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 to do it financially 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 and raised my children and my grandchildren and i want to tell you that 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 of friends on noe valley to handing out fliers to events 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 reversing taking a parking lot that was a field and flipping it on its side. thank you. >> thank you. >> jonathan. then we have claw dean and richard anderson. >> >> i am jonathan and lived in noe valley for about 30 years. i remember taking my car to dan's so i remember that lot

and most it is carinations. i am pleased to hear that this conversion meets the technical requirements. it meets the good government ideals that our supervisor supports, and it meets so much of what our community is about, and i wanted to briefly talk about something maybe a little subjective but it's the spiritual character of what goes on. some years ago peter invited me to join a group called the center for community at noe valley and the people in the group were such interesting characters as michael and debra from goodwill and extraordinary characters including a minister from noe valley and the idea was to create a landing and launching pad for a spirit of a community. after the

earthquake, after the giants win the world series there is a spirit of unity that comes. it's a tragedy like the earthquake or glorrous like the world series. i am one of the volunteers and i am one of the clickers and i talk to a lot of people and it's truly a wonderful experience there. i talked to people that moved into the community from texas. a young family moved and work at facebook and asked what to do and [inaudible] i don't know what it is. we got petition pusherrings. we have music. [inaudible] political beliefs from liberal to really liberal. it's just an extraordinarily wonderful experience and i am so pleased to know that this

organization, our supervisor and hopefully all of the supervisors are behind the idea of creating this space for an extraordinary community spirit. thank you. >> thank you. [calling speaker names] >> i'm going to keep it short because there is a long line of people behind me so i'm a 15 year resident of noe valley . i can't believe i have been there that long. i have three boys raised in noe valley and i'm one of the people that love the baby a ruge laand i was crushed by the whole foods scandal and still sitting there closed for all these years. it's incredible to me that is the

case. i didn't realize that the farmers market was going to be more. it's amazing. you can't go there without running into someone you know and someone that wants that talk about lettuce and it's a wonderful part of the community and i was told it potentially might go away i was distraught and it would be devastating to the community to lose it now and i am thrilled to see the progress we have made and the potential to make it more and not just half day on a saturday and seven days a week and wonderful for the noe valley and for the city. >> thank you. >> alex. >> mr. president, members of the commission, i