from the start what people needed from the area and what were the issues of the area, and how park merced could fit into those fixes and challenges. one of the things we recognized is that the community feedback has been critical. we have tried extremely hard to make sure everyone knows about the project. that they have questions or concerns they are informed and can talk about it. to summarize some of the top 10 comments from those meetings, there is no place to have a cup of coffee on site. the idea of having youthful open spaces is something they really liked. better parking and transportation. certainly one of the big topics we've heard all the way through. and obviously address some of the maintenance issued and challenges with an older property, how those could be fixed. and obviously, improve security.

with the neighbors, their number one issue was public parking, and providing youthful open space as well. density concerns came out of that as well which relate to any increased densities out there. the common theme we heard between the two was traffic. we reached outward and said we have gone ahead and enlisted the help of four photographic reports in this project. one is west to samp. out there. lives in the community. another two are well known firms, acom and ferom-pierce and we reached out to lee to understand what the issues are and what the creative fixes are and what we can do as a whole.

one of the first things we did, we sent out a survey to understand their issues as they saw them day in and day out. we wanted to step further with our residents and have them tell us exactly where you go for a typical day. how you use transit, how you use your car. we got an over 10% response rate to that. it really informed a lot of decisions that are here today. we're excited to continue working with them. with that, i will pass the

microphone. >> this is one of the most significant urban design opportunities in this country today. i want to very quickly and briefly walk you through the summary of park merced as it exists. i will use this power point. i hope you can see it. to begin, park merced starts with the idea to build a number of residential neighborhoods across the united states in the 20th century. park merced was built in the 1940's as a racially segregated housing development especially for dislocated servicemen. the plan was based entirely on the automobile. as we know, at that time the auto was considered to be the

future of american culture. you should be careful what you wish for, i suppose. a total of 384 dwelling units were built at that time. half are apartments, half are mid-rise towers. the current zoning would allow for 11,000 dwelling units total. this is not an originap designed for and about san francisco. it was repeated by met life and shults. park merced are developments you will see from the east cost to los angeles versions. it's not a distinguished version of architecture nor is it a distinguished work we are planning. as you can see by the four examples here, they were designed as separate communities with laverage blocks and round-abouts that were designed

to keep cars moving through the neighborhood at a good clip. as you can see here, pieces of the original project were sold, leaving today 152 acres which are devoted only to housing. the intent of the new process is to avoid further piecemeal development and to maintain single ownership which is what makes this opportunity, this neighborhood, truly unique as an opportunity. the garden department is only available during world war ii -- to world war ii historians, with wood and plafter. money that is been invested, but that's not a single one-time fix. this will have to continue indefinitely because of the

nature of these buildings. the building is under sized and they do not meet current a.d.a. codes. the lapped escape is equally consumptive using 85,000 gallons per year simply for irrigation. t interesting, the windows are however they leave the street without eyes on the street. if we consider the context of what we now know about the negative impact of suburban-style development in this country, the u.s. averages -- basically 70% of the climate change we produce is a result of how and where we produce our housing and buildings and how we move between them. in other words, sprawl is the enemy. the u.s., as you also know, is the worst in the world in the

production of carbon per capita. because san francisco is a walkable place, we are better than 34069 -- better than most in the world, but worse than many. park merced will be able to drastically reduce carbon emissions to meet san francisco's goal in 2030 to be one of the lowest emissions cities in the world. it is also important to note that sprawl affects this city. it is not just the sbeshes. the city has become, and as you know, you can see the slide, a through-way con dute for people commuting to south, west, east and south counties. this is especially true on 19th

avenue. in addition, we have people commuting here for jobs in addition to the through commute. we can see that san francisco has had virtly zero net population growth. but at the same period, through traffic increased 378%. the traffic is caused by suburban through traffic, not by san francisco urban neighborhoods. perhaps we should consider a tax of suburbanites. [laughing] as you know, we have seen the flight of families and children from san francisco. we have the fewest house holds of children.

clearly the ability to walk safely to schools is one of the single most factors in this unhealthy -- the inability to walk safely to schools is one of the single most facters in this unhealthy trend. this would allow for unprecedented opportunity for it to evolve in a safe, healthy, and sustainable neighborhood in the future. this is a -- one of the best in western neighborhoods. the principles involved in this, the owner will work with the city and pay for transportation, including bringing muni into the site. we propose to create new

ecological parks by adding $5,679 new dwealingsdwellings. when add -- new dwellings. the total dwellings on the site will be 8,900. in addition to housing, we propose a school, neighborhood serving retail, and other amenities. even though this is far less than the 11,000 gelling units that would be allowed by p.u.d. on this site, we believe this is the right number to meet the environmental and social goals that have been articulated for this project. because we have designed this as a single neighborhood and complote neighborhood to single ownership, the environmental results are astounding. these are some of the best accomplished in the world.

greenhouse gas emissions, reduction 60%. also, consumption, a 60% reduction in use. this is with the current technology we have here knowing about. going forward, we think that can be improved upon. i would like to walk through some of the key concepts. it was formed by years of meetings and discussions. it begins with a vibrant central core, which includes retail, child care, and schools. you can see from a four-minute walk for neighborhoods and a max numb 10-minute walk for everyone. the retail rodgeect focuses on neighborhood vitality.

it is very neighborhood friendly. we think it will be an active and vibrant social center for this neighborhood. these will provide a variety of auses -- uses from gardening to each of these will be an adjacent community use room such as workshops, kitchens, and work at home facilities. they will activate these for the neighborhood commons. there are many layers to the transportation plan. the most dramatic is making access to muni safe and convenient. over-crowded platform with san francisco state students and those in the city.

we work with muni and the city. the cost by park merced. we can also create a very strong civic statement for the city from silicon valley and south. in the interim, low emissions shuttles provide access to bart, to daly city, and noncommute hours will provide access to adjacent shopping. we work with the m.t.a. and create a bicycle network that will create what is currently a fragmented public system.

connected together with the neighborhood commons which will also have bicycles available for the residents and for the public. in addition, we'll have car-share pods. there is also limited access into park merced and limited access in the adjacent neighborhoods. we intend to open this up, especially along the boulevard, which will eliminate the con jex -- the congestion that you will find at park merced currently. pedestrian safety is being specifically addressed with these cross-walks, which will be a model for the rest of 19th avenue for this part of the city. one of the biggest environmental

challenges we have had in the last 20 years is that water. the water shed, natural system, it has been urbanized. much of our storm water is diverted to oceanside water plants. our proposal is to remove park merced from the city's storm harvest system and harvest rain water into new open green space, therefore replacing the aquifor in lake miller sed. -- in lake merced. chair maxwell: i just said, that's great. i'm really impressed with that. are you working on perhaps daylighting parts of the water shed? >> we can't venture out beyond our property lines, but our intention is to daylight all the water sheds within this department.

we've worked with the lake merced task force, and they are enthusiastic about this, because they believe this will help to address the serious problems lake merced is having with water levels. as you know, much of park merced's open space is captured by lawns and it is basically nonuseable. it is public open space. the intention is to make these public spaces really socially active, vibrant, and productive. the public recreation area will be accessible and very flexible. it will be adoptable to ladross -- lacrosse, for example. the neighbors are particularly

excited about the opportunity to share these facilities that park merced will be providing. interesting, also, in this new open space we are providing, will be a commercially operated organic farm. this will be not simply a farm, but also a useable park which will provide produce for this restaurant which is based within it and the community. there will be semi-public court yards which provide direct access to tot lots and community gardens. these will continue park merced's theme of landscape and sustainability. in mapping, it is important to note this will all be achieved with no new buildings that will be talling -- taller than the existing. we're going to avoid any cove rance of views from neighborhoods looking to the west. the majority of these plans will

be low-rise, four to six stories. there will be a series of small lower towers sprinkled throughout the neighborhood, and new mid-rise towers will be clustered adjacent to the towers, minimizing view encome brans, and screening what might be considered -- encombrance and screening with what might be considered new architecture. so too summarize, this is the current mapping of park merced. as you see, lake merced boulevard in the center of this project. the idea, as has been described, it developed over 20 years to provide an authentic neighborhood using the best bay area architects to do so. this will show you how it will occur. the first five years will be in-field development on available open site. which we said at the beginning, there will be no one required to

be displaced from the neighborhood during the entire process, and rent control will continue to the new units for existing residents. this in field will continue in the fist first five years. in the second five-year phase, muni and organic farm will be created. fields will be built. in approximately to -- 20 years, the project will be complete. finally, the met ricks, will result in no additional energy or water taken from the city's infrastructure. all of this works without additional burden. and fimely i will say, with the and fimely i will say, with the implications of this plan, adding almost 5 rk 200 units, we will have a net zero of new carbon in the city. in my experience, supervisors in the city and without, i know of no other development that has

this ambition and can achieve this, from what we know today. thank you for this opportunity to present present this, and we'll be happy to turn this back over. chair maxwell: what do you think makes this possible? is it your vision or is it the fact that it is a single owner? i don't know how this will turn out, but the vision that you have here is really right on point, and i think it is very visionary and very important for our city. whether it happens or not, i don't know, but at least going in, it is great. >> i'm certain if it's approved, it will happen, based on the owner's commitment. i will say the vision is an extension of the visions of the city. this city has, i think, some of the highest ambitions for setting a model for what urban life should be about and what civilization should be in the 21st century. the 21st century. it does come from the fact there

was a single ownership here. it comes from the fact when you are bringing muni in, you can come directly from the grocery store, get off, go back to work. it is that have, very unusual opportunity here that i have not seen elsewhere. >> thank you, colleagues. supervisor mar. supervisor mar: yes, this is quite a fascinating development from a world war ii kind of from a world war ii kind of planned community development in new york, l.a., san francisco to making it more modern for today. i would think stakeholders within park merced were key to this. i have a question about their developing expansion plan. i know in this initial expansion plans, they had a conference center and hotel on the park where jonestown is, and they have potential buildings that would be on the edge of the park

merced development, but i am wondering what movement there is with park merced and san francisco state planners. >> we've been working with -- discussing this. keel keeping this up to speed. we have had open dialogues with them and really engaged with operational, whether it is related to division. it has brought and fostered such community in a lot of ways. with san francisco state we sat and talked with them about the goals throughout the area. certainly san francisco state's proposal is separate from ours, but we are trying to make sure the two don't conflict in anyway, that they work together for transportation goals and all those aspects.

we are looking for family housing. i did want to clarify one point, though, earlier on. it is our intend of all the units there, rent control today, that when this prize is complete, there will be the same number. whether it moves with the rezzdepent, it will stay record in that new unit. thank you. >> in terms of the city's perspective, i would want to emphasize the earlier statement, that this required multi agency effort to look at that potential growth. to the best of our knowledge, jonestown, there is no project moving forward currently, but it is nice, we anticipated that growth as if it were occurring, which gives us an envelope, a planning envelope rvings if you will to work on if. and if you remember, that tier

5, that was referenced, which is the city's vision beyond park merced, what is nice is we actually have a document in place if stonestown comes back in five years, which we hope the economy is doing better, with the project. we noah head of time what mitigations you have comprensively as opposed to dealing with that in a piecemeal fashion. >> i know some of the residents had problems with the child care, and we're worried that different families serving in community entities like that would be displayed. so that's a question, in towns like the project's proposal, there is do good planning for family-sized units and a school and child care. but the other fuzzy area is the site that's been the school yard, that's been boarded up, that the school district was in negotiations with san francisco state and others.

but what's the status of that, because that's on the edge of the play field and a major area of the development as well? what's happening with the font street site that used to be school for the arts? >> park miller sethsed investors doesn't have control of that site, just to clarify that. >> we have had a hearing on that, and i talked to the head of property over at the school district. they own the property there. the -- san francisco state made a bid and they maintain ownership until they get what they feel is an appropriate number. chair maxwell: thank you. any further public comment or comments? then i would like to open this up to public comment, and i will give -- what i would like to start with is have our canine

friend and his partner, did you want to have public comment? why don't you come up and do your public comment so we won't keep him muzzled. some people we want to muzzle, but him we won't mind coming up. >> as far as the park merced plan, i think this is a very good plan. and also, i like that they said the place would be animal friendly, because san francisco is an animal-friendly city.

>> i think daniel fill yips has done a good job with park merced, dealing with management, getting this together, and getting it handy cap friendly? -- handicap friendly? i have known them for years. something needs to be done with park merced. a lot of the buildings are in very bad shape. they need to be fixed up. yes, i am concerned with the traffic. also, i guess you could say there are jobs, people need jobs, and of course i would hope that a lot of people from the neighborhoods would be hired.

i think there are a lot of people sometimes in park merced, if they really want park merced to be something different, they should buy park merced, but they don't own park merced. and i think that the management and the people that have owned park merced have really reached out to the tenants and really tried to get all the input that they have been asking for. and they have done an excellent job as far as that's concerned. i even wrote daniel phillips a

letter several years ago that i support it. that i understand, that he's doing the best he can. i think -- like i said, i think he's done a good job for pelochi and a lot of the different people, the management in park merced. they fix things in our apartment when they need to be fixed. and they need to -- when they need to be fixed and they come by. sure, there may not be -- people always complain about everything, but really, they have done a an all-around good job. chair maxwell: thank you investment thank you. mark christianson? jim cook? jeannie scott? >> hi, i'm president of the neighborhood triangle neighborhood association. before you start the timing, i want to let you notice, i was not noticed on this meeting. i rre