us. i am sorry that -- it seemed to cause a lot of confusion, but we were under the assumption that the neighborhood was notified. we also worked extensively with tom on the building department. the communication we provided was that we were satisfied with the project progress. we were not satisfied with the results. when he pressed as for a written notification to withdraw the d.r. request, we never did that. i'm here to propose to open -- to reopen the d.r. for discussion and i propose that they just hear what the neighbors want to say. and they can address the concerns. >> just to be clear, two of the three items were, you think, i

have been resolved by the current proposal? which one did not? >> the original plan was an absolute monstrosity, much, much larger than it is now. it was initially 75% of the lot, from the very front to the very back. that was just the actual property. then they had a deck on the back on each floor going up. it was an absolute monstrosity. we brought the city back into our backyard and said, look, this is our backyard. right now, we can see the ingleside. we are on top of the hill. from the front of cars out -- front of our house we get to the fairmont. from our roof we can see oakland. we're on top of the hill. if this happens about all we will see is this building.

later on, we started the d.r. is no longer valid. only because of the old plan. the d.r. has no more value so you have to withdraw. i do not have time to send you a letter about that but please talk to that neighborhood. >> which one was that? >> the height of the building. we are satisfied with the recession of the depth. and satisfied with parking. it seems like the never have some other concerns but we are not satisfied with the height. >> thank you. president hwang: next speaker, please. kraska evening.

-- good evening. i enjoy the neighborhood and i really like them to take down the old house. the reason i want to object is i do not like they put a plea? at. if they put up the 8 feet, i have to close my window. i work the whole day and night and i have no fresh air. number two, -- [unintelligible]

for complaint. you scare me. number three, i talked to my friend. he is the architect. i saw him -- he said this is so stupid. never get the permit to build the new building. [unintelligible] thank you. >> good evening. i am honored to address year. i watch you on tv and commissioner fung, you are in favor. i do not always agree but i love hearing how you and tie the together. unti -- untie the pieces and put them back together.

before i bid on the house and while it was in escrow i did a lot of research about the property next door because -- i will show you a picture. what i saw -- that is what i saw when i came to the property. it was not until the came back the second time that i noticed this fire and i was scared to walk in your bid -- the yard because it was full of construction debris and trash and had been that way for a long time. i had a friend with me was brave enough to walk over and he could barely read that it said 2005 on it. i thought, ok. that is years ago. a lot has happened since then. i called dbi and must be a black hole between the agencies or something because i spoke to in specter -- inspector mather. he thought the owner had died or

had been killed -- been ill. he was sending notices and not getting any response. i thought, i am glad to know he is not dead. i do not know who the owner is and i am confused. the tax records told me one thing and i'm hearing something else. i took it upon myself to write the owner that was on the tax records. it was mr. kwan. i wrote to introduce myself as the new neighbor. i feel strongly about small houses being good, affordable housing but i am not opposed to this one. you would understand why. i am very much opposed to the deck on the front. it is a 330 square foot deck. on the street where there are no? on the front at all. i'm going to be right next door and i am coming late to this

game but i am -- i try -- tried to do do diligence. here is the bizarre thing. i want to add when i went online to look at permits for the property, there were none until recently when i saw some had been added that said suspended because of this appeal. i feel like there is some black hole in dbi because inspector matter knew nothing about any open permits and he thought the owner was dead or ill. thank you. president hwang: is there any other public comment? seeing none, we will look into rebuttal and we will start with the appellant. >> it is six minutes. >> i am happy to hear the apartment holder is willing to work with us on the hours.

i think that is great. i think that is great to have that opportunity available and i appreciate it very much. thank you. hopefully i can get to it. there was a comment made that there was some communication during this appeal set up. at that time i had made no attempt to contact the permit holder to try to stop this from happening or to work on the issues before. on the letter to the permit holder about appeals being filed, it states clearly the board in per -- encourages permit holders to me with the appellant to clarify project plans. i am not sure why they onus is put on the appellant or the neighbors.

when we were looking at the plan of the front deck, she believes this is the front deck. if she believes -- you either know it is the front deck or it is not. it is not what you believe. if i am taking another look, i want to know where it is on the side section. it looks like the roof to me. i do not know much about plans. maybe somebody else can clarify it. when she gets appear. -- up here. let's see. as far as privacy issues, we know we live in close proximity to one another. i do not know how that is not taken into consideration. the noise concerns are still

there. i mentioned how we had to do with neighbors behind us. screaming and doing their kegs. they were 100 feet away from us and we were sitting with ear plugs which did not help with the bass, but is still a valid point. lastly, i am confused about how it is that because i was not part of the original d.r. and was not one of the signatories and allowed to see some plans but i am not allowed to get notification of the d.r. because i do not live directly across the street. i think that is not cool. i think people should have the right to see that stuff and you see all the people that are here today and that would have been there if we had known about it.

confusion high, communication low. i hope that you will find in favor of us and please consider this. thank you. vice president fung: you received notice of the proposal with the current drawing in july of last year. >> i did. vice president fung: but no response to that? >> my neighbor. vice president fung: i met you. you did not respond. >> i did not respond. if you want an explanation, i do not know. do you want an explanation? vice president fung: if you like. >> my husband, his uncle had passed away. i was a little bit preoccupied. my neighbor had responded so we assumed another set of plans would be forthcoming that we could take a look at. the other thing was if there was not any discretionary review

and the neighbors were requesting another d.r., i do not understand how hearing took place. why was there even a d.r. hearing if nothing had been filed? vice president fung: i can answer that. the d.r. is either by request by outside appellants for it is filed by the department itself. >> they would not send out notification? vice president fung: the notification requirements are the same. >> they would have to send out. it is not correct we did not receive notification? >> you would not receive notification. the same rules apply. >> i do not see how that -- do you know what i mean? at some point, that is the policy made by the city that they file a 311 notification to a broader neighborhood group and that d.r. gets narrower. >> someone across the street did

not received notification, either. i do not know what happened there. >vice president fung: she did not respond. >> of the hearing in december? vice president fung: do have a question? >> no. president hwang: i hear a tremendous amount of frustration and i am deeply sorry for that. it is not our intention. we really do want to work with these folks but we do feel our project is fair. i know that since my involvement, the project went through 311 a second time. i was involved in coordinating fell label and giving -- getting the package to the planner to mail out. everybody should have gotten a

copy of the current plans in the 311 package. everyone that is here, that is a 150 foot radius. at the very least, they knew something was going on and they saw the revised plans. we went through the d.r. process because the der requestor had filed the d.r. but not withdrawn it. and the project had gone through so much change since they filed. i guess there d.r. was no longer relevant. i remember my conversations with the planner and he was -- he said there would not withdraw the d.r.. so they basically a kind of stopped in the middle of the process. if they still have issues, maybe they did not understand the process and i do not know what the solution is to that. san francisco seems to hold out its hand to people and try to

help people. i think there are resources, i do not know what to say. regarding issues that some of the neighbors have raised about the floor plans and it looks like someone will change it into an illegal configuration in the future, that is an illegal configuration. if they attempt to do that, they apart will cite them and the neighbors will log an anonymous complaint and the building in the department will inspect and it will issue an [unintelligible] just because someone does not break the law in the future does not mean we have to prevent them from doing stuff that is legal today. there are regulations regarding sound and nuisance and i sympathize with the appellant. we have all experienced neighbors that are disrespectful and have parties and keep this up at night.

nobody likes that. but there are laws on the books to address that. there is a process for dual -- dealing with that. the fact that someone could termite is not a guarantee they will, and it is not justification for removing that roof deck. i think the roof deck is fair. it is 300 square feet, it is pretty small. again, i believe that the envelope of this building is modest. that we have modified the plans, and we are open to working with them that we're not amenable to removing the third story. i think that is fair. that third story is only 30 feet in a 40 foot district. every single neighbor here is entitled to that same envelope. so that is our position. if there are any further questions, i am available. president hwang: -- vice president fung: would your client consider reducing the

roof deck? >> are you willing? are you willing to remove the -- president hwang: you can talk to him separately. vice president fung: it requires some kind of decking material of some type. i am not talking route the setback. i am sure the neighbors love the setback. it does come -- conform to residential design but i just threw that out. >> i will speak to him about pulling the front of the roof deck slightly to keep people offered from the front of the building. maybe it will provide some level of separation. again with setbacks from both

sides and the road in between, the appellant across the street is pretty far away. >> it seems tro me, this roof deck is on the front of the house. it seems really out of place with the photographs we saw, the others on that block. i am not sure what is going on with the rest of the neighborhood. we heard from planning that it is within the residential guidelines. it's kind of -- looks like a sore thumb, out of place. i do not know if you survey the neighborhood to determine whether there is anything else that looks remotely similar? >> i have not for roof decks. from the ground, you may not be able to see them. this one will have -- the front parapet extent and kind of

heights the roof deck. e -- extends and hides the roof deck. this -- you do not really see it. it is like a railing that you can see through or anything like that. i am wonderinpresident hwang: yt back? that is more in my mind visually -- i do not know where the sun fits into all this and why this decision on the part of your client. wondering if there is any way to move the interior space forward so that remains, you get to keep your interior space but not the

back. >> the size of the front deck and expand the size of the rear? i don't know. president hwang: i do not know what is contemplated. we're hearing a lot of on have been around that front. if you are saying it is hidden and concealed that is -- there's nothing in the visual. if you are not able to notice it until people are standing on it or sitting on it or hanging out on that, it is hard for me to get the visual. i'm wondering if there is some way to address that concern. >> can we move forward? i am not sure of that goes far enough from the neighbors'

concerns. >> maybe we can talk to planning about what they would allow. >> ok. those are some thoughts. i did not know if there were considered and rejected. >> i was not involved in the initial design. we're not the architect of record. we do not have the history, unfortunately, of this project. i cannot tell you what sort of debate went on in their original design and the subsequent modifications. president hwang: thank you. >> where are we? >> we have rebuttal from the departments. mr. sutter -- sider, do you want to rebut?

>> thank you for the opportunity. i will be brief. the residential design guidelines to address exposed upper stories which are typically the stories -- do address expos upper stories. they do speak to the 15 foot front sent back. we do see that with some frequency throughout the city. the typical architectural response is to use that france faced as some kind of open space. we do see some? that did not occupy that entire area. i would say more often than not the entire front setback area on top of the story typically is stack. as to the question of whether or not the department contemplated shifting -- contemplated the

product -- project, we did and our reply is to say it should be shifted back. that was what staff said. you have discretion here. >> you're saying the front deck in that open space is commonplace throughout the city. >> yes. >> thank you. >> mr. duffy. >> i feel i should made -- i should address the commabout th. i am not sure what the $500 is about. if you want to file a complaint with dbi, call the investigator and there is no charge for that. what might have happened is the lady might have called after the issuance of the permit to complain about the permit and that might have been, sometimes

our board -- or staff tells them they can go to the board of appeals. the permit details report, i printed it off today. that is on the tracking system. the demolition permit, the new construction permit, also i did see the vacant building complained with inspector kees matter and that should pay an annual fee. there is a permit filed and sometimes that is overlooked. the vacant part goes away and the inspector would know the details. >> the matter is submitted. vice president fungpresident hws what you would like to address?

at the microphone. >> they provided 311 addresses, that is a noticing code on 3- 30-12 for demolition to times on five, 25, 12. -- 5-25-12. vice president fung: we tried to explain that to you. that only goes to the adjacent neighborhood. it is the notice of the proposal with the plants involved in july of 2011 that

went to the 150 foot radius. nobody responded to that. >> that is the chance to file a d.r. when that notice goes out. to stand up and say i do not agree. notice goes out to a smaller subset about the d.r.. >> which i respectfully disagree with. thank you. >> it is unfortunate that neighbors have not talk and discuss this project. there are architect and owner and engineering changes. that is unfortunate. a lot of these questions could have been addressed.

i would agree with planning that it is fairly typical you get this third floor even in these two-story residential areas. they're all around the city that are set back. it is great that we're sitting that back 30 feet. what do you do with that space? you can leave it or do something like open space. i prefer the roof deck in these situations and adding more life to the street. there is neighbors that disagree with that obviously. and do not want that. my inclination would be to approve the project. and denied a permit. -- deny the permit. >> i do not feel i can speak with the same certainty. i think some of the issues raised by the appellant i think

were addressed adequately by the plans. i do not think a third parking space is necessary and we have some clarifications on the plans in terms of their accuracy in reflecting the deck. concerns regarding renting, i am a believer that tenants and owners should live together in the same community. so if it is rented, that is fine with me. in principle to the extent that they are problematic, that is the problem but homeowners can be problematic, too. the street facing deck is challenging to me. i do not see it as commonplace. i am not a planner. i have not been to every block in the city so i cannot speak to that. it did seem inconsistent with that neighborhood. i can understand the challenges the neighbors feel and their

viewpoint. i think i might feel similarly in my own neighborhood. i did feel heartened by the permit, the sponsors' communication that there would be willing to engage in more discussion. i think that needs to happen. i do think the onus and should have been on the project sponsor from the get go. maybe a lot of this, we would not be here especially with the demo permit. the replacement structure is fundamentally at odds with what the neighbors want. i do not know if there is any flexibility there. the discussion and opportunity to have those conversations could result in something that might be more amenable to better neighborhood relations. and -- for that reason,