historic landmark and keep it intact. so they was required and she took out loans to do this, but take the bricks down and she had each brick numbered and she had each brick stored along with the iron gates from new orleans, and that was so costly that it ultimately caused her financial demise. and she went bankrupt. this storage of the bricks, the storage company, auctioned off those bricks and low and behold, we know who bought those bricks. in fact, i appeared in the bankruptcy court and by the way i only heard of this hearing earlier this week as i was visiting verona which is also on this street. >> we know where the bricks are and readily available and the east west bank to the wholly owned subsitary and we believe

that this is part that was offered to bank for the storage fee. >> and they are readily available and all of that is being asked that they get paid back for the storage fees and so, it seems like a complete waste to throw the stucco up on a historic building which may are may not be bank owned rye now. but i would hate to lose what is not just part of that block, but part of the whole atmosphere of what is a san francisco lawyer, to be a montgomery street lawyer is a status of prestige and to start throwing up stucco is devastating. i have my business cards available for anyone who wishes to know where the bricks are and the current cost of storage is. >> that is incredible news.

commissioners, stewart norton. you got my letter i assume. i have ten copies if you didn't. >> thank you. >> in a nutshell, it says wow, how could this be exempt from the seca review this is not a minor alteration and this is a major thing, by the way you have a really important decision to make on this building, the landmarks do not intend and part of the historic district on the national register and to quote, what is my preservation buddies, if this get approved as planned we have a pathetic wall. and i think that explains a lot of things. i have talked to mino who was the city storage proprietor who left his storage space of

december 31 of last year and after i met with the arc, in june, i talked to him and he said, i went out snooping and i found some of the brick. and they were in boxes of two by three by three, i think or four. and he went snooping around, and he found a bunch of the brick, we don't know how much. but according to jay's report way back in 2003 and 4 and 5, we don't need the total amount of brick, we need those are the 1,000s, and cubic yards for the brick on the facade, and it said so in the report. >> i said it at the arc that the stucco would be the answer if we can't find the brick. this guy came out, and just spoke before me and i don't know his name yet. any way, i am also again the roof deck and the elevator

penthouse as i stated in the letter it is not appropriate, even the smaller, larger one that was not approved by the landmark's board in 2005. >> and you know, you have got a very big decision on this one which don't let this building go just for the sake of getting the building finished, there is a lot of neighbors here that are very an sus to get the scaffolding down and this whole thing has been a disaster, don't let that emotion effect the building, it is one of our best buildings. thank you. >> iment to support the letter that you received from stewart norton and it was actually crafted within the xhupt and had i been around yesterday i would have like to have signed it. and also very concerned about the kedex, i don't think that it is a kedex. and i think that just to throw

that out there is ridiculous. i am worried that you are never going to see the montgomery side again and nobody has seen it for a long time. the windows seem to be gone. and i don't know where those windows are, have they disappeared with all of the other windows? i mean, the fact of all of these things disappearing is not acceptable. going through the reports that you have, i found that there are 228 crates of bricks at some point and that just does not happen, you also at the arc asked that the bricks are looked for by the project sponsor and i would have assumed that your staff would have helped out with that as well. i think and i didn't hear mr. norton say so, but i understand that he called again after your arc meeting and that the man said that he had heard from the spro ject sponsor that they did not want the bricks, now i don't care if they want them or not, if they are available they need to use them. both under the earlier cof a

and also because these two buildings are among the most important in jackson square from the age standpoint and etc.. there is not all of that much stucco going on in hoteling place and they should not be stuccoed unless there is no other alternative. >> no one has also cleared on what size the windows might be or if of what material. some people says that they might look like they did but there is nothing specific here. and that is really important, the building seems to be tall and her nobody is talking about that. the whole thing is just auful. as far as staff is concerned, i would like to point out that the arg report has a problem on page 3 and saying that the buildings date from 1953 and 1954 instead of 1853 and four and if someone would make that into the record because we don't want later on to have

somebody come up with that. i also had the problems with your motion. and typos. i know with the computers i know that it must be hard to prove, but i think that it is really important. and the motion at the bottom of page 3, and may i continue? >> 30 seconds. >> under general plan compliance, i think that the permit to alter should be called a certificate of appropriateness. and on page 4, at section 2.7 it is the historic district should be the jackson square and on page 5 g, i don't believe that the project meets the secretary of the interior standard, thank you. >> thank you. >> and i have a speaker card from jake turm bo but i have to ask the city attorney because

he is the principal at the company that is the sponsor, and i don't know if he could also public comment. >> it seems like and we gave time to the project sponsor and to make a presentation and are they allowed to also have public comment. >> if it is part of the project team then they speak during the project sponsor's opportunity. you certainly could ask follow up questions. >> i am going to if you don't mind i am going to move on to other public comment, just because you are principal at the company. >> public comment? >> good afternoon, members of the commissioner, with san francisco heritage and previously stated these two buildings are among the city's earliest and most significant buildings in the earliest landmarks and first emphasized that they have not reviewed this pro-yekt and not rendered an opinion with the

appropriateness of stucco verses vaneer but i do have a few comments today. and the buildings are both among the most significant and unfortunately they have become a symbol of the demolition by neglect and no fault of the owner, every effort should be made to incourt the original fabric into the proposed project it seems to me that legitimate issues have been raised regarding the issues of the original brick and materials and it would seem to me to be premature to come to a decision today. heritage off or whatever support it can to resolving and clarifying the existence of the original material and the feasibility of corporating them into the proposed design. >> any other member of the public that wish to speak on this item? >> seeing none, we will close

the public comment and bring it back to the commission. >> >> public comment? >> yes. >> we put our names in. >> oh, you did. >> okay, sorry we did not pick that up >> we will reopen public comment. >> thank you very much. >> my name is clod peroso and impart of a group that owns the property immediately next door. as well as the building next door to that on the corner of jackson which is 463, 473 jackson and believe it or not, this building has been shut down and scaffolded to about 27 years and the issues that it

has caused for everyone immediately in the neighborhood are fairly significant, we have a very good occupant of the building of 737, 32 who because of the staff and the fact that the building is set and disrepair for 24 years and in the morning before they open the doors the employees have to come out and sweep and hose down urine and fecal matter and needles and etc. from the folks who have see sen shally encamped themselves within the buildings, and scaffolding which is almost impossible to secure and we had over the years, four break ins as the people review the scaffolding allowed to come down to the roof and argue and burglar our tenants and so it is a real problem, it is a real problem and they just blieted the block and began to bliet the neighborhood and all of a sudden we have a developer who has come in and purchased the

property and taking a risk in terms of trying to enhance the property, and he wants to put the 12 residential units in there which are full of the people who are going to work in the neighborhood and shop in the neighborhood and enhance the neighborhood and revitalize, the neighborhood. and so, belief me as neighbors who are next door and many of us in this group, we know that the decisions in this building are going to effect us the most and we are right there and it is going to effect us in the short run and the medium run and the long run and we are not looking to make a rash decision or anything because we are going to feel the effects immediately and forever. however, this group has come in and been very thoughtful and detail oriented and made presentations to us and shown us the elevations and all of the plans and i have been transparent and we are pleased with what they have, in terms of the roof garden, it is a great amendy for all of the residents and good looking and 30 more seconds and in terms of

the elevator, it is not a penthouse in the formal sense it is a mechanical structure in order to be necessary to have the elevator come up to serve the disabled people as well. in terms of stucco we can find it on the rear exterior of the property. and most on the block or hoteling have a stucco or a painted brick and there is one natural brick building, with the small building and we highly encourage this property is go forward. >> thank you. >> quen and followed by angela hamby. i am calurd quen and i am one of the owners directly across the alley from the building. in the year 2000 i bought the

building and since then, i have converted it into three condos and one commercial and two residential. and actually two commercial and one residential. and we have put up with this for 23 years. my property value has dropped tremendously. and when i sold off the two condos, i lost a lot of money. people talked about how can you buy anything, across from this building, in san francisco, we have a lot of victoran buildings, the large majority of them, the facades are what are really significant. if you look at the back of the victor abuildings, they were built like cracker box and they were simple and that is the same thing in jackson square. if you look around, you will see great deal of the buildings that the bricks have been painted over in the backs and a

lot them in the front. what is important about this building is the two facades on montgomery street. my building is historical building number 1 1. these are 9 and 10. certainly i want to see something phenomenal happen and i remember with this plat and norton have had so many years to deal with this. the bricks that are being discussed, i can't imagine they are in very good shape because when they were torn out of there the mortar comes out and the bricks get compromised and if we were to put the bricks in there and paint them over, you would not notice a thing on the back side, the front side, i urge you to you know, review carefully, and make sure that it looks great. but the back side we have homeless, and i have pictures of, you know, the dramatic effect that it has had and the people in my neighborhood.

we have lost retail businesses and we can't rent our spaces people don't come down any more. it has been a really dramatic thing for a long time. we used to have 25 an teague dealers down there, we have 6 and we have offices coming in, instead of retail. so, you know, i went to the mayor willie browns 20 years ago to try to help the situation, we have gone through the city attorney. we have gone through so many different things, this is, you know, 150 yards from the major icon of the transamerica building and it is really negative effect on our city, our tourism and the whole thing. thank you. >> miss hamby? >> i am the neighbor across the street, i live by the unit and

the master building faces this and i was born and raised in the western neighborhood in a time when many were board bored of that. the property management issues and increased costs in the safety issues created by this bliet are tremendous and numerous security issues time and time again in the evenings. and our whole neighborhood agrees with this project, the developer has been wonderful to deal with in addressing all of our concerns because we want a historic neighborhood and they have been transparent and we need to remember that we live in an environmental matter, right now the climate is good and i can tell you that these will sell quickly and if the unique thing is too difficult for this developer, we risk them walking away and ending up with the building and skaf fording because the retail markets are not right and i can't urge you strongly enough.

there is no one in this room or city more impact and we are on board and we feel that having a green roof is a wonderful development in the urban environment and we are behind chicago and new york xh actually require the removal and instead of adding more hvac on and the raising of the height and my understand is to accommodate an elevator that will allow the disabled people to access the roof and so we are on board with this and we urge you to do the same, thank you very much. >> any other member of the public, whether you gave us a card or not. wish to speak? >> yeah, you were. >> we lost one card along the way. >> i am matsuda, from the 25 holaling hoa, and following up on angela's comments there were only two residential buildings,

and we are obviously attracted to the historic square and we support the developer coming on board and taking this project on and seeing the completion of this building. i guess that renovation is a strong woerd, but evolution and seeing the bliet lifted. what we are concerned with is we are blue sky starved already and we are at the base of the financial district and also the cer csf that went up right in the sun arc and blocked a lot of our sunlight during more than half of the year. and we are very supportive of the developer, and working through this project. what we do want to ask is that light blue sky, privacy issues are taken into consideration,

for the other home owners, and we are building of eight condos, and two parcels, south of this project. and the penthouses that are already two penthouses on the roof. so i am not sure that if this is a third pept house being discussed but i would like to see some consideration of minimizing additional structures on the roof and the impact of a further height will have on the blue sky effect which is extremely minimal already. and just wanted to do a few months a year really. >> that said, again, we are encouraging the project, we just want the roof height and impact on blue sky to be considered. >> any other member of the public? >> seeing none we will close public comment. >> back to the commission, commissioner johnck? >> yes, thank you. >> i am interested in getting a

little further understanding about the original brick and wondered if the members of the architecture review committee would it be andrew? yeah, that, and maybe karl, and you previously looked at this, and your recommendation on the stucco was that because the original brick that the location of the original brick was a question. and it was not to be found and so, the next best historic representation would be through stucco, i guess that is the question. or, does this new information about the possibility location of the original brick would this make me difference in your original consideration about the use of the historic material? >> at that hearing we were told that the original brick was not available and we felt that the stucco was a better choice than the brick which seemed kind of not an appropriate material in

terms that it was just a thick brick and that it was and there seemed to be evidence of those and since i had originally been stucco and so that was our recommendation and so so the brick situation is a new information that we didn't have at that time. if the brick is available or not. >> commissioner pearlman? >> yeah, i mean, part of the department had worked with the project sponsor about putting veneer on it and there is the sense that it looks very fake, you know, even a good one looks very thin and the detailing. you know f, even salvaged brick would be better than veneer but that we actually, mr. norton said in the hearing, ining would be better than the veneer and we kind of had more discussion about it and i think that is part of you know that discussion. >> okay. just so in response to that too. i mean, does it make and this is of course, part of our

discussion, does the fact that there may be a position location and mr. buellr said that he might and could be helpful perhaps, and in bringing this to light or something like that. would that be important to reconsider the original recommendation? i guess that is what i ... >> commissioner johns? >> i nout that everything based on what came before us that using the stucco would be an appropriate response to solving this problem, of course it is quite interesting that now at the really the last minute here, we are told on the one hand that there is some brick available. and then another gentleman informed us that he knows where all of the brick is and i have

no doubt, that... and let me phrase it this way. there are a couple of things that occurred to me. we don't know what the brick was available and if the condition on the brick is available actually is. the papers that were given made it pretty clear that the building originally had two kinds of brick, we don't know why the brick was covered with the stucco in the first place. it may be that the brick was ugly and that this was an appropriate 19th century response to dealing with the

back of a commercial building. >> all of the papers that we received, there was a suggestion that the brick had a value which was nowhere near the amount of the storage costs and that the people who had the brick wanted their storage costs. that leads me to observe that this is one of fascinating situations where there is enough brick and assuming that the brick is attractive. then we must consider the cost involved. >> because in all of these projects costs is extremely

important. and we may be in that position where the perfect is the worst enemy of the good. but, at this point, we don't know whether the brick would be suitable to be replaced. because we don't know that, and because this was apparently originally covered with stucco before melvin took it off in 1958. i am inclined to support the use of stucco so that after very nearly a quarter of the century, this eye sore can be solved. >> thank you, commissioner pearlman? >> i felt like with the first speaker, the first comment and i am wondering if you could come up here for a second. i felt like we were in a murder mystery because we revealed that we knew the location and

would not reveal what that was and said you know if the project sponsor was interested and they could contact me and here is my card. well the project sponsor is sitting right there and perhaps, we could you could reveal to us how you know this information, and that it is verifiable and that if the brick does actually exist, and i think that i agree with stewart morgan and mike if the brick actually does exist, we should and in response to commissioner johns. we should gave it some time and say let's find the brick and verify that it is the brick and then test the brick and say that this has to be done by a certain period of time because otherwise this is just an endless thing and i feel horrible for the people that they have lived with this for a quarter of the century and i moved here in 89 and you know, weeks before the earthquake and

you know and i used to work down in that area, and you know, it is like someone else said half of my life. i am wondering if you could reveal a little bit more? >> i was not talking about the crate of bricks that i believe, mr. morton was talking about. i was talking about the 228 slabs, all of the bricks. and the iron work. nancy had a company called glow metro and that was a company that was going to restore the building, and she was required to number each brick because this building you are in a better position to know that it was the first home of physical therapy ... of the free masons and so she had to test each one

and number them so that they would be put back in the same spot and i am not sure all of the bricks were reusable. but enough of them to create. and they were stored in south san francisco and ultimately the cost of removing, testing, documenting, these bricks is what made her unable to complete the project. her brother bought those bricks at auction and her brother has been storing them ever since, east west bank when they initiated four closure procedures against the company, glow metro, she was unable to say where she was or elderly and could not make it today. and she is under medication and there was many, many hearings that i was present with her, where you know, because of medication she would try to give her best recollection. from that we know that the

brother has them and yes, there is probably a situation where the cost of storing them out weigh the value of the brick if you took it just as the value of the brick and not the historic value. >> i am not questioning that at all. >> these are whole numbers that could be resolved. >> they have been stored for so many years and so much cost involved and i am sure that he is not looking to get every penny out of it that he paid to get these out of the auction and preserve them and, they were not sold to a contract and her now they are sitting in a house. >> we heard a different story at the arc is that they were actually trying to get the owner to pay a much higher cost than the storage fee, so now this is another twist. >> the owner being the brother of nancy, was trying to