But its hard when you dont when its a very, very steep site. Drop off from the street is immense here. Its hard to figure out where its going to impact the light. I want to stress, its really the light. Its really the light. You have the pictures about how dark it is in this building already. And this building behind it is a complication. And this is from the second level, the ground level looks straight out on a wall. There are only two levees in this house. Ms. Hester. And it has a wall in front of it. Thank you. Commissioner fung. Im sorry, but since its the focus on light, then we need to define it. There is no direct light going into that window. Its south of this project. The permit. So there is no direct light. Is there ability to have some reflected light there perhaps . You know . Its going to be relatively dark on that window anyway. We cannot keep having comment from the crowd, please. Im prepared to make a motion. I accept staffs recommendation and will not take d. R. And approve the permit as provided. Second. Commissioners, there is a motion and a second to not take d. R. And approve as proposed. [roll call vote] so moved, commissioners, that motion passes 42 with commissioners imperial and moore voting against. Commissioners, that places you on item 18, Record Number 2018007763drp05. At 66 Mountain Spring avenue, request for discretionary review. Good evening, president koppel, Vice President moore, and commissioners, david winslow, staff architect. Im going to wait a few minutes, because i think theres a large contingent that needs to be seated. Good afternoon, president koppel, Vice President moore, david winslow, staff architect. The item before you is a publicinitiated request for discretionary review of Building Permit application 201805179469 to demolish an existing twostory existing house and construct a new threestory singlefamily house. There are six d. R. Requesters, adjacent neighbors, two across the street and down the street to the east of the proposed project on 66 Mountain Spring who claim that the project does not conform to numerous residential Design Guidelines and is generally too large and out of scale with the neighborhood. To date the department received ten letters in opposition, im sorry, zero letter in opposition and zero letters in support. The Advisory Team confirmed this meetses residential Design Guidelines and the planning code. This is in a hr1d Zoning District. The d stands for detached dwelling. They are characterized by lots of greater width than other parts of the city, by singlefamily houses with side yards. The structures rarely exceed 35 feet in height. Landscaping at the front and rear are usually abundant. Forest hill are other examples of where this Zoning District exists. Staffs recommendation is not to take the d. R. And approval the project as it meets the code and residential Design Guidelines. This concludes my presentation. Im happy to answer questions. Thank you. Thank you. So seeing as though we have this large amount of d. R. S, and i have been limiting comment periods throughout the entire day, the d. R. Requesters are going to get 15 minutes, all of them get 15 minutes, then the project sponsor is going to get 10 minutes and then everyone will get their twominute rebuttal each. Each d. R. Requester will get their twominute rebuttal and project sponsor gets their twominute rebuttal. So d. R. Requester number one. Do you understand what im saying . 15 minutes for all the d. R. S. Okay. Great. Good evening. We very much appreciate would you please . Can you hear me now . Thank you. My name is margaret. My husband ron and our two daughters live at 65 Mountain Spring across the separate from 66 mountain street. We are here today because developer cassidy proposed plans to build a house that is two stories at street level, far larger than any other house on the north side of Mountain Spring and three times as large as the house that is currently there. This proposed house is grossly inconsistent with both the Residential Design Teams recommendations, San Franciscos residential Design Guidelines and the special character of our historic neighborhood. The r. D. G. S state a single building out of context with its surroundings would be disruptive to the neighborhood character. That is exactly what the effect would be if the developer is allowed to build this massive house that is the subject of todays hearing. We agree with what the Residential Design Team decide, say, about the design, the mass of the project is out of scale with the adjacent homes. These homes reduce their scale for accommodation of the sloping down of the entry. Recommending the slope, lowering the ceiling height, developing and breaking up massings and reforming to reduce scale. In response to this the developer made only modest changes. Now, there was discussion in the last couple of d. R. S about communications from neighbors. And the developers attorney asserted in their letter to the commission that, quote, the project team has spent a considerable amount of time and effort meeting and following up with the neighbors including the t. R. Requesters to listen to any concerns and modify the project based on their concerns. Well, we desperately wish that were true. It is not. The developer never responded to the detailed letter that 29 neighbors, and this is a small street, there are only about 15 houses on the street, but 29 neighbors signed the letter in december of 2018. The letter raised a number of questions, concerns and asked for information. There was no response at all. The developer did not, as entitled by his attorneys letter reach out to all the d. R. Requesters. He didnt reach out to my or my husband, the oakleys or donovans. He did meet with two neighbors. In meeting with dan he instructed him not to share the plans with any of the other neighbors. And in meeting with the other, he bragged the approval of his proposed project was quote a done deal and that he had done it many times. At the meeting we attended with mr. Winslow, neither mr. Cassidy nor his architect offered any modifications. Mr. Cassidy didnt say a word or shake anybodys hands and basically played on his phone while we were all there at the meeting. After the meeting, i spoke to mr. Winslow and said does this always happen . It is our first time. We are not opposed to development in general, we have never done this before and he said we needed to be more specific. So we took his advice and because we havent heard anything from the project sponsor, we hired an architect, mark english to prepare drawings. But we said, mark, will you please try to do what the Residential Design Team said should be done. So he did that, and i brought with me today, and i can put them on the overside. Overhead what he prepared are a series of views that show first what the r. B. T. Proposed, and i can read you what mr. English wrote, and then a comparison. So that would be great. And we need to give one to the project sponsor. Can we get the overhead . Thank you. We asked mr. English to incorporate the recommendations. And this is what his words are. The changes reflect to the attached drawings show an increase in thest side setback from eight feet to five feet as well as retaining the setback for the second and third stories. The roof terrace and railing has been removed and the overall height of the home has been reduced to better fit with the neighborhood. And the revised images, the upper two floors of the residence are aligned with the existing back wall approximately 30 feet rear yard setback and the setback to the east was increased to eight feet. It would also lower the revised height down by the proposed 5. 5 feet by reduceing main level ceiling height and lowering the main level relative to the street. The roof deck has been removed and the height has been reduced. The gross area for the revised building would be about 500 square feet. Now, again, this is a 2100 square foot house now. As we mentioned in our request for discretionary review and other correspondence, that amount has been misrepresented consistently more and more but the new proposed house is almost 6,000 square feet, which is about double the largest house on that side of the north side of Mountain Spring. In our view, the drawings prepared by architect mark english, and i can show you, so this shows the top with the proposal from the developer is and on the bottom, it shows what the changes are that would reduce the height, reduce the second and third floor ceilings, and theres lowering of the overall view. If you look at the individual please speak into the microphone. Thank you. The slide marked 1a is the front view of the revised house as drawn by architect english as compared to 1b, which is what would be the developers proposed project. So 2a is the back view as proposed and revised by architect mark english. And 2b shows the back view of the developers proposed project. So i dont want to take up everybodys time on the other d. R. Side. But i want to say that these drawings show that its really not difficult to make this not so big. This is a neighborhood with many historic homes. It was oakley, which is one of the d. R. Requesters wrote a letter which we can read which talked about her grandfather who was the first one who named it Mountain Spring who dragged the bricks up to build the house that still stands at 32 Mountain Spring. So the idea of destroying this, what we believe is an Historic House designed by oliver russo and replacing it with a house that is discordant and will affect forever what the north side of Mountain Spring looks like because right now the houses are complementary but consistent in their size and the way they are. So we respectfully request the Commission Grant discretionary review and order the planning to work with the developer to create a design that meets the r. D. T. Recommendations and the Design Guidelines. Thank you. You guys have six minutes and 20 seconds left. I know its late. And i hate to use the little time. I live at 50 Mountain Spring which is on the north side a couple houses down. And i filed a d. R. , because this project is just, its really out of scale to Everything Else on the north side of the street. The north side of Mountain Spring has a really wonderful open feel to it. And its one of the things that makes it really a wonderful neighborhood. The north side is a side that slopes down towards the bay, and this house will have a twostory facade that is right at street level. It will be very different than all the other houses along the street. And as was indicated, it will be nearly 6,000 square feet, which is far bigger than any of the other houses. Im concerned both because its going to change the basic character of our street, and the character that we really like about living on that street. And it will set a precedent, because we dont really want to live on a street that has a row of 6,000 square foot houses, turning it into basically a tunnel. And so i feel that the proposal is a good one and that the commissioners should consider, should take up the our request and have the developer come up with a plan that is more consistent with that line of houses that they are putting a new house in. Thank you. How much time . You have 4 minutes and 20 seconds. This is quite loud. Wake up everybody. I live directly to the west of the developer, and essentially what ive put together is a backside view of my home at 74 Mountain Spring, which is to the west of the developer. And the first picture that you can see is the existing house versus my home. Very, very modest small house. My house is on the righthand side. The next figure that you can see in the middle is the proposed development. You can see its quite a bit larger than my home. And this has major impact to my sunlight in the mornings. Basically blocking my sunrise view and sunlight view to my master bedroom and to my master bathroom. And here last is the proposal that we put together as neighbors, a group of six d. R. Requesters that essentially just lowers the ceiling height of a couple of the floors. And likewise, it sets back part of their rear of their home to the existing setback and likewise removes the roof deck and the larger parapets so fundamentally what we are asking for is to go from a Cross Section like this with rather high ceilings in the middle likewise high ceilings on top to a structure that looks like this that has more modestlysized ceiling heights on the order of ten feet and likewise having the setback to the existing building of the second and the third floor. So those are basically our agreedupon with the d. R. Requesters, what we would like to see from this building. Thank you. You have about two more minutes left if you want to use it. Good evening. I am on the west the east side, im on the east side. One of the few points. My neighbors have aptly described the size. I would like to add that i always wondered why my upstairs, i had four kids, i always wondered why my upstairs only had two bedrooms, and i realized thats why. Because we are staggering the house and making the upper levels smaller. And this is suburban tract home. Its to maximize the square footage, protect the environment, the wildlife. Even in your Technical Report is inaccurate. It says that it is they support an existing home rather than the demolition of a home. And finally i would like to say i do believe he does want to make changes. I dont know why it hasnt happened through the course. But as i say, i do believe that he wants to make revisions. Thank you. Thats going to wrap up the d. R. Requesters time. Now we are going to take Public Comment. I made the same mistake myself already tonight. We are going to take Public Comment in support of the d. R. Im sorry, d. R. Requesters. So anyone in opposition of the project, now is your time to speak, not in relation to any of the d. R. Requesters. Okay. Seeing none. Project sponsor, you are up. You get ten minutes. Thank you, commissioners. On behalf of the project sponsor. We are here tonight to present a project that would expand and modernize a Single Family home in a neighborhood of Single Family homes to be occupied by the project sponsors family. There has been a lot thrown the awe in the briefs, so i wanted to really focus tonight on specifically whats at issue here, which is the residential Design Guidelines and whether or not this is a fit for the neighborhood. The good daylines articulate expectations regarding the character of the built environment and imply an overlay of local context. So in essence, we have the planning code that sets the rules for Residential Development citywide and the Design Guidelines ask us to take a second look and make sure that what is actually proposed is consistent with the neighborhood. And i think when you look at this, you see that physical. You see that it will. What you are going to find is thats what you find in the neighborhood. These are just two angle views of the project. Its two stories next to two buildings, two stories at Mountain View im sorry, Mountain Spring. At the rear side, three stories at the rear because of the sloping lot, just like the adjacent two buildings. The project is sensitive to the proposal. Just to take a step back, youll see this is looking up the hill. Here is the existing building which youll find these. This is consistent with the neighborhood. Project is sensitive to minimizing the height. The building is 21 feet at all at Mountain Springs. Thats a onefootstep. And then two tenfoot floor to floors. Very modest or typical for homes, nine feet is not very at all. If you look at it from the front, weve got a 21foot Tall Building with a twofoot parapet on top. The 21 feet, its one foot taller than its west neighbor, two feet taller than its east neighbor and only one foot taller than the existing peaks plus the twofoot parapet which is necessary to incorporate the architectural modifications we have been working with staff on. So again, very modest, not hugely out of scale in any way with the neighbors here. The rear of the project also pretty appropriate and consistent. We have a 25 rear yard, and as you will see, it steps between the two houses on either side, the house to the east a little deeper on the lot, house to the west, a little shallower, the project mis in the middle, exactly what the planning code calls for and the residential Design Guidelines call for. In addition we provided relief at both corners to give additional respect to light, privacy and air to those two adjacent neighbors. The project is appropriately spaced from its neighbors. In fact right now theres a three and a half foot setback on either side of the home. The project will increase that to five feet on both sides of the home. When you take a look at the west neighbor, this structure is a onestory garage. So this is really the home to the west. The distance between the new wall of the project and their home is over 20 feet at the shortest and it extends well beyond that as you move to the back of the house. So pretty significant separation. Very appropriate and urbanbuilt environment, does not affect that at all. The East Building is about eight feet away, but its further separated than it is today, but then