request for discretionary review. >> my name is madeleine todd and a number of you have heard me request a continuance for this d.r. we have sent an e-mail proving out and number of our points as to why the d.r. said matter what

like to request a continuance, and i will expand on those now. we have also sent another e-mail to all of you explain why we wanted to continue that request. i would like to have that heard now. vice president olague: usually we hear from staff. >> i thought you wanted me to go first. vice president olague: usually -- well, that is fine. >> sorry. vice president olague: basically what happens, the commission votes on whether or not an individual commissioner requests that we hear the item when they are present. otherwise, we take it upon ourselves to vote on whether or not we will have a continuance granted. that is fine. >> i will just go quickly. vice president olague: okay, three minutes.

>> her clock has been ticking. >> let's restart, because i was not told it had been taking. vice president olague: well what we will do is hear from staff and understand what the case is, and then we will hear from you and the private sponsor. >> i just want to clarify, i spoke with ron and he said he did not have the sole right to continue. then i spoke with you and you said to, at the beginning of the meeting. vice president olague: okay, this is generally how it is done. he may have misinterpreted what i meant, but what is generally done it is a staff person will give us the review of the case, then you speak. so we hear from the staff. this is typical. that we hear from the persons requesting the continuance. >> we had no formal request.

vice president olague: she was listed, and she sent me a request also. >> are you jonas? >> i am. >> ok, not because we sent you two emails. >> ok. vice president olague: so, mr. smith, if you can't reject it -- if you can describe the case for us? >> good evening, michael smith, planning department's staff. the proposal is a construction of a three story horizontal addition at the rear of a single-family dwelling within an rh-1 district. it was granted a rear yard variance. the variance request was opposed by the d.r. request youors and

appealed, but the decision was upheld. there are three adjacent neighbors, two neighbors nearby, and the neighborhood association. the d.r. requestor is concerned it would impact their privacy and noise, that there would be noise impact from these as well into adjacent rear yards and the amount of encroachment has been granted through the rear yard variance is unprecedented for this district and this neighborhood and violates the residential design guidelines. to address their concerns, the d.r. requestor wanted to be reduced by 5.5 feet. on the overhead, just walking through the project quickly, this is the matching study that you all have received a new commission package.

this is the one with the most detail, the subject building. this is uphill, to the west. this is the other building to the west. another d.r. requestor to the east. this is the proposed addition. there would like to see this reduced by 5.5 feet -- they would like to see this reduced by 5.5 feet and would like this roof deck removed. the department is supporting the project as proposed. we feel it complies with the residential design guidelines. the residential design team looked at this and thought it was fairly exemplary and how the massing and form related to the adjacent buildings. as you can see from looking at this, these buildings tier down to the rear yard. at a similar thing happened on this property, and this tax as the same thing.

-- and this tax as the same thing. they're taking advantage of the back. it is a fairly long building located to the east of the subject property, which is this downhill building. this presents a blank wall on their property line. the residential design team thought because of the massing of the addition was essentially put against that blank wall with a very significant setback right here, to reduce impact on the other buildings uphill, that for those reasons it complied with the residential design guidelines. these are other photos of the edition in question. once again, this picture over here is the existing configuration. to the right is the proposed. there is a little more massing coming out at this level, and at the ground-floor the building is

coming out. what he cannot see and this picture is it is coming out here. ionce again, another rearview shot. this one explains how far the building is set back from the shared property line of the uphill building. you can see the massing is stacked against that building. the other aspect of this is the roof deck, shown here. the residential design guidelines did not really express roof decks. they tend to be a very common feature. at any elevated deck it would pose the kind of impact that the d.r. requestor is concerned about, which is privacy and noise impact to adjacent properties. for these reasons, the department is supporting the project as proposed. this concludes my presentation and i am available for any

comments or questions you may have. vice president olague: and now we will take up the issue of continuance. if they could speak to the reasons why at this time. >> we are requesting a continuance for three reasons. the first reason is not all commissioners are present. this is a huge commitment of time and effort and we have had to come back for all commissioners to be present. we did not know that we were going to be missing one commissioner until friday, so we would like that to be kept in mind because it is involved here. on the sponsors presentation,

this specific images that might just referenced are not correct. we did not receive this packet until friday. they are incorrect on two fairly serious issues. it would be misleading if you read this in advance and studied the images. you would be misled by these images, thinking that there is not as much of an impact. i am just going to explain to you what i mean specifically. vice president olague: i am sorry, if he could limit their comments to the continuance. i>> i was told we received incorrect information from the project sponsors. you have received as

commissioners incorrect information on the adjacent properties, and that is one of the reasons for continuance. did you want me to point that out? vice president olague: no, that is enough information. >> finally, we had requested the d.r. to mediate, we requested this as soon after the 311 notice was filed. we set up one date. and had to be rescheduled because of the world series. aanother date was scheduled and that was canceled because of family health issues. no further mediation was set up again. we contacted the project sponsor and michael smith to find out when mediation was god be rescheduled. we did that friday. michael smith said the city now basically eliminating the mediation process. we found this out on friday. as soon as he sent this be met paul -- as soon as he sent this

e-mail eliminating the mediation, the product sponsors said they did not want to mediate. this from my perspective is not something that we expected to happen. we expected mediation. we wanted to work it out. it would not want that part of the process withheld from us. so i think it is something we should take up from a continuing perspective because we have not get our fair share of the process, we believe. vice president olague: thank you. is there anyone else in the public would like to speak to the issues of continuance? did the project sponsor want to respond? >> thank you, good evening, commissioners. in terms of this continuance request only, we all deal every week with variations in

commissioners calendars. we always deal with short commission's occasionally. a case earlier tonight had to duel with a quorum of five. i don't think that has ever bent the basis for continuing a case. if our inadequacies or incorrect information presented to the commission, that is sound basis for discretionary review, which is clearly what they should be here to present to you if there are mistakes in the documentation, and we are prepared to respond to them. finally, the question of mediation. this project was first discussed with neighbors in december of 2008. this will be the fifth public hearing that we have attended about this horizontal addition. we have a engaged in very, very protracted negotiations and discussions. nothing more was going to come out of the mediation session.

imy client has social anxiety disorder and direct confrontations are very difficult, especially dealing with family health crisis the last four months. his dad is in intensive care right now as we speak. it is not possible for him to sit down and mediate something that we feel quite confident we would not have made any progress with. we have made many changes to this project, as you will hear during our presentations, but the mediation process was not going to derive irresolution. so i think it is time to hear the case finally. we are all here, it is late, let's get it on. thank you. vice president olague: are there any other additional comments on the continuance? any other d.r. requestors want to speak to it? public, disclosed. commissioners? -- public comment is closed.

commissioners? commissioner borden: i was just going to ask mr. smith if he would want to speak to what requirements we have with mediation on projects. i did not think that was a requirement for cases. >> it is not a requirement, but we encourage sponsors to mediate. we think that is very helpful, especially early on in the process. as was said, this has been going on over two years. at one point, when the variance was outstanding, the zoning administrator and i tried to mediate between the sides, and that did not work. they essentially met at 2 canfor among themselves and came back with what they were willing to accept, and that was it. -- day essentially met to good for among themselves. that was not a real mediation. the sponsor was not at that table. they said that is what we are

willing to accept. that is fine, and most recently i have not been included on any of the mediation's. i just got the e-mail last week for a request to continue to mediate. i felt like that had come at the 11th-hour, so i expressed the department's sentiment on that request, but i forwarded it on to the project sponsor to with the question of whether or not he was willing to participate in mediation. commissioner borden: i mean, we cannot force people to mediate. that, unfortunately, would never be basis for continuance, but maybe you could speak to the issue of the plant and accuracy? vice president olague: yeah, that is what i was concerned about, and they also just said they received plan friday. >> receiving the plans friday is

normal procedure because the information is sent to the public and stakeholders at the same time they are sent to the commission. the only way they would have received it earlier is if they came in to pick them up in person, but i personally mailed out all the information on thursday and would have received them friday or saturday. as far as the accuracy of the plan, that has never been brought to my attention. it was never mentioned in the e- mail as a reason for the continuance request. i am just finding that out today. in reviewing the drawings, they appear accurate to me. vice president olague: commissioner antonini? commissioner antonini: i am interested in hearing it tonight for the following reasons. we went for long times in the last year with five commissioners, and then we went even logger with six commissioners that were actually

part of the commission. that is sort of what happens from week to week. there are times when we did not have a full commission, and more often than not somebody is not here. as for is the issue of the accuracy, as was pointed out, that would be part of the discussion of the discretionary review and would be up to the commission to decide if there are inaccuracies in the plan. i think mr. smith answered the noticing thing, so i am fine with hearing it tonight. commissioner sugaya: i just have a question for the d.r. request or. without getting into the details, what is it that we would receive from the d.r. requestors if we were to continue the item? >> what would you receive from

us? commissioner sugaya: other than if we go ahead with the hearing tonight, there will be public testimony and, obviously, you will tell us the plans are inaccurate and the drawings are inaccurate. if we continue the item, do you plan on having someone -- yourselves, i don't know who -- present alternate drawings? that show what the situation, as you see it, is? >> we would go to the project sponsors and have them correct the images. michael just presented. you'll have looked at those and come here tonight with a bias in one direction with the result of seeing the images. we do not feel that is fair because the images are not accurate. commissioner sugaya: so you had

planned on going back to the project architect? >> yeah. commissioner sugaya: okay, thank you. vice president olague: is there a motion for continuance? commissioner sugaya: i will move to continue. vice president olague: to what date? commissioner sugaya: i am assuming one week would probably not be enough. it probably february 3 is available. i don't care, i don't care whenever it is continue to, just so that everyone understands that if there are these discrepancies, but we expect those drawings and renderings and what not will be corrected and brought back to us. vice president olague: yeah, and we will not have a full commission that date either, but it is never based on that. the commissioner who will