completion of the project. thank you very much. >> there were 10 people who requested accommodations. i don't know if many of them are left. ethel silverstein i know, is no longer here. ms. traveler? i don't know if you are here, but feel free. if you can raise your hands so i can get a sense of who you are. >> we did have one group that needed to go first, and then we

will hear from everyone else. >> this project has been -- this project has had a lot of misinformation. contrary to other views, it doesn't cost the taxpayers a dime. this is a singular, unique opportunity for the west side of the city. the investments in housing at park merced will subsidize the following -- $150 million in the value of the rent-controlled housing.

900 b.m.r. units, 1/3 would be cited on site, two-thirds would pay the equivalent of $229 million. this is quifflebt in scale to a public housing bond. by the way, we have a terrible record in the city of passing those. goodness, could you imagine what the mayor of the office's housing could do with that much money to fund affordable housing in the city. are there other terms elsewhere, like redevelopment, for instance? we would say a certain campaign has been waged to frighten the park merced residents by telling nem if the project is approved their homes will be bulldozed and they will be turned out in the streets. these accusations are reprehensible and easily refuted. development agreement with the city requires building new rent-controlled replacement homes for all existing 10ants

before a single home is demolished. it requires park merced to extent tent rent control. some folks continue to make dark and dire threats. the city is the other party to the development agreement and represents both their and our interest in this. to say that the city of san francisco willfully negotiated a development agreement that allows evicks, displacement, and lots of rent control protection for its own sins is fear mongering. the two projects were both noshed by the city of san francisco to require the same rent control for existing residents. are the residents of trinity plaza also at risk for loss of rent control or eviction? it is funny, we've never heard

those allegations made. what is most important is that the development agreement itself, a legally-binding contract between the city of san francisco refutes these ack sayings. this agreement is a public document and is posted on the city's web site for anyone to read. in the repeated presentations you heard from michael yarny in this room again and again and again, you heard the park merced development agreement was expressly designed by the city to be both enforceable and to extent tend a costa hawkins challenge. on the question of historic preservation, while opinions on park merced architectural experience vary widely, it has never been established as a historical site. park merced was built quickly and inexpensively by metropolitan life in several cities after world war ii using

a cookie cutter form. san francisco's well known architectural heritage abuses the conversation about the values of historic preservation and why it is important. on the question of environment, of which this is a central feature, we should note that the old park merced was con seeved -- conceived and built at odds with those in the cities today. they have low-dense land-use values that no longer make sense. the new design makes far better use of the city's scarce land. the old development is built on heavy use of hedge-heavy drinking water whrks we are talking about preserving the green spaces there, we are talking about landscape that requires tuolomi river water.

this is not sustainable. tho the old new homes exceed title 24 and would consume 60% less energy. the old development was con seeved with conveniences for automobiles and drivers as its paramount design feature. today we're reeping what we've sewn. the number of nonwork related automobile trips in mark merced is double that of a typical street neighborhood. by contrast, the new design specifically addresses -- increases walks on bicycle and

transit and if adopted, this project would make an enormous private investment into muni, buses, t.d.m., bicycles, intersection improvements and so forth all in an area now notably unflendly to anything -- unfriendly to anything other than cars. buildings have run down despite improvements over the decades. not one of the homes is -- no coffee shops, no grocery stores at park merced. the buildings are at the end of their useful life. which asset demands your protection, especially the investment that would make far

more environmently successful and liveable neighborhood. finally, our environmental challenges and fairness demands all of our city's neighborhoods, including those on the west side, accept increamental -- incremental changes in size and density. a new term was introduced to us, "density equity." he said it is not fair some neighborhoods continually accept a much higher share of development in their neighborhoods while other neighborhoods accept much less. density equity requires that the west side also help contribute in addressing our city's need for more housing and in bringing housing closer to jobs. the project opponents are clear and vehement in their rejection. bless our hearts, we should acknowledge their fears about change.

but their clearest and most unified message must be, we want the past. we don't want the future, we want the past. even if it were possible to accommodate that, it can only be done by paying a terrible price both by what this could deliver environmentally and the enormous investment it would make of an investment on the west side. this project represents a pivot point in west side neighborhoods. i hope you will help the city address the challenges that the future demands on us. thank you. >> what we do, is we have -- we have groups that request time, and everybody should be aware of it. we've announced it before. you can ask for a block of time, and your organization can speak. but then nobody else from the group is talk. that's all we hear from h.a.k.

all night. sometimes people prefer not to do that because more of you can speak and be more represented. yes, mr. goodman. >> i didn't know about that. >> that has been a commission rule for years. everyone can ask for that block of time. sometimes it is housing action coalition. it just depends. see what will happen is if one person -- if then this person speaks representing the whole group, that's the whole time you get kind of thing. individuals can speak, but no one representing that park m erced action can speak.

let's take a recess for five minutes. >> i think there is a lot of confusion because a lot of you don't come to commission hearings on a regular basis. but the commission has had the rules and regulations for the

30-some-odd years i've been here. one of the rules they have amended is one to allow people modified times to address. they interests futured mod -- they instituted modifications to their rules for a group to get up to 15 minutes for standard and complicated cases. for a period not to exceed sa 15 minutes. -- 15 minutes. this will be recognized only upon application to the president prior to the hearing. again, i apologize if most of you were not aware of that prule. -- rule. this organization did write and ask for a block of time in advance of the hearing and the

president granted that. the president has the right to modify the amount of time a person requests. they can request up to 15 minutes and be given 10 minutes, as an example. in most cases -- actually, in all case that i'm aware of, the president has granted the block of time making sure no other member of that organization is allowed to speak during that hearing. i'm only aware of one request for a block of time from that hearing. they were given their 10-minute request for a block of time. there can be no request for a block of time at the hearing. i apologize for that. i am not hear to divide or ask a lot of questions, i just wanted

to state the rules as they exist. >> i want to entertain questions from two people. if you can come up to the mic, and that will be end of that. ms. marshall, if you can just come up. >> in terms of the literature put out, i think there should be a response. just on that specific point of bad faith. bad faith has been shown eveeggriegeously -- egregiously on the part of park merced. including trying to purge the tenants association. >> i want to clarify this rule for people that are not aware of it before. so ms. marshall if you can step up to the mic. >> what i heard you just say was

that opponents can request from the president a block of time. that was not an opponent. that last person was a supporter probably paid by the developer. it seems outrageous that they were able to get -- it has always been our practice that either side can -- >> that was never my understand as a opponents. we have always people given people for or against a project. >> the sponsor has all this time. so you had a rule that the opponents would also have time. so it is ironic that another supporter got more time. >> he did. he got 10 minutes was his block of time. >> cemac is willing to cede 10

minutes to mrs. guerra. >> but then no one else from the group can speak. wait a minute. wait a minute. we're getting out of hand. we have stated, the president has stated that she is not accepting anymore blocks of time. everyone here can get up to three minutes to address this commission. everyone. not your organizations, but every individual speaker can address this commission. >> the practice is to do it in scrans. that's what -- do it in advance. that's what the rules say. we were not aware it is for opponents. that has not been our practice in the past. >> i would just like civility and enlightenment. the problem of setting up specific time is it does not always relate to the way it needs to be said. this is not the discussion that

needs to happen. >> thank you. we're going to go ahead and start and go through this list. i did get someone who asked for acom dages that needs a translators -- translator. they did not immediately pick up on what we were trying to do. i'm going to ask you to come up now, ma'am, and bring the person . you can have your three minutes and then we will start going through the list. >> i will do translation for mr. huang tonight. [speaking foreign language]

>> i am the president of the community tenant association. we are the largest community-based group with over 800 members. i am here to express concerns.

>> there are a lot of uncertainties in this project. a proposal of 8,900 units. the discussion of demolition has not been specifically addressed. more importantly, the demolition of 1,500 west units is risky. we need to conserve and not demolish the west central units in san francisco.

>> we hope the city will continue to engage the community for active concern. also protect the lives of the 10ants. >> thank you. >> ted rolison, sarah karlinski, william wiletti. i'm going to just keep calling names. peer luigi, gail strang, james guilinitis. >> good oong, commissioners. it's nice to see you all this evening. it has been another lengthy hearing on this project, but i want to commend all of you from

working hard to practice a good delibtive democracy, which i know is not always easy to do when there are strong opinions on both sides. my name is sara carlinsky. we would like to offer our support for this project. we believe this project represents one of the few places for density on the west side of san francisco. we spend a lot of time over the past decade discussing increased density on the east side. many of you have been part of that discussion with the eastern neighborhood, market-october tafia plans and other plans as well. it is exciting to think about places that are not just on the east side of the city, to add density. that would be appropriate because of their prans transit orientation. we believe this is an opportunity to transform what is

a bedroom-centered community into transit-oriented development. we are supportive of a -- there has been a lot of discussion about that as well as the addition of a new neighborhood core within walking neighborhoods of the residents on the project site. as has been noticed in the plans and the discussion, all the streets within this project will conform to the better streets plan, and we think that is an exciting opportunity to take a plan that is huh had a lot of development with input from this commission and actually apply it in the realed world. we think it will represent some really good on the ground im pleementation that we can think of streets. we generally support transit im -- improvements in this plan, which we view as being critical to the fact of the development.

we are supportive. specifically the creeds of subsidized transit passes. there has been discussion about the one-to-one parking in this project. we believe because of the long timeframe of the project it might be possible at various phases to look at reducing that over time. we are supportive of the density contemplated in this project. we like the fact that there is the higher density and the taller buildings are actually clustered in the portions of the site that are closer to the transit. we think this is sensible and in keeping with other ways that we thought about planning in the past in market octavia and elsewhere. i thank you for listening to my complents comments and the comments of my peers here. thank you.

>>eth l -- ethel silver stein. adam -- some from s.f. tomorrow. let's get to these. >> i just wanted to say that i repeat what secretary avery said earlier. that if you were members of s.f. pac, your time was up when tim spoke. >> at some point the city attorney might need to address this question. i don't know if you want to at this time or not.

>> a deputy city attorney. the rules and regulations about when a certain group can get an amount of time, and it is policy that other members of that group are then urged not to speak additionally but under the brown act, every member of the public does receive up to three minutes. i think it has been the commission's understanding that if that policy was routinely violated, you might reconsider it. i am not aware that there has been additional members of the group that spoke. that's a determination for the commission.

>> good evening. my name is lonnie. i am from the california organization for state-wide renters rights. our director, who has testified before you in the past, dean preston, unfortunately could not be here today. he's in san diego on business. he asked that i come here tonight to submit four articles to each of you. i have copies that i would like to distribute. the first piece addresses the fact that there are a number of tenat. -- tenants who oppose this. the numbers are there. looking just at the footage of the last hearing you had, there is a very large number of people who oppose this plan.

the second piece addresses the lack of a solid timeline. the third piece in "beyond cron." the article does not report on the project, it supports the project. it fails to address the lack of viability. in addition in addition to quoting the p.r. person for the developer, it quotes the department organization. it doesn't explain why that person is the former head. that is because individuals put their personal belief and support of the project ahead of the belief of the organization that he represented. which is not to support the project. the final piece addresses the fact that if this project is approved today, you-all will be authorizing a free-for-all at park merced because there will

no longer be review for you or the public. we know developers will be working on approval so they will sell for a profit. each of you consider all aspects of the project and demand answers to the serious questions that are still unanswered. on a personal level, i would like to share with you that i spent the last three years working with people that rent their homes. i was in new york with tenants living in a river tin, and these plans have crashed and burned in the past and it is just going to happen here in san francisco. thank you. >> thank you. i think you are next, mr. faulkner. >> several things. first of all, the earthquake