president olague: the planning commission is back in session. commissioners, i think we have just gone through the staff presentation for item 18 for 309-311 you reekaver street. >> good evening. i'm george haaser, i'm one of the applicants. i life at 309 eureka street.

this site plans concerns the principal concerns of the neighbors and that is the height of the project, particularly in the center and the way it presents from the mid-block open space, it has impact to the properties to their gardens and south walls and impacts my property which is just south and the way it overshadows our north courtyard which is a source of light for principal rooms in our building. this is a street view looking down from the south to the north. you see the subject property on the end there. and the lot slopes to the rear of the properties and this property is the last east-west lot on the block and it has this unique opportunity where it has this north naysing wall that faces the gardens on 20th street

and it presents light and views from that property. you can see stepping down of the buildings on the mid-block and also the characteristic roof forms, gable roofs, and lower slide to the left, it is a view across the subject property towards the 20th street properties and see the same characteristics sloping down from west to east. on the right, my property is in the middle. you can see the characteristics. this is the view from the deck of the house south of mine. in 2005, my wife and i undertook a renovation of my property, which is just over the guardrail. and we could have gone up a story. we had plenty of envelope there.

and we decided to not build that addition in deference to jaime -- james' needs for lights. we are asking them to take advantage of the slope and build at a lower level. this is the transfer section through the block. subject property is in the center and you see the garden and the property to the left overshadowed by the subject property. my property is to the right and then james' property is to the right of that. and by the time they reach the back of their property, that -- there is -- we asking them to remove the top story and conform to the slope line of the block. you can see the north wall of their property looking up from the fords' property. you can see how how that property is. that wall in the left photograph

is 19 feet above. they are going up to 36 feet, almost two stories there. and this shows the profile of the properties. the proposal is the shaded area and the line at the bottom represents the rear wall of the 20th street property and can see their property is taller than mine in fact rather than stepping down. and this is a proposal that we put forth and this shows the relationship between their north wall and the adjacent grade. plenty of room for light and air and this lower level is not even part of their plan. this is suggesting we are suggesting they could take advantage of to get equivalent space. we put forward a proposal in november of last year demonstrating using this envelope, we demonstrated they

could achieve their program inside the envelope that we proposed. they have two-story units, two of them, one above the other, three bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, access to the garage, access to the rear yard. it all fits in and produced a gross building area of 4,900 square feet. more than what is represented in the planers' brief. this compares the two proposals. ours is on the lower right and theirs is on the upper left. you can see the differences. these are studies that we produced along the way. on the left-hand corner, that's the existing building. next to it is my house and above that is james' house. in the right is a proposal they put forth in 2005, concurrent

with my designing my property, my additions and that proposal at that time was three stories, 28 feet tall and came back about 68 feet on the lot and we encouraged them to work with us at the time and they refused any joint interaction. president olague: we will here from the second requester. >> i thought we had five minutes. that was five? president olague: yeah. that was five. we hear from the second requester at this time. >> my husband and i live on 20th street. the red house is our house and this is the -- you can see this is the only source of natural light into our home. on the bottom floor, those are the windows right into our

kitchen. and upstairs is where we get the natural light into our bedroom and bathroom. while i understand the project at 309 eureka looks appropriate from the street the impact this proposed project has along the 20th street along with the next door neighbor that has already spoken. here's a picture of the back of our house and the proposed project will serve to cut off all access of all natural light to living space we have in our home. here is a are some pictures taken from our back yard of the existing structure and you can see how even at its current height of 19 feet at the top of the property line wall it towers over our home it is because we are joan slope from that house and it partially obstructs sunlight into our property, the house as well as our garden.

the proposed project takes the existing structure another two floors above it and pushes their floors even further back into the rear yard. we bought our house nine years ago and the changes proposed will significantly impact both our lifestyle as well as the value of our home. we want them to be able to improve their home and do it in a style that is reminiscent of the designs of the rest of the neighborhood and in a way that does not greatly impact our lives and the lives of the other homeowners on 20th street. here's some pictures of some other homes in the area. you can see the homes are quaint, victorian style, with gable roofs and allow the light. it is more of a large mass with decks coming out at the higher levels.

so we have sat down a number of times before finally submitting our d.r. to the board and feel no real concessions were made to address our desire to have the house be constructed in a way that is respectful of our home and the air and light of our neighborhood. they agreed to shave off and agreed some minor modifications but nothing was done to take more advantage of an excavation or significantly change the height of the structure in a way that addressed our needs and concerns. we would like to ask them to remove the top fourth floor they are talking about and not push the third floor as far back into the back yard. we support an excavation of their lot to allow natural light available to them and we support the neighbor's plan that shows that this is possible. thank you so much for your time and consideration today. president olague: may i use the

rest of her time? president olague: no, it doesn't work that way. we will hear from supporters of the d.r. requesters and jane seigel and others. [inaudible conversation] >> good evening. i am present today to relay my thoughts about 309-311 eureka project. i own a house and the two properties or these two properties to the south, 309 is two properties to the south of me and i'm here to support an alternative or alternate design for 309 that is being proposed

by some of the neighbors. a few years ago, huta and george remodeled their house at 313. they could have obtained more space by going up vertical but that would have greatly impacted my light. and instead what they did was they proposed to side yard addition that was shaded by trees and that were very important to me and they were pretty careful to preserve and constructed a basement that was entirely below the lowest level of my house and this left the upward levels of the house with no impact. i really seriously appreciated their consideration. the neighbor's design is based on a similar strategy. instead of exceeding the height of 313 eureka, it would step down, thereby preserving some of

the north light. the design results in more floor area by creating a lower level that would match the grade of the rear yards on the ajoining properties to the north and would allow you to walk out at grade. the lower height being proposed for 309-311 eureka, the neighbor's design would reduce the amount of shadows on the people's houses on 20th street, which is the couple who spoke before me. the neighbor's design is more in keeping with the scale and texture of the buildings on our block. it is a residential block, particularly as they are per seffed from the mid-block open space. the owner's design would set an inappropriate precedence in our neighborhood and i'm concerned about that.

can you see that? president olague: thank you. if you start talking, it will come up. >> i'm a writer and design editor that has written about buildings for 20 years in the bay area. i know this building quite well that george lives in and i

understand the kind of light and air he is referring to. the most remarkable about the 1890's cannotages that define the quality of this lot, the most modern interventions haven't disturbed their traditional look and one reason is that the existing buildings have been preserved and no four-story flats have disturbed that. 309 is the last east-west oriented lot left unchanged and as you know, the height of this building will cause a very large shadow on a garden and will destroy the light in the rooms there that i have been in. change is inevitable. but what is being proposed does not protect the neighborhood character and the properties to be so fruitful. take george's house at 313

eureka. instead of adding a fourth floor renovation, took advantage of the downsloping lot and that is exactly what this building that is being proposed ought to do. the proposed 30 eureka design rises to four stories and fails to take advantage of the downward slope. instead of a generic solution which is probably nice in other areas, in this particular case with these rather damaging for the neighborhoods. it should dovetail better into its lot. let's call the neighbor's design, which is what george has proposed, would still give them two flats with three bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, kitchen, living room and parking. there are these advantages. the fourth garden on the north side of 309 eureka will have a smaller shadow. george will have windows that

will -- still have light and air, otherwise they will be completely blocked. the neighbor's design allows for a bigger deck and more access and space to the gardens. i know them and their architect. they have livend there at 309 for 40 years and any changes are likely to be used for at least that long. it is imperative that it be designed correctly. i support the neighbor's design. thank you very much. president olague: thank you. >> i live next to the project site at 313 as long as george and daughter. in 2005, we made eureka street our home. we thought about expanding our

upper unit which would require another floor. it would have hugely impacted our other neighbor's property. she depends on her north -- where she depends on it for light. meanwhile, our neighbor to the north provided us with a design for their project which at that point in time in 2005 had three stories. it was 28 feet tall and 68 feet from the eureka street property line. therefore, we decided there is no need to expanding upstairs and be no longer need to worry about impacting our neighbor to the south and we decided to go down. we created a lower level by ex cavitying which is wonderful and has a lot of light. after our building was finished and we finally had moved in, they presented a new design at a

neighborhood meeting in december of 2008, which was no longer anything of what they had provided to us before before we started construction. their building was now 40 feet tall instead of 28 and 78 feet from the eureka street property line. since then, we have tried to work with them to achieve a design that was lower and less massive. we would like the commission to eliminate a story from their design, the top story and to align the rear wall of their top story with the rear wall of the top story about 62 feet from the eureka street property line. and we ask for more casing, the design they presented to us in 2005 in which we waste based our decision not to go up and to go down. thank you very much.

president olague: robert, kylea. >> i live at 317, which is the unit that is south of the proposed 309 work. my wife and i, i live with my wife and daughter and baut the place in 2004. the realtor said it was the most dill appi dated building. the precedent that this will set, when we did a lot of work on our house, we kept the house building as it was when we purchased it. it was very important for us to keep something that wases thetic with the neighborhood and it was very important to try and keep

something to what they would have expected. from our understanding of the proposal we can see how it doesn't follow the building line following down the slope. certainly visible from inside our property line even though we are three doors uphill from it. it is still visible from our property. we have seen the neighbor's proposal and it certainly seems consistent with the nature of the neighborhood arrangement. so, i would like to conclude that. we feel there are more options that are more fitting. thank you.

>> i'm here to read a letter on behalf of a resident. i'm back and forth between new york and california so i was unable to attend today's hearing, but i wanted you to know my thoughts about the proposal for a new building at 309 eureka. i live on 20th street just 309. our rear yards ajoin. i have lived in my property for many years and i tend to return there. i'm upset about the designs and i request that you reduce the height and overall size. the height of the existing of 309 is 20 feet above eureka street. while their proposal is 36.25 feet tall. it increases the depth of their

building about 18 feet and of more concern, adds a large volume of space to the rear. this will cover over my rear yard south facing room and deck, which you can see in the photo. instead of being able to see the sky and the roofscapes of other houses, i will be be looking at a large blocking mass. the proposed 309 would have a similar effect on my next door's neighbors. several neighbors have presented a scheme that will provide them with many of the features that are present in their current proposal but will have much less impact on the size available to the properties to the north.

these schemes take advantage of the natural slope of the block to reduce the height of 309 and nevertheless put its lower level below the elevation of my rear yard. this makes sense to me because it means 309 will not tower over my rear yard and south-facing rooms. i think the solution will be better into the way of other buildings on eureka street, conform to the natural slope of the land. whatever you decide, i hope it results in a much lower and less massive 309 project. president olague: duran ford followed by joseph quigly. >> i'm duran ford and i live on 20th street at 4437 and as a happy owner and resident of that

block, i have a lot of happy memories in my back yard with my three boys, my family and my kids. it's like a little oasis for us, a little place to get away. and due to the unique top oggra if i of our lovely city, we are dug into the hill behind us. dirt, concrete walls. we're in. and i have done my best to improve it, adding decks, planting, the natural light that does make it over their house now doesn't reach the grass six months of the year. the entire back of our house is going to be in the shade. my personal philosophy is pro-development. they should be allowed utilize their property, expand on it, make it better. but i do think that needs to be

balanced with the neighborhood, the compact nature of the living arrangements of san francisco and everyone else's needs, too. i feel this project is a bit unbalanced and it satisfies their needs but leaves us kind of down in a dark hole and without a lot of recourse but with this big monolith. i hope to find some middle ground that satisfies everybody. thanks. >> i'm joe quig lee and my wife were planning to live on the top floor of 313. we live on top of george and juda. and one of the things that we love about the apartment and one of the things we took the apartment is because of the

light and because of light and the views and so our concern is that if the project goes through as proposed, it will -- to be quite honest, it will make our experience in the apartment less enjoyable. our principal source of light in the kitchen and living room, in the living room is a wall of windows that faces the north and faces the proposed building at 309 and from the drawings i have been looking at, it seems like that light will be completely obscured and the view would be obscured. in the kitchen, there is one principal source of light. small window that faces the front and main source of light is a window that faces north and nayses the proposed building and from the designs that i have seen looks like that window

would be completely obscured. so i wish -- they seem like wonderful people and they are very nice to me and i wish them all the best in their project but this is the best chance to let you know it would have an impact on the quality of our life in that apartment. president olague: thank you. are there additional speakers in support of the d.r. request? no snr project sponsor. >> gr evening, commissioners. i'm here to speak on behalf of my family in support of our project. i live at 311 eureka street, a building owned by my parents since 1964 and i have lived there in the past 16 years and

also my sister. the reality of the building is that while it's two units, only one unit can be considered family-sized. the lower unit is small, cold and dark due to lack of access of light. we would like to have two family units to allow me and claire to live cufflely. improving this plan is a long-term plan. we engaged with our neighbors to gather their input and had many meetings, phone calls and email exchanges to make sure we were providing the opportunity for feedback. as our drawing will show, our plans have changed significantly to provide concessions that will address any concerns that have been raised. it's our opinion and that of the san francisco planning department staff that the objections put forth by the