no way we would be getting our projects approved. you would be ashamed and none of talking about taking into account -- you would be ashamed uof taking into account what makes that community special. we said how frustrating is that they spent five years working with us. it is not like this is a lot of fun for us. we once again find ourselves in front of a commission appealing a staff position because we are trying to save some trees or our neighborhood where we are trying to make sure they put space between the houses so at least

there is some light. they are famous for those developments were block after block is house connected to house on all sides. what is the point of living in a beautiful neighborhood is all you can see is the front of these buildings? nothing like that has been considered, and those are the kinds of simple request we have been considering. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i am a member of the east slope design review board. first, an explanation. over several meetings, the design review board was shown designed for five houses and descriptions of four others by an owner who owned 11 of the 12

locks, and and that is what you see on your screen. especially interesting was the scheme to access the interior lots with the right of way. at one point, a permit to cut down some of the trees was the ninth. -- was denied. the current project still proposes to use a driveway and also as a sewer line. this will have an affect on a large section of city-owned land. it will be affecting birds and wildlife and changing the slope of the hill with retaining walls or grating down the contours. also the slope of the three houses should be looked at to

make sure they are in context with this neighborhood. >> thank you for a hearing this.

i live at 178 brewster street. our neighborhood is concern that this look at a large project for all the lots. even though she sold to a contractor, we still feel that the size of the houses and the size of the project is going to be a big impact on our neighborhood, and of these homes, two of them are speculation homes to be built as a profit-making home. one is to be built for a private party to be lived in by the person who built it. the others are speculation homes. we are very concerned they are not concerned with anything in the neighborhood. all they want to do is build the homes and make their profits and get out, so in thinking about that, if they put in the sewer lines for these three homes, we

believe the infrastructure is going to lead to the development of all the rest of the lots. the size of the homes is going to block out the light and air from the homes. it really is going to become a tunnel. if you have not been down the walk, which is a true neighborhood treasurer, building on that lot is going to ruin the aspect, which is one of the joys of our neighborhood. i urge you to look at this triggered all but one of the homes are proposed to be it spec homes to be built for profits and not just to be enjoyed by individuals. thank you. >> good evening. my name is robert underwood.

one of the things i wanted to point out, none of us have any place to park. the way the parking spaces have been illustrated here is a related -- is a little bit unrealistic, unless these are small and cars. goousually there are four cars,d parking is pretty scarce already. if there is a limit to how many houses can be built at one time without triggering this report,

if they consistently make small projects, at some point there has to be a tipping point where you say, and of projects are here that if they all came at once, a winter -- they would trigger a dr, but you say, there is only one house or three houses. i am trying to reiterate the scope of the projects when they are finally completed. thank you. >> thank you. >> good evening, commissioners. i appreciate the fact there is a public forum where we can bring the concerns to you for a fair

and impartial hearing. when we first moved here, the street was under road. -- was a dirt road. when this was built, our assumption was this was going to provide improvements. when it was built, we found a lot of the work was not taking into consideration the actual needs of people on streets every atypical and undeveloped. in the reports you have seen, the developer has said we have checked with public works, etc., i must tell you the

infrastructure built in the mid 90's was not adequate. i was home on july 42001 when a fire was started at the bottom of the hill by two little girls. it became a wild fire and burned of all whole slope. our house was the only house of the time. i was woken from a nap in the afternoon with the sound of popping that i thought was fireworks. i looked out my window, and one of my trees was on fire. what i was hearing was in flames. t'bl/ 911, and they o find the closest hydrant, and

they said, what do you recommend. i said to come to the top of the street, because the fire is at the top of the hill. the trucks could not get through. the fire fighter called the police, who were turning off hoses so the fire department could get pressure to put out that fire. i must beg you to have an environmental impact report that takes into account all of the unique factors of the neighborhood. i am sorry to take up one more moment. right now brewster street is a sizable to only one vehicle at a time. if to vehicles meet, one of them has to back up. x1f3tmu>> good evening, commiss.

i am an nine-year resident of joyous street. one of the concerns i have businesses -- i have is the real lack of planning. we are concerned about this approach, but really there are 10 or more lots that have to be looked at in the big picture. the infrastructure that is going to be needed to provide service to these buildings immediately sets of the remaining lots to be developed for current owners because infrastructure is in place for all of the lots.

we have struggled to collaborate with them. on the rare occasions we have not been asked to meet with them, there has never been a proactive approach to reach out to neighborhoods to see where there might be opportunities to resize the homes to fit the character of the homes. every night i walked up those stairs. i am going to look at five stories of the buildings in front of me, and the majority of stockholm's are two or three stories tall. the scale does not fit into the the other concern i have is the staging for equipment and surprises. while the homes are under construction, that is going to severely impact it.

that is going to chew up parking and holiday. i have to park on holiday or brewster, and as this project moves forward, it is going to have a significant impact on the neighborhood for several years in terms of parking. >> are there are additional speakers in favor of the the are? if not, project sponsor? >> good evening, president miguel and commissioners. her partner began this project in 2005 as a much larger project. it has been reduced over the years in size and scope and the

number of units in attempts to address concerns raised by neighbors. the original developer has passed away three years ago, and right before that happened, she could see he wasl"3:x not doing well, and she sold two of the lots and kept one for herself, and contrary to the nightmare scenarios being painted, she has no desire to develop any other lots. she only got involved in this is by nature of her partnership with the original developer. we recognize the companion case is for two homes on adjacent lots, but her proposal is for a single-family home. we believe she has addressed every concern raised by neighbors over the years since

2005. at this point there are no substantive issues. with regard to joy street, i did not hear a single person suggesting there is 90 feet between houses. i do not think you can find that kind of a 90-foot setback from the home on any other street or stairway in san francisco. i doubt if it exists. the public works department has determined they have adequate sewer and water, and of course these people are professionals, and if it did not have all those connections, nothing could be built superior -- nothing could be built. all of the other concerns have been resolved years ago.

she will not build any additional homes on the remaining lots. she is willing to sell the remainder of the property to the city to keep this open space if you so desire. the whole point is to address the neighbors' concerns about the original five-unit project and not to avoid housing requirements as has been alleged by a least one of the speakers. gooif the speaker does not wante property or someone should apply, the application would be subject now to discretionary review at this commission and would be evaluated on its own merits.

in the event in which it should be built on her property, she is willing to pay her fair share of fees on a cumulative basis for the scope of the original 2005 a proposal under the laws and fees applicable today, so that is quite good evidence there have been no attempt to avoid affordable housing as some people have a legend those are fabrications periods -- are fabricated. we request they allow them to wrote stay as proposed. we will both be available for questions. thank you. >> good evening.

i do not know how thoroughly he reviewed the plans. i could spend a lot of time walking through the plans if you would like, but what i would like to say first of all, we have worked extremely diligently, more than any other project i have worked on with neighbors. we have ice huge number of meetings. we got a letter on a eighth of october, 2006. we responded to every issue. we made major revisions. we received another letter in december. we responded to every issue again i do not need to go over

the history. this has been narrowly approved. it has been approved by the planning department's, the environmental review. i want to stress again, some of the things we did over the course of time attempting to negotiate with neighborhood groups, and we inc. and landscaping on the news sidewalk, so now there is going to be a new sidewalk. we rearrange the driveway to get as many parking spots as we could. we revise the entries to satisfy

their concerns. we revised for the neighborhood but also in response to the comments. we revised the rules treatments. we revise the materials not once but three times for the neighborhood. they were not satisfied. i want to stress the fact that 90 feet away is going to be the construction of these houses. i still have 30 seconds. most of the boulevards and avenues of this city are less than an 90 feet. there are some issues, but i am not going to take the time. we have worked so hard to try to i do not know what else to do.

>> members of the commission. i have submitted an" extensive package to you addressing the issues. essentially, some of you have laid out the fact that on the technical issue, the fire department, water pressure is often carefully evaluated by my client. my client happens to have purchased two of the lots with plans and to ensure they would be approved by the department itself and there would be no outstanding issue. nevertheless, after i became the

attorney, i noticed it was supposed to be three separate applications for three separate houses, so i discussed that with mr. bollinger, and we did the environmental review for the three buildings on booster street. i think the concern of the neighbors is really focused mainly on joy street. i think when you look at the facades on booster street, you are looking at a two-story building. it is not a tall building. it has been masked according to the planning code to make sure you do not have this shahzad that goes four or 5 feet.

i think of this commission is concerned about the undeveloped lot, one of the approaches that could be taken is to approve the projects my client has for the stairway and to look at all the rest of it in terms of total development, but at the same time, i think that it has such special character that when any department, the department is going to treat them very differently, that you are not going to be having a cookie cutter buildings before you know, which is what they are

afraid of, so i think there is no reason not to approve this project at this time. pff:tjnñ>> speakers in favor ofe project sponsor? >> the evening -- good evening. i have been working on this since 2006, and some of the issues that have been brought up such as the slope of the site, i have been practicing for over 27 years, and half my projects have this challenge. san francisco is a difficult place to build. if you cannot build on 39% sloths, i would not have any work in my office.

there is nothing unusual about this. we have foundation systems adeqe slope. and more importantly, we should not be discussing the technical aspects of the foundation. this is aside from it. we're going to be faced with a department of building inspection that will be an addendum to the structural drawings. there will be a structural review by competent engineers who have nothing to do with planning. but simply to delay and derail the project. my client, one of the partners on this project literally died waiting for resolution of this project.

what we're talking about here is a single-family dwelling. two stories on burster. it is a sloping site. there are more stories on the back. so what? so is st. germain. i can go on for hours where that happens. why prevent my client to build what is properly designed that needs every -- meets every single guideline of our book that has been approved by planning? why else -- what else we have to do, but the neighbors? we're tired of that. we're tired of begging. thank you.

>> good evening, commissioners. i was -- first became aware of this project when i met mr. colcannon. he explained to me and the other board members have he had recently purchased the sides and as he began to tell the story, i realized he had not been out to visit with the neighbors. and at our urging, he sat down and we engaged in a conversation with mr. bowdon and we began -- we asked for the continuance so we could have a dialogue and understand what was at the core of this issue. at the meetings, we went over the eastern slope massing guidelines. we explained one by one. we showed how the parking had

been revised to maximize street parking. i pointed out that the massing on burster street, burster street is primarily three stories with some four story buildings across from these houses, there is a four story house. at one point in the meeting, we were gathered at the top of the stairs and i invited the group to come down in front of 187 and 191 burster. i asked him, what can mr. colcannon do for you? what can he do to amend your concerns? and there was a long silence. the silence was eventually broken with the stories that explained it was not about 187, 183, or 191. it has to do with the fear and anxiety of what is going to come on joye street.

this led to a conversation where there's this concern that a project or plan will somehow be cut and paste and the exact same things you see will get approved on joye street. our planning process will make fun of it and will kalpoe get it and will market. -- we all hope fun at it and we market. if we establish different patterns, the pattern is very different from the existing block pattern on joye street. i've seen cases where the two identical houses will not even fit on the same block because one-half of the block might have another block pattern than the other half. at some point we have to have faith in our system and our system will insure if anything happens on joye street it will happens on joye street it will fit into the existing b