space, they have eliminated the light flow that existed between the two buildings and is exacerbated by extending the building 11 feet further into the year regard. i would recommend backing the deck off four feet to reduce that negative impact. and it is disengenerous to say that homes like mine kruconstrud 80 years ago that exceed the setback should be allowed to do the same. planning codes have evolved and in some cases, more stringent standards have been adopted. the dolores special use district was enacted specifically to stop the kind of developments that is being proposed. the relative privacy is an important future of the block. it is one of the reasons we move there had originally in 1993. i asked the commissioners to take the appropriate action to modify the project and bring it back into line with the dolores special use district and the residential design guidelines. thank you very much.

president olague: thank you. >> hello. i am madeleine todd and this is my husband and we own 3991 20th street which is the property to the west of the subject property. and i am here today to urge you to uphold the planning code section 241 and the city's residential guidelines. i'm specifically requesting that you reduce the envelope of the ground flow of this project to fill out underneath the existing deck and extend to the width of the property. i have it on authority from scott sanchez, the project sponsor's representative jeremy paul, and commissioner frank fern that reducing the envelope on the ground floor of the project is within your purview.

i have six reasons to support my request. first, i am asking you to uphold the existing code. this project falls within an s.u.d. and is bound under planning codes 241 and minimum rear yard setback of 45% of the lot. today the rear yard of the subject property is exactly 45% of the lot and the exact size that it was formed to protect and building out further is clearly in violation of the s.u.d. second, i'm asking you to consider the environmental impact of this project and recognize that it reduces the community assets. the s.u.d. was established to protect shared rear yards for everyone and the community asset for all properties along the corridor. you see the green corridor here. the proposed project extends the structure by 23%, thereby covering 70% of the lot.

this degree of extension on the ground level is unprecedented since the founding of the s.u.d. in the 80's. if all property owners in the s.u.d. were allowed to increase the ground floor food footprint but these amounts, our green face would be obliterated. third, please uphold the city's residential guidelines that protect mid block open space. to quote the city's own residential guidelines, an out of scale rear yard addition can leave surrounding residents feeling boxed in and cut off from the mid block open space. my property is already boxed in on two sides with the retaining wall to the west and a four-story structure to the south. the property has been green -- the subject property is completely open to the south and the west and is only partially

blocked to the east. this project will box my property an additional 25% on the only side that is open to the corridor. since the project sponsors already have greater access than i, i ask you why incrows their access further and reduce mine? fourth, justification for the project is based on nonrelevant structures. a noncompliant, illegal structure to the east of the property has been used to justify this aggregious encroachment into the rear yard set back. case law dictates that the planning department cannot use illegal structures to justify a new variance. strictly interpreted, the illegal structure should be altered to match the code versus justifying it. and what is irrelevant, much of the block is outside the s.u.d.

fifth, i personally agree that the project sponsor should develop them just as i did in 2003. they have had the same challenge of connecting the ground floor to the first floor. my only remodel was modest expecting my neighbors and sported by all of them. i merely filled in under an existing deck with the retaining wall and impacts no one. i also was granted 16 square feet, smaller than a closet, to allow for a legal staircase connecting the ground and first floor. i have spoke within no less than 20 leaders of neighborhood associations throughout the city to help establish our own best practices. and i learned that weaker neighborhood associations are being targeted by developer who is overdevelop the structures and sell them. protecting the rear yard setback is the most critical policy issue facing our s.u.d. we are now just learning how to

protect the neighborhood character by working with the appropriate city organizations. to this point the project sponsors have had their own businesses as developers buying and selling many properties over the years. and in contrast t neighbors before you today have a combined ownership in the neighborhood of 95 years. [bell ringing] president olague: thank you. are there speakers in support of the d.r. requesters? all speakers in support of d.r. requesters. seeing none, project sponsor? you have up to 15 minutes. of course, you don't have to take all 15 minutes, but you have up to that.

mr. paul, do you need assistance? >> thank you, president olague. jeremy paul for the project sponsor. you have heard quite a bit of comments that i'm going to do my best to respond to as much of it as i can and give you a bit of an introduction to the build in and the private architect will do that further. first of all, i would like to say that mr. copp who is completely continually vilified as being some sort of outside developer who is having his will with the neighborhood, he eat

lived there since he bought in it 2008 and hired an architect who lives across the street and this is a very site sensitive project that was designed for this to be appropriate for this particular site and the particulars of this special use district and this location. it was mentioned that the 80-year-old structure next door is illegal and should be discounted. it is not illegal. it is a structure that was built with permit but does not comply with the current planning standards. if we can go to the overhead, we zoom in. thank you. here is the adjacent structure owned by chris betcher. these two buildings extend substantially into the mid block open space such that mr. kopp's house and ms. levy's house are

functionally cut off from the mid block open space. this building extends further into the rear yard than our structure does currently. we're proposing to extend just up to this point where that notch is. so this additional 11 feet will continue to project and obstruct access to the midblock open space. we're infilling into the portion of the building as it pressed up against the solid wall. this is exactly what good planning and good architecture does. it works with the conditions of the site and works with the realities of the topography and the existing construction and existing development and makes the most of it. i did misspeak actually and was a misstatement when i wrote something about ms. clark. this is ms. clark's home. and you can see her deck there. i was incorrect when i said that

her decks overhung the adjacent property line. i misread the property line. i apologize for that. but her contention that suddenly a new deck here would provide visible access to her and her privacy when she lives by this deck, this deck, this roof deck here, and the existing deck here, here, and here and all the way down the block, seems somewhat disengenuous. i think there are a lot of decks and people see each other in an urban environment. this is a city we live in. people choose not to watch others. i look at -- i don't look at my neighbors across a light well, but i have a curtain. when i see people in the backyard, i wave or avert my eyes. that is the way we live in a city. and that is the way a community like this must live with their decks. i would like to go to the overhead if i can and run through a few slides.

thank you. it is the material that was provided by ms. levy, the uphill neighbor, and she is very concerned about this projection that was approved for the ground floor. and what we see here is a plant ing structure that really obscures the new building portion that mr. kopp is attempting to develop on the ground floor. it was the feeling of the zoning administrator that by using the space there, he would create substantially less impact on the adjacent building because it was going to be hidden by the hedge wall and the fence and the trees that are in place now than if we had developed into the space

that's directly above it. if you see the pink wall in the first frame, that's a notch in the project sponsor's building that is going to remain. it's an area that could have been infilled. again, you can see the wall on the uphill side and the fence. and you see the hedge row and the fern tree that obstruct the view to the east. and that's exactly where the ground floor structure is going to project. it's going to project very modestly and you can see mr. betcher's structure at the far right-hand side of that picture. you can see the blank wall that we're building up against. we're simply infilling against that blank wall and this is the true from mrs. clark's home. you can see the 80-year-old

projection that goes 21 feet beyond our existing structure. and you can see how that provides certain problems for the uphill properties. and the way, the planning department and this project sponsor has proposed to address it is to use that portion of the lot to build. uphill, downhill, back up to the decks on the tenant faying south and this is the view facing south and we're not in a position where we're blocking anybody's light or air. the light coming from the south is not obstructed to anybody but the neighbors with their decks up above are looking down on this project. so here's an artist rendering of

the propose d addition in its form. you see the notch in the building that is adjacent to the ms. levy's property. that is the buildable area. it was the opinion of the planning staff and of this project sponsor that it would not be appropriate for us to project out creating a cave for those windows you see in the darker yellow structure of ms. levy's. so we have maintained that setback. we choose to project only modestly on the upper level and step down in accordance with the residential design guidelines. this is the perspective you have seen before and after's in the submittal we have provided to you to get a sense of how modestly this impact was seen from upslope and this really is

not enclosing anybody. and this is really not cutting anybody off from the mid block open space anymore than they are already cut off by the existing construction on the buildings below. this is a reasonable and practical response to the conditions of the site. and you go back and don't even need the overhead, but just come back to the camera, thank you. and i want to go back to some of the points made by the d.r. requesters and some others. ms. hechhill discussed the dolores heights special -- excuse me, dolores heights improvement club and this project sponsor was not invited to the meeting where their action on this case was considered.

the dolores heights design review committee which met for many years and made up of design professionals who lived in the neighborhood and that committee no longer exists as a result of the actions that were taken by the board in disregard of the design review committee's intent. they felt this project did comply and they visited the site many times and saw the modifications that we made to accommodate the special use district and to accommodate the need of the uphill property owner. there was a lot of the dicushion about the variance decision. the variance decision was done openly, done publicly, reviewed by the board of appeals and that appeal by the board of appeals was requested a rehearing which

was denied. if simple fact of the mater is this variance is the most appropriate way to respond to the design needs of this site pressed up against this adjacent structure, there was no better solution than providing a variance allowing that ground floor projection which is below theed ed adjacent structures to project out. i will have opportunity for rebuttal later on and to answer any questions that you may have. but i submit to you there is nothing exceptional or extraordinary about this proposal. it's actually quite modest in the scope and takes into consideration the needs of the neighbors in many, many meetings that have been had with all the parties and i think that this is the sixth time we have been to a public hearing on this matter. and i am looking forward to

probably two or three more time before building permit. president olague: thank you. are there speakers in support of project sponsor? >> i'm the project architect. james stavoi. and commissioners, emails regarding the resignation of the entire dolores heights design review committee are in your file. and i will not repeat that information or describe how that has affected our project, but i would like to speak briefly about the doral heights special use district. our neighbor has, as you have seen on many photographs, is characterized by the issue of

topography plays a major factor in the design of our project as has already been discussed and will be discussed further, i'm sure. i have lived and worked out of my house at 679 sanchez since 1992 and i live four houses away from my client and just around the corner. it being my neighborhood, i respect the planning guidelines of the dolores heights special use district, and i have done so op projectses of varying sizes for six of my neighbors within one block of my house over the past 19 years. listening to neighbors' concerns is what you do as a residential architect in san francisco and in dolores heights and your design to be inclusive of those concerns in relation to the guideline set up through this dolores heights special use district. specifically, as the guideline states, we have preserved private -- excuse me, i'll put the guidelines for the doral

heights up. specifically, in regards to our project and the requirements of the to recall doral heights special use district, we have preserved private quarters and the top floor has not moved from the original location and the lower two floors are against the building and of the downhill neighbor and our project is designed based on section 134 which describes alternative methods of averaging when you have a large project deck on one side of your property and to put the mass of your building up against that. we have not created an unreasonable obstruction of view and light. as has been described, the large offset for the uphill neighborhood provide openness and light to the windows. three, our rear addition does

not impinge upon mid block open spaces claimed by the dolores heights improvement club. as you have seen, the two much larger downhill neighbors already do that. we are 10 feet less with the project than their expansions into the mid block open space. four, we are in context and scale with established character and landscape. we stepped down into the backyard in a staggered fashion and the top floor remains where it is. the kitchen level at the second floor only extends as far as the existing deck and our bottom floor only aligns with the notch in the neighborhood's building and does not have an expansion. finally t guidelines specifically state that variances may be granted from the rear yard provisions of the guidelines which we did justify and were granted. i feel strongly that we have both -- may i finish?

president olague: thank you. if we have any more questions, we will call you up. are there any additional speakers in support of the project sponsor? >> i am jason jones and i live a quarter of a block down the street. i was asked to speak concerning a couple of things. first of all, roof decks, i have a roof deck on top of my house. i had it put in about a year and a half ago. jim was my architect as well for that. it added a whole -- it was just like the proposed house. it was a roof and then on top of the roof is now a roof deck with built-in kitchen area. we had to notify all of our neighbor and we had zero opposition.

we blocked one neighbor's view of the downtown from one level, from up above, and when i am up there, i can see into a lot of houses. it sits on a hill, it's san francisco, and from up there i know the neighbor at 3971 has a roof deck, across the street has a roof deck, down on the corner on the intersection of dhurj and 20th there's roof decks -- there's a lot of them. you look down and there is a lot of roof decks and people across cumberland behind me have a roof deck so it's pretty common. also regarding -- i mean, it's san francisco, and in my bedroom i can literally lie in bed and look in about two different living rooms of different people's homes. so we close curtains because it's san francisco and i am used to that. i was born here. the last thing is i'm just kind of -- i have had some -- there is that email string or

discussion with the dolores heights club and i was the one who actually was doing those emails because i found out that the club -- i had questions about how the club was run. and i just think that i'm not quite sure why they are really involved in this considering that they felt like thethey feln the proposed project for all reasonable and fair and makes sense. it is not a huge project. i was told the improvement club came about to prevent the demolition of single-family homes to build large apartment complexes. this is so far from that i am surprised they have gotten themselves involved, especially with the fact that the club has been somewhat self-destructive. i think a lot of the

neighborhood has been soured on the club and the way it is run. i think that is an important thing to think about, for and against this. those are my main points of wanted to say. the project seems to be reasonable. it is not very big. president olague: thank you. are there additional speakers on behalf of the project sponsor? seeing none, dr requestors have two minutes each of rebuttals time. >> i have been through a lot in terms of cyber bullying, i would say, in e-mail. i would like to give you a few facts. the sponsors are originally told dhic that there was only one

neighbor that accepted -- that objective. later, after the initial hearing about it, a bunch of neighbors came to me and said they all objected, and that they had discovered that to each one of them the project sponsor had said, "you are the only ones to object. why is that?" due to issues of conflict of interest and poor communication with dhic, we have restructured our design review committee to be part of our board, giving transparency. we previously had problems with a realtor who had sold some one a house being the person who was in the position of granting a variance. that did not seem like it was right. it seemed like that person should have excused himself.

we had that additional problem with an architect on the committee. the design review committee is now part of our board, since everyone is so aware of what goes on. it has been a problem. hopefully it is resolved. president olague: thank you. and the order, really. -- any order, really. >> two things. i have a slide. just to go back to the power point presentation -- this is actually the plants. these are the architect diagrams of what has been approved. they are visibly different.

where the back of one building lines up with the other is different. this is in your pack. what pam said -- a lot of us got the "you are the only one that is objecting." it was interesting in that i actually got it in writing. that should be in there somewhere. i ask them why i was being commented to that way, and i got no response. [no audio] president olague: thank you. next dr requestor.

>> commissioners, i just wanted to point out something that i think mr. paul may have omitted from his comments. as you know, we continued the hearing from the last time because some of the renderings that had been submitted by mr. savoy did not represent the actual conditions on the ground. this is an illustration of how it differed. if you notice, this is my property right here. this is actually not a continuous volume that goes all the way to the ground. it is about 12 feet off of grade. someone standing in the backyard here has a clear view of the green space. this keeps coming up as one of the reasons why it does not really matter if they extend 11 feet beyond the 45% sun line.