. >> george howser. at the last hearing, we left with the hope that we were going to kind of turn the corner with the project sponsor and enter into a more collaborative design phase and i have to tell you that did not happen. the sponsor basically retrenched, they made a few changes, modifications to the project, very minor in scope and basically handed them to us as a kind of take it or leave it proposition. we were very disappointed when we saw that coming. we decided the best use of our time was to developed some alternative schemes. we presented them to the sponsor. we met with them to discuss them. they rejected them. there was very little discussion of the merits of those schemes and about the only comment we got was, well, they were done by you. we are not interested in them. i want to show you a number of slides here, kind of comparing the various schemes, the schemes that they're presenting to you and the schemes that we're proposing as an alternate. this is an elevational slide that shows the

so the bottom two drawings exhibit ideas put forth in plans by george howser referred to as the neighbors' design. i am in support as the neighbors' design, it takes the bottom level of the house 4 1/2 feet down to grade. thereby decreation the overall height of the building and preserving some of the sunlight into our home and small yard. george came up with two different ideas here. one is three stories. one is four stories. they exhibit a different use of space to achieve comparable square footage to the plan. they have explained to us that they do not want to do this because they do not want to incur costs associated with excavation and they don't want to impede the natural light coming into their home, but we hope that the commission can take all of that into consideration as you make your decision. president olague: i'll start calling up those who support the d.r. requesters. jane segal, uta reich afternoon t, joe quickly followed by tony kim. two men's. -- minutes. i'm not sure if the mic is picking you up. >> they switched over. president olague: ok. and the time will be limited t

front and a requirement to set it back on the south side three feet to reflect the setback on the george howsers side. we are restricted. regarding the architectural context, we have added the roof. that results in a building that is much more context really here. i don't agree this is a flimsy gesture. it helps in the streetscape and it does make the building fit in and it does disguise the fourth floor. an alternative could be a dormer window up there, but i know that we were trying to follow the planning guidelines which was to keep the main facade of the fourth floor back 15 feet. mind you, philosophically, this building isn't supposed to be a architectural masterpiece. it is designed to be a background building. have i approached it that way. they want a simple building. they want a building that they can live in. it's not supposed to be some dramatic fantastic glass box. they are trying to do the municipal possible which they can actually afford to build and live in they don't want to sell this property as a developer would. and ultimately, we do respect the right for the d.r. applicants t