Push for safety

San Francisco’s Board of Supervisors is considering a new proposal to give safety officials more power to force negligent property owners to upgrade fire alarm and sprinkler systems in their buildings.

The proposal, introduced by Supervisor Hillary Ronen, comes in response to a series of major fires in the Mission District over the past three years that have resulted in the deaths of some residents and the displacement of hundreds more.

San Francisco has been slow to improve certain fire safety requirements for the older buildings in which many residents live. (City law currently requires new and renovated apartment buildings, hotels and commercial structures to install sprinkler systems.)

A large part of the problem has been cost. A 2016 report from the city’s budget analyst’s office noted that the death rate in residential fires is dramatically lower (by 82 percent) in buildings with sprinkler systems. But it also noted that the base cost to install them ranged from $46,000 in a three-unit building to as much as $300,000 in a 16-unit building.

Ronen’s measure empowers the city’s Fire and Building Inspection departments to order landlords who have failed to correct previous fire safety violations to upgrade or install sprinkler or alarm systems.

By focusing on bad actors, the measure eliminates cost concerns for landlords who behave responsibly. That’s one of the reasons the San Francisco Apartment Association, the industry association that represents landlords, is backing it.

Tenants’ groups, which are also supporting the measure, have pointed out that it may leave out many potentially dangerous buildings. That’s true.

But by giving safety officials a powerful new enforcement tool for buildings with known safety issues, the measure is a big step in the right direction.