you can go ahead and start talking. it will come up. commissioner, i am jerald, dr. jerald [speaker not understood], a psychologist and my practice involves teaching and consulting in psychology, in particular with organizations and organizational behavior. in this particular instance i work with mr. low and i observed absolutely amazing, exciting organizational behavior. exactly 4 37 people were quite excited to express their negative reaction to this particular project.

and it is to your advantage that we ended up getting a petition for these people unless they'd all be here. they'd all like to talk to you and you would have been here for days. but we know that this commission has already decided to approve the subject variance. so, the only reason for this meeting, this hearing is for you to consider the attitudes, opinions, and beliefs of the people who would like to be here one way or another, if not in person, by petition. and you saw the people who -- they felt negatively affected of any physical change in their habitat. and they saw this so clearly that they asked to have the petition. we didn't actually solicit. people came around asking,

couldn't we come -- how about a petition? it's interesting to note that your discovery review document indicated there were zero people in favor of this project where 11 were registered as being opposed. 11 was a good start, but 4 37 decided to add their names to that and i could not emphasize that more than i can at the moment. with that in mind, i petition you not in any way to turn your back or ignore these people. these are the people of that particular neighborhood. you have in your possession a copy of this, and this is only the first hundred or so people that signed up. every one of those signatures

is represented by a location. the subject location is right here. so, it's immediate, very immediate in proximity. finally, i believe it would be absolutely absurd, absolutely absurd for you not to consider exercising your discretion -- >> sir, your time is up. thank you very much. >> any additional speakers in support of the dr? plural, drs? okay. project sponsor, you have five minutes. good evening, commissioners. my name is matt wren. this is patricia [speaker not

understood] toby morris, our architect to answer any design questions you might have. patricia and i have lived in this neighborhood for the past seven years, literally five blocks from the subject property. we are not property developers. this project is to create a home that can house our expanding family. over the last 15 months we have done absolutely everything asked of us by the planning commission, fire, dbi, and the residential design team. in addition to this, we have tried to work extensively with our most impacted neighbor, mr. low. we believe the resulting project is first and foremost in character with the neighborhood. these photos show a number of buildings within a one to two-block radius that demonstrates the variety and type of buildings that exist literally within one to two blocks of the subject property.

our proposed addition is not visible from most public spaces. this diagram depicts the sight line from the opposing sidewalk looking back up at the building. the proposed addition isn't visible from most public spaces in part as a result of the major setbacks we have created on all four sides. this diagram shows the yellow blocking is the setbacks within our lot, the white box in the middle is the proposed addition, and as you can see we have created significant setbacks on all four sides. importantly, this proposed project maintains all existing rent control units. it does not merge any dwelling units. and we are utilizing a unit that we receive vacant when we purchased the building which allows us to move in and owner occupy.

in addition to this, there are many life safety and quality of life improvements that will benefit all residents of the building. these include replacing the failing brick foundation, performing a full-size mike upgrade, sprinklers throughout this old dry wood frame building, replacing windows, remodeling the entrance way and stairwell, implementing solar panels for efficient energy, and creating three car parkseses at the expense of just half a street space. ~ the reality is that these drs are about views and as such i'd like to share with you some facts concerning the project and our negotiation with mr. low. in our rebuttal we also have an alternative design that we would be comfortable with that would further protect mr. low's views.

mr. low collected 400 plus petition signatures on the basis of two strong statements in his petition form. the first is that buildings that exceed 40 feet in height are detrimental to this neighborhood. the second is that he explicitly claimed no buildings on this block currently exceed 40 feet. mr. low's own penthouse on this block is 50 feet. this diagram here demonstrates that. the blue square on the left shows the height of mr. low's penthouse standing at 50 feet tall. the yellow line, the yellow box shows our proposed edition which would also be 50 feet tall. the red horizontal line above the yellow box shows our zoned maximum height limit of 65 feet

and demonstrates that we are materially inside that zoned limit. mr. low's dr submission also included this elevation, which demonstrates our proposed addition, superimposed on the building to demonstrate its relative size versus the neighboring buildings. what's missing from this is that he is conveniently failed to show his own fourth floor penthouse in this submission. this is a photograph of mr. low's penthouse. clearly it does exist. this photo is of the rear of the two buildings. the red dotted lines on the right are mr. low's existing fourth floor penthouse that comes right to the boundary both on the rear wall and the side wall. the dotted yellow line shows our proposed addition with a setback. and this also demonstrates the stiffing that comes down with the gradient of the street.

there have been many compromises already conceded to mr. low through this process. we have already reduced the front height by one foot. we have modified our rear roof design from sloping to flat. we have also reduced the rear roof height by 9 inches. we have relocated our south egress stairs to the front of the building. these egress stairs now come through the middle of a bedroom. we also created entire length side setbacks as opposed to simply matching mr. low's lightwells. in addition to this we have made multiple attempts to work and communicate with mr. low. we have sent him seven letters dating back to september 2011. we have extended three offers to meet and discuss the project, none of which he accepted. we had one meeting which was being arrangeedth and

facilitated by elizabeth in the planning department which was both agreed to and scheduled for november in 2012. mr. low canceled this meeting on one day's notice citing that he opposes this project carte blanche and he thinks the meeting would be a waste of time. mr. low maintains significant golden gate bridge views even with our current proposal. i appreciate this is a little difficult to see, but this image shows the view out from mr. low's penthouse out over the golden gate bridge and the bay. the inner cone which is 15 degrees wide depicts the width of the golden gate bridge. the other cone at 45 degrees depicts the breadth of view that mr. low has from his penthouse with our proposal in its current form.

this diagram shows the point at which we've taken these lines from and extrapolated out. and as you can see from within mr. low's penthouse we have been reasonably conservative from the point at which we have taken these view lines. as you move west towards his -- towards the rear of his building, this cone expands and expands his field of view. in addition to this, both of our north and south abutting neighbors have eight foot rear yards and this includes mr. low's building. our proposed addition has between 15 and 22-foot rear yard. with two minutes remaining, i was wondering, toby, if you have anything. thank you.

thank you, commissioners. i guess i would address some of the concerns that have been raised so far. >> do you wish to state your name? sorry, toby morris of toby morris architects. parking in this neighborhood is an issue. we are proposing a curb cut that is adjacent to another curb cut so it will remove one half of a car space to provide parking for three. this is not a luxury condo project. mr. wren has kept these units -- the former owner occupied three of these units. so, when he purchased the building, it was delivered to him with three units unoccupied. he has no intent of displacing the existing tenants. in fact, he's keeping these units open for the express intent as he can facilitate the construction and enable the tenants to move within the

building during construction and then let out the units when he's done with the construction. the building as indicated in this drawing is setback on all of these four sides. the 15-foot plus in the front is substantial and impossible to make it see from across the street at a pedestrian view. there is the [speaker not understood] from the north that can be seen, but we set it off to the side to mitigate it. so, could i have a little more time? we didn't realize that the -- both mr. low and his attorney would each have time to speak. >> toby, you received 10 minutes. >> you've already had 10 minutes because it was two drs. thank you. >> there may be questions that may help clarify. okay. dr requestor, you have rebuttal, two-minute rebuttal.

i'm sorry, i got ahead of myself. it's a little bit late. speakers in favor of the project sponsor, if there are any. can the project architect use one of those? mr. morris, if you want, you can use this opportunity to speak in favor of the project. >> this is not your rebuttal. you'll just be speaking in favor of the project. i won't take a lot of your time. i'd just like to hit on a few of the issues that have been raised. again, it is not the intent here to do tic or luxury housing. it is to bring back thea renters or keep them in place, actually during construction.

the setbacks are more than are needed in order to keep the building largely invisible from the street, certainly. and the rear setback is essentially larger than our adjacent neighbor. we think it is sufficient to do the job. we do have another alternative we could show during rebuttal period that could open that up further for mr. low and views from the informal structure he has on the back of his property. i also want to emphasize the substantial benefit of the scope of work for all the tenants in terms of doing seismic work, sprinklers, insulation, new windows. i think i'll leave it at that. thank you. >> thank you. now, dr requestor, you have a two-minute rebuttal. thank you, president fong,

members of the commission. steve williams again. addressing the entire presentation of mr. low, this is not about mr. low. we have people here from across the street, from down the street, from behind, from in front. when you can't get a single supporter for your project, not one supporter for your project, something's wrong. he didn't put up story pole. your plans are not to scale. you wouldn't even supply a set of the plans to the neighbors. that's something that went wrong here. the graphics flashed on the screen. first time we've seen them. they're not to scale. they're not accurate. they're not submitted. they showed the same photos of what they claim is the neighborhood. the project site is not in any of the photos they showed. that is a block and a half north where the high-rises are. the lowe's penthouse is not an occupied space. you heard that from his sister eva chan low. it is a 200 square foot laundry room and you can't compare that to a 1300 square foot fifth

floor addition. it's a historic anomaly that was put on the building when it was built in 1910. yes, there are other buildings that also have stair and elevator penthouses that can't -- they're not comparable. the current floor to ceiling height on this fifth floor is more than 11 feet high. sensitive? on the first floor it's more than 10 feet high. that's not a sensitive rendition of an addition. they're not even providing the code required setbacks. you hear this talk about these setbacks are adequate. they're asking for a variance so that the setbacks they're providing aren't even meeting the code. the code minimum. what we're asking for is eliminate the variance, eliminate the garage, and shrink this penthouse. if you're going to allow the penthouse, it has to be much smaller to come close to fitting in the neighborhood. thank you very much.

>> second dr requestor. you have two minutes. thank you. john casey, [speaker not understood] property management again. the one point i wanted to bring up, the project sponsor's continued reference to the front of the property setback. but as we know, it's offset by the variance request to the rear of the subject property which severely impedes the open air space and privacy to the rear. so, again, i am strongly opposed and request -- based on all the facts, to reject the project. thank you. >> okay. project sponsor, you have a two-minute rebuttal.

firstly, i'd like to address a couple of things mr. williams said. he makes mention of in his submission we are creating a fourth floor. we are creating a fifth floor to be clear. it's an existing three-story above basement building. we're creating a fourth floor addition. there are a number of inaccuracies. we've also got [speaker not understood] about not seeing the actual building in question. this image shows the white building is the subject property. the building up the hill from that is mr. low's property. the red dotted line you see depicts the proposed addition. and as you can see, even from the worst possible angle over the partially vacant lot, for the most part from public spaces, this petition just isn't visible. it is visible to other owners and buildings and the issue as i mentioned earlier i genuinely

believe is about views. i don't believe the concerns are about character. i believe it's about views. i'm not sure how relevant it is, but in the context of a petition created based on some information that wasn't even true, we also discovered that the hearing poster on the side of our building had an attachment stuck to it presumably by one of the dr requestorses. ~. [speaker not understood]. i would like to assume it's not okay to attach things to a hearing poster especially on the face of my building. one last image, i appreciate it's late. you guys have been here probably 55 hours longer than you need to be. this again is a view of the subject site. you can see the white building is our building, the brown building is mr. low's. the red dotted line, the red

dotted image is [speaker not understood]. the proposed addition and that it's not visible from these public ways. >> thank you very much for your time. >> thank you. ~ okay, the public hearing is closed. commissioner comments and questions. commissioner moore. >> i think this particular project raises a large number of questions. i am bewildered by the large amount of people who are speaking against it and the complete absence of anybody supporting it. when you bring up a google image of the overall scale and kind of city scape from the neighborhood, i think the neighbors are very well and accurately presenting that all buildings are of similar height and sloping roof line which basically actuates knob hill.

[speaker not understood] created around it are all on top of the hill and the flat portion not affecting anybody. however, when you move into a stepping roof line and add an extra floor, i think it is going to be very difficult for everybody. i have to admit that mr. [speaker not understood] historic preservation on his building. wonderful story to listen to because it is hard to imagine in today's situation that people had to indeed use something which looks more like a little shed up there to draw their laundry, but that's not what we're discussing today. i believe that the alterations to the building itself, the ones which mr. moore described, do more harm to the residential units of the representers than anybody can really imagine. for three of the units, at least, the laundry room where people have a washer, dryer and

potentially refrigerator/freezer are being eliminated to get this elevator in. but what i find amazing is in a multi-story building of the elevator only serves the upper unit. it does not upgrade the residential building in which the people with disability might be able to live. i live actually 800 feet away from this building and i know the neighborhood very well. i've lived there for 30 years. so, i feel very comfortable weighing in on this particular discussion because some of the buildings have elevators. to say that the benefit for the tenants would be seismic upgrades and sprinklers is for me not a discussion item because the buildings have to perform to seismic and safety standards and improvements of that are voluntary or mandate by code and don't really -- cannot be considered a benefit or an argument of why we should be more favorably looking at this expansion. but having said that, if one

would entertain an expansion to this building, we need to remember that we are having a legal noncompliant lot, and that mean we are looking at a building which was built to the extent that it would not meet today's buildings that would be built today on that particular lot. it is a substandard lot by width. i don't know exactly what its exact length is. in any case it has other issues in terms of how it covers the lot which would not be allowed today. so, for starters, to suggest an addition which also requires a variance is for me unfathomable. i cannot imagine on a legally noncompliant lot to add a variance because that is exacerbating the problem of why we cannot even pull this building back to be a code compliant building today any more. we have to live with a

noncompliant building on that lot and it's legal to be noncompliant. however, to add more noncompliance is for me unfathomable partially because of impact, but also partially what it does to the rest of the building. so build an elevator which actually only allows the upper unit owner to go into the garage also raised the question for me because it seems to indicate this owner wants to have two or three cars for himself or rent a car for somebody else from someplace else, nobody else can access the basement by a stair which people clearly can do that stair would be cut off and only the person on the top unit will be able to go into the garage. that is the way i read it. if in these actually smaller older buildings and i have lived in two of them in the area, i lived on jackson and

hyde on the other side of the hill, the basement was at least one or two rooms in which renters have small cubicles to store suitcases and other things because the units are small enough. all of that is going to be eliminated because the access to the basement as far as i can read the drawings does not exist any more, nor is there any suggestion to provide another amenity such as a laundry room if the laundry room is now being taken away from at least three of the units with the elevator. i believe the ceiling heights are too tall. i believe the building cannot have a balcony in the east facing direction which it doesn't exist anywhere. i believe if any addition would be permitted or considered by this commission, it would have to be smaller and more in line with some other considerations that were raised by the architect himself and by some of the adjoining neighbors.

>> commissioner antonini. >> well, i disagree with commissioner moore that this -- we're not a popularity contest. i mean, i don't think that somebody has a project that's i think beneficial and compliant does not have to drag a bunch of people down here to testify in his favor and it speaks for itself. there are some issues that were raised by commissioner moore, though, that i did want to address. perhaps project architect could give me some answers. okay. the question about the elevator. now, the building is four floors. this will be the fourth floor. correct. >> being added, okay. so, i believe you are not required to have an elevator if it's a three-story building, but you do if you have a fourth floor ; is that correct? no, this is an elective elevator. ~ to commissioner moore's point, to do an a-d-a compliant elevator, it would be quite a bit bigger.

so, this is what's considered a convenience elevator. >> yeah. what i'm saying is, though, the code, as far as the building -- assuming there is no addition at all, the three floors are okay with stairs. if you add a fourth floor, then you have to put an elevator in for that fourth floor, i believe. no, no. >> okay. maybe mr. sanchez -- >> to my understanding there is no requirement under the building code to add an elevator if you have a four-story building. the architect can confirm that. this is a voluntary elevator. correct. >> there are certain additionses or heights above which you have to have elevators. >> this is not one of them. this is not a required elevator. >> so, the elevator does president really make too much difference. the other question i had for you is i think you had offered to remove part of your third -- some areas an extension over a lightwell for mr. low; is that correct? you were proposing to change

your project -- that's incorporated into our design already. >> it's already in there. yes, currently there is a roof over the stair that's adjacent to mr. low's property and that roof would be removed. and then the new wall is set three feet back from that. so, it's opening up light. and, of course, this is a wall that faces south which would reflect sunlight. >> okay, thank you. well, i have a few other comments. i disagree with some of the statements commissioner moore made, and i'll need some direction from staff. a lot of these things are improvements that don't need to necessarily be done. for instance, foundations are important. there are many foundations in san francisco that are probably would not conform to today's code for sure. but they're there. often masonry foundations, they're very dangerous. in case of an earthquake the whole building could fall down. i think they w