could buy curtains and just sort of concerns me as a resident. so, that's all i'm here to say. thank you. >> other members of the public? okay. so, d-r requestor, you have a two-minute rebuttal. >> thank you. thank you. ~ what i'd like to show you is a bar chart that was created in conjunction with evaluating the size of the rose decks, roof decks in the area. so, if we can take a look at that. i found that 21 roof decks and raised decks in a laid back area, i was able to measure. the blue one at the top is the

project sponsor's proposed roof deck. measures, i think it's 258 square feet. if you look at the other 20, you'll notice that they average around 107 square feet. with the second-largest deck on the order of 160 feet. so, there's almost 100 square feet difference between the horner's deck proposed deck and what anyone else in our neighborhood has actually built. i think that the take away from that is this deck is [speaker not understood] in context. and in order to have a functional deck as indicated with what 20 other people had done, that this deck could take

a five-foot setback with the railing which would leave it near the top of this list. plus, it would also mitigate the privacy issue that we're facing. thank you. >> thank you. project sponsor, you have two minutes. i'll be quick. the simple idea is that when i stamped in my heels at five feet back, i can still see in the bedroom window and i don't think that's going to solve that. that's the concern basically that we have. we played the sectional game back and forth to retrieve the edge of the deck and make the edge of the deck solid. and somebody who is shorter than i am is perfectly cut off at the five foot length. somebody who is as tall as i am

or taller has a straight shot. and i think there's just a simple question of what is a reasonable approach to this, what is the intent of the planning code to allow this kind of habitation of an otherwise unused flat roof area. and that's all i have to offer. thank you. >> thank you. okay, the public hearing portion is closed. commissioner sugaya. >> yes, it's a difficult case, i think, for the commission because you kind of have to say on the one hand if you just look at what the architect's presented as just land use issues, or setback issues or residential design guideline issues, or whatever, then it probably isn't extraordinary. but there seem to be other

circumstances that we're always faced with. so, on the one hand, i think as a bedroom, since it's off the bedroom and if we assume that the project sponsor is going to live there for quite a long period of time and he's old enough that he's not going to grow very much taller, he's, you know, the five foot setback would probably work. i don't know which lady in the back is your wife, but i assume she's not any taller than you are. so, from one standpoint you could argue that five feet might work in this case and still have enough livability on the deck. and i suppose -- and i don't know where to go with it

exactly, but one idea might be to have -- although you may not want to go to the extent of spending the money for it, but you could have the roof deck as a deck and only pull the railing back five feet. and then at some future date -- and i'm trying to be sensitive here. at some future date, either the if this owner leaves, you're not going to sell your house since you've been there for 30 years. there might be a time in the future when there could be some extension or something like that. but that's neither here nor there. i don't know where to go with it actually. i'd like to hear more discussion among the commissioners. >> commissioner antonini. >> well, i have some thoughts on this.

i don't really care what the relative size is if the deck is relative to the other decks in the area. it's whatever is suiting the project sponsor. it looks like -- i'm not sure if this is 25 by 10. it looks like it probably runs the width of the house almost, and then i would assume it's about -- our project architect, is it 10 foot -- >> yeah, 25 by 12. >> please come to the podium. >> yeah, just tell me what the dimensions are. the setback from both -- the setback from one side property line approximately 4-1/2 to 5 feet. and the adjacent space happens to be above the street which is the series of steps, which is also one of the reasons why we can have the deck up against that property line and it's open to the public. >> right. what are the dimensions? it's probably in our paperwork. i believe it's 20 by --

>> [speaker not understood]. >> okay, thank you. the point is the 12 because i was thinking 25 by 10, but now, you know, because as you start to pull the thing back, particularly five feet, you start getting into a really small situation. your distance from the house, if you want to put a picnic table there, you want people sitting around it, you've got to have room for the table, room for the chairs. and, so, you know, it makes it difficult to have enough room to maneuver around there. it's not impossible, but it makes it less desirable. we've got 45 -- 43-1/2 feet of separation as was mentioned between the house, the d-r requestor's house and the location on the deck. even detached homes in san francisco frequently have -- if they're lucky -- three-foot separations. in the case of my house, which is in a detached neighborhood on the west side, three foot on each side. so, if i've in one of the rooms looking south, my neighbor is

in her bedroom there, we have the windows open and mine are open, and we can see each other. i mean, it comes with urban living, but this is an extremely long area there. so, i don't know that the idea or the solution of the fence i don't think is a good one because it's only going to cut the light and air to the bedroom in question of the d-r requestor. probably you want to get as much light and air in there. so, i don't see that as being a solution. but i'm not really sure that we need to cut a lot of size off of here. we have had situations often with our decks where we don't bring the railing all the way to the very end of the deck. it is -- i would entertain the possibility of recessing it a foot or, you know, two feet at the most away from there which still leaves you 10 feet. and that's enough room to maneuver around the table from the house to the side of the deck. >> commissioner moore.

>> since this particular deck is off a bedroom, i think the possibility of having a dining room table with people sitting around the table is somewhat limited, although people might do it. i think i generally favor decks to not be flush with the building wall for reasons, one, outside elevation, but also for reasons of [speaker not understood] the devil is in the details on that particular thing because not very -- if you have a solid [speaker not understood], do a good detail on the railing, it's not the easiest [speaker not understood]. i would be prepared to pull the deck two feet back and have that be a compromise. we do have a substantial separation, though, 45 feet plus a grade to front which by

itself is a combination of the vertical as well as the slope distance, which makes it somewhat unlikely somebody to stand at the edge and intentionally stare down, that's not how life works. there is a sensitivity to the health of the neighbors. i'm sure the neighbors will not send their guests or themselves to the edge in order to stare down there. having said that, i would be comfortable of taking d-r and asking for a two-foot setback off the deck to a 10 by 21.5 and leave it with that. >> is that a motion? >> it is a motion, yes. >> second. >> commissioner hillis? call the question. >> on that motion to take d-r and approve the project setting back the deck's depth by two feet, reducing the deck's depth 2 feet to 10 feet, on that motion, commissioner antonini? >> i'm sorry, i'm not sure if

it's 10 feet or 10.5. >> 10 feet. >> is that correct -- >> i was pulling it back by two feet, that's correct. >> i think it was testified that the depth was 12.5. >> 12 and 12, 12 and 1 inch. >> 10 foot 1 inch, close enough. >> reducing the depth of the deck by 2 feet. on that motion, commissioner antonini? >> aye. >> commissioner borden? >> aye. >> commissioner hillis? >> aye. >> commissioner moore? >> aye. >> commissioner sugaya? >> no. >> and commission president -- excuse me, commission chair wu? >> aye. >> so moved, commissioners, that motion passes by a vote of 5 to 1 with commissioner sugaya voting against. commissioners, that will place you on public comment. i have no speaker cards. >> is there any general public comment? okay. seeing none, meeting is adjourned.

[adjourned] because we have a great waste water system here in san francisco, we do about 80 million gallons of waste water here in san francisco, which means we basically fill up 120 olympic sized swimming pools each and every day here in the city. we protect public health and safety and environment because we are discharging into the bay and into the ocean. this is essentially the first treatment here at our waste

water treatment facility. what we do is slow down the water so that things either settle to the bottom or float to the top. you see we have a nice selection of things floating around there, things from bubble gum wrappers, toilet paper, whatever you dump down the toilet, whatever gets into our storm drains, that's what gets into our waste water treatment and we have to clean. >> see these chains here, this keeps scum from building up. >> on this end in the liquid end basically we're just trying to produce a good water product that doesn't negatively impact the receiving water so that we have recreation and no bad impact on fish and aquatic life. solids is what's happening. . >> by sludge, what exactly do you mean?

is that the actual technical term? . >> it's a technical term and it's used in a lot of different ways, but this is organic sewage sludge. basically what it is is, oh, maybe things that come out of your garbage disposal, things that are fecal in nature. it's sludge left in the water after the primary treatment, then we blend those two over and send them over to digestion. this building is built to replace tanks here that were so odoriferous they would curl your hair. we built this as an interim process. >> is there a coagulant introduced somewhere in the middle of this? . >> this coagulant brings solids

together and lets the water run through. that gives us more time in the digestion process, more time to reduce the amount of solids. these are the biggest ones in the world, like we always like to do in san francisco. they are 4 meter, there's none like it in the world. >> really? wow. >> three meters, usually. we got the biggest, if not the best. so here we are. look at that baby hum. river of sludge. >> one of the things is we use bacteria that's common in our own guts to create this reduction. it's like an extra digestion. one of the things we have to do to facilitate that is heat that sludge up and keep it at the temperature our body likes, 98.6 degrees. >> so what we have here is the heat exchanger for digester no. 6. these clog up with debris and

we're coming in to -- next wet weather season so we always come through here, clean them out, make sure that we get maximum heat exchange during the colder wet weather. sludge season. >> rubber glove. >> right here. >> rubber glove, excellent. all right, guys. >> thank you. >> good luck. >> this is the full on hazmat. . >> residual liquid. we're taking it time to let it drain. we don't want to get sludge on it necessarily. take your time. stand on the side of it. . >> should we let it release for a while? . >> let it release. >> is that the technical term?

. >> this is the most important bolt on the whole thing. this is the locking bolt. it locks this thing right in place. so now. >> take your hammer and what we want to do, we get rag build up right in here. the hot water recirculates right in here, the sludge recirculates in here. the sludge sometimes has rags in it. all we want to do is go around the clean the rags. let me show you how. take the slide hammer, go all the way through the back, go around. >> got you. >> during the real rainy season, how does that change the way dealing with this job? is it a lot more stuff in there? . >> what we do, charles, we do this quarterly. every four months we go around

and clean all the heat exchangers so we don't have a large build up. . >> go around? . >> yeah. (sound of hammering). >> what i'm trying to do, charles, is always pull it out on the low stroke. >> right. so you are not, like, flying out. now talk about clean up. . >> then where does this stuff get deposited? . >> we're going to dump it in a

debris box and it will go back to the plant. >> if you think back, the romans came up with a system of plumbing that allowed us it use water to transport waste away from the hub of civilization, which enabled cities to grow. . >> you have a large bowl, a drive motor and another motor with a planetary gearbox with differential pressure inside there. the large mass up there spinning separating the solids from the liquid. we have to prevent about once a month, we go in there grease those, change the oil, check the vibration levels. the operators can tell just by the hum of that machine that it's a harmonic noise emitted that it's out of balance and the machine needs to be cleaned.

it will start vibrating and we have vibration analysis machines that will come over here and check the levels. so it's kind of an on-going thing that you have to stay on top of on a daily basis. >> handled properly, you take organic residuals, as we call them, that are leftovers of our society and turn them back into some energy. and we have another ability to take that sludge and get a nutrient value for crops there. we actually are running a kind of composting energy recovery system. >> well, this is a dirty job. we try to do it safely and we try to do it without imposing too much on the public. people want to flush their toilets and have things go away and not be bothersome again. we do a lot to try to accomplish that. i'd like to invite you to come

back any time you want. once you got this in your blood, you are not going to be able to stay away. the raging waters are fun and when we do digester cleaning i really hope you can come back. that's quite a sight. >> yeah, that sounds interesting. >> i really appreciate you coming by and it was a

>> 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 were already in the airport

collection were reinstalled. some of which were historically cited in the terminal. it includes major sculptures by the international artists. as a collection, these art works tell the story of the vibrant arts scene in the early 1960's through the mid-1980s's. the illustrate san francisco's cultural center and a place of innovation that is recognized and the love throughout the world. one of the highlights is a series of three left tapestries. they are on view after being in storage for 20 years. these tapestries representing various gardens. from his years of living in san francisco. hydrangeas, chrysanthemums, and whilst dahlias in rich, deep

shades as they make their way to the baggage area. they can access behind-the- scenes information and interviews with the artist through an audio to work. it features archival audio as well as interviews with living artists. he can be accessed on site by dialing the telephone numbers located near the artwork or by visiting the commission's web site. the public art speaks volumes of san francisco as a world-class city with world-class art and culture. for more information, visit because we