at one point contractors have to build to plan at the same time this is gone on 13 years with people feel living in the property with no issues i hope you folks come to an agreement prior to litigation that gets pricey i see no problem with the permit as issued. >> i'll move to deny - >> huh? >> deny the appeal and uphold the appeal it was properly issued. >> thank you. >> there's a motion it on the floor to uphold this permit it was properly issued on that motion commissioner fung commissioner vice president honda commissioner wilson is absent commissioner swig thank you the vote is 4 to zero

this prosecute permit is you would on that base. >> item 7 is appeal north versus the department of building inspection with the planning department approval on 30th street protesting the issuance on may 26th to michael cramer and alex and others of an alteration permit of totally remold 72 hour about the laundry room and configures the second floor plan and adds a decadent this is for the notice of violation we'll start with the appellant you have 7 minutes. >> good evening. i'm tom north i along with my wife sarah own the property on 30th street first of all thank you for taking the time my wife and i have worked hard to realize a

dream and future raise a fame we appreciate the opportunity to have our concerns heard by the board i have 4 points i want to talk about today first, the concern of privacy of our interior living space and those of our neighborhoods as a result two the concerns of the integrity of the facade and 3 the categorical california environmental quality act and for our concerns about past and future behavior of the investors and owners just to dive into the privacy concerns if you can take into account the projector as the important point we want to focus. >> overhead please. overhead. >> should it show up. >> hello overhead, please.

>> hold on. >> there you go. >> okay. thank you. >> we're not getting the full length of the picture. >> line across the top 10 percent. >> it's flickering now. >> it is more the flickering problem than the way it is

displayed displayed. >> there you go. >> that's better. >> that's the best we'll have. >> all right. so thank you anyways this is from the guidelines that proposes proposed project should take into account the privacy to the neighborhood interior living spaces and just to demonstrate the effects on our interior living space as you can see those are the sightlines allowed by the deck and here's the looking both our exterior spaces our kitchen and dining room area which are very important and heavy used space as well as the vertical 2 hundred square feet as you can see the area of primary concern for us and give us sort of a look at this and i'll talk about the changes in a

second that is is the area in which the deck will go and there's a couple of things i want to call first of all there is a material difference in my opinion between an outdoor deck in terms of privacy versus interior windows when our out on the deck you're in a different enernex report context a window is for light a deck for hanging out sitting in a chair if you're a smoker or you're out there marcus books that is this area of concern is one of the key issues that someone is looking at over into your building and so to talk about the tree for a second first of all, the apple tree a banner for half a year in this picture, and, secondly, the picture where the walls the yards a is going into

0 ours whether our responsibility for the owners in putting in a retaining wall but to put in a response time we'll probably have to take outburst the tree this is where the roof is i'm concerned if we remove the tree into the non-restricted winter time no blockage in terms of privacy that is not only a problem this is a letter of support from my neighbors to the west at 4089 of 9 and this is a problem inform them to go from here this puts our window in sites 15 feet to the areas with the 9 deck and this is part of our home as a retirees in our latest 70s we gravitated this is the historical implications that is not how you view the deck you

view the deck from the ground and this floor an actual have more effect on the all of the evidence of that hundred and 40-year-old hours house i mentioned i want to talk about the categorical exemption from the california environmental quality act for 9052 adapt by the planning commission and the issue i want to call out it appears my understanding to the structure will not be part of categorical exemption it unless it's 50 percent of the floor area of the addition if you look at the plan there is 6 hundred plus and existing square feet added an 85 increase 50 percent between the square feet and finally i want to talk about the pattern of behavior it is concerting prior to this appeal

and concerned about afrldz first of all upheld notice of violation and when the owners started the construction without a permit this is concerting because like there's a safety issue here why i can't understand why they allowed this to happen additionally you know it was kind of a made us feel violated a they were in charge took the washer and dryer from our backyard that led to a feeling of violation this is another example of the behavior and finally we've actually talked with the owners of 407 a a number of times before 9 permit was filed i don't have any problems that the work would be entirely within the envelope they said this to the neighbors

they were remodeling within the envelope i'm again not an architect a homeownership but the envelope has defined separation between the environment and a huge surprise to myself and my wife this was ultimately one big reason we filed this appeal so in summary there are new and usually impacts on the privacy of our neighbors interior spaces as a result of the deck the deck is a historical 12rib89 of this building and the feej didn't ply with the categorical comments and the investors have limited the patterns of disrespect for the neighborhood i'm equally concerned with their project with that, i wanted to thank you for your time and i'll be happy

to answer any questions you may have. >> how long have you been there. >> since january of 2014. >> so did you do the improvements on your property. >> we are currently. >> it wasn't approved approved prior. >> there were additions at some point i don't know how or when. >> thank you thank you very much. >> we'll hear from the permit holders. >> hello good evening, commissioners thank you for hearing this out my name is alex and i purchased that house with my two friends and dad in march of this year we purchased this house and we're not really the flippers we're

made ought to be. >> excuse me. would you pull the mike a little bit closer to you. >> when we bought but house that was run down and mold and walls rotted the existing conditions were terrible conditions all the way around and additionally the lot is unusual it is a flat in the back behind mr. norris property assess through the walkway assess our crude plans as you can see as exhibit b show that the expansion we're doing within the structure we're noted actually goes outside the envelope we are building the lower level as you think habitual and we're making space liveable it is going it from 6 hundred and 46 square feet 0 a basically small two bedroom home

this is basically, what we're doing regarding the neighbors we've chatted with the neighbors and had half a dozen meeting and half a dozen e-mails the neighbors are completely okay with that regarding a letter that the gentleman - i don't know what that letter it is not current it wasn't signed or signed more dated i have an agreement with his neighbors that is signed here let me show the cover sheet here this is the signed agreement. >> can you turn it around. >> sorry. >> this is the whole agreement and this is the signature and it shows their names the people he's referring to they've agreed to remove themselves i'm not

sure why he's bringing them into this as well. >> regarding the privacy concerns the sightlines he's talking about there is a window there 1942 the the exact sightlines we're proposing a 6 feet deep deck to provide the house with minimal space the decking folks building the deck will inevade their privacy there are several responses first, the house the way it is confederate has the pipeline exhibit c shows the pipeline of the side of our house this is some more pictures this is the exterior of the house - this is the window that will be where the door is so once we get going on this this

is a view from the window - and back here are the doors he's referring to grandparent said this other person tree didn't have leaves one of the things we've offered to put a 10 foot fence offered to install fence with a tall bamboo that replaces that issue we've done all those things those don't matter to him this is pretty cool a picture we took standing on a ladder 5 feet if the house to gusts a sense of what if we were on the deck the line of sight you can't see into his house regarding the where was i - >> oh, regarding the plan as

well so when we met with mr. norris to shrink the deck and move the window to that's fine i'll go to planning and ask kelly that was the first person that helped us can we move the door and shrink the deck down she said absolutely not don't touch those windows their original with wood frame and impacts the neighborhood we're in dmrieps with that aspect we've doing every thing we can to appease them it is not sufficient i want to pout your house is surrounded by 8 houses 7 of them have decks that look at our how is it not out of scope not strange to the area pictures in

there i can show you additional pictures of the properties but it is completely within what the area looks like i'll show you some - >> this is a plat map so this is us those houses surrendered us deck, deck, deck this is the neighbor those - this is the neighbor who's letter he's refer to his front house has a deck and the rear house has a deck in the outer of scope completely within the context of the architecture of the neighborhood and kelly wong who preservation agrees that that i object to show you

pictures of the neighbors decks he have those as well in terms of outreach as i said we had plenty of the outreach and chat with the neighbors you have all those e-mails inside of our briefs we've got a lot more work to do we could not appease mr. norris i'll tell you when we offered to build the fence and the planters and the bottom of the hill bamboos he e-mailed me and mind- i was on all the e-mails never once said anything about planning to appeal he threw thank you. this out and now we're stuck one thing i'll mention the nov we had the permit somehow the and will fee didn't get paid we paid it and they removed the nov. >> your time is up.

>> mr. sanchez. >> well, we get to hear from the z a. >> scott sanchez planning department the subject property is unique with the zoning district the lot configuration it was probably built as a bridge originally built as the second building on the lot but it is at the rear a small access to the side around the appellants property that provides assess essentially land located but regarding the ceqa review it was appropriate reviewed by ceqa the preservation specialists it was out dated we were advised our ceqa guidelines swlgs as well as

our general policies and procedures we have a ceqa check list that was properly class one classified as an exception under second that allows for additions under 10 thousand square feet it is clear it is approved under ceqa the preservations concerns are real about the location of the door and preserving the exist windows and the location of the existing windows i conformed confirmed that was with our cooperated our this afternoon it has been in terms of ceqa code compliant and a unique lot but within the buildable area within the reduced size of the deck didn't trigger firewalls and otherwise compiles with our notifications i understand the concerns by the appellant as a unique situation

but i do find that the size of the deck being relatively shallow of 5 feet with about 19 foot and the back of the existing windows have not undue impact of privacy happy to hear there has been offensive made of what to address the privacy concerns to the satisfaction of the appellant but we believe that the project is code compliant and meets the relevant design i'll be happy to answer any questions. >> what's the category rating. >> it's a potential historic resource. >> and any idea how many flags are left in the city. >> i don't know. >> very rare and i've only seen two. >> it is pretty rare.

>> thank you. >> thank you. >> intrufk minute. >> commissioners joe duffy dbi the building permits was over-the-counter permit and fully remold two bedrooms and laundry room and remodeling and a deck at the front of the building permit was filed on the 11 of may 2015 it went through planning building dpw and mechanic plan check it had some fees got i think issues on the 15 of may and suspended on the fifth of june the permit seems to be issued properly we had a complaint on the address date the complaint was

filed the 21st of may 2015 and it was that there was doing unpermitted work on the street located in the back on 43 street has permits we reopened the complaint on the 21st of may and it seemed like the building inspector hernandez was out there he wrote up a notice of violation, however, i did note on the 28 of may i didn't recognize a permit was issued and going through plan the check at the same time so he abated the notice of violation it was opened and close within a few days i noticed a permit they may have gotten ahead of themselves between the issuance and pretty much around the same time a day

are two i'm available to answer any questions. >> thank you. any public comment? comment? >> good evening. i'm arithmetic banner my house actually sits occupy the property line of the back of this house so i'm the only one in the houses that didn't have a deck and so the issue i think is two-fold one it really is a privacy issue in that space that we all sort of feel like we're on top of each other because of the decks and the walls so for tom in the front who basically it has an issue with the deck i

mean that behooves the city to that about the minor things we can do to help the privacy of all of us question don't have to live close to each other and a deck having a deck is the same that it would be important for the city to say do we all need decks for privacy i feel infringed upon and the neighbors look down on me all the time the other point i'd like to add i think that having conversation with all the neighbors before construction starts is a good thing to do and in this case it would have really helped all of us if those are conversations were the new owners would happen before construction and the issue why there was conversation with the neighborhood has to do with with the amount of noise of

the construction that started at 7 in the morning a lot of banging and for many of us in the back it soils you know they're in our bedrooms and you know in our houses because you know of the noise so that was the issue really that led to the conversations with the owners who i might say will start construction later i hope you'll think about the privacy issue and how important to the people to have a deck versus the privacy of people having to live in the that we all have to live in i hope i'll consider that. >> can i ask a question you participated in the permit holders mentioned they have held up conversation. >> i wasn't at those meetings i

actually had work mergers to attend to at the hours i couldn't get to either one because of work and were you aware that the permit holders had asked to put a deck up prior to this hearing. >> oh, yeah. >> did you express complaints or ordinances. >> question found out after the permit we only found out any of this i don't know how many weeks after the banging started then of us knew anything depict for the construction i didn't know the house was empty i've been at my house for 25 years so the old lady that used to own it how is it was invisible anyway so we didn't know anything was happening the whole row of us it

was the banging and the construction saying what's happening and we found out there was plans and showed the plan and all that i don't imagine. >> the senior owned a a long time in effect on anybody else. >> no effect on anybody zero. >> thank you, thank you. >> next speaker >> mrs. johnson i have this has to do with privacy areas being that were trees blocking the areas and some things solutions so the trees

will grow there and this one of the speakers on the hill where the privacy is in use we need on this 407 and the apartment building inspector should look into selling those details and know to clarify thank you. >> is there any additional public comment. >> seeing none then we'll take rebuttal starting with the appellant you have 3 minutes. >> all right. thank you very much a couple of things i want to

touch on the size of the deck is not the issue but the backyard on the deck the more you see to call that out in is important mr. skaerts man said in the hearing they were not making adjustments outside the envelope it is not correct so i wanted to call that out generally we were not opposed to the investors giving the property adding square footage to make a profit we're asking we do that with respect to privacy i'll mentioned that the owners of the subject property mentioned agreement with everyone i didn't hear this is oifrn not the case i want to call it out with respect to the letter from brad and jack they're currently in francis i wanted to tell the truth this is the problem they

have it, it is more or important let's see i want to call out the sight lines are different so sort of hanging out watching the view this is a much sort of more than or more comboefrgz private issue than transient glances through a window i'd like to just call up this point out about this measure so again you know we talked about 6 foot and 10 foot fences this is outlined was it didn't materially effect the interior privacy that is unfortunate that would have been a great option that let's see i want to call out one other thing the conflict between the historical and privacy that is important one shouldn't dismiss the