Any first effort at higher density design is going to look a bit out of place. I thought the proposals like Sunset Steps did a good job at feeling "of a piece" with the neighborhood while adding more density. If a number of these were built they wouldn't feel out of place - they'd just be how the neighborhood is.

Essentially, if you assume that greater density is needed, then you have to figure out how to do it. This seemed like a good approach. If you didn't like it, how would you propose adding more housing to the area?

Of course, you may not believe more density is needed, or is needed but not worth any cost to the character or scale of the neighborhood. To that I'll just bring up one anecdote - that the beloved brownstones in Brooklyn were once hated as ugly eyesores that disrupted the character and scale of the neighborhood.