whatever it is. here it is an rh-1. you have a family who has owned this property since 1979. they want to expand or improve. it is the policy question. they want to make some improvement to continue to stay there. there is some kind of emotional attachment to the place. the family has owned it for 30 years. >> 31 years. vice president olague: i think this is a completely different situation than the one earlier. i do not see a contradiction in my even supporting this. commissioner sugaya: i would agree with that.

sometimes you have to take into consideration things like the length of time the family -- i mean, the parents came and integrated. this was their first house, was it not? they lived there, and now -- i do not know. it is just an emotional thing. i mean aside from all the planning issues that we are going to disagree with staff on. commissioner moore: i am normally 99% of my conviction that demolition is the thing to do, but based on what happened earlier today in this room, i have to support this project. otherwise i think i am going to have to render my own resignation. i cannot do it. >> there is no way to do anything other than demolish

this. commissioner moore: i really ask staff to not put us in a situation that takes us further to have these projects be looked at side-by-side. if the family has worked themselves to the point of for the cannot expand to be more reflective of their own situation, i think i support that. vice president olague: i think it is unfortunate that in the '90s when a lot of monster homes were being created, that we were not more diligent at the planning department level of looking at the underlying zoning. maybe a lot of the transformation of some of these neighborhoods from blue-collar to something different -- i do not know. i am not convinced we did enough with the issue in the '90s when this really happened. commissioner antonini: the other

thing in terms of affordability, which is often a concern, why we try to save the older home and not demolish it, but to renovate that place and make it a functional house for a family -- to add the bathrooms and square footage -- could end up costing more than the demolition and rebuild. you will end up with something that ultimately is going to be a more expensive residents because of the fact that you did not demolish it. in this case, you would find that would be the case. technically, we went to the numbers and said you could make it livable for less than 50% of the value, but you cannot improve it to the level it would need to be to satisfy family needs at that amount. >> the motion on the floor is to not take discretionary review and to approve the project as proposed. on the motion? commissioner antonini: aye. commissioner moore: aye.

commissioner sugaya: aye. >> there is a unanimous vote for both. you are now in general public comment. president miguel: is there any general public items on items not on the agenda? none appearing, public comment is closed and this hearing is over.

i feel like all of us are starng to see what the problems in this country are. i think plenty of people are opinionated. i don't think there's many forums where you can really express yourself or try to make a difference or anything. i mean...wha'...whatdo... what do i do, ya' know? the only people that i'm able to affect are the people who care about what i have to say. there is something you can do, but i'm sure it wouldn't be, uh...easy. different man: i get angry about it, but it's like... ya' know, in my own apartment. [laughs]

>> hello, i'm meg, welcome to "culture wire." for this episode, the director of cultural affairs, luis, will take you on a journey through presidio has been tet. -- presidio habitat.

>> welcome to "culture wire." today i'm at the presidio trust, a treasure within san francisco, because the presidio trust is really a national park in the center of an urban setting. it dates to the very founding of the city. national park. toting me today to talk about this amazing exhibition at presidio habitat is cheryl hanes. can you tell me a little bit about the idea of the presidio habitat? >> succinctly, i have been long

involved in the presidio. i was here when it was still a military base in the 1980's. i remember driving down walmart to the golden gate bridge and seeing the military guard at the gate and being utterly fascinated. >> so presidio habitat is an exhibition where you have invited, how many artists to think about the habitat? >> we put together a list of possible participants, local, national, or international, of people who are concerned with environmental concerns, made some sort of contribution to the landscape and conversation we're having here. we said that broke -- proposal requests and we received 25 back.

from that 25, we went through and chose tend to realize in the landscape. >> including this building, which is an amazing example of recycling. >> we are proud of this space. it was designed by a local architecture team. we said, we need something that is a temporary structure, something that can be brought onto the presidio in pieces, act as an exhibition space for one year. we came up with the notion of shipping containers. it was important for us that we made this project for the place, of the place. what i mean by that is participants would also used repurchased materials. >> we will be speaking to one of the artists that you selected.

what excited you about his idea? >> have many things. first of all, i am a fan of his architecture. because of that creativity, i knew that he could come up with something unique. i love the fact that he was specifically addressing the landscape around here, and it was also about the human interaction with this place. >> what are your expectations with the people coming to presidio habitat? >> we really hope people will come with their family, dogs, and come back a number of times the works will change over the year. the feedback we are getting is you cannot do all of them on one visit. it is really better to come back and have different

experiences. >> thank you. i am with mark jensen of jensen architect. he was one of the architects to be chosen to do the presidio habitat. when you heard about this project, what inspired you about that call? >> our inspiration is a great blue heron. it was the site itself that attracted us. this is an incredibly beautiful outdoor room. we did a bit of reverse engineering once we knew we wanted to work here. which animals live here? the great blue heron jumped out at us. we walked around, and quickly, you get into another pace. you slow down, leave the city behind you. you can feel the wind and the

breeze. in our increasingly frenetic, fast-paced, connected life, the chance to be of here and slow down a bit was part of the agenda. as part of the installation, it was suggested that this would be deliberately not mowed because it would allow the sustaining of insects, plants, that would graduate -- that would gravitate to the area. >> that is right. i think you quickly notice that. >> thank you for being here. presidio habitat is an exhibition at the presidio trust. it will be in san francisco through may 2011. we hope you will come out to experience this amazing exhibition and great natural treasure. >> to learn more about the other

habitats installations in the presidio, visit

. >> my name is mark tieman and i'm senior councilor at pet camp, san francisco, california. we dispose of a lot of carbon-based material here, dog poop, and the more we can turn that into something viable, the better off we are. in san francisco there's more dogs than children. finding a viable use for dog poop. >> proenvironmental policies, that's a way to win hearts and

minds. ♪ meet cathy, who's lived most verywhere, from zanzibar to barclay square. but patty's only seen the sight, a girl can see from brooklyn heights, what a crazy pair! ♪ cathy: oh my, patty. did you find all your files? patty: finally! who knew it would be this much work when richard and i decided to retire! cathy: well, what are you going to do first? patty: we're heading down to brooklyn heights and