stores and corners of the north side of washington. and to bring temporary vendors, to increase the flow with positive activities, we must improve the crosswalks for the safety of the pedestrians. no more peter pan tents. the park is a people's place to all the visit the waterfront. we want to improve visibility and bring back active uses like soccer, frisbee, volleyball, and more. let us preserve the refuge. we urge the construction of a

major bicycle center similar to the one in chicago. serving the public as the preferred location, this would not only rent and store bikes, but would be an outlet for sports sales. the center would be a fit for the public trust status that would be interconnected with the recreational center that must be preserved in its entirety. [chime] thank you for your consideration. president olague: thank you. sir, it's been three minutes. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. i am president of the golden gateway tenant's association.

a rent-controlled complexes founded by washington and other streets. we enthusiastically support the community vision for reasons stated by other speakers. we are especially interested in preserving open spaces, preserving its existing community facilities and improving access to and from the area. i would like to add a personal fought. -- thought. we are expecting significantly increased traffic.

including the plaza bordered by retail shops instead of a barricade of parking lots. we hope you will give this favorable consideration as you move afford in planning the future of the exceptional neighborhood. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, president. it is great to see everybody here this afternoon. it is groundbreaking. they hire a professional planning group and put together a plan. this is groundbreaking for us. we have spent countless hours

inside the workshop and outside the workshop. i am sure that you have some much spare time. if you have a moment, take a moment to read this. we have put -- or what we thought was missing was a community input. instead of just railing against the plan, we have come up with something unbelievable, in my opinion and unprecedented with the level of cooperation. the effort is kind of impressive because what we found was a bunch of neighborhood groups not just saying that they want open space, we recognize the need for revenue generating

projects along the waterfront. we came up with a great, specific ideas. these are revenue generating projects. and yet, it complies with the trust. there is no need to look at isolated projects. this is a holistic vision that i, for one, am a part of. i wanted to talk about the time, death, energy, and passion. you can bet we have been hearing a lot about it. thank you for your consideration. president olague: [reading names]

>> good afternoon, commissionaires. i am a resident of the golden gateway center now called the gateway for over 30 years. i want to offer my support for this asian neighborhood design vision plan. i have been an active participant in the development. i attend a workshop and i can honestly say that it reflects the wishes of those that contributed to the preparation. the part that i find most gratifying if you have a chance to read it is chapter 5, social infrastructure. open space and active recreation. there is overwhelming consensus and support for this in my neighborhood, particularly active recreation. i was also an active

participant in the northeast steady. i intended all of the workshops, submitted written comments, and i can honestly say that design principal 5 on recreation does not reflect the consensus for the neighborhood, particularly active recreation. i urge you to adopt this vision plan. this plan balances revenue generating open space and active recreation uses across the lots and is both financially and politically feasible. thank you for your time. >> i am president of of the

coast neighborhood association. if you review the boundaries of the community vision plan, that you're learning more about today, you would find the area under study is practically identical to the boundaries of the neighborhood coast association. we work in the neighborhood and we try to raise children. as the association most affected by planning, we had high hopes when supervised chiu convinced the planning department to make appointments in the area but we were disappointed with the outcome. primarily designed to justify a huge development, it lacked

details concerning the other lots and set up a continuation. in addition, the pleas for community consensus was alternately ignored. it was embarrassing for those of us that live in the subject area. we joined a dozen organizations to provide a model for development and growth for many decades. the vision planet is it fair to the city and the port. we urge you to adopt this plan and to steer it and the proper direction. president olague: if you limit your comments to the northeast

plan, did not focus on projects because of his knowledge the discussion is for today. >> i approve of this vision plan that hits on all of the important items necessary for the beautification of san francisco. we do not need a monster tower at washington that would block the view of the historic building. it goes against your own planning department policy. please go by your own suggestions. there is an article that says as eliminating cars in the cities of europe are the focus of a wonderful area. avoiding pollution, cancer, all of that stuff.

america's cup will bring huge revenues. a sole focus on getting the big money in. incidentally, i know a little bit about developing space. as far as recreation and the park, we don't have an off land to develop playgrounds. what we do have is a terminal that has four football fields long of park areas that will have sufficient exercise, playgrounds, and all of that stuff. we don't have an of available plans to develop that.

focus on what is needed. let's get the proper development. let's bring in businesses like that. there is the beautification of it. it lets keep the waterfront beautiful. it brings in of a lot of money from events. this report has all the right things. please listen to the people. it they live here and work here. they know what is best. thank you. president olague: [reading

names] everyeone elone else i called b. >> my name is nancy shanahan. the luxury condo project that requires the inclusion of a publicly owned a lot held in public trust for the people of california is not what comprehensive planning is about. but that is what the planning department the study did. we participated in good faith in the department's planning process and grew more and more frustrated as it became clear that the comprehensive process was being used to respond to a single private development proposal. this frustration is the reason that the telegraph hill dwellers and other community organizations decided it was necessary to engage in an

alternative planning process. by approaching development of the comprehensive lot, our plan shows that economically viable and politically feasible development can occur on the lot that meets all of the following planning principles. respecting the height limits. character and scale of the surrounding neighborhoods as well as the historic but bullethead building. -- bulkhead building. luxury condos are not permitted without special legislation. not adding shadow to existing parks protected by proposition k. protecting public views of the city's world renowned iconic

topography. and developing parks and open spaces, recreational uses active and not active on several of the lots. 76% of the telegraph hill numbers supported it in a recent survey. thank you for considering our community's vision for the waterfront. >> i am the new president of the telegraph hill dwellers. we are one of the oldest and largest neighborhood groups. san francisco truly is -- at the title story is a port city. san francisco always has been and always will be intimately

connected to the waterfronts. over the 57 years, the city has seen the waterfront and the port evolves. for too long, for most of our city's history, it was the wild wild west. it was reactionary driven by ideas, many of them extraordinarily bad. it was only shot down because of neighborhood organizing. to replace the northeast waterfront, a real proposal that had political juice behind it, in response to those, citizens

and environmental groups got together and asked the voters to approve a ballot measure. what it did was put a moratorium on development until a comprehensive land-use plan was created. not just by the government, but with a genuine community input. the land-use plan was adopted. one of the reasons we're here today is that it is wildly out of date. that is not just a bad idea, it is a violation of the law. the waterfront plan should be reviewed by the city agency

designated by the board of supervisors every five years. it hasn't happened once. it is not just a bad idea, it is a violation of the law. they say it will take years and hold up projects on the waterfront. the city center of an effort with no government funding, a shoestring budget, real participation took less than a year for an incredibly thorough and substantive provision for the waterfront. the city can do it least as good. [chime] president olague: thank you. thanks. >> good afternoon, commissioners. we want to add our enthusiastic

thumbs up to the neighborhood community plan. i'm kathleen dooley. we feel the pain of having all of those visitors coming in not knowing how to get to our lovely commercial district. we were very active with this community development plan and are kind of creating the new corridors that would bring not only tourists, people from the terminals, and our neighborhood has a real lack of recreation. we would love to be able to find a way to get our neighborhood people to come down and more easily utilize the waterfront. we just want to add our enthusiastic support.

we do reflect a large, broad groups of people and the northeast waterfront. >> i don't want to waste time talking about my background, but i was around the waterfront before some of these people were born. one thing that i want to focus a bit more on today, that is the unfinished business following the demolition of the freeway. that being traffic, transit, and parking. there have been numerous failed attempts over the years to produce a comprehensive study of these issues along with a plan to resolve them. that task force project was

originally started in 2006 by a group of us. i was one of the four primary people that started. it is the strategic analysis report initiated by our tax supervisor when he was on the board of supervisors. the topic is the waterfront transportation issue. there is concern at the time that there would not be follow up to that. we have a very crafted a group of interdepartmental task forces. the initial organizing meeting was held in the city. it was swamped with personnel. it was more or less treated like second-class citizens and it was

difficult to participate. we never were included in committee meetings. the whole thing just kind of fell apart. but not with the transit and traffic issues. we desperately need to resuscitate this with a more inclusive format. neither of the studies reference to the report or a follow up. funding was critical to get rid of the freeway. to compensate for the loss of the freeway, broadway is designated freeway level routes leading to today's congestion. but equally environmentally unfriendly. how could you promote the northeast waterfront as the weekend excursion destination

when it is dominated by vehicular congestion. i learned long ago that pedestrian management is the key to successful urban planning and a healthy living environment. whether it is an elevated freeway, the impact is the same. [chime] thank you very much. president olague: thank you. >> my name is jennifer, i am the president of san francisco tomorrow. i want to emphasize my support for this plan and remind you that the best planning efforts that we have seen have been community driven. this is the next iteration of it. for many decades has and myself since 1984, i have worked on the

northern waterfront for almost 20 years. transition before and after the freeway, the change of sure rooms, it is such a unique neighborhood. we really need to think of it as a whole. the of the parking lots and the historic area. how do we bring that together? i think this is a good first step in addressing that. commissioner fong here will give you some expert advice. it will try to make this a plan that the city can move forward and support.

>> i would like to commend them for the excellent vision plan to have put before you. they're deeply experienced and they know what they're doing. it is very thoughtful inappropriate except in one particular instance. i would say that in spite of all the grand pronouncements and the dramatic visuals, what is before you is really about a couple very simple land-use questions. should the law be preserved as a surface parking lot? and the second question is, should the city of san francisco realize the value of this extraordinary land? or should the city provided economic subsidy for neighbors who oppose the lot for being used for anything other than a surface parking lot?

the community vision plan is flawed. we should not be confused that this vision plan is a community plan when compared to the planning department's own excellent study that they produced at great cost in terms of 18 months and endless meetings and public notices in which they incurred in no small amount of hostility for their work. what is interesting is that there is really not that much conflict between the planning department study and his vision plan. the proposed division statement as had no public scrutiny or opportunity for anyone except local folks to weigh in on it. we were not favored with the reply. the folks that commissioned the study and pay for it get to determine its outcome. but on a central question, the

central question that this is really about is the future use of the sea wall lot. it appears that the plan is that instead of a surface parking lot for cars, it should be a surface parking lot for bicycles. the idea of bicycle centers, they require enormous amounts of subsidies. who pays? where does that come from? i would urge the commission to consider preserving surface parking lots on public land along the waterfront represents the past and not the future. thank you. >> this is a perfect lead in to what i was going to say, that this is about the development

feasibility of all of the sea wall lots. what i want to do is to do that. if you start off not with a process, but you have to have revenue generating users on these lots, and you want to have active recreation and open space and others, where does it make most sense to do the development? you'll be amazed at how smoothly the development process will go. a big the planning director said it best. these are two different kinds of studies. the planning department's was an urban design plan. ours is with the next step would have been. these are in the right sequence. i wish they happened closer together, but they are in the right sequence. what we did after we completed

the consensus on where the development should go, they say that if you stay with these uses and stay with the public trust, does it make sense to develop the community? the answer is yes. hotels are viable at the locations even in this economy. the conversation about the hotel that is doing very well. i am told it is one of the most successful in the city because he not only did business travelers, but you get people from the bay area. my wife and i go there for a wed to have fun in the city. there is a strong demand during the week and on the weekends. the developers willing to build within the 65-foot