In the City of San Francisco, obtaining copies of past property permit plans is a lengthy, obnoxious process. Requests for something as simple as prior building plans for your home (residential plans which are often more than 50 years old) are treated as if you are trying to get blueprints for Fort Knox.
Now - you may ask yourself, why are these documents even necessary? The honest truth is, the more you and your design professional can learn about your building, the fewer surprises you’ll have in construction, and the fewer change orders you’ll pay for during construction. Past permits can show framing sizes, footing details, shear wall locations, fire rated assemblies, etc. They can show previous agreements with the fire department, or the planning department. Past permit plans can alert you and your architect to previously-identified limitations that might impact your project goals. To put it mildly, past permit plans are VERY important.
Here at my firm Syncopated Architecture, obtaining all past permit records is the essential first step we take on every single project. We obtain and comb through copies of all permit applications, permit plans, planning records, and building assessor records before we begin our design work.
The Process to Obtain Applications and Plans
The process to obtain copies of past permit applications in San Francisco is pretty easy and can be accomplished with an online form. Most applications are emailed back to us within 1-2 weeks, or can be picked up in person when the application search yields more than 100 pages of records.
But in San Francisco, obtaining past plans (blueprints) is another matter entirely. In San Francisco, to obtain plans, your designer will need a notarized authorization from the property owner. That sounds simple, but if the property is owned by an LLC, the person who signs this form must be the same person who is on the corporation documents on file with the State. We’ve even seen applications for plans rejected because the signature on this notarized form doesn’t exactly match the signature on the LLC documents. That seems like a bit of overkill, no?
I’ve even been denied getting copies of plans I personally made. Owner authorization is still required in that case as well.
Once notarized authorization is received, your architect (or whomever is requesting the plans) will need to go in person to the records department at DBI and spend time (sometimes hours) going through every set of plans to identify any licensed designers/engineers listed on each set of plans. The names and license numbers of those professionals must be meticulously noted and included on the submittal request. City staff will then review, and send a certified letter to every former design professional to ask if they are willing to allow their copyrighted plans to be released. In the past, this same process applied even if the architect or engineer was deceased, just in case their family held copyright. Again, that’s a bit extra for plans of a single-family home built in the 1920’s, isn’t it?
An Exercise in Futility
The mailing of this spate of certified letters by City staff kicks off your waiting period of between 45-60 days, after which, you must again, personally visit the city offices to retrieve the plans. This waiting period can cause serious delays to a project, especially if the City has requested copies of plans after the permit reviews are already underway. (Those requests are also silly since city employees can pull up copies of past plans online directly without having to wait).
What’s interesting is, even if the former architect or engineer refuses to release the plans, the city will still release them to you. The denial means nothing. So. . . . it’s entirely an exercise in futility.
Worse than that, it’s a total misinterpretation of the copyright law in the State of California.
What does Copyright cover anyway?
To qualify for copyright protection, the work must possess a “sufficient degree of originality and creativity.” Further, the design should “reflect the architect’s unique expression and not be merely functional or utilitarian.” Copyright does not extend to standard building elements or commonly-used design features.
All this is to say - the design needs to be special in some way. Picture Frank Gehry’s Guggenheim museums, for example. You may not like his work, but it is definitely original and creative.
Further, even if the project does meet this threshold of “originality and creativity,” the copyright is only valid for a period of 70 years or the life of the architect, at which point the work becomes part of the public domain and can be used freely by others.
While copyright law is intended to protect the creative efforts of the design professional so that others cannot copy their work, it is also a safety measure intended to ensure that the plans they produced are not being used to build the same project at a different site. Duplicating a design on a new site where the soils, slope, or environmental conditions differ could result in a safety hazard, and the licensed professional could be liable.
Maybe it's Time for a few Common Sense Reforms?
Copyright law says nothing about getting copies of plans to use only for modifications to the same building as a historic record of past construction. In the City of Oakland, they agree with us! There, all we need to do is get a letter (not notarized) from the owner, submit a request for all plans, and show up 7 days later to pick up all the plans. No hours of research, certified letters, or 45-day waiting period.
Civilized, right?
We certainly hope the city of San Francisco will someday join the ranks of the sane and modify this inefficient procedure not only for our sake, but for the sake of their own staff who is, undoubtedly, tired of having to explain this to people over and over. The squeaky wheel gets the oil, so if this byzantine process has delayed one of your projects, please consider contacting:
The Department of Records Management
DBI Director (Patrick O’Riordian)
Your Supervisor
The City attorney’s office, and/or
The Mayor’s office.
Ask for the following common-sense reforms:
Allow architects and engineers to obtain copies of their own plans without Owner authorization
Allow release without Owner authorization of all plans older than 70 years from the date of records submittal
Implement a registry where licensed design professionals can assert that their design is in some way original and creative, thereby protecting the projects that matter, while excluding those that include standard elements and commonly-used design features.
Implement a process by which registered design professionals can receive copies of plans for projects they are actively working on without a waiting period. Perhaps with a simple letter of authorization from the Owner; preferably one that does not require notarization.
Allow release of all plans for single-family homes without Owner authorization.
In the meantime, while we wait for the slow wheels of bureaucracy to grind forward, Property Atlas will implement a new feature allowing our users to readily identify what records they have for a property and a vehicle to connect them with others who are seeking records for the same property.
Good post