This prosecute permit is you would on that base. Item 7 is appeal north versus the department of building inspection with the Planning Department approval on 30th street protesting the issuance on may 26th to Michael Cramer and alex and others of an alteration permit of totally remold 72 hour about the laundry room and configures the second floor plan and adds a decadent this is for the notice of violation well start with the appellant you have 7 minutes. Good evening. Im tom north i along with my wife sarah own the property on 30th street first of all thank you for taking the time my wife and i have worked hard to realize a dream and future raise a fame we appreciate the opportunity to have our concerns heard by the board i have 4 points i want to talk about today first, the concern of privacy of our interior living space and those of our neighborhoods as a result two the concerns of the integrity of the facade and 3 the categorical California Environmental quality act and for our concerns about past and future behavior of the investors and owners just to dive into the privacy concerns if you can take into account the projector as the important point we want to focus. Overhead please. Overhead. Should it show up. Hello overhead, please. Hold on. There you go. Okay. Thank you. Were not getting the full length of the picture. Line across the top 10 percent. Its flickering now. It is more the flickering problem than the way it is displayed displayed. There you go. Thats better. Thats the best well have. All right. So thank you anyways this is from the guidelines that proposes proposed project should take into account the privacy to the neighborhood interior Living Spaces and just to demonstrate the effects on our interior living space as you can see those are the sightlines allowed by the deck and heres the looking both our exterior spaces our kitchen and dining room area which are very important and heavy used space as well as the vertical 2 hundred square feet as you can see the area of primary concern for us and give us sort of a look at this and ill talk about the changes in a second that is is the area in which the deck will go and theres a couple of things i want to call first of all there is a material difference in my opinion between an outdoor deck in terms of privacy versus interior windows when our out on the deck youre in a different enernex report context a window is for light a deck for hanging out sitting in a chair if youre a smoker or youre out there marcus books that is this area of concern is one of the key issues that someone is looking at over into your building and so to talk about the tree for a second first of all, the apple tree a banner for half a year in this picture, and, secondly, the picture where the walls the yards a is going into 0 ours whether our responsibility for the owners in putting in a retaining wall but to put in a Response Time well probably have to take outburst the tree this is where the roof is im concerned if we remove the tree into the nonrestricted winter time no blockage in terms of privacy that is not only a problem this is a letter of support from my neighbors to the west at 4089 of 9 and this is a problem inform them to go from here this puts our window in sites 15 feet to the areas with the 9 deck and this is part of our home as a retirees in our latest 70s we gravitated this is the historical implications that is not how you view the deck you view the deck from the ground and this floor an actual have more effect on the all of the evidence of that hundred and 40yearold hours house i mentioned i want to talk about the categorical exemption from the California Environmental quality act for 9052 adapt by the Planning Commission and the issue i want to call out it appears my understanding to the structure will not be part of categorical exemption it unless its 50 percent of the floor area of the addition if you look at the plan there is 6 hundred plus and existing square feet added an 85 increase 50 percent between the square feet and finally i want to talk about the pattern of behavior it is concerting prior to this appeal and concerned about afrldz first of all upheld notice of violation and when the owners started the construction without a permit this is concerting because like theres a safety issue here why i cant understand why they allowed this to happen additionally you know it was kind of a made us feel violated a they were in charge took the washer and dryer from our backyard that led to a feeling of violation this is another example of the behavior and finally weve actually talked with the owners of 407 a a number of times before 9 permit was filed i dont have any problems that the work would be entirely within the envelope they said this to the neighbors they were remodeling within the envelope im again not an architect a homeownership but the envelope has defined separation between the environment and a huge surprise to myself and my wife this was ultimately one big reason we filed this appeal so in summary there are new and usually impacts on the privacy of our neighbors interior spaces as a result of the deck the deck is a historical 12rib89 of this building and the feej didnt ply with the categorical comments and the investors have limited the patterns of disrespect for the neighborhood im equally concerned with their project with that, i wanted to thank you for your time and ill be happy to answer any questions you may have. How long have you been there. Since january of 2014. So did you do the improvements on your property. We are currently. It wasnt approved approved prior. There were additions at some point i dont know how or when. Thank you thank you very much. Well hear from the permit holders. Hello good evening, commissioners thank you for hearing this out my name is alex and i purchased that house with my two friends and dad in march of this year we purchased this house and were not really the flippers were made ought to be. Excuse me. Would you pull the mike a little bit closer to you. When we bought but house that was run down and mold and walls rotted the existing conditions were terrible conditions all the way around and additionally the lot is unusual it is a flat in the back behind mr. Norris property assess through the walkway assess our crude plans as you can see as exhibit b show that the expansion were doing within the structure were noted actually goes outside the envelope we are building the lower level as you think habitual and were making space liveable it is going it from 6 hundred and 46 square feet 0 a basically small two bedroom home this is basically, what were doing regarding the neighbors weve chatted with the neighbors and had half a dozen meeting and half a dozen emails the neighbors are completely okay with that regarding a letter that the gentleman i dont know what that letter it is not current it wasnt signed or signed more dated i have an agreement with his neighbors that is signed here let me show the cover sheet here this is the signed agreement. Can you turn it around. Sorry. This is the whole agreement and this is the signature and it shows their names the people hes referring to theyve agreed to remove themselves im not sure why hes bringing them into this as well. Regarding the privacy concerns the sightlines hes talking about there is a window there 1942 the the exact sightlines were proposing a 6 feet deep deck to provide the house with minimal space the decking folks building the deck will inevade their privacy there are several responses first, the house the way it is confederate has the pipeline exhibit c shows the pipeline of the side of our house this is some more pictures this is the exterior of the house this is the window that will be where the door is so once we get going on this this is a view from the window and back here are the doors hes referring to grandparent said this other person tree didnt have leaves one of the things weve offered to put a 10 foot fence offered to install fence with a tall bamboo that replaces that issue weve done all those things those dont matter to him this is pretty cool a picture we took standing on a ladder 5 feet if the house to gusts a sense of what if we were on the deck the line of sight you cant see into his house regarding the where was i oh, regarding the plan as well so when we met with mr. Norris to shrink the deck and move the window to thats fine ill go to planning and ask kelly that was the first person that helped us can we move the door and shrink the deck down she said absolutely not dont touch those windows their original with wood frame and impacts the neighborhood were in dmrieps with that aspect weve doing every thing we can to appease them it is not sufficient i want to pout your house is surrounded by 8 houses 7 of them have decks that look at our how is it not out of scope not strange to the area pictures in there i can show you additional pictures of the properties but it is completely within what the area looks like ill show you some this is a plat map so this is us those houses surrendered us deck, deck, deck this is the neighbor those this is the neighbor whos letter hes refer to his front house has a deck and the rear house has a deck in the outer of scope completely within the context of the architecture of the neighborhood and kelly wong who preservation agrees that that i object to show you pictures of the neighbors decks he have those as well in terms of outreach as i said we had plenty of the outreach and chat with the neighbors you have all those emails inside of our briefs weve got a lot more work to do we could not appease mr. Norris ill tell you when we offered to build the fence and the planters and the bottom of the hill bamboos he emailed me and mind i was on all the emails never once said anything about planning to appeal he threw thank you. This out and now were stuck one thing ill mention the nov we had the permit somehow the and will fee didnt get paid we paid it and they removed the nov. Your time is up. Mr. Sanchez. Well, we get to hear from the z a. Scott sanchez Planning Department the subject property is unique with the Zoning District the lot configuration it was probably built as a bridge originally built as the second building on the lot but it is at the rear a small access to the side around the appellants property that provides assess essentially land located but regarding the ceqa review it was appropriate reviewed by ceqa the Preservation Specialists it was out dated we were advised our ceqa guidelines swlgs as well as our general policies and procedures we have a ceqa check list that was properly class one classified as an exception under second that allows for additions under 10 thousand square feet it is clear it is approved under ceqa the preservations concerns are real about the location of the door and preserving the exist windows and the location of the existing windows i conformed confirmed that was with our cooperated our this afternoon it has been in terms of ceqa code compliant and a unique lot but within the buildable area within the reduced size of the deck didnt trigger firewalls and otherwise compiles with our notifications i understand the concerns by the appellant as a unique situation but i do find that the size of the deck being relatively shallow of 5 feet with about 19 foot and the back of the existing windows have not undue impact of privacy happy to hear there has been offensive made of what to address the privacy concerns to the satisfaction of the appellant but we believe that the project is code compliant and meets the Relevant Design ill be happy to answer any questions. Whats the category rating. Its a potential historic resource. And any idea how many flags are left in the city. I dont know. Very rare and ive only seen two. It is pretty rare. Thank you. Thank you. Intrufk minute. Commissioners joe duffy dbi the Building Permits was overthecounter permit and fully remold two bedrooms and laundry room and remodeling and a deck at the front of the Building Permit was filed on the 11 of may 2015 it went through planning building dpw and mechanic plan check it had some fees got i think issues on the 15 of may and suspended on the fifth of june the permit seems to be issued properly we had a complaint on the address date the complaint was filed the 21st of may 2015 and it was that there was doing unpermitted work on the street located in the back on 43 street has permits we reopened the complaint on the 21st of may and it seemed like the building inspector hernandez was out there he wrote up a notice of violation, however, i did note on the 28 of may i didnt recognize a permit was issued and going through plan the check at the same time so he abated the notice of violation it was opened and close within a few days i noticed a permit they may have gotten ahead of themselves between the issuance and pretty much around the same time a day are two im available to answer any questions. Thank you. Any Public Comment . Comment . Good evening. Im arithmetic banner my house actually sits occupy the Property Line of the back of this house so im the only one in the houses that didnt have a deck and so the issue i think is twofold one it really is a privacy issue in that space that we all sort of feel like were on top of each other because of the decks and the walls so for tom in the front who basically it has an issue with the deck i mean that behooves the city to that about the minor things we can do to help the privacy of all of us question dont have to live close to each other and a deck having a deck is the same that it would be important for the city to say do we all need decks for privacy i feel infringed upon and the neighbors look down on me all the time the other point id like to add i think that having conversation with all the neighbors before construction starts is a good thing to do and in this case it would have really helped all of us if those are conversations were the new owners would happen before construction and the issue why there was conversation with the neighborhood has to do with with the amount of noise of the construction that started at 7 in the morning a lot of banging and for many of us in the back it soils you know theyre in our bedrooms and you know in our houses because you know of the noise so that was the issue really that led to the conversations with the owners who i might say will Start Construction later i hope youll think about the privacy issue and how important to the people to have a deck versus the privacy of people having to live in the that we all have to live in i hope ill consider that. Can i ask a question you participated in the permit holders mentioned they have held up conversation. I wasnt at those meetings i actually had work mergers to attend to at the hours i couldnt get to either one because of work and were you aware that the permit holders had asked to put a deck up prior to this hearing. Oh, yeah. Did you express complaints or ordinances. Question found out after the permit we only found out any of this i dont know how many weeks after the banging started then of us knew anything depict for the construction i didnt know the house was empty ive been at my house for 25 years so the old lady that used to own it how is it was invisible anyway so we didnt know anything was happening the whole row of us it was the banging and the construction saying whats happening and we found out there was plans and showed the plan and all that i dont imagine. The senior owned a a long time in effect on anybody else. No effect on anybody zero. Thank you, thank you. Next speaker mrs. Johnson i have this has to do with privacy areas being that were trees blocking the areas and some Things Solutions so the trees will grow there and this one of the speakers on the hill where the privacy is in use we need on this 407 and the Apartment Building inspector should look into selling those details and know to clarify thank you. Is there any additional Public Comment. Seeing none then well take rebuttal starting with the appellant you have 3 minutes. All right. Thank you very much a couple of things i want to touch on the size of the deck is not the issue but the backyard on the deck the more you see to call that out in is important mr. Skaerts man said in the hearing they were not making adjustments outside the envelope it is not correct so i wanted to call that out generally we were not opposed to the investors giving the property adding Square Footage to make a profit were asking we do that with respect to privacy ill mentioned that the owners of the subject property mentioned agreement with everyone i didnt hear this is oifrn not the case i want to call it out with respect to the letter from brad and jack theyre currently in francis i wanted to tell the truth this is the problem they have it, it is more or important lets see i want to call out the sight lines are different so sort of hanging out watching the view this is a much sort of more than or more comboefrgz private issue than transient glances through a window id like to just call up this point out about this measure so again you know we talked about 6 foot and 10 foot fences this is outlined was it didnt materially effect the interior privacy that is unfortunate that would have been a great option that lets see i want to call out one other thing the conflict between the historical and privacy that is important one shouldnt dismiss the