The Tiburon Town Council has sent a home remodeling plan back for more review after receiving three appeals from neighbors.<\/p>\n
The project at 700 Hawthorne Drive would add 794 square feet and raise the ceilings from 8 feet to 10 feet. The appellants said the project would disrupt their views and lower their property values.<\/p>\n
On May 7, the Design Review Board approved the project with three conditions. The first required the property owner to remove a large shrub on Rock Hill Road that impeded views. The second set requirements for planting. The third required the addition to be lowered by 6 inches, bringing the ceiling heights to 9 feet 6 inches.<\/p>\n
Residents at three adjacent properties filed their appeals on\u00a0May 18. The Town Council held a hearing on the appeals on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Samantha Bonifacio, a town planner, said the town received several additional letters by other nearby homeowners expressing concerns over the project.<\/p>\n
The appellants \u2014 Kamran Shirazi, Ryan Lee and Neda Shafaghi \u2014 said that while they support a remodel, the Design Review Board should not have approved the project. They cited alleged inconsistencies with the town\u2019s hillside design guidelines and municipal code; missing information in the project application; and insufficient evaluation of alternatives or effects on the views.<\/p>\n
They also said approving the project could set a precedent that would allow other projects to skirt hillside roofline standards.<\/p>\n
Shirazi, who said he had to lower his own home renovation because of potential effects on neighborhood views, said the concerns go beyond aesthetics.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019ll impact us financially,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Neighbors asked if the owner could expand the house down the hillside and fill a crawl space on the property so as to not alter the height of the roof.<\/p>\n
The homeowner, Eric Tiret, said he tried to be cognizant of the neighbors and that the project\u2019s effect on their views would be minimal. He said building down the hill is not feasible because of the high cost of excavation and a new foundation.<\/p>\n
The Town Council reviewed images that attempted to show how the project would alter, or not alter, the views.<\/p>\n
Councilmember Holli Thier said the designs do go against town guidelines and that alternatives were available to the owner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI believe that the hillside design guidelines and other ordinances in Tiburon were meant to preserve views of the neighbors,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Thier put forward a motion to grant the appeals, but it was not seconded. The remaining council members agreed that there was not enough information to properly assess the situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cI see that there may be some weakness in their review of alternatives and there may be some dispute in the images regarding the impact of the proposed development,\u201d Mayor Jon Welner said of the Design Review Board.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis doesn\u2019t seem like it came out of DRB fully baked,\u201d said Vice Mayor Isaac Nikfar.<\/p>\n
The council voted 3-1 to remand the application to the board to further consider the hillside guidelines, evaluate alternatives and strengthen the record. Thier was opposed and Councilmember Jack Ryan recused himself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tiburon Town Council has sent a home remodeling plan back for more review after receiving three appeals…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":428314,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[7,181,23,992,180,993,266,388,101,103,102,104,106,105,31023,31024],"class_list":["post-428313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-california","tag-latest-headlines","tag-local-news","tag-marin-county","tag-newsletter","tag-north-bay","tag-northern-california","tag-real-estate","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-tiburon","tag-tiburon-town-council"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428313","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=428313"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/428313\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/428314"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=428313"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=428313"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=428313"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}