the activity can you tell me when this took place? >> it was after the sound tests. >> was it after the festival? >> yes. it was. >> is there someone from the affirm3

>> and if we drop to the next line and read across it's 88 38, 35 and 67. so, is there -- my question is, is there that much -- i don't understand how one -- going from 36 to 35 suddenly goes from objectionable to not objectionable. is there that much of a difference between those two levels of dba? >> sure. well, first of all i'll introduce myself, peter [speaker not understood] with [speaker not understood] & associates. and it's sort of the limitation of using dba and dbc as metrics. it doesn't necessarily fully qualify the character of the sound. so that while the numerical difference between those two conditions is slight to nil for the dbc, the character of the noise perceived in the theater -- and that was with both myself and a representative

from kabuki present -- i'm sorry, from sun dance present, that came to be that threshold about objectiveness between the two source noise levels in the lounge next door. >> okay. because those numbers, 35 and 36, are close to the ambient noise level that already exists. correct. >> which is in table 1. correct. >> and i guess that would be the same reasoning behind under live music in theater 2, you also have objectionable and two numbers, 35 and 66, and not objectionable as the same number, 35, and actually the dbc number is higher. but you're saying that the recording doesn't reflect the kind of differences in the quality of the music or the -- not the decibels, but the frequency of sound being played

either high, low, or drums, or base or whatever. right, it doesn't necessarily get pickedvv up by the dba or dbc metrics but it does by the human ear. >> okay. and according to the executive summary, then, you have recommended that record at 38 and live at 84 on the plan allowed site in term of the level of sound that needs to be limited -- those two levels. those levels were determined by the subjective response of the sun dance representative. >> all right, thank you. >> i'm sorry to get technical, but ways just trying to understand how we were using objectionable and not objectionable and the numbers were a little bit -- not too far apart. but it just then raises the issue, i think, of how much control there is of the music levels and how that can be attained.

now, i know that in past cases that we've seen, perhaps even at the board of appeals, there are instances of music being limited to particular decibel levels by requiring the sound equipment to go through a limiter. and that's mentioned in here, too. the issue that i have is how is it, then -- i mean, who controls the limiter? does the entertainment commission -- i mean, we have a limiter box in planning allowance. they have to run their sound equipment through it. they limit it to 83 decibels, but then what's to prevent that from being changed? i thought in the last the limiters were controlled by the entertainment commission. i don't know. maybe that's a misconception of mine, but i thought it was something that the entertainment commission came

and calibrated and then got locked, or something where the proprietor couldn't change what the limiter was limiting -- limiter was limiting. you know, do you understand? >> i don't know the answer to that question. i did speak with director grinelli before the hearing and i shared with him our added condition for the maximum sound level and also the use of the limiter and the alert. he said that in the place of entertainment permit that would be issued if this is approved, that they could add that condition as well, have those two conditions aligned. >> okay. >> [speaker not understood]. >> if you do, do it in two sentences. from the last hearing the picture when we had the shield, once we pre-set the limiter to whatever you guys suggest, we'll put it there, put it 89, we put that sound shield also over that so nobody could touch it [speaker not understood] up and down because it's screwed. we would not take that off. [speaker not understood].

again, [speaker not understood] just for safety and back up. thank you. >> thank you, sir. i guess if it isn't within the control of the city, i'm having some issues with it. just given the history of this thing, i'm not inclined to support the cu. and it's telling also to me that organizations that formerly supported the lounge, including the task force and i believe the merchants association also supported it in the beginning, but through the series of hearings and time that's passed, it seems those two groups -- doesn't seem like. the two groups have taken another attitude toward the conditional use permit. so, i'm inclined not to issue it, but other commissioners can weigh in. >> commissioner borden.

>> yes, this is a cumulative case. it is a locally owned business we want to support and encourage. i've been inside the lounge a year ago. it's a nice space. it was very well done. i've obviously been to the kabuki theater a few times and think it's a great resource as well. although i don't know what kind of soundproofing kabuki does have because i believe there is soundproofing between the theaters there. obviously if you were there first it doesn't really matter as much if you had the soundproofing or not. i do find it really frustrating because we did instruct the project sponsor to do certain things which [speaker not understood] has done, but it's really regrettable that yet another violation happened after our last hearing and it's hard to -- it is hard to, you know, support someone when there is continually bad actions taking place. i don't have anything of record for the may 8th violation. we've heard that there was an

issue of may 8th. that would be concerning because we've had the soundproofing happened in april and then now we have another violation. maybe somebody can produce the violation if there is some documentation for it, but the project sponsor did do the salter report which we requested. you know, for us it's a very, it's a very frustrating situation to be in because ultimately we'd like to support our locally independent business and we want to support the japantown community standing behind kabuki. unfortunately the behavior along the way hasn't always created a situation where it's easy to put that support behind the project sponsor. so, you know, i'm interested in talking to other commissioners around. this limiter sounds very interesting. sadly, we can't -- we're not much of an enforcement arm ourselves. you know, we've had project sponsors come back to us, you know, for certain amount of times, three months or six

months. unfortunately, a little bit concerning, we would probably have to do this every three months or so. but, you know, if there were some way that we had assurances that this would not be a problem, obviously that's our goal, to see this continue. it's a great space. a lot of money has been invested into it. obviously to be an amenity in the community. but the other problem is there is a breakdown and lack of trust between the project sponsor and the community at large and that does concern me going forward in all manners because it's hard to work together when the trust has been breached. >> him. commissioner hillis. >> i would agree with the prior commissioners ~. we were hoping people would come back and found a sound level that works, everybody is abiding by it, but it doesn't seem to be the case. i mean, the kabuki theaters are critical to japantown. i mean it's great that [speaker not understood] opened the business and we heard a lot of

great testimony the last time we were here about it. but i think the bigger issue is the theater is critical to bring peep to japantown, to bring people to go to the restaurant there. and we've heard that from the neighbor -- from the community. and, so, want to make sure that works. so, i think it's a difficult position for us to be in to ask to expand the use that doesn't seem to be working well with the theater. i guess my question to staff is the limited performance permit that they have now, if we don't grant the cu, does that continue? >> yes, that would continue. >> so, they're able to kind of continue to work with the neighbors and, you know, they'd have to stop music at 10:00, but could come back if this were denied and apply for a different cu with some history that it's actually working? they could continue to operate under -- >> they could continue to operate under the llp under those conditions.

that's the time limb advertising as well as the decibel limitation. >> okay. and it seems like a good use, but it's difficult for me to expand on the llp, to broaden it if we don't have agreement on how that's working at this point. >> commissioner antonini. >> i agree with the other commissioners. you'd think third time would be the charm because we've had hearings in december and february and now it's june 6th and we're not really getting any closer. you know, it's a very respected group of leaders in the japanese community and also the actual ownership of the japantown itself are objecting. so, that's fairly significant for me. so, i'm inclined not to support. i would hope that this could be worked out in the future, as someone said, and perhaps a year from now if some of the issues are resolved with the limited entertainment, then they might be able to go to the

full night club use and everybody is on board. >> commissioner moore. >> i would fully support what the other commissioners are observing. [speaker not understood] i regret after this length of time and the support we have tried to inject into making this work that it just doesn't seem to be coming together as of this moment. so, i cannot indeed support the cu at this moment. however, in the future should there not changes and work closely side by side, we will be able to revisit that issue. it is ape closed door at this moment, but it does not mean it's forever. >> i had a couple thoughts. i share some of the same comments. i think it's not really for a lack of effort of the operators trying. i think you have, but i think it really is -- it's an internal building land rr lease issue in that they tried to put the goldfish bowl next to where the cat lives and the door couldn't be [speaker not understood] there is going to

be conflict no matter what you do. it's proven. we've done this three times. you've pep a lot of money which i feel bad about and tried to mitigate. but euronext to a spa and a movie theater. so, i put some fatv at the landlord for trying to squeeze too many uses into shared common walls. ~ fault commissioner wu. >> so, it sounds like there is some consensus emerging on the commission, but i have a couple of thoughts about maybe moving forward and maybe looking at compromise. i think i'm really hopeful that both businesses can remain the theater and the lounge restaurant. so, you know, we've gone through this process now of getting the sound report from salter and, so, there are these db levels that have been set. so, i really encourage -- it sounds like you have the two limiters now, to see if that continues to work. and if we can get a period of time in which there's no violations or no citations. i think the specific issue

really is the theater that's closest to the lounge, right. so, there's a smaller theater i believe that's close to -- that abuts the lounge. so, i don't know if for the future there can be some sort of carrot and stick system where if there are complaints from that theater in particular, maybe the [speaker not understood] pays for the refunds of those tickets, i'm not proposing that for today, but i think if we can move forward, if we can continue to coke this for sometime, there can be a very directed compromise that's about what the problem itself is, or where the noise -- you know, what the noise conflict actually is. >> commissioner sugaya. >> yes, following up on commissioner hillis' question about continuing limited entertainment or whatever the definition is [speaker not understood], so, under the entertainment commission's approved permit, they can continue to use the space for

-- can you sort of describe what they can do and what they can't do if we don't grant the cu? >> you mean under the limited live performance permit? >> yes. >> well, if you don't grant the limited cu they can continue the live performance. they can play music up to 10:00 p.m. they can only use 200 square feet of that area for music use and it would be limited to the noise level that was agreed on when the permit was issued. >> all right. so, they could continue to have -- again, using the word very limited entertainment, which would still entail -- which would still allow the use of both pre-recorded and also live music? >> correct. >> all right, thank you. just to clarify that. and also the april 8th issue is the letter that staff mentioned.

it's a letter from the san francisco international film festival. they were screening something in the auditorium 2. beginning around 9:00 p.m. when we were showing a particularly quiet film, they notified kabuki staff of a noise bleed and they went next door to ask them to turn down the music. apparently the music continued and bothered the film festival well past 10 o'clock, at least that's what the e-mail says. and, so, that's just for the record. and then lastly, the cu does go with the property. so, that means that if we grant it, another owner can come in -- >> that is correct. >> -- and continue the use and we don't know what that situation will be. >> correct. they would need to get a new place of entertainment permit or a limited live performance

permit. but you're correct, the condition would be on the property, the conditional use. >> i'll go ahead and make a motion to deny the conditional use permit. >> second. >> i think it has to be an intent -- >> meg of intent to deny. >> commissioner borden. >> i just want to say just for the denial, it's only one year that you have to wait -- [speaker not understood]. >> unfortunately that's not how it works, but in an ideal world it's everything, if we could work together in a year, maybe we could come back here and it would be a different conversation. i think everybody wanted to support this project. i don't think there was any lack of desire for that happening. it's actually very disappointing. >> project sponsor. my name is james chang and i just want to clarify something here before you make a decision. i think this whole thing is really unfair for us.

for a small businesslike us against the big corporation spactionv corporation sun dance and with all those japantown organization, okay. and they're always saying sun dance is more important. without sun dance, japantown may go down. you know, it sounds like they try to dominate my business, okay. and first thing i want to clarify is they kept on saying make many police complaints, police citation. there is none. we've been operating over a year already. we didn't even get one police incident about any trouble at all. even our alcohol license, we don't even have any complaint from abc, okay. and also the last time they say we got a violation, the violation is not regarding noise.

it is only about 30 minutes past 10 o'clock, and that was my daughter's birthday, 25th birthday. that's what she celebrate and they request for a couple more songs from the band and that's it. and then the violation is only $200 and we pay for it. and actually so far we only got one violation for sound issue only, the past whole year. if we do the math, from the last hearing to today, and almost i would say approximately three months, we only got one complaint from the sun dance. 90 days, three months, we only got one little tiny complaint. think about cherry blossom or whatever the japantown, the [speaker not understood] fair or film [speaker not understood], they got fair going on. at least half a dozen times a year. they make those loud, loud, loud noise, okay. we could hear and also the [speaker not understood], hear it real clearly.

how come nobody say anything? nobody complain. if you do the math, we're talking about from the last hearing to now, it's only one small incident. and i'm not dispute with the incident either, okay. they say, okay, we make noise. okay, we make noise, okay. but they say we refuse to turn down the music. that is bull. and we did turn down the music, okay. and also they kept on saying we are full blown night club. come on, if you look at our website yourself, you know, what we're doing every night like tonight, we got [speaker not understood], we got every thursday, and we got so many [speaker not understood] birthday party, that's what the whole party, paena mean party, get together. [speaker not understood], i don't understand that? >> thank you. thank you. oh, just give me one more minute. okay. i really want to cooperate with the neighbor and everything. you know what? they kept on saying our noise from the drum because the drum, i don't mind to be a condition

say no drum over there because we do a lot of [speaker not understood] hawaiian music. we have all kind of [speaker not understood] show, everything. >> thank you very much. thank you. >> there is a motion, there is a second. could you call the question, please? >> yes. on the motion of an intent to deny, commissioner antonini? >> aye. >> commissioner borden? >> aye. >> commissioner hillis? >> aye. >> commissioner moore? >> aye. >> commissioner sugaya. >> aye. >> commissioner wu. >> aye. >> commissioner fong? >> regrettably aye. >> and that motion passes. >> next item, please. >> commissioners, we'll be moving on to item number 16. this is case no. 2012.1131dd, 861 corbett avenue. this is a request for discretionary review. and as such, we will have a

slightly different comment procedure during this hearing. there will be first a presentation from staff. following that there will be a five-minute presentation by the d-r requestor, and then public testimony for those who would support the d-r requestor. after that time there will be an opportunity for the project sponsor to have five minutes, and then public comment in support of the project sponsor for three minutes per person. we'll start with the staff presentation. >> good afternoon, president fong and commissioners. i'm rick crawford of department staff. this project would construct vertical and horizontal additions to add a second dwelling unit to the existing single-family dwelling. the new front wall of the building will be at the average setback of the adjacent buildings to the sides. the proposed fourth floor will be setback 15 feet from the front wall of the lower stories and the top of the third floor will align with the roof of the adjacent three-story building to the south. it's within an rm-1 district and 40-x height and bulk

district. the project will remove much of the existing building and is considered tantamount to demolition. the current project a revision of the original proposal that moved the front wall of the building back further to provide for parking while preserving more of the existing building. that version of the project was not tantamount to demolition, but was rejected by the residential design team because the project did not align with the average front setback of the adjacent buildings. the department considers the current design which was subject to a second 311 notice to comply with the residential design guidelines. the project is subject to a d-r request from a neighbor across the street who is concerned that the height of the proposed addition is out of character with the neighborhood. the requester feels that the project will cast shadows on his residence across the street and that residence of the upper story of the project building will be able to look into the windows of the occupants of the building at 850 corbett avenue. the requester would like to see an addition that does not change the height of the

subject building. the location of the project across corbett avenue and east of the requester's property should be sufficient to protect light and air of the requester's dwelling and protect privacy. since the subject property lies between the requester's dwelling and the sweeping view of castro neighborhood, the department suspects that the requester may be trying to protect his view. other than the d-r request, the department has received no public comment regarding this project. the department recommends that the commission not take discretionary review and approve the project as revised as the project is could be sis tent objectives and policies of the general plan, complies with the planning code, and the residential design guidelines. i am happy to answer any questions. thank you very much. >> thank you. project sponsor. >> d-r requestor. >> okay. so, just to be clear, we're treating this like any other d-r, right? okay, thank you.

d-r requestor, the first d-r requestor. hello, commissioners. my name is john hayden. i am the neighbor that lives right across the street. i wanted to say that the people -- the planning commission and the architect have been very cooperative in trying to address our concerns and it is true that -- i have several members of our hoa. we have one of the few units -- few buildings there on that section of corbett that is all privately owned condos. almost all of the other buildings are rentals or a few sporadic owners. and, so, there are very little complaints when the five small homes that are still remaining want to be made into 40-foot dwellings that basically will turn that whole area into a

canyon of bill monoliths. so, we're complaining. my apartment is the one in the middle of the building that will have the most serious effect to the height of this middle building. the height of the building as it exists now is 22 feet and it will go up to 40. the building just to the south of the proposed project is 30 feet high and, you know -- and the new building will be in the first three floors that height, and then there will be another fourth floor. so, my apartment will be very, very dark. granted, yes, i will lose my view, and i'm willing to say you can't do that. you can't protect your view, and i understand that from everybody i've talked to. but my apartment will now not be very nice and it will take probably a 50 or $60,000 away from what i would like to sell. you know how real estate agents

are. what i would like to say is i would be very happy now to have the original proposal back, even though i complained then because it was 11 feet higher than the original building. but now the commission -- i mean the planning group has made it up to 40 feet, you know, to satisfy concerns that frankly i don't think are very important. so, that's my complaint, and i appreciate you listening to me and some of the other people will continue. >> thank you. was that the first d-r requestor? second d-r requestor. >> i thought in this case, commissioners, there is only one d-r requestor. the second d is for the demolition. >> oh, okay. >> if i could clarify the discretionary review was filed on behalf of the hoa itself, although john hayden was the signatory, he signed as a secretary of our homeowners association.

my name is todd [speaker not understood], i live in the same building as john just across the street from the subject property. i have very little to add. i would say that my unit is on the lowest level and to be clear i have absolutely no view. so, my objections to the building certainly have nothing to do with protecting my view. but as john mentioned, the redesigned building is actually four stories instead of three. so, the new design will result in us getting less light and the new building still suffers from the same problems in terms of compromising our privacy because people in the top floors of the building will be able to look down into our unit. i would reiterate that the new building is not in scale with the surrounding neighborhood. the height of the building is not compatible with the surrounding neighborhood. therefore, i would ask that the

commission reject this permit application. however, if the commission is inclydection to grant the permit application, i'll ask that you make the permit conditional on a covenant not to install a deck or patio on the setback area on the fourth floor facing the corbett ave. this would mitigate some of the privacy concerns. thank you. >> thank you. other speakers in support of the d-r? hello, commissioners. my name is brent smith. i'm a new resident in 85 1 corbett street. i'm not affected by this. my unit is high enough up, it really doesn't affect any of mine. what it does affect is the esthetic look of the neighborhood. would be four-story. i think it just sticks out like a sore thumb compared to the revealed in the rest of the buildings in the neighborhood. i would be -- i urge