specific goals making sure as we acquire properties are meeting open space deficiencies in the denser parts of the city and have acquisitions and leverage funding sources and whether acquisitions for this area or funded the development or development or maintenance. in this case the friends of noe valley have fund raised close to $500,000 in pledges towards the development of the open space and what is motivating the current time line and speed and have the property in hand by july 1 so we're eligible for a grant that can contribute up to $720,000 towards the development of the park and that is a substantive amount to be contributing to the development. i want to remind commissioners

we have been successful receiving grants for 17th and folsom for the randall museum and other parks and all multi-million dollar grants and that is motivating us and we have another strong competitor here and we also want to pursue properties that have a range of uses and flexible to respond to the community's needs and demographics. the purchase price for this parcel has been identified as about $4.2 million but there is going to be a price reduction of $350,000 associated with remediation costs so we can use the acquisition funds to address those costs upon renovation of the park so that is great because that reduces

again the cost of developing the park or burden on other funding sources so we're very happy to report that. the community has a concept plan. that plan needs to be vetted by staff. it does include a play structure as well as other park amenities and our goal is have the noe valley farmers market operate at the site with no interruption in service and we will work with them on the schedule, et cetera. maintenance of the site has been an important discussion not only for this acquisition but for other three acquisitions we're talking about at 900 enis, trying to find a park to develop in district 6 and the francisco street reservoir and it's rare in this commission's history to have that many conversations going on at the same time around acquisition and it positions us

to have a good conversation with the rest of the city about the funds that need to be committed to this department to ensure that we can maintain properties that we acquire. i think we're all familiar with the context of san francisco real estate and its intensity and competitiveness and as a department we're in a difficult position you don't want to wait 20 years to have the monies for the properties and guaranteed and you need to act now and then the properties will be gone and too expensive but we need the city as a whole to own the decisions and support us in that endeavor so to that extent i think we are working with the board of supervisors and we made that need very well don't that we would like to work with the board to identify maintenance resources for this and the other acquisitions that

we are considering. lastly the time line for this acquisition again with the goal of having the property under recreation and park department jurisdiction by july 1. we have already submitted a letter of intent for the property for grant proposal and a pre-application and they decide whether or not they would like to hear more from you, and then we introduced legislation to the board of supervisors this week for the acquisition and we are going to wait for 30 day hold so that we expect to be at the board of supervisors either hand use committee or budget or finance the week of the 20 and targeting the full board of supervisors and once they vote we need a few weeks to close the deal out fully so with that calendar it's been reviewed from

john from the department of real estate who is here today to answer questions and that should get us that time line so with that i can take questions. >> let's hear public comment before we get commission questions. please supervisor did you want to speak first? please. >> thank you for giving me the opportunity and good morning commissioners and thank you for your work. i am here because i am a passionate supporter of this project. it is i think one of the very best projects that is going on anywhere right now in terms of a vision for great public space in noe valley . on tuesday i did introduce legislation to allow for the purchase through the open space

acquisition fund. just backing up a bit in -- what we call downtown noe valley and the commercial area there is no public plaza, nothing. there are sidewalks which are very crowded, and there is no public space. you can go to the outside of the neighborhood and go to parks but if they're in the crowded highly trafficked commercial corridor there is no public space and that's why i think a number of years ago when a bunch of neighbors in noe valley got together and founded the farmers market and one of the few markets that doesn't have an outside vendor coming in. it's created by the neighborhood and operated by the neighborhood. they started that and it exploded and if you of there on a saturday morning

and it's the town square and when we learned that the noe valley ministry is going to sell the parking lot to finance the earthquake retrofit and remodeling we were concerned we were going to lose this space and the farmers market and when people started talking about acquiring the property to turn it into a permanent town square i was skeptical that we would be able do ifinancially because we know if it's not purchased for open space it will be sold for development and probably have condos there so i was skeptical at first although i was always supportive and over time i have to say it's been

absolutely extraordinary what the neighborhoods has done and grass roots from the neighborhood and people raising money, putting together community meetings to come up with design options, and gradually building support and it has broad and deep support in the neighborhood and the fact that these pledges for half a million dollars before that was a commitment from the city speaks volumes and the ability to get the money to make sure we can build it out, so i'm a big supporter. i am passionate about it. i am really thrilled that we can get it done and i

urge your support. i want to follow up on one thing that dawn mentioned before about maintenance and i know department and this is one of the drums that i beat at the board of supervisors and along with dpw with rec and park the policy makers that set the budget, the board of supervisors and the mayor for many years have not given the department the resources to maintain the properties and the department has become very resourceful and generating its own revenue and that creates controversies as we know but the department does what it needs to do. as the board of supervisors and the mayor we need to be better at giving the department the resources to maintain the properties and i put my money where my mouth is because in last month's budget add in

gardeners, a crew for the department and although it was just one crew i wanted to send a message that we needed to get our act together with budgeting for rec and park and you have my commitment to support adequate funding for maintenance for all of the parks and including noe valley town square and i will continue to do that so i am happy to answer any questions. >> thank you supervisor and thank you for the expression of support for the maintenance. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> i'm going to scpgd read off names. [calling speaker names]

>> over head please. >> hello. my name is frank trysta. based on objective creative and open space development and your own policy this is an excellent candidate and i urge you authorize the purchase. number one it's located in a high needs area, two, it eliminates a geographic deficiency or gap in open space. three, it eliminates a population density deficiency. four, there's been significant neighborhood contribution to the purchase and there is perhaps maintenance income from the farmers market. starting off with needs. they're defined as high population with open space and generally half acre per

thousand. a distribution deficiency or gap are areas outside this area and within a quarter of a mile of a play ground. this is a map from the roads that indicated high need area. this is focused area that is circled and introduced to the algorithm and the highest priority but the town square is one focus area and if you look carefully at the needs, namely the darker versus the lighter, that the town square is in a high needs area and not everyone in noe valley are rich. if we go to the quarter mile or play ground examination the noe valley town square is right in the middle of a large gap. there is no play ground there so this eliminates that deficiency. if we go to the more

restrictive active or half mile radius we find few gaps in the city, but one that is there north of clipper street and two blocks from the proposed acquisition so this will eliminate that gap even at the half mile radius area relevant to the documents we use for acquisition. the final one i would like to show you is the half mile radius from the open space and if we look at this we see there is basically 1.4 acres per thousand individuals in this area. the recommended open space is less than 1/3 of the area. this is most affluent here and there wouldn't be any opening space

except for dolores park and the area that is covered by this and the least affluent area and would benefit from it so if we look at the criteria it's in a my needs area and open space deficiency area and money that the people have raised for either construction or maintenance. i would recommend that you purchase. >> thank you very much. >> peggy. >> good morning and thank you. i am peggy cling. i'm a noe valley resident. i lived in for 38 years ou tt the most wonderful thing that happened in the 38 years that i have lived there is the farmers market and not only the market but what it's done for the neighborhood and to the neighborhood. i am there on a

lot of weekends on behalf and i am surprised how many people come from foreign countries and other states to visit our farmers market so i know it's a wonderful thing that people bring other people to and i want to recommend or i want to support your recommendation to the board of supervisors that this spot on 24th street be purchased to create a town square for my neighborhood. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> chris keen. >> li. i am chris keen. i am a member of the noe valley ministry, the church selling the parking lot and i talked to some of you in a previous meeting just to give a little history of this lot, but this property was given to the church as a donation by a group of people from noe valley and it was the desire of the church to not

just sell it to the highest bidder but have it enrich the neighborhood which we felt met the spirit of the church as well as as the generosity of the donors and you will hear next from peter gable who started this thing rolling so i won't steal his thunder but peter and others that created this farmers market transformed our community and what we tried to do in the process is continue that transformation and find a way for people to connect and come together and think how we can use public spaces in our highly dense neighborhoods like europe as real centers for the square, so we think this is exciting, not just for noe valley but the whole city of san francisco. thank you. >> thank you.

>> [calling speaker names] >> i am peter gable. i am a long time resident of noe valley and one of the organizers of the noe valley farmers market. about 10 years ago some of you may know that the real food health food 24 on 24th street closed under controversial circumstances and a group of us rose up in the neighborhood and came together and we actually held meetings at the noe valley ministry in the public space. 200 people per week came to the meetings and we developed a determination to provide a context for -- to the extent that real food flattened the spirit of the neighborhood we were determined to reignite it and build it up again, so we're were determined to provide healthy food to our own community and we gathered in a

smaller group to create the noe valley farmers market. thanks to the partnership of the noe valley ministry we were available to use their vacant parking lot -- not always vacant. sometimes there were cars in it but they set aside it on saturdays for us and we generated human connection, mutual affirmation in the noe valley neighborhood. i think one of the great things about it is the farmers market has brought out the longing of everyone to come out. having seen the space when it was dan's gas station for those that go back that far and transformed into a parking lot

and transformed into a thriving farmers market with 2500 people a month come into it and this is great for the neighborhood and a model for the city. i am hopeful you will support it and glad to be here to say so. >> thank you. >> matt. >> matt aggradey executive director of the san francisco parks alliance. we are the independent partner to the city for parks and open space. i am here to support this project. for centuries a core aspect of life is have a commons, a central place to gearkt, convene, share stories, to socialize. in modern times we filled that need through town squares and other spaces. san francisco is a city of

neighborhoods, each deserving of its own commons. noe valley is one of the larger neighborhoods but didn't have its own commons until now. residents of noe valley town square lead by todd david has been pursuing this possibility for years. they're a fiscally partner of the parks alliance and working to pursue this vision and bring it to reality. the proposed noe valley town square is a creative and financially viable solution and approach to provide this vibrant neighborhood with its own commons. the parks alliance is happy to provide independent confirmation as you heard from dawn that this project does indeed meet the commission's criteria and priorities for acquisitions. it fills open space. there any isn't open space within half

mile acre of the site. it provides opportunities for play areas in the town square. it will provide a children to actively recreate and if you have been to noe valley recently you know how important that is. it will provide for active and passive recreation. through the farmers marngt it will serve san francisco's needs so it has a regional approach and the proposal leverages other funding, both private support that they have been able to raise privately, very impressive and the state funding that is applied for and the income generate d through the farmers market and finance the on going maintenance of the park so the

parks alliance supports this acquisition. >> thank you. >> [calling speaker names] >> todd and we are going together. i am the president of the noe valley town square and parent of a fifth grader and noah goes to school in the neighborhood and has a younger sister and incoming kindergarten arer and we are residents and frequent the farmers market on saturday. i want to give you a little history as to the community involvement in this project so i was approached by chris keen and couple members of the noe valley ministries in 2010 that the parking lot needed to be sold for the ministry and there was a pie in the sky idea

wouldn't it be great to save it as community space, and so at the time bevan dufty was the supervisor and current community college trustee raphael introduced me to marlin thomas, the neighborhood parks council and i and other members of the community met for months and months and figured a way to move forward on this project and eventually we said if the community really wants this to happen we have to find out if they're willing to put the money where their mouth is so we held community meetings what the community envisioned the space to be and in may 2012 we set up a table at the farmers market and raced pledges and today we

have four $80,000 from the community and marilyn was supportive and bevan dufty moved it forward and supervisor wiener has been amazing. the parks group has been wonderful to partner with and giving us timelines so we get information to you on time and i don't think we missed a deadline so we're hoping that we can move the ball forward right now because as dawn said we have this july 1 deadline. mark leno's office contacted us and prop 84 and

the greening grant and it fits in perfectly for us, so i just want to say i think this has support in the broadest sense of the words. noah, do you have anything to say? >> yeah. i go to the farmers market every week and there are no parks around there. the only one that i can think of is close is the little park up on 24th and douglas so i just think it would be great to have a park there. >> thank you very much. [applause] >> steve and leslie and then we have jonathan and claudeeen ryan. >> good morning commissioners. i work for the san francisco park alliance with the parks program and it's a pleasure to work with the residents of noe valley town square who put the project together here. we are

excited about this project. a couple of things appeal to me personally. one is the expansion of open space in a city with high density such as san francisco it's great to add new green and open space for people to recreate and it's been some time since we considered that and great to see this projects and other projects that you will be considering moving forward. this is a great project with so many partnerships with the residents of noe valley town square, support from the supervisor's office and the volunteer support that the residents have provided. another great thing is the flexible nature of the space created. you have so many different generations in san francisco and all of the different age brackets need open space that they can take advantage of it and meet their needs. when you create these

open space town square spaces there are so many creative people in san francisco looking to use them and you will see all kinds of incredible uses from music, use of the new open space, the farmers market and all other kinds of creative things that you will see coming into the park so we urge support for the project. thank you very much. >> thank you. >> leslie. >>i am leslie crawford and a co-founder of the noe valley farmers market and the neighbors representative of the farmers market and i just wanted to say when we started the farmers market it was an expression take back the food and what was going on with the real food store and

thought it would run about six months until the store opened again and everything went back to normal but it's funny how things work out and 10 years later the market is thriving. it's not about a farmers market. when whole foods opened up and that is the end of the farmers market and we clicked the number of attendees every saturday and we have the same number -- actually it's gone up over the years of people coming and you can see it if you go there. they go there for community and not coming for the baby a rug laand how it can transform a neighborhood. i have been in noe valley for 20 years and it's a great lesson for my kids

grew up there and eaten the baby arugula -- not so much, but i'm so excited for the future of a town square here because in some of the meetings in developing the park it's done important to peter gable and me and the noe valley farmers market this is about community and bringing in a broader community so we worked with james lick to start a garden there. we are excited about bringing them into the town square and gardening projects and schools and not just about the neighbors coming to the market but a greater community and younger people and older residents and programs throughout the week and making the space vital and