so vice president swig will be the presiding officer until he a arrives. vice president swig is joined by commissioner anne lazarus and tina chang. also present is deputy city attorney brad russy who will provide the board with any legal advice. at the control is the legal assistant alex longway and i'm julie rosenburg. we will also be joined by representatives from the city departments that will be presenting before the board this evening. scott sanchez the deputy zoning administrator with the planning department and joseph duffy director of san francisco

department building inspections and chris buck, urban forester with san francisco public works. the board request you turn off phones. the rules are presentations as are follows. appellant and permit holders are given seven minutes and three minutes with rebuttal and they must include their comments. members of the public are not affiliated with the party have up to three minutes to address the board and no rebuttal. time may be limited two minutes if the agenda is long or a large number of speakers. for rehearing requests, parties are given three minutes with no rebuttal. mr. longway will give you a verbal warning 30 seconds before your time is up. given there's a vacancy, throw votes are required to grant an appeal or to modify a permit or determination or grant a rehearing request. if you have questions about requesting a rehearing, the board rules or hearing

schedules, please e-mail board staff at board of appeals. now, public access and participation are paramount importance to the board and every effort has been made to replicate the in-person hearing process. to enable public participation, sfgovtv is broadcasting and streaming this hearing live and we'll receive public comments for each idea on today's agenda. they are also providing closed captioning for the meeting. to watch the hearings on tv, go to sfgovtv cable channel 78. note it will be rebroadcast on friday at 4:00 p.m. on channel 26. a link to the livestream is found in the home page of our website at sfgov.org. now public comment can be provided in two days. one, you can join the zoom meeting by computer go to our website. and click on the zoom link or you can call in by telephone. dial 1-669-900-6833 and enter

840 3473 9366. and again, sfgovtv is broadcasting and streaming the phone number and access instructions across the bottom of screen if you are watching the livestream or broadcast. to block your phone number when calling in, first dial star 67 and the phone number and listen for the public comment portion of your item to be called and dial star 9, equivalent of raising your hands so we know you want to speak. you will be brought into the hearing when it's your turn and you will have two or three minutes depending on the volume of the speak and he is our lega. please note there's a delay between the live proceedings and what broadcast and live streamed. it is very important that people calling in reduce or turn off the volume on their tvs or computers otherwise there is interference with the meeting. you need disability

accommodations or technical assistance make a request in the chat function to alex, the board's legal assistant or send an e-mail to board of appeals. now, the chat function cannot be used to provide public comments or opinions. we will swear in or affirm any of those that need to testify. you can speak without taking a oath. if you intend to testify at any of tonight's proceedings, and wish to have the board to give your testimony weight, raise your right hand and say i do after you have been sworn in or affirmed. do you swear or affirm that the testimony you are about to give will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. >> i do. >> i do. >> thank you. if you are participant and you are not speaking put your zoom speaker on mute and now we are moving on to item number 1. >> can i have a point of order real quick? >> i'm sorry.

we will -- for what point? >> well, because you said that a pal ants had seven minutes to speak and we received an e-mail you had 14. >> you have seven minutes for each appeal. so if your client has two appeals it's 14 minutes and i explained that. so please don't interrupt again, thank you. so, we're on item number 1, which is general public comment. this is an opportunity for anyone who would like to speak on the matter within the board's jurisdiction but that is not on tonight's calender. is there any member of the public who wishes to speak on an item not on tonight's calender. please, raise your hand. i don't see any hands raised. we will move on to item number 3. >> commissioners, do you have anything you would like to comment about? >> not i.

>> clerk: ok. thank you. so we'll now move on to item 3 which is the adoption of the minutes. commissioners, before you have adoption are the minutes of the may 19th, 2021 meeting. >> i ask for comments or a motion, please? >> move to adopt. >> clerk: is there any public comment on commissioner lazarus motion to adopt the minutes? raise your hand. no one has raised their hand o son the motion to adopt minutes, commissioner chang. >> aye. >> vice press swig. vice president swig.that motione minutes are adopted. we are now moving on to item number 4. this is a rehearing request appeal 21-010 another 245 a jackson street, robert, the

appeal ant and decided may 5th, 2021. at that time, upon motion by commissioner lazarus, the board voted against and the notice of violation of penalty decision was properly issued. the determination holder is robert coreman and the determination description is as follows. the property is in violation of planning code due to non-compliance with planning code sections 171, 173, 175 and 317. it's authorized as five dwelling units and the unauthorized construction of removal of a dwelling unit. extensive work at roof level has taken place and a new storage built to the back of the property without benefits of permits. they have confirmed the work has been done on the top floor roof including extensive reframing of roof structure and the east second, third and fourth floors in addition of sky lights and

creation of a roof deck and living space. this is complaint number (208)101-5640 and that determination was issued on january 27th, 2021. so, i understand from his attorney. >> can you, for all parties' sake, clarify the standard that we have to rise to that must be met for us to grant a rehearing on this for all party's sake for the record? >> yes, the party, in order to get a rehearing request granted, the party requesting it has to show there's manifested justice and there's new evidence that was not available at the earlier hearing that would have changed the outcome had it been available. >> thank you, very much. and i understand mr. cannon, the attorney for mr. korman

and will you address this board this evening? is that correct? >> that's correct, it would be submitted based on the rehearing dated may 17th, 2021. >> clerk: thank you, we have a question from commissioner lazarus. >> yes. thank you. and regrettably my question is not germane to the matter at hand. mr. cannon, on page 1 of your brief in foot note 2, you declared that i am the only commissioner not to have filed my statements with the ethics commission. is that a correct reading of your document? >> that's correct. when we accessed the filings on may 5th, 2021 it did not show you had filed your ethics disclosure. >> i would like to state for the record your research was incomplete and in fact i filed my ethics and sunshine training declaration on february

ninth and my annual report on february 11th. not only have you accused me of being derelict at my duties but your inclusion of this statement does very little to advance your request. thank you, mr. voice president vice presidentfor allowing me to correct the record. >> clerk: thank you. i would like to add that i did also confirm that commissioner lazarus is current in filed in timely manner. so, we have now hear from the planning department and mr. sanchez. >> scott sanchez. regard plea the appellant has not met the a standards and they continue to make arguments and allegations that are either irrelevant, incorrect or just not understanding the issues of this matter. we haven't seen any progress

towards resolving or addressing the under like issues of the enforcement. along the lines of the allegations that were made against commissioner lazarus, they're allegations made of the planning department staff and all relevant planning department staff have their filings and i know do my mine regularly every year as required. and all the staff do as well. it seems perhaps the appellant doesn't have the ability to properly search those records and i'm available for my any questions. >> clerk: thank you. ok, we will now hear from the building department. >> nothing from me. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. is there any public comment on this item? if so, please raise your hand. i do not see any hands raised. so commissioners, this matter is submitted. >> commissioners, i'll let someone start. i have comments. i'll let you start. >> very briefly, i would deny

this hearing request. i do not believe it began to meet the standards that we have more a rehearing request. >> v.p. swig: commissioner chang. there's no story or inform new evidence. certainly there's not any manifest in justice. it is -- i'm always, i'm mostly i can't give anybody 100% score but the planning department and the departments buildings really do a very great job of bending over backwards to make sure that their ducks are in order and this one they did under on going challenging circumstances. so there's no manifest adjustments and there's no new news and i see no merit in grant

granting this appeal. >> i would move to deny the hearing on the basis there's neither new information or manifest and justice. >> clerk: so, on commissioner lazarus motion, her motion is to deny it based on there's no new evidence or manifest injustice. on that motion, commissioner chang. >> aye. >> vice president swig. >> aye. >> so that motion carries 3-0 and the request is denied. we are now moving on to item number 5. this is appeal number 21-027. trinity properties versus san francisco public works bureau of urban forestry subject property is 1169 market street. trinity place. appealing the issuance on march 24th, 2021 to trinity reports incorporated of a public works order.

in this order there was approval to remove and replace seven unhealthy trees, they have wounds that are not healing properly, declining canopies, missing bark and low vigor and it included the denial of the removal and replacement of six healthy trees, these healthy trees are dormant but they're healthy and sustainability have a chance of survival. this is order number 204519. we'll hear from the appellant first. i believe mr. tunney. >> thank you. good evening, vice president swig and members of the board. i'm tom tunney on behalf of the trinity properties. this appeal concerns trinity's request to replace street trees and market street and it's now down to three trees as i will get into. these are all in front of the

entrance to face four trinity place. whereas, typically you might expect an appeal like ours to seek approval of fewer trees in the project. in this case, we're instead asking to be able to increase the number of trees over all and expand the city's over all tree canopy to the benefit of the city's urban forest. first orient you to the project and the request trinity place shown from above here, as you probably know, is located at market and eighth street and it's 1900 residential units and four towers and the heart of the mid market neighborhoods. and next two slides. it includes row tail shops and restaurants and located close to the theater and twitter, uber, square, dolby and other job hubs. trinity place is the culmination of the city's decades long

vision for the mid market neighborhoods. next slide, please. this appeal concerns the fourth and final phase of trinity place and the street trees propose for the developments grant enter trance facing market street. next slide. trinity seeks to replace three small struggling 50-year-old trees that are in fair condition, a lower status than good, and continuing to deteriorate with new vibrant flourishing young trees that can grow and mature and match the grandeur of the phase 4 enter trans. the market street facade is the first look the world will have of trinity place. this is trinity's vision. in contrast, the next few photos we'll show you the three trees trinity would like to replace. you will see these canopies are all small and failing they're not getting any better over time

in fact they're getting worse. tree number one is directly in front of the phase 4 entrance. steve, could you move to the project render and then after these. they applied to move 13 trees and staff authorized the removal of seven trees but denied six other trees. the director of public works upheld staff's decision and trinity then brought this appeal. in discussing the appeal, staff agreed that in additional three trees of the six that were denied could be removed due to their poor condition. this now concerns the three remaining trees and i believe buck would agree, mr. buck is here tonight to present. those three are very close calls, if not appropriate to be replaced. one of the reasons buck typically resists tree replacement is the trees start

out too small and don't get proper maintenance. here trinity will be replacing the old trees with 36-inch boxes instead of the normal 24 inches. trinity seeks to replace the trees with a bar for this location. which are arborist will speak to in a moment. trinity will nurture young trees, having planted 20 new trees along mission street and eighth street. all of which are flourishing. trinity also has planted over 50 trees, some of which are fully mature within the development site. we can show the site and the trees. and then go to the project rendering. trinity is committed to urban forestry. during its 15 years of project construction, they fulfilled all of their tree mitigation requirements. including planting new trees and paying fees.

not once in those 15 years, has there been a violation or even a complaint filed concerning trinity's tree plantings. finally, in addition to replacing the three trees, trinity is willing to plant nine new trees 3/1 replacement ratio elsewhere in the neighborhood in locations that buck would chose. as an alternative to the replacement trees, trinity would be willing to pay a fee for any tree buck choses not to have planted. the specifics of in mitigation can be developed with the board tonight at direction with buck as the direction of the board. if the primary policy behind not replacing trees is to preserve the city, the size of the city's over all tree canopy, we ask how this request could be denied when the net result will be an increase in that canopy. we ask also so that trinity may fulfill its market street beautification goals. with that i'll turn to our

licensed arborist, scott wheeler. >> can you hear me? >> clerk: yes, welcome. >> my name is scott wheeler board certified master arborist. from ann arborist perspective, i don't know how much time i have left here but i'll be brief. the last three trees are only going to continue to decline as tom mentioned. we've seen what the future holds based on the 10 others that were approved for removal. it's more important in terms of the long-term health and viability of a grove for all 13 trees to develop together. we want to establish uniformity and structural consistency based on the access to light, shelter from the wind, the routine care and maintenance on a regular basis, pruning all the trees together based on how they're growing together and the same watering schedule for all 13 trees as opposed to excluding three and adding or adjusting a new schedule for the new ones when the old ones fail.

last, no sudden changes in winds and light exposure when throw larger trees have to be removed and you have three new trees which we catch up so we're looking for uniformity. struggling trees which were planted 50 years ago when they were less options and less known about the long-term success of certain species and you are ban settings should be replaced by species better suited for the location. both types of trees represented here, this is a frontier elm, they are attractive that will add color and virtual interest to a monotonous stretch of market street. don't underestimate good et at the scene ticks. it was developed by lists to withstand tough urban conditions, bad weather and several diseases. >> that's time, thank you. >> clerk: you will have time in rebuttal. so, we will now hear from the bureau of urban forestry. >> good evening, commissioners, chris buck with san francisco public works. i'm going to go ahead and share

my screen in a moment. thank you commissioners. so, regarding the application for removal the subject trees are 13 street trees along the market street front age of 1169 market street at trinity place and this is phase 4, i believe, the final phase in the project. again, we received the application. our initial review of that application we approved seven trees for removal and staff felt that six trees were in reasonable condition to warrant denying the removal of and we'll focus on just a handful of the ones we are at a cross roads with. tree one, it's here pictured here in this fall in winter stages. this is a look at it a few weeks

ago. >> i'll be careful with my cursor in my hands here. tree number one, i think a big point in this is not that the trees are declining, they're not thriving but they are surviving. at this location, the microclimate at tenth and market, eighth and market, these few blocks of market are some of the windiest we have. while to some they don't look great, to get a tree established in this section of market on this microclimate is challenging and we'll just run through these

slides here. this is a tree that was initially denied. i do know if it suffered further damage. based on the condition in which i found it, as part of the appeal, this small tree without a doubt can easily be removed and replaced. so this is one of the throw that we now do concede should be removed. that is the injury which may have worsened in the time since we denied it previously. the other tree that we're essentially reversing course on is this tree. it's relatively small. there's not a lot of canopy to it. again, when we're looking at what is surviving, not necessarily driving but what is hanging on there and at the staff level our inspectors the

bureau is removal of trees if they're healthy. this is a tree where we're still saying it's fair condition and it does have some patchy parts of the canopy and we're still saying look, there's no conflict with the driveway and there's no conflict with structure of vaults and trees have a really hard time becoming established and then doing well and extremely windy environment and there are still some sparse areas within the canopy. this is in fair condition. this is also a tree that we denied for removal and i want to thank our team for sticking to their guns.

simply because this tree is alive, i just felt like again, we did meet with the a pel appes a couple of times and i can't rightfully come here before you and say yes, we need to retain this tree. this is the third of three trees that could be removed. 3-7 is a tree that could be retained. over all, the tree, again, will not, in good condition, the tree is in fair condition. and as you all know, we're under great strain and treasure to retain as many mature trees as possible. that was the decision-making process that was taking place from our perspective. to do a little bit of a recap, we are in impasse with these trees and 1, 4 and 7. trees 2, 3 and 5, we won't fight

2 and 3 and 5 so we're stuck here with trees 1, 4 and 7 and being in fair condition. not good condition but fair condition and again, for this area market street, that is saying something and the can't aren't worsening it's just not they're healthy they're thriving. regarding a replacement plan it's straight forward in terms of what the potential is physically on site. there are 13 existing street trees along market. if there's any good news here, it's that all 13 can be replaced as is because when these sites were selected when bart was created, these were the spaces carved out. some good news here is that trinity can replace all of these locations, removal of 13 with removal of 13 and some of the earlier better market street scenarios had any number of replacements ranging from as low

two replacement trees to nine and depending on if the curbs would move in for bicycle lanes. so, the other thing i want to touch base on, again, our code requires replacement trees be 2. the applicants have stated that they intend to plant 36-inch box trees along market streets. so that is certainly a give to the urban forestry and to the bureau and the city's canopy. you've heard me the larger the tree the longer it takes to establish so that's still true. having that larger box side will reduce vandalism and these are con find spaces. there's metal framing below ground so there's no room for the tree. we don't want to upset bart by

digging no their (inaudible) to the roof of their facilities. replacement trees are relatively straight forward on eighth street. we talked about possible mitigation our managements encourage if it's healthy and at this point and time we weren't ready to settle on these three remaining trees but we're open to what questions you may have. >> we have a question from vice president swig and commissioner lazarus. >> so, so, um, i am one of the biggest proponents protecting treat trees and at the same time

and so i understand that and i have depended your position and count less times. here is a as set for the city. this was blight and now it's been being resurrected into something very, very a mid market corridor and i don't understand this is where i don't understand the myopia and i'm going to a use a city department

and working with the developer to collaborate with them in creating in the most magnificent environment possible in what used to be a blighted area. what is this -- please explain to me the stick in the mud that is trying to preserve, not even trying, it's trying to preserve three trees that in fact, as mr. tunney is stating, will be upgraded from what they are already? why are we sitting here today, tonight, is my question? why is the buff and the d.p.w. stopping progress in the area of the city that has suffered from blight, misery and has been afterthought when a developer is willing to stake hundreds of

millions of dollars to make it great again. can you answer that for me? and i'm kind of upset about -- i'm confused. it gets me a little crazy. >> sure, i understand. i hear your question. many of the cases we have before us, there's a compelling need to remove a tree. whether that tree may be -- there's no way to mitigate the location of preferred driveway location, infrastructure necessary to actually construct and in this particular case, there's no compelling need to remove the trees for infrastructure reasons. so the project can be built as is as designed as planned and retaining these tree in no way prevents that from occurring. there's that layer of it, it's largely our role of protecting mature trees. i want to emphasize it's very challenge to go get trees

established and so.

>> and they're going to establish 10 trees along market anyway. can they just establish three more and i think clearly answer is yes. unfortunately i wasn't given the green light to just make a settlement. i hear your feedback. >> i and understand the tough position. you've heard me speak many times about precedent settings and we can't set a precedent for one thing or another. this would be a -- you heard my talk about legal and illegal and

saying to what is -- what is the law? and i think that in this case, this appellant, i'm frustrated for the appellant in that they have put together this marvelous project and they're putting in all these trees both on market street and internally and parks and they're going to be planting all these brand new trees along market street and for a consistency of the whole project, and really putting fourth a major statement again in what was a former blighted area, smart behavior and what is

boast for the city and its citizens. this is where i'm going with this. that's a great question and consistency is one thing that we're definitely focused on because it's one thing that all members of the public and

everyone wants to be treated the same way for sure and these projects are all very public. we understand it's challenging to establish trees in these locations and they will take a while to get to the size of these trees. we are in charge of protecting mature trees. the challenge is these trees are almost above alpine. you look at them and say that's a muni little tree and actual low they're 50-years-old because of the wind and the environment so in any other site, not the best and the brightest. they're not thriving. even the replacement trees will fair before but it's still going to be a struggle. so, that's where we were on

this. the points you bring up are points discussed internally and they're not lost on us. >> thank you. >> clerk: commissioner lazarus. >> thank you. mr. buck, i don't know if this is a consideration for buff but, i see 10 new trees of a certain species and three quasi decent trees of a different species, i mean, i don't get that and i think it was mr. wheeler who used the term uniformity and it was a note that i had written myself about, do you want some sort of uniform look there and i guess another question would be, given that these trees admitted by everybody, are not in the best of health, what if they end up failing a year or two years from now and then you are really going to have an awkward situation where you got however

many it is, 10 trees that were planted a few years before that have begun to thrive and you have to start three new ones? the bottom line for me i'm coming where vice president swig. if they were down to throw trees, which aren't the best-looking trees and they want to amplify the urban forest if they can replace these trees and give the city additional trees. you don't need to respond except that the uniform look and what happens if the other ones fail. >> thank you commissioner. often you hear about edged trees or the edge of a development site. my wife, we used to get dwell

mag see and i would look in the background of the trees failing in the distance from impacts in construction. in this carrying the trees are open and spaced enough where there won't be that literal impact of shading or screening. they won't suppress growth. uniformity happens a lot. someone removes a tree and they say wait a minute, now, we're going to put a young tree out here and it will look strange. this is where the urban forest is both conceptual and actual in a sense that there's not a lot of uniformity in the city with the way that the trees are, i mean, it's rare when you get on folsom and say these are the same age and same size. it's the average what is more common is there's a variation in height and size and age. we never can use uniformity for

removal unless it allowed us to get more trees planted by using the larger trees. we've used that before. in this particular case, there's spaced widely enough for that is not as compelling a reason for us. but i did hear that in the presentation. and then for sure, we don't want to deny a tree that one year, five years later is really turning out to be in poor condition. so all of those have been excluded and approved from mobile. it's just we got three where we feel, these can continue to contribute. so we have to consider that and we've ruled that out. >> thank you, i appreciate your response. >> commissioner chang. >> i was just going to ask, typically, about what happens in these requests for tree removals? or when someone removes a tree illegally is the penalty to pay

a fee to that trees can be replaced and the proposal here is to replace the three trees. the three remaining trees that are in question in addition to, as commissioner lazarus mentioned, supplementing or adding more trees. is that still not compelling enough reason to allow for the removal of the trees, even though it would be a net benefit to the urban forest? >> thank you, good question. for sure one of the things discussed is bumping up from 24-inch box side replacements up to 36 box size for all 13 trees. we are appreciative of that and it's a great way to start the trees out because they'll be larger than typical in terms of

what is susceptible to vandalism so that's a real benefit for that site. we started i try to cover topics so i don't have five back and fourth and just say here is a menu of options. as i just went down the menu of options, you know, the direction from leadership was like i just think we have three trees and they get anxious about agreeing to a settlement if there's not a compelling reason or needs to remove and the uniformity and holding on to throw trees that may not meet that sort of visual want. this is the capstone and we

completely are sympathetic to them and so i do think the 36 box side is a great thing and there's 13 trees back right there and so these are all reasonable discussion and i couldn't get that approval to get to a settlement on this one. >> clerk: we are now moving to public comment. would anyone like to provide public comment. raise your hand. ok, mr. clip, welcome. mr. clip. please, go ahead. >> caller: is it possible to share my screen, please. >> yes. >> clerk: let me move you to a

panelist. one moment can you share your screen, mr. clip? >> >> thank you. >> please, go ahead. >> thur sustainable and healthy and that decision and now somewhere between the hearing the decision and now, that is down to three with no public process. as if the public process isn't required and the reason they don't govern the trees and the quick overview of what is happening on market right right now we have 600 trees proposed for removal for better market streets and no one to i prepared

this slide was six and also replacements are not being done according to the code because of competing infrastructure and i'm surprised it hasn't been brought up yet. the underlying hearing that underscores the applicant's and scheer what we have on market street. >> it's totally unacceptable to us. these are going to die even the ones we replace, we're going to have a new tree and new tree and the old tree. >> new tree and an old tree mixed message. messages, those are not reasoning for taking out trees. they suggest planting all new trees is a good idea which is according to any i.s.a. book will tell you it's not the case and biodiversity is the best practice not uniformity and the suggestion this is an

opportunity for the trees city to get some free new trees and tells you the green infrastructure and the applicant also suggested that sick a mores are the wrong tree but city naturalists will tell you they're habitat to the increasingly threatened butterfly so with all of these removals, they're obliterating habitat. there's much made the public park. according to the applicant here but this is what it looks like from the street which is essentially a steele canyon that is ininviting to anyone and i'm not sure how ayar borrist can look at those large trees and have a hard time trance planting how they're going to have you 777-4502 in a steel dan yun that is seven stories deep and i was assured that was happening and these are photos do you ever just a few days ago showing trees strapped to the barricades

and construction materials wearing down they can start protecting the trees that are now and our city could follow the law and issues the fines deserved for that illegal failure to do so. thank you. >> is there anyone else who would like to provide public comment for the item, if so, please raise your hand. mr. nolte, please g. ahead. can you hear me? >> welcome. >> great. i have a couple of issues. one, first, the entity being heard today is trinity properties incorporated. that entity, i think you should talk to your city attorney about this, is resolved 11-13-2020. how can it represent the

property owners if it's been dissolved. secondly, when i went by the project last week, there were some orange protection trees around some of the trees. as shown in the pictures, that is exactly what they did behind the fence when they were redoing the sidewalk and putting in the last phases on market street, they were not protecting the trees. so, all of a sudden some orange stuff has gone up but still. they caused the with these trees and during construction and also what they've done to the rest of the property, that parcel we're

referring to right now used to be an open space for parking now it won't be and the they are planted. >> clerk: raise your hand if you have any other public comment. any public comment? ok, i do not see any hands raised. we will now move on to rebuttal. you have three minutes. >> thank you. just a couple of quick points for myself and then our arborist. the first speaker made our point. there's been so many trees lost on market street, we're trying

to keep trees and to add to that and we've been responsive to the tree protection requirements and i think mr. buck can attest to that. i'll turn to our or arborist. a couple points to make and then we're available for any questions that you have. thank you. >> one of the points i wanted to address earlier in terms of a grove of healthy trees, we're looking at increasing the carbon over time and as opposed to three trees that are increased air filtration, the tomorrow water uptake, and benefit and buffer the wind and rain during inclement weather. this is all obvious improvements with a grove of healthy trees that are suited for this

location than trees that were probably a good choice 50 years ago but we've had improvements since then in terms of species selection and development and the other tree and the city installed these several years ago and they are in good shape and so today is exactly my 20th anniversary in the service of the trees of my city. it's been an honor to be a steward to the urban canopy caring for trees and most importantly understanding individual trees it's something i don't take and this is the first time i've been this enthusiastic about a tree replacement and improvement

project and the best way possible so just because there are three trees and the ones we're discuss having survived until now, it doesn't mean they need to be there any longer and to establish a uniform grove of healthy attractive and the city itself. so at end it's a wonderful opportunity which i invite i all to embrace. thank you for your time. >> thank you. we will now hear from the bureau of urban forestry. >> thank you, chris buck again with public works, urban forestry and i just want to bring up an image, i'm going to share a screen for the moment. can you see a sidewalk with orange surroundings. >> yes, we see it. >> i just want to bring this up.

the preparation for the hearing and during the discussions a few weeks ago and the fencing was moved temporarily and was resting against the subject trees and i'll go ahead and stop sharing but this site is i is perfect. the trees were not damaged. nothing that was worth a fine. no lines crossed there so i want to address that point. other than that, the other thing to emphasize, big picture that i didn't spend a lot of time on, largely because it's pretty much written in stone, regarding replacement species. there's a long lengthy group that worked it on for all of

market street from the ferry building and to the castro. so we have var set species that need to be planted here in our urban forestrien respecters who processed the application didn't emphasize that a lot in this process and the applicants are aware of it but we have two species here and it will be colombia which is one of the existing london trees on market so they can benefit the swallow tail butterfly and the other one is similar to one of the trees suggested by the applicant and this one would be a drake and so a drake chinese elm. so those species are literally set in stone through better market street and that would be the species for market and the species for eighth street is

brisban box trees. we won't be ability to accommodate the request for ray wood ash but i did want to just explain that there's literally everyone and anyone who had an opinion about trees was consulted to help the city and many, many different agencies, the public, the urban forestry council and arts commission. i appreciate us tying it up so we can't have it takeaway from the conversation. thank you. >> thank you. so we have a question from vice president swig.

>> v.p. swig: so, us so smart smartand cares about the trees. and he cited chapter in verse all the abuse along market street and i don't disagree with his point although it's not valid for this hearing and i'm always reminded by commissioner lazarus was stay to the task at hand and the appeal that we are considering. but, it did raise something in my mind. and please, i'm going to say something snarky but i'm asking you to understand my snarkiness in advance. so, mr. clip is correct.

all along market street, there is abuse of trees. there is dead trees and there are empty trees positions, that have not been maintained properly. and yet, again, we're fighting tonight about or discussing tonight and the collaborative fashion about three trees that are clearly substandard for whatever reason they are, the weather themselves, whatever, and here we have a developer who is committing to put in 36-inch box trees and we can take care of -- if wore going to find for the appellant, we can also make

sure that we reiterate that it will be the city's peg or tive e choice of the tree. what are we fighting over three trees that have -- three tree positions that you have the opportunity of significantly upgraded when the rest of the market street is blighted. this is also nipping at my crawl here. >> thank you, commission. i mean, i think that's why we have board of appeals. the bureau is under great pressure under microscope to save everything that's grown that is relatively sustainable. as you can hear from members of the public, we're accused of doing really bad things, even

when we're fighting to protect trees. if i didn't have the image of the trees well protected, you know, everyone leaves here thinking that i haven't done my job to protect the urban forest. so that's why i made a point point ofshowing that image, we k closely together, but we're also up against it. really showing that we are protecting the urban forest and so, it's really one for us, as a department of consistency and we've chosen our words carefully. we've kind of threaded the needle here, we just couldn't get to a settlement. because of the lack of a compelling reason to remove those three trees other than to finish it out and match it up. i think in that case, i just think we're on the opposite but

we have the best stake at hart. >> v.p. swig: i'm not accusing anyone of anything but it's odd how it all turned out many of obvious q. i understand these trees are old and they've been there a long time but they're not exactly, you know, mega statue trees, are they transferable? can they be moved to another location? and can you find three other locations that are empty currently on market street, which would gladly accept three orphans? >> good question, commissioner. so, there would be no way to transplant these the way the low ground infrastructure is set up. it's good news and bad news. it's an easy answer that's the good news. there's no gray area. there would not be a way to do it. no, there wouldn't be a way to do that?

and finally, i'm also wrestling other than with we can, if we were to find for the a pel appellantwhat's is the standardn that there are three trees that just happened not to work very well? and should be replaced? >> say that last part again. the question is about replacement if the replacement species don't establish it? >> if we find for the appellant and the three trees can go and i'm trying to find a legal precedent or a valid precedent to take this action. because i too believe in

consistency and not setting precedent. as much as i don't understand what we're arguing here when we can trade something really great for something that's also good. other than they are living, small trees. what would be the legal press adept that we could get this appeal done? >> sure. chris buck again with bureau of urban forestry. one of the points that is come up and ben expressed by a number of folks and we don't disagree with, is the idea, despite the harshness of the environment and the microclimate, the belief is such that the replacement species will actually provide greater benefits long-term. greater carbon sequestration so it's bun it's that the basis is

the replacement trees would actually get larger and provide greater benefits long-term than the current trees as they're currently constituted. so, the appeal enter you have a larger can pee and greater benefits and so that is the discussion point whether you want to call it legal or just the basis for the argument i think that is a fair argument to pin the conversations on. >> that's a base of a decision in favor of the appellant? >> that's a reasonable argument that is hard to counter. >> thank you.

>> this matter is submitted. >> commissioners, i think you just read into my point of view can we hear from other points of view and hear a motion, please? >> >> i'm on board with your motion and commissioner chang and additional comments? >> i agree with are headed and i think that mr. buck just provided a great basis for that motion. >> would you like to make that motion? >> sure. i will do my best. so, i move to grant the appeal on the basis of the request will improve the long-term longevity of the tree can pee and julie help me out here. >> so, basically you are in

support of removing the six trees that were previously denied so you would want to grant the appeal and issue the order and on the opinion it allow the removal of tree numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7. replacement with chinese elm and i just want to clarify that the appellant will be maintaining these trees, mr. buck? what is the plans in terms of maintenance? >> the applicant would establish the trees and i think the appellant would establish the trees and there's a discussion. i understand the appellant is prepared to maintain in perpetuity but we also now have the funds maintaining all the the street trees. i think -- having them throw years to get them established? time three years or until

established. it's a which to keep it opened right now. >> established. for throw years. we would add that about the appellant maintaining them until they're established or three years has elapsed and you said this was on the basis that it will improve longevity of the trees in that? >> tractor-trailer urban forestry can pee in the long-term. and i just noticed in the brief that the appellant did replace three of the trees on a 3-is ratio and we can't mandate that but we can add further recommendations that the a pel appellant honor their agreement. would you like me to repeat that

again? >> that would be great. >> do we want to specify right now in this motion the trees and put everybody into a corner and mr. buck, maybe you want to chime in on this. do we want to specify trees mandated by d.p.w. or buff based on their current stage. >> the species. >> yes. >> if we can refer to the better market plan for species. >> a species by the greater market street plan. this would be better.

>> all right. better market street plan. all right. so we have a motion from commissioner chang to grant the appeal and issue the order on the condition that it be revised to allow the removal of tree numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 7 and to require these trees to be replaced in 36-inch boxes with trees of a species specified in the greater market treat plan and further the appellant will maintain the trees and they are established or three years and whatever comes first on the basis this will improve sequestration and the urban canopy. that motion, commissioner lazarus. >> aye. >> vice president swig. >> aye. >> so that motion carries 3-0.

thank you. so we are now moving on to items 6a through 6g appeals of a demolition and site permit issue for 66 mountain spring avenue. the demolition per i didn't tell is 2018-05-17-9470 to demolish a single family swelling and the site permit is number 201805179469 to erect three stores construction and single family dwelling. so three of the appeals of the demolition permit and four are of the the site permit the appellants are ronald niver, lynn oakley and rosemary

macguiness. you have 14 minutes, ms. smith. and this is for your presentation and you will get double the time for your rebuttal. >> thank you. my name is gloria smith and i'm here representing the nivers and i want to thank president honda, vice president swig, the board members and ms. rosenburg, i hope you -- >> clerk: it through me off when you asked a question. my apologies. >> thank you so much. i sounded short, i apologize. i would like to introduce margaret niver, she would like to say a few words about the neighborhoods and her reason for bringing this appeal. >> good evening, commissioners.

my name is meg niver and i live with my husband and two daughters at 65 mountain spring avenue directly across the house that is the subject of this appeal. we moved to mountain spring 10 years ago after living in a flat on 21st avenue for the first 20 years of our marriage. one day we realized that it was really too small for four people, two adult and two kids to get ready every morning and one bathroom so we looked and we found this house on mountain spring and we just fell in love with the house and with the neighborhood. it's a unique and special neighborhood. i don't know if you've been up here. it's flat and a dead-end street which means that kids can ride their bikes, and play on the streets and really safely. it has no street lights so we can see the city lights, we can see the stars at night and it's really very quite special. the houses on our street include

a mix of styles and some are historic and leno lives there and that she'll talk about and and the houses are tar as so the houses like we live in are on the south side tend to be higher up. the houses on the north side go down the hill. as our neighbor lynn oakley describes in her appeal, her grandfather named the street and pulled the bricks up to build the house she lives in. it's a special and historic part of san francisco. we're here before the board today because we believe the house that they propose to build is going to do great damage to the charm and charter of our special neighborhoods. the mass of the proposed is out

of scale with the other homes on the north side of mountain springs and would be disruptive to the character of our neighborhood. and this is really, i didn't know what the residential design guidelines were before we got notice of the permit but having read up on them, this is really what they are designed to address. together with our neighbors, we've tried on multiple occasions to persuade mr. cassidy to address the neighbor's concerns about his proposed house. starting back in 2018. first, 29 neighbors, that's everybody that lives here, senta let tore mr. cassidy and s wife and we asked for some information and we expressed our concerns. to my shock, we never got a response. it was a six-page letter, attached as an exhibit to our brief but that no response

whatsoever.

>> you know, these are the other changes that all the neighbors agree on and we would like to see made. mr. english had a conversation with mr. cassidy, the architect and explained that he believed all the neighbors could agree to resolve their disputes with these changes, and mr.

cassidy architect said he would get back in touch and never did. when we read in the brief the project team has spent time and effort meeting and following up with the neighbors including the appellants to listen to concerns and modify it accordingly, we really wish that were true. it's not. no one has spoken with lynn oakley or david sullivan and neither as mr. cassidy nor anyone on his team offered to make even one change at the mediation hearing that four of the dr sponsors sent. since we first received notice, we've reached out to mr. cassidy on multiple occasions and tried to reach an agreeable solution that would address the neighbors for the project and

mr. cassidy has chosen not to respond to the neighbors. and in fact, it seems to us that when i look back and tried to think of the history of this, all the changes when he faced a hearing. at that point, mr. cassidy offers a few modest changes and everyone has to try to address them on the fly. this is really a close knit neighborhood. unlike a lot of places i've lived and my dad was in the navy so i lived a lot of places, and we know our neighbors, we like our neighbors, we have a block party with the street above us. we look out for each other. and we really want to preserve the harmony of our neighborhood and we want to do it both the physical harmony with the

houses, you know, leading the residential design guidelines but also the harmony of the neighbors. and so, we are here today asking for the board's assistance to try to help us resolve this. we have tried everything we can think of and we're here at this phase because nothing we have done has been successful. we appreciate your assistance and i'll turn it back to my attorney to talk more about the residential science. >> thank you, meg. i'm going to talk about two issues. first i want to talk about the project's failure to comply with the planning code. and then second, i want to describe the proposed modification on the project sponsor's plans. these are both feasible and would resolve all of the appeals before you and it would bring the project into compliance with proposition m. i'm going to start with an over arching matter which is to be clear, you are the first

decision makers to take up the issue on whether or not the project complies with the residential design guidelines at issue in this case. and there's about seven of them. the project sponsors brief was incorrect when it said the planning department, the planning commission, and the board of supervisors all made consistency determinations on the guidelines, the truth is not one of those bodies found the project consistent with the specific guidelines we are talking about here tonight. to start with the design team, they declared the project at a scale with the adjacent homes, and in their matrix, the team accurately identified the project's problems, the violation of numerous guidelines and they proposed solutions right in the matrix. the planning department staff report to the planning commission included this list that you also see in the project sponsor's brief of reasons why the project did comply but no

one made any des fess tee and died that list to the guidelines we're talking about. the planning department issued a final permit absent any clarifying of compliance and moving onto the commission, nort did make a finding. not a single commissioner mentioned the guidelines at all at the d.r. hearing and they did not factor in the guidelines when they approved the project sponsor's last minute project changes at the d.r. hearing. and finally with the board of supervisors, they did not determine the project complied with the guidelines. in fact, the project sponsor did argue to the board of supervisors that anesthetic resources, like compliance of the guidelines, was not an impact that could be considered under ceqa. we brought a ceqa appeal to the board of supervisors. it's the only type of land use appeal you can take there.

the supervisor decision was to uphold an exemption to ceqa. so, because the supervisors found the project exempt from ceqa, it was precluded from evaluating the merits in any manner. the supervisors did not make a finding, the project had complied with the guidelines, because the project was exempted from board jurisdiction. i'm not going to discuss the violations at issue here because we outlined them in detail in our brief. i actually think just a single graphic fully illustrates the problem that we're talking about. so, i am going to share my screen with you. the above depiction is the existing house. and then below is the proposed

project. i this graphic is clear it could not comply with the san francisco residential design guidelines as its currently proposed. four neighbors appealed this matter. 11 neighbors submitted letters and e-mails to you expressing their opposition to this project. this project is opposed to at least 15 households on this tiny street. you know, so i think that is telling that the neighbors do not agree with the project sponsor's claim in their brief that the current design is sensitive to the concerns raised by the appellants including massing and i think he meant to write compatibility, there's a typo there with the neighborhood character. so i'm going to pivot now and talk about our requested relief. as meg noted, the planning department dave winslow, asked the appellants to be clear about

the changes they would like to see in order inform reduce the project size and in response they did hire san francisco residential architect mark english, to evaluate the project in incorporate the design team's recommendations. so we studied the plans, the matrix and drafted modifications that would, number one, lower the garage and the floors above it by four feet. so the front of the garage is sufficiently sent back from the street and lowering the building would result in a gentle slope of the driveway. he also recommended removing the roof deck. this would reduce the over all height by three feet and no other home on the north side of mountain spring has a roof deck. require a three foot setback on the eastside at the top floor as recommended by the design team in its matrix. and then finally, just a modest

lowering of some of the ceiling would lower the height of the building by one to two feet. these changes are all described in our brief. >> 30 seconds. >> i want you to keep in mind the existing home was 2,100 square feet and the proposed project would be 6,000, mr. english's modifications would reduce the project by just a mere 500 square feet. and it would still be twice the size of the largest house on that side of mountain spring. we're asking you to conclude by asking you to exercise your independent duty to ensure the project complies with prop m. >> that's time. >> thank you very much for your time. >> thank you. >> we have a question from vice president swig. >> v.p. swig: i'm going to telegraph a question to scott

sanchez when he gets to the point of the testimony tonight. you are aware that we can't, views are not protected and that really probably the key issue here is does the building fit into the character of the neighborhood and probably the deck piece. so, am i clear, i'm going to try this, other than basically redesigning the house, lowering the ceiling height, and compacting the entire structure, the major issues for your clients are the deck, the

carve-outs to the context of the building and it was a third and it just went out of my mind. so, basically, aside from a frontal la bot amir that would . what are the if you were in negotiations today with the developer what do you want? >> vice president swig, are you directing that question to me? >> v.p. swig: yes, i am. i can't speak on behalf of all of the appellants but i would say as the picture i shared with you, it's just the huge, massing

of the project at the street level and we are looking to be consistent with the design guidelines and the matrix, to have a more gently sloping, structure that confirms to every other house on that side of the street. i mean, i absolutely understand your point about going back to the drawing board. these are all recommendation that's have been on the table for well over a year in terms of reducing some of the ceiling levels, being sensitive to top ography and the para pits and the roof deck are not helping matters at all.

>> v.p. swig: can you think about that and have a conversation with your clients off line but i'm going ask mr. sanchez, do you see any abuses with regard to the residential guidelines? if there are any abuses with regard to the residential guidelines, what are they? if in fact he says according to the residential guidelines i have no problem, and there are no statutes protecting the appellants here, you know, that's one thing that we support as of a body is taking out our personal taste out of the matter but really going with what is compliant and there according to the statutes out there. if there's a height issue we'll

cut the top off. if there's a light and air issue, we'll see if we can find some compromises. or we'll ask the two parties to find the compromises. what i'd like to have you come back with is suggestions on what are the real issues here other than the design guidelines because mr. sanchez says, you know, according to the design guidelines this is fine, just be prepared there may be nothing there. >> ms. lynn oakley is appearing on video that will be shared by mr. longway and

she's appellant foray peel numbers 21-030 and 21-031. thank you mr. longway, please, go ahead. if can you rewind it. thank you. >> my name is lynn oakley and i live at 32 mountain spring avenue. i'm glad i have this opportunity to talk to the board of appeals. my grandfather was the first one to buildup this high in san francisco in 1920, he had the highest house in san francisco up on what is now mountain spring avenue. and he and my grandmother used to hike all over the hill. they hiked all over hills all over san francisco because they wanted a home with a view. they even were offered the

property where jewel is castle is for $500, he could have bought that land but he didn't like that view. he liked the views up here. so, despite what his family suggested, he decided to try to move up here. there was no running water, there was no electricity and roads. he had to use a boom and pully to bring his supplies up the hill. it shows the area, the house and also the area in question on the flatter part of mountain spring avenue so i'm going to share a screen and just show you a little bit of that. this is a picture of my grandfather standing on the foundation of a house he was

building. if you build a road, there's the south side which is higher than the north side which is of course lower. so, the house is on the south side would sit high at the street level so they can see the view. and of course, these would be lower, they can see the view but not block what is behind them. up here on the south side. this is a picture of the house that my grandfather built initially. a little cottage. you can see all the boulders and there's a path here. there's not mountain spring avenue yet. my grandfather and his friends carved that out later on the he was using a boom and a pully and he used a horse and wagon to bring his supplies up here.

this is another picture looking north and you can see there's a view out there and this is what everybody covets. there's no mountain spring avenue up here yet. this is the house today. and it's modest at the street level. in the back there's a tower that rises. at the street level, it is lower sloped roofs, sloped roofs, sloped roofs. on mountain spring on what i call the flat place, our family is always called it the plat place because it was the one place where kids could go and roller skate and not be in danger of going all the way down the hill so this is the flat area. it is on the slope, as you remember from the original picture.

so the houses on the south side are higher at the street level. and the houses on the north side are lower all the way through with sloping roofs which allows for more views. people can enjoy the views. not have a great, big house that is flat across that blocks the views. this is the history of this neighborhood. this is is the tradition. you can see it all the way through. this is looking east on the hill part of mountain spring avenue. where i live. this is my house over here. and on the right, you can see the houses are larger, sitting up higher at the street level. so that they can see the view. these are staying low. you notice all the sloping

roofs. this is the flat part and this is the north side. you see the sloping roofs. and the south side the larger, the higher buildings on the south side. you notice on the left, all the sloping roofs. this is an interesting picture from above. this street along here is mountain spring. and you can see these houses are on the south side and they hit up higher. at the back they're lower again. it's like going up the hill. they will be lower so that the houses behind them can see over. because we're on a hill. and these are the homes on the north side with the -- they're not so imposing. they're sitting closer to the

street level. and these are all sitting up high at the street level. and the house in question is this house here on the left which is going to be torn down. as i understand it, there's a house that going in that does not have sleeping roofs has been the custom and especially on the side of the streets and it's going to be higher. it's going to be squared off. they're not very imposing. the house that is going in will sit up higher and will be square and have a deck.

we'll be blocking some views. it will not be as beautiful as the homes on the north side are with the sloping roofs. the houses on the right are beautiful in their way too, but they are, again, sitting at street level higher because they're further up the hill and if we look at that slope again, you can see this is a sloping hill and naturally these hourses would be higher and these will be lower. you don't want to have a big house here and a big house there. it's going to block the view. it's not in keeping with the history of our neighborhood. so i'm hopes the board will take

this inform consideration. all the neighbors are concerned about this. we all move up here and we want the views and we also want a graceful, gracious kind of neighborhood where we can enjoy the views and not have something big blocking our view. i would hope the board will really consider our concerns because we have to live with this all the time. if there's enough of us concerned i hope the board would say there's something going on here and we need to consider what the whole neighborhood looks like. we have very good architects representatived up here. that's fine. but really it boils down to how it all fits into the neighborhood scheme and why

we're up here for these views. and i hope this video or my video i'm sorry i couldn't be there in-person today because actually i'm a musician and our musical group is having an in-person rehearsal today which is just amazing after this year. and it's during the afternoon up until 7:00 and i wasn't sure i would get back in time. i did want to just provide a little bit of history and how we're all trying fit in to the neighborhood. frank lloyd wright was one architect who would build into the nature around him and i think that that's what we have to consider when wore dealing with a hill, a sloping hill. that we need to have sloping roofs and be considerate of the neighbors behind us. so, i hope, i've never had to do

this before. i'm hoping that you will take into consideration the history of this area and how we all are very considerate of each other for views and space. thank you, very much. bye-bye. >> ok. so we will now hear from the next appellant, rosemary for 21-032 and 21-033 and she's represented by steven williams, mr. williams, you have 14 minutes. >> thank you very much, i'm stephen williams representing rosemary mcginnis, like most people you hear from tonight, long-term resident, almost 30 years, raised four children on the street up here. she lives directionally next

door to the east. you know, we don't talk about the demolitions too much but they're just about the worse thing that one can do for the environment. the pattern we're seeing in the city now and some of our most expensive neighborhoods have demolishing and rebuilding the buildings is not smart and it's not sustainable and it takes between 50 and 80 years, all of this will be dead. for a new energy-efficient building to overcome through its more efficient operations the negative climate change impacts creating during the demolition demolition.they have placed morn these demolitions or just banned them outright. we're seeing more and more of them. i know some of the board members

will remember the first demolition in sea cliff. we're seeing demolitions of mansions at the top of pacific heights and now here we have one demolition of a mansion, built by a known architect and owned by a symphony conductor at the top of twin peaks being demolished. it's a four berm home worth more than $3 million. it's being completely demolished. the demolitions are bad for the environment and they're bad for the city and they're really bad for the neighborhoods. so, if the city is going to continue to allow virtually any demolition, that is over what is considered the affordable

threshold, at least the city owes it to the people that actually live here and grow up here and raise their children here and die here that the process be followed to the letter. and in this case, it was not. in this case, the planning commission clearly errorred and the neighbors are here at the board of appeals asking the board to correct the errors. so, the vice president swig, you asked for something it hang your hat on and you've got it in this case. you've got the residential design guidelines matrix. it was completed by the rdac. and it states very specifically what is required for this project to meet guidelines. and it's attached to everyone's brief and it was attached, planning didn't attach it and the developers didn't attach it but all the neighbors attached

it and i attached it as the first exhibit to the brief for ms. mcginnis. in the last column, it states, specifically whether the project meets the specific guidelines or not. on the vast majority of the items it states, meets guidelines and it's painted in blue. however, in several very specific categories that the neighbors are most concerned about, under the building scale and form and that's on page 1 exhibit 1 and on the next page on the comments regarding the roof form that is at the top of page 2, the form does not state that the building meets the guidelines. it says the matrix says and i quote, further reduction of mapping should be made by

providing a three foot setback along the eastside of the top floor. the next page says the exact same thing. please incorporate a three-foot setback so on the eastside of the top floor. it also says that the building is still too tall that the entrance at the facade on mountain springs. so, the matrix spells out specific low what changes it will take for the building to actually comply with the design guidelines and this is what it will take. so, to reach that threshold to meet the guidelines, so there it is in black and white. this is an objective finding by the department. as to what is going to actually take to meet the guidelines and of course we have the arguments all daylong about the subjectivity of the residential design guidelines about what is compatible and the department will tell us, well, four-storey

building next to one-storey building that's compatible but in this instance, there's a very specific finding by the department staff of the changes that must be made, must be completed, otherwise the project does not comply and when we find these things in the file, this isn't presented to you by the department when we find these things, we have to be able to rely on this kind of absolutely objective proof or the process loses all credibility. the document says, right there, here it is, do this or you are not in compliance. and you know, i don't know what we're going to hear from the departments because, the developer didn't address it at all in their brief and the department has never addressed it. so, they just can't come back and say oh well, we were just kidding or we changed our minds. the matrix is supposed to

represent an unbiased assessment by the people who know the design guidelines best. so, we're asking the board to look at that and make the changes that are stated in the matrix as absolutely required in order to comply so that's -- the neighbors took these same arguments and these same requests to the planning request and the matrix was attached and it was presented orally to the commission and the commission simply missed it. it was never mentioned. as gloria said earlier, it's not mentioned in deliberations or it's not mentioned in any of the findings, i don't know if they got tired and it was the last case in a seven and a half hour meeting. i don't know if they were distracted. i don't know what happened. i wasn't there. the residential design guidelines were never mentioned

in the deliberations, no mention made made of the period to incorporate the changes by the project and that the rdac said we need this to comply with the guidelines. likewise, the discretionary review memo action memo that's produced after the hearing, makes no mention at all of the residential design guidelines. they didn't deliberate on them and apply them to the project and they didn't do what the matrix and the rdac said they must do in order to be in compliance. so, the eastside 3-foot setback needs to be added to the project to comply. it's as simple as making the statement. " was to reduce the height of the project.

this requirement was also not considered by the commission, not mentioned, it's still there in the matrix as not having been complied with. it's another key point and it ties in directly with what the presentation by lynn and her historic context. the final conclusion of the matrix is that the double height enter tree has to be reduced. the rdac specifically states and it still unchanged, the volume remains out of context with the neighbors and extenuates the height and mass of the home and that's on page 3 of our exhibit 1. the basis of the request to reduce that height, it's an important design criteria which i think lynn was alluding to and not only exists on mountain spring but all of these steep

hillside paris streets with the downhill buildings have long presented the smallest possible facade to the street and then the mass of the building goes down the slope. and so, there's a consistent design parameter that has existed since the area was first developed more than 100 years ago. so, can you put up the first slide. let's look at some photos of the area. this is the same shot that lynn was showing looking straight down mountain spring. the building on the downhill slope present no facade. a one-storey facade. many of them just have a garage door and the rest of the house goes down the very steep slope. can we have the next slide.

sorry, it takes a little time. i paused your time. this is crown terrace. this is one block away. also has the exact same design criteria applied to it and you can see the downhill facing building of one-storey facade usually on the streets. there are some exceptions but they're very few and they were designed drawn. the building was on the right on the uphill side are much taller. can i have the next slide, please. thinks villa terrace. the most exaggerated example. i had a case here 20 years ago with are the department held the downhill building that you are looking at there on the left to eight feet in height on the facade of the building and of course the uphill buildings are very tall. this is also just a few blocks

from the site, villa terrace. can we have the next one, please. this is saint germane. this is the street directly above mountain spring. the exact same design parameter seen here as is seen in all of these steeply sloped terrace streets. this is the current building. this is the facade that presents the mountains spring. that's ms. macguiness' house to your right. as a little bit larger facade but it's setback 25 feet, 30 feet from the street. down the slope. and that is what happens with these buildings. that's the design parameter. so, this is dinovo hearing. i think that the developers have failed to come forward with any evidence to refute what we put in our briefs that the design

guidelines set fourth in the matrix were not covered. and i would also like to introduce my client, rosemary macguiness who would like to say a few words to the board about her life on the hill. >> you have to unmute, rosemary. one minute and 39 seconds. >> ok. so, thank you very much for the opportunity. i really appreciate this chance to explain and our position or perspective. just listening to the earlier hearing, i heard much was made of the terms consistency and uniformity and i mean, that's what we're looking for here. also, there was the issue of upsetting a president and i prei would like to ask the commissioners to take a step

back and consider the issues of connisten see and uniform tvusd our neighborhood. it's very hard to look at plans and see what impact a particular plan is going to have on the neighborhood. hopefully, the photograph you have seen today can help you visualize the impact that this property will have and you know, so you would appreciate the consistency and uniformity. i also ask you to take a step forward. you were talking about setting precedent and that you don't want to set a precedent and you know, that's exactly what this would do. so my house was built by the kilpatrick bakeries and the top floor is only two bedrooms in the back and i always wondered why do i only have two bed rooms and i realize because it's staggered. they've top level is setback down the hill and it's a much

smaller profile than the main part of the house. and that is really all. that's time. i ask you that consider our neighborhood. >> thank you. you will have some time in rebuttal as well. we will now hear from the next a appellant mr. david sullivan for appeal number 21-034. mr. sullivan. you have seven minutes. >> hi, everybody. my name is david sullivan. i live on two houses away from the subject house on mountain spring. i have lived in this neighborhood for about 21 years. my parents were the original owners of this house. when they moved to san francisco in 1998, they spent about two years trying to find a nice neighborhood. initially didn't know about the heights. i was the one who discovered this neighborhood when i found

houses on library. when i brought my parents there, it absolutely fell in love with this neighborhood. unfortunately the house that they wanted initially was sold by the time we found it. so, they went on looking spending another year looking at houses and they found this house on sale and in 2000 was when they bought this house. and they fell in love with this neighborhood. i mean, it's essentially located neighborhood within san francisco and amount houses here are very modest size and eclectic and next to us is a forest and you can walk two or three minutes and you are in the forest so you have the mix of city and urban life. so, as far as architectual testify mixed entry homes and everything is all in the same orderly image.

the houses outside will always be smaller and the houses on the south side are larger. this is very consistent neighborhood. and you know, this neighborhood offers easy access to city parks and it's convenient. showing you compare sons. this is the current house right now and this is what the developer would like to do. a big, giant house on the north side and this is really inconsistent with what all the other houses are in the previous appeals has showed you guys. so basically this would break the visual appeal of the neighborhood and this is inconsistent with the residential design guidelines issued by the city and you know, like what you guys mentioned in earlier hearings, all the houses that are always people consistency and and how along the street and start tearing

down bigger showerses and all of this added elements that this house is going to add and so this is going street view illustration of how the houses and here we're going to try and house and so, therefore, i would like to request three things, one is i would like the develop tim hortons go ahead to reduce the height and be consistent along the north side of the spring and number two, the roof design. i would like to change from flat roof so it's consistent and the third thing is the removal of the roof deck to make it more compatible with other buildings, we want developers are coming here and buying houses and building mega mansions. and this would really affect the

neighborhood. thank you for your time today. >> thank you mr. sullivan. ok, we will now hear from the permit holder. mr. john calavol. you have 49 minutes. >> thank you mrs. rosenburg, i don't think i'll use all of that.

now you heard a lot both in the briefings and in the presentations. the over arching crux of the comments have had to deal with the residential design guidelines so that's what the focus of our presentation is going to be. now first, all parties agree that the residential design guidelines apply to this project. planning department staff confirmed the project consistent with the guidelines both during the typical residential design review and a second time after six dr applications were filed articulating the same reasons by the appellants. the planning commission also specifically considered and confirmed that the project with some modifications was consistent with the guidelines. in a unanimous decision. and in fact, the appropriateness of the project and the neighborhood context is

essentially the only thing that the planning commission can considerate that hearing due to the fact that the project is 100% consistent with the planning code. despite not saying magic words that some people wanted to hear from commissioners that night, that is essentially what the commission's function is during the d.r. hearing because these projects are all the consistent with the planning code and so now it's the appropriate time to apply the residential guidelines and make sure that the project is consistent with the neighborhood character. now the guidelines quote are articulate expectations of the character of the built environment and apply an over lay of local context on top of the basic regulations of the planning code. so in simpler terms. the principle concern whether the project is consistent with the existing neighborhood. it has two stores at the front age and three at the rear. it's consistent with the neighbors. the project is also sensitive to

minimizing it's height. the above grade floors from nine and a half foot tall see lungs, let's look at images of this ze. they're both two-storey buildings and with entries closer to the streets and the bulk of the building setback from the streets and that's exactly what you are going to see with the project. the project has a total height of 21 feet to the roof plus a two foot parapet that two foot parapet is required for architect actual detailing as requested by staff and the roof itself is only one foot haller than it's west neighbor so it's only two feet taller than the east neighbor and one only one foot taller than groves although it's a flat roof now. the rear of the project is also completely consistent with the

neighbors as well. you will see that the proposed project rear yard provides a precise step between the two neighboring buildings rear yards. that's exactly what the code asked for and that's exactly what the residential design guidelines called for. additional relief is provided at both back corners to further respect neighbors light, air and privacy. you will see the two little carve outs at the back corners of the building. and it's spaced from the adjacent neighbors and won't provide privacy and light and air issues. to start, it increases the existing building side set backs which are currently three and a half feet today and increases them to five feet and so the result is pretty clear. if you look at the 74 mountain spring to the west, that first building on the so the home is to the left.

the new house that proposed, will be over 20 feet away from the narrowest places separation between the two buildings. and then of course, that building tapers off from there so it's going to be even greater from 20 feet for most of that building. and then on the eastside building, at that closest point, there's eight feet of separation provided between the two buildings, greater than what's is there today and certainly eight feet is more than common both in this neighborhood and in san francisco and in general and in addition, that home only has one small window on the lower level. so the privacy is less of an issue than a typical situation. now let's take a look from the rear. the project, it's hard to even distinguish the height of this project from the existing building to the west which is on the right and this image and this elevation. and then again, provides some

additional height above the building to the east or left here but again, not out of scale, not wildly different than what is there today. still that common consistent two floors at the mountain springs street front age and three-storeys at the rear at the slope goes downhill. now, as we look up the hill at property, the red squares around the existing building, again, the two-storey at the street and three-storey down slope is common home type in this neighborhood. you can see there's a lot of, when looking at it from downhill or looking uphill, common to have three or maybe even more stories as you go downhill.

and it cast no shadows on its neighbors. let's look at the front setback. and so the front setback of this building varies from 15 feet at the closest to 30 feet at the furthest away. so, again, just as some of the other pel ants were saying the massing is further back from the street and the entry way is closer to the street but the mass of these homes are setback further on the lot. you can see once again, you have the transition between these buildings and you know from the east to the west. this is kind of in the middle of the depths of those two buildings. and now as for the roof deck, it's actual low setback another

15 feet from the deepest walls and if you tack a look at this image, you add that 15 feet plus the 50-foot wide street that roof deck is 95 feet away from the closest portion of the building up slope across the street. you can't see the roof deck from either side of the sidewalks and of course as you get to those upper floors in that building, you are going to be even further than 95 feet. so, this deck has been designed very carefully and has much smaller now than when it started through work with staff and through the commission. now, here is an image just to give commissioners a sense of what the buildable area of the lot is. the building outlined as we've seen before, is what is proposed. the yellow area is what is

permitted to be built bit planning code. and again, this is the exact objective of the residential design guides. you start with the planning code and the yellow and the residential design guides say let's look at the neighborhood context, adjacent buildings, let's now carve this building so that it meets the neighborhood character and that's exactly what this project has done. we're more than 25% smaller than about what would have been allowed by zoning, which again, is the goal of the guidelines. the project sponsor in fact did have a number of group and individual meetings with neighbors throughout the process. it's not easy considering there were 29 neighbors involved from the start with varying concerns. and frankly, this is where planning department staff really can play a crucial role, in particular mr. winslow in terms of facilitating this conversation and it's not always

easy when you have so many people in the room with not the same objectives. but as a result of those conversations, significant changes have already been made to the project. we've incorporated the very front setback. we have increased the side step back to five feet. we've already reduced the roof height and the parapets and reduced the height of the entry already. we sculpted the rear corners. we reduced the size of roof deck and modified the style as part of this process. now the planning commission did review the project on d.r. and made several additional modifications than what the project was when we went into the commission. they eliminated all windows on the west wall. facing the separated distance between the home and the west neighbor. they actually increased the

notch at the northwest corner it was not as big as it is today. and they further reduced the size of the roof deck than what we took to the commission increasing the side set backs from the standard five feet to 10 feet on each side and then also set it back even further from the front by another five feet. so, a lot of the appellants have been making the argument about how staff, during the residential design process made these comments about whether the project was consistent or not consistent with the design guidelines. it's a bit of a disingenuous approach to this project. this design review process is inherently iterative between the staff and the project sponsor and the project architect and every resident shall project in the city has push and pull between the parties leading up to staff subpoena or the for the project. like i just went through a list of all the modifications this project sponsor made, in order to achieve their support, the

matrix and the other comments referenced by the appellants are from previous iterations of this design review process and anyone looking at the staff memo going into the planning commission hearing, last february, it very clearly and very comprehensively, documents the support of the design guidelines by this project and the consist enters see with the design guidelines. so let's talk for a second about the modification that's have been brought up. one was to sink the building four feet. we've looked at this. it's trouble some for this project. this is going to be the home of the project sponsor. it is a home that they intend to spend most of the remaining of the years of their life in. they dined is in a way towards accessibility. you will see in the plans that there is an elevator in the building.

it does not go to the roof deck but there's an elevator specifically for this accessibility issue. and so, adding more change at the front it would cut against that concern. there's also drainage issues. there's on a slope. adding an elevation change before you hit the front of the building, is not helpful long-term in terms of the drainage issues that would result from that. of course, there's been a proposal to remove the roof deck. again, it's already been carved significantly great remover than a typical roof deck. understandably so, given the context. the issue of this project is due to the slope of the hill, the rear yard really is not a good place for useable open space. and it's not really used as such by neighbors as well as we can

tell. and so, you know, there really is a need for this additional open space other than a couple of balcony and it's less than 400 square feet. it's not a party deck. it is a very narrowly designed roof deck to provide just that a little bit of additional outdoor open space so that you are not standing against the balcony in order to get outside of the home. and the other main modification request is this three-foot side setback on the eastside of the top floor. as we've mentioned before, there's already eight feet of separation and only one small window on a lower level of the building to the east. so there's really not light and privacy concerns here. it would result in a major loss of area both in the master bedroom of the project as well

as undermining one of the separate bedrooms that it would reduce the width of that bedroom to nine feet wide, not to say it's not inhabit able but this is supposed to be a nice, comfortable home and nine feet is not, that's certainly under sized for a bedroom. what purpose does this serve? we know there's no light issues on the east property line so who does this serve a three-foot setback on that upper floor? it's not something that appears to benefit anyone and it certainly is a detriment to the project. one last slide, i just got to point out because this is been shown by several of the appellants now and this upper image of the project. i don't think i need to point out to the board that this isn't really reflective of the project. wove got an elevation that's

been pasted on what seems like a drone photo angled down slope. just so the board sees an accurate depiction of that view, i'm showing the rendering that the architect has prepared for this. just so we can kind of make sure that we're all talking about the same thing here. so, in closing, the opposition has always been strange to me on this project. i mean, what we're really talking about here, is a four bedroom home, it has one area that is a living-dining area, it has a second family room, there is a guest room deep within the below grid first floor. but this is really a reasonable home for a family with two parents, three kids and two cars, this is not some mega mansion here. and so that's why the planning department staff and the planning commission have both

comprehensively and universally confirmed that it's not out of scale with the neighborhood, the planning commission unanimously approved this project and so for those reasons, we respectfully request that the board deny the appeals in front of them tonight and of course, we're here for rebuttal and questions after that. thank you. that's the end of my presentation. >> thank you, we do have a question from vice president swig and you are on mute. >> v.p. swig: technical issues. i just want to follow-up because a question was raised by the appellant as far as the non-responsiveness of the project sponsor. you said mr. kevlin said there were meetings yet it was a clear

complaint from one of the appellants that any outreach was greeted with silence. can you tell me about that? you know, you appear in front of us at least once a month if not twice a month and this is a regular comment from appellants. can you characterize the behavior of your client other than the fact they went through what would be typical meetings. can you comment, please, on how they might have responded to questions from individual neighbors? >> sure thing. thank you for the question, commissioner swig and i can bring up an outreach page of outreach if you would like to see it. i can characterize it for you. you know the project sponsor started with individual meetings

and smaller group meetings. before you can file app application, as we know, you need to do the notice hearing. the big one with the neighborhood and that is what occurred. i wasn't with the project at the time so i'm kind of looking back myself. it appears pretty clear that after the large neighborhood meeting happened, that there wasn't really much direct conversation after that and i think the reason was because there were so many folks involved and that's why i said during our remarks, is that it's really in a situation like this, that when you are negotiating with so many parties, you don't know which party -- one party wants something and it's not helpful to the other party and that's where planning department staff can play a really key role here in kind of taking in the neighborhood input, and then processing it and then providing

guidance and really direction to the project sponsor having digested all of the various voices and what is appropriate and what will most help in the process and i think that's what happened here. >> v.p. swig: can you give us chronology as to when you started in the project? were you the counsel in front of planning? were you counsel in front of the board of supervisors? are you a new counsel? >> the former. i think i was brought in in late 2019. we did the planning commission hearing in february 2020 and we had the ceqa appeal hearing at the board of supervisors late last summer, i think it was last august. i've been with the project for a year through all of the public hearings. >> v.p. swig: all the heavy lifting. final question, my -- i would

agree with you that this is a large house but we've seen far more larger houses and it's true and i think it's important for the appellants that you could have applied for a much larger footprint, a lot least going a lot higher. my issue here is the design. i'm not a licensed architect and my taste is in my mouth. i don't see one element in this house that is reminiscent of the character of this neighborhood. and that is what i'm stumbling on. i'm going to ask you to use your good taste and tell me to point out the elements in this house that are reminiscent in anyway,

shape or form, to this neighborhood. >> thank you, commissioner. i also ask mr. sanchez to help me out here when it gets to him and reiterating some of what mr. winslow mentioned but i will bring up the two adjacent homes have pitched roofs and of course the existing house to be demolished is also a home with pitched roofs. i'm going to share my screen here. i think what is standing outcome paired to its meet neighbors is in my mind, it's the kind of mor traditional gable roof which is what is being proposed now which is flat roof, little bit boxier, more lines. again, not being a designer, being kind of adjacent to this

work. this is just -- you can see my cursor, i'm going to move down the street. where the big streets are where the project side is. if you look down the street, we have these flat roofs are not uncommon and boxy, not in a negative way but just a descriptive way is not uncommon in this neighborhood. again, flat roofs, boxy, in a descriptive way. i don't think that the gabled roof that we're seeing immediately adjacent to the project are really reflective of a truly consistent neighborhood character. i'm also just going to share one more time the image from -- from

the presentation. again, you know, we do have some roofs that are pitched and i would i not say that pitched roofs are again, an overly consistent component of the design in this area that the flatter, more linear buildings are certainly throughout the neighborhood as well. >> v.p. swig: i think it's a challenging conversation but i'd like you to point out to you there's two things and mr. sanchez will share his good taste and experience and commentary on our discussion. but if you noticed directly across the street from the

subject house, you know, those are much larger-scale homes and even with the boxiness they have cut outs to give them some more creative form with the box and the case of the readings of the streets and maybe mr. sanchez will give us his opinion on this and give us a review on our conversation. i think we had a case several months ago where, if you -- if you look down the street, where the house is sitting, then the house is considered out of character, out of style and oust

design with most of its neighbors. yet, when you flip around and you look across the street, in fact, there is a lot of shared mass, some style, and some relationship to the houses across the street. so i think mr. sanchez has to comment on that what is the definition that is presented in this neighborhood and you actually have two neighborhoods. do you have two neighborhoods in one? do you have two looks in one? whereon one side the street on e of the appellants pointed out, the downhill forms are very low president and three-storey

heavily massed buildings so, i would look forward to you and i sharing the good comments of mr. sanchez on this and maybe you can rebuttal and talk to them. please. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. we will now hear from mr. sanchez and i just want to make an announcement, please do not make any comments or ask questions in the chat. it's for technical assistance only. i've given a couple warnings to one individual and that person will be removed if they use it inappropriately again. commissioner lazarus. >> i'd like to request a short break at this time. if that's acceptable to everyone. five minutes is fine. >> v.p. swig: fully appropriate. thank you for the patience. >> we'll take a five-minute break and res

>> presidenthonda: we will now hear testimony from the planning department, mister sanchez . you have49 minutes . >> i don't have to usall the time , correct ? >> president honda: know you don't. >> we will see how this goes then. i rehearsed it48 minutes . scott sanchez, planning department. we're okay with an rh 1d in the pole district and the proposal before you on appeal, our appeals have a demolition permit to demolish the existing single-familydwelling at 1947 and for the new construction of a single-family dwelling on the site . the lot isapproximately 50 feet wide by 100 feet deep . the subject permits were submitted may 28, 2018.

both the demo and new construction permits on february 12, 2019. the existing building was found not to be a part resource under case 2018 007763 emv. neighborhood notifications to the project were performed between october 2, 2013 and november 1, 2019 during this period there were six discretionary requests filed. i'd like to speak of it to some of the reviews. rdat performed multiple reviews and found a project to be compliant with residential design guidelines. the department will not in doubt 311 notification on the project unlesswe found it to be in compliance with the code . we do a staff review which is not often that this project

sponsor will revisethe project to address the design comment . the staff appreciated dr as we had with that part of the board two weeks ago. the project is proposing a building that is less then 22 feet tall. this is a 40 x height district and given it's an rh 1v zoning district that limits the height to 35 on a flat lot is deeply downsloping lot where the height limit is the difference in thegrade between the property lines varies by 20 feet or more than the height is further reduced to 30 feet . if you have a steeply sloping lot and that is where the rear propertyline is more than 20 feet higher than the property line , then the height increases to 40 feet so you would get some of that pattern on this street because you have subject lots sloping more than 20 feet and the property line

is just over 20 feet and such that their height limit is reduced to 30 feet and a little less then 22 feet they are well within the height within eight or nine feet that they would have leftunder the code . so about one story. and as i advised the permit holdersattorney , the ridge of the property to the east one foot taller than the flat roof portion of the building to the west . the building to the west does have a mix of roof types. it's not uniform and it does have a flatroof which you saw in the aerial photos . the subject street is about 50 feet wide so it's a fairly wide street. the building does go on the downsloping lot as shown in the section provided by the permit holder on the lower levels

following the topography. theyare set back more than required from the front property line and they're shorter than required under the code . they are built to therequired rear yard line . this building is grandfathered in because the code recently changed to increase the required rear yard to 30 percent but given the date this application was submitted they are able to use the25 percent and be code compliant . they are built out to the required side yard and to confirm the question that vice president swig may have, users are not covered under the planning code but residential findings found this to be fully codecompliant . given it is also a demolition we did review that under our criteria which given that it is a single-family home and a single-family district, they

are eligible to be in the conditional use authorization process if the value is demonstrably not affordable which under current calculations 1.9 million a submitted appraisal showing the value at that time to be 2.6 million so it does comply with that and the zoning issue that memo documenting that on february 11, 2020. on february 20 of 2020 the planning commission heard by hearing on this.staff recommended approval as proposed and i heard some comments that the planning commission and the department didn't address residential zone guidelines, that's false. the discretionary view was about residential design guidelines. that was the basis of all the dr. we noted in there it was with residential design guidelines. we had 11 points addressing compliance which i will get to.

the planning commission unanimously tookthe discretionary view and approved the project with conditions . those three conditions were to eliminate the last property line windows on two floors, providing a notched northwest rerecorded are at the upper two floors to match the notch in the northeast corner and reuse the roof deck to maintain 10 feet from the side building walls and an additionalfive feet from the front . another issue that has been raised during the hearing and during the briefings was the potential historic character of the building or potential historic district and i will get to that a little bit further to but asthe board of appeals says , those at this level of analysis is done as part of our environmental review and this project was found not to be a historic resource.

that determination was appealed appropriately to the board of supervisors which we would be the venue to make those arguments but the board of supervisors upheldthe determination finding that it was not a historical resource . getting into the presidential design comments, the review process is an iterative process as noted by the permit holder and the project was ultimately found to comply. some of the issues raised was the size of the building, the design guidelines and even the planning code don't rely on square footage area that's not a method or a calculation or it's not prohibited in this district. to have a house of 6000 square feet. just know that there are limits in this area so the ar discussion isirrelevant . and you know, with the code compliant project as this is a

de novo hearing andthe board has the ability to make the findings whether this is a compliant project or not . in the presentation to the planning commission on page 5 of the staff report there's very comprehensive analysis which given that we havethe time i will read to the board on the record . the departments residential the design advisory team reviewed this project and confirmed it has incorporated recommendations made through several rdat reviews and staff themes proposal does not present any exceptional circumstances and meets the residential design guidelines . that being the project poses minimal impact to the neighbors white and privacy. the neighborhood has a mix of distinct architectural styles with a strong mediterranean and modern home . abeled roofs are common and i would add that flat and low

slope roofs arealso present as has been shown on the photos before the board . the proposal has a mix of influences that do not and adhere to a particular style. staff finds the residential guidelines cited by the our requesters are met in that the two-story front portion repeats a pattern of mass and balance on the two adjacent buildings to the west. the front of the building is also articulated with a staggered front yard setback similar to the two eastern and one or two western and one eastern neighbor. the massing is articulated to provide a one story entry with a ground story setback 10 feet similar to the two immediate adjacent buildingsin keeping with the scale of the street . because there is a gentle lateral flow with wide lot and detached houses the building follows the topography of the site such thatin much the same manner as the existing surrounding buildings . this guideline is not applied

to down existing lots. thebuilding entrance setback 21 feet , freestyle elevated by an assigned architecturally tomeet the building entrance guidelines . the windows are sized and detailed to relate to the surrounding architectural character . at therear , the depth of the proposed building extends five feet less thanthe neighbor to the east which is actually a legal noncomplying structure that extends into the required year rear yard . and it moderates the depth of the median adjacent neighbors which along with the five foot setbacks preserves access to block open space light and air. as this is a downsloping lot the building down the street is at the rear. immediate neighbors are now three stories to the rear. meltonspring avenue identified

in the general plan of the street in the quality of you , this was adoptednot to preclude normal development of code compliant buildings to prevent moreegregious building massing and re-zoning efforts .staff believes this structure at this location does not unduly walk together in panoramic views from melton spring . roofs were not requested in this instance because there was perceived to be enough stylistic variety in the context including roofs as we mentionedalready and doing so with would add more unnecessary masking to theproposal . the five foot side spacing required by the rh one view maintains both sides of the proposed project . adjacent neighbors have buildings that encourage into the required side yard and speaking a little bit to the preservation issues, preservation staff reviewed the property as an individual resource and a contributor to a historic district while the valuations did not undertake a district analysis this analysis was done by preservation staff

as under our normal process . the team reviewed prepared by preservation staff documents list and was found not to be a historic resource and i think that was properly addressed by the board of supervisors so in summary this is a code compliant project that complies with the standards of the code for the setback and also complies with the residential design guidelines and we would respectfully request that the board of appeals denied the appeal and approve the project asproposed and i'm available for questions . >> we have a question from commissioner lazarus and vice president swig. >> commissioner lazarus: i guess i have a generic question and aspecific question .the generic one has to do with the guidelines on one of the filings cited on the decision by judge ray williamson about sort of adherence to the

guidelines but i'm still a little confused. to be a guideline is more of a suggestion and a rule or regulation is much more specific. i'm ledto believe there's some room forinterpretation and leeway and how those are applied .is that a correct assumption ? >> scott sanchez: the residential guidelines are adopted as a code requirement so it you require adherence with the site guidelines, when dealing with design guidelines there can be subjective interpretation of how the design guidelines apply and i think we have this in appeal. the planning department departments for the planning commission finding it does comply with the guidelines but we have neighbors who have filed a discretionary review

and the appeals on this believe it doesn't apply with residential design guidelines because those don't give strict quantitative standards so that's where we are and then there is an interpretation and application of the guidelines and certainly i think it's understandable but we would say they do apply they are required todemonstrate compliance with the design guidelines .we agree with that argument. >> commissioner lazarus: the specific question has to do with the roof deck. the argument was made by the sponsor that it's in the loop of the rearyard because given the topography the rear yard is not useful for recreation . i believe in the various reviewsthat size has been shrunk . in yourview , is that still a viable and meaningful alternative as a recreational spacefor the house ? >> roof decks are usable. i mean, a lot depends on the weather.

if it's windy out maybe less usable or enjoyable. it's nice to have a variety of open spaces on the property to enjoy some baby shelter and some may be more open tothe elements when the weather is better . it's within thebuilding envelope and code compliant . the planning commission did take an additional condition to make that smaller so we think it is a minimal size from the building while cited would have minimal impact. other than i think the properties across the street who may see people on theroof enjoying the roof deck . on those sunny days. >> commissioner lazarus: thank youvery much . >> president honda: vice president swig thank you for answering all my questions. my remainingquestion is also on the roof deck .

can you do mister kaplan a favor to show one of his photo . i could refer to is brief and a photo i want to see but john, if you are around. could you pull out that one which shows the uphill view of the neighborhood? thank you, that's perfect. so in mister kaplan's brief on page 10 the bottom, there's tighter shot from a drone that shows all the roofs in the block and there's no roof. as i looked at this picture, of the entire neighborhood, no deck, sorry. as i look at this picture, i am hard-pressed to see a debt and

so when it comes to the question of compliance to a neighborhood view or design, when this is the only deck i can't see a deck, maybe you can see a deck. when it comes to does it fit into the rest of the neighborhood as a design and there is no deck or no roof deck to be found, give me some feedback on that please. why does that meet the criteria other than your right, they can build this another 12 feet higher or so so the appellant should know that by the way that this could be a lotbigger house based on what you just said . but just in the contextof the roof deck , why is a roof deck here in sync with thecharacter

of the neighborhood ? >> from the aerial photos, i guess there's not a predominant factor of roof decks. i think there is maybe one roof deck on the building on clarendon, at least that's what i can see in one of the aerial photos. i think many do have their open space kind of at the same level so they would have a story and then have a debt accessible from but when reviewing roof decks, we don't have a design guideline or a policy that says no other roof decks exist and you can't have one. and actually, even roof decks are often unprovable without neighborhood notification if they don't have straight path down.i think we have some

time ago brought to the board of appeals a discussion of guidelines for roof decks which are kind of still have not been necessarily finalized but we do try to apply the spirit of those in reviewing and it wouldn't prohibit the addition of a roof deck. it was something immediately and directly considered by the planning commission because they didn't authorize it. they just wanted additional setback on the so they found it to be an appropriate addition even though there is not a pattern of decks. >> thank you for the feedback and i might note to the appellants because mister calvin might note this but that is, there is, that roof deck does not seem to have any lighting or wouldn't become a beacon if it simply seems to be you know, i don't know if the plans are to that point yet but

it's not closed. it doesn't have a roof on the roofdeck . it doesn't seem like it would be a chief example like the one used last week. that would turn into a beacon and be disturbing at night to somebody turning on the lights and hang out there.am i reading that correctly or are we not at that point of planning? >> it's a very simple roof deck with railings and looking at the plans here i believe there is no vertical stair kind of house. they use aroll away skylight for that . so it's a veryminimal roof deck .>> thank you, i appreciate it.

>> presidenthonda: we will now hear from the department of building inspections . >> joe duffy from dbi and just the details on the permits, to building permits here. one type v construction, single-family dwelling. looking at the voting permits, it looks like it's going all through the station. it's been properly reviewed and issued. the permit on the three-story building is single-family dwelling and thesprinklers are under a separate permit . that permit has been routed through various stations like you normally see onthese permits . it is a state permit and the addenda hasbeen filed . it's currently undersuspension as well and the appeal . and i normally say in these cases, a lot of the structural and the geologists, the

structural engineering and special instructions and sequencing of the work will be on the addenda . i did not hear too many issues on building code from the appellant so unlessanyone's got anyquestions , thank you . >> president honda: thank you. so i don't see any questions so we're going to move on to public comment. is there anyone here to provid public comment on this item ? we have someone with a phone number ending in 3731. please go ahead. you might have to push ásix because we can'thear you . the phone number ending in 373 .

why don't you try pressingásix. >> i can hear you. welcome. >> thanks so much. my name is jonathan and i am calling as a longtime family friend of the project concert. i have a 10 year resident of san francisco currently residing in mill valley not too far up from this location. the project sponsor has lived in san francisco for over 30 years raising their children, playing an active role in the business and philanthropic community this is their greenhouse and i commend the design and careful vision that provided the neighbors concerns.i find it to be a reasonably designed hold for the neighborhood and understand its construction will comply with all building department codes . although iunderstand the neighbors would be concerned about any changes on their

street , i find the project to becompatible with existing surrounding homes .i respectfully request you supportthe project as approved by the planning department , the planning commission, the board of supervisors and now the department of building inspection and i appreciate your time. >> president honda: we will now hear from kevin mccollum. >> kevin mccollum: i've seen the graphics of the building and is not going to look out of scaleor size from what's there and what's surrounding the property . keep in mind that way up on 150 glenbrook, that wholeness 475 square feet. that scale or size is kind of ridiculous and one of the main concerns i've had is that with

the revenue design guidelines. it's been a few years now and all the requirements in the planning department, i'd encourage you commissioners to just move forward with this project. and not thelatest any further . >> president honda: thank you. we will now hear from mike stack, mister stack. >> mike stack: can you hear me? >> president honda: yes we can, welcome. >> mike stack: my name is mike stack and i'm here to support the approval of this project. i'm familiar with the project. it's a reasonablesingle-family home . the project is one story over a garage that does not look untoward in size or design. please approve thisproject . >> president honda: we will now hear from haley. haley, please go ahead, you have 3 minutes. >> caller: hello, i am also

here to support the approval of mountain spring. i'm familiar with the neighborhood and i think this project will be a great addition to the design of the neighborhood. it won't look out of place. the home across the street is 65 feet above street level and on top of that close to the highest point in the entire city so it seems to me that this project should move forward. it should be approved and submitted thank you very much to the commissioner for your time and consideration. >> president honda: we will now hear from michael please go ahead . you have 3 minutes michael, we can't hear you. >> caller: can you hear me now?

>> president honda: go ahead. >> caller: myname is michael cassidy , and me and my brother are trying to build our dream homeright here . i'm in business myself for over 22 years in san francisco. i've gone through the process and was very interesting to see or hear from some of these attorneys saying the process was somehow misinterpreted or people fell asleep and missed how or what should have been decided on the height of the setbacks and i actually would like to congratulate the planning department on how they

went through the three years and took a lot of cuts from the roof, besides. took out windows. the reduced the roof deck, etc. and then you're dealing with people with 65 feet on the street from 21 feet on one side to 60+ on the other side and it's too high. there are these megalith on the cross the street telling the minions of the other side of the street how big your houses will be. it's stunning. and then presenting these kind of pictures. i see one on google maps with the house on the side of the street trying to present way bigger. it's not very accurate. verypoorly presented .

this is a good home. it's well designed by the architect and i hope you approve it and thank you for your time. >> president honda:we will now hear from joe . joe, please go ahead. joe, are you there? >> caller: can you hear me? >> president honda: you have three minutes. >> caller: i'm joe cassidy and i live on the corner of burnet . i live on a similar side home. and i have been involved a on this project. i've listened to the planning commission hearings and supervisors and i just find this problem outrageous that it

takes three years to build a house. i mean, it's unbelievable . the neighborhood group here has put leo cassidy and his wife and kids through hell. it's scandalous. this city is marvelous, completely. we have these folks the second ago with a 60 foot high building . it's all about views. he could have gone another floor up there. so i don't think you have a choice but to approve this project . i don't know what kind of message is going on in this town anymore but though ahead. approve the project. let's put all these arguments out and i'm sorry for my neighborhood today, bringing these attorneys who just are billing them to death. they're not getting any value

for their money and they're makingstupid arguments, attacking the planning department . go ahead and approve the project , thank you. >> president honda: we will now hear hear from the caller whose phone number and in 0390 please go ahead. the caller whose phone number, youmight have to dialásix . the caller who ends in 0390, go ahead. >> caller: my name is shawn, i'm with a residential building association. i participated in the scope of the planning commission hearing and as you know the neighbors filed for the board of supervisors. the votes were six or 70 at the planning commission and i believe they were 11 to 0 at the board of supervisors and the reason for that is because both the board of supervisors and the planning commission fully recognize that these neighbors are filing these

appeals becausetheir views are being threatened. this is about views , more views and even more views. views, views, views. i'd like to discuss them of the distortions, half-truths and borderline lies and clarify some of the facts. all the neighbors houses on thisblock are taller . they are higher and they are bigger. the neighbors to the left and right are within one and two feet of this house in the immediate neighbors, 1 to 2feet . the house across the street is 44 feet taller. not 44 feet high. 44 feet taller than the proposedhouse we are discussing . the existing tree that's sitting there right now is taller than the proposed house. something's not right here. both the three foot setback and

the height and the roof deck were thoroughly discussed at the planning commission hearin . for anybody to suggest it wasn't discussed is an outright lie.something interesting happened and ithink it's worth noting . well into the discussion bythe planning commission comment was closed . i was asked a questionand part of that answer , i made a suggestion. and i made a suggestion because these neighbors need to live together . and i made that suggestion that the project once or makes some amendments and concessions on the roof deck and that notch in the rear. those were not concessions the planning commissioncame up with. i came up with those judging by thecomments and judging by the direction of the commission , we did not need to do that . we did that because we have

concerns and want to be good neighbors to these people. thisappeal and this series of appeals are all orchestrated to get several bites atthe apple . there's not one thread of new evidence . there's no new concern hereand every concern was thoroughly vetted by the planning staff , the rdat came more than once at theplanning commission and board ofsupervisors . there is no evidence . this strategy of taking several bites of the apple every opportunity should not be rewarded and that's exactly what this is. the real motivation here is views but it's gotten into the strategy of trying to get something here, trying to get something there. >> thank you. we will now hear from the caller whose phone numberends in 7116 please go ahead . . the caller wasnumber ends in 7116 .

>> can you hear me?>> my name is karen buckley, i'm a small developer. irun the project very close . the same project. i'm very familiar with how the process works and i find this when neighbors that protest a property or a project like this and see they didn't get notified, it's pretty clear everyone will get notified on all these projects. especially with the 311 notice. but it's clear to me about the part i find amusing is the main building that's complaining is across the street and it's 60 foot tall across the street

while this one is 21 foot tall. i really don't know why we're having this hearing because when you go back and you see the planning department going through it, rdat are going through it and the commission is going through it and the supervisors aregoing through it and now we're here . it's just mind-boggling to think it takes thislong , that these guy buys the property and is going to be five orsix years for you can build . it's ridiculous that a single-family home would take this long and nothing is out of ... everything is within the guidelines. i'm completely in favor of moving forward and getting this bill and not having these projects goon forever . thank you for your time. >> is there any other public comment on this item? theseraise your hand .

>> president honda: i see one person, mister lasky, let me promote you to panelist. mister and lasky, go ahead sir. >> caller: my name is ed zaleski and i support the construction of mountain spring avenue area and provides planning and goes within the scale of the neighborhoods. please allow leon and his family to build their proper home that they lived in for many years. thank you very much. >> we will now you're from chris. chris, please go ahead. chris, i saw your hand raised. go ahead. you are on you, we can't hear you.

chris, can you unmute? i believe you can hear me. let me know if you need some technical assistance. if you want to send a message inthe chat function .chris. we hear you now.>> caller: sorry about that. >> president honda: no problem. >> caller: my name is chris and i'm here to support mountain spring. i live in the neighborhood. >> president honda: i'm sorry chris, can you turn your tv off or your computer because there's interference when you're talking onthe phone . >> caller: can you hear me now? >> president honda: please go ahead.

>> caller: i'llstart over. my name is chris and i live in the neighborhood . i'mvery familiar with the neighborhood . after listening toeveryone talk here , i'm so in strong support of leo gettingapproval on this house built . the heights across the street and hearing from the gentleman that's given to speeches before talk aboutthe height of the tree outside his house . the look of this house from what i've seen from the graphic and then going through the changes that they had to go through to get the neighbors approval and to hear that the neighbors arenot approving it , it's kind of bothersome to hear that there's, that this has

taken three years and they feel like leo is going to jump through hoops to make this suitable and tohave a dream home .i'm just in the favor of him getting what he's looking for here. i'm in favor of it, being a long-timeneighbor here . thank you. >> president honda: any other public comment? please raise yourhand . i don't see any other further public comment so we will move on to rebel first from mrs. smith who is the attorney for megan. i have six minutes. >> i'll be as brief as i can and i'll turn it over to river for just a moment. as we repeatedly said it's the massing of the site at street level compared to the rest of the houses on the northern side

of mountain spring that's at issue. anyone can see that with their own eyes and it's not the fact that this is a mega-mansion. understand the earlier holes in san francisco is still be twice thesize any other , the largest house on the side of mountain spring as vice president swig mentioned with respect to the design, not one relevant reflects the character of the street. it would be just to remind you, this is a dead-end street does have a certain character that this house does not represent you and i commissioner lazarus read the question about whether ornot design guidelines are required . as the zoning administrator said,we absolutely . i just want to share my screen briefly . with some of the design guidelinesclearly were not met .

now, there can be no question. these are all the comments from the design team. they said that further reductions of masking should be made by providing a three foot setback along the east sideof the roof . asked for the project is still with adjacent homes. a full 2 stories of front lawn the accommodation at the entry with multiple volumes could break the massing. limited roof shaping, out of character. they can say that these rules were followed but you can see with your own eyes that the few notches and the changes to the roof deck did not change any of this. again, just a last form with thetopography .

maintain the downslope and minimize height of street facing volume. none of that happened. and i want to conclude with the idea that the appellant's really did want to meet with the project component and they just never had a chance. i know their attorney says there were too many neighbors and there was too much going on everyone has been on the same page from day one. they hired an architect and came up with viable solutions there's never been numerous people that need to be satisfied. it's a cohesive neighborhood groupthat opposes this project . i'm going to turn it over to mister. >> thank you. >> president honda:please go ahead . >> as my attorney says we have

been trying for three years to work with the project sponsor. he treated us like gum on his shoes. he's refused totalk to us . he has not spoken over to us. when we asked david winslow, he says he wants to live here and david winslow said that's what they all say. certainly our experience in this neighborhood is when people want to do renovations and occasionally a demolition happensdown the street they work with the neighbors . they say what is your concern? the fact that it's taken three years is attributable to the fact that we sent a three page letter with questions and there was no response even though it said response here. tell us what your responses. so we feel we haven't been her

in the process and it's really going to be a detriment to our neighborhood because this board sets a precedent. this will be by far the biggest house on the north side of mountain spring avenue. when you look at it you look at the graphic the created you see how important it is and the residential design guidelines say one house, context would be disruptive to a neighborhood. there's no other house with a roof deck, no other house is as big andmassive at street level . they really did not try to make it fit with the neighborhood and it shows which is why this household on this small street was held. we again asked the board for its help. we have done everything we could, hiring an architect to say this is how you can follow the residential design

guidelines that have complied with today. if you just look with your own eyes see what this house looks like in the concept of the neighboring houses it is exactly what the residential guidelines.2. it is jarring. it is disruptive to the neighborhood character and unfortunately precedent. >> 30 seconds. >> when the other houses go up for sale they are going to be bought and everybody is going to point to this house and say he got this huge house, massive at street level and roof deck which hasa fire pit on it . i know we will be able to see it but there's no other house as a roof deck and it's going to set a precedent it's a bad precedent for this historic neighborhood . >>. >> president honda: thank you.

miss lynn oakley is not here and she provided her videoso he will not be making a remodel . we will now move on to rosemarie mcginnis and mister williams . you have 6 minutes. >> alec, could you put up the residentialdesign guidelines matrix ? my presentation was extremely specific about this document. there was no answer provided either by mister sanchez for mister kaplan . both of them imply that any change made after this document was produced at all. this document dated may the second 2019 and so no changes at all were made until this document was put in final and when this document was put in final .doc the project was found not to be incompliance with the residential design

guidelines . who made that finding smr department made that finding and finding said you're not in compliance unless you do this. they said it twice. half a foot of setback on the floor on the eastside . it's on thedocument twice . so this general comment about how we complied and look at the yellow box. that's a bunch of nonsense. there's no building on the street or anywhere in san francisco that fills its absolute maximum. after the developer say here's what we could have done, you're lucky we didn't do more sothis document says twice in the setback . never been answered . it's never been answered why that requirements to adhere to theresidence guidelines went away . that'ssubjective that's not objective . and the nonsense that we

generally complied. it's just a general comment. this document proves that the building as approved and the planning commission did not comply with the residential design guidelines. it says in order to comply with the guidelines you need a setback on the east side and you also need to further reduce the double height entrance. it was not further reduced after this documentwas produced . it says it out and remain out ofcontext with the neighbors . somehow the architects and the rba and all the rest of the pressure on thedepartment they keep in . that's what happens in the back-and-forth and pushed and bill that mister devlin described. this is it. if you want something to hang

your hat on where not talking subjective decisions. we're talking absolute objective fact. it doesn't comply area can i please have the next slide. ... >> president honda: we will pause for time . >> thank you. we still see the matrix. >> you want the drawing? >> yes, it's that one. and you. >> president honda:we see it . >> not only was the building

made lunchmuch larger, it was pushed further forward . it's 40 feet in front of my clients building. that's the problem and you think there will be light and airimpact on her building with this hovering over it , 40 feet in front ofit ? by two in theafternoon it will be blocking all the son to her house this is the problem . if you're going to have a larger building has to bedone on slow . if you forward this to the front of the building has to present a really small aside. it has to present the garage door that you see up and down. at the only fagade on mountain spring for going onthe north side . it's not as tall, it's a good footballer but only 50 feet taller than the building to these . again, because of the setback the building to the east is setback 40 feet from the stree

. because of the setbacks, that's the problem. it's the appearance of height is created and the mass is pushed forward up on the mountain spring from the north side which is not done for 99 percent of the buildings on the north side and i showed you that inconsistent design parameter used on all these type of streets. this will be the one exception on mountain spring, on st. germain, on crown terrace because it's not only is it going so much larger, nearly tripling in size, it's being pushed way forward . it's being pushed nearly 20 feet further forward than the existing building. that's why we cleaned up with it. the opposition is understandableand it's right in front of you .

their department said make these changesto the project or it is not in compliance . they did not make those changes so it's not in compliance with residential design guidelines and therefore it should be moved forward until those changes are requested and required so thank you for your time. >> president honda: thank you. we will now hear from david sullivan , the nextappellant . you have three minutes. >> one thing everybody missed earlier isyour talking about the same thing . this is the street view and on the right side of the north side all the hollows have a small fagade on the south side we werelooking at here larger fagade . i have a huge monster house, this is the design deadline

issue with the city and you can see that over here the reply of the subject had been modified to make more compatible surroundings so here again is the roof line the city recommends asloping roof line . this is in the city guidelines . this is how the house will slow again. you have a few more houses on bushnell street i'm going to show youan example . this is a house that belongs to thecassidy's . these developer and look at this househere . this is how he's going to be taking the neighborhood and i object to this development and i think it's a mistake for the city to approve this site plan to demolish. >> president honda: we will now hear from mister kaplan returning for the permit holde .

>> thank you ms. rosenberg and commissioners. >> president honda: we will give you one minute. >> thank you. commissioner lazarus, i'm glad you brought up that piece because i think it's a good reminder how the rdd comes into play in the situation. essentially it was dealing with a case where the board of appeals have made a decision on a project and had no reference on the record in any way to a basis of a decision in the residential design guidelines. there was a decision made at no way referred back to the residential design guide and the language that the judge said in this case that quoting from the planning code is that the decision must follow or

consider the residential design guidelines and the reason it doesn't say it must be 100 percent compliance with the guidelinesis because of what you said . you read this document and this is not a prescriptive document and is not supposed to be prescriptive every neighborhood is different there is analysis goes into determining one, what's the existing neighborhood character and 2, is the project consistent with that character so inherently you arenot black and white rules . rather guidelines to your point that we use in these cases so as opposedto the court case , the staff is going to the planning commission on dr has heavy analysis on the residential design guidelines of the project and consistency with them. commissioner swig, to get to that debt issue. the residential design

guidelines don't expressly seek roof decks. they do generally refer to the neighborhood character as experienced by the public, not from ... and clearly in the context of views, that's clearly only having to do with public views as has been discussed before. there are sectionsthat have to deal with rooftop permits . they are penthouses and other ways the guidelines emphasize minimizing visibility from the street . so as we as shown already, i'll just bring it up again. the roof deck is not visible from the street. so to the degree that the

guidelines don't expressly refer to roof decks, what we can infer from what's in residential guidelines isreally the key is minimizing visibility from the street . that's what's in the residentialguidelines so i wanted to that as well . i want to thank you to mister sanchez for nailing the comments about design and i won't get too much more into that myself but i did commissioner swig want our architect to be able to speak to his design just so you have some feedback from the designer on this project so i'm going to stop now, i'm available for questions and i'm going to hand over to her. >> good evening commissioners

and i'm part of the design tea . commissioner swig, you alluded to items one that approved the shape of it andalso in general the design of this building . i want to point out the roof of this proposed project if it's able to have that pitched roof, we're going to end up with an additional 89 feet height which i believe that's not pleasing to our neighbors and also another solution would be sloping off the floor which that was not asked by our client. as far as our design goes, at least mister sullivan pointed

that out in general the design takes from the larger context of the immediate buildings but from those buildings, you have that combination of interface and it's something from the neighborhood . we add through the design process a more contemporary looking building that would show appeal from the design team and the department that these elements can determine. [inaudible] in general the

proposal of the building, meticulously designed in a way that the proposal goes forward, i think we found that change in shape to consider animating the look of the building. the double story portion is a garage and we have a door and as you go further back, there's the main fagade of the building stands 35, 40 feet away from the street. and also the roof deck, both john and mister sanchez brought up is about 45 feet away from the street and on top of that,

the parts of the design are brought up in a way that they will mitigate any direct visual between the spectators from the sidewalk. from either side of this. i'm available if there are any questions . >> thank you. i don't see any questions at this point so we will move on to the planning department. you have 21 minutes. >> scott sanchez: scott sanchez,planning department at apologies for being in the dark but i'm with you for this . to summarize and i don't think i'm going to go into too much detail from what we presented in our hour-long presentation at the beginning project is found to be compliant with

residential design guidelines to the extent analyzed and discussed as part of the dr process is is factually incorrect and would result from i thinknot even reviewing materials that were presented to the planning commission . so we did residential design as stated in our staff report. [inaudible] the planning commission made the three additionalmodifications as noted previously . and one final comment and looking at the neighborhood character, not many climate planning code requirements and the adjacent properties to the east extent into the rear yard . and what we have is a code

compliant project that does look like code compliant in the side yard and is greater on the set and it's required in the code and also it's not achieved the full heightallowed under the code . with that i tend to be available for questions. >> president honda: commissioner lazarus and commissioner chang. >> commissioner lazarus: i recall a few projects prior to this where the design of the building was shall we say distinctive from what already existed in theneighborhood . and i seem to recall you representing the department indicating that that in and of itself is not necessarily a negative . i don't want to speak for you but if you could respond to that if i wasn't enough, i

think a lot of the resistance is to a design that doesn't look like every other house that currently exists. >> scott sanchez: there's two aspects critically in terms of design.there's going to be the envelope of the building and in this case it is the side that setback requirement, you rear yard requirements and is less height required and has a greater setback and acquired his to conform with the pattern of the adjacent properties. then you have a couple of finer details of the building. it's not a historic district. in historic districts you would have a higher standard in terms of complying and calling what else is there in the district. this is not a historic district and this is found to be a mix of different architectural styles existing . this will, it doesn't have any

particular design characteristics that it takes for multiple styles and was found to be compliant. in terms of the materials, using plaster on the fagade which would be similar to many other building materials in the neighborhood the same thing with the windows. it would be high quality materials that would be similar in terms of the pattern and style so for that, we find it to be consistent. it doesn't have to be exact. maybe a cookie-cutter matching exactly what's in store but it takes for multiple styles and it's appropriate. >> president honda: thank you commissioner chang . >> commissioner chang: thank you deputy administrator sanchez.

i was hoping to shed a little bitof light on this checklist that's been brought times . i know staff uses it as a way to keep track of various comments but is it something is it a document to the planning commission? >> scott sanchez: i believe it was provided to the planning commissionbut it's part of the iterative design review . any confirmation of the final residential plans would be made as part of the staff analysis and so that is where when we submitted our case for the

commission thinking it was compliant with the residential design guidelines, final review and that was kind of an earlier iterative draft and i think the last entry wasabout six months before the dr hearing . but the finalconclusions were based on our staff analysis . >> president honda:we will now hear from the departmentof building inspection . do you have anything to add ? >> nothing to add. >> president honda: commissioners, this matter is submitted so we have to permits . first weneed to deal with the demolition permit . >> commissioners, comments please.

>> commissioner lazarus: nothing being said aboutthe demolition permit other than we should never demolish anything on site and i'm prepared to that i feel . >> we willdeal with that and then move on to the next item . >> commissioner lazarus: i would move to deny theappeal on the basis that the assignment was properly issued . >> president honda: we have appeals, plural. we have a motion from commissioner lazarus to deny theappeal and upholdthe permit on thebasis it was properly issued . motion , commissioner chang . [roll call vote] the appeals are denied for the demolition permit and we move on to the site permit. >>commissioners, any comments ? >> vice president swig: i thought it was a good

discussion and my conclusion is that this permit was also properlyissued . >> commissioner chang. >> commissioner chang: i agree with commissioner lazarus that therewas a lot of discussion . i think that a lot of review and process has occurred for this prospect. it's clear that it's gone through literally every step of the review process possible. and i think you know, just to the appellate, i think it's challenging to live in a neighborhood for so long and witness change that's desirable

to what your lived experience has been. i also think however that cities change and overtime, so does the neighborhood fabric and the design ofthem . there is a lot of subjectivity in how we apply and interpret the residential design guidelines and i think this project is a case in point. i think having said all that though, i do agree that the permit was properly issued and properly reviewed and i can appreciate the sentiments of the appellants but i tend to

agree with my fellow commissioner . >> vice president swig: i can only echo the points of both commissioners . i think living in san francisco as a native i've lived in various neighborhoods and i live in one now which is the marina and i see some very modern buildings being built, single-family homes in the marina. a larger scope than i would liketo see my own personal taste . i think we've heard a couple of them that i'm in conflict with and so i think commissioner chang puts up some good points

related tothat . most importantly this building is in compliance. this building isn't even a discussion with regard to any variance . and the questions i asked were very pointed about the difference in what would this be a significant tothe neighborhood . there are a lot of different homes to this neighborhood and i think this will add to it the differentiation of homes. i can see the points ofthe neighbors . i am sympathetic to the neighbors and i think that the developers well within his rights and theplanning department has bent over backwards . as well as the planning department and the board of supervisors to review this

project so i'm in support of that person who brings forth a motion to deny the appeal on the basis of the permit was properly issued. i guess that was me. >> we have a motion from vice presidents way to's deny the appeals whole permit on the basis was properly issued. on that motion commissioner lazarus . [roll call vote]. that motion carries 30 appeals are. >>. >> vice president swig: thank you for your patience. >> president honda: thank you, but not everybody .

>> when i first started painting it was difficult to get my foot in the door and contractors and mostly men would have a bad attitude towards me or not want to answer my questions or not include me and after you prove yourself, which i have done, i don't face that obstacle as much anymore. ♪♪♪ my name is nita riccardi, i'm a painter for the city of san francisco and i have my own business as a painting contractor since 1994 called winning colors. my mother was kind of resistant.

none of my brothers were painter. i went to college to be a chiropractor and i couldn't imagine being in an office all day. i dropped out of college to become a painter. >> we have been friends for about 15-20 years. we both decided that maybe i could work for her and so she hired me as a painter. she was always very kind. i wasn't actually a painter when she hired me and that was pretty cool but gave me an opportunity to learn the trade with her company. i went on to different job opportunities but we stayed friends. the division that i work for with san francisco was looking for a painter and so i suggested to my supervisor maybe we can give nita a shot. >> the painting i do for the city is primarily maintenance painting and i take care of anything from pipes on the roof to maintaining the walls and

beautifying the bathrooms and graffiti removal. the work i do for myself is different because i'm not actually a painter. i'm a painting contractor which is a little different. during the construction boom in the late 80s i started doing new construction and then when i moved to san francisco, i went to san francisco state and became fascinated with the architecture and got my contractor's licence and started painting victorians and kind of gravitated towards them. my first project that i did was a 92 room here in the mission. it was the first sro. i'm proud of that and it was challenging because it was occupied and i got interior and exterior and i thought it would take about six weeks to do it and it took me a whole year. >> nita makes the city more beautiful and one of the things

that makes her such a great contractor, she has a magical touch around looking at a project and bringing it to its fullest fruition. sometimes her ideas to me might seem a little whacky. i might be like that is a little crazy. but if you just let her do her thing, she is going to do something incredible, something amazing and that will have a lot of pop in it. and she's really talented at that. >> ultimately it depends on what the customer wants. sometimes they just want to be understated or blend in and other times they let me decide and then all the doors are open and they want me to create. they hire me to do something beautiful and i do. and that's when work is really fun. i get to be creative and express what i want. paint a really happy house or something elegant or dignified.

>> it's really cool to watch what she does. not only that, coming up as a woman, you know what i mean, and we're going back to the 80s with it. where the world wasn't so liberal. it was tough, especially being lgbtq, right, she had a lot of friction amongst trades and a lot of people weren't nice to her, a lot of people didn't give her her due respect. and one of the things amazing about nita, she would never quit. >> after you prove yourself, which i have done, i don't face that obstacle as much anymore. i'd like to be a mentor to other women also. i have always wanted to do that. they may not want to go to school but there's other options. there's trades. i encourage women to apply for my company, i'd be willing to

train and happy to do that. there's a shortage of other women painters. for any women who want to get into a trade or painting career, just start with an apprenticeship or if you want to do your own business, you have to get involved and find a mentor and surround yourself with other people that are going to encourage you to move forward and inspire you and support you and you can't give up. >> we've had a lot of history, nita and i. we've been friends and we have been enemies and we've had conflicts and we always gravitate towards each other with a sense of loyalty that maybe family would have. we just care about each other. >> many of the street corners in all the districts in san francisco, there will be a painting job i have completed and it will be a beautiful paint job. it will be smooth and gold leaf and just wow. and you can't put it down.

when i first started, it was hard to get employees to listen to me and go along -- but now, i have a lot of respect.

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