whether it's marketing, whether it's leasing assistance. so, this is very vital for the small businesses to be able to stay and compete in the new market in the mission. so, again, we are here to support this project and i hope you do, too. thank you. >> thank you. good afternoon. my name is rita [speaker not understood], and i'm here to support this project. and i want to [speaker not understood]. i want to thank you because i'm pretty sure you're going to approve the project. [laughter] i am the executive director of the mission education project. i am here to support the new mission theater mixed use project. our community is excited to move to the theater. i have wonderful memories of the theater. i used to take my children at

that theater, and now the theater will be back to the mission district where other parents that i work with will be able to take [speaker not understood] to the theater within walking distance. and also i'm very happy that this housing place will give people an opportunity in the mission to purchase it. also, it will bring jobs for the youth, the parents, and anyone who really needs a job. we need jobs in the mission, and i think this is a wonderful project. and i do live in the mission. i do want an education agency right on 24th street. i know that we will get great support from this project. thank you very much. good afternoon.

my name is richard segovia and i'm a resident of san francisco 59 years. i want to see this happen for the mission theater. i remember as a child my parents taking me there as a kid to see elvis presley, you know, franky avalon, and i had one opportunity -- i had the opportunity to be an usher there. i remember when i was a kid i got my first kiss at the new mission theater. [laughter] now i got a lot of grandchildren. [laughter] and, so, you know i've been here in the mission district. i've been living in my house 28 80 25th street. i celebrated my anniversary in this home. my mother graduated from mission high school. i'm part of the mission. i'm a musician. i remember roberto hernandez the movie labamba. as tan a the family. also i've been at that great

theater. * santana i believe that part is a big part of the mission. getting rid of the mission theater would be like taking a heart of the mission district. remember the seal stadium, candlestick park, we need to keep our mission theater. now i can take my grandchildren there instead of just walking by and saying, this is where grandma used to take me. this is where i took your mom. and i want to make sure that that stays a part of our community here in the mission district. thank you. >> thank you. (applause) good afternoon, members of the commission, and thank you for allowing me to speak today. i also have fond memories of the mission theater. i was born and raised in san francisco. i live on shotwell street between 25th and 26th streets, and i've lived there all my life. i went -- >> could you state your name for the record? my name is craig weber.

i represent the inner mission association. i went to school with carlos santana at mission high and i went to the new mission theater. i'm looking forward to the rehabilitation of the theater. but i do want to address one fundamental flaw in this plan, and it's something that the developers, mr. marquez failed to mention. and that is the alternative housing and the location of the affordable housing on shotwell street. no one has addressed the impact in the community of 42 units being built at 12 94 shotwell street. there is a high concentration of affordable housing in that area. * bernal housing project is located one block away from the proposed site of the construction of the affordable housing.

we are asking this commission to consider deferring a vote on the approval of this project until the mission neighbors, particularly those that are living in -- on shotwell street, have a more definitive plan of what is being proposed there. mr. marquez, legal counsel for the developer, has talked about broad community support. i submit that he completely failed in his efforts to reach out to those residents on shotwell street, on folsom street, on south van ness and [speaker not understood] and lower bernal that will be impacted by construction of these units. we would like to know, what is affordable housing and what is being planned there? we want to -- we look forward to the development of the theater and the construction of the condominiums on mission street, but we need to know how it's going to impact us. i submit, again, that you

please defer a vote of approval on this measure until we have some knowledge about the proposed affordable housing on shotwell street. thank you very much. good evening, commissioners. my name is connie ramirez weber and i've lived in the mission, i moved to north beach in 1931, and my two children, jane and craig, were born right there on shotwell street. it was completely different. we fought 10 years to get the projects torn down on 26th street and shotwell and they built them further down. and we're still having problems with those projects. i call them projects because that's what they are.

but what i can't understand is i don't see one poor person there living in those projects. they all have nice cars. they all have jewelry. the kids have everything. i myself as a little girl couldn't -- my parents could never afford that. so, i think you should think about it. i have some buildings on shotwell and i have a tenant who is paying $900 for a beautiful apartment. you go by there and see shotwell street between 25th and 26th, everybody that goes there say, i can't believe there's a street like this in the mission. but i am constantly, constantly go at the people who have like the day labors hanging around which they said they were going to go over to lowe's on the other side of the freeway.

* laborers but they're hanging around there, so, i think you should change your mind. i think the theater is great [speaker not understood], but -- >> sorry to interrupt you, ma'am. the people standing near the door could either find a seat or stand on the other side of the room, i would appreciate it. and if anybody leans up against the wall, you'll see there is a disabled push button. you don't need to force the doors closed, they'll close on their own. thank you. so, i think you should think twice about having any building built on 26th and shotwell. because we have enough projects around there. why the mission always has to have -- forget about the different colors, brown, black, red, yellow. forget about that. let's get the place back to

what it used to be in 1931. thank you. >> thank you. [laughter] >> excuse me, folks. i need to ask those of you who are standing next to the doors either find a seat or stand on the other side of the room. excuse me, ma'am, if we could wait until they comply, i would appreciate it. all of you, yes. gentlemen, would you mind finding a seat or standing on the other side of the room, i would greatly appreciate it. my name is jane perry. good afternoon, commissioners. i live on the 1100 block of shotwell street. i was born and raised there. i've seen the mission go through lots of changes. right now it seems to be on the uphill side, which is great.

and i commend the architects and designers and developers for the new mission theater and the condominiums, i think that is going to be a great asset in the mission. i wish that it would fit more in the mission with the victorian styles of buildings, but it will be an asset either way. so, my concern is with the development on 25th and -- 26th and shotwell. as you heard before me, the bernal dwellings are one block away. between the bernal dwellingses and the site for this new building, affordable housing, are over 100 units that mr. gaehwiler built a few years back on mission and cesar chavez is another over 100 units of affordable housing. * between mission and south van ness there is another huge complex of affordable housing. i think our little area has had

its share of affordable housing. i don't like how the city tiptoed around taking all the affordable housing owl of the complex on mission street and moving it into one area. i don't think that's correct. i think that it may seem like a little hanky-panky going on they were able to trade-off. that way they would get all the units on mission street at market price, and yet our little area on shotwell and 26th, we'll have to deal with another affordable housing. i don't know if this is rental, if it's purchase. we haven't heard anything about what kind of affordable housing this is. so, i would appreciate it if the mission would defer a vote on that aspect of it because we the neighbors are really impacted with affordable housing. thank you very much. * commission >> thank you. let me call a few more names.

lucy june as. pete [speaker not understood], oscar grande. tara omlegar. laura megalaro. >> if your name has been called already, you can come up to speak. my name is lucy [speaker not understood]. we just purchased a house and moved there 2-1/2 years ago and we are very happy living in mission and we are very happy to hear that mission street will be as nice as valencia street also. the concern that we have is very similar with the previous comments that you heard, is that there's no definition of clear indication of what you call it affordable housing because we do have some

problem, as you know, with crimes, gun, gunshots and gangses in the neighborhood. and with such a tight community and area, we just need to address that. and to bring in more what you call affordable, we are not sure what is. we need to find out more what they are planning to do with the complex, with what they plan in the future on 26th and shotwell. and also wondering why wouldn't -- the new complex would have some percentage of units that are affordable, like the old days, you know, the law, the coat, the theater is required to provide x amount of units to be more affordable, mixing the people that would have set a -- the environment than having two separate condition or [speaker not understood].

one is more luxury, one is contemporary, and you pay a lot of money and you put the other one that's more -- less desirable in a specific neighborhood that is already need some help, a lot of help actually. so, and then you could build a nice one on cesar and 26 and put some affordable. so, you basically get two different buildings nice and affordable at the same time in two different locations. thank you. good afternoon, commissioners. my name is letti [speaker not understood]. i'm the executive director of [speaker not understood] which is on mission and cesar chavez and the surrounding area where they're taking about the affordable housing. i'm also a san francisco native living on the mission on 25th street. we're here, one, to express that we do support the abf

community benefits. we know there are several opinions about the community benefits in our neighborhood. and our interest is in being engaged with the developer as well as with the community at large and ensuring that these benefits indeed impact the people they're intended to impact, which is in our minds the youth, lower income families, [speaker not understood] community, seniors, and all those who in the future in our neighborhood may not be able to access the theater and other services because of the cost. that's a problem in our neighborhood. anybody knows that the mission has been deeply impacted by gentrification. so, we see that we have a role in being at the table and ensuring that we're advocating on behalf of our community. i also want to say that we are in full support of the affordable housing project. we believe -- i'm sure you can explain to all of us what the inclusionary housing laws in san francisco are and why this is being an off-site proposal. we believe this will allow for

more deeper affordability for our community. that's what we are concerned with. we also don't agree with concentrated poverty, but nonetheless, we have a land challenge in our city and we are nonetheless in support of the project. i also want to highlight that i do not believe nor does [speaker not understood] believe low-income housing creates violence. what we believe is the lack of service and alternatives is what creates violence. that is also another role for us to play ensuring some of the communities benefits will be designated reach the youth who are in most need of employment, alternative services and alternatives to violence. thank you. (applause) good afternoon. my name is pete riegos. thank you for letting me speak to you. i've been aes are entitle of the mission for over 50 years. so, i know the mission like the back of my hand. richard said he got his first kiss at the new mission theater. i think i got mine there, too.

[laughter] i also remember sneaking in the back door through bartlett street as a kid because i couldn't afford to buy a ticket. but now i look forward to being able to go to the front door and buy a ticket. i want to talk a little bit about this project. you're going to hear story after story, all the same things, the impact it will be on the community, bringing jobs, housing, off-site affordable housing, all those things, although not perfect, i think there's many more pluses than minuses in this project and i think you should approve it. i support it. i also want to speak to -- there's been these wars over affordable housing in san francisco for the last 20, 30, 40 years. it goes all the way back to plaza de la raza which is behind this development on bartlett where the old parking lot used to be. i don't know if some of you remember that. that was a great project that

took advantage of the air rights. we didn't have to purchase the land and made it affordable to build. still serving all those families with affordable housing. you don't see gangs and violence around that place. this place is a beautiful place. i also want to say that the sites between affordable housing advocates and developers, it's getting stale. * fights i believe in affordable housing and in this particular project i want to see the mayor's office of housing make a concerted effort and an extra effort to provide the down payment systems programs to mission residents, people who work in the mission so that they can afford to buy these market-rate condos. the mayor's office of housing has a program called the teacher next door, and they provide $20,000 to teachers so they can stay in the city and qualify for the program. they have the same program for the police, same program for the fire. they should have that same program for people who live in

the mission so they can qualify to live there. i used to work before with the school district and there was i think 68,000, 69,000 students in the school district. this was about 15 years ago. you know how many kids are in the school district now? 55,000. we're losing our families. we're losing our kids. we need to build housing. we need to build affordable housing and provide jobs and provide placement for families to live in san francisco. look what's happened to the african-american community in the city. they're being wiped out of the city. all this back and forth over the last 20 or 30 years has not helped. i think in retrospect it's made things worse. time now to start changing that. and i think this commission could be the beginning of that. thank you for your time. >> thank you. (applause) >> excuse me, i'm going to ask the audience to refrain from clam clapping and ask the

people standing near the doors to find a seat or move to the other side of the room. thank you very much, i appreciate. * hello, my name is anastasia [speaker not understood], women for the arts. we are the owners and operators for the bravo center, [speaker not understood]. another icon i can theater in the city that still is open and still is a value to the community as we see the new mission theater project as a valuable project in our community. * i have known the work of sandra for many years. her work would be an asset to mission street. it's colorful and delightful and positive and that's what we like in our neighborhood. we also feel like the cultural aspects of the work, the new mission that is doing and community benefits, is really important. it's important to my space.

it's important for us to continue to provide job training and youth programming to help deal with some of the difficult issues in our neighborhood. i've been a community member for over 30 years and a cultural worker. and diversity and a diverse housing stock is really important to maintaining the neighborhoods that we have all come to know and love over this last 50 years. so, i encourage you to support the project and the diverse housing stock. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. i believe you called memy name. i was outside in the rest room. my name is oscar grande. i'm with [speaker not understood]. good afternoon, commissioners. i think we all see what's been going on in the neighborhood over the past -- i'll just focus on the decade. commercial corridors in mission district over the last decade increasing level of real estate

speculation, has created astronomical increase in commercial rents, evictions, unfair leases. we're seeing the rising tide once again as there's another boom. it's been detrimental to working families, the mom and pop merchants. we're seeing commercial rents shoot up from 3,000 to 7,000. local residents and consumers are experiencing a decreasing amount of variety of goods and services that are economically affordable and culturally accessible to immigrants and working families. last census we've seen a 10% decline in latino working population of the mission district. i say this, we are mixed organization, we are mixed in terms of how we feel about this project, what we see its future is in the corridor, latino working class community. with that said, our membership is supportive of the 46 units

of 100% affordable housing to families making under 50,000. that will be developed by the city at 1296 shotwell street through the developers off-site affordable housing requirement. this is our first test case with eastern neighborhoods and i grind it hard on the eastern neighborhoods in the people's plan. i cut my teeth organizing. to me land use and urban development, being a city kid -- city man, and nowses raising the second generation of san franciscans, these things are near and dear to my heart and my organization. * now with that, we've also heard that there's negotiations for a 400,000 -- as part of the community benefit agreement, of 400,000 that are focused on small business stabilization and emerging community needs. we believe these resources, aside from the other community benefit agreement funds, we

feel that these resources should really be focused on mitigating the impacts of luxury condo development. we really feel that these should really focus on the root causes, should focus on eviction defense. should focus on commercial stabilization. for those families that are struggling on the corridor, and we only see it getting harder and harder each and every day. contrary to the speaker, a couple speakers before, this affordable housing site is not stale. it's alive and well. and if we don't keep making the fight and demanding, we ain't going to get anything. so, those are my comments. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. i'll call a couple more names. charlie [speaker not understood], wendy phillips. [speaker not understood]. good afternoon, commissioners. my name is charlie [speaker not understood]. i'm also with [speaker not

understood]. and just listening to the comments of the folks who came before me, i hear a mismatch between what people are saying and the project that it is before us. i hear folks talking about stabilizing the neighborhood, creating community assets, affordable housing. and what i see before us is a project to create luxury condominiums that are out of reach i would say to most people in this room probably wouldn't be able to afford those luxury condominiums. what i'm here to say is i think the one silver lining in this project proposal is the 100% affordable housing that's proposed to be developed off-site. i want to echo the statements of my colleague. the community benefit that are proposed for this project need to address the root causes of displacement in this neighborhood. we know that those market rate units will continue to drive up represents, commercial rents, residential rents in our community and continue to put housing and entrepreneurship opportunities out of reach of low-income and working class

community members. the community benefit needs to provide support services, resources, asset development to support those communities most impacted. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker, please. hello, my name is kendra [speaker not understood] with dolores street services. i wanted to speak regarding the land dedication and community benefits attached to this site. about two years ago dolores street community services along with other cbos, supervisor campos' office and mayor's office of housing sat down with developers to work on fulfilling their affordable housing obligation through land dedication. and we encourage land dedication in order that low-income residents in the mission are able to qualify for the housing. below market rate units on-site generally go to first hunters point time home buyers who make 07,000 alone individually.

off-site would be to lower income people. we are in support of the affordable housing part of in project. as somebody who organizes with [speaker not understood] in the mission and can only stay in the mission because of the my control [speaker not understood], they respect the neighborhood and are a vital part of the community. many of us who live and work in the mission, long-time merchants working on mission street and valencia street commercial corridors have rents tripled, as you heard, as building owners see more up scape restaurants and boutiques coming in, and want to clear the space out for higher rents. as these family owned businesses are evicted and lose their livelihood, they're having a difficulty paying for rent or mortgages and are being pushed into [speaker not understood]. these take away places that low-income people in the mission can shop and eat. the corridor becomes only for those who have more money.

so, adding 100 plus condos to that stretch of the mission will exacerbate the issue for many of these small businesses and the people that live in the community. unless we see a very robust community benefits agreement, that will establish a fund to assist small businesses in the corridor, pay for legal services, to pay in order to help them adapt to a new customer base. we need this fund to be in the hands of a neutral party and we also must remember this is thev just about one project. * isn't this has a cumulative effect. that's why we're supporting a housing dashboard to show us how far we are in our affordable housing, how well we're doing with affordable housing as opposed to market rate very many. so, we understand more recent negotiations are addressing some of these issues so we urge the pluck to support us in demanding a strong community benefits agreement. that's related to the negative impacts of the project. thank you. * >> thank you.

good afternoon, commissioners. i think my name was called earlier. i was [speaker not understood]. my name is lara [speaker not understood]. and i just want to echo a lot of the comments that some of my coworkers and community members have already shared around that, a need for affordable housing in the mission. i immigrated with my family 14 years ago and the only home we know is the mission district. aside from getting to noe our surroundings. the mission is our home and i hope for future generations we have access to affordable housing in a community that not only provides a cultural and welcoming [speaker not understood], but a community that is growing and developing, but we want it to continue to be a space developing for the families that are already in. i just wanted to echo once again [speaker not understood] and our members, we are supportive of the 46