thank you so much for hearing us. our house is directly across from the project. i would like to show you the project is here in yellow, and this is our house across the alley. i have lived here with my family for almost 40 years, and it has been our home for three generations. my siblings and now my children and hopefully future grandchildren, too. i grew up here, and i loved it. we take care of each other. if anyone needs to go to the

grocery store, we will pitch in and help. it is very special, and i feel privileged to live here. i would like to show you how narrow it is here. you know when they say, the neighbors will year? yes, you can actually hear conversations in our block. we are dealing with a project filling of the entire envelope, 40 feet wide, 40 feet wide with an additional head house. we have five levels. this looks like and will feel like a five-story giant. most of these homes are comprised of two story or three

stories homes. this project does not fit the scale or the character of our neighborhood. we talk about the planning department. previously the board supported the project when the envelope was not even as large as the one before us. he wrote to the project architect, and i highlighted in his letter in yellow. opposition to nearby residents have been persistent and

articulate. staff has conducted a site visit to the property to document the existing developing pattern staff has reviewed the project, and it is very important for the planning director. they do not predominate. 40 feet in width, expanding between both side property lines the height and scale. this continues on.

given the fourth floor operation, they would not be able to support this. i want to summarize that the department cannot support the addition. i strongly request you eliminate this and modify your plans so the building has a height that is more compatible with neighboring structures and the scale of the densely developed portion of telegraph hill. i want to take you to the present. we have a letter from the planning department period is may 13, 2009. under the comments, the first line, which is the most important, reduce the height. that means to me that the top

floor should go down, the fourth story. i do not know what happened here. i want to show you this board. i would like to specifically talk about this. >> was about five minutes? >> that was five minutes. >> you each get five minutes. the next speaker stereo -- the next speaker. >> good afternoon, members of the commission. i am here today as an architect but also as a neighbor. i have carve pumpkins in both sides of the matter. i have been to parties in this matter. these people are my neighbors and hopefully will continue to be my friends.

i am here today because the scale of this project was too much for the smaller cali, and we have a cup -- the smaller alley, and we have a couple of maps that will show you. other than the pink fire station and a wide property and those on the end and those phones in addition to the subject, of orange lots indicate lots were the owner or attendancts opposed not the project but the fourth story of the project. let's be clear about that. when we look at the heights of the existing building on edith

street, the first to note is that greenwich is parallel over to lombard street. these are going up hill from lombard or greenwich to edith', and there are 65 and 1/2 foot lots trapped were rear yards would normally be. they want to put a four-story structure. as you can see, to everyone who lives north of the project site, another four-story building to match the one built into 1952 before we had a planning code that limits buildings to 14 feet in height. before that, that building is fair -- there, and you will see that in the sponsors material. what we are trying to do is

avoid another four-story building. there was a church on greenwich, and it is more easily accessed from the valley then from greenwich street. here is our charts of the building sites. you can see that is a backyard building. there is a front yard building as well, so it is very dense here. there is one on grant. it looks like it had an edition from the 60's. there is one that is a 20--- 20 by 24 foot building, and the addition they asked for was the only way to accomplish more area. that is one quarter of the sites

in question or less than one- quarter of the site. the other is a four-story building built long before the code and before even if -- before edith, so since 1910 and 1976, they stop to address situations like this where we are not dealing with 25 by 100 lots. that is what they a mansion -- what they imagined. if this is extraordinary to have a street in san franciscans that is only 12 feet 4 inches wide, i do not know what is. we would ask you take the fourth floor office building. when we were working with the neighbors, we pointed out they could follow the guidelines, and perhaps that would give a better sense of how the building should

be oriented and arranged. we made an offer to the project sponsor that if they took off the fourth story and only had a penthouse elevator penthouse at that level, we would support a rear yard variants that would allow 3 feet, and by placing a new side walk down at the level, it would open up that alley, gives them an additional square footage to make up for the loss on the fourth story, and make a project that contributes, not simply exploits them for as much square footage as they can pack in. [bell] >> steve williams.

i represent the third request. this case is exceptional. it is extraordinary because it involves a project that has now been reviewed by the department twice over six years that is completely inconsistent with aversive results. the department spent more than three years between july, 2004 and december, 2007 reviewing this project. it was up and down. the project decision team, which is the precursor of the residential design team, we now reviewed it since 2005. some of the most senior staff planners were there. they all said the same thing. later the project was reviewed at the highest level by the director of the planning department and by the zoning administrator.

the conclusion by everyone after all these years of review was that based on the narrowness of the streets and the clear context of a three-story building, the project as proposed was out of character with ever prevailing pattern of this neighborhood. as the department strongly requested that it be removed. the staff report is incorrect. we are told the letter in 2006 was the last act the staff did on the first review. that is not true. there are two additional letters. those are attached, so the review went on for another year and a half after that, two more letters requesting changes, and the permit was are actually canceled. on june 14, 2007, because of the

failure to comply to request by the staff. those plans did not do what the department was telling them to do, so on december 10, 2007, the department issued its last notice of requirements and said the project was going to be canceled if it did not comply and 30 days, so they did not comply. after all this review, three and a half years of review, 5 and have people asking for the removal of the fourth floor, -- 5 and a half people asking for the removal of the fourth floor, they filed an application. that is extraordinary. while this was pending, in order to get a different result, they filed a new application. that is unfair. that is unreasonable and bad

planning. a complete waste of resources and time, a complete waste of neighbors resources and time to circumvent the process like that. if the department does not already have a policy against multiple applications on the same lot for the same project, they really ought to. the department believed the fourth floor needed to be removed, and it is grossly unfair, not only to the neighbors, but to all the other project sponsors out there who follow directives from the department, who follow directives from the planners would have to do it. the results sends a terrible message to the community. the message is that it is ok to ignore the request and just keep going, even if you have to file serial applications to get the results you want. it cents a message neighborhood

character is arbitrary -- it sends a message neighborhood character is arbitrary. third, there is also a flavor of favoritism, pay to play, that if a certain market for his fourth of project, it is not going to get past, but if a different architect bring forward the exact same project, that is going to be ok. we urge the department, do not encourage these actions. it is not compatible with this neighborhood. there are 55 buildings on this block. four of them have four floors. that is 93% of the buildings are less than four floors. i urge the commission to take discretionary review and move the fourth floor which was so strongly recommended by the department at every level. >> now we will hear from those in support of the dr requester

is. we're going to limit the time to 2 minutes. >> give me one minute. >> ok. up to two minutes. if you can keep it shorter than that, great. [list of names] >> good evening, commissioners. i am representing a whole bunch of people tonight. i am representing the coalition for san francisco neighborhoods, which is an organization that has 47 members as of last tuesday night. i am representing the san francisco network.

i am a co-founder. i am also representing my neighborhood organizations. i am a former president. letters are being the street did to you now from the coalition's -- being distributed to you now from the coalition. each of these letters is the same. it is about neighbors. it is about height limits, folks, residential design -- height limits, bulk, residential design of lines. i am a neighbor for more than 51 years.

i urge a tight discretionary review of the project. >> i am amanda lee and i represent the property across the street from the project. i feel like this is too much. it casts a shower over the -- a shadow over the alley. there is no sunlight if that happens.

i feel like it just causes dangers and stuff. i feel like there would not be an authority. thank you. >> hello. i am jeremy. i am partial property owner of the building between lombard, 441443. although i do not oppose the entire project, i oppose a fourth floor that maximizes the wicked and the length of the lot. -- width and the length of the lot.

it would make it completely dart and make the area -- dark and make the area harder to rent out. >> rose marie. >> good evening, vice president and commissioners. my name is milligan. for 50 years i lived on the the street. i currently occupy an office at union and columbus. discretionary view process is long and difficult road.

there are reasons, exceptional and extraordinary to unjustified this process application. this is a reiteration that i tried to simplify. the exceptional because that is situated between two alley streets 17.5 inches wide. there are only three force-story buildings on each experian -- four-story buildings on edith. extraordinary. because of the history of development of telegraph hill by our regional planners. narrow avenues that would only support small business. extraordinary because there is no purpose or need to sell the

entire lot with a building that is the maximum height allowed. the planning department now except the 40-foot height. the same developer was told they could not do this in the floor plan. there are over 200 local residents. 120 of them on this block alone. they are united in their plea to have the fourth story removed. >> good evening, commissioners. my name is ed. i live right across the alley or street. right across from 13 edith street. webster's defines an alley as a

narrow passageway between the buildings or streets. there is accessed through the single thoroughfare. the fairly consistent architectural details result in a relationship with guidelines written by our city planning department. there is one critical factor to that height that is particularly important in maintaining its character. it is extremely important to achieve the desired result that we get witt four-story buildings along a 50-foot white st while we allow the same 40-foot structure all along a 20.5 white st.

the slight downhill grade towards the end of the street reduces the apparent height dimension of the houses. of all of the 16 houses fronting edith, only one single family home in two apartment buildings exceed the height. these buildings have been designed to max out the site that would replace the 30-foot wide home and the adjacent garden with a maximum 40-foot wide, 40-foot high structure that eliminates the open space and butts up against the buildings. this will block the neighbor's view of the sky. >> rose.

>> good evening. my name is rosemary weiner and i live across from 30 edith alley. by n. meyer the feel of a small- town community. buildings are mostly at the victorian period they are so charming. it may are even in books of san francisco. the annual block party was legendary. the proposed heights are taller than most other buildings. they are mostly two and three- story house says. the neighbors will be forced to

look into the many new windows and an experience that will project into rooms and yards. an oversized apartment building will completely destroy the ambiance. this is a precious part of san francisco. >> hiroshi. >> i am david. thank you for hearing us this evening. i am sticking up on behalf of my father in law that is behind this project. they currently casts shadows.

the shadows study shows that it does not cause any changes in shadows other than one season out of the year. that one season is the winter season when we need the sun for warmth. the study shows that at 3:00, the existing shadows being proposed. here is the shadow at noon. currently, if you look at this picture, this picture was taken at 3:00 on an october afternoon. this is the building next door,

40 edith, which has a 25-foot setback. this is the shadow here. this has 0 setback. it goes up to the edge of the property line. if you allow the building here, it will cast a shadow and you will have no light in the alley at all. if you allow a building that size, it will be a black hole. i urge you not to build a four- story. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is hiroshi.

i do not live in the area. i am concerned about the process. earlier this year and late last year, the planning department had many meetings concerning d.e.r.'s. the public expressed that there was distressed in the department. they did not -- this trust -- distrust in the department. they did not trust the department. trust has to be earned over time. we wondered what happened over a period of two winnie's. -- two years. somehow, this has reversed itself.