A licensed architect or civil or structural engineer would need to visit the building and complete your screening form as it requires a better understanding of ordinance, scope, code language, and construction type, than is typically possessed by a building owner or a contractor.
Enginious Structures, Inc. can assist you in the screening of your building and completing the form for you. This will clarify whether or not you are exempt from any further action. The form requires a design professional to answer the following questions.
• Is the building wood-frame construction?
• Was the building permitted prior to January 1, 1978?
• Is the building three or more stories, or two stories over a basement or under floor area that extends above the grade? (Please, keep in mind that the definition of “stories” that the Department of Building Inspection utilizes may not be what you are familiar with.)
• Does the building contain five or more dwelling units?
If we find that the answer is yes to any of the department questions but you still believe your building is exempt you can file the optional evaluation form as discussed above. We can assist you in this process as well.
Our fee for the site visit and filling out the screening form is $250- $500 depending on the building size. However, if the building needs further evaluation and you hire us to do this evaluation and design a retrofit if necessary we will deduct the evaluation cost from our design fee; so the cost of the screening is essentially zero.

On March 16, 2010, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed a voluntary soft-story retrofit program, which will take effect on April 19, 2010. This program benefits soft-story building owners who voluntary retrofit their buildings by: Waiving building department plan review fees, which can amount to hundreds or even thousands of dollars per project. Expediting […]