build the '61 stairs. >> build the '61 stairs. that's what's amazing. i think the owner at the time went and got stairs to come out of the side of the house, down the back of the house, down to the backyard. and then they ended up instead moving those stairs over to the garage roof deck, building the garage roof deck. just build as it was proposed in '61. [buzzer] >> thank you. >> thank you. >> commissioners. let's discuss what is before us. commissioner? >> look, i wouldn't mind if i could hear from mr. jacobs just to respond to mr. boskovitch. >> why don't we do rebuttal. >> does staff have rebuttal and then we will have appellant? staff? >> yeah, we don't have any rebuttal on this. >> smart. >> thank you. >> i mean at this point we are talking about a bridge built in 1960. they are trying to do the right thing. if planning wants to do one whole permit, we are fine with it. we will always work with those notice of violations. >> have you had any communications with planning that is their preference? and

then one bathroom up stairs. then the basement, like the first floor has two bedroom and then also a bathroom. i doesn't show on the tax record. basically existing house has two bathroom, two bedroom, kitchen, living room, dining room and like a small family room downstairs. so i'm not taking away the garage. garage still stays. so i have very long drive way. like other neighbors how they park. basically, i'm not taking up like the street for parking space. they're concerned about -- >> commissioner lazarus: that wasn't my question. i'm not interested in how many bedrooms are there now. the permit says you're adding four bedrooms. are you adding four bedrooms? >> i guess so. because the basement existing has two bedroom already. >> commissioner lazarus: we'll come back to it. thank you. >> president honda: thank you. >> batter up. shed some light on this. good evening. corey teague planning tkep staff. yes, the building permit that's before you tonight was first filed in march of 2015 for a rear addition to the e

this is the top of the stair and this is the bottom level of the stair. that would cause a reversal of the stairs on all the floors. that's -- that was the answer i had when i asked why can't we, you know, deal with the corridor to the stair here? when you reverse all the stairs at every level, the stairs eliminate where the front door is, and if you eliminate where the front door is, that has repercussions on the bottom two floors. so unfortunately, when i asked and we looked into that, it just wasn't possible. you know, if there's a compromise, perhaps it's to cut out -- set back more here, but keep this portion, the four-six here, eliminate here, so you can walk around the light well and into the stairs. the light well cannot be smaller than that, commissioner richards, or if it is, you eliminate two bedrooms in the bottom unit, and it's a one-bedroom unit. by the way, that unit in the back has one bedroom facing back in the garden, so i hope that answers your question. >> yes, it does. thank you very much. >> commissioner richards? >> what about the p

>> they are. >> are they the original stairs? >> they're not the original stairs. they were replaced in the renovation but they were replaced in the original configuration and that was due -- and dan can talk more about this, for budgetary reasons. the reconfiguration and the change in the stairs was approved in the 2001 certificate of appropriateness but it wasn't undertaken at that time as part of the 2011 final approval. >> even though -- if we were to replace the stairs with wood stairs, they're still going to look pretty different. my concern would be that they actually, because they're going to be more clunky, then a steel stair would be better. >> i wouldn't support cladding the whole thing in wood. i do think that having wood treads would be a good compromise. >> would that be solid or vainer? [laughter] >> solid. >> that's good. >> not vainer. >> could i ask a question about the weather out there and the weather tightness of the interior where the stairs are? i mean, is it -- do you have weathering problems on the interior? i assume it's not conditions saf

for the stairs, he's right, it did get bigger, but only to comply with the stair tread raise. and actually, the door is 3 feet from the property line, so there's no way to build anything without walking out of the door and being on the ground in 3 feet. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> clerk: okay. mr. sanchez. >> in terms of the application itself for the expansion, it's compliant, and the planning department finds it's compliant with the residential design guidelines. so this is the condition of the stairs, so the condition that it was at the time -- >> i'm sorry, scott. can you explain what it is we're looking at? . picture is very blurry. >> so this is the rear of the subject property. where my finger is, that's the exit stairs that existed in 2008 at the time the permit holder bought the property. >> can you lay the other sheet on top of it. >> oh, i had a whole presentation i was planning. >> yeah. >> oh, it grew. >> so basically, the -- oh, sorry. so basically, the deck or the stairs were removed without permit. a complaint was filed, and in july of 2010, this permit was

and not the internal stair?hink these are all questions which make me wonder that this building is not really a well-designed replacement for what is, but i think with a slightly different attitude, there could be something which is more a real remodel of the building by enlarging it, yet not indeed designing something which is self-sufficient and particularly a good replacement. >> commissioner richards? >> i don't see in the packet, maybe i overlooked it. this project attends to planning property requirements. >> i'm sorry -- >> the policies that were passed during 101.1? >> those are covered in the draft motion. >> let me take a look. i apologize. i never looked at the digest. i can pass it back to commissioner moore. >> i would like to remind ourselves on the cortland discussion that the addition of two cars by building -- allows building design to create units which are not better, that there are, as a total, very large, but they are not better units because of the inefficiency of adding extra stairs. i wou

that's the stair. in a typical tunnel entry, the house, this is the stair that comes up to the main floor. of course it's really this one here. >> president hillis: does that, then, staircase go up to the next floor? >> right. that's the main floor. as you can see the kitchen, living room, and a bedroom, and this is the new den, but this stair doesn't go up anymore. >> president hillis: okay. got it. >> so what happens is you see this other scare case right here back, this goes up to the roof, and it also goes down to the lower level, which we have. oh, it went out. >> president hillis: i don't know what happened there. oh, so the back staircase, you need to get up to the next floor. >> correct. the back staircase connects the rooms in the back. there we go. if i can get it in there. there's your back staircase. it's on the ground floor, and it connects the first and second floor, too. [inaudible] >> president hillis: right, okay. i mean, i -- generally, the board -- kind of commissioner richards, alth

you don't have to take those stairs, but in general, all of the stairs will be complying with the trail guidelines. >> thank you very much. >> yeah. >> just, again, your work is looking so great, so i can't wait. >> thank you. >> president tsen: mr. samada. >> commissioner samaha: great work. i have a few questions for you. first of all, this is y.p.i., and i see it pretty flushed out. what's happening with t.i.? what's happening with the treasure island open space trail plan? >> we are in -- finishing up final construction drawings on the treasure island phase one, which is the city side waterfront park, and the building that andy cochran is doing. they're all at 95% construction document and essentially almost ready to bid. there is subphase two, which is advancing right now into construction documents, so that's the area around building two and three, and the first section of the diagonal linear eastern common. and then, there is subphase three, which is at about the level that this is, kind of in design development now, which will be coming to you at some point when it's ready to go

so there's no stair penthouse. much we do have one common stair penthouse that is needed for fire access and general accessibility, but that would be minimized with the sloping roof and department to a minimum height. it does sit toward the center of the building. so the ability for it to be seen is pretty remote. the units themselves, we have three, three-bedroom units. they're averag averaging 1500 se feet in space. thank you. >> all right. thank you. was there any public comment on this item? no. seeing none, we'll close comment. commissioners. commissioner moore. >> i assume that the building is sized correctly and the area where it sits. the gas station is hard to understand. i assume it falls under historic preservation. >> it does. >> i hope it will work because it is so small. it's kind of almost like a bus stop. you could sit out there in the sun and drink your coffee if that's the way it works. that is a little hard to understand. it has a little bit of a suburban feel on the other end. it is what it is.

your deck and the stairs because for fire, you don't need the deck and the stair. i'm looking for a neighborly gesture here. there are all kinds of ways of getting into this garden, which you well maintain for required setbacks. is this side deck there together with the stairs, could disappear, i would be really more supportive of the thing. i see what you are doing. i assume you're doing the seismic retrofit by adding the additions the way you do. it's really ingenious and i appreciate it. that is the one thing i'm having a hard time with. it's really about just really recognizing that the other neighbors have that deck. there will be not impact, but the growth in the city makes this a norma addition, yet they have -- normal addition, and i think eliminating that would let them have nor breathing room. >> we have it set back there on the second floor, but not the first floor. so there's a roof. the owners just want access from the living spaces to the rear yard without going to the front of the building. >> as you know, this comes out of the bedroom. it does not c

the stairs the mr. larry pointed out was already there.there was no original stairs that i know of, so i just wanted to present to you that i am here to comply with the law and i want to do the right thing to be able to fix it and legalize it. i just want the consideration of the board to reduce the charges because we just had my daughter 's wedding, it was a pretty expensive affair. i'm kind of low on my finances. if there is any consideration given to me to be able to deal with this, i will be able to work with the housing inspector and other departments to be able to comply and make it code compliant. my contractor his is going around looking for parking. he just texted me saying he still hasn't found parking yet. >> any questions, commissioners? >> server, it mentioned that you owned other properties. county properties do you own? >> right now i live at may the property -- at my other property i have been living here for the past 26 years. i am a member and minister of third baptist church. the city has been good to me. i came as an im

>> neither the soft story nor stair permits have been issued? >> we're just trying to plan our wednesday nights. >> we can look that up on mr. sanchez' computer on here and get a better look at it. i was focusing tonight on the permit that's under appeal. >> okay. thank you. >> thank you. >> mr. sanchez, do you have anything? >> i have a question for you. i say zoning administrator, i guess cory would get up. during the last hearing, if i remember, they had converted a rent controlled apartment into an office space. >> yes, we looked back at our records. the violation was corrected last summer. they sought a permit to restore that unit. there's this permit that's now before you to do further remodelling of that unit. >> okay. thank you. >> thank you. we will now hear from the appellant, miss duffy. >> good evening. hi. i think you've addressed some of our concerns already, the time that's lapsed, so that we as tenants have not been able to see the plans? just as a reminder part of what brought us here in the first place, the permits on the stair

the stair rails would have to be brought up to code, 42 inches, handrails, rise and run on the stairs. there is a lot of work on it. again, focusing, the issue's going to be the tenants in the building and how that is. and this, as we've heard it many times in front of this board, is a concern, and it's something that really -- it's not a d.b.i. issue, i suppose, but it's something that's going to be appealed because of that. >> so as a follow-up question, this is a simple renovation of an apartment, but with all the other issues that you just elaborated on -- thanks very much for capturing all of ththat. one of the very obvious concerns that the public has, and especially the tenants in that building is seeing this list of potential permits, seeing relocation or displacement from their units, seeing you'll this stuff that's going to be done that may put them out of their units for a long period of time, and again, that will contribute to upset, which will contribute to appeals on future permits. i'm not picking on the project sponsor, it's just a reality. but how would you, looking a

to that common stair. in terms of overall mapping with the additional penthouse we believe it's minimal. we also want to just point out that the project is actually cut back an enormous amount of square footage from where we started in accommodation to a neighbor for a number of live-work units that have no open space and have a 15-foot wide side yard for their exposure for eight units. we have a 1,400 square foot midblock court plus we've sculpted 7 feet back from there, as well as 20 feet, losing an area 20x7, so trying to add to the value of the unit that we do have. and we felt like -- >> commissioner moore: i'm not questioning their presence. i'm questioning how they're accessed. since we in the majority of cases along van ness and everywhere else, basically look for hatches, i would support a hatch with no reduction in the size of the open spaces. just following that we want to avoid excessive rooftop that makes the building more private than it is. it is just basically ultimately the amount of stuff

slide the stairs down, so when they come out of the stairs, they they're coming down here it is an easy design feature to change. that is my request. may be they have too much deck. maybe they don't need it for short-term rental. >> president hillis: project appellant? >> good evening, commissioners. my name is elizabeth gordon. along with my husband, we own 50 clifford terrace to the west of the subject property. we really struggled with whether we go forward with this d.r. or dismiss it because we did appreciate the efforts planning made in trying to get this a lot more reasonable when it was originally proposed, it was a huge looming doghouse. we really felt we are trying to be run out of a neighborhood, in a sense. planning really worked and got it into a much more reasonable place. there was one important change that we wanted made, and that was to have people, when they do come up the stairs, exit onto the deck itself instead of the landing so close to the property line. bottom line is, we ask for that change before the d.r. and it was denied. we only got it because we filed the d

and two indoor sets of 12 and 17 stairs. getting groceries in and out is difficult, and i can no longer deal with taking the garbage bins in and out of the house. lisa and andy's plans include a garage and building entrance at street level. this would allow me to successfully age in place in a new apartment planned for me. aladdin terrace is a lovely and convenient san francisco address, but getting in and out of our alley as well as our building grows more difficult. lisa and andy's plans would continue to let me reside this into old age. lisa and andy have consulted with me from the beginning. they have also consulted our neighbors and have reassured all of us that the project would preserve the unique character of aladdin terrace that all of us cherish. thank you. >> president hillis: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi. i'm daniel merchant, and my wife and i live at 870 union street and 31 aladdin terrace, and we're lisa and andy's immediate adjacent neighbor on aladdin. we can attest to the care and thoughtfulness th