the process as a whole. ➢ On a parallel track, the Tiburon Building Official is part of a Marin County Codes Advisory Board sub-committee assigned the task of improving the RBR process county- wide. The group is currently working on a draft response to address the concerns Town Council Minutes #19 -2012 October 3, 2012 Page 3 contained in the MAR letter of July 12, 2012. These concerns that were raised include this group's perception of the level of (or lack of) consistency, double jeopardy, transparency, timeliness, and fees associated with the RBR process across the county. While some of these concerns are state mandates and beyond the ability of local jurisdictions to control, many are legitimate concerns, and the sub-committee is now engaged in ongoing collaborative efforts to address them by developing achievable and realistic recommendations to forward to decision-makers in our respective jurisdictions. ,e The Marin Managers Association is continuing to discuss and coordinate this effort among the 11 cities that perform RBRs in Marin County. Director Anderson said that staff will report to the Town Council on a proposed response to MAR in the near future, and intends to continue with the broader process outlined above. He said he believes that real progress is being made toward a more standardized approach to RBRs in the County that will simplify and speed the process while still protecting the public interest. The Director recommended that the Town Council receive the report and, if necessary, provide any additional direction to staff regarding the RBR regulations and/or process. Councilmember Collins said his understanding was that several cities within the County do not require RBRs. Director Anderson said that all cities did some form of RBR, whether it was simply a records search or physical inspection, or both. He said that nine cities did both, and two cities performed only a records search. Councilmember Collins asked the broader question of why RBRs were performed. Anderson said that the purpose was to find any unpennitted work or life-safety deficiencies and correct them. Collins asked if this was the only time such an inspection could take place; Anderson said it was the logical time to do it. He indicated that other inspections involve only the work that is the subject of the permit and usually involve only a portion of the dwelling and could not substitute for an RBR inspection. Councilmember Collins asked whether RBRs were mandated by state law, or whether they were voluntary on the part of each community. Anderson replied that RBRs are not required by state law. Town Manager Curran commented that there is no other juncture at which the Town would normally enter a home; she said that the RBR inspection was generally the Town's only opportunity to discover unpermitted work. She said the community had continued its policy of perfonning these discretionary inspections over a 40-year period. The result, according to the Town Manager, was a housing stock that was safer and complied with necessary Building Codes. Councilmember Collins asked whether "life-safety" was a term of art or whether it had any relationship to the Health and Safety Code. Building Official Lustenberger said that "life-safety" was Building Code vernacular and referred to a deficiency that might lead to an unsafe condition or the loss of life, such as the absence of a hand rail, incorrect electrical work, and the like. He Town Council Minutes #19 -2012 October 3, 2012 Page 4 noted that many building code provision are aimed at protection of property (e.g. window flashing), but that "life-safety" items protect people from possible injury or loss of life. Mayor Fraser asked whether there was standardization of "life-safety" items between cities. Lustenberger said that Novato had a checklist that contained many of the items or were identical to the life-safety issues reviewed by Town staff. He said the difference was that the Town's reports were handwritten and laborious and most items could be covered using a checklist. Vice Mayor O'Donnell asked whether RBRs would then be limited to the items on the checklist or whether Town staff would expand upon this list. Lustenberger said that a checklist would be sufficient if the Town were able to provide a homeowner with back-up information in the form of technical bulletins and the like [to infonn them on how to correct the deficiencies]. He noted that the RBR form would need to have a separate section for un-permitted work, and a separate section for any life-safety items that are occasionally found at a site, but not frequently enough to be included in the standardized checklist. Lustenberger explained how the process would work: He used an example of an inspection perfonned where two life-safety items were called out-the lack of a guardrail and a severely rotted underpinning of the house. He said that generalized examples of how to correct these issues would be given to the homeowner. If there was illegal work suspected, Town staff would have three business days to re-check the permit records to confine whether the work conformed to permits. He also used an example of illegal work such as the discovery of a door from a bedroom leading directly into a garage. Lustenberger said this was an example of a violation of the Building Code that would need to be corrected under any circumstances. Vice Mayor O'Donnell asked what if staff discovered [illegal] work that consisted only of an expansion of a house within its Floor Area Ratio (FAR). The Building Official said that the Town's position was that we don't want the buyer to unknowingly get stuck with this and that it is the current owner's responsibility to obtain a permit and legalize the work. He said that to legalize these kinds of expansions could be done fairly painlessly. Mayor Fraser said that in his professional experience as a realtor he had done business in every community in Marin. He said that he had also experienced differences in inspections within the same community. He also gave an example of a remodeled house where a permit for window installation had been approved and the inspection signed off, he asked how the Town could then ask for a change to the windows after the fact. Building Official Lustenberger said that Town staff had to look at when the windows were installed and whether non-tempered glass was used, as was the practice pre-1980. In most cases, he said that property owners could simply add a kind of glazing to bring the windows up to Code; he said that staff would inform them of this less costly solution during the RBR process. Lustenberger added that if, during the records search it was discovered that the windows had been approved and inspected, Town staff would inform the property owner of the issue but not Town Council Minutes #19 -2012 October 3, 2012 Page 5 require its correction. On the other hand, if the records search revealed that the windows were installed without a pen-nit and inspection, the windows would be subject to the requirements of the current building codes. He said the overarching principle is that staff must look at the degree of danger and that if a dangerous condition exists, the Code must be applied. Mayor Fraser said that applying film [glaze] to windows was a new idea. He said that he had encountered at least two examples of divergent opinions, using this example, in the last couple of years. He also noted that part of Tiburon is in the County and part is within the Town limits, so literally houses could be side by side and produce different inspection results. He said this adds to the confusion. Mayor Fraser said that the County did not perform RBRs; he said that Corte Madera and Sausalito simply provided a permit history of the property to the prospective buyer. The Mayor said he thought the history of a property was a good thing to impart to interested parties and he wondered why a municipality would want to be more involved than that in the sale. Lustenberger replied to both questions. He commented there were differences in service levels at the town and county levels; he also said that cities that do not perform RBRs must develop other methodologies to address the issue of unpermitted work. For instance, Lustenberger said that in one city in the [south bay] Peninsula, category 2 inspections (water heaters, firewalls, sprinklers) would trigger a more expanded inspection of the dwelling. He also agreed that in large area counties, it was easier to get away with unpermitted work but that the penalties were often much harsher, up to 10 times the permit fees. He said these were the trade-offs for the ability to stop work and fill the void due to the lack of RBRs. He said that in his experience, neighbors want to be sure that homes in their areas are up to Code. Mayor Fraser applauded the efforts of staff to move forward with a standardized inspection process county-wide. But he said the Town's RBR process was rigorous and applied to an average of only 50 properties per year. The Mayor commented that there was redundancy because most buyers ordered expensive [private] inspections of their own. He also wondered whether the time and resources expended by the Town was worth the effort. Mayor Fraser said he would be inclined to leave it up to the due diligence of the buyer and seller to resolve any issues. Town Manager Curran commented that the Town's policy serves to protect the integrity of the housing stock overall. She noted the Town's policies for Design Review, for instance, went to great lengths to ensure zoning compliance; she said the Council spent considerable time reviewing appeals to make certain that homes fit into neighborhoods and conform to our requirements. She said that without this time of sale inspection, there would likely never be an opportunity for the Town to discover unpermitted work. She gave an example of an illegal garage conversion or creation of a second unit which, in addition to possible code and safety violations from uninspected work, could harm neighborhoods by externalizing parking onto adj acent streets. Town Council Minutes #19 -2012 October 3, 2012 Page 6 Without these inspections, she said we would expect to see an increase in unpermitted work as people would have little fear of it coming to light, whereas knowing there will be a time of sale inspection serves as a powerful disincentive to this activity. Councilmember Fredericks asked which party bears the responsibility for Code infraction. She noted that the buyer and seller would still be free to negotiate who does what in the sale of a property. Councilmember Collins said that market forces sometimes shorten the time of sale. He said that not every escrow is 120 days and that to the extent that a municipality becomes involved in the transaction, it changes the game. He asked whether there was some sort of alternative, such as doing a mandatory inspection six months or a year after the sale. Vice Mayor O'Donnell said that sounded like a potential litigation nightmare [between buyer and seller] to do it after the fact. Town Manager Curran pointed out that one of the objectives of the RBR review was quicker turnaround time. She said that one idea that had been raised was whether to issue a report that was good for one year, as are the Town's RBRs. Curran said the Town was pushing for longer lasting RBR reports among the other cities, and that in some other cities reports were good for a month or two. She noted that RBRs need not hold up sales; it is up to the buyer and seller to work out the resolution of the issues disclosed through the RBR process either before or after a sale. Councilmember Collins asked whether the Town provided applicable Code sections on the report. Building Official Lustenberger said that the Code section was disclosed for each item on the report; he said that Town staff made itself available to review the section with and help the applicants. Lustenberger also said there was flexibility in application of the Town's RBR program. For instance, with the sale of a house that will result in a tear-down, the Building Official said that Town staff gives the buyer an indefinite amount of time, up to two years, to make the corrections if the house remains unoccupied. Mayor Fraser opened the matter to public comment. A representative from the Marin Association of Realtors said that he was just there to listen to the presentation. Mayor Fraser closed the matter to public comment. Town Manager Curran said that Town staff was trying to move forward as evidenced by the report. She noted, however, that there have been a few complaints about the RBR and building inspection process directed to the Council. Curran said that because customer service is valued by the Town and that because periodically seeking feedback is simply a good management practice, she planned to launch a survey with an outside firm of permittees who used any of the Town's permit-issuing processes over at least the last six months. She said the survey would be objective and anonymous. Curran said this was a good juncture at which to undertake such a survey; also, she felt that the feedback would be helpful to the organization. Town Council Minutes #19 -2012 October- 3, 2012 Page 7 Vice Mayor O'Donnell said that he was very much in favor of standardization; he said that government works best in an objective and fair and even-handed manner. O'Donnell said that evening the playing field would create a sense of fairness in the community and ameliorate the sense of one town versus another and one inspector versus another. He said he hoped that the realtors would continue to stay involved with the process, as well. Councilmember Collins agreed; he said he also liked the idea of a checklist RBR. He said that unpermitted work would have to be handled separately. Collins recommended that the Town add some sort of disclaimer to the RBR checklist that states the Town is not responsible for items not called out on the list. Vice Mayor O'Donnell said he favored both of these suggestions, as well. Building Official Lustenberger said that there was such verbiage in the Town [Municipal] Code and that it could be added to the RBR form itself. TOWN COUNCIL REPORTS None. TOWN MANAGER'S REPORT None. WEEKLY DIGESTS • Town Council Weekly Digest - September 21, 2012 • Town Council Weekly Digest - September 28, 2012 ADJOURNMENT There being no further business before the Town Council o adjourned the meeting at 8:20 p.m. JIM FRASE AT FES;T: i x' f DIANE CRANE INCOPI, TOWN CLERK e 'own of Tiburon, Mayor Fraser Town Council Minutes #19 -2012 October 3, 2012 Page 8