they are beautiful trees. it would be a travesty to have these torn down and have to wait 20 years for something 1/3 of it's size. i looked at the arbor day foundation and they truly are another expert like the dpw over trees and say that mature trees contribute to our health and office workers watt view of trees report significantly less stress and satisfaction of their job. one provides oxygen for four people and one mature tree will produce carbon dioxide for 100,000 miles. trees will also reduce crime. in san francisco it has been a tree designation for years. i would ask you to not have these trees destroyed. thank you.

>> next speaker, please. i think the clock is still going. so my name is jamie whitaker. i live in the neighborhood at 201 harrison street. 288 -unit condominium building about three 3 blocks from the site. when we have a problem with trees, we only replace one tree that needs to be replaced. we don't clear cut trees because they are very important to the environment. we have a bay bridge that carries 280,000 vehicles a day. we are becoming more educated about the impacts how trees can help with air pollution. a map on the overhead. on the overhead there is a map that the

planning department prepared for article 38 requires buildings in the darker areas that are pollutant zones to have air filters for the new residential buildings being built because their air pollution is that bad. it's important to note that the building across the street is the child's day care center. children are more sensitive because their lungs are still developing. i don't want us to harm these children by taking out ten trees without good reason to take out those trees. on the other side of the building is another day care center. it's a bright horizons day care center that fronts main street. across from that is the transbay bus terminal where muni buses, san transsit idle

releasing fumes into air. these trees help clean the air for the children's day care center directly across from the building. i would ask you to deny this appeal. thank you. >> thank you. any other public comment? please step forward. >> public speaker: good afternoon, thank you commissioners for your time giving the public an opportunity for their thoughts. i live a block away from this property. my concern is i find it hard to believe that someone could cut down and kill 30 good

looking perfectly healthy trees. i walk down that street many times a day. and the trees provide the shade protection from the strong winds. it's like a tunnel there when you walk. it mitigates the noise and pollution from traffic and congestion. it's extremely noisy right now and the streets mitigate thing that is there. they are precious and must be kept and i urge you to not let them cut down and kill these trees because they are important. i can't believe at this time when the city and the state is under going severe water drought that someone would think of killing these trees and planting new ones

that would need water to grow and i urge you to deny this appeal. >> anymore public comment? okay. seeing the rebuttal next. >> couple points. the question was raised about the canopy of the trees. the canopy is quite reduced more than normal. it's narrow. it reflects the volume of the root ball and that's typical in tree growth. it's what makes these trees tall and stable. as for the trees on howard and the other

trees have not been proposed to be removed. the property owner does in fact seriously considering removing those trees but the idea that this application would be submitted first to work with the department on addressing these trees and then the trees on howard secondarily. howard street is part of the tjpa and transit center project and that addresses additional issues. we are not sure how to deal with these trees at this time. the trees may present some beauty and health benefit as the public has recognized. we are proposing new trees just as beautiful with just the same health benefits. arguably larger canopies for more health benefits but without the potential liability of the existing trees: finally i

would like to show you a quick photograph of the o ring and some of the cracking that's occurring to show that damage has begun. so you can see there is this steel o ring around the trunk of the tree. it's clearly providing support that they are anchored to the sidewalk. this is a significant crack here. here you can see the damage to the swaugs. this is only going to

worsen as time passes. thank you. >> excuse me, mr. tunney. the intent to also potentially apply for the trees on howard street? >> yes. >> these trees are on the west side of the building, aren't they? >> yes. >> how are these trees that are in set into building, the olive tree is going to flourish? >> they don't need a lot of water. they are drought resistant and they will get the sun they need deferred to the arborist if that's an issue, but we are not concerned about their growth. >> i don't think they will get any sun

with that orientation. >> hi. i'm roy lath. the arborist. i have a city maintained olive tree outside of my house and my house is over 40 feet tall and olive tree is over 30 feet tall and it has a lot of growth even though it's north facing exposure and howard street is north facing exposure. i don't expect it to grow as fast as the south side of the building, but they will grow and tolerate low light conditions and there is a fair amount of reflected heat where there are big buildings

in a lot of surfaces. i think they will flourish pretty well. >> why are you simply advocating replacing six trees instead of ten. it would be a lot easier if assuming there was damage and if all the thing that you were saying that you would come here and say we want to replace all ten. why is your client asking to replace 10? >> we are removing the ten to reduce liability, but we would be open to replacing them with additional trees. >> so you would be open to accepting responsibility to replacing ten trees where ten trees are being removed for whatever reason? >> i would have to confirm with my client. >> that's where i have the

issue. if the trees were dangerous and all the things that are happening were happening, then simply replacing ten for ten would be far more understandable than six for ten. >> we would do ten. i can confirm that. >> thank you. >> great. thank you. ms. short? >> carla short. i don't know what this canopy density be reduced by soil volume. our impression is that the canopy is vigorous and what we could expect to see from a volume would be a stump from the growth of the

tree. i'm questioning that. the certainty with which he made that comment and what i would also qualify is the new trees have the same health benefit and the point was made by the public but also a perspective that the department shares that when we remove the short trees that we have a lag time to replace any of the trees that would provide any environmental ecosystem benefit to the community. those two points.2 points. >> this species has very little trunk and branch mass. >> it is a fast growing species that goes up and then it's not uncommon for those species. >> i will go back to comment on one of the commissioners. i think these trees are older than 30 years. i believe this building somewhere in the late

70s. >> interesting. i don't know. i was basing my comments on the brief that suggested the building was about 30 years old and the trees had gone in at that time. i would trust your architectural knowledge. [ laughter ] >> no, just before i left on my own, i worked for the firm that had this commission and started on it a little bit before i left. >> don't try to back out now, commissioner. >> thank you. >> commissioners, the matter is submitted. >> comments, motion? >> i will start. we do see a lot of tree cases here before this body. we see substantially smaller trees with substantially more damage to

the ground and surrounding sidewalk. i do find it odd that the permit holder has only requested to remove half and not the whole volume of trees if they have the same conditions over the garage. commissioners, i'm tending to deny the appeal. >> i would go along with that. >> it was the department. >> i'm always talking about renewal but i'm not sure i would support

that in this case and part of the reason is i think besides the fact that people like to look at the trees, i think there is also some urban design benefits from a canopy that's this size. this building has an urban look to them and so purely aesthetic bases. >> so you would support new trees? >> no. i'm not sure i would support this permit. >> i'm not supporting the permit either. i'm supporting the department in the denial of the permit. >> you can make a motion, commissioner. >> i better not. >> i will make it. move to deny the appeal on the bases that the

permit was properly denied by the department. >> okay. thank you. mr. pacheco. city clerk: there is a motion on the floor from the president to uphold this denial by the dpw on the bases that this permit application was properly denied. on that motion to uphold this denial, commissioner fung? aye, vice-president honda, aye, commissioner wilson, aye, commissioner swig, the vote is 5-0. this denial is upheld. >> thank you. we'll move to item no. 7. appeal no. 15-055. andrea

urazov department ofdepartment of building inspection. protesting the issuance of march 18, 2015, to richard bradley of an alteration permit horizontal and vertical addition reconfiguration of all floors third floor master bedroom addition. >> good evening, members of the board. this project has more to do with code violations or non-code compliance as opposed to anything else and obviously neighborhood impact of it. this case as you might know has already been before the planning commission. what was not before the planning commission was the entire, we didn't know the basement was converted to a unit with two

master bedrooms and two master bathrooms with an area that can be converted to kitchen and living room. it's called storage. the whole neighborhood in this area with the exception of one of course is up against this project. they have looked at it. they have reviewed but the owner refuses to talk to them. the only person that is in lake tahoe and has a building next door that he has applied to demolish and convert it to 5-unit condo. that is the only person that supports this. now, what we have here the project description of the project is the box on top of the existing building which is making it a 5 story building from the rear

and they explained the two first floors on both fronts at the rear and at the front. then the entire garage area and basement is also extended. that gives them about over 4,000 is square foot area. the lot is only about 2295 square feet. it's only 56 square feet. when you look at a code, the first thing you will observe is that on section 136.

this is the garbage and -- garage and the basement floor. they are extending it back in this direction. on page four, you would see they have not just extended. they have established the basement floor two master bedrooms and two master bathrooms and with a sink and they call all of this area here storage. the garage now has one master bedroom and these two are connected. the idea is to convert them to a 1 unit. that is what we suspect. beyond that, the code is very clear. when you clear from the 5 percent from any floor area of any unit to 5% which i'm sure the basement has cleared and you have an addition two of stories or 2 feet, that must be noted in details.

that was not done in this case. as you might have seen, in the brief we sent to you. secondly, if you go to the building code in section 583, it clearly states that when you have a basement of this nature which only access is through the rear. it has no access to the main street at all. it's a death trap for firefighters. a few years ago when people working in the department, obviously a lot of firefighters died in basements like this because you come out from the rear you will not find anywhere to go. the same thing with the garage. above that is the fact that on that section, 135 in planning

department that each unit must have an independent access to a usable open space. what you would find here is that is completely gutted. now the existing structure does have that. if you look at the rear, they are all running down basically from the top floor to the backyard so they can be used as a usable open space. when you go to the new project you will find nothing there. so there is no access to that rear yard from the first floor from the first 2 units. that is not in compliance with the planning code. they should have known that. you have all of these discrepancies going on and that sort of thing. so, having said that, let us look at the impacts on this project on the neighborhood. what we have on the neighborhood is a very compact area. buildings are jammed up against each other. so the

least attention you try to make here is block somebody's view. so what happened in this case? if you look at this building here. it has an existing building which blocks on-site access to the lower level to the proposed addition. that will base this situation. you talk to the neighbors if you can pull back the building so they can do it. but what is happening is that this box is not just blocking light

and air to these people. if you look at most of the plans we are doing. this is where it's going to be. you are looking into these windows here. you are looking into the windows of this nature here. there has been about three revisions. we have been to the department three times.

>> we can hear from the board. >> good afternoon. we submitted our brief to the board and i would like to use the overhead project or to present some of the briefs. the property is a two 2-unit from the street over the garage and basement. the property is surrounded by a building around the corner which is a 6 story building south of the property. to the north we

have a 1 story contemporary structure. the lot size is 20 feet. as you look at the subject block and the immediate surrounding, there is nothing substandard to the lot. this is an aerial view of the neighborhood. the immediate neighborhood is a mix of multiuse apartments. the appellant is an existing apartment and the project is 2 units and will remain two units.2

units: and in the context of that aerial view which is the neighborhood, we feel like the proposed project which is why the year is in keeping with the neighborhood. we are proposing the addition which will be recessed from the property line and recessed from the appellant property and recessed from the appellant and 2 foot '9" from the rear wall of the appellant. as you can see from this image, the overall height of the building will be much lower than the appellant. you will be

respectful of the property line windows of the appellant side and recessed from the back. we've done an extensive shadow study. the property, the subproperty is north of the appellant and cast a shadow and put the appellant in darkness. in fact, i would like to demonstrate again from this aerial view that the appellant is the window light from the light well from the property line. the appellant in its structure is casting shadow on his own window. he's

blocking light and air. also we actually conducted all the proper planning department proper meetings. we met with the client. i have included in the package the meeting notes and the project neighborhood meeting. at some point, the appellant obviously hired an attorney that got in touch with us and offered a compromise to move the third floor another 15 feet further back into the building and later rejected by the owner of that property and stated they were okay with the rear addition but didn't want any other addition. that we were blocking their view of the golden gate bridge. we had meetings with the opposite neighbor on the north side of us and they requested that we

remove a window from our property line. we had an existing window on our property and they requested we move it. so we actually come -- complied with their requirements and they are supporting the project for us. we also work with the planning department. we have application meetings and it was reviewed by the planning department and we feel they are very respectful of the neighbors concern for the light and privacy and air. so, based on these items, i would like to respectfully request that you reject the appellants appeal and you allow this project to move forward which by the way, started a year 1/2 ago. thank you very much.