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>> welcome to district sf featuring district 8. district 8 is well known as one of the city's most beautiful and

desirable areas the heart is castro street. dollar is much more to this district. the district includes the mission delores, duboce triangle. corona heights. upper market, eureka valley. noe valley. twin peek. diamond heights, glen park and the san jose gererro area. because it's such a large area we can only scratch the surface in our half-hour program. we will will introduce you to the beautiful attractions, vexing issues and unique plans for the future that make district 8 a special place to live, work and visit. >> i view district 8 as being a little like maybury in the castro it's gaybury. our neighborhoodses are tightly woven. there is a lot of connection of people and awareness of what's going on in the world and the state and locally.

>> there are so many things about it. its beautiful. got great views. of the 3 places i have lived 2 had spectacular vistas of san francisco which we appreciate. >> initially when i came here it felt very warm and friendly and welcoming to all kinds of people. >> close to transportation. >> not just the castro. the most of the district is not the castro. >> the neighborhood goes up to the hill the. fancy houses in the hills down to delores park and the mission. >> noe valley is where the kids and families are. there is a focus on the parks. big focus on the school. a lot of attention is paid to the schools whether its james middle school or alverado school. there is attention focused on it. you go to glen park which is a village its a duality where we

have our major transit transportations and connectivity about traffic and trucks and a lot of attention to how you keep the feel of the village and recognize we have to mitigate buses, park and ride and traffic going through the area. >> even though the castro represents less than half percent of the voters in district 8. everyone aggress its the hotbed of political activity in the district. that's exciting. >> i like to walk and i like public transportation and i like on bike and i also drive. the things are are not possible in the san francisco suburbs. >> i love the economy diversity, i love the dog parks we live 2 blocks away fra3 parks. the diversity of restaurants and stores and shops. cute neighborhood places. >> its a great place to live and have business because we are

a destination. when you go to market a commercial area, that's something that a lot of other commercial areas have to work at to create their own identity. weer extremely lucking in the castro because we have a built in identity. you see the rainbow flag and banners. that's a tourist draw especially the gay tourists. >> its one of the few neighborhoods that remains affordable in the city. there are a lot of families with young children in the neighborhood because the less than ideal urban planning results in less safe places but an over all housing stock. its not noe valley or the mission its in limbo. second is the diversity of people. there are a lot of terrific people that live here that are open to all sorts of possibilities. i was in portland before this which i liked for a lot of urban

reasons a likeable and walkable city but its the widest cities and it freaked me out! so, growing up in chicago and new york you know i had sushi and chinese food and everything cuisine my entire life. i like different people. if i don't have somebody disagree with me once every 5 minutes something is wrong. this neighborhood is like that. the one problem i had never had to face as being supervisor is apathy. i never had a day when people don't care to call me that something's wrong and i want to do something different and new. >> y are lucky in the castro because the resident's association, the merchant's association, we work together effectively. we have a supervisor who is committed to working together with us to accomplish very

concrete goals. and so we are very lucky. its an exciting place to live. >> the beauty and convenience offered by district 8's neighborhoods made the neighborhood a highly desirable and expensive place to live. how do the neighborhoods maintain their diversity when sky high housing prices are driving so many out of the district. >> to me housing is the issue of our time. there is less diversity than 10 years ago. >> the one area that is difficult for younger people moving in is the life blood in any community is infusion of young people. it is difficult because prices are high for real estate and rents are high. >> young people who were at risk not accepted at their homes in the mid west, thrown out for their families are coming here. not only is this an expensive and difficult city to gain a

foot hold in but within a week a young person would be given methamphetamine. >> should the castro be a transgender friendly neighborhood? >> of course. >> a neighborhood seen as the gay ghetto as more people are moving in that are hetero~ sexual. and more people that have kids and are hetero~ sexual. that's not the debate the debate is economics. people are moving in that have money and can afford to buy in district 8 and pushing out other people who can't live here. >> the average house costs a million dollars. now there is good in that and there is bad. when the city was going through a huge recession as result of the.com the call of real estate and the fact that it kept turning over really kept our economy. one of the legs that kept us

standing up. >> the debate is how do we create a city that really is for all of us that's not for sale. and that encourages people to live here because they care about the community and they want to engage in community life not because they can afford to live here. >> one of the unfortunate things i see with people moving into the city buying million or multimillion dollars housing is that there is a sense that once you get your house what you care about is protecting your house and your little piece of the pie. i see less and less commitment to the community. >> is there a phenomenon where people are trap indeed their houses. if they sell they will not find something comparable or better. part of the city's responsibility is to look at that in the upper market process where i'm trying to look at the

mix of housing. i'm putting a measure on the balet in june to build more family affordable housing units which would allow you within the envelope to possibly increase the density. if you take your studios below market rate and make those 2 and 3 bedrooms that will be suitable for families. >> our urban design plan seems to be thrown out on its head. the views we love from district 8 as you look across the city into the bay are already being blocked. and as you come into the city, the affect is going to be a walled part of the city that you are not going to be able to see the hills driving into the city. >> our district was hit hard by ellis act vagzs it was a tool the city allowed. i hope we can continue to try to address. >> very smart people have been talking about this for a long

time and good plans have been developed that are plans where we work with developers to get down to build more affordable housing. we hope for more incentives. hope for more contribution to city services in the building of the housing. >> there is the mission safe way which is a single story building surrounded by a parking lot. there are several parcels like that, a lot of people in the neighborhood have been talking about building the spaces out and puts the parking under ground and finds spaces for more affordable housing. preferably a healthy mix of rental and ownership opportunity. >> the current the castro upper market is in the motion of a planning process, meets with stake holders about certain parcels on market street that will be developed and its what the community would like to see

in the parcels being developed. an important aspect, of course is affordable housing >>. the castro has become a home for families with children. on occasion public expressions of gay sexuality have disturbed parents. how can this be addressed. >> gay neighborhoods are evolving and changing. no neighborhood, none in district 8 or in the city or country is stuck in time and frozen. you evolve, things change, there are dynamics and pressures whether economic or new housing and you have to respond to this. one of the things i see as my mission is the sustainability of the castro. i think there is concern that the dynamic of the castro is changing. >> a lot of families are moving to the castro a lot of gay families. and district 8 throughout district 8. what that has meant is i think

that fewer people want the street fairs and parties. even john stewart in the daily show made fun there are straight families moving to the castro complaining about the sex shops with dildos in the window. it was called. there goes the gabor hood. there is truth to that. its sad that the the castro is losing its character. >> once every 3-4 years the issue of sex toys in windows has a flair up and dies down. i don't think that that is an on going problem. i have a daughter and she's a real fast learner, started her terrible 2's a 15 months. down the road we will be walking downcast row and i will have displays to explain to her. i'm cool. if you have to explain hate red

and war, the stores like rock hard and phantom will be a piece of cake. >> as we see the changing neighborhood no longer an irish working class neighborhood. some would argue its less queer, if you will than this has been. there is an intent desire on the part of in particularly the lgbt community in the castro to maintain something like a store display that honors and acknowledges queer culture because its a way of saying this is our space we got to take a stand somewhere. we are being pushed out of our houses and community this is one place we can say, we own this business and want to display that speaks to our culture. >> people who are outraged by seeing certain types of items in

display windows i think that's disinjensius of them. they are not required to shop in the storo required to look in that window. its about freedom for me. from the merchant's standpoint there are ways to market your product in a display window in a tasteful way. >> at the same time we need to welcome the new folks coming into the community. for me its a question of education. i think its important to educate people moving into the community. about people who live here currently and what it means to have a queer culture. >> when i describe my district i generally talk about the neighborhoods connected to the parks. one of the things san franciscans are hugely passionate about are their parks. >> what a hot button issue that is dogs and parks and kids.

its tough. >> it's settled down in terms of the decision to divide up parks and create some areas for dogs and some for kids. we are in duboce parks there is a great little kids park that's part of duboce park. its got a fence and i feel its safe. kids running on the grass, they are running with the dogs. it goes back to how do we all live together in a very open, public, urban environment? and it sounds trite to say but we have to figure out how to work together because we don't have backyards, front yards, side yards in the city. we gotta come to the parks with our families. we gotta make it work. >> the problem that a lot of folks have with dog and it is stories they hear about the violent dogs and the dogs that attack people. the problems are not the dogs

that are well behaved and the ones that can be off leash. i would love to see a spay and neuter program and city wide training program for dogs. in order to get your license you have to have your dog trained to a certain level so they could be off leash e. that would be good and go towards happiness in the neighborhood and happiness between the dog will you evers and nondog lovers. >> i absolutely believe the cost of housing and quality of schools are major factors in people deciding to leave san francisco. >> the school system is better than most thank you is and its starting to win awards. >> we have a fantastic group of school board members i'm happy we work together in how the city coordinates with the schools. >> the cost of housing is so expensive families are moving

out, that's a shame. >> you are seeing a renaissance of services that can benefit all but are important to families. the eureka valley rec sernl opened. mission play ground and the delores park club house. all of those are factors which will keep all families in my district in the city and i think its worthwhile. >> the challenge of how to balance a competing needs of drivers, bicyclists and pedestrians, is it possible for everyone to co exist. >> i'm sensitive about this issue i think the bike lanes could be safsh. traffic could be better managed to make it easier to ride bakes and walk to muni stations and walk to work. its not just about safety its about beautification. we want to encourage people to bike and walk when they can.

particularly in this area where everyone wants to use cars less. >> even though we are a transit first city our roads are not safe for bicyclives or pedestrians. we need to work on the potholes. continue to build bike lanes. we are doing better at building bike lanes, certainly, i think where we fall short in part is we don't educate the drivers within the city. i continualy hear from people who don't understand how bike lanes work. bicyclists are always on the defensive. i wish i could say i felt like it was a safe city for bicyclists. which could say go to work on your bicycle and you will be fine. i don't think i know one bicyclist who has not been hit by a car door.

>> a large number of san francisco homes don't own vehicles. i think that's a good thing. people don't need cars in the city. a lot of people don't need cars in the city. >> i think to a certain extent the saying is true, if you build it they will come. the more parking spaces you build the more cars you attract. i would like to see district 8 particularly along the transit corridors and on market and where muni is effective i would like to see less parking. >> i felt like mun muni was getting better. now we have gone the other direction. the daily muni rider myself, when i go to the station during rush hour trying to get downtown and see that there are there is only one car on a train during rush hour and the trains are too

far apart coming home everybody's crowded on to fewer trains. the doesn't seem to me that's good planning or a good use of our transportation resources. it doesn't seem to me that's a good way to focus on being a transit first city. >> there are really great bus lines in the hills the buses are terrible. >> there are parts of the neighborhood in the hills above the castro are not served. all the more reason why people need to use a car. we are lucky there are a lot of neighborhoods in san francisco that don't have the transit we do. >> the district 8 has seen an increase in the amount of traffic. how did the neighborhood respond to the dangerous conditions created by the heavy traffic? >> let's find out. >> afternoon the earthquake in 1990 they had to retrofit i 280

and sent drivers somewhere else and asked them not to use 2 eighth to get to town. after 1991 cal-trans did that the traffic volume on the street tripled. when that happened because there are so many uncontrolled intersections and narrow sidewalks people that lived here found they could never cross the street. >> one of the reasons we decided to get active politically was that there are about 9 schools along the corridor. saint luke's hospital and the emergency room is at 27th which is an uncontrolled intersection its horrible watching people not being able to cross. >> my friend was stabbed at

8:thirst in the morning waiting for a ride to work. the police who came said to me, yeah you guys are sitting ducks you have a lot of people in the neighborhood but they are moving through it at 50 miles per hour and you in the way it isn't your neighborhood. because of the noise and volume of the traffic you close your windows. cover the windows and sleep in the rears of our houses and don't have eyes on the street and don't have street lights. that catalyzed me to download the parking and traffic calming application and go with my daughter door to door and ask my neighbors to sign a traffic calming application. in a month and a half i had under 300 signatures. our community solutions were to look toward widening the sidewalks. implementing street trees and greening. particularly greening the medians which we felt were not medians but there to divert

traffic from one side of the road to another and a neighborhood with few trees the medians were important 6789 we working with the mayor's office of greening and department of public works and the neighborhood raised money for soil and plants and worked with gardens, a nursery on gererroro street. we ripped out 2-1/2 blocks of median concrete and fill today with plants and trees. 200 people showed up for planting day. we have done 4 additional plantings and we have been raising money to at any time project north all the way to 20th street. when you bring more life on the street you get more life on the street. we calmed the pedestrian traffic east to west. everyone of the merchants signed our support letters for grant proposals and supported the work

we are doing because its obvious that we are making it safer and more fun to shop in the neighborhood. >> if you look at san jose and see the plannedings and the medians and the bike lanes the traffic calming measures and the stop signals its had a huge impact to sloi the traffic. >> in the castro there is an issue that troubled the narngd for years how to deal with the halloween street party. why is halloween controversial in the castro. >> halloween has been my career as a supervisor. when i ran in 2002 my headquarters was on market 2344 market. that was the year 5 people were stabbed. the crowd was so thick here that an ambulance that was trying to move from noe to the chevron station took 10 mnth minutes we

knew we had to change what halloween evolved into. halloween became not a neighborhood celebration most neighborhood residents don't attend it's more walnut creek and san jose people coming to look at the people celebrating in the castro. >> many people of the lgbt community don't go because they feel most of the people come in from the suburbs. a question of residents not wanting their neighborhood invaded and torn up by people who don't have a stake in the neighborhoods. >> unfortunately there has been some, although a small level but some violence. some homo phobia, some sense on the part of the people who live here that people come to halloween to gawk and make fun that should not be acceptable anywhere in the city.

>> people come to the castro for halloween because its the castro. they come for the people watching and the party holding a concert elsewhere in the city will not lure people away. >> its tough because i remember the days when we tried to have halloween at the civic center and said to anybody who was thinking about coming, don't come to the castro go to civic center. i checked out civic center and the castro and there were more people in the castro than at civic center. people didn't want to go to civic center. it was not a venue where people were ready to party. >> what i think we need to do is scale it down by closing off the entry points. charge a fee based on whether you are wearing a costume and make it free for the neighborhood. you can turn it into a parade like in los angeles and new york

city. obviously increasing police throughout the crowd and not just on the out skirts would make a huge difference. >> there are interesting ideas floating around in terms of trying to have smaller celebrations in different neighborhoods so people don't all congregate in the castro. in the beginning i suggested we not have alcohol. that idea has taken time to take root now there is more support in getting rid of alcohol and working with the store owners with who were concerned >> i would it to be the event that it was 15 years ago when it was fun and people had a good time. those times have changed. i'm work width entertainment commission. i got legislation moved through the board where we will hire a special events coordinator for the city to create a new halloween around the city.

>> anything that helps curb the violence in the castro is a good thing. its unfortunate but its reality. >> district 8 is home to rich and poor. drivers and bicyclists and pedestrians. gays and straights and families and swinging singles. the district will face new challenges as the city grows and changes. thanks to the residents commitment to working things out district 8 will survive and thrive. for sfg tv i'm jennifer low and as always, thanks for watching.