the appellant's issues had nothing to do with ceqa concerned. and lastly a new ordinance sponsor by board president chiu that changing the copy on a sign should not be treated as a new sign. so this will be before you in the next three months that. concludes my report. >> thank you. commissioner wu. >> thank you. i wanted to ask on the tdif, i understand that supervisor wiener will be convening meets and you can give us updates on the broad direction of those meetings. >> we can do that, thank you. >> the board of appeals did

meet last night and one item of note was a re-hearing request for building permit application dealing with glenn canyon park and before the hearing the request was withdrawn and the decision became final and the building permit is approved. just wanted to inform the commission on that and there are no other reports. >> commissioners, under item 814601 larkin street, informational, current status of the project design. >> good afternoon president fong and members of commission. i am going to keep my comments very brief here. the subject property was considered in june of 2010 and june of this year for proposal

to demolish the church. this commission cited concerns no. 1 about the demolition of the existing church which is considered an historic resource under ceqa, but also to do with what i would collective call the compatibility. the project sponsor has been working collaboratively with planning department staff and with representatives of the community in an attempt to address staff concerns, community members concerns and issues raised by this commission at previous hearings. so i will turn it over to the project sponsor to address the specific ways in which the project has evolved and is continuing to evolve. thank you very much. i am available for questions.

good afternoon commissioners and president, my name is ian birchel and represent the project sponsor and i would like to present the late design that we have developed with significant input from members of community and neighbors. it's been an intense and collaborative effort since june. we have changed the project, as well as changing the design. it's not being just about the shape of the building, the color of materials, or the height or the setback. it's also been about considerations for community, neighbors, and an open discourse between project sponsor and the community.

one of the first things that we did was to try to address the issue of thekin condition of the church on the exterior and address concerns of neighbors with respect to safety, cleanliness, maintenance of the exterior. once we established a line of communication there, and did some needed things, lighting, barriers, we were then able to move forward and begin to talk about the design, which i would like to share with you. i would also like to thank the community, the neighbors. the neighborhood association, who have worked very, very hard, and have been very committed and resilient. liz representing 1630 clay owners, extremely helpful,

cooperative, and in essence making us listen to what you had to say and what they had to say. so with that i would like to move forward with the show. yellow boundary around the church. next please. context. we have seen these before. next. i'm not going to try to read these to you. they are in your package, but they are basically issues brought up bit community, by the commission and by individuals and our responses to them. next, please. the last one on this list here addresses bmr units. we are proposing two on-site, bmr units and one in-lieu fee.

next, please. i would like to look here. this is kind of like describing the result of the process over the last six months. the major design revisions on the left are all of the parking goes into one basement, with one garbage -- garage entrance. the height has been reduced one full story, and it's actually down to 53'. the mapping along clay, adjacent to 1630 clay. four story against four story the same is true of the larkin. it was at one time a gap that was opening onto larkin between the historic building and our new building so this design is

now significantly different one than shown to the commission and we have included a community room, which we'll discuss. it's still ongoing discussions about how the community room will be used and under what kind of conditions and terms. the community considerations on the right we're including three community parking spaces, which could be either rented or purchased. we have one car shed designated for public use and one car shed dedicated to use by the residents. the street greening, we have a proposal that is not a contract yet, but we have a proposal from the project sponsor to provide up to 100 street trees on both sides and the 1600 block of clay. this is a program that would be contracted with friends of the urban forest and it would be managed with some financial

assistance from the project sponsor by polk neighborhood association working with the community and property owners and friends of the urban forest. it would come with a five-year pre-paid maintenance program. the community room, the project sponsor will provide free use of the community room with a separate street access from larkin street. and this will be written into the cc os in the building to be available for community use for five years. at the end of five years, ongoing use will be determined by what the preceding uses have shown. next, please. these are just highlights of the basic data. 27 units in the building. the reduction in size has changed the unit mix and size of some of the units and there are now more one-bedrooms than before and we have 32 parking spaces, 27 for 27 units, 3 for community assigned and two for

car-share. excuse me. next, please. this is a little bit burnt out, i apologize, but you have it in your package. the rendering in the middle is the design rejected at the conditional use application in june. to the left is our first attempt at the demasing of the building and running along the bottom there are sequential demasing proposals that were discussed with members of the community, polk neighbors to try to achieve a compromise that would work for all. in the end, we did something a little different from the right-hand slide. that is the design it's used to be. this is the design as it is now. we're going to do a little bit of back and forth here.

what we have here -- and i will speak loud enough to be heard -- what we have here is an attempt to create ambiguity about the building . is it really one building? the same concept [ inaudible ] >> if you can maybe -- so

they can catch the audio ? thank you. >> next, please. this is how it used to be on larkin and the gap that runs through the back. that is how it used to be. next. and what we have done here is again taken the top story off, createed ad a tricomposition with a little bit of ambigutility. on the left-hand section of the building there is an opening which is the entrance to the community room. the main entrance is where it always was, which was in the middle. next, please. significant reduction in scale and we have set the building back 18'.

at the top floor. we have introduced this four-story element that nests 1360 clay and there is a chance as you walk around the building for you to get the pause between the elements and components of the building. it gives you a little bit of room to breathe as opposed to being one big building as it once was. next, please. this is just an aerial view of the model. and i just want you to focus on the green, if you can. on the left-hand side is the courtyard and rear yard from the earlier scheme. and what we have done here is by closing the gap on larkin, we have been able to open the green l next to 1630 clay. that essentially gives an 18' wide area -- do i have to really stop after six years? can i have your permission just to continue? >> are you close to the end? >> yes. >> keep going, but i think we kind of get the idea.

we realize the changes. finish up and maybe the commission has questions. >> let's roll very quickly through these. keep going, please. these are various views showing the setback. street view before-and-after. street view before-and-after. you will see the basements there. the parking is there. thank you. this slide here i just want to spend ten seconds on this. the left-hand side is the stanley design, again 1630 clay street. the right-hand design is our former design 1630 clay. next. this is the current design. all of the windows except for one on the 5th floor are kept open for sunlight and light and to make sure that those windows that are l windows actually get

some light. thank you. >> thank you. i appreciate the tremendous amount of work that has gone into the revision of this. >> a lot coming from them, too. >> open up for public comment i have two speaker cards. [ reading speakers' names ]. >> good afternoon commissioners. i am the chair of the coalition for san francisco neighborhoods planning and land use committee. we are very concerned that this was set up very dangerous precedence regarding the approval process. this project was denied twice before. and should have 12-month waiting period.

and here it's only been three months and it's up for approval again. and we think this is a bad, bad precedent. as far as this project should be coming up in 12 months, not three months. other thing is that we find it somewhat distressing that the federal judge is going to impose their will and save them time and force the city to go back or disregard city policy and process. we think that should not occur. an historic resource is been planed for destruction/demolition and if this should occur, there should be a significant community benefit. and the commission, i believe,

commissioner wu has stated that the community benefit is not there. and it seems like this new project will not allow it to happen. there are plans for senior housing, senior affordable housing, which the city drastically needs. the city does not need 27 more market-rate housing. a senior affordable project can provide, perhaps up to 40 or so units that the city drastically needs. we have met our goals for market-rate housing. we are far, far behind in regards to affordable housing. i would like to close by saying

that coalition for san francisco neighborhoods supports adaptable use for senior housing or another preservation alternative. to pursue enforcement actions for building code and ceqa violations. please wait 12 months before this project is considered. >> did you call rowena jen? >> yes. rowena had to leave and so i have this statement that they are back hacking up the building again. >> is there any additional public comment on this item? >> yes.

good afternoon commissioners my name is elizabeth gordan and i with my co-owners own the building next door, 1630 clay street. it's a 6-unit residential building and i'm speaking on behalf of all the owners of 1630 clay street today. our building is the neighboring building most impacted bit proposed project. we have been supportive of this project conditionally since 2006. with this said, when we last testified before you on june 28th, we reported that we were in discussion with the project sponsor and architect to address our concerns. we had yet however to reach an agreement and get that into a signed document. almost six months later we're definitely further down the road, and very encouraged by the progress that has been made on the overall design. but we still have some outstanding matters with this

sponsor. of utmost priority to us has been maintaining as many of our original 11 property line windows as possible. windows that date back decades and decades if not to 1923 when the building was built. in anticipation of this project getting approved at some point and what we think was a very substantial showing of good faith on our part, we already voluntarily removed at our own expense five of those 11 windows when our residential units were being remodeled between 2006 and 2009. at issue at this time is retention of our remaining six property line windows. the sponsor's new design does a good job of maintaining light and air for two of those remaining six windows. they are at the back of the building on our top-back unit.

the proposed design apparently stops its building 3.5' away from three of our property line windows in the kitchens of our front units. the new plan though, if i understand it correctly, is that it does not match our light well mid-building. the new building runs right up to an alongside our building by about half of our light well. this will further compromise necessary light into our bathroom and kitchen windows in our three front units. the plan also completely eliminates one of our property line windows in the dining room of our front unit. we need a detailed drawing of exactly how this building will impact our property line windows and need to reach an amicably place with this developer. we have asked him to participate in a pre-op meaning with the city or at least fund

that so we can get clarity from the city, namely dbi and fire about what will happen with our remaining property line windows that are left. we would appreciate cooperation in that regard. we would like to continue to support the project, we would hope to be able to. >> thank you very much. calling up a couple more speakers. [ reading speakers' names ] >> good afternoon commissioners. i have been coming to this podium to speak on this topic since dwight alexander was president of the commission. so you can call me snaggletooth today. a lot of things that were said today by the project sponsor's architect are true and factual. tom gave me a call and he got an email from director ram saying that we would like you to participate in a conference

with judge bieler. the judge is a good communicator and we sat down and gave the project sponsor a simple framework. and after a couple of back and forth we watched the last commission hearing, we watched it a few times. we took notes of everything that you said. and we gave those notes and comment back to the project sponsor, because we're not experts. you are experts also and i'm curious today what your thoughts are in terms of dialogue about this project. because we have all been at this a long time. i think we have made considerable progress. there is still discussion to be made about give-back, but

personally, and from what i have learned from the project sponsor, i think there is an inent and willingness to have a dialogue to see this through. you know, there are some questions about the process. about why here here today? is this because of the suit? is it because of the judge? i will leave that to you to opine about. that is my testimony today. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> good afternoon president fong and commissioners. my name is dawn and i'm with the middle polk neighborhood association. i come here today with a question that i need to share with you. it's a question that has been posed to me day after day after day in the past several weeks. and that is what process is being followed in this case? and i can't answer that question to the members of our

association and the leaders of other associations that are asking me. is this a new process? is this a new way of doing things? will other developers be given this shorter process? because you know we just heard this case here in june. so we're back kind of quick on that. i would like to be able to really fully be able to answer that question when i am asked that. and i cannot do that now. so some help on that would be very much appreciated. we also would appreciate some help as far as the timeframe is going on this. we're here in front of you just a couple of weeks before christmas and then a couple of weeks after christmas you want us to be back. there is all of this family stuff and christmas stuff that we need to do in the middle of it. why is it such a rush? can we not take a little bit more time in order to get the necessary community involvement

that we need to have a successful case here? can we have some more time to please do that in a less rushed fashion? thank you. [ reading speakers' names ] >> thank you, members of the commission. my name is gordan egan and i am an attorney who represent the owners of building. last monday night, the developer had a pre-op meeting and he sent out approximately 140 invitations to that meeting to people in the neighborhood. and it was publicized in some other ways. i know some community members publicized it further. at that meeting approximately 25 people attended. they were generally supportive of the building. i confess i was only there towards the end, but from my discussion with the architect and some others who were, there there wasn't a lot of

dissension, or questions about the design you saw. most of the members of community who came to that meeting seemed fairly favorable towards that design. you could ask the architect if i am putting that out wrong, or maybe some community members. but in the time i was there and the people that i spoke to afterwards, the community is fairly -- i'm not going to say overwhelmingly overjoyed with the building because it's a little different than what is there now . this will be one of the newer buildings in that entire neighborhood. it's on a corner. it's going to look a little different, yeah. but the ark architect working with the community has done a wonderful job doing that. we have spent the last year in discussions with the condo

conversion and the developer, on resolving many issues that we have. we have spent the last six months in discussion with the community, discussing the design of the building. there are advocates for senior housing and we have met with them on several occasions. we have met with several housing developers. we had additional meetings with housing developers. even though we're in contract with pacific polk, pacific polk has agreed to allow us to talk to senior housing developers about the property. he didn't have to do that. he did. so we are talking to senior housing developers with his permission. we don't believe that is going to work because as we presented to you six months ago when you approved the eir, it does not appear to us or and i don't mean to put words in their mouths, but to the planning department in their

recommendation on the eir, it does not appear to the planning department that it makes any economic sense or is feasible to reuse the structure there as any kind of residential housing. we tried to do it in 2004. we first spoke to senior housing developers in 2010. we spoke to senior housing developers again. and we are now talking to them again, but we don't see that as feasible. we're runing that course out as we can. the developer has done an unbelievable job of meeting with the community over the last six months. we have met with the community. i speak with members of community on a somewhat regular basis to talk and see if the developer is continuing to move forward. the reports that i get are that he is. we have a system in place now with regard to the building that if something occurs with regard to the building, members of community have the phone

number and email of our property manager, and can report things directly to him. they do so. i think the members of the community will agree that they get results. it's not perfect. it doesn't work 100% of the time. somebody took our anti-sit barriers and painted them as candy canes last night. it's kind of a little christmas cheer, but that is what we're putting up. but we're dealing with it. we have that report and we're dealing with it. you know, i want to point one thing out. the developers working on community benefit, the developer has -- since this project was presented to you in june, the developer has dropped 6,000-square-feet out of the building. i don't have the thing up there. he not only moved stuff around. he took out 6,000 feet. we're not just moving stuff around the chess board.