standards. alleys create a human-scale space, allowing penetration of sunlight, sky, and greenery in to the centers of blocks. whether an alley become successful is determined by a handful of factors -- scale, sun and sky availability, and greenery. this is the afternoon at 4:30, a shadow cast by the tall to story on the other side of number three. as a currency at 4:00 in the afternoon, the shuttle from number 7-9 is fully here on our neighbors, another two-story house. no. 1 will come across here and cast shows at the end of the alley -- shadows of the end of the alley, and will not meet your criteria for a pleasant urban space.

it will become a cold, windy tunnel. is that all the time i have? i have so many things to show you. thank you. we will try not to take your time. vice president miguel: speakers in favor of the dr? >> this says i have five more minutes. >> now you don't. i have reset the clock. >> my name is ken. i live on the block, across from the construction that is about to take place. first, can we see this? what i am here to do is show how to solve the problem. you can see we have a little house here, and a huge new thing

that is about to come up here and completely dwarf what is going on in our alley. we think there is a new way to design the house so it does not the war our alley or present some in the shadows. the first thing we recommend is a look at going down, excavation. the houses next to the one that is coming in have been excavated, as you can see. this is the little house. you can see it dips down. the new proposal does not excavate. the simplest solution would be to ask them to excavate. that would move the height of the house down. the second proposal that would add to it would be if the cantilever out-- they cantilevered out over the space. they would still have the room, and the height would be less. we would keep the square footage

the same. what we recommend is that the part on the side of their house could cantilever the would have all the square footage. there would still have parking. we would still have some light. thank you -- we would still have some light. -- sunlight. thank you. president olague: thank you. >> hello. my name is gay wong. our family owns the six unit building. what makes our concerns unique and different -- mccormick alley is our driveway for a five car parking area in the back of our building. as you can see, our gate opens

into the alley, immediately in front of the proposed construction site. we all use the alley as a driveway to access parking. the impacts on people and safety -- all the tenants are 80 and 90 years old. we require a safe area without the pressure we experience on jackson street. if you look at the picture, there are low hanging wires over the length of the building. you can see some of them here. you have heard concerns. now, we suggest a positive solution. as a minimum, we need assurance of working hours on a reasonable time, no weekend work, and on-

site contact person. and no more than two vehicles from the project in the alley and and the time, no overnight storage of materials, no nails, staples, or sharp objects in the roadway that can puncture tires, and the owners responsible to pay for repairs. 48 hours' notice when there will be a known blockage of more than 60 minutes. some form of penalty attached to the conditions of the permit, in case a violation occurs. for example, loss of permit for construction, towing of illegal vehicles. thanks for understanding how to access, safety, and wire overhangs will impact our day- to-day living activities.

>> my name is jessie stanshaw. i live directly across the street from the development. i have lived there since 1985. it has had the same character the whole time, five small cottages at the end of a dead- and alley. i have two brief points to make regarding this zoning, and the practical work ability of a product of this size at the end of a one lane debt and valley. -- dead-end alley. there is a lot of concern around proper zoning. i hope the commission can bring clarity to the issue. the initial notice of the

building permit application said the site was owned s rh-1 in a 40-x district. in the discretionary review, the planning department is saying it is a 65-a. it seems nobody has confidence in the zoning for the project site. anything you can do to help clarify that would be much appreciated. neighbors have experienced trouble in trying to determine how paul the proposed building will be. the original notice of a building permit applications said the building would be 30 feet tall, revised notice that the building would be 30 feet tall. the planning department is now saying the building will be 27

feet 10 inches tall. the drawings submitted by the developers say the building will be 29 feet, 4 inches. in the end, it is impossible to know what the developer has proposed, what the planning department thinks it recommends, what the permits might approve, and what the commission is being asked to review. there is so much inconsistency on the important issue of height that further review by the commission is necessary. as a practical matter, i do not believe a project of this size can be squeezed into the very small space at the end of our hourly. for example, most projects sites do not fit at the end of a dead-end street that is too narrow to turn around. you cannot even do a three-point turn in this alley. most project sites do not completely blocked access to parking space. having a single truck stop to

drop off lumber would be exactly the same as somebody pulling a cart into a driveway so that a car could not accept a garage. every time citing debts brought to the site, it will be someone -- every time siding gets brought to the site, it will be someone blocking the driveway. president olague: thank you. and are there additional speakers in support of the dr requestor? >> only in rebuttal. president olague: seeing none, project sponsor. >> madam chairman, members of the commission, i represent the

people wanting to build the house here. we have a well thought out, sensitively designed project, in character with the alley. it needs planning requirements, goes well beyond presidential guidelines, and has support of the planning department. it is lower, narrower, and less deep than zoning permits, with yard space consistent with surrounding buildings. we have considered the requests of surrounding neighbors, as stated in their memorandum which supported demolishing the existing building. their biggest concern was height, related to shuttling, when dynamics, and the -- shadowing, wind dynamics,

and the height. we have the same size as the no. 2 on the street, and it skillet the neighbors. we do not show the windows -- shadow the windows to the north of us. we do not shadow windows in buildings across the street until late in the day. our next-door neighbor to the north requested we not look into their rear-yard windows, not shade there -- their rear yard, and not shadow the skylights. side yard options do not work on our lot.

where the grade is higher, a car would lock the window for 2/3 of the building death. two-story schemes for the site offer many more disadvantages for neighbors. the structure would extend line to lot line, with minimal setbacks. it would only be 4 feet shorter, and would still need a set back on the roof. the side yard and the rear yard would be gone, and we would loom over and shut down number -- and shadow number three. here are some blocked sections

right here. here are some blocked sections, right here. the dr filing mentioned construction limiting access to the alley. we commented this on the 2010 meeting. we have designed the building to be constructed with minimal disturbance, on existing grade, using the existing foundation, with ample yard staging, and set back the raw space that can be used by the contractor. we will meet dpw requirements for access to the property. this is a well-designed project for neighbors and the city at large. our height is below the zoning limits. it is below the height recommended for narrow streets, and two stories below surrounding buildings on the block. we cover only 45% -- which cover

only 45% of the lot area on a block that is over 92% covered with buildings. we propose a generous side and rear yard. wheat step back more than neighbors. we have a simple roof to look down upon. we are designed to a net energy zero goal. it is an accessible residents, reached in a hilly part of the city, a home we can live in as it gets older. it is very desirable in the heart of the city. we urge you to allow us to go forward. we have spent 2.5 years in the planning process. president olague: speakers in support of the project sponsor?

are there any? seeing no speakers in support, we will hear from the rh- -- from the dr requestor. >> i live at no. 3 mccormack, immediately adjacent to the proposed building site. we have a tiny little speck of a house that shows up when it is compared to what is being proposed. right here. to respond to the other point, he said parking is not doable at the site. the notice of a building permit application says that the site has a parking space. it has historically been used for parking, since we can all remember, going way back. it says there it has an existing parking spot. you can use the existing spot.

the height of the building comes down 10 feet. everybody is happy. the reason the neighbors got together to support a project that would be roughly the same size but in 2008 is because we expected the building only to be 26 maximum. but this will be 35 feet tall, when you consider the penthouse at the top. that is wildly out of scale of what we had envisioned. although they say it is within scale, under the guidelines for building a home in an alley, it is only supposed to be 1.25 times the width of the alley. look at the drawing. that is the street level, for all intents and purposes. 29 feet. it is 4 feet to hide. the planning department has said that because there is a setback, we should not consider the actual height of the building. between you and me, the setback

is 4 feet. it is not material. for all purposes, the mass of the building is staring you in the face at street level. it should not be 25 feet. it should not be higher than 25 feet. president olague: thank you. project sponsor, you have two minutes. >> thank you, chairman. the building at one time had a star penthouse on it that went up to 35 feet. we took that out for the 311 notice. we took a flat roof with a 30 foot high parapet and tilted the roof down to the street, creating a hike on the street for only 26 feet. it slopes up at the minimum height for the metal roofing system. when you are on the street and look at this building, a 20 ft.

wide street, the face of the building on the street is actually 18 feet. the topper ruling is about 22 feet. when you look at that angle, steeper than 45 degrees, you do not see anything beyond that. this is the same with all the buildings up and down the alley. side yard parking does not work for us. it is the high end of the lot. the car would be above the level of the house. we are proposing a 7.5 ft side yard. we have to have a retaining wall for the neighbor's property. the usable with is only 7 feet. why can't we parklike the neighbor across the street? the property owners set back their wall 18 inches, so they have 9 feet to parkin. the floor level is 4 feet up.

again, is that the end? president olague: keep going. >> if we went to two stories, we would raise the height of our lower floor 1 foot. we have lowered the height of our top floor and our lower floor to the 7 foot minimum, to get down as low as we can. we would go back up to 8 foot on the lower level. we would be above the 1,000 foot requirement, requiring parapets around the building. the fight would go up to 24 feet. it is only 2 feet different. president olague: the public hearing is closed. commissioner moore: based on questions from the public, i would like clarification on zoning and permissible height. there seemed to be people pointing to inconsistent reports here. >> commissioners, the zoning is rh-1, as stated in the notice.

there was an error in the notice. the height is 65-a, and it did say 40-x in the 311 notice. commissioner antonini: i am sorry if this question was answered while i was outside the room. for project sponsor or staff, was there an explanation of dropping the entire staff a little -- the entire building a little lower, as was asked by dr requestor? >> thank you, commissioner. to drop it down to a two-story building enlarges the area of the building over a thousand square feet. that means we would have a parapet around the building. the net height change would be

from the 22 foot high railing to 24 feet, only about 8 2 ft difference. -- a 2 foot difference. commissioner antonini: i was not talking about a number of floors. maybe i misinterpreted. they wanted to lower the entire building, leaving the envelope the same, but bringing it down to make it shorter at street level. >> to get parking, we have to pull the car off the street. the building is only 35 feet deep. the car takes up 22 feet of that would hide it. you go into the building and walked in that grade. if we drop the site down 4 feet to the backyard, which it does currently -- it is level for about 8 feet back into the

property, and then the floor drops 2.5 feet. our car would come in at grade. the place where the car sits would be built up about 2.5 feet. but you cannot lower the building, because there is no way to get a garage. commissioner antonini: there is a grade change already, is what you were saying. i mean existing. >> existing. you walked into the building -- you enter at the 1/3 level. commissioner antonini: why you are up -- looking at the design from the back, i think from the street level it looks fine, but in the back it sits up there. i am not sure if that was brought up as casting more of a shadow. is there a reason the roof is higher in the back? do you have to have that pitch that goes higher? was that to let more like index

>> -- likght in? >> we took what was a flat roof and tilted it down to the street, so the shuttle on the street side is lower. -- shadow on the street side is lower. we tried to get it as low as it could. commissioner antonini: it does not work with a traditional pitched roof. you need that flat roof to make that top floor habitable. >> we wanted a simple route to look down on. we also have solar panels. there is not enough area on half the roof to accommodate solar panels and solar hot water panels. we're going for a net zero goal. you are down to less than a third of the roof to put panels

on. commissioner antonini: i appreciate what you are doing. i just want to make sure it fits in with the neighborhood. >> we are lower than the other two buildings on our side of the street. if you can look at the section here -- commissioner antonini: i think the height is fine. the roof treatment. most of the rest of them are more historic buildings with pitched roofs. >> that is not true. all the buildings on the block are flat, except for the two directly across. commissioner antonini: i see those. thank you. commissioner moore: i have a feeling this building tries to do too much for the small street it wants to exist on. it is a very large home for an area where, because of the elie

conditions -- alley conditions, it is too large to do all the things. i am in support of solar panels. but it cannot be done at the expense of everybody else. i do not believe the building, at least from a contractual response to the alley architecture, is good looking. i think it is dominated, on the ground floor, by a huge garage door. looking at the other buildings, which are small-scale and people oriented, this is very car- oriented. the facade is the expression of a garage door, and the entrances to the right.

i personally like some of the ideas described by the other neighbors, by lowering the building slightly or modifying its overall massing. i am not really quite there, one way or the other. i am interested to hear what the other commissioners are saying. vice president miguel: i think the building is within the guidelines. i do not think it is out of scale. i think the height differences are very, very minor that we are talking about here. i do have the state that the comments regarding staging hours, etc., have nothing to do with planning. they have to do with dbi. as the department mentioned, if there was to be excavation, it would exasperate the entire building process, as well as the

cost of trying to put the building together. it is currently using at least its forms, if i understand it correctly, the existing foundation. i do not have a problem with the roofline. the house is possibly a little larger than others on the block, but if you take a look at the house right next door, that is a bit of an exception in the neighborhood. it is extremely small. i do not think that can be used as a guideline at all. with that being said, i would move not to take dr, approved the demolition and the new construction as proposed. commissioner borden: second. commissioner moore: i want to make another comment, aside from the building. i believe the package in front

of us is extremely weak. the drawings are in complete -- incomplete. it is not descriptive of what i expect for a project of this kind, particularly if it involves a demolition. my documents missed the labeling for two floors. it is in complete form a. i can imagine enough to fill in the blanks. i would like to point out to the department that this type of package, in comparison to what we have looked at as being laudatory and complete, falls far short of what i am expecting. i think it is time we set out a consistent message to applicants that what is expected here is an acknowledgement and a depiction of the circumstance in which we are, that is include photographs of the buildings, some short

narrative about what the inside are surrounding this particular project, and slightly more involved, readable drawings, which consistently in a scale or manner what is intended here. i am repeating that my particular package misses the two upper proposed floors of what's intended here. i might be the only one. on the other hand, i know how to read plans and imagine what is proposed here. so i don't want to make a big deal. i want to repeat my concerns about the department not using consistent standards when it comes to bringing d.r.'s to this particular commission. president olague: one of the speakers mentioned concerns around the construction and the noise and this type of thing. and that there would be a contact person should any of that get a little bit out of