included in your packet, the neighborhood is essentially a square. there are four streets, it's like sutro heights avenue, 46th, 47th and i believe balboa. the requester's house was built in 1937. it's the one here. and it extends because it's lower. it was one of the first houses built in this whole neighborhood and it's lowers and extends further out into what you see as like a little square. the other houses were built in 1940's, early '40's and as you can see, were all left-flush, so you end up with a little square pattern in the middle that leaves open space. one of the residents, the neighborhood has described it to me as almost a park-like feel.

over here, is an alleyway. this house -- this is the back of the house. it is almost to the property line of the subject property where they seek to enlarge things. keeping that in mind i will show you a blow up of the rendering. i took it upon myself to make a small sketch, which i would like to submit at this point.

:first of all, as you can see, the ramblins have a deck on the back of their house built in 1996. it has a 7' spindle wood fence to preserve privacy for themselves and their neighbors. there is a tree right on the property, on the ramblin's property on the property line. there is a bay window. right here, looking down [o-epbts/] what they propose to be a deck. there is a light well and i know there are pictures in your packet and i know we don't have a lot of

time so we might not get to all of those. to the east of the property is another property with bedroom windows in the back. right here where my finger is the backyard of one of the neighbors on 46th avenue. if you look at the packet provided to you, the pictures taken by mr. ramblin, you will see that the views from those windows look straight where these decks are going to be. these decks are going to have glass railings. essentially you have people sitting on a deck, looking directly into the windows of their neighbors. bedroom neighbors windows of their neighbors and bathroom

windows of their neighbors. this top facade shadows it. >> thank you. we may have further questions. >> okay, i hope you do, because we have waited a long time. and there is more that i have to say. >> your time is up, sir. >> speakers in favor of the dr? speakers in favor of the dr? >> good evening, i'm bill and i'm live on 47th avenue, which is around the corner. and my concerns are the loss of light, that the proposed project -- we would incur from the

proposed project and the open space feel that we have now, something of this size, i think, would take away that feeling that we have, which was described as like a park-like setting. so just the density of the homes and how tight and close together they are. i think would take away from the ambience and that is my concern and worry. thank you. >> thank you, any other speakers in favor of the dr? if not, project sponsor you have five minutes. >> good evening my name is brian lafco and i'm the architect on the project. and i was going to say good

afternoon, but their concerns break down into three basic aspects. first is the impact on the rear open space and already reported to the planning staff and design team -- you can see this is the site plan of the existing conditions. where in the existing situation, there is 63% of the yard is uncovered by structure. and this includes a large concrete terrace, or hard scape of the rear yard area.

our proposal effectively replaces the hard scape with the new addition, resulting in non-hard scape portion of the yard being exactly as the yard today at 42% and when compared to the joining properties the resulting open yard is by far the most open among them. you can see that the drr is 33% and we would be at 42%, 23, 17, 30, and 9. the second aspects of their complaint is privacy. the dr's two-story wall looms over my client's as seen in this image. as well as seriously impacting views for everybody beyond my client's house for many, many years as

you heard the age of building. can see right here the red-dotted line approximates it. there are no openings with the exception of the light well. our proposal develops along this large, bare wall and goes no further. it's also designed to be below the overhang, the existing overhang in order to preserve the view of others. this is the existing condition of that wall. and that is the profile of the wall. looking at it in true elevation. and while the structures are indeed abutting as in the tradition of the san francisco, the decks in this proposal are all setback at 5-feet-2 inch.

we redesigned twice this project. this was to address neighbors' concerns of privacy and view and this resulted in a smaller, less improsing proposal. although my time is limited. the printed package shows the down scaling of the design. third and final issue is the rear yard facades. after the first redesign, we were contacted by the eastern neighbor. you can see on this plan, that

there is a diagonal line which is the unobstructed view line from the very same windows. our proposal stays within the shadow of this large extensive wall to improve the value of the windows of eastern neighborhood this current and second design eliminates new obstructions. this maintains the existing plane of facades created by the two-story overhangs that is indeed referenced by the drr's complaint. while the window pattern has changed, as one of the drawers for the property is a fantastic view of the pacific, the plane of the multiple rear facades, a set of very few facades can see and certainly not the drr is maintained. you can see that line of facades right there. to sum up, this is not a superunit. the solution is a simple one

that allows a family of six. >> your time is up? >> thank you. >> speakers in support of the project sponsor? >> hi, my name is yasir harim. my wife and i bought the property intending to move our family into it. we did our homework. we realized it was a two-unit building and we had to maintain two units. so we talked to the planning department, and worked out how we could do that and we realized we would have to extend into the backard in order to create a family home on top. with regarding to the drr's issues presented, we feel this project should be approved because as stating by planning

it falls well within their guidelines and as well made huge efforts and gone to expense to address the drr's requester's concerns and delayed by months to work with the drr, although they didn't respond to us after one meeting. we twice redesigned the project solely to address their concerns, specifically we created setbacks and square footage and eliminated an entire floor of expansions and lowers the floors among other changes. the dr applicant has failed to demonstrate any exceptional or extraordinary circumstances to justify the dr. contrary to the points, there is no dramatic impact on the mid-block open space. we're merely building on top of an existing concrete deck. the expansion is not uncharacteristically deep or tall and falls behind the dr

requester's home. it breaks the rear line of buildings to the east, and falls behind the buildings creating a more harmonious line. it creates a home on top for my family that is smaller or comparable to other homes in the neighborhood. with regards to the petition, we don't know what the dr requester told the people who signed this. if they have concerns, they should have expressed them in the nine months since we had the 311 meeting. we haven't heard from any of them. we made efforts to reach out. we are a family of six and

required by code to maintain two units. it's not a superunit. we believe we have been more than reasonable and we request that the project be approved as submitted. >> thank you. are there any other speakers in favor of the project sponsor? >> dear commissioners and president, yasir and i are husband and wife. we are working parents. we have four children. so i hope this actually works. it's on my iphone. we have four children. our oldest son is right now attending city college and taking courses from there. we have two daughters going to city public elementary school. and we have a little boy who is 4 years old going to preschool and if we stay in the city, he

will be going to the same school as our daughters. so we have been renting in the city for ten years. last year, around this time of year we bought 27-29 sutro with the hope that we can build a home for ourselves and to raise a family in the city. as property owners we understand the requirement when we purchased the two units that we have to maintain the number of units and cannot combine them and cannot reduce footage. so we worked with the architects to meet the city requirements. we are the new family on the block and don't want to be in conflict with our neighbors and we're putting in tremendous time and effort and money to address neighbors' requests to the point that nothing we can do to make the project viable.

if you can see the plans is not to build a luxury home, to indulge ourselves, but simply to be the family of two parents and four children, so we can grow as a family and raise our children in the family and maybe we can finally give our children the dog they wanted for so many years because as a renter, you cannot even have a pet. this has been an emotionally and financially draining process for us. i just hope and i trust the commissioners can judge our case by the facts, and assure us when we followed the requirements, followed the rules, followed the process, did everything that we could, that there is an end to this and there is a justice to the end. and the process is not being abused. thank you is all for me. thank you.

i really appreciate you staying so late and taking this case. we have been waiting this for days. >> thank you. any other speakers in favor of the project sponsor? okay, dr requester you have a two-minute rebuttal. >> thank you. i think what we need to look at here are the decks. and the staircase. the staircase that walks right up and looks into the ramblin's back patio. the decks that have nothing to do with living space. and nothing to do with whether or not the proponent will have space for their family. they want to put decks with glass railings. what they want -- what they are doing is early creating a nice little

spa-like environment that allows them to peer into the privacy of their windows. they look into bathroom windows and bedroom windows and have a facade around the top of the building that is not necessary and shades an area that now has saxon saxon solar panels. assume threat of of the -- assume that the rest of the neighbors want do the same thing, what happens to that mid-block space? it goes away. if everybody starts doing this and suddenly as i say the open space goes away, if everyone decides that they need to have decks on their back, with glass railings, then there is going to be no privacy for anyone

whatsoever. thank you >> thank you. project sponsor you have a 2-minute rebuttal. >> >> thank you. president fong and commissioners, i will be very brief. objective third party planning department has looked into this and they don't see anyway extraordinary privacy issues. they spent their time looking at the drawings and they did not see those privacy issues that the dr requester is mentioning. with regarding to the solar panels, they weren't there -- they added them after we proposed the project. and didn't take into consideration the project regardless at our own expense, at the request of the dr requester, we did a solar study.

the reason why you are not hearing mention of the solar study because it clearly shows that it doesn't shade their panels, regardless of the fact that they used them as leverage against us to say we don't want this. and finally with regards to the stairs looking in, it would be remarkable to be able to look into a slanted bay window with the stairs. these are issues being brought up now. there was six months of silence from the dr requester where we continually asked them to talk to us and they didn't. thank you. >> thank you. >> okay. the public hearing is closed. and opening up to

commissioners, with comments and questions, commissioner sugaya? >> just on the privacy issue, i don't think people stand around on decks to look into bedroom windows. i'm sorry. i live in a condo, across the street from me, there are bedroom windows. you know, i don't think people in my condo building stand there and try to look in other people's windows. i suppose if you are having coffee or having a drink or something, you know, you might glance around and there is that kind of thing, but i don't think that most people on these kinds of decks. this is a family. it's like -- it's just not going to happen. i don't consider that to be an extraordinary circumstance. >> commissioner antonini? >> i would agree with

commissioner sugaya. i know in "rear window," there this was a lot of that activity in that building being a hitchcock movie. this is different, because the people on the decks would have to turn, instead of looking at the garden and green space, actually look back to their east and to the east windows and again, we're in a city that people are always going to have windows. i don't see any other impacts. the dr request's home is the one that goes furthest into the open space as far as this project is concerned. so i don't see anything unusual or extraordinary in this project. >> commissioner moore? >> move to approve. >> second. >> i'm sorry, the proper wording is not take dr and

approve >> commissioners on that motion to not take dr and approve the project as proposed. (roll call ) so moved commissioners. that motion passes unanimously, 7-0. and puts you on your final item on your calendar, public comment -- have i have no speaker cards. >> is there any general public comment? if not, it's been a good year. >> thank you. >> it's been very productive. thank you everyone. and we'll see you next year. >> thank you. meeting adjourned. [ gavel ]

>> welcome to culture wire. we will look at the latest and greatest public art project. recently, the airport unveiled the new state of the art terminal. let's take a look. the new terminal service and

american airlines and virgin america was designed by a world- renowned architecture's firm. originally built in 1954, the building underwent massive renovation to become the first registered terminal and one of the must modern and sustainable terminals and the united states. the public art program continues its 30-year legacy of integrating art into the airport environment with the addition of five new commissions that are as bold and dynamic as the new building. >> this project was completed in record time, and we were able to integrate the artist's early enough in the process that they could work with the architect said that the work that is completed is the work that really helps complement and instill the space as opposed to being tucked away in a corner.

>> be experience begins with the glass facades that was designed with over 120 laminated glass panels. it captures the experience of being under or over clouds when flying in a plane. depending on the distance or point of view, it can appear clear for more abstract and atmospheric. the subtle colors change gradually depending on the light and the time of day. >> i wanted to create an art work that looks over time as well as working on in the first glance. the first time you come here, you may not see a. but you may be able to see one side over the other. it features a couple of suspended sculptures. each was created out of a series of flat plains run parallel to each other and constructed of

steel tubing. >> it is made up of these strata. as the light starts to shift, there is a real sense that there is a dynamism. >> it gives the illusion that this cultures might be fragments of a larger, mysterious mass. >> the environmental artwork livens it with color, light, and the movement. three large woven soldiers are suspended. these are activated by custom air flow program. >> i channeled air flow into each of these forms that makes it move ever so slightly. and it is beating like a heart.

if-0 when as of the forces of nature moving around us every second. >> shadow patterns reflect the shapes of the hanging sculptures. the new terminal also features a children's play areas. both of the market the exploratory n.y. -- exploratorium. the offer travelers of all ages a playful oasis. using high quality plywood, they created henches shaped like a bird wings that double as musical instruments. serving as a backdrop is a mural featuring images of local birds and san francisco's famous skyline. >> in the line between that is

so natural, you can see birds and be in complete wilderness. i really like that about this. you could maybe get a little snapshot of what they are expecting. >> it is an interactive, keck sculpture that is interacted with by the visitor. >> they are a lot about and they fall down the belt. it moves the belt up, and if you turn that faster, the butterflies fall in the move of words. >> the art reflect the commission's commitment to acquiring the best work from the bay area and beyond. in addition to the five new commissions, 20 artworks that commissions, 20 artworks that were already in the airport