park system in america that we earned last year and we want to continue earning for the rest of america and keep putting forth those models for the rest of the country to see so that my friends, be they the mayor of new york or the mayor of chicago can envy us on the eve of my going to the white house to receive, with the giants, the 2012 world series championship, recognition that we continue to also receive the world class recognition they would have for our park system. this is what it means. but it also means that challenges that were signalled literally just a few months ago when this park was established. how do you maintain a gift? how do you look the gift horse in the mouth and say, well, we can't accept it because we can't maintain it, for them to come up with one of the most innovative models for the rest of the country to follow is an important part of this everlasting gift. because not only do we receive

this half acre with great appreciation, but we will take care of it with our other partners for years and years to come as part of the system, maintain it as well as to receive the newness of it. going forward, we can't maintain every gift that we get. we can't maintain all the things that we want to have for the rest of our city as we expand our park system. so, you're going to hear more and more of this model being created, but it is wonderful to announce this type of gift and to announce the figuring out of its maintenance for many generations to come. this is why i think the city of san francisco is so pleased with so many smart minds in the business community, in our nonprofit community, of course, in the city. congratulations to everybody. congratulations to the

supporters of the emerald park. and when the noise turns down from the construction all over this area, you're going to be blessed even more with this great park for every generation to come. thank you and congratulations to everybody. (applause) >> thank you, mr. mayor. well, they say the devil is in the details, but sometimes there is an angell in the details as well. let me walk you through a few of the specifics of how this actually will work. so, this is a conservation easement that is a legally binding attachment that will go onto the title of this property. once it is filed, it cannot be revoked. this is forever. under this conservation easement, the emerald fund gives up its right to the development of this site also forever. it dictates it will always be a park and always be open to the public. the conservation easement also dictates that the emerald fund assumes full responsibility for the maintenance and the upkeep

of this park. the conservation easement spells out clearly defined standards for the maintenance of this park and these standards define this park to maintain essentially to be in the beautiful condition you see it in today. it also spells out the emerald fund agrees to pay for the installation of a new children's play structure which will go upright behind us here today. that structure is on order. i understand it's a few weeks to get it delivered and they'll go forward with the installation as soon as possible. after that, once that installation is complete, this park will be open to the public. the parks alliance will be the steward of this conservation easement and that means it is our duty to monitor this easement, to make sure that this remains a park, remains open to the public, and remains in this beautiful condition that it's now in, also forever.

it bears repeating that within a few weeks emerald park will open to the public forever at no cost to the city or to the people of san francisco. so, i want to give special thanks here to the people who helped to make this happen. first off, i want to acknowledge since 1971, the san francisco parks alliance and its predecessor organization have been supported through the legal counsel of the law firm [speaker not understood]. and the executive director for the past two years, i have trouble imagining any possible way that the parks alliance could exist and has not been for the pro bono legal counsel that we've seen over the years. that has continued in this day in the form of board member lynn iceder blurbing behind me. glenn is a partner with pillsbury and he took the lead role himself in personally drafting this conservation

easement, making sure that the parks alliance ~ role as steward is well articulate and had well reflected in this. we're also joined today by bill hutton who is the attorney representing the emerald fund and they put together an incredible deal for us, incredibly quickly. glenn, i cannot thank you enough. (applause) >> thank you. finally, of course, we cannot conclude without giving a special thanks to [speaker not understood] and alastair and saline and peter for their incredible generosity in making this special arrangement to provide a public park to san francisco forever. let's have a big round of applause and thanks to all of them. (applause) >> it's quite a noisy setting,

but i think why don't we take a try at -- if there are any questions from the media for just a minute or two, we'll take a stab at that and we'll also be available for individual interviews after that. do we have any questions from any members of the media that would like to try in the group setting? >> [speaker not understood]. >> question about what will be the cost for the maintenance and how will that be handled. alastair, do you want to take that? >> we estimate around $45,000 a year. >> we're guesstimating somewhere around $45,000 a year. once we run it for a while, we'll know much better. >> additional questions? we'll see you, then. let's call this press conference to a close. thank you all for coming. we'll remain available for individual interviews on an as call basis.

thank you all. ... >> so, good morning, everyone. my name is mark farrell. i'm the supervisor from district 2 here in san francisco. last year, thanks to the great leadership of our mayor ed lee, his office of housing in particular, olson lee and brian chu who are here with us today and my colleagues on the board

of supervisors, together and with the voters of san francisco, we passed proposition c, the housing trust fund initiative, to create and approve affordable housing city-wide and to provide loans to assist with the down payment towards the purchase of homes here in san francisco. the passage of the housing trust fund was and is a huge win for all of san francisco and our residents as one step in the right direction towards continuing to solve our city's ongoing housing needs. we are here today to announce the launch of a renewed down payment assistance program for our first responders here in san francisco. statistics will say that the majority of all of our first responders live outside of our city limits, and i for one believe that our communities and our neighborhoods are strengthened here in san francisco by the men and women who put their lives on the line every single day for us as san francisco residents. those that are standing behind me here today, living here within our various neighborhoods of san francisco, we're not only safer on a day-to-day basis in our

neighborhoods when our first responders live in our streets, but also when the next big one hits here in san francisco we need to be ready to be responding and be a resilient city as we strive to do here in san francisco. when proposition c was being crafted, i introduced an amendment to help our first responders remain here in san francisco, to provide them an opportunity to qualify for down payment loan assistance programs that were not previously available here in san francisco. before we had a down payment assistance programs only for our police officers that amounted to $20,000 down payment loan assistance. it wasn't effective. it isn't enough, and didn't make a meaningful difference. as a result, those funds largely went unspent and unused, and police officers continue to leave our city to find housing elsewhere. after the voters blessed proposition c last year, over the last few months i have been working with the mayor's office of housing.

again, want to thank olson lee and brian chu for their strong involvement, in consultation with our first responders, their union membership, their union leadership as well as the general membership of their departments, as well as homeownership sf, a city-wide coalition of experienced nonprofit homeownership providers to craft an initial program that matched the intent of the voters while also taking into account the unique needs of our first responders here in san francisco. i believe that we have found a true middle ground today with all of the stakeholders that provides down payment assistance for our first responders and encourages them to move back into our city of san francisco. this next year is going to be a learning experience. we will continue to adjust the program over time with the goals of making sure that our down payment loan assistance programs in san francisco for our first responders is as expansive as possible and as effective as possible. we want these men and women living in our streets and in our neighborhoods.

given the support for this program here today and the overwhelming demand that i have heard from our first responders, i am confident that we will have a success on our hands and a program that all san franciscans can be proud of. but i want to list a few of the qualifications from a high level perspective for our first responders in this program. they must be an active member of our police, fire, or sheriff's department. they must remain an active member for five years after qualifying for this program. they microsoft must not have owned a principal residence in san francisco the last three years and this must be their only principal residence moving forward. each household is limited to one loan that is 200% of ami for the household ~. and they also must qualify independently for a 30-year fixed rate loan so that we can ensure that our first responders that qualify and use this program remain in san francisco and are healthy financially.

as a native san franciscan who grew up in the marina and whose family was deeply affected by the 1989 earthquake, i saw firsthand how integral our first responders are to making sure our streets and our neighborhoods are safer, again not just on a daily basis, but in a time of great crisis here in san francisco. this program is intended to truly help our city's first responders live in our neighborhoods and making our neighborhoods safer. it's a new policy priority here in san francisco based on vocation, not just income. and it's something that i believe the voters of san francisco have spoken for and something that we can all agree on as a priority for our great city. i want to thank everyone for taking the time to be here today as we get set to launch this exciting new program. and at this time really thank our mayor ed lee who not only was the leading charge behind proposition c and had the vision to make it a reality for san francisco, and put so much on the line to

make sure we passed it last year, but to also say that his leadership has allowed this program and this first responders loan program to happen. and i want to thank him for his leadership, again, the leadership of his team and the mayor's office and brian chu and introduce once again our great mayor ed lee. (applause) >> thank you, supervisor farrell. it's my personal pleasure to work with you. not only have you done great things for your district, but for the city as well. it was kind of fun, you and i and our friends being there at the white house lawn yesterday celebrating the 2012 world series for the giants, and having president obama give us such great warm accolades. that will help us this season for sure. i am enthralled to join supervisor farrell here to launch our program focused on

our first responders and help them afford a home here in the city. and for all of reasons that supervisor farrell listed. but i also want to take the opportunity to thank all the san francisco voters, our housing advocates working with business to help create this opportunity with proposition c last november. and giving us the privilege to implement it in the right way. and i know there's been good solid debate at the board of supervisors about how we go about doing this, but compromise has been reached. we understand they are giving all of us room to maneuver, to do the right things, have the flexibility that a pilot program takes. but the ultimate goal has been agreed on very strongly, and that is that we must have our first responders living in the great city of san francisco. our police officers, our firefighters, our sheriffs, to people that we look to to depend on the first critical hours when an event hits our

city. we want them here. but also on a nonevent basis. i happen to live next door to somebody who is a member of nert, the neighborhood emergency response teams. and he is so proud of being able to be trained in our neighborhood in glenn park. by firefighters who know what they're doing, and just having that presence there in our neighborhood makes our neighborhoods feel stronger, feel confident that government is there with them and for them, and that the people who work in this city are there with them in case anything were to happen. that's the feeling that i think is represented by the launch of this program. and, so, the officers standing to the side and behind me, not only am i proud of the work that you all do on a daily basis, but we want you here all the time, 24/7. we want to live next door to the people who are caring about the city. just as we would for teachers, nurses and others who are also already participating in our

first-time home buyer program as this program gets launched for our first responders. i think the city becomes incredibly more strong on an everyday basis on all city, each neighborhood basis when we have our first responders here. you know, the experience that we've had in the last few weeks at the airport again remind us how valuable our first responders are. i continue thanking them for putting their lives on the line and taking all the risks necessary to keep our neighborhoods and our city safe whether it's at the airport or in the recent fire that occurred this morning or all the other emergency situations we might face. at the same time on an ongoing basis, we need more of our city employees who work for our city living right here to take advantage of. that's why i'm proud of supervisor farrell who led the effort with supervisor avalos and others to make sure that our first-time home buying

programs are programs for down payment assistance are working well and working to get more of our city employees to live in our great city. i'd be the first to say we haven't done everything that we can possibly do. even though i know there's some 42,000 units under construction already in our city already permitted and whether they're here along mid-market or they're in hunters point or they're in treasure island or in park merced, and i think we've done well to get a lot of projects going. we have to also deal with affordability. and that was my link to the success of the city, that while we become more successful, we're not leaving anybody behind. we're a city for the 100%. and we want everybody who wants to live here being able to be here. and in particular, those that we want to be here are going to help us recover in any kind of event. in an emergency event, i've been trained ever since my very

first visit to new orleans after their disaster happened in katrina so know that we've got to recover better ~ to know. we've got to ask everybody today, we want you -- we ask you to live and work in our city. and if there is anything to happens, to be right there for people so we can recover extremely fast and well. this is the vote of confidence that our voters had in us, with the housing trust fund, and also working with us to make sure that we had a first-time home buyer program and the first responder's home buying program so we can locate everybody here who needed to be here to help us with a quick recovery if there is anything that should happen. this is the context in which we launched this program. we will adjust it along the way to make sure it continues to work effectively. and i'm gratified to be working with olson and his team of people that are community developers and housing developers to make sure this happens for everybody. thank you to our first

responders, to our chiefs, our sheriff, our police chief, our firefighter -- fire department chief, and all of the rest of the employees here who will take this opportunity to live in our city as well as work for the greatest city that we have. and as we become more successful, we'll take care of others who want to live in this city as well. with that, i'll introduce olson lee who can explain everything from debt ratios to how this program works and all of the different financing schemes that we have to make sure it works well. olson lee. (applause) >> thank you. i really want to thank the mayor and the board of supervisors for their leadership, again, on the whole prop c effort and also the voters of san francisco. i will not go into a front end and back end debt ratio because everybody will glaze over. but i will say that we are picking up the program. we will have the great details

about the program on our website. this is the mayor's office of housing website which you can reach through sfgov and that will be on the website no later than august 1st, which is on thursday. it's a great opportunity for us to expand what we have done previously with the down payment assistance program, and this is indeed an expansion of what the city has, has done to serve its residents, the city and the employees. at the same time we are doing this first responders program through the budget process led by supervisor farrell, this has been the first year of the housing trust fund program and there's been a variety of programs that have been funded with the housing trust fund passed by the voters. and this is one of the first that we are rolling out. we will continue to roll out other programs related to the housing trust fund as the year

progresses. but again, just to summarize, this is the down payment assistance program. as supervisor farrell said, it's $100,000, it's a shared appreciation program. the funds roll back into a pot of money that will be used on an ongoing basis to help not just the first first responder, but a subsequent first responder so over time this pot of money will grow because it will be replenished through additional budget cycle. and as both the supervisor and the mayor said, this is the first year and we will fine tune this program. we will try to identify what works and what doesn't work. the goal of any of our programs in the mayor's office is that the program is effective. so, where the program needs to be tweaked, we will tweak it. we will report back to the board and to the mayor about the effectiveness of this and we really look forward to engaging with the first

responders and making sure that we have a really successful program. i want to take this time to acknowledge brian chu from my staff who, along with jamie lou and a lot of folks on his team, worked really, really hard to sort of adjust the program to make sure that it worked for the first responders and we really appreciated all the input we got from the community as well as the first responders in trying to craft this initial program. so, we really look forward to this kickoff. thank you very much. (applause) >> thanks, olson. i want to recognize a few people here that have been instrumental in this program and the creation of it. again, we mentioned olson and brian chu, but want to thank our union membership. i see floyd from 78. i see marty from our police officers association. michelle and don from our sheriff's unions. ~ 798. i also want to recognize chief

hayes white, and sheriff mirkarimi, thank you all for being here and for showing your support. i want to introduce someone i felt was really important to make sure that we connect how this is going to affect the members of our first responder department on an individual basis. and i want to introduce someone who has been a part of the sheriff's department for ten years here in san francisco formerly a cadet here in city hall, now part of the investigative services unit, has been renting in san mateo, i understand, for the last five years and is looking to purchase a home here in san francisco. and one of those first responders that we are proud to have not only working for us as a city, but someone that we want to encourage to live within our city limits. allow me to introduce to you mercy ambat. (applause) >> first of all, i want to thank everybody for being here today. my name is merci ambat.

i'm so proud to be here representing my department, san francisco sheriff's department. i'm a senior deputy sheriff with the san francisco sheriff's department. i've been working for the department for a little over 10 years. actually, as supervisor mark said, i started out a cadet. thank you. i started here as a sheriff's cadet in city hall and then i got -- i became a deputy sheriff, then i got promoted as a senior deputy. currently i'm the sheriff's investigative services unit. as an immigrant to this country, i'm honored, peace officer of san francisco. it's been a really hard for me to find a house in san francisco because, as you all know, the housing in san francisco is not that easy.

but one of my -- one of my proudest moments in life when a former sheriff mike hennessy swore me as a peace officer in san francisco, that day i decided that this is my place, san francisco is my place. this is where i want to live. this is where i want to buy a house, in san francisco. and again, my department has been great support to me ever since i started the department. it's been almost 10 years. i can mention a lot of names who have been support to me including our chief of staff, former sheriff, captain, different numerous people have been helped me. i don't even know why they helped me. they didn't know me. so, to me i feel like this is the city i owe and i'm so -- [fire engine] >> sorry.

again, i used to live in san francisco. but as you all know, the housing prices here are very high. so, i had to move out of san francisco due to the cost of living. now i am renting in san mateo. but again as i said before, this is where i belong. this is where i want to serve here because i'm a peace officer san francisco. and the city spent a lot of money for me, so, it's a pay back. and again, because i want to live in san francisco, i've been saving money to buy a house in san francisco. but again, as i said before, and as most of you know, the houses are very expensive here and then comes supervisor mark farrell and his excellent team, come up with a program to assist first responders with a down payment assistance program. that's what exactly what we need. many of us want to live in the city and provide our services

to the city, but -- [background noise] >> we have been forced to live somewhere else. i feel like i take the paycheck from san francisco and spend somewhere else. and, again, i want this program. i want to take advantage of this program. and i want to live in san francisco. again, i want to thank mayor lee, supervisor mark farrell, sheriff's department, our sheriff ross mirkarimi, the union, the [speaker not understood] association, managers association msa, for everything, they come up with a plan to help first responders. and i believe that it's a god send gift program for us because we want to live in the city because we want to serve the city. this is where we belong. and again, as i said, i made my

decision when former sheriff mike hennessy swore me as a peace officer. i decided this is where i belong. and, again, i want to thank [speaker not understood] san francisco and everybody for being here today. and again, it's a lot of work. ~ voters of san francisco and i hope that the mayor of housing department and also mark farrell, supervisor mark farrell has enough money to assist us all who want to live in san francisco. not just 10 people or five people or two people. i believe that everybody deserves a chance. those who want to live in san francisco, those who want to provide service for san francisco, because we believe that this is where we belong. and that being said, thank you all. thank you for coming out here. and thank you for letting me speak. thanks again. (applause) >> thanks, merci.

and thanks again for everyone being here today. i am supremely proud to stand with our men and women in uniform that are our public safety officers here in san francisco, with mayor ed lee and his team to launch this program today, and look forward to making it a great success. so, mayor lee, olson, i will be here to answer questions if you like off to the side. but thank you all for being here. much appreciated. ...

>> (clapping) so this is a photograph of my father which was taken in 1986. it's one of the families farther photos it's the way i think of him. my father who could be very articulate was hesitate to speak about art. his own work or the art of others. i think he felt trapped by the formality and the permanent of his words they're often inadequate to express something comple