this case really argues for a scale model. it argues there is a complete down slope there. it is very difficult to get around what i am saying is that only the north side should be relevant to your discussion. i strongly encourage you to take dr to reduce this project to two single-family units. that would eliminate the need for the parking variance. president olague: are there any additional speakers? seeing none, project sponsor. >> i am brett gladstone. i would like to introduce a new addition to our office. i represent tom and gene. i want to thank ben fu. we had three meetings with the

neighborhood, three with the design review board separately. about muni, i am not going to go into it. as you probably know, the family behind me that is building this army and the people. the can tell you there is a bryant street stop two blocks away, and there is a turn -- [shouting from the audience] this is a case about parking and units. the design review board could not have said it more clearly. that board is not an overnight organization. it has been around a long time. i respect it more than some groups that just arrived overnight. your staff thinks that are wrong about compliance with the design review guidelines. some of what they say simply does not follow today's policies. we told you very simply. they have the extra parking requirement not only because

they like cards, -- like cars, but they try to keep your lots than the zoning allows, and they want smaller units. it is a trade-off between parking and cars. because people can walk to muni stops, i do not think it is the place to give up units for cars. tom bought this land for his family, as you know. he is putting his daughter and grandson in the units. he grew up a few blocks away. his mother still lives there. the rentals will be keeping the mortgage payments down, allowing his children to live there for less and giving him returned income. he is not a developer. the design review board -- is a long letter. if you read it, it separates its concerns from the immediate neighbors concerns.

read it carefully. the design review board has only two remaining concerns. we have made 10 or 12 changes the architect will tell you about. but there are two left. one is that the design review board once the upper floor of the lowest building of the hill to be smaller. the design review board once seven parking spaces instead of four. regarding the lower floor, that is an important part. that is the floor where rhonda, her husband, and their children will be living. big need three bedrooms. the design review board would take a rare and a 7 foot setback and go from 7 feet to 15 feet setback, with a five-foot said back on the side. that leaves a room of eight to 9

feet in length. 19 feet in size is enough to have a stairway to get up to a bathroom. that is about it. we ask you to keep that in mind. i do have drawings to show you in my rebuttal. if the commission wanted a reduction, there is a way to do it. the way to do it is not to set it back and the side. there is shifting that can be done. regarding the parking, we do not have to do five. we offered five to the neighborhood. we could do four. they look the same from the outside. if you wish us to do five, there was a mistake in the drafting of the drawing, and the mistake is that i just learned that the

drafter drew in a full-size cars in compact spaces. that is the reason you cannot find people opening the door to get in. if you do not want 5, that is fine. regarding the flooding and the sidewalk, on rebuttal i can talk about it. i met with the p.w. and the architect -- with dpw and the architect. they thought we were creating a safer sidewalk. i can go into that later. some of the important things to remember is that there is a good 25 feet between me dr requestor's home and the side of our building. that is generous, especially by san francisco standards. president olague: speakers in support of the project sponsor. seeing none. dr requestor respective -- dr

requestors, you have two minutes each. >> commissioners, i am almost beside myself. the sponsors response to our complaints -- it is terribly upsetting. if mr. arcolini works for muni, he clearly does not take a bus. we will stand by our commitment. there is not a bus stop within three blocks of that property. there is not. if you do, you have to climb a mountain to get there. secondly, this irrelevant stuff that gets in there -- i don't know. the owner of the property owns three other properties, one of which is a six-unit apartment building not a half mile from where we are talking about.

if he has a problem with renting income in retirement, there is something wrong with the other three buildings he owns. thank you. president olague: would you like the additional two minutes? project sponsor, you have two minutes. >> i wanted to talk a little bit about the sidewalk. i and the architect met with dpw and with the building department, and what they like about what we are doing is the following. there is a wall that has been cut in two. that now creates a dangerous condition. a car could skid off the roadway

and down into the sidewalk. we will be cutting back that wall, making it a safe corner. the driveway across it will be safe. what the city also likes is that where the wall used to be, the neighbor next door has created a bump in the sidewalk which has a 30 degree angle because she wanted to make a level entrance from the street into her garage. that will be even off in front of our properties so it is only a 20 degree. at the lower end, there will be a compensation. there will be better lighting. people now walk down that the sidewalk below the roadway with no lights. there will the foliage there and additional planting. what dpw also likes is currently in the winter the rain comes down the sidewalk, with

hampshire street properties and everything down there. with the drainage provided on either side of the new sidewalk, the water will go directly down into city drains, and not over all the soil and fled the bottom. they are also happy that at certain points there will be foliage and soil to retain the water. i would also like to point out that the randomness of the water flow is really to be contained. president olague: public hearing is closed. commissioner moore: this is a very interesting discussion. this description is not substantiated in the drawings. the drawings to not indicate more than that there is a 20%

drop into the garage without the necessary transitional grade. from what i can tell, and it is more important to meet -- it is not the words i hear. it is engineering points that show this particular project, whatever size, depending on how many cars we require for this thing to do -- that the project itself is not accessible without interfering and impairing the public realm. this is an extremely difficult situation, one of san francisco is steepest streets. the unusual mass of having a street where you operate on two levels is almost like being on a roller coaster, whatever that thing is called. in any case, if this project

would honestly show us that it worked from an engineering point, i would perhaps give this some thought. but i do know that the way the garage is drawn does not work. you cannot stipulate what kind of cars your renters will drive or your owners, that they are three compact cars out of five. that is in itself very speculative. should those people on larger cars, there will obviously be doing the loop de loo on the public streets. for us to consider this project, it is not as much branting a -- granting a variance, but having substantive points beyond the word of mr. gladstone -- the architect is not make any

attempt to do so. i am not sure when this project was applied for internally. the 2010 code has a slightly different interpretations on doors and stairs. i do not even want to talk about it. i am really concerned about how this project meets the rest of the world. i think the neighbors support and we all support appropriate development where it can be done. at this moment, i do not have enough evidence that this will work. vice president miguel: this whole project and this whole area is exceptional and extraordinary. you first have to find the block. i grew up around it several times. i could not find a minibus stop two blocks away. if there is one, i have no idea where it is. i looked at the muni maps and i still could not come out to be

truthful. there is no question in my mind that a 15 foot setback, if this project was going to be built, is an absolute necessity. i took a look at the one drawing that shows the scope of the garage, not very well done as far as i am concerned. i park pandemic on a steep street and have to back out into traffic. at least one eye back out i am somewhat level. my wife is lower than in the car than me. it takes a lot of time to back out. she can actually see in back of her. you cannot see the street, if i am looking at that grade. it is totally impossible to see the street along the sidewalk. it cannot be done. it is an extremely dangerous attrition.

that, coupled with the variance request for cars, does not make me want to consider this project at this stage. commissioner antonini: thank you. i actually took a trip out there yesterday. very interesting. i took a ride along holliday, where i had never been before. right along the 101, it gives you perspective of the neighborhood. they have done a beautiful job of putting all the streetlights underground recently in many parts of the -- in many parts of bernal heights, which makes it a lot nicer. i appreciate the testimony by the woman at 17 malcolm who talked early in the hearing and mentioned she was the only one without a car on the hill and the only reason she could do it if she was retired and could spend her whole day getting to the bus stop. this is typical of much of san francisco.

these people who insist we do not need cars are not grounded in reality. a lot of the times, they are either not working or that are working for an employer that is very liberal about the hours to get here. i have people on russian hill of like you to meet who testified last week. to the substance of our hearing today, i have concerns about being able to back up the ramp to get to the street, which apparently is the plan. i think this is potentially a very good project. i am not concerned about the size. the hill slopes steeply down toward caesar job as -- cesar chavez. it drops down to have the lower floor. the parking is a concern. we may have to have a continuance or some more considerations to see if we can figure out a way that you can

get whatever the appropriate amount of parking is, be it five cars or four cars. i do not think you are going to get eight cars, which would be the code -- 7. i do not know if there is enough space. whatever you do, you have to get the parking in there and you have to come to a place maybe with a ramparts to the parking garage, so that when they are approaching the street it is more level with the street. then you would have a chance to be able to move your car around and be able to drive directly out onto the street. peralta does have that retaining wall. you have to come out and make would be a right turn out of there. it is going to be really tough if you are trying to back up the hill at peralta. that needs to be worked out. i am sympathetic to the situation that to make the project work you probably need two units on each one.

if it turns out the project sponsor can do it with single- family, that would be fine. i do not know if it is going to work. the key to me is figuring out a way to get the parking so that it can be accessed from a level site, and creating enough space so that the cars parked there would have the ability to back up with in the garage and then proceed forward to come out onto peralta. commissioner fong: i will make this very quick. i am familiar with this block. i have three friends that live there. it is one of our most narrow streets. i have had the challenge of trying to park there athile goi dinner. it is very difficult. i do know it slopes on two accesses, one downhill and one sideways so it's like a mystery house. i'm not going to try to play architect but file like you have

a lot going on here trying to squeeze it into one site. so i'm not sure how we want to move forward. trying to do an awful lot on a very nice site, but a tight one. president olague: commissioner sugaya? commissioner sugaya: i would like to agree with fellow commissioner's comments. i think it's a little bit overscaled compared to the other buildings in the neighborhood. one of the factors i think in the neighborhood that had some diversity, if want to call it that, on this side they're almost all flat-roofed. i think they're one story over garage, maybe two. across the street you have similar maybe size but because of the gable, you gain some height. and i don't know if you can play with the design in some way in that manner to make an appearance of the building less

bulky and -- and i don't know about -- i'm not so opposed to trying to get three or four units in here but if it doesn't result externally in a building that's compatible with the neighborhood, then you may have to drop back to two single families. also parking seems to be a big issue. i don't think seven spaces is a starter for this commission. i can't speak for the rest of the commissioners. but if there's going to be four units, i think that probably five is going to be about the max that at least this commissioner would look at. and if you're going to have fewer units, obviously, you're going to have fewer parking spaces. that's all i have for now. i haven't been in this neighborhood for a number of years. i used to live on the north

slope of bernal and used to drive around the hill and stuff. a little bit familiar but it's been a number of years. but i do remember the neighborhood as having very narrow streets and actually kind of liked it that way. president olague: commissioner moore? commissioner moore: i would like to suggest we take discuss and review. there's potentially a split here, one way is not approve this project. very simple. another one is to spell out specifically what the preconditions are for redesigning this project, because many of the -- many of the basic assumptions for this project are not defendable. the most important one to me is starting with the engineering, the civil engineering and accurate information beyond wors and architects know how to do that, which tells us that the grades, cuts molding of retaining walls work with street safety, pedestrian safety and

drainage requirements, three important civil issues, which all will be altered by cutting back the retaining wall. the next one is not just like small-size cars but whatever fits into this constrained situation parked full-size cars with the proper transitional grade coming forward, not backing into this public right of way so the exit and egress into this garage is safe and compatible with where this particular building is. that means it yields a smaller building, that is really all we need to know, as much as we support identification but everything has its place and its time. if it doesn't work, it doesn't work. but i'm very kind of unhappy that words are being used to justify something which really is not substantiated by the board and any of us can see the garage door is not open and you don't build a house for

ownership or rental by saying, you're going to be driving a small car. that's not the way the real world works. so you have to be sizing this project to what fits the size and what works technically. and perhaps somebody can help me here, i'm prepared to send it back and not deny it because it would take a year for these people to come back, correct? >> correct. if we denied the project, it would take a year. if you want to continue it, we can continue it for a couple months -- a month. commissioner moore: can you help us with this particular -- >> if the project were to be denied, they could not apply for a like project for a year. they could come back with a modified project that addresses the commissions concerns within one year and that would be provable. commissioner moore: if this were modified and requiring major modifications, would it have to conform to the 2010 or previous building code? >> this building code was submitted in 2009 and under the

building code, it depends on the date the application is submitted. so it would be subject to the 2007 building code rather than the 2010. if the application were denied and they were to resubmit in 2010 or 2011, they would be subject to the newer building code. commissioner month moore: but the architect could decide voluntarily to make it comply at least on the stair issue and on the door issue to comply to 2010? >> i believe that's correct. commissioner moore: that's a solid point and not a deal killer. >> if i could add a few small notes about the parking issue because parking here in bernal heights for new construction is based on the square footage and not the number of dwelling units. so even if they went down to two dwelling units, if they were the same size, they would have the second parking space requirement. in bernal heights, they allowed the first required parking space to be full sized and subsequent parking spaces to be compact, compact at 127 square feet as

the neighbors had noted. so i would like to know from commissioner moore if that would be acceptable, the compact space would be acceptable? commissioner moore: it just has to be a car space which works. that's -- and 127 does work with opening a smaller car and side doors. it's really right sizing the project. that's the challenge here. and what that means, don't know. but i would say to send it back and right size the project. president olague: you want to make a motion to continue for the end of june? commissioner moore: yes, not to wait until it's submitted. president olague: you want to make a motion to continue until -- what date were you thinking? really the end of june is what we're looking at. maybe 90 days or would you be ok with -- don't know. commissioner moore: i would say it takes easily, some complicated in here, it would take four months to do this. this is not an easy project.

president olague: so we're looking at july. >> july 14th or july 21. >> 14th. president olague: july 14th. is there a second? >> second. president olague: commissioner moore, those were sort of some of your instructions. commissioner moore: from what everybody else else was saying. great. commissioner antonini: i would like to see this project go forward. i would like to see it go forward. it has to be revised as we pointed out because this would be a great addition, underutilized space. going to be a great view out of there and it has a lot of other benefits. but i think we made it pretty clear as far as the parking has to work out so the people exiting the garage can do so in a safe manner and also as far as the number of parking will kind of be a product of the square

footage might be somewhat reduced, which might put new compliance with bernal heights or the number of units may be changed to a smaller number of units. they may be fairly large units as was pointed out by mr. sanchez, they may have the same requirements but the commission has the discretion to allow a variance for fewer -- ok, the zoning administrator would be able to do that if they were, you know, downsized and there was enough room for people to maneuver in there. it might be acceptable to have someone fewer numbers of parking spaces. i have to see what the neighborhood says. and what the neighbors weigh in on it. but there are three bedrooms and two bedroom and nice family-sized homes which are good and we need those. hopefully we can get something worked out that means those requirements for july.

i'm going to throw something -- i am going to throw something out that don't know if the f they will be happy about. i took a look at that open space and don't know why the lots were emerged and one four-building unit wasn't designed? >> the zoning it rh-2. you may be able to exceed that based upon the watt size but that would be through a conditional lease authorization. we haven't done the calculations. at most maybe three years. vice president miguel: i think it would solve a lot of problems. commissioner sugaya: i was going to suggest since we have time here that the project sponsor should be discussing whatever changes are being made with the neighborhood. in this interim period.

director rob? >> i just want to understand -- most of the discussion has been about the parking. president olague: i think it's too bulky personally. >> you want to reduce the buildings. >> overscale with the existing neighborhood. seems a little out of character to me. i think if they can work with that, that's what i would like to see, a reduction in square footage and potentially reduction in parking that would be required based on that. commissioner moore? commissioner moore: i felt that the neighborhood was really not trying to not have a building here. and i think the discussion of architecture might have to go the same way. didn't eelly come to all aspects of the project and talk to each other and then we can, if there's no further major d.r. issues take that guidance also. president olague: commissioner

antonini? commissioner antonini: i'm ok of it having the three floors on the downhill side because of the top ography. it may involve perhaps having living spaces more on the bottom and parking up more towards the top. i'm just throwing that out as probably the -- not the most desired way to do it but it might be a possibility. president olague: it's not just a question of the parking, but how this architecture or this building does or does not conform with the existing neighborhood and i don't find it to be necessarily contextual or compatible with what's there. commissioner sugaya? commissioner sugaya: it would be really great if things coo get worked out in the interim -- could get worked out in the interim period. president olague: that would be fantastic, with the neighbors. yes. commissioners, motion on the floor is for continuance to july 14th. i'm assuming the public hearings will remain open. president olague: yes, that's correct. >> on that motion -- >> aye