report that there would be 1400 affordable housing units. i just want to be clear if those are going to be on site or offside? >> those are all on site units that will be built along a folsom st. on public parcels in that neighborhood. >> thank you. >> seeing no other commission questions call let's open it up to public comment. >> any public comment? >> mr. president and commissioners, i have been on various committees involved with said transit center for several decades now and i want to give you some background on how we got here. in 2005, the joint powers agency announced it could only identify enough money to build a bus station. that announcement ups said the

mayor and supervisor and other city officials who felt if the city had been involved in the examination of funding sources, there might be additional moneys made available. debonair and supervisor created a task force headed by the former planning commissioner who spent several months looking into this and made several recommendations. one of them was a bit of a gamble which we succeeded with and that is we've made an application and got federal funds to build the underground transit terminals for the trains, $400 million. the other was the report that they made that is the item before us today, which is the day they analyzed and came to the conclusion that by rezoning

and increasing the heights in that area, additional value would be captured. a bunch of it could be invested in building the train tunnel downtown. that is what you have before you. we've seen approximately $400 million will be an additional city contribution to improving the regional at long-range trends for san francisco. this is immensely important, a decision that has been supported by the voters in several elections. when you are contemplating the issues you have to contemplate, i would urge you to take a balanced approach and remember this project is not being driven by developmental interests. it is being driven by the need to improve san francisco's transit systems and connections to the larger world. thank you very much.

i hope you will support the matter. >> thank you. is there any other public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. we are now on item 8, the glen canyon park improvement construction contract. >> good morning. that was my previous opening. >> we want to keep it in the morning. >> i'm going to try to go as quickly as i can and provide as much information as necessary. i am with the rec and park planning division and i'm pleased to have the opportunity to present the staff recommendation for the award of the glen canyon park project. much smaller than the last item but very important. this is an extremely special,

the first large, eat -- extremely special, diverse, extremely large, this is the entire park. this is about a 70 acre park. the portion we are talking about is on the tail end, the active recreation point of the park. this is a very large park, over 70 acres and what we try to do is find a way to have a great combination of the amenities and recreation we're trying to encourage. it's a challenge and opportunity to make this things better and the question before you today is whether to award the contract for the work on the playground,

a tennis court and aspects of the recreation center as we move forward. a side note -- $12 million has been set aside in the upcoming bond proposal for the november 2012 ballot to give a complete renovation of the recreation center. we are trying to make sure we spend those funds diligently so in the event we have those funds in the future, we're not redoing work. it is a puzzle that we have to work toward. i'm going to get a little context. this is the recommendation to award the contract for approximately $3.7 million. get a very competitive bid and we were also able to add the

first alternate item for the heating system. has not been working for quite some time and is quite cold. during many of our meetings, it was quite cold. i just wanted to show you some of the various facilities in the park. the glen canyon rec center, the oldest recreation center in our system, it is a very special building. silver tree further into the canyon and all of the trails that go back into acres and acres of the park. what we have done today is starting in 2010, we went through a community outreach project. they helped us with the overall planning. we went through a robust

planning process for 2011 and in 2012, we have been doing the detailed design of the contract for you. i have given some of this presentation in the past, so i'm going to just mention we did a series of community meetings and other people may speak to that later. several meetings and workshops where we walked their trails and talked about the playgrounds and the different elements people would like to see there. we have a blog war i regularly post updates on the project. the overall park improvement plan was developed through that process. we are just going to be giving a portion of the overall project. the last time we were before you in august, the commission approved the guest of the trust for public land outreach and provided a tent -- $400,000 to

do the process that helped us decide all of these pieces, where the tennis courts would go, how much bigger it could get, how we could make these pieces work together. we were directed to proceed with the development of the design. we had to additional meetings that talked about the design of the playgrounds. this is the area we are focused on today. it is a limited area of the park. it is probably the area you think of. there is a new entry pass, a larger play area, do tennis courts, a new access into the park. it is hard to get in right now. it's a canyon and those are the challenges we're working with. it is a complicated side and we're trying to provide good access.

here is the design we arrived at through the detailed design. it includes the tennis courts and a playground that is double the size of the existing playground. right now, you can see the current interest. it is very confined and you can see the new tennis court. i wanted to mention a couple of things that have come up that we continue to discuss. a lot of folks would like to see the playground be as big as possible. the same time, we want to maintain the tennis courts and keep the fields. these are the kinds of things everyone wants to have better but i'm excited to report we thought we could only have a 76%

playground but we have a 97% increase. it's a big and will have more swings and a sand box which the community wanted to make sure this site had an icelandic is going to be really great. in addition, as we discussed in previous meetings, the tennis court relocation will require the removal and replacement of some of the trees in that area. overall, we will be planting 164 new trees, a net increase of 94 trees. that's a good plan to move forward and have additional trees in this very important part. the current area is very small. about 3700 square feet.

this is information i provided on the web site which shows the tennis court in des new location what impact a small number of trees, but we did talk about it in that community meetings. is a trade-off if we want a bigger playground, this is something we discussed it to make sure this is something people wanted to do. these trees have had a difficult time as well. couple of them have fallen in the past. one fell across the street, one fell across the tennis court and they are trees that are quite old. the next step is with the approval of the award, we would start construction in the project will last approximately 10 months and wrapped up in the spring. we're going to keep the recreation center open through january. we have to replace the heating

and ventilation system and do a certain amount of asbestos work. we will have to work out a limited closure of the building and notify the community well in advance. that concludes my presentation. there are a couple of additional letters of support i have provided and the glen canyon park board association provided another a letter and i would like to provide that if i may. thank you very much for your time. >> thank you very much. we will hear public comment and then get questions. >> [reading names] >> and here to speak on behalf

of the san francisco [inaudible] we support this project and we would like to see a lot of these improvements being made in glen canyon. but having said that, we are very concerned and rather shocked by the number of trees that are going to be affected. i would like to say two things about this. one is the number of trees seems to be very high and secondly, the criteria for the removal seems not to be related to whether they are hazardous are actually in the way of the project, but another criterion altogether which is a grab bag of various criteria. i would like to talk to the transparency of the process. a lot of community meetings were mentioned that they were held and people associated with our

group were at many of them. the understanding we had was the trees that were just referred to would be the ones to go. let me put up a picture from the final report on the community meeting. the areas outlined in white are the trees referred to next to the tennis court which are likely to go. i will put up one other. this was from the community meetings and it shows the projects that were discussed at the community meeting. this map is something our group

has developed from sun shining report and all of those circles are trees that are going to be removed. the red circles are trees that would be removed because of poor suitability. there is one hazardous tree in this whole lot. the green circles are trees that will be removed because of the project impact. this is where our concern is. we don't know how many trees will be removed or the cumulative impact will be when the plans are completed, the trails and natural areas program. it looks like it is going to impact hundreds of trees but we don't know how many despite the fact of try to dig into the data to the best of our abilities. we like the tree cutting portion to be suspended until it is reviewed and discussed the public. [tone]

>> i would like to provide letters and maps. and this package, i would like to provide. >> we have two minutes to go. i'm a frequent visitor to many of the natural areas and i want to say congratulations to park and iraq for the trail that was just built. it is a wonderful trail. there are many good and things being done by the natural areas that we are not opposed to those. you were talking about the kids in the park -- my favorite thing about going to glen canyon is the kids in the park and how much they love going to the natural areas in the park.

i wish you guys would do something at mclaren because it deserves something just as much as plan canyon. the reason i'm here today is to add to what was just said. to the interest of the community process, if you look at the map and go to the web site, it's about removing trees specific to the recreation center construction everybody is in agreement with removing trees that are hazardous. i would encourage you to only approved the removal of trees that are only necessary for the recreation center. the natural areas program is still under review and report preferred plan, if you of the projects going on under the 2008 bond, it seems like it's moving forward. that's the perception of the public. we love the trails but we don't love the ones that are being

decommissioned. i want to really encourage you to remove the trees that are high risk and the ones that are needed for construction, but hold the ones until the completion of the ramp for taking out the rest of the trees. even if you look at the oak woodlands, they were planted in the late 1800's, according to our documents. these were planted a originally. san francisco was a barren landscape. all of these trees that are here, this is a catchword. people say that this is the lungs of the city, that makes the syllable and the wildlife that is here. thank you very much. [applause]

>> good afternoon. i am michael rice, the president of the glen park association. briefly, i want to say that the glen park association board of directors sent a letter earlier this week that you now have urging for approval of the contract, and to move ahead with the glenn part improvement plan. this is a long and constructive process. it'd have to balance expanding the playground, providing safer access, and relocating to the tennis court. and the recreation center building itself. this is kind of groove its cube -- rubitz cube because the

pieces and dollars, they have been lined up with the appropriate compromises. i do have one regret. my wife and i have been taking our granddaughter to the playground, two or three days per week. we will miss that. but i believe that our granddaughter will be very excited in about 10 months with a new playground. we ask for approval of the construction contract and we look forward to the ground- breaking as soon as october. and we look forward to your action today. thank you very much. >> ashleigh hathaway, jennifer, and then -- ross. >> good afternoon.

perhaps i am becoming a somewhat familiar face. i am also on the board of the glen park association as the parks and recreation share. i have been very involved in this process. i can also talk about the coolness of the recreation center in the wintertime. not having installation myself. although technically -- i cannot speak for those who are not in this room today, for the first phase of this park improvement plan, there is a great deal of involvement, with a great deal of feedback during all of the planning workshops that began in december of 2010. i intended all -- attended all but one or two meetings. there are great majority of supporters in the glen park

neighborhood. many people use and enjoy this park on a regular basis. i can say that from being part of this process, we're all excited about the future of this contract because we can build this construction. i thank you for your time with this, and i am looking forward to moving forward with this. >> thank you. >> good morning, commissioners. jennifer with the trust for public land. i am happy to be here today to support this project. usually the trust gets involved with projects -- we like to implement this and we know what

plans the said on the shelf. this is such a special place and such a unique opportunity that we thought investing in a master plan, that looked at the whole canyon and the active recreation area would really serve the department and the community, well over time. we have a grand from the state that was excited to bond implementation dollars on the end, as well as some other private donations. we realize our involvement will allow for an extensive committee process and also, bonds dollars that could go into the ground. we're happy to see that we are getting to this place. but now we're looking at finding additional money to fund the

additional faces, -- phases, with the trust for public land continuing to look for the funds for the other aspects of the plan that were not the top priority of the community. thank you very much for the opportunity to work on this project with this community. >> thank you. >> sali rauf? -- sally roth? >> i am on the board of the glen park association and i would like to request that you bring forward and approved a pending contract. the clubhouse is old, and so is just about everything around. things like the restrooms are so far from being compliant with

88, this is almost remarkable. the area is heavily used. there are three camps bring their people in to use this area. and we have a cycling through of the area of baseball players and baseball tournament that want to use the field. and if this plan is carried forth, as it is, we will have some technical areas on one side, and we will also have something better done with the area in the back of the clubhouse. this is not very useful for children, for playing at all. one of the things that is important to get out of this thing is that -- the additional

safety from upgrading things, things that are not accessible or approved, and -- it is amazing to me that sometimes institutions are reluctant to make changes because changes are difficult. people fear changes more than they fear death. but changes are what we need to keep this area safe. we need to have a lot of these things fixed. why have someone fall down the stairs, trying to use the restroom in glen park? we need restrooms accessible from the outside, and really bring this place up to speed, make the playgrounds safer and

the just a wonderful place for all of the people of san francisco. thank you very much. >> anistasia and doland. >> good afternoon. the last thing i heard about this project -- i don't understand why there are not hazardous trees that are not in the way of this. it seems that parks and recreation is going to -- is hellbent on the trees. you cut down 100 years trees and put in a sapling. it takes 100 years to replace what never was there.

i urge you to modify this contract, or otherwise it has to stop. to remove everything that is hazardous and the trees that are in the way of projects. looking at all of these pictures, he moved from 100-500 trees. the transparency is missing. he must be rolling around in his grave. this should be totally forbidden to cut healthy trees in this city. we need to have more trees, we don't need the have less trees, and the money would be wasted on this criminal action. this is for a recreation center that badly needs improvement.

take care of the playground and do something in mclaren park. i don't understand how this can even be considered and why those trees are included in this contract. if they need money to cut the trees, just remove them. this is unacceptable to have this done. to our city. the next process is going to continue, with 120 trees removed. and they currently use a herbicide. this should be illegal. and the money should go to improvements and other situations.