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 in addition, take a look at this image, that East Building has one small window on its Property Line there, and that window is already shorter than where the home is tay. So the project is not making it significantly different than that. As you look up the hill at the property, here is the property, here is the west neighbor and east neighbor. Youll see the project is going to take it to just about where the west neighbor is. So residential guidelines dont protect private views but to the extent that folks have sympathy for it, theres going to be significant views across the street and just as much as they are getting from next door as well. So one really important point i want to make, because the d. R. Requesters have emphasized it a lot is that nowhere in the residential Design Guidelines does it say anything about Floor Area Ratio when considering these projects. The Floor Area Ratio has to relevance or connection to whether or not a building fits in with the existing character of the neighborhood. Theres a lot of situations like this where a project is built into a hill so you have a lot of gross floor area, stuck in an area that does not create new massing thats apparent to the neighborhood and relevant to whether or not the building fits into the context of the neighborhood. Then youve got the lot size as well which duffers from lot to lot. Differs from lot to lot. Its easy to pick out a handful of houses in the neighborhood that have less f. A. R. Or greater f. A. R. We have added a brief of buildings with a greater f. A. R. But you can pull buildings on either side. So not a relevant consideration with respect to the residential Design Guidelines. We prepared a shadow study thats in your packets. Theres not much difference between whats there today and whats proposed. To make significant changes have been made based on neighbor and staff input just to quickly go through, incorporated a varied front setback, increased side setbacks, reducing roof height, the height of entry, sculpting rear corners, reducing the size of the roof deck, modified the architectural style. As you can imagine with six d. R. Requesters, this is a challenging project. I appreciate the work of mr. Winslow on this project. For these reasons, we feel the project is very clearly consistent with neighborhood character, which is the goal of the residential Design Guidelines. I would like brad to come up and speak to the architecture for the project. Good evening. We were hired by mr. Cassidy about two years ago to consider a home for he and his family. Mr. Cassidy has been forthright with us in terms of his intentions to live there and his efforts to communicate to his neighbors and to staff with us. Weve had a number of fair conversations with mr. Winslow, jeff horn, planning staff and the like. And i want to, without getting too deep into the minutia, i think john covered most of it, and thats documented in terms of our narrative in the packets you have been provided but to go through some views that spell out our rationale about how the building is oriented and arranged to the existing context on the hillside for introduction is its quite varied. There are houses that are very large and squeezed into a site sometimes oriented into hillside conditions that contest privacy and present a wide variety of different aesthetic styles. This is the existing street view with neighbors on both side. The topdown view for your benefit, this is looking from above. Scenario view from across the street an aerial view so you get a context. This is not a oneshot deal. We have been working on this for two years, and i have several packets, milestone project records for the benefit of when we submitted for a preapp, a round of revisions that were made and addressed the comments and subsequent revisions made in specific response to some of the conversation that mr. Cassidy was having with his neighbors all the while. This is where we started. Our staff prepared a synopsis of the program mr. Cassidy came to us with. Somewhat differentiated with, and thats where we began to take over and arrest some of the development of the project and go through some of the changes we have done in response to the comments that were delivered to our attorney. This is the first stab at reducing the forward portion of the garage. The entry volume was subtracted and reduced as well. Further reductions were requested and were made. We have just those three volumes. Okay. Thanks. Your time is up. Now we are going to take Public Comment from any member of the public in support of the project sponsor, in support of the project. My name is Deidre Cassidy, im at 66 Mountain Springs. Hold on one second. If you are a member of the project sponsors family, you are a member of the project sponsor team. Oh. So i cant speak. Is that what youre saying . Okay. Good evening, commissioners. My name is josh and im here as a longtime friend of the project sponsor. Im also a tenyear San Francisco resident living in noe valley not too far from the project. Im here obviously to support the project. The project sponsor has resided in San Francisco for over 30 years, raising their children in the community. This is their ultimate dream home, and after having carefully reviewed the plans, i commend its thoughtful design and careful revisions in light of the neighbors concerns. I find it to be very reasonably designed, and a very modest home with a nicelydesigned family room, living room, three bedrooms on one level, plus a guest room off the family room which opens to a nicelysized backyard, all fairly modest from what i can tell. Although i understand the neighbors would be concerned about any changes on their street, i find the project to be reasonably compatible with existing surrounding homes as i view the models presented by the architect and by the d. R. Requesters. I urge you to support the approval of this project as designed by the architect and supported by the Planning Department as well. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, commissioners. My name is james. Also a friend of the project sponsor. And im just amazed when i see that all the work thats gone into the project, all the Planning Departments work and all the revisions that the Planning Department has done, has suggested and incorporated into the plans with the developer or with the sponsor. All the work and their ultimate support of the project, its interesting to me that that doesnt override the need to have continual effort to scale back and scale back and scale back and scale back and scale back in a time and place in history when in fact housing has we know it is so difficult to get built, this is just making it more difficult. Just the same, this family could have gone to san mateo or San Mateo County to build a larger house they needed but they chose to stay in the city, and i think we should celebrate that and certainly support the project as its now planned. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, commissioners. I know its a long day. I spoke on the first item today, and this is the last item. I actually live or will live at 21 Mountain Spring. Im building what everybody tells me is my dream home at the start of Mountain Spring, and i know those neighbors have been putting up with me the last three years during construction. I have known leo and his wife for 30 years. His kids have gone to school with my kids. They are good friends of ours. I was delighted when he was moving on to the same street. I think its a great neighborhood and a great place to live. The house he has designed when you put it in context is one level over garage. Thats what we talk about all the time. Its one level over garage. And i think it meets all the design requirements and meets the requirements of the neighborhood. So i hope you support the project. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening. Im a friend of leo and Deidre Cassidy family. I have known them for many years. I have lived in San Francisco for 30 years. I think we should support families staying in San Francisco. This is a codecompliant project. Im going to read exact exactly from the departments review. It says that the departments Residential Design Team confirm this project has incorporated recommendations made through several reviews and as such, staff deems it doesnt present any exceptional or extraordinary circumstances and meets residential Design Guidelines, so i urge you to accept staff recommendations and support this project. Thank you. Next speaker, please. [off mic] drop them off there. My name is kevin. Im a resident, and im here to support this project. I want to reiterate the topics we discussed before that it is two levels above the street, which is identical to the Neighboring Properties on either side, and with regards to the scale and the mass, im going to list 20 properties that are all within a quarter mile of this property that are over 5,000 square feet, 21 Mountain Springs which is new construction just approved, 7,000 square feet, 75 Mountain Springs is 5700 square feet. So i think this is within compatible of the neighborhood scale and mass, and i encourage you to support it. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Hi. Good evening, commissioners. Its been a while since ive been here with a project. My name is mike, im the brother of leo cassidy. Im also a builder and identify a brother named joel who is a builder. Typically we dont end up in front of the commission because we usually work to get a project gets approved, doesnt have a d. R. But in this case, when you deal with people who say they wouldnt like to live on the street with fourstory buildings, its kind of amazing, you can have two stories and maybe for a sevenfoot ceilings but we across the street from four stories, we can look down at you, and you need two with you its okay for us to have four. Typically i want my view, how dare you step up maybe one more foot above what i think. Even hired their own architect to say you should build what i think, not what youd like. Or your family would like that would suit you. Its incredible. Thats what you deal with. You cant negotiate with people like that. This will go on to the final, they will come back again and again until its done. Maybe they file a lawsuit. I feel sorry for you. Two years in a project thats two stories over a garage. Its unbelievable. I hope you support it as its gone forward. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good evening, commissioners. My name is michael stack, im a longtime friend of leo and Deidre Cassidy. Im here to support the project. Its a modest project with two stories at street level and three at the rear. Ceiling height is only nine feet. Im 6 6 and its only two and a half feet taller than me. I urge you to support this project. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is clint. Im a resident. I live at the current house, i rent through the owner. Ive been there for i want to say six to eight months. I can say also as a background, as an architect that ive become acquainted with the area. Ive seen the plans, and ive reviewed that and my perm feeling, not having any ties with the feeling other than living in a home that would no longer be my own, i feel that it fits in with that surrounding area, i dont feel like it would be imposing. And i just want to state my support. Thank you. Next speaker, please. My name is joe cassidy. I immigrated to this country 44 years ago. I have built over a thousand units in San Francisco. I feel like what mike said. We are being attacked as immigrants. Some of the comments that have gone on are incredible by some of these neighbors. So what if its a 5500foot square house . Its like a sunset house. And that is reasonable. Its a beautiful design. For someone to come here and say that it doesnt blend in with the neighborhood, i mean, they need their eye sight examined. That design is absolutely spectacular. I hope thaw approve the project the way it is i hope that you approve the project the way it is. Does wish to speak on behalf of the sponsor . To simplify this, i break this into two categories. The four d. R. S from across the street, and lets cut to the chase, their issues are views, views and more views. It was implied to the owner that if they lowered this, if they removed the parapets and lowered the front of the house, which they did, they would have a deal. That has not worked its way to the surface here. I would like to reiterate the fact there is minimal view impact, and youll see a video later on, minimal view impact to those four neighbors across the street. The other two d. R. S, the house on the right and the left, the house on the right, i read that d. R. Package, i talked around the hall, i dont know what you want. Im really confused by it. The house on the left was specific. They gave four items. I think many of those could be addressed. Its important to note the proposed house is less than 12 inches taller than the house on the left. And when you factor in those trees, there is no issue here. I am not im here fairly regularly. Many times, i dont get to speak. We work it out in the hallways. I approached every d. R. Here in the room tonight. I spoke to every one of them. Nobody wanted to engage with me. Not that im someone special. But theres nothing wrong with discussing an issue. There might be a solution. Ive done it a lot. Because of that, im tempted to urge you to approve this house the way it is. Yes, its a big house. Its a big house surrounded by bigger houses. But theres one little issue. That family has lived to live with these families. And at some point its not about getting the house approved. Theres reasonable things that can be done here. And while im tempted to ask you to urge or urge you to approve it as is, for the sake of peace, for the sake of these neighbors living together, maybe you could ask the project sponsor to create a five by five or a five by six or some kind of setback to preserve the downtown views. Maybe you can ask him to remove the windows on the westside to create privacy. Maybe you can ask them to move the deck in or to the north or to the south or to the west to make it smaller. Hes very reasonable. But the past wrong here of nobody talking and nobody doing anything is not going to get anybody anywhere. Thank you. Thank you. Now its time for the rebuttals. So d. R. Requester, you each get a twominute rebuttal. Thank you. Its hard to know where to start. We have been asking since december of 2018 to talk, and so yes, somebody who was not the project sponsor approached me in the hall today in this room and said want to talk . You know, we are here. We are trying to explain why this house will stick out like a sore thumb, yes there was a litany of friends and family and other contractors who want to say its the greatest house ever but it will stick out like a sore thumb in this historic neighborhood. No other house on that side is nearly that big. No other house on the north side. Thats the way the houses are, terraced up the hill. The houses on the north side are of uniform size at street level. None of them has a rooftop deck, not one. So this is going to be a very jarring look to the neighborhood. Im not aware of a single neighbor, 29 neighbors signed the letter saying please, we have concerns about this, not a single neighbor that im aware of supported it. Its not consistent with the neighborhood. It does block views. There are only two houses that are d. R. Requesters on the other side of the street. Four houses on the same side of the street, so its not a view as far as theyre concerned, its the light, its the air, its the privacy. And we had mark english prepare drawings to show this same footprint of the house could be lowered and could be less obtrusive, less invasive on the neighbors and more consistent with this historic neighborhood. So, again, we urge the commission to grant d. R. And to require that the project sponsor work with planning to make something that we think does conform with the guidelines. Thank you. Thank you. D. R. Requester number two. Thank you. I didnt realize you could bring all your friends and Business Partners from around the city to come and talk or we could have been here probably till midnight. What i would like to do is read a letter if i could from glen oakley who was one of the d. R. Sponsors, couldnt be here today because of the health of her husband. Lynn oakley is the granddaughter of the first person to build on Mountain Spring in 1920, edwin moffet. She says dear president and commissioners. I have asked my letter be read for me as im unable to attend this meeting because my husband has been in the hospital and im caring for him. Im opposed to the demolition of 66 Mountain Spring avenue and the proposed construction of a new loftlike building in its place. This project is out of scale with existing neighborhood, and will negatively affect the light and the air of the neighboring homes and will be an eyesore in our beautiful neighborhood because of its overwhelming boxlike mass. A project of this height and mass, nearly 6,000 square feet, will not be compatible with our neighborhood of Beautiful Homes and doesnt maintain the existing setback as requested by the Planning Department and r. D. T. The surrounding homes are each uniquely beautiful but do not stand out as obviously defiant of Planning Commission guidelines which this one will. Sincerely, lynn oakley. Thank you. Next d. R. Requester. Speak into the microphone, miss. Essentially i moved to Mountain Spring in 1991. And when i moved into the house, i also built my dream house. But i built my dream house within the existing envelope of the house and built a very small garage, single story that wouldnt impact anybodys views or anybodys lights. I went to each and every neighbor to see if they were okay with the design, and indeed they were. What we were requesting here is very small or what im requesting is very small, reducing the height of the ceilings which are actually quite large, to bring down the lower the house, also increase the setback to the existing building and ultimately removing the parapets, not removing, lowering the parapets and removing the roof deck, the roof deck is inconsistent with anything on our side of the street and will have a huge impact on the privacy of my home. Thank you. Next d. R. Requester. I would like to i have lots of comments about how there were mainly revisions to the plans and that the implication was that they worked with the neighbors. I want to make it clear that we submitted the letter in december of 2018. The matrix came out in march. We didnt get anything until september, just a few days before we got a notice that we have 30 days to file a d. R. So we had nothing to work on. So i dont know what the project sponsor is and supporters are talking about all this back and forth we had. And i do appreciate the fellows comments, i forget his name, but it is true that these folks are planning to live there. Im irish, when they first came to my door with a bottle of wine, i was delighted to have irish neighbors. Now, not so much. As i mentioned earlier, i believe mr. Cassidy is willing to make some changes, and i hope you will grant a continuance or however this works in order to allow that to happen. Thank you. Thank you. Any more of the d. R. Requesters here . Seeing none, project sponsor, you get a rebuttal as well. Thank you commissioners. I think at this point you have heard enough out there. So we are here if you have any questions. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner fung. Question for mr. Devlin. A number of potential modifications was proposed by one of the speakers. Is that still on the table . When you say one of the speakers, just to clarify. Shawn yeah. We are here wanting to get a project approved, so we would like to we would entertain any thoughts you had, commissioner fung. He brought forth three points. Oh, those specific. Are those on the table . Yes. Okay. Thank you. From what youve heard during the course of discussion, mr. Winslow, do those three items do more except for the one adjacent neighbor . To be quite honest, this is the first ive heard of those items. Im not sure where they are or what they are. I havent had a chance to review it, but i think they sound like they are in response to the neighbor to the west. Is that correct . Thats what it sounds like. [off mic] we cant have you commenting from the crowd. Redact windows and i dont know which decks. It sounded like an act extract. Commissioner moore. Perhaps somebody could restate that so we can figure out what they mean. I believe privacy is a concern for the neighborhood to the west, and i believe in order to address that, it would be reasonable to eliminate the Property Line windows on the western wall. The second item, the project sponsor has been in her house, and was shown a certain desk that she likes to sit at thats important to her. And the other thing thats important to her is she has the panoramic view, not just the view straight out. So to facilitate, to open up that corner, hes going to take a notch out of the top two floors which would be the back left hand side of his buildings to facilitate the downtown view for her while shes sitting at that chair. Would that you have a sloped wall there. Is that the one you are talking about . Correct. So the two floors below would match that . The top two floors. Excuse me, the top two floors. Was that a in other words, from a directional point of view, the west corner of that building toward the rear Property Line, the top two floors would have a slope to it similar to half of a bay kind of thing. Im looking at current curres that currently have that on 2. 8 and 2. 4, further notching of that area. Yes, that is five by five, five by six, five by seven. The idea is to protect that special space that she has looking out that window. Okay. What was the third item . The third item is the roof deck is set back considerably from curve its ten feet back. If you want to move it to the north, to the south, to the east, the west, make it smaller. Which roof deck . The deck on top of the roof. Thats why i ask. A big deck. Its a big deck, yeah. Theres room to do something there. Thank you. Commissioner moore. I dont have anything. Commissioner diamond. I didnt hear any of the d. R. Requesters articulate an issue that met the standard for d. R. , which is something exceptional or extraordinary, but if the project applicant is willing to make changes that help move this along, then i would be fine taking d. R. And imposing those three conditions or having staff work with the project applicant to implement those three conditions. Is that a motion . Yes. Second. Commissioner moore. Mr. Kegan. Im sure its in the interest of the visual appearance of the building to not create too extreme an an asymmetry on the notching. Is there a way of mediating those two notches . The building should not look as if i am talking about the front of the building where you are drawing on the north side. Thats the rear. One second. Its hard to argue against that from an architectural perspective. Im just making a suggestion to not just compromise the building, because we do need to remember that we are in rh1d, large lots where buildings are larger than we normally have. The building sits within this footprint. Im interested in what you are suggesting on the other hand, im not interested in compromising the building. I said i do not want to compromise the building. Yeah. The two notches will be fine. Dont leave yet. The other question was related to can you remove the parapet . So its my understanding that it has been removeed. Its been lowered. Im not sure its been removeed. Can i have the overhead, please . Just to address some of the
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