the renderings that i see of the proposed house are very tasteful and keeping with the rest of st. francis wood we could take a clue from some of the design guidelines in the future on our projects but in any case i am wondering if it's all right if we make it a couple feet lower or 3 feet lower as he asked and hip roof or flat portion. it would have to have a gaibl but it wouldn't come to a point. >> as i understand st. frarnis homeowner association they typically review projects before they come to the city. they have their own internal review process. we rarely get a project -- a dr project filed on a project in st. francis woods. it rarely happens because they do this. if changes are made to the approved plans i under

the assumption that the project sponsor has to return to them. >>i am sure they could. looking at the project further west on portolla and i don't know if that is the term a hit roof and gabble and has a flat portion and i'm not sure if that can be done and i'm not sure of the amount of the gaibl on it and able to shave a couple of feet off and more into conformity of what was represented but i will see what the other commissioners have to say. >> commissioner moore. >>i would like the commissioners to look at the parcel map to see that the dr requesters map is south from the proposed subject property. the reason i am saying this is it's about views

and not light but about views and as much as i like to protect it the house in front of us today has made concessions that comes out of the san francisco neighborhood discussions [inaudible] portolla drive and you have stately homes and setback from the street and individually designed homes on large lots speak for themselves, kind of stately neighborhood . the fact that the proposed building primarily has relatively low ceiling heights for this building type is already a major concession to keeping the building not too imposing or impacting on adjoining properties and i assume they had the dr request's house in mind also. we also

have the additional lot 37 where someone else in the future might be building. what i can tell it's a buildable lot. that's not part of the discussion here. i myself would agree with the neighborhood design review there is nothing exceptional extraordinary about what is in front of us. that is already a pretty tightly designed building given the other things the applicant has to look at and i would move to approve, not change the roof form and in the neighborhood where you have stepping properties and extremely important to have the same and not a fake slope roof but let this project move forward as it is proposed. >> second. >> commissioner antonini. >> yeah, and looking at the plans i agree that the pitch of the gable is -- 7 feet so you don't have a lot to play there

because it's going to be pretty flat if you take 3 feet off of it and the heights of the floors are 10 and nine so you lose a little bit and given the height of the rest of the houses in the neighborhood they're fairly low will ceilings. >> on the motion to not take dr. commissioner antonini. >> aye. >> commissioner hillis. >> aye. >> commissioner moore. >> aye. >> commissioner sugaya. >> aye. >> commissioner president fong. >> aye. >> so moved unanimously five to zero. that takes you to the last agenda item number 17 at 1587 18th avenue request for discretionary review. this is abbreviated dr. >> good evening planning commission. [inaudible] washington southwest commuter.

project site is located at 1587 18th avenue. the existing resident is two story home april 60 feet. >> >> in length. the proposal is within the residence and 15 feet from the wall and from the rear wall -- [inaudible]. this alteration will add 963 feet to the overall size of the residence, and the rear setback on the new third story will be used as a roof deck. dr was filed by a neighbor at 1140 walton. this property is across the street from the subject property. they have submitted letters of opposition which i have at this hearing. the residential design team reviewed the project and the concerns by the dr filer. based on the giens a proposed third story

addition setback from the building wall is appropriate. subject dwelling. also the project result in no significant impact scale along the block. therefore the planning department determines the third story will not create impact nor demonstrate exceptional or extraordinary circumstance. planning commission should not take discretionary review. that concludes my presentation. i am happy to take any questions from the commission. >> thank you. dr requester. >> commissioner fong,

commissioners thank you for hearing this. >> if you could introduce yourself. >> i want to make a simple point to begin with. one is the -- can we have the overhead? the first point is -- side ways. the first point is that the project sponsors would like you to think that there's neighborhood support for this. the truth is we have submitted 56 letters of opposition from neighbors along the 151600 block and i understand that the proponents have submitted just 12, only four of which are -- 11, four of which live on the 1500 or 1600 block and one of

the four is the owner itself so there are 56 versus three in the neighborhood supporting this. the second point we want to make is that the project sponsors would like us to believe that there's nothing special about this block. you're looking at it right there and the line coming down from the top left is pointing at 1587. the planning department itself, the experts who do their historic resource evaluation say on page four that a small neighborhood cluster with this type and style of housing would be significant and qualify as a historic district, but unfortunately the builder himself is not considered a master builder, but the point i want to make there is that this is a visually unique neighborhood cluster of nine

buildings in a row that share common reasons of expression. they're all the same height and conform to the site topography as you can see there. they have a specific proportionatity to width to depth to height and one to one and there is a side still well on the houses. they all have flat roof lines and some with pits and are classic examples of the marina style home so by definition this project is about making changes to that facade that you're seeing there, that street scape. i think by definition there is an impact. it's out of context to add a third story in the immediate context of nine other immediately adjacent buildings

considered significant and historic aside from the builder, so that's the first point. the second point i want to make would be 18a. there is still one unanswered question. it's an important one. how high relatively is the third story to the adjacent buildings? to be in context with the adjacent buildings there needs to be proportion. the middle building there, the third building from the corner -- there are two buildings to the left and i guess that would be six others to the right of this marina style unique neighborhood cluster. as you can see 1587 is already two to 3 feet higher than the buildings to its immediate sides. the front

elevation on sheet a31 tells the new structure would be taken feet 10 inches total so by doing the math they're. >> >> adding 10 feet and 2 inches and not 8 feet that is being presented to you by the project sponsor, so that's the second thing, so in essence when we add the 8 feet to the existing height of that building the new building becomes more than 50% higher than the immediate adjacent building. if we go by what the plan says it's actually 10 feet higher and that would make it almost 13 feet higher than the immediate adjacent structures. that is almost [inaudible] percent higher so i think on the face of it it's out of context and has with the immediately adjoining

structures, and has a visual impact on the neighborhood so i ask that you deny the permit. >> that is your five minutes. thank you. is there any speakers in favor of the dr? >> my name is [inaudible] young. i live diagonally kroodz from the proposed addition. i am -- even though i am new to the city of san francisco i moved year two years ago from massachusetts i have fallen in love with the city like everybody else, and the reason we are here today, all my neighbors is we care deeply about our neighborhood. we have a 18th avenue committee and i want to thank you for your valuable time and listening to

us giving our point of view. it is been a long road to getting here. getting a discretionary review is not a easy thing. the reason we got here is because we're very committed to at least giving our point of view and see this would destroy the neighborhood character. as you can see from the pictures, the exhibits that were presented, the street has a number of homes that are uniform in height, and the proposed building would be sticking out like a sore thumb. the block face is similar and we find it charm wg a lot of character. my husband and i bought in this neighborhood two years ago precisely because of this visual impact and charm. we define a neighborhood what

is in the immediate vicinity and what is visual. this gives it characteristic and uniqueness [inaudible] 30 houses know down the block or another street. i think the project sponsor will say look at this house built with three stories and this house but none of them are [inaudible] in the immediate vicinity and we benign our neighborhood what is visual. if this allowed to go through it would be out of context with the surroundings and make it difficult for the planning commission to say no to the next proposal. like the arm's race and building up and building and if one neighbor can build another neighbor will build and will destroy the city block by block. [inaudible] and forever change our neighborhood character and visual impact. we

hope that the planning commission will not allow the wants of one family to supersede the interest and desires of the whole neighborhood. we have 49 neighbors who wrote letters of opposition to the proposed addition. we have seven emails opposing the addition and we have two letters opposing the addition. [inaudible] our city been able -- >> thank you. i am afraid your time is up. >> okay. >> thank you very much. >> if you want to submit that can you do that. >> i'm sorry? >> if you want to submit what you are reading you can put it there. >> i just have one more sentence. as a family -- >> thank you. next speaker in favor of the dr. >> good evening commissioners. my name is ken shaffer. i live

at 1600 18th avenue. recently were visited by a friend who was an architect and retired city planner and he commented "what a nice neighborhood you live in" and taken by the character of the buildings around us and this character we have to look at and preserve. it's not as fancy as the painted ladies you are familiar with in san francisco that others outside of san francisco would know about, but we have our own charm in the neighborhood and unless we project it, it will be gone. first you have a house one story higher than every other house on the block. then you have half dozen housing that are higher and you ask now it's a 44-foot limit. how high can i go? if there is no point where you say it's out of scale. here we have a perfectly uniform block and if

you can't say it's out of scale for the third story there is no scale consideration at all so for these things i would like to say consider carefully. you have to able to say this is the easiest situation in terms of putting it out of scale development down. the first time, the first step. after that it becomes harder and harder. after that you have request for four stories high but within the 40-foot limit and you can't say it's out of scale because of the third story houses all around it. thank you for your time. >> thank you. additional speakers. >> president of the planning commission and all other planning commissioners, i appreciate the opportunity speaking with you. my name is

arnoldizeen berg. my wife and i are disabled and live on lawton street and kiddie corner from 18th avenue and it's already difficult to someone who is disabled to even park a car in front of the house. it's really difficult. if you approve one more structure along the streets it adds one story each person afterwards their neighbors will say "well, they can do it. we should do it too" so they will come to you and ask for a variance to be able to build a third story onto their house. what happens is the neighborhood is changing. if you approve an addition to this house you will change the nature of the

neighborhood. traffic will increase. there will be larger multiple families living in higher structures. we will be as a neighborhood, a neighborhood without a character. a neighborhood without the neighbors all knowing each other. a neighborhood which isn't a neighborhood because the neighborhood is supposed to be knowing your neighbor. a neighborhood is supposed to be being able to look and see that this is a unique area. it's unique, not only by the hin hab tants but it's always unique by the character of the construction in the neighborhood. you yourself just earlier mentioned the st. francis woods area how it was controlled and setback and homes were built beautifully.

that's because that neighborhood was built in a unique way and it's kept its character. when you live in a neighborhood we want the character to remain the same. we want to look out over the homes and see that they're nice. we want to see the historic view. that's all i have to say as an inhabitant it's difficult if everything changes. >> thank you. any additional? >> good evening. my name is [inaudible]. i live across that building, what you try to extend at 1587 18th avenue. what i like to say is every city in

the world, and especially in the united states city, has their own character. depends where you're going. it doesn't mean you can feel how the structure can see what city you are. if you're going to brooklyn there is structure 10 stairs to every single house, building [inaudible] all that i see. i travel around the world. every city has its own face. here i live in my house from 1986. it's a small period of time of course, but it's still enough time to learn the neighborhood and learn who is around you and all these things, but now if we extend it's only one house in front of me will be extended, and if this will be extended

it's going to change the whole street what i have in front of me. the whole avenue will be different, and time i am against this construction and change the character. [inaudible] in the 20th avenue which was five, six years ago. it was built by permission -- not by permission but you have like a [inaudible] one house is three story. the other house is two story and then same thing and one story building and next to him is three story building and the whole avenue between sirk ham and lawton it's unbelievable. it's different but for them -- we like to preserve our city where we live and we like to

keep that character what we have in this place what it is now. okay. thank you for your attention. >> thank you. next speaker please. >> good evening. i thank you in advance for your attention and attention. i am irene [inaudible] and i'm the daughter of [inaudible] and i drew up in that home. >> >> it's a single family home. if potentially this is approved for the fourth addition it could change the landscape in a different route. it could open up the block that i live on to be did -- duplexes and obviously would change the landscape and the character and the parking required for duplexes. right now it stands as a single

family dwelling and with that said it provided me a wonderful environment to be raised in. thank you for your time and attention. >> next speaker. >> good evening. i am janet hoses -- >> could somebody move the mic? thank you. >> i am here to beg you not to allow destruction of our immediate neighborhood by the architectural defacement of several blocks of well defined beautiful homes. there are not houses on the market at this time. it shouldn't be hard to find a larger home without disturbing the tranquility of these blocks of 18th avenue. the neighborhood has survived

the changes of many that have made a hodgepodge of other neighborhoods, and so should be protected. i have lived here more than 55 years so would really like to see the preservation and integrity and charm of this area for the generations to come and i thank you for helping me do that. thank you. >> thank you. >> hello. my name is christopher watson and live on 18th avenue across and adjacent to the proposed addition. i recently moved to the neighborhood. in fact we moved in a couple of weeks ago and still unpacking and one of the neighbors comes over and says "did you know this is happening

and it's going to destroy the great neighborhood" and it's really true. great cities are built on great neighborhoods and it's one of the reasons we chose to move back to the city. we lived here 15 years ago and we moved back to the city because we found this great house in this great neighborhood. it has great character and charm to it and sigh it be destroyed is a travesty and i hope that you will vote against this. now, these structures when preserved and it's been like this for almost 100 years so it's unadultated -- [inaudible] and undisturbed for 100 years and that's what is being taken away here. thank you for your time. i won't take the full five minutes. >> thank you.

>> if you're interested i have copy of all the letters from people if you're interested. let's see. a bit about me and why -- where my passion for my neighborhood comes from. my name is diane bud and i was born in another california city but my roots are deep because my grandma landed here three years before the gold rush. in my 29 years of san francisco i tried hard to be a good citizen and volunteered at schools and library and on the democratic club, of the conservatory theater and worked with the american diabetes association and taken care of the homeless in the tenderloin for a decade and advocate for foster children and worked around the world and

for doctors without bolders in urganda and a delegation that traveled to pakistan. for 27 years i raised my children there. my elderly father lived there comfortably without a third story. i felt lucky to live in this part of the sunset and can i have the overhead? this is looking in one direction and 37 houses and two story and looking in the other direction. as you can see there is a long line of concontinuous houses that works. i believe the sponsor is disingenuous and they own other homes and both seem unoccupied for a long time. it's not the residential guidelines purpose

to fasailtate their needs if they can't find a way to live together in two homes. she's the neighbors to the north and on the south she said the south didn't oppose and in fact if that group is two letters from the people at that address opposing it. i can skip that. opposition of this proposal is overwhelming amongst our neighbors. as i walked around the neighborhood asking people how they felt what they want to did at 1587 all felt like i did except for two who just didn't care. to us it's home and we love the flow of the character of the neighborhood and don't want this distrupgz. this is a gift and once taken cannot be taken back. i wanted to show you these are the blocks around there. the reds ones oppose and