March 10, 2012

This Week At The Planning Commission

A look at Noe Valley projects in front of the Planning Commission this week. Information is provided by the Planning Commission, and taken from its published agenda. All hearings are on Thursday at 1:30pm, Room 400 in City Hall.


March 15

550 JERSEY STREET
- north side between Diamond and Douglass Streets; Lot 017 in Assessor's Block 6505 - Request for Discretionary Review of Building Permit Application No. 2011.09.02.3798. The project is a revision to previously approved Building Permit Application No. 2011.02.25.0973 to cut down the ridge of a gable roof by approximately 6.5” so that it would not be visible from behind the existing front parapet and revise the interior roof framing of an existing two-story, single-family building within an RH-2 (Residential, Two-Family) Zoning District and a 40-X Height and Bulk District.

Staff Analysis: Abbreviated Discretionary Review
Preliminary Recommendation: Do not take Discretionary Review and approve
There's a convoluted back story. Apparently the former owners went through the 311 Notification process when they applied for the original permit in 2000. It was approved, but work was never started and the permit expired. The 2010 buyers bought a property with plans for expansion and started work. Since the permit was expired, DBI made the owners take out a new permit. But DBI allowed a renewal since at the time DBI believed work was already underway.

Enter the Discretionary Review Requestor: one F. Joseph Butler, an architect, who believes the Planning Commission and the Department of Building Inspection are enforcing rules arbitrarily and losing out on as much as $22k in fees on this project alone. Mr Butler elected to file for the DR (at a cost of at least $510 paid to Planning) to protect the integrity of the Planning Department and assure restoration of historical elements of the property. Or something like that.

Here's the kicker:
DR REQUESTOR: F. Joseph Butler, who lives at 3** Chestnut Street, which is located approximately 4.6 miles to the northeast of this project.
The full story with application and staff analysis is here (PDF).

[SF Planning: 550 Jersey]
[Photo: SF Planning]

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Take a good look at the photo and tell me what's really ugly:

Lack of trees and sidewalk landscaping. Typical over a LOT of Noe Valley. Why don't more homeowners care to put in trees?

What's the problem? This keeps our neighborhood from really being as visually friendly and green as it could be.

Anonymous said...

Some places in Noe simply don't take to trees. I tried to put one in front of my house a number of times, but there's too much water and wind and they always blow over and die.

Anonymous said...

Joe Butler is a complete POS. He makes his living as a parasite doing this sort of nonsense. I guess that is b/c as an architect he couldn't make a living. Too bad.