the desert. it has to respect the surrounding neighborhoods. the green aspects -- it is not green to have traffic gridlock and has a much traffic on this artery that is already choked. there are all these theories about the businesses and having them scattered around the complex. this may be good on paper. it may not be. i have gone to an area by the ballpark where they have the businesses scattered along with the apartments. they are not doing well. the borders bookstore recently went broke there. this is all good on paper. it is not necessarily going to work. the idea of routing the m line through the complex and

shafting the area in the east where you do not serve them is not good at all. there has been a horrible success rate of businesses and parkmerced -- in parkmerced. it looks like it will work on paper but nothing is proven. in terms of public transportation, you can look at the 17 lines and see a lot more empty seats. what else have i got? anyway, that is basically it. it is just too damn much. listen to the people and not the money and the corporations. we need less people here. we need lower buildings. we need less traffic. we need more consideration for the surrounding areas. thank you. [applause]

>> i am parkmerced and resident am for 15 years. i moved here when i was 30 years old and my son was 5. i raised my son here. we love parkmerced. i want to say it is not fair to the fore with a plan that does not absolutely guarantee rent control -- it is not there to go forward with a plan that does not absolutely guarantee rent- controlled by law and not just the promise of the landlord. in the 15 years, i have made big life decisions based on my circumstances. my rent-controlled apartment was a big one. i have passed up other opportunities in other areas. i love san francisco and want to stay here. part of my circumstances of always been my rent-controlled apartment. for me to suddenly lose my rent- controlled apartment at the age of 45 or older puts me in the

impossible position of having to go back in time and make different decisions in my life since this is a 20 your project. it is not there to go forward with a plan that does not absolutely guarantee -- it is not fair to go forward with a plan that does not absolutely guarantee rent-controlled for the people in the 1500 plus garden apartments. [applause] >> the next group will be mike smith, william foust, dean preston, john scott, paula claudine, jeannie scott. >> i am lived in parkmerced for the last 11 years.

i want to bring to your attention one point. if the plan is accepted, the city of san francisco will build less residential real estate and has now. it sounds strange to have more houses but less residential estate. let me explain. it is pretty much very simple. right now in the last five years, apartments have become more of the san francisco university campus. there is one simple example. in 3:0at 3:00 in the morning, there is terrible noise outside my home. i asked them to keep it down. they say if i do not like it, i

should live somewhere else. that was the situation when people lived separately. 18-year-olds and 50-year olds need to live separately. 50-year olds do not want to party in the middle of the night. in the current situation, i can manage it. i get help from parkmerced security, but they cannot be at my apartment every minute. they are human beings. they listen to me. i can go to my membneighbor. let's manage it and let's agree. if you have a party, warned me. we will come to some arrangement. i can do it on my own. a friend of mine moved out of parkmerced.

they are, you could not come to an agreement -- where they were, you could not come to an agreement because of all the people on the floors above and below you. you cannot manage it. it is not a good situation. unless the issue is resolved and the students live separately and apart from the rest of us who like to live quietly, the project is doomed. you will get much bigger dormitories for students. nothing else. i am not against progress. i understand that sometimes you have to pay for progress. if this commission makes the decision to approve the project in its current form, you have less residential estate in san francisco. you will have one big dormitory for sentences the university. if that is your goal, then you

should do this. if not, you should take some measures. thank you. [applause] >> good evening, commissioners. my name is garfield powell. i have lived here since 1994. i have seen the property changed. it is interesting that they want to expand when they cannot accommodate the apartments they have. they cannot keep them filled. i find it unusual they want to build more. how will they fill those question if they have tried everything. now you can have pets. when i moved here, you could not have pets. they have students and section eight. they still cannot go the properties. yet they want to build high- rises. i have a problem with that. [applause] the way i read this project, it will increase crime. we already have problems in

parkmerced. if you cannot believe it, try calling the police one night if there is a rowdy party. see if they come and how long it takes. if there's a problem, good luck. they do not respond. i was told by the police department that they could not come to turn down a party. the police at san francisco state would come and control my apartment. that did not make sense to me. the san francisco police told me they would not come to my house. i cannot believe that. one of your speakers that already spoke tonight fell in her to our apartment and laid on the floor for a long time because the paramedics could not get access to the elevator code to get up and save her. that does not make sense. that is what management is proposing, more high-rise towers

that will impact our seniors. they will lie on the floor for hours while someone is petty enough to try to get them an elevator code to get it to save their lives. thank god she is ok. it could have been the other way around. this does not make sense. i urge you to not go forward with this. there are so many flaws in this proposal. management wants more money. the last thing i want to say is is about onm. you wait. if this proposal goes forward, you have multiple ones that come out. we are being asked as operating and maintenance based on the number of tenants. can you imagine the numbers they're proposing and what we would pay for in projects? i urge you to not go forward with this proposal. thank you. [applause]

>> i am mike smith. there is a leaflet that has been going around asking if you want to have your house demolished. my answer is yes. i will pull the plunger if need be. i am not a long-term resident here. i do not have all the wonderful benefits of rent-controlled, although i do believe in it. i pay $24 a month. i pay $2,400 a month. it looks nice from the outside but of hot water will not come on for five minutes. the pipes will rattle. other things are going on. it is too much for a plumber or anyone else to be able to fix it the way it exists now. tear it down. build a new one. i might as well be sending a

christmas card to the plumber as many times as he is at my place. i am not the only one. rent-control is a great thing. i love it. it is wonderful for a lot of the people who have been here 56 years. i pay higher rent. i expect a little more with that kind of rent. there are a lot of people in here that are newbies, so to speak. they probably feel the same way i do. i wish i had been here 30 years. i am paying big rent. i want the place fixed. if they cannot fix it, tear it down and build new one. i cannot conceive the idea of the city displacing thousands of people by reneging on rent- control. it does not make business or political sense. i think there are a lot of

dramatics going on here tonight. whatever, you know. i do not have much more to say except that the first speaker of the night, john with the merchants association, i back him up with everything he said. thank you very much. [applause] > >> i am a resident of parkmerced. i am very much in favor of this new plan they have. i have a garden apartment. i see the plan as taking the residential area to the future. we leave the past behind us. i see that these apartments that they are talking about will be

meeting the needs of the residence for the future for the next 50 years. i will not be here in 50 years. the people who live in these apartments will have apartments that are more energy efficient. they will be saving water. that is going to be a real issue for the next 50 years if not longer. there will be less of the open space with the greenlawn that sits there for the most part. it takes a lot of water. that will not be available more than likely in the next 50 years. it may be even sooner. i am very excited about these new apartments and the new residential area. i am looking forward to the organic farms. i am looking forward to the native plants. i am looking forward to the whole thing. i can hardly wait. thank you very much. >> thank you.

>> good evening. i do not support this plan. i think this is absolutely crazy. [applause] i think anybody who is supporting the plan has to be out of their mind, is not a resident, it is not thinking straight. i have lived in parkmerced. least 33 years. this is my community. these are my people. the people on this panel, do any of your live in parkmerced? probably not. are any of the landlords? -- are any of you wilandlords? none of you have any idea what we're going through, correct? that is why there is silence.

having lived in parkmerced for 33 years, that means there is a lot of history. i am sure i am not the only person here tonight who has experienced the same kind of history i have been parkmerced. i see faces here that i grew up with. i lived here with my family for 33 years. we grew up here. i went to st. thomas moore with a number of people. in the 1980's, parkmerced was primarily families. we all grew up together. we all went to st. thomas moore. we all knew each other. we were all cohesive. this is a community. this is a family. from st. thomas moore, i went to san francisco state university. i have spent my life in this community and neighborhood. there is a reason.

i might leave parkmerced and travel. i come right back because i left my heart in parkmerced and needed to be back. [applause] i have heard a lot of good points to tonight. i can reiterate a lot of those. i probably will right now. some of those are the fact that there is already a lot of crime in parkmerced. you pick up the phone and call security. what do you get? you get an answering machine. you definitely do not get a person. you do not get the help they need. you are paying higher rent, whether it is rent-controlled or not. this is hard earned money that we have paid month after month, year after year. that is a lot of money. what we getting out of that? what am i getting out of that

now? now you want to displease me. now you want me to have to experience a level of high discomfort because developers want to make money? this is about green. but this is not about the green where we're talking about the earth. we're talking about grain as far as money in the pockets -- green as far as money in the pockets. this affects everybody in this room except the people who are so concerned about a little garden. >> thank you. >> what will little garden do for us? >> thank you. your time is up. >> not interested. do not like it. thank you so much for your time. [applause] >> good evening, commissioners. i am dean preston, director of tenants together for renters' rights. we're shocked by the audacity of

this plan to build those over 1500 rent-controlled homes -- bulldoze over those 1500 rent- controlled homes. we're also concerned about the amount of time that they would be concerned to construction and renovation. a 20 to 30-year timeline is unacceptable. i have worked with a lot of tenants who have had construction going on, renovation for four months. it takes a lot to withstand that. there is no question that of this developer -- and we all know that it will not be this developer, it will be whoever they sell to. when the new developer takes over, none of the residents will be left in parkmerced after they are subjected to 30 years of construction. [applause] i would ask each of you to think about in your home, whether you rent or own, if your neighbor or

here asking for a permit for 30 years of construction. you would be outraged, as you should be with this plan. i want to address the enforceability concerns. we've seen this movie before. developers time and again make promises and then renege on them. it has nothing to do with whether the planning commission wants to hold them to their promises. i believe you do. i believe the city attorney does. i believe the city does. this will land in front of the california court of appeals. it will land before three judges who will do what they have done time and time again. that is to throw out the promises. we saw it in the embassy case in santa monica just last year. an owner promised not to evict under the california palellis ac

t and then evicted everyone. they said the waiver was not enforceable by the court. we saw that with the lincoln place evictions in los angeles. it was a similar project like this where the developer promised in writing not to displease the tenants. then they turned around displaced tenants had to fight for years in court to finally get a ruling in their favor. by then, there were only about a dozen units still occupied in a huge complex much like parkmerced. there's no guarantee of enforceability. until the state law changes and the judges are directed clearly that when rental properties are demolished they can be replaced with rent-controlled properties -- until that happens, this commission and city should say no to efforts to do mass demolition of rent-controlled housing. [applause] thank you very much. [applause]

>> good evening, commissioners. i stand before you as a parkmerced resident a -- as a resident of parkmerced. i am william foust. the speaker two no. 3 back before me -- the speaker who said he would lend his hand to the plunger to annihilate the place, if that person would have spent the last 30 years of his sweat, blood, and tears invested along with his financial investment in parkmerced, i think he would want to wire the

detonator to a different source. [laughter] also, i would like to bring up the fact that due process in this case, in these hearings, is something that is going to have to be addressed at one point or another. in the agenda of this planning commission, the residents and tenants of parkmerced, the action coalition, a newly formed with people of great moral fiber comprising it, have been placed almost at the end of the line of everything. we have received information. we have been the last ones to be consulted before the planning

commission. it brings up the matter of due process. we have not been allowed ample opportunity to place together and in a timely fashion to submit a comprehensible and intelligible response to everything that has been going on. in addition, the leaflet put out at the 11th hour by parkmerced just last night were the night before, in its most egregious point stated in paragraph 5 that

this includes been fully approved through development agreement that will ultimately be approved by the board of supervisors. if this is the case -- >> your time is up serve. he gets the same amount of time as the rest. >> if the issue has already been decided, i think it is undemocratic -- >> we expect you to do everything we ask. [unintelligible] as long as you continue to talk. i will give everyone the same amount of time. i will give everyone exactly the same amount time. everyone gets the same amount of time. you knew that already. you have been before us before.

>> this is most egregious. there is no way in hell that you guys are going to pass this. [applause] >> i have lived in parkmerced for 18 years. i am against this project. i am not going to go over the reasons again. we've heard lots of reasons from different perspectives. i think we all understand what the reasons are. this is the san francisco planning commission. it works for the city of san francisco. it is not a bunch of bricks and pavement. that is actual people. this is about the people of san francisco. [applause] i only have two words to say. i would vovote. [applause] i voted in every election that i

have been to as long as i have lived in california. that is over 20 years now. i voted in every election. i voted when i lived in another place in every election. a plan to vote on this issue. my only concern is that i may be wrong when i say that i vote. i see a lot of people here. do we vote? >> we have vote! >> thank you very much. that is the bottom line. we can discuss this a lot. this is about politics and power. i do not think a lot of people here have a lot of money, but we do have the vote. thank you very much. [applause] >> i am john scott. i will be very brief. i have lived here for 24 years.

if i wanted to live in high- rise, i would have stayed in brooklyn and manhattan. i am diametrically opposed to the demolishing of the garden apartments. i have lived through four owners. the first owner was called the queen of mean. [laughter] the one thing i will say about the sooner, the so-called queen of mean, is that she was very good to the residents of the

garden apartments. [applause] if you members approve of this greedy new owner, you should be ashamed of yourselves. that is all i have to say. [applause] >> thank you. after these speakers, maria eggbert, judy brooke, terrence falkner. >> i live in the neighborhood. i do not live in parkmerced, but i have lived in parkmerced.

my father-in-law and mother-in- law were living in san mateo. they moved up from san mateo. i was a freshly minted lieutenant at that time and on my way to korea. i left my wife and son in parkmerced. a couple of months later, our daughter was born in presidio. with a good deal of respect and regard for parkmerced. i have lived in stonestown and on the other side of the campus. i know the area. i have watched the development of the project. i have listened to the reports from time to time terry i think is very important that we renew our housing stock in the city. the projects built with great thought and contributionth