i have decided to keep this short, since i share some of the same sentiments as my husband and the oath neighbors. i support the neighbor's alternative plan, since the proposed project will be too massive and not respect the prevailing pattern in the mid-block open space. it's this massive size makes this project extraordinary and exceptional. we're grateful to the project sponsors for rehabilitating and renovating the house at 461. as a mom whotines to raise my 5-year-old daughter in noe valley, a appreciate that the homes are renovated and the neighbor's alternative provides the project sponsor with a reasonable alternative that allows for the project sponsors to make a profit building a very large house while still allowing my family to have a little more light and air in the spaces where we spend most time in your home. the sunlight currently floods in your south-facing rooms and i'm concerned about the pacifics of 22' looming wall in

the current proposed project is bottle. these are the spaces where we live and we do all of the things that we enjoy. reading books, doing puzzles with our daughter and making art and also ent tearing our friends. the city of san francisco is it dense and we live in a unique neighborhood because of the mid-bloke open space neighbors can enjoy. we hope that the planning commission agrees and recommends the changes included in the neighbor's alternative. thank you very much. >> thank you, next speaker >> ask sfgovtv, thank you.

>> and here have surrounding houses including 455, the sponsor's current house. to quote the residential design guidelines, "an out of scale rear yard addition can leave surrounding residents feeling boxed in and cutoff from the mid-block open space." the project sponsor's proposal is out of scale, too massive and leaves surrounding residents feel boxed in and cut off. so what is the solution? residential design guidelines have only four. no. 1 setback upper floors. no. 2, notch the building at the rear year. no. 3 provide setbacks from side property lines and no. 4 reduce the footprint of the addition. what is the project sponsor done? he has not sets back the floors. he has not no.ed the building at the year rear. he has not reduced the footprint of the addition. he has provided a setback from

the side property line, but only when the planning department suggested he do so. the neighbor's alternative provides for modest setbacks at the each of the upper two floors. the project sponsor's 311 submission has rejected any upper floor setbacks. neighbor's alternative . this house frightens neighbors regarding the project proposal. the proposal is even larger than 455, and in effect, would duplicate the oppressiveness of 4'. it's easy to imagine what the

rear yard open space would look like with not one, but two block -- three story structures among more than a dozen modest queen anne workers cotagesing. one last point the board of appeals uphold the building permit right across the street from the subject site. as you can see from this rendering, two upper floor -- two rear upper floor setbacks were included. the 456 proponent sponsor stated that the setback were response to residential guidelines. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> next speaker. >> good afternoon, my name is maxime and thank you for taking the time to hear our case, regarding the proposed plans for 461 27th street. my family lives next door to carry uniandrew at 649 27th street and we're there uphill

neighbor. i'm here on behalf of my family to support the neighbor's alternative. first of a we're -- the city is proposing historic district encpsing our home and secondly we're happy that the property owners of 461 are investing to improve the house. however, we do feel that the 461 project has proposed is really going to change the character of the mid-block open space. that is really a critical part of the homes of the adjoining neighbors; which is why i am here speaking today. the proposed house is massive and lacks setbacks, which makes the situation extraordinary and exceptional. and worthy of discretionary review. can i have the projector,

please this house is 455. this is 461. this is carry and andrew's house and this is my house here. our house is similar to carrie and andrew's house. we love our home and my 2-year-old twin boys spend a lot of time in your back family room and sunny deck. here is a picture of carrie and andrew's deck and see how the imposing wall and how it cast as i shadow on their deck? you can easily imagine if this wall moved closer, it would really change the character and livability of that space, since it would cast a dark shadow, where they depend a lot of their time, here in the family room and as well on the deck. since we have young kids who spend a lot of time enjoying the sunlight in our own back family room and deck, we really know that sunlight makes it a happy place for our own

children and we would be really sad if carie and andrew's space were taken away because of the construction of a dark massive wall. so we talked about how we generally support improvement property. we talked about the impact of this project as written that in what impact it would have on carrie, andrew and adjoining neighbors. the neighbor's alternative is a healthy compromise between the two nodes. our own house is a 1900 square feet and we have five people living comfortably in the space. the neighbor's alternative is 3500 square feet, which is really almost twice the size of our home and gives them the project sponsors ample space for living. thank you. >> thank you. >> good evening, my name is lisa speigel and i live one house up from maxime at 477

27th street. i'm here in support of the alternative, because of the open spacious the neighborhood. i have live there had for 25 years. my father-in-law was born in san francisco, my husband was born in san francisco, my children are now 22 and 24, and they were born and raised in san francisco and they have lived in that home in that neighborhood now their entire lives. part of the reason we have stayed there is because of the open space, because of the feel of the neighborhood and that backspace. now to start allowing one more massive big black box to be in our neighborhood would only contribute to the destruction of the feel of that entire neighborhood. that is not why we live there. that is not why we have stay there had and i don't believe that the people who are building this will be living there. so this is not their

neighborhood, this is not their care or their heart where they are going to stay and i ask that you please exercise discretion and allow us to keep our neighborhood and keep the feel you have already seen the pictures, but i will put it one more time. when we bought our house, this big, black box did not exist and it this is what we look at outside of our backyard everyday and don't let this continue and become the look and feel of noe valley. this is not what noe valley is about. we're now being given historic designation on our street and how can we have a beautiful historic front and these ugly black boxes in the bax? thank you. >> thank you, next speaker. >> i'm wendy and i'm an actect

and have lived in noe valley since 1975 and what you have seen is a disturbancan of our context. this is a disturbance of our neighborhood. you have heard many of my neighbors asked for a discretionary review and that is because we, the neighbors have engaged together to come up with an alternative. this is engaping the neighborhood. this is engaging community to say what we have to do s. that three minutes? >> no. >> so i'm just saying that we want to keep the context and approving as neighboring getting together with consensus to bring you an alternative and if this commission cannot see -- encourage neighbors to come together to this big giant

house that is proposed next door. i live at 478, up the block in a little cottage please accept this concept of context. thank you. >> thank you. i will call more names. [ reading speakers' names ]

>> and lastly i ask that the commission ask planning staff to work with the neighbors, as well as the project sponsors if developing a solution that will preserve our mid-block open space? please. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hello commissioners and thank you and good evening. i'm jim constantine and i live across the street from the proposed site. at 446 27th street and i wanted to support the dr even though i believe that the amended plan is massively too big for the site. can i have a monitor, please? the rear view of the propertis is just shocking how massive that house will be.

and the backyard of my home is an important place for me and my family and i would hate to have that encroach on mine. thank you. >> thank you,. >> >> just one more time, you can see it. there is the project site. carrie and andrew, up the hill. you can see the stepping. oh, i'm sorry, i'm georgia and live at 460 duncan. there is a very important part of the neighbor's alternative that you are getting now, that you need to see, please. here is the floor plan for the third floor of the neighbor's alternative. contrary to what was thought, the neighbor's alternative allows for the creation of a three-bedroom house, not a two-bedroom, but a

three-bedroom on one level. this is the neighbor's alternative with the setbacks, but inside. it should be perfectly acceptable for any contemporary modern family that may be lucky enough to live there, if the commission makes a motion to approve the neighbor's alternative. it's lack of neighborhood preservation and lack of compliance with the rd did g. it's just too big. whatever the commission approves is the approval action under ceqa as stated on the agenda? the front of the house is basically preserved and the department is to be commended. the two hrers are very interesting and staff should feel professional pride, but

again, the rear addition is the problem. overhead, please. 45 27th is currently visible from the public right-of-way on duncan and the 461 project, there it is -- now now, but there it will be -- will be even more visible and it's even larger and massive than 455. the checklist is inaccurate. the project will not be minimally visible as it will be very visible from duncan street. the way to make the checklist accurate is to approve the neighbor's alternative. the setbacks will not only resolve most of the enee impacts, but with setbacks it becomes minimally visible from duncan street because its visibilitis will be ablit rated and obscured by the existing oppressive massiveness -- a massiveness which should not be repeated at 461.

please, make a motion to take dr and approve the neighbor's alternative. thank you very much:thank you, is there additional public comment in opposition to the project? okay. project sponsor, your team has five minutes. >> good afternoon, president wu, commissions. david simpman working with the project sponsors. neely one rob pointer. i would like to show you some photos. this is the existing condition. can you see the two houses on either side forming the cave-like effect. this is a photo of the mid-block open space; which i think every speaker talked about. and i wondered if i was living in a parallel universe?

this is the line of the houses as they approach the mid-block open space. all of the houses on this side of the block exceed the proposal. you can see that this is the lot, where the extension is going in? every single house going down the block extends into the open space, much further than this one. here is a 3-d rendering of the proposal actually it's about

the same. this is the colored rendering with the house. this there is nothing massive about this. this gives you an idea of the slope of the street. this is the subject property, the dr requester lives here and was not impacted.

it extends into the rear much farther than the project sponsors. would i oasis also that the rear lots of the project sponsor and lot directly behind it are the largest rear yards on the block and together more than 110' of mid-block open space. so any suggestion that 110' is not enough mid-block open space seems to me misplaced. the dr applicant has the burden of demonstrating exceptional or extraordinary circumstances and i have seen no such demonstration today and, in

fact the planning staff reviewed this meticulously. they didn't find any extraordinary circumstances. and, in fact, if you note on the planning commission agenda, they designated this not as a dr, but abbreviated dr and abbreviated dr i believe is a signal and the second [a-urpblt/] raised has to did with the neighborhood pattern. i'm sorry, i have to give the sponsor a chance to speak.

i would like -- >> my name is neilie pointer i'm the project sponsor and i would like to thank everyone for your time today. just to introduce myself, my husband and i have lived in san francisco for over 16 years and we moved into noe valley in 2008 to start a family. we have children that are currently enrolled in the public school in our neighborhood. >> i'm sorry, you are time has expired. you will have two minutes of rebuttal at the end. >> we'll take public comment in support of the public comment. >> may i make a note for the public record? >> very quickly. >> there were go sets of couples who each had a husband and wife speak. >> that is public comment. >> that doesn't matter. >> we'll take public comment now from those in support of the project sponsor.

>> good evening president wu, commissioners, thank you for you the integrity of our city and the building requirements are very important to me.

to allow for family and businesses to work and prosper here to leave discretionary review for only very unusual circumstances that are extra and exceptional. therefore, i support the project, and request that the commission reject discretionary review.

>> i'm here in support of the project. to keep it brief here, i have a similar sentiment that this project is being built by folks who live in the community, who have lived there a long time and have families and they have raised them here. they are hiring local companies, local contractors, local designers, and that is something that is very important for the preservation of the city. and also, to allow more familis to stay in the city, which as we know, a lot of familis are moving out thank you very much. i appreciate your time. >> is there any additional public comment? >> thank you for the time and

thank you for the commissioners being here today. i am a san francisco native, born and raised in the noe valley and i still have the privilege, the privilege of not only living in the noe valley, but also working there as well. growing up a few streets away from the 461 property otherwise known as the gomez household, it was extremely troubled household which was common knowledge in the neighborhood. when i heard that the house -- . i'm sorry to interrupt you, but the person with the phone, could you please turn that off. go ahead. >> when they purchased the house, and i have known them for about six years and knew they could make major improvements to that. to 27th street and bringing some piece.

robin neely and their daughters are any neighbors and their daughter as you and when i heard about the issues that they improved the house that they purchased it hurt me to say that denominator r requester and supporters were i know these homes are not practical. i live anyway victorian house with three bedrooms and one bathroom and imagine growing up with five kids and two parents? it was madness. neely and rob's vision for the home is practicality and will meet the modern needs of a

modern family. all the neighbors ob27th street will benefit in many ways from the upade of the house and i think who cares about the community, purchased this home risk and uncertainty than a developer. and they just wand good neighbors and still have their daughters safe. noe valley is a wonderful neighborhood and a common culture and historical heritage and we thrive off community and a sense of belonging, but times change and the neighborhood needs to understand that it because it's for the better. >> thank you. >> thank you, next speaker.

>> they are one the few preschool families that stayed in san francisco after graduating pre-school. in the 14 years i have known them. the they have been fully engaged and robert and neely given a lot of time in organizing fundraisers and most recently neely because one of the main driving forces in our search for i new rabbi. i ran this project actually past my pattern, it helps when you are pattern to an architect with a firm in san francisco and it's misunderstanding that they haven't maxed out of the volume of the house and, in fact they have actually reduced the size because of neighborhood concerns. it's also my