>> i am the project sponsor. we had the approval to build the house with a total height of 25 feet 6 inches back in 2006. the actual building height is 25 feet 11 inches. which is about 5 inches higher than was approved. what we had to go through in order to prove that the measurement is only 5 inches, back in april, 2009, when the building inspector said the building was 1 feet 3 edges higher than approve because he was measuring from the steps down in front of the house. he made us go back and get another permit in order to confirm that are approved height was 25 feet 6 inches, and we did. in may, 2009, the zoning

administrator sent a letter indicating that our building is now 1 ft. higher than approved. the permit that was just done was in error. in june 2009, the planner email saying that our building is 2 feet 2 inches higher than approved. in july 2009, the planner sent an email saying that our building is now 3 feet 7 inches higher than approved. it in october, 2010, planning sent a notice saying that building is now out on foot 3 inches higher than approved. there are some discrepancies, is very hard for us to understand. but we did is we decided to hire a licensed surveyor to measure it, and he confirmed our house is 25 feet 11 inches high, and he had all kinds of scientific instruments, whatever. however, even after that, i did

not even know about the recent letter. now she says is 1 foot 9 inches. even myself, i don't know which measurement is correct. all i could do it is reliable license surveyor to measure. the reason why we came up with 25 feet 11 inches is because it was agreed with their as a lot of challenges by the planning and building measurements, they agreed on the reference point, with just three steps down from the front porch, 5 feet from the front door, all the way to the top. they said it is 25 feet 6 inches. the survey are said 25 feet 11 inches. so 5 inches. i have the license surveyor here today to let you know how he measured, what the instruments he used, and he could give you all the supporting documents.

when the board asked for the supporting documents, they never asked for the supporting documents. even though the survey are agree to talk to them, it would not listen. the second item or the windows. when we bought the house 30 years ago, we got aluminum single pane windows, which a lot of the houses on urbano drive still currently have, and those are historic windows. after we moved in 30 years ago, we changed it to vinyl and wood. those are original windows, you can still see them on the approved plan. so when we built this six years ago, i cannot even consider the windows a major issue as far as energy, what ever. so the vendor said the windows

are not as energy efficient as a simulated flight divider. the would divider, they should be fine. they called and said we would like to change the design. we said, yes, they are wood, so we got approval. but i am trying to say is the design guidelines -- look at the windows in the neighborhood. that is the house ought to doors down from us. -- that is the house ought to doors down from us. all these on urbano drive have aluminum windows.

iand then the pitch -- president miguel: thank you. speakers in favor of the project sponsor? >> my name is steve, i am a licensed land surveyor, and they hired me to check the building height at urbano drive. here is a picture. the instrument i am using is a swiss leica and i have a pdf data collector, all state of the art.

the measurement will measure -- instruments will measure through a glass prism or it will measure it through a window. so will measure to it places i cannot get to. here are copies of my field notes. and also a copy of the. out from the computer points. -- and also a copy of the. out from the computer. i'm just proving that i was there and did the survey, on october 22, 2010. i went and preparations for this hearing and went back to check the roof height. and i am going to show you what i actually measured.

it is kind of hard to see, but the approved height from the reference point to the top. pat to the topparapet is 25 ft., 6 inches. under permit, the actual height measured it is 25 feet 11 inches, 5 feet above the proof type. were measured from, the reference point, it is three steps down. this wording here talks about or that is, 5 feet from the front. and i measured to the roof

parapet. i did that with the refractor -- reflector-less instrument. i just point it up there and shot it and it also gives the elevation. thank you very much. president miguel: thank you. are there additional speakers in support of the project sponsor? >> hi. excuse me. my name is hector. i am responsible for the designing of the house. i came up with the measure met -- what the measure met with the previous group of elevation.

i came up with an overall height from the first floor to the top most of the front wall, which is 23 foot 9 inches, 33 foot 3 inches. iand then with regards what the house built, i came up with a measurement to the first floor, the main roof parapet, which is 24 feet 4 inches, which is the difference is 1 foot 1 inches. thank you. president miguel: thank you.

additional speakers in favor of the private sponsor? if not, the d.r. requestor has two minutes for rebuttal. >> i'm done. president miguel: project sponsor has two minutes. >> we depend on the experts to help us measure the property because we did not know what is right, what is wrong. all we understand it is we got approved for 25 feet 6 inches, and it is actually 25 feet 11 inches, so we ask that you approve the 5 inches difference. for the windows, we ask you to approve whatever we have. we thank you very much. president miguel: thank you.

commissioner antonini? commissioner antonini: thank you. it sounds like in reading this report, although it is gone, there has been a lot left discussions about the measurements, but i think it was ultimately decided that it was at least 1 foot 9 inches beyond what was approved. >> yes. commissioner antonini: and there is some question as to what that actually was because there has been so much dirt moved on to the front yard, it is hard to survey, although from the street i guess there is a way to do it. >> right, and the front stairs have also been modified. at all the various reference points have been thrown out as reliable, which is why we resulted to using the finished first floor at the front of the house. at the front of the house, right here, it provides an actual

static reference point. these are their plans they provided, before and after. commissioner antonini: staff does this all the time, and i have to agree with your assessment. the other thing i am reading, there is also a setback problem. apparently they are 3 feet short of the desired set back. it was supposed to be 15 feet and they are less than 15 feet. >> the original proposal, we were ok with the original set back, but upon review of the new plan, the residential design team looked at the project again, and we tend to provide all options. they said either glove or the fight or if your going to keep a tight, shifted back a couple of extra feet -- they said either lower the height or shifted back. commissioner antonini: so they're saying it take d.r.,

disapprove the permit, and it would have to come back with a new permit with the changes made. >> we would ask them to revert to the current 2006 permit which has a stop work order. icommissioner antonini: that sounds reasonable to me. there is a window issue, and i am very familiar with houses in that neighborhood. i don't live too far away, i am one lakeside village. ingleside terrace was built between 1970 -- 1917 and 1951, so some of the later houses were not built with the same quality of windows, so what you have to match is the style of windows in this house, not a more cheaply built 1951 house. but that is not what is being done here. yes, it is important. we replaced the windows on our second floor and we made sure it was a duplicate of what was

there before, not these snap and pretend the fighters for the windows, because that is not the same thing -- not the snap-in pretend it dividers for the windows. >> we specified clearly that they either be truly divided or three-dimensional on the interior to simulate that. we were very clear about the style. commissioner antonini: you don't have to look too closely even in these distant pictures to tell these are not what was there before. so i would go ahead and make a motion that we take staff recommendation, take d.r., and denied a permit commissioner sugaya: second. president miguel: commissioner moore? commissioner moore: there's

something sad about this whole thing. i have to believe that staff did a very thorough, un-vindictive and analysis. i don't believe we have a licensed contractor here. the misunderstanding could not be that large. it is a huge accumulation of mistakes, and that is my concern. aperhaps the zoning administratr could help me. when your contractor, don't you have to have a license? and don't you have to take continuing education? and if you make a mistake to go back and learn and you have to pretty much -- you are held closely to what you were supposed to do. this seems to be a string of missteps, and i don't understand how that can happen to such an extent. >> yes, a license is required for a contractor to practice in san francisco and products such as this.

that is all regulated through the department of building inspection and they are aware of all the violations associated with the property. commissioner moore: i have never quite seen a neighborhood that was quite as catastrophic as this one. there was one where project had changed hands and it was the covering of one mistake. unfortunately, i don't see any way of not moving ahead with disapproving d.r. president miguel: i have to agree. i find it ridiculous that someone could not follow very specific instructions, that stop orders are totally ignored. this is a situation where people understand the language, where

they can use a tape measure as well as other measuring devices, and still disregard it. you know, i have done minor projects myself, and i know whether or not a fits with my plan. at if i can do it, certainly a licensed contractor is capable of doing it. i see absolutely no reason whatsoever to approve this project as it is. commissioner antonini? commissioner antonini: unfortunately, this is not the only instance. there was another house on ingleside terrace which was red tag for about three years and eventually got finished and looks good, but it was a big fight there. these additions are fine. a lot of places have these additions. had second- floor addition.

this is not being done according to the plans. >> on that motion. commissioner antonini: aye. commissioner borden: aye. commissioner fong: aye. commissioner moore: aye. >> it passes unanimously. you are now on item 17. a request for a discretionary review. >> good evening, president miguel. the proposed project is for the construction of six off-street parking places.

it is residential transit oriented. the previous building was deemed a hazard and emergency orders are demolished. the request was expressed a number -- the project has since then been redesigned. and also itemized of the changes. the sponsor is here today. it is below the height limit. it is consistent with the

residential zone guidelines that require setbacks for the upper story. it is for suitable families. they provided below market rate units. they have been adequately addressed and there are no circumstances that warrant review of this project. the planning commission -- that concludes my presentation. president miguel: dr requester? >> good evening.

i am the founder and organizer of the neighborhood coalition. i live across the street from the project. we wanted to embrace the new neighbor. our neighborhood in general, we believe this should work to continue our improvement with a spirit of openness and transparency. this is one of the things that my neighborhood group has had the greatest problem with. we submitted this request when it was clear that the neighborhood was not being consulted. the project was enlarged.

it was not keeping in scale with the buildings around it. it looks to some ways more for the buildings on the other sides. [unintelligible] generally, the project had some design flaws, and we have come quite a distance. it was under-articulated. to make matters worse, the poorly love crated -- located ingress was a blank element of the facades. -- facade. i don't know if we have a way of looking at that.

what we were presented with a long time a gonna -- ago now, you can see the articulation shout of -- shadow. [unintelligible] it is pretty much the same scale and size. we appreciate the setbacks. a lot of things have improved. breaking up the mass was one of the things we are working on. this image fairly demonstrates it. the setbacks are improved. this is the new design. i think we have lost a lot of what we would consider architectural detailing.

the buildings in this image, they look large in comparison to the one in the middle. it might look even better. [inaudible] i don't think this is a difficult thing to achieve. basically, we appreciate [unintelligible] some things are made better by the fact that this is a single project. we might have more eyes on the streets.

that is the main concern. i am just checking my notes. i leave you with the idea that we would really be very pro- development. we want to be a contributory. there are other groups that have come forward with more specific requests. in the interest of their own, i would let them speak on their behalf. >> president miguel and fellow commissioners, thank you for the consideration of my d.r. request.

i live immediately north of the proposed project. [inaudible] i live in this house here. i strongly support development of this property in a timely manner. however, i believe the current proposal would have significant negative impact of the neighborhood and my property. my primary request is to see that they reduce the height to 40 feet. it calls for a 52 foot high, five story tall building. a roof deck and deck spacing

both to the north and south. the surrounding buildings are approximately 40 feet tall. the one recently completed across the street has 58 units and parking. the project is not compatible with the neighborhood because of the size of the roof deck. it would also eliminate views. the shadow catch would diminish or lemonade the potential for solar panels to be installed on my property. the sponsor has refused to provide an update for the

proposal with a roof deck that has been on the table for some time. on the full analysis by the planning department, neither requestor would be affected by the proposal in terms of light and air. >> december -- you can see at noon, it goes to solar. [inaudible] at 3:00 p.m., with a 47-foot high, it would approach the roof and eliminate the sudden. i have considered solar panels.

it would encroach upon that. when we bought the house in 2002, there was a single-story house on the property. the house was abandoned in the subsequently became a nuisance. not long after i witnessed a couple of men undermine the foundation on the west side and subsequently began to have the building inspector called for the house -- it was in imminent danger of falling over and it was demolished without any notice to the neighborhood. we believe the house was intentionally damaged to acquire a permit.