>> you may have had people in your life you finish sentences for. please do not mistake me for one of them. >> we have dealt with many developers on many major projects but this is the first who has refused to negotiate with us, that has refused to talk to the neighborhood and consider our input versus insisting on what they want. in 2010 this eir was disapproved. the cu was voted against. the variances were not granted. we're told the changes are so minimal and eir does not to be re-circulated. the project is essentially the same at the design is entirely

different. are the changes minimal or significant enough to reverse the decisions of almost exactly two years ago? we have added to this year are some reports that seemingly support destroying the old church. which was the reason for the eir in the first place. is that not significant enough to allow the neighbors to take a look at this eir and absorb what is in that and have an opportunity to share it with other neighborhoods -- neighbors and question it? the time line of this project suggest once again there is no real interest in this developer in working with the neighborhood and within the process yet rushing this through to get whatever they want through whatever means they want. we are amenable to working with developers including this developer. as long as there is an effort to

work with us. we remain available to resolve the issues in this. we look forward to doing so. we ask for the appropriate time to do this for both the irs and the new design. thank you. >> is there any additional public comment? >> amod to express appreciation for the fact that staff did work on trying to see alternatives and i read the report and i engaged him and found a way that he worked as he gathered a lot of information from me orally and documents. that is what has happened here. he received information from the developer on the for-profit project about condominiums and

he found that it did not really make a lot of sense as far as he could see in terms of the kind of demand for the kind of condominiums that could be built inside the structure of the church or the extra expense or number of units and that is what this is based on. if he had been analyzing a different project, then what he was asked to analyze, the conclusions would have been different. i would like to mention a few things that puzzled me. although i think it is a thorough report, one thing said is they would have to demolish the sanctuary in order to put in an elevator. i worked for the army. all their historic bases had to make their buildings accessible under ada. no excuses. they did not demolish the buildings or their interiors. the attached and exterior elevator and pierced the walls. that kind of thing is not

mentioned in here at all. the building has an unreinforced concrete bottom. when it came to a rehabilitating and converting the jewish temple and buddhist temple, it must've had that same kind of situation. and had incredible water intrusion. we visited with the executive director who told us how water was pouring down the walls. they were interested in -- rehabilitating that. by the nature of this development, he is not interested in that. why would he be? he wants to build market rate condominiums. the question is, do we allow that if it means demolishing a historic resource? maybe you cannot build market rate condominiums there in a practical way.

another thing is the number of units and so on that were considered here were not considering as far as i can see what you could build on the lot or the demolished section. although in terms of -- what this objective of this developer is, this report may make sense. it does not preclude the church could be rehabilitated as other churches have been throughout this city either for a non profit or some other. >> is there additional public comment? commissioner miguel: i will reserve the comments when the matter is before us. of zero -- although i wish to correct a couple of speakers who stated the area are -- the eir was disapproved when considered

previously. that is not correct. the eir was not approved. there disapprove. the only thing that is missing here and was missing originally was a really substantial presence of the property owner and i find that intolerable. commissioner antonini: thank you. i had a few questions for mr. herschel. i think your redesign is extremely well done. very tasteful and i like the concept of the bay windows not looking like ugly appendages as they do in other projects. you'll -- you created something that looked like stationary phase -- bays. i have a question about the

entrance. that is the awning above the entrance which i think could be perhaps worked on a little bit. this is a design quit. but to make it more contextual with existing buildings and a more historic -- the more historic buildings that would have a more stately awning over the entrance and make a statement that shows this is the entrance to the building. that was just something i wanted to pass on to you. >> that is a well-midpoint. commissioner antonini: another thing about the report. we have a hearing later. i thought it would be good to get some of this out. i understand the stucco from reading the report, there is some problems with water damage because it was never backed with paper the way it should have been done in the first place. it was built many, many years ago, of course. i understand some churches do have steel frameworks of that

period of time but this does not have any. reading your closter report, it was made -- the point was made the church would have to be disassembled and be reassembled. >> there is no steel frame. it is a wood frame shell over the top of unreinforced concrete foundation wall. the basement floor is set on sleepers that are sitting in your -- bedirt. the exterior is doing more to hold up the sheathing than the sheathing is holding up the stucco.

no one will take that on without taking off the stucco to make sure that the shell is watertight, there are too many lawsuits about this. the stud work and fleming is exposed in various areas. you can reach in and grabbed the stud and crushed -- grab the stud and crush it into powder. the plates are not attached to the concrete foundation. it would have to be disassembled, taking the stand go off and replacing the sheathing and taking off the stucco and re-skinning it and putting back the stucco. commissioner antonini: that same sort of seismic stability would have to be done for church even if it was not occupied residential lead. >> the upgrade is required for

the building. certainly if it was to come back to the church. one of the speakers said it had not been looked at. that actually is in the report. if you do a seismic -- change of use, there is a different level of seismic upgrade you have to do as well. there is -- if you do the change of use to residential, you are required to do a different degree of upgrade. there are upgrades required in any instance. commissioner antonini: thank you. i read the concurrence letter and it was interesting. the cost would be applicable no matter what sort of structure the underlying form took. it seems like the cost would be the same regardless in my opinion. i do not know of that interpretation is correct, but thank you.

>> thank you. commissioner sugaya: as long as you're on your feet. we all know the building has been deteriorating. in -- and allegedly this has been taking place because the owners have not chosen to maintain the structure. if the structure were properly maintained, let's say as a normal building might be, the extent of the deterioration would not be this extensive, is that right? >> well, maintaining a building, you can cover all sorts of different actions of maintenance actions in many different ways. i will have to expand upon the answer but i and part answer, the decay is not something that has occurred in the last eight years. this is decay that has been going on for decades. it does not take eight years to eat through a redwood stud and

redwood floor joists and redwood rafters. the sheeting is -- behind the stucco is also decayed. you can see the back of the stucco. the rest -- rusted out nails on the stucco. that is not mean tenable -- maintainable to practice. >> is that not possible? >> to take off the stucco? >> that would be preconstruction. >> i would call it maintenance. i have a question for the city attorney. it was always my understanding that in order to bring suit against this -- the city you have to exhaust the

administrative processes in the city and it appears in this case which i have not before, someone mentioned it. this developer and the church nearly went straight to court without appealing or -- our decision or maybe it was not appealable. could you explain that? if we took action to -- if the motion was to approve this eir and the motion failed, is there an appeal route backspin should there have been an appeal route for that -- is there an appeal route? should there have been an appeal route? >> i am going to turn over the response of this question to my colleague who has been handling the litigation for the city attorney's office that has been ongoing in this matter. >> i am the deputy city

attorney. yes, there is a doctrine of remedies. for each of the decisions or denials, there is a separate path. for appealing the denial of the ecu, the pressures sponsor should have appealed that denial to the board of supervisors. project sponsor should have appealed that denial to the board of supervisors. one of the many motions the city made in the court was a motion to dismiss. one of the bases was the failure of the project sponsor to appeal the denial of the ecu to the

board of supervisors -- the cu to the board of supervisors before going to court. the response is that it would have been few tile -- futile to appeal this cu to the board of supervisors. that is a legal question in front of the court of appeal right now. commissioner sugaya: you could go ahead and the doctrine would get argued that the court level. >> yes, sir. commissioner sugaya: i think that certainly we have had many, many development projects before us in which as the neighbors testified that have been negotiated between neighborhood organizations, not just chairs, but others all around the city

-- not just mairs, but others all around the city. -- not just theirs, but others all around the city. we should be asking the developer to work with neighborhood and if nothing happens, we have had that situation arise, too. it does not seem like unless we get testimony in a few weeks that there has been any or minimal contact with respect to trying to work something out with respect to this development. if that does not happen, i am not ready to take any action on this particular project. i guess my comments are more directed more toward process than the actual design. as with commissioner miguel, i will review this in the ensuing weeks and make my comments at that time. >> i wanted to jump in and clarify the notification

requirements for that project. one of the members of the project question the notification that has occurred thus far. this has the conditional use and a variance. they have a 20-day posting requirement. they put up the poster and the hearing is on june 28 and exceeded the posting requirement. we do have this hearing today. which is 20 days -- more than 20 days in advance of the hearing. they are on track to meet their notification requirements. commissioner wu: for the project architect, i have a comment and question. so, in the materials that we were given, there is some depiction of the proposed building within the context, but i think it would be even more helpful for the hearing in a couple of weeks to have more of the view of the context of the building. i see on clay street, you have a

couple of buildings. on larkin, there is very few. i am interested to see how i fit in with the buildings that are across the street or a larger view than just a couple of buildings. i do have one question about unit size. i noticed that most of the units in the design are anywhere between 800 and 1,200 feet. i wanted to know the rationale for the top unit which looks like it has increased up to 4,000 feet. >> that is part of the developer's program to have a single large unit on the top floor, and that is what we designed. commissioner wu: thank you. i also will reserve most comments until the 20th. >> thank you for your suggestion. commissioner borden: what is your plans for on-site housing, bmr units on or off site?

>> we are going to comply with the requirements for bmr. i do not know if it is dollars units on site or a combination. commissioner borden: i have a question -- is there anyone here that represents construction? i had a few questions along the lines of what commissioner sugaya was talking about. how do the portions of the building come to be removed? >> i do not know. i have been involved in the project for 18 years -- 18

months. when i went into the building, 18 months ago, i noticed this condition. as i found it. i have been told there had been vandalism, break-ins, that is all i know. sorry. commissioner borden: is someone from the church here, maybe? it seems like it is odd that someone would remove portions of the building. it does not seem to have great degrees of graffiti like we have sometimes seen or anything. kraska afternoon. i am an attorney, i represent the california and nevada annual conference of the methodist church. when we took -- that church has been in existence since 1912. the building was built by that congregation pursuant to a design by an architect by the

name of kraemer -- kramer who designed many churches in the midwest. he is one of the proponents of the combined church design. we have two large rooms and -- covered by a wooden frame and stucco with a single basement underneath with unreinforced concrete walls. when we took possession of that building in 2005, we have it inspected by patrick -- a san francisco structural engineer. there was a day care operating in it and we wanted to know what was going on. he examined the property and told us to shut down the day care. he found on reinforced -- unreinforced masonry.

commissioner borden: part of 2004 -- the diocese -- >> a variety of methodist congregations had been there for a long time. the conference does not control them. i'm not trying to ascribe blame or anything. i do not think they realized until very late how much the building was deteriorating. prior to 2004 and when in the transition period, we had a -- we tried to do a church planting and plant a new congregation in.

the minister who did that church planting told us the building is functionally obsolete. in other words, it will not work for that purpose of a church. it is too deteriorated. pieces were falling off and we were trying to repair it. commissioner borden: what was the program then? at what point did the conference decided it was going to sell the church? >> the conference never decided it was going to sell the church. there work instructions to sell the church. the commission was provided with copies with those letters -- of those letters. the congregation telling the conference to sell the church. it used to the moneys for religious purposes in san francisco. -- it used the money for

religious purposes in the san francisco. there en an ongoing maintenance program. the engineers have explain to us to repair -- the problem is when they build the building, there is no paper between the surface of the stucco and the underlying frame. so every time a rains, water seeps through the stucco contact the underlying frame. over the 100 years that building has been there, it suffered extremely serious deterioration. the only way to repair that and we have had four different engineering firms look at it, is to remove all the stucco, repair all portions of the frame that are deteriorating, put paperback gone, and replaced. as you can see in the report that was provided to you, that is a $3 million plus job.

commissioner borden: the preschool that was in the building -- was water leakage a problem? >> i do not know. i suspect water was a problem. in interviewing the pastor that was there before, they saw water problems. by the time it shut down the congregation was down to eight members. they did not have money to do maintenance. that is one of the reasons i got turned over. the maintenance -- that is one of the reasons it got turned over. we had a design that kramer made a mistake. commissioner borden: my questions are around the deterioration of the church. and obviously a building that is vacant deteriorates faster than a building that is occupied.

that is counterintuitive. the concern of the community is that it was intentional. >> there is no intention of letting the building go. that is not our position at all. the problem is, to do anything more than a minor work we needed, we would have to go get an extensive building permit and the building department would not have allowed us to do that without doing a tremendous amount more work. if we said, we want to fix all this -- these problems, they're going to say, ok. do it correctly. if we want to bring the building back to the state where it is occupiable, it is through million dollars. commissioner borden: there are laws around how you maintain structures. even vacant lots -- i want to understand what was your plan. even when you're not using the

building for church purposes but to make sure that it is -- not a hazard to other people. >> i have met with several building officials, several people from the city attorney's office. every time they had a concern about that building, we have addressed those concerns. every single time. we have gone permits, we have resolved the issues they have brought up. every single zoning question -- building notice, we have resolved. i have gone out to the building myself and met with the city attorney and the building inspectors. we have tried to be as responsible as we can. our problem is to do much more than is there would require an inordinate amount of work. we cannot justify spending that much money and we are the

fiduciary. commissioner borden: i was trying to get to what the plan has been poor maintenance. the building is in the condition the building is in. we see the report. i was trying to shed some light on to how we got to this point. >> the vast majority of the deterioration was there long before the conference to position in 2004. as the architect pointed out, and if we can get the pictures back up, you can see that if you look at where that deterioration is, it is clearly a long-term deterioration. the sad part is that building has been deteriorated since the day was built. that is one of the reasons we need to look at tearing the building down. we had four engineers look at

it. we responded to the city's concern. if we could go back to last one. -- to the last one. you can see the tower, the top left picture is the bell tower. that has some of the most significant deterioration in it. the areas that are shown right there, those are article members that have almost rotted through. that did not happen in the last five years. it does not show directly under it. i do not think he has pictures that do. there is almost complete deterioration under a lot of the windowsills. that happened over a long period of time. commissioner borden: that is fine. you had a report by mr.