yard, but there are options. you can look at the other developments and there are steep properties and there are options. developers i believe contractors are very skilled in that kind of thing. the nileance of this variance, the ability to construct units on the property would remain available as other projects on the class of district. again i wanted to show the alternative envelope that the project sponsor proposed and i have to reiterate that this averaging rear zone does not apply to this property. it goes further back than it should. you see there are a lot of opportunities that has additional housing for folks here in the community. and i didn't really focus on this one, but i wanted to

just reiterate that you know, rh 2, this comes right from our planning code, which includes these statements, these statements are devoted to one family and two family housing with two large flats one occupied by the owner and the other one for rental. this proposal does not match what's defined in the rh 2 class use of rh 2. there are plenty of options to meet this. and refocusing back on the property we lost, this was a property next to the museum and you can see this is what our property will look like, this will

be 22 ord, 24 ord, this will be the top on state street and the other side of state street. it's going to be sloping up the hill, i'm sure there are dimensional differences and this is a preview of what we can look forward to. this is the plot plan again from the project sponsor. i just wanted to point out what that means for a little bit of yard in the middle. you can see this is concrete wood and concrete and the open space in the middle of the rear yard is not much of green space. it's going to be paved over. this is what we'll see when the project is completed. just to give you a prospective on that, you can see this this project -- in this project of ways similar. this is a split lot and it didn't require a variance. this 15 -foot yard is going to be a little tavern. it's

going to have a retaining wall. just to give you a picture of it. i did want to point out the project, i know it has different owners. this was a development from the same project sponsor. i don't know how you define a project sponsor by owner or agent. this was again sia consulting. they did not disclose significant tradeson the large development. this really robs the people who don't know what's going on like us an opportunity to know that trees are going to be removed if we are not notified of this. i wanted to show you the tree. quickly i will show you some other properties on the street and then i wanted to point out real

quick. this shows just to the west of the property what these properties are. if you look at it from google, you see all of these rear yards adjacent to the property that have the similar thing. well, this is what it looks like from the street. everyone can enjoy this open space. this open space of rear yards at 22 ord court. if you allow homes in this, this is what you are going to get. this is what's going to happen if you apply it to other properties. >> thank you. >president cindy wu: project sponsor, your rebuttal. >> thank you, commissioners. john kimmel again. it seems to be less about the size and massing of

this project or that the project is too large and more about a general concern about how the development of their overall neighborhood, during or meetings with proposed to reduce the proposed building by an entire floor and that was offered and the answer was no. again, in their written communications there are mentions of the project but it speaks to the change ing of their neighborhood and their concern is valid. it's a valid point. in this case though we see the proposed project is not changing the character of the neighborhood nor the precedent setting. again, that's the

rendering from state street. the blue and green are the new projects. they are stepping up the street and there is the development in the neighborhood that are of equal or comparable size. another view from the other direction. the blue the building on state street does not stand out as massive or completely out of character with the neighborhood. what this analysis needs to be balanced again is the city and now region's growing housing crisis. if you have to pick a policy with value is the creation of new housing. neighbors of san francisco certainly have the right to not change the character of their neighborhood. in this case we have a development that is consistent with the neighborhood character and we should not stop our effort with the unwillingness to accept new development. that's what we seem to have here. we propose new

modifications with significant concessions and the answer has been no. i want to say we've had the benefit of being able to watch 58 state street come to the commission 2 weeks ago and commissioner wu's comments of more modest generally captures the essence of where this commission was coming from. we have come prepared to discuss alternatives if the commission would like to go in that direction. to emphasize, the project sponsor has already shown it's willingness to compromise and that willingness continues through today. the dr requesters do not rise to the level of extraordinary circumstances and we respectfully request that the commissioner accept the dr

with modifications. >president cindy wu: with that, the public hearing portion is closed. commissioner richards. ? >> >commissioner dennis richards: skew me, -- excuse me, sorry about that. what a marathon. i absolute support house, but i don't want to confuse with monster fiction. we saw this on sloping, that's not the same project sponsor. >> thank you for the question, commissioner. it's not the same project sponsor. the architect that is providing the services to the two developers. >> i just want to make sure because it could be confusing. >> what projects were

considered without the variance project sponsor? >> there was some difficulty with this side. where the project sponsor started was that 24 ord court hassledly tennants that have been there for over 30 years and they have a great relationship with those tennants and they did not want to touch that building and have a negative impact on the tennants. that leaves you with 22 ord and the two lots. it was explored looking at adding the second unit to the building at 22 ord court, but again considering the narrowness of that street and the mass that would have been necessary to create another dwelling unit on that building did not seem to make sense for the neighborhood and again that also wouldn't get you the 2 units on both lots which is what the rh 2 zoning would allow. this is

the next thing considering the neighborhood. >> i have a question for the zoning administrator, if they were to average and push the existing structure back, how far back could they go? >> i don't have exact dimensions. we need to know everything, i don't know if we've calculated that as per their required rear yard. i think one of the claims raised by the public is that the project is somehow not eligible for the rear yard and although it may not meet the qualifying definitions. i think we need to look at that more carefully. >> we did a quick look at that on the site plan that was provided and the adjacent property as you mentioned extends to the rear and there would be

essentially zero rear yard for the property at 21 ord court and 24 ord court the property is 59 feet and the average would result in a building depth of about 82 or 83 feet if i remember correctly which means there would be a rear yard of about 34-35 feet. currently the project sponsor proposes a rear yard separating at the rear structure to about 29-30 feet. >> so it wouldn't be too much of a difference? >> it would be about 45 feet. this is a very rough calculation. >> of course. it's refreshing that you watched the 50 state street debate and hearing because we did come back and as commissioner wu came and we did want something more modest.

the offering to your neighbor to the floor brings us down to 1700 square feet. i think that brings us more into modest range which would still be able to be a family but much more affordable to a 25 -square foot house and i will let the others speak to what their thoughts are. i am concerned about the tree. there is not a decision whether the tree is safe and needs to stay and you are going to have construction with 90-year-old tennants. i will defer to my other commissioners and hear what their sense is. >president cindy wu: commissioner >commissioner michael j. antonini: >> thank you, i went out yet and did an extension of the entire neighborhood. i started out with the museum just being there many times with my children and

grandchildren. but i did notice this very large structure which begins on museum and comes down to state and i will agree that did look pretty huge but it has nothing to do with this project and then i went all the way along to state and got to see the neighborhood context and saw a very diverse architecture. it's not all traditional. many of it is mid-century modern, there is a little bit of everything and many of them are typically above grade and that's much like what's being proposed on there. then i continued down to ord court and i had to go down to 17 street and i did go across staircase so i did walk up there so i can really see where this would be and see how

steep the hill streets are particularly above state going up to museum with very steep lots and also the area from ord cortese -- court up to state is steep too. the adjacent buildings on ord court have 3 stories also, but one of them has 5 stories setback and about 100 feet high. so i think the problem we are running into talking about the size of the buildings. if they are appropriate for the neighborhood and they don't have any noticeable impacts on the neighbors, then if they are a little bit larger it's not the worse thing in the world. we are not building any new single family homes in this city. we don't have any land. it's too bad we don't own parts in the

city, where there are good size family homes being built in the hills out there, but we don't have that kind of land and nobody is interested in getting in the side of the park. we have to do infield housing and a number of homes that are large enough with families with children. fw there are multiple children and you need help. i know generations ago and there are many people who have families crammed on the same level. if you have your choice you prefer a place where you have enough room for your children where you have multiple levels with enough square feet. the designs have lower levels because you have to have it down there and there is a single room down there and you have a garage level and then you have a former room level, living

room, dining room and kitchen and you have the bedrooms and baths on the top levels which makes sense. i have a home similar to that. i think it's nice to have that kind of thing. the alternative, there is opposition to building homes on a vacant lot, but we tried to take a project in the richmond where the supervisors over turned our verdict where we have a home where it was going to be demolished and apparently the supervisors didn't like that either because they rather have two small homes rather than a home of larger scale. i can see that even though i

didn't agree with it. this we have homes built very similar. it was pointed out that a lot of homes on state street have 2,000 square feet already. it's not that exceptional. i think it will do a lot of good things. there is no regular rear yard pattern as we've seen from the maps and there are a lot of places that have buildings on both, i think 8 of the 16 lots have structures on ord and state streets as pointed out whether it's a split lot or not , it doesn't make any difference. the end result is the same. whether you are calling it, it doesn't change the rear yard and the end result ends up with 20-30-foot space in between on a very steep slope that you couldn't use before

and at least you have a usable slope now. in calculating the square footage, everybody is acknowledging these would be under 2500 square feet. you don't count garages. you have to really look at these based on what has been traditionally the case with real estate. when you buy a home, they will tell you how many square feet there are and it's a lot larger because they are not counting on things as square footage. they have set backs on 24 ord and 5 and 12 feet. and then i pointed out that lower floor has to be there and 22 they have a 20-foot setback with matching light wells. so anyway, it's a

difficult situation, but i don't see anything that's that egregious about the proposed development here. i agree with staff, i agree with the fact that want that 5-foot separation that goes all the way through which makes a lot of sense and i don't know that you really gain too much by taking the top off the floor onto state street's property other than making smaller homes which are less friendly for larger family. in san francisco it's expensive. if you want a big home in san francisco, you are going to have to pay for it. i'm sorry it's so expensive, but people with families are going to demand larger homes. if they can't get it here, they will move somewhere else. we have to satisfy affordable housing, low income housing, we are not building any new single family homes. about the trees, i don't know. i'm going to

have to hear the verdict on that. i have heard a couple of opinions, they are fine they just need to be pruned and we have heard they are a hazard. i have seen a lot of trees falling on cars. we need to make sure nobody is victimized in the near future. i see the difference between 53 states in this project. 53 states has some over-the-top stuff and a lot of stuff that was superfluous. this seems like the right design with the right amount of room that makes it a nice family livable house. i went through the design already. somebody talked about the views will be lost, but views are not protected. views of trees are not protected either. i don't

know that it's really a factor. anyway, the variance situation from my understanding is as the zoning administrator, i have to comment, you have such a huge lot required to 45 percent rear yard because of the fact that they are all considered one lot. it's not a split lot, but if you can also allow meeting probably a variance as we talked about is to match the average of the adjacent rear yards with these yards not being less than 25 percent. that is an alternative that's in the code and although it is technically a variance, it's basically another way of doing it and on that kind of the hill to demand so we have a hill that nobody could possibly walk up and there is nothing there, it doesn't make a lot of sense to me. we'll see what the other commissioners

have to say. i certainly thing project sponsor has made an offer for modifications but i kind of like it the way it is now with the possible looking at that lower one on ord court to making sure it needs to be as large as it is. >president cindy wu: commissioner moore? >> >>commissioner kathrin moore: it's easy for know hear the comments because everything we observed has it rights to be only table. what i would like to do is clarify what the public said and what is frequently done. the issue i think here is not that the project down the street is not the same developer. the issue is that the project down the street is designed by the same architect. the architect becomes the face or substitute for developer because in many cases developers are presented by their architect or in this particular case as additional go power as the

lawyer who basically takes on the role of explaining the project. so having said that for clarification, i do believe that the project which has been brought forward by this particular architect and i have seen a number of them always basically result around a very similar discussion and it's not in this particular case of rear yard variance but mostly 12 pounds in a 6-pound bag. i'm going to say it very simply and what i believe the project could be dense find. i do believe that in addition to having one small unit on the property, the art is in how you do it. that is what i mostly hear people talk about. it is not exactly that this development but

that this development in addition to be excessive asked for a variance and that's where i think it's a real lack of skill that really occurs. let me take this a little further. the issue of housing, how we identify supervisors wiener's legislation, supervisor chiu's legislation all deal with issues which are doable without causing too much neighborhood character or neighborhood disruption. in this case i think we have something quite different. i think we are having a project which by five end impact on the overall development grain is indeed doing something which is already pretty much illustrated by the construction site we are seeing down there. the fact that

some commissioners argue with the fact that we need housing. we need housing in every category of housing and since unfortunately we do not have any laws which do obligation these homes to have famous with -- families with children because we have these large units on the market and we don't have any guarantee with people buying them live in the community. i rest my case. in addition i don't think the units that are currently executed are particularly exciting. i don't think they are particularly skillfully designed at least on the exterior and on top of that, i would like to ask mr. kevlin the submittal as

of this morning that as a complete in submittal and you have been in front of us many times before to provide the community, the commission with the 3-dimensional depiction as always asked for and in more of the 3-dimensional character of the overall development where this lies. this is really too much to ask for. >president cindy wu: commissioner hillis. >commissioner rich hillis: i think people are arguing a little bit on both sides of this where 53 pushed the mass to the front and had the two 2 units on the front which is

what i'm hearing people want to do is move some of the mass to the ord court side which i think would have a major impact on the ord court. there is too much of a mass being proposed on these lots. if you look at the 22 side there is over 5700 square feet of building mass being proposed on the ord court. to me the justification of the variance is that you would have modest size houses on both sides of the lot. i agree with commissioner richards as lopping off the top floors of both those structures on state street in kind of preserving the mass which you are doing on the

24th side of ord court kind of makes sense, it kind of preserves modest size instead of moving all the mass on the 4500 square -square foot to the unit onto ord court which is inappropriate onto ord court. that is my take on it, i would like to hear from the zoning administrator because i know there is an issue with the zoning on the state street side. i know there is a mass and we have to reduce it. i think state street could take buildings. it's an architectural wonderland with buildings being built in all decades to the kind of you see the massive buildings up on museum and they have the backyard but there is also some large structures on state

street also. so, that's where i would like to head on this and would like to see architectural differentiation between the buildings, the two proposed buildings on state street. i think they get a little bit too much on state street where even though they are on two lots it looks like this massive building even with the smaller two floor buildings ends up looking large. the both sides, both lots on state street. do you want to comment? >> yes. as stated this was presented an a variance to me in august and the neighbors were expressing their concerns about the project, and at that time i understand the concerns that they raised. i also see the point of the project sponsor

and the hardships i am mposed by the topography of the lot and you have an apartment building essentially on both sides, an 8-unit building and 4-unit building and the project to the east the garage at the very rear of the residential building because it sneaks up the hillside there and seeing that doing something that maybe they can do something that would be code complying that would add the dwelling units that may still require a variance but adding onto the existing buildings did not seem very practical when you have a through lot like this and would call for or encourage an exception to a lot development. in which case the lots