code. don't tell us this isn't a demolition. make a statement, take a stand on this issue as well. it's a hard question. alteration/remodel, no. the direct impacts and -- there has been an effort to address the -- the direct impact of closing up so many windows. and if you look at my exhibit six, this is from the developer's plans. you'll see -- there's 15 windows being impacted. this is the neighbor to the north, these blue windows right now are a great source of light to the middle of their house. it will be completely closed off. the lower neighbor who has lived there the longest mr. smith virtually no light will get down there now. this is the south side neighbor. these are historic windows. all these windows was built when the house was bilts. this is a nice glass stained window. it's a shame that more accommodation can't be made. we would request that a smaller addition with more setbacks but mostly i would love to see the policies be artsed. president olague: and mr. williams who is your clients? >> the adjacent neighbor. president olague: mr. gwen, -- >> not him president olague: you have your own time. there were three d.r.'s. >> my name is florence uwen and my family owns the property two doors down from the subject, and although the project would not have immediate or physical impact at this time. however, one of my concern is the social impact as well as future social impact. as the attorneys stated that the construction proposed may change the whole neighborhood. we've been there for, what my daughter there -- that is the third generation and we intend to stay there as long as we can. we made that commitment. and one of the things that you can see in the past, everyone has converted their house or converted their buildings into condominiums. we've resisted that because our commitment is to our future generations, to our daughter and also now we have a niece. they are the ones that are going to be inheriting this neighborhood. and it's my responsibility preserve that and to keep the neighborhood intact. to have a safe environment in the future. and for the subject, definitely we welcome them into the neighborhood with open arms. and if they need to expand to further accommodate their family, we definitely welcome that. the concern that i have is that when the building is expanded, there is going to be additional traffic, additional environmental impact. not, not only that i -- they want to expand. what about the other houses in the neighborhood and on the street? i could count. there are five or six of them in the sitch situation. -- situation. sit fair to say that if this project is allowed to proceed then other people that -- the other properties should be allowed to do the same thing. and when you have five or six properties converting in this manner that will connect -- that will change the conversation and structure, the whole input. that is my concern. i really want to stress that the whole neighborhood right now is a wonderful neighborhood. our wife will not world -- will not move out of there. we are happy there. we want to continue. we want to have our neighbor feel the same way. they are definitely welcome to expand to accommodate to their needs. but at the same time, do not impact the neighborhood. that is what i am asking. that is all i have. thank you. president olague: speakers in support of the dr requestors? >> good afternoon. my name is russell smith. i live at 47 gough street, and have for almost 18 years. i love my home. and i first found out about the project, i realized the impact it was going to have. i am on a lower unit. i have a good amount of light coming in through the roof top. because of the with the breeze which is situated, air comes through, and it is great, and i love that. with a two-story addition, i will lose all of light. there will not be in the air, and the circulation of a breeze. that is a huge concern of mine. i did not sign up for that. i do not want to live in a cave. i do not mind trying to accommodate their needs, but they are impacting many lives and do not appear to be giving weight to our concern. thank you for your time. >> good afternoon. my name is janet meyers. i live at 3149 gough street. russell smith and i bought the building together in 1994. he lives in the bottom unit, and i live in the top unit with my family, my husband and my 12- year-old daughter. i am not confident i will be able to adequately express to you how negatively this project as it is proposed is going to affect my family and my home. i appreciate the opportunity to give it a shot so you can better understand the impact. mr. miguel was kind enough to come out to see what the impacts are. i appreciate that. on a piece of paper, you do not realize what is happening to the people who live there and make that their home. i think steve untouched on a few of our concerns. -- i think steven touched on a few of our concerns. this is the demolition of a 1923 home and garden apartment, which will be replaced with luxury condominiums. that is distressing to me. we continue to lose affordable housing. in that part of the neighborhood, we enjoy diversity. as this happens, the neighborhood becomes more inaccessible. it is like a gated community. only the most affluent people can live there. i find that distressing. profiteering in our neighborhood at the expense of others -- this is an investment property. while the project sponsor will enjoy a significant financial gain from this, we will suffer a loss in our property value. ethically, i do not think that is right. stephen touched on some of these other things. i want to talk about our quality of life and how this will impact my family. we were surprised to receive a letter in the mail about this. nobody had ever spoken with us about this proposed addition, even the we later came to find out our neighbor let us know that when he purchased his home, he purchased it with the intention of developing it. before he even bought a house, he knew he wanted to develop it. he did not assess the impact on his neighbors. it continues to apparently not be much of a concern to him. the way we are situated, to help you understand -- his home was built in 1923. we were built in 1924, and obviously designed in a manner to capture the light, because we building. i have six windows on the south sort -- south side of our property, and that will all be blocked. they are going to be above us. they will be totally overwhelming us. we lose light and air circulation through the whole middle part of our house. that is our light. president olague: thank you. three minutes. is there additional public comment in support of the dr requestor? >> commissioners, i live at 3149 gough street with my wife janet, and our daughter, samantha. i have concerns which are ready been addressed previously -- which have already been addressed previously. it blocks light for six windows on the south side and puts a shadow on our back light -- backyard for most of the day. i am also concerned of the act -- i am also concerned about the economic impact for the neighbors, the neighborhood, and the city. and will focus on the backyard and the economic impact. because our backyard is so shallow and small, with an addition of the extension to the rear of the building, we will in effect be boxed in. our back yard is our only outdoor space. any reduction of air or light will have a big effect across the small, but essential, living space. the quality of life will be reduced because of the reduction of light and air flow on the south side, and because of the huge increase in the size of the unit's next door it will literally cast a shadow. we are not opposed to the idea of expansion. it is the scale that bothers us, the impact to us, which is obvious in terms of quality of life and the value of the property. the psychological burden of dealing with this issue is great as well. i know this is probably not relevant to these proceedings, but i want to point out the negative impact are comprehensive. finally, i want to conclude with the economic impact. has has been stated -- as is been stated, luxury condominiums will be replacing lower income housing, closing access to the neighborhood. we believe our neighborhood should have economic diversity, to the extent this is possible. the replacement of affordable homes with high and dwellings is a huge setback for diversity -- with high-and dwellings is a huge setback for diversity, wherever and whenever it occurs. we ask the planning commission to look carefully at this project and wait the impact to -- and with the impact to the neighbors and the city itself. president olague: is the additional support to the dr requestor? >> hello. my husband and i have on our property at 3137 gough for over 10 years. we object to the size and scale of this project, as it now sits before you. please understand we are not opposed to our neighbors' proof of this property, as long as it does not unimprove ours. this directly affects the quality of life and property values of four families. it is 10 people. it is not a line drawing on paper. as currently drawn, it will impact our light and air circulation. our neighbors to the north, as you have heard, will be the most harmed by this edition. we're being told to seal up to of our north facing property line windows. mr. gibson has stated in his rebuttal to our filings that those windows represent only two of 22 total. i would like to clarify that those two windows are 50% of our north-facing windows. you have to understand that on the south side of us we have another four-story building. the light and air we get from the north side is our major light and air into our house. all we are asking is that the master bathroom window -- a small window, we could do without. but the master bathroom window, a setback or light well for that window. that gives a lot of air circulation to those rooms. that would allow us to continue to receive light and air circulation. it is not asking much. it would seem to be in the spirit of page 16 of the residential design guidelines. a few years ago, san francisco approved our bathroom remodels, which included replacement of this window at considerable cost. now the city is saying, "never mind. close up the window." for these reasons, we believe a setback or light well is reasonable. let us talk about scale and neighborhood. the vertical size of this project is out of character with the rest of this block. it is not the shortest house on the block. there are four more across the street that are the same size. there used to be five until one of them added another story. otherwise, to use mr. gibson's analogy, if you allow this project as proposed, nato and janet -- nate and janet's property becomes the missing tooth on that side of the block. if it were built up to three stories only, the impact would not be as negative. thank you. president olague: thank you. are there additional speakers in support of the dr requestor? seeing none, project sponsor. >> could we get this to work? >> just put your image on the projector. you got it. it is already on. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is john wonder -- winder. i am with the architectural firm winder and gibson. when we first came to the project, it was pretty obvious where it was, because you can see it is two stories high and is surrounded by a four story building and a three story building. on their side of the block, there are five buildings that are four stories tall, two buildings that are three stories tall, and there's, which is two stories tall. -- and theirs, which is two stories tall. the scale of the neighborhood is in three and four story dimensions. we started looking at why is this building only two stories tall. we thought maybe there was historical precedent, some reason. we went through a historical research evaluation report, which we submitted. we could not find any historical reasons for this, any special reasons. tina tam, the planning department specialist, concluded it is not a historic resource either individually or as a contributor to the district. we proceeded to do a design based upon the clients wanting to be a good neighbor, in which they would not try to exploit the property to a maximum. we went through the residential design guidelines in the planning code. we came up with a design which exceeds no height limit, exceeds no f.a.r. it does not do anything beyond what the zoning allows. if we were to design to the full maximum, we only expand out to 77% of the maximum allowable for this. we are not asking for a variance. we are not asking for special permission. we are within the letter and, i believe, the spirit of the codes. i understand it is going to impact people, the neighbors. at the same time, i believe it is pretty clear we made an effort to be as accommodating as possible, but not be denied property rights it seems the neighbors all enjoyed in their four story buildings in the neighborhood. at this time, i would like to turn this over to our business partner, jeffrey gibson, who was project architect, and has more details about the specific alterations that were made to accommodate the neighbors. >> i am jeff gibson, from winder and gibson. this was reviewed and significant changes were made along the way. this is a rendering of the original site permits submission, here. along the way, i will read you a list of the significant changes made during review. this graphic will give a sense of what they might be. we reduce the skill of the fourth floor into the penthouse. we lowered the chimney in that location to not overwhelm the south neighbor's terrace on the fourth floor. we set the fourth floor penthouse back by 3 feet to allow increased light and air to the north neighbors. we carved out a mass of light well to the third floor, aligned with the setback, above and beyond planning department recommendations. we voluntarily carved out a light well at the second floor, again adjacent to the north neighbors' setback. we are removing square footage, carving into the original building. we took 3 feet off the back of the building to allow light to pass to the small rear yard on the north, being sensitive to their space. we changed the railing and paroquet designed to allow increased light of the setbacks, a significant cost increase. i would like to make the point that all of the changes were made in response to the planning department. they are not to our own benefit. we have done a lot. at this point, we ask the planning commission to acknowledge these efforts. do not ask us to compromise on a compromise. this has gone to a lot of changes. we are sorry this has an impact on the neighbors. we do think this is the right project for the right place. president olague: thank you. speakers in support of the project sponsor. >> good afternoon. i am the owner of 3141 gough. i had a long discussion about something else, but i think i should address a big concern dave got up -- brought up, which is vacation rentals. it is my fault. i went with my family for a month to europe. i had no clue you could not rent out your place for a couple of weeks while you were in europe. a friend brought the idea up, and that is what we did. i was a little misled, because i had gone on these websites. there are 5500 different ones on there. the fact that they are coming out and saying we are trying to do vacation rentals is disappointing. we lent our roof for them to paint the house while we were gone. that is probably how they knew we had somebody in there. i am a little disappointed with our neighbors on that. to discuss about our family -- mark farrell, in an article in september, brought up how many young families are leaving the city. i have some things here. residents that are under 18 are the lowest in the entire united states in san francisco. when we bought this place, we bought it with the intention of building a family there. we have a to-year-old daughter -- two-year-old daughter. we thought this was a great place to be able to build. looking at city guidelines, it felt like the right choice. we have gone through a lot of process, here, in the last year. in november, we had the meeting. all the neighbors here that filed d.r were disappointed. instead of settling a plan, i rode e-mails to all of them and asked for individual meetings. i had those meetings in their homes. i tried to discuss the project. they were not willing to discuss any building whatsoever. there were just disappointed by any building whatsoever. i asked who wanted to be updated. anybody who wanted to be updated, in june i sent them all the adjustments we made. even with all the concessions, they still file day -- still filed a be are -- a d.r. they asked for another meeting. mou i gave them two days my architect and i could meet with them. they never responded. if we do not go through with this project, it would be discouraging to families. thank you very much. president olague: are there additional speakers in support of the project sponsor? >> good evening, commissioners. my name is arielle unger lighter. i am part of the marine a community organization. i am a neighbor who lives in the vicinity of the project. this family, this young family in san francisco, is one of the families we hear about so often, those who want to stay and raise their family in the city and are struggling to do so because of a variety of reasons. this home, as he sought in the photo, is one of the smallest houses in the block, probably one of the smallest houses in the entire district. if they were to go forward with the development, it would be the same site -- some height and size as five other homes on the block. to make it impossible would be unfair. they really are within the height limitation of the neighborhood. the property would be in line with some of those other properties. they have met with their neighbors and had a number of long conversations. i think this housing is family- appropriate, family-oriented, and transit smart, and is a place for them to live, not to turn into some sort of hotel. i know they are living on the property now. i have visited them in this home of the course of several years in which they have lived there. i am confident to say this actually is their family dwelling, not a vacation rental or hotel operation under a covert watch. i want to say i think the development really is in line with the character and charm of the neighborhood. i think it also is consistent with the residential quality of this street. i do not think it would be out of place or an eyesore. i think it would be in line with what is already there. i think this is necessary in order for them to keep their family in san francisco. i would urge that you not take discretionary review in this case and allow it to move forward. president olague: i want to mention we did continue the 183 brewster street items. if anybody is here for those items, they have been continued to december 1. is there any additional comment in support of the project sponsor? >> yes. my name is brian davis. i live with my wife and daughter right around the corner from this house. from my backyard, my back bedroom window, my back patio and backyard, i can lead directly back at the house. i am here to touch on the issue that we want to keep a young family, growing like this, in our neighborhood. my wife and i have lived in san francisco for 20 years. we have lived on francisco street for 15 years. my daughter, who just turned 9, is fortunately one of several kids in
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