verification, salter & associates should confirm to the appellant they have reviewed the final set of plans and specifications including tenant improvement mep, and their recommendationses have been integrated into the plans. when construction is completed, salter & associates would provide a closure letter after verification. in the future, any tenant improvements for 725 - 727 folsom street should be reviewed and approved by salter associates for compliance with the established acoustic sounders outlined in their report. we are asking the board to uphold the permit with the conditions i just outlined, enforced by a notice of special restrictions recorded on the land records and attached as an addendum to the tenants' lease. thank you. on behalf of the homeowner and residents of museum park i'd like to introduce our acoustic consultant pablo [speaker not

understood]. good evening, i'm [speaker not understood] acoustic consulting firm in emoryville, the bridge. and, you know, i had a chance to review the acoustic report. mrs. ecki has pretty much summarized most of the points that i'm going to -- bear with me and repeat, but you have a copy of the acoustic report prepared by mr. salter's office and i will point out a few issues about that report. it is a good analysis, however it's a fairly narrow in its scope in that it looks primarily at sources of noise which are speech. so, it assumes a typical office, cubicle, open plan type operation with people basically speaking no more than that. so, however, it does not include sources with music or sound effects which are very

common in offices, also with offices with young people, dot-coms and so on in the soma area. and, for instance, issues like audiovisual material, training videos product demonstration videos, parties, care yoke i parties that could take place at the end of the day. also the level of speech assumed 72 decibel is okay for a typical office use, but there are special conditions such as the public address system ~ like the case in retail or commercial uses or special events like broadcasting of ball games by television, things like that. so, i don't know if you have a couple second for the last point very brief. it also under estimates the potential audibility of the noises from the commercial spaces, the condominiums. by assuming the commercial activities only take place during normal business hours. they perform an exterior noise survey in which they realize

that during the night noise levels drop like you would expect, and, however, their analysis is based on only day-time hours. >> we'll have more time on rebuttal. sure, thank you. >> to the appellant, whoever would like to answer, i've got a question. what restrictions do you currently have between residential units? between residents? >> yes. within the residents, you're not allowed to do laundry or something before 8:00 a.m. and after 10:00 p.m. you can't have speakers. and you can't have speakers -- oh, you can't have speakers mounted to your walls because it is this concrete slab.

and as it is, it's interesting how noise travels -- >> stay with -- we'll continue with the other. does that mean there's no parties? there are parties probably within the units. >> and there is no karaoke individual -- on occasion -- oh, in the units? >> yes. no, our rules after 10:00 it's quiet. you call the security -- >> so, you do have restrictionses regarding noise between residential units. we do, yes, we do. uh-huh. >> i'm very familiar with your building. >> i actually have a question as well. so, when you purchased this evidently because it's a condominium, there's hoa, ccnrs. yes. >> that govern, that govern the building, correct? right, yes. >> so, when you purchased it, were you aware that there was going to be a commercial space downstairs? yes. i mean, there was a market

there for years and that, though, has been vacant now for 12 years. >> and even though that is vacant when you purchased it, you were aware that there was going to be a commercial -- it is a storage for the residents. that room is all storage and it was quiet. it was all for everyone to have a storage locker for suitcases and things like that. it was -- >> so, the residents decided to sell it and use it -- no, there are three parcels. we have three parcel garage, commercial and residential. so, we have the three parts. so, there's other, there's other commercial tenants there. so, there's restaurants, there's a dry cleaner, there's a car rental agency. but then this particular space has been vacant for 12 years. >> and so, are those restaurants going to conform to the same restrictionses that you're asking this particular -- they're actually different.

you know, the restaurants on that side are like they do close at 10:00. >> restaurant, correct. restaurant closes at 10:00. and the other thing is that there's a construction difference between those -- the other businesses where they have an acoustic drop ceiling. >> are you aware of or that the hoa or the ccnrs, do they cover that commercial space now? well, not really because that would be covered under the moa, the master owners association, ccnrs. so, there's a broad, a broad ccnr provision that talks about the quiet enjoyment of your space. so, you know, that's very broad. that's why we're looking at something much more specific because, you know, we've had a history of problems with that

space. >> okay, thank you. >> okay, we can hear from the permit holder now. i am going to use the overhead. good evening, i'm judy workman on past of the museum parc retail. tic [speaker not understood] are here as are acoustical consultants who you will hear from shortly. this prominent ground floor vacant space has sat vacant on folsom across from moscone center for 12 years.

since a food market vacated in 2001. a thai restaurant is on one side and enterprise rent a car is on the other. the tic wants to be a good neighbor and takes the residents right into the quiet enjoyment of their homes very seriously. they've searched for a compatible use of this unit that won't interfere with the residents. an office is a nonintrusive legal use of the space. explicit lease provisions ensure residents bent be impacted by office activities and tenants will be screened for compatibility with the mixed use building. the tic property manager reported on the office project to the master owners association which includes the homeowner's association for over a year on this project. the homeowners requested construction after 10:00 a.m. each day and the tic agreed. otherwise homeowners raised no concerns until the permit was appealed by one resident. they suggested they hire an acoustic firm charles salter specifically to analyze noise intrusion into the residences and the tic did so.

salter's analysis concludes virtually no noise transfer to the residents will occur. all residents were invited to a meeting with the architect and consultants to discuss the project. the tic then asked the consultants to conduct a second analysis which also shows no sound intrusion from the office to the residences. noise issues cited by the appellant are from 12 years ago and were due largely to the former market's refrigeration equipment which has since been removedment the tic has made enormous effort to ensure an office won't enter fire with the residents' quality of life even though the appellant provides no evidence that noise will transfer to the residences. the tic, on the other hand, provides ample evidence that noise will not be an issue. we urge the board of appeals to reject the appeal and allow this project to move forward. [speaker not understood] will now present the architectural plans and the acoustical consultants will present their analysis.

good evening, commissioners. my name is alan gee and i am the architect for the project. i just want to give you a brief overview of what we have and some of the steps that we've taken to get the concerns of the appellant. this is a floor plan which you have in exhibit a which is a bit cleaned up. so, we were contracted by the owners to work with their leasing brokers to assist with the program for the spec office space that would be ready for a tenant to move in. the program was to have an open office space basically here, two private offices, a break room, conference room and the associated bathrooms. the design is what is considered the current esthetics of the market for office tenant in this area. this is a reflected ceiling plan which again shows the open office with t-bar ceilings within the private offices, break room and a conference room. the rest rooms will have a

painted chip board ceiling. one of the concerns raised by the appellant is the vibration of noise transmitted by people slamming doors. well, i don't doubt that people slam doors. i believe the occurrence of that happening is minimal and infrequent. to help mitigate their concerns, we actually have silencers on the doors which are basically little rubber buttons that stick to the door or insert in. as the name implies, they silence the closer of the doors. we also have overhead closers on some of these doors which, you know, doesn't allow people to slam doors. so, that coupled with the remaining doors which is a glass conference room door which doesn't slam, or two office doors which i guess if you have a boss that slams a lot of doors, that could happen. but they actually have something that's called a mute, which is a felt around the perimeter of the door which, again, mutetion the sound of the door. ~ mutes another concern raised by the appellant is the noise

vibration from mechanical units. we have two existing mechanical units that are attached to the ceiling and these are called water source heat pumped. they are hanging from isolators. these units have been previously serviced and tested and are in good working order. to help mitigate the appellant's concern about the vibration and noise, we will be replacing the isolatorses with spring andneo pre-ctionvtion isolator as recommended by charles salter. sort of like the belts and suspenders approach there. any new units that are installed, of course, will be installed the same with the spring isolators and theneo proem washers and any mechanical work being done will be done by to code. here is a conceptual rendering of what we actually see the office space looking like. again, we have this up to date. charles salter the acoustic

engineers and they can elaborate a little more on the vibration isolators and the sound and their acoustic analysis. good evening, my name is ben piper. this is my colleague ben decker. we are acoustic consultants with charles salter. at the request of the appellant we were hired by the property ownership group to conduct an analysis of noise transmission from the proposed office space into the residences above. we provided an analysis and provided our findings to the homeowners association. at that time based on their feedback, we increased our scope of work to include acoustickal testing in the residences themselves. we provided that testing and there was also our initial analysis as well as the follow-up testing led to the same conclusion that the expected noise levels in the commercial office space will,

when transmitted to the residences above, will be ten decibelses quieter than background noise levels in the residences. and when a transmitted noise is 10 decibels quieter than a background noise level in the space, that is perfectly considered inaudible. we'd also like to add that in the commercial space in use, the restaurant, the thai restaurant currently in use on the first floor, there is no dropped acoustical ceiling and there are also heat pumps from the ceiling above. we feel that this demonstrates that that architectural construction is sufficient to provide mitigation between the commercial space and the residences above in this building. thank you. >> thank you. >> do you have any information on live nation? i'm just kidding.

>> i actually have a question for you. have you seen the conditions the appellant submitted? not until it was just handed to us tonight. >> so, you haven't had a chance to read these? >>no. >> that's fine. i just wanted to know if you had an opinion about what's in them. not yet. that's fine. thank you. >> i have a question for ms. workman. ms. workman? what kind of tenant is your client envisioning potentially renting the space? well, we actually have gene coe here who is the broker who can talk to you more specifically about that. but they are looking for a very i think conventional office tenant for that space. is that okay if gene responds? just a couple examples. the tenants that we're looking for are creative tenants, office tenants, but, you know, they can be technology, they can be architects. they can be designers.

but they're not particularly noisy tenants. they're the same tenants as any other tenants in any other office building. >> what might be the likely size of the work force in that place? probably between, you know, 50 to 70 people. >> i don't think architects can afford south of market. [laughter] you're right about that. >> thank you. did you want me to speak a little more about the tenants? >> that answers my question, thank you. >> mr. duffy, mr. sanchez? mr. duffy. commissioners, the permit went through the building department, went through the review for building code mechanical, went through the fire department ~ that issued, it was a current permit of values, 275,000.

it's a typical tenant improvement that we see. i don't see any issues with it. obviously signed is something that people worry about. i think they've covered that. the isolators are really good. that's a great idea to do that because we do get a lot of complaints in the department about noise from equipment on the roof so that the isolators were done, that definitely would help to mitigate that. but i'm available for any questions as always. >> mr. sanchez? >> thank you. scott sanchez, planning department. i just wanted to note the subject properties in the mur mixed-use [speaker not understood]. it was an eight year long zoning effort. it was previously under the purview of the redevelopment agency a yerba buena [speaker not understood]. the office is principally permitted in the zoning district and there's no

requirements or limits on hours of operation anywhere in the mur. so, and i'll just speak to the office piece itself. it is generally the quietest, we said the deadest kind of use you can have typically. typically we don't like to have those on the ground floor. we like to have more active uses like restaurants or things. seems in this case this use would be compatible with the building. would suggest the conditions that were proposed by the appellant. i mean, i think they are very specific, more specific than we would ever typically see even in a planning commission approval. so, knowing that this is a higher density mixed use district, that does allow this as of right, respectfully request the board not condition this permit with limiting hours of operation. should you do so, assuming a responsibility enforcement of that would fall upon the planning department and we would do as you wished. thank you.

>> okay. is there any public comment on this item? everyone who is interested, perhaps you could raise your hands. okay. hello. my name is lydia chan. i'm the owner and also i lived in the condo in museum park unit 320 which is right above this proposed newly renovated office space. i'd like to just bring a little history, background of this noise problem. i moved into the condo in 1995, so, that makes almost 18 years. when i first moved in, i had trouble really at night to have

a good rest because there is a constant noise. it's like a motor running continuously and really loud. finally, i brought the problem to the homeowner association and it was decided that that was the noise that transmitted through the wall where the anchor -- the market downstairs, they needed refrigeration freezer. so, they have a big compressor and that causes this vibrational kind of noise. and then later on there were other units also had same experience and complaint. but anyway, the problem couldn't be resolved because it was already there and the market has to be open.

so, it was finally dissolved by they closed down and they moved away. and the last 12 years it has been vacant. so, my biggest concern is if there is any moving device attached either to the ceiling downstairs or on the wall, it probably will generate the same kind of structural type of noise and vibration and that can transmit quite far and very distinct. so, i would like the board consider to include the conditionses that we put into our brief. and make sure this is not going to be a problem in the future.

even if they put an isolator, i would suggest that they would come to my unit after the office is occupied and is in full operation just to make sure that there is no more vibration or noise problem. thank you very much for listening. >> thank you. next speaker, please. good evening, good morning maybe is more appropriate. my name is clifford cain and i'm a resident owner of museum park for 19 years. i'm also the president of the museum park board of directors and also a member of the museum park master owners association. and i'm here representing the homeowners and the 92 residents who signed the petition and i think you have a copy of the petition, there's 92 signatures

from museum park residents supporting vikki hart's appeal to implement a comprehensive acoustical plan and use restrictions on the proposed office space. this past weekend i was reading a new york times article that described office inhabitants as free range humans. an office occupied from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. is a definition of an office. nowhere are cutting edge more prevalent than soma. i would hope that the owners of 725 - 727 folsom would recognize this while at the same time be mindful they operate in a primarily residential mixed use building. if the owners want to take advantage of today's definition of office space, they should, we feel they should overcompensate by minimizing and mitigating any potential noise and vibration issues. even if they plan to restrict their search to traditional users of office space, they shouldn't have any issues agreeing to use restrictions.

the point being we don't know who that tenant will be and we need to protect our interest with an acoustical plan and use restrictions. this is an issue in a mixed use building where common walls are shared. i don't think we're asking for anything more than you would ask for if you lived in our building and shared common walls. i also like to say that the use restrictions we're asking for are basically what salter recommended. we're not asking for anything other than what's in their report. the report was -- the salter study was only done as a result of the appeal. it was not done by the owners prior. so, they've already gone through this exercise because of the appeal. that's it. thank you. one more thing. you raiseedth the question about the ccnr. don't want to bring up the ccnr

because you brought it up. ~ we do have a master owner review of construction. we brought that up and the owners were saying that they don't think that applies. however legal counsel said it does so we're kind of fighting that issue there. but that's kind of a separate issue. >> thank you. >> so, the disagreements of 6 years ago are still there? well, the disagreement -- no, we had the first tenant was the market, there were definite problems. >> okay. we'll bring it separately. i wanted to give the other commissioners some background. okay. thank you. >> next speaker, please. good evening, commissioners. my name is wayne goldman. i own two condos in the building. and i appreciate your actions

here and how you are unemotional about your decisions and make good decisions. i think, you know, looking at this whole situation, the biggest thing here is that we, a residents, want our quality and enjoyment of our condos. and that's what the issue is. we don't oppose an office space down there. in fact, that's kind of nice that it's quiet, although i would prefer to have something that we could use, like the rental of restaurants or dry cleaner or something like that. but i think the time restriction at 10(k) at night is really a good target for us. ~ 10 o'clock at night i was sitting on the porch and that's a single use building. 10 o'clock they came out and said, you have to leave, we have restrictions, 10 o'clock

the port chester close. and that was a single use building. ~ i think that we would like to have that same restriction on the space at 725 and 727. this is enterprise rent a car. they close at 6:00. this is a dry cleaners, they close at 7:00. this is chai an restaurant, they close at 10:00. we never had any problem with anybody with a lease. we'd like you to consider our conditions. thanks. >> thanks. any other public comment? okay. seeing none, we will start with our rebuttal. ms. heart, you have three minutes. all we're asking for is the conditions.

and in the salter report, they did the types of use would be normal conversation, group presentation, conference call. so, any of our conditions are just in line with what they said they wanted to do. so, this is all we're asking the board to uphold these conditions. right. the conditions that we have are based on really talking to our acoustic consultant and understanding, you know, what the salter report was assuming. so, their conclusions were based on specific assumptions. so, through that, that's why we put those use restrictions together under the conditions. so, i mean, it's pretty -- it's pretty straightforward and, you know, as you've referred to, commissioner, that we have had problems with that space. so, that's why our resolution of this and appeal would be to

have the conditions enforced by a notice of special restrictions recorded on the land records attached as an addendum to the tenants' lease. because then it will travel with the parcel and this won't come up every time there's a new owner or there's a new use for the space. these were the same owners when we were with cos. it's the same owns as before. so, they were well aware of the history. in our brief you can see since 1995, -- we've had a problem since 1996 and they were well aware of the 2008 and just for the record i have been to every meeting and voiced my concerns about this issue since 2008. so, thank you so much. >> ms. bark man? thank you. i'd like to make a couple points. one is that the conditions that

we're just seeing the first time five minutes ago absolutely do not reflect what's in the salter report. the use restrictions that include no group meetings after 8:00 p.m., business operations ending at 10:00, i'm going to point out to you it's almost 10:30 right now. does this mean that after we're done, i wouldn't be able to go back to my office to do more work or that at 10 o'clock i would have to leave? what if i have clients that are overseas or in asia? it's really not reasonable, although it's understandable that the residents want to make sure that there isn't going to be noise intrusion from the activities of the office into their residences. i think that we have shown and the salter studies have proven that there are not going to be noise issues either from the mechanical systems or from the activities in the office into the residences above. and i would like gene to explain to you a little bit more about how the lease provisions can kind of control the activities of