commission staff present an amendment that you can make a better choice for the community. this is your chance to stand with the community. estop the monster and build the marvel. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi, everyone. my name is ana avalos. i grew up here in the mission. i graduated from mission high school, and i still remember when my friends and i would walk down to mission because our family lived and worked in the mission. and about two years ago, i came back to mission high school, and i worked here, and i was surprised and shocked and angry to see that about 40% of our students have to commute from either oakland and even vallejo and sacramento. i think that it's a lot, and i would please beg you to consider all the support for

maravilla and oppose the monster. thank you. >> good evening. my name is ernest o, and i'm here with plaza 16 and meta. every day, we have thousands of people coming through our doors not only looking for affordable housing but to start businesses, to find careers, to go ahead and send their kids to college, the dream they came to the u.s. with, and in the mission, it's now damned nearly impossible to do that because too much of their income goes to housing because there's too little affordable housing. and luxury housing will not solve that. the monster will not solve

that. i implore you, don't kill families' dreams. kill the monster, build the marvel. >> president melgar: next speaker, please. thank you. >> teresa flandrick from senior and disability action. i'm here to support the community that is here and that wants desperately to just have affordable housing so that everyone can either return or remain. that is what i most often here in terms of advocating for seniors. they're received outrageous rent increases, all the different tactics in trying to get people out. these are seniors who are from the mission, and so what's really clear to me is what a slap in the face it is in terms of talking about actually building market rate luxely

housing here when so many have been displaced. so i ask you to respect the community, and affordable housing, please, please, that is the crisis right now and right here. thank you. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi. my name's renee curran. i'm from the west side of san francisco but i'm out here to support the community where i've been volunteering over the past ten years. i was struck by the violence of the fight for the site at 1979 mission. back in 1979, we passed rent control. the mission then was to stop the bleed of displacement, and this needs to be the mission here and now. if maximus wants to be like san

giacomo, who was sarcastically called the father of rent control, let maximus be the father of 100% affordable housing. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> my name is lori leaderman. i'm a 30-year resident of the inner sunset, and i'm here to oppose the monster and stand with the wonderful alternative provided by the community. it's time for the building trades to support projects that the community wants. they will be built with union labor. the maximus rep who spoke here earlier described his plan to move mission residents to

parkmerced as a community benefit. that is not a community benefit, that is a community busting displacement proposal. this commission has acknowledged the role of market rate housing and gentrification in racing rent values and displacing residents. you have a wonderful opportunity here to support a different path, a true community alternative. thank you. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is fernando martin. i want to give a little history. 50 years ago, the city of san francisco proposed ten story buildings around every b.a.r.t. station in the mission. the mission community, a beautiful, diverse mission community, the people who are now consultants to the developer on this side and a lot of the people who were the founders of organizes on this side came -- os to this side

came -- organizations on this side came together to stop the mission of 50 years ago. and now you see what real planning can do. what these members of the community have done is bring together a participatory situation we would like to see. here, the community itself has taken it upon themselves to gather everyone together and to imagine what the future can be, 100% affordable with services for the people who live here. that is real planning, and i ask you to support real planning. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good evening, commissioners. my name is mark solomon, and i live on adair street within foot steps of the project. i have found this project to be

necessary and desire. my take is when you double the parking adjacent to surface transit lines, that is not necessary and desirable. when i see the marshall school being subject to shade, commissioner moore might remember, director might remember that i was here ten years ago, and i was promised by ken rich that this project would not cast shade on the marshall school. here we are, ten years later, and i want that promise enforced. shade on our elementary school is not necessary and desirable. if that is the case, reject this. i support 100 p% affordable at 16th and mission. that is what the commission needs to do. thank you. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello. my name's hugo vargas. i am proud to say that i am a survivor of what it looks like to be a part of a generation that faces gentrification and

displacement every single day. i was homeless for three years, evicted every god damn year in my life. it hurt like a motherfucker. you know, not knowing if i was going to have a home, where i was going to sleep, where i was going to eat. the trauma is still there from being a year old and realizing shit, to now, the trauma is still there. my family and i are lucky enough to have an apartment, but i'm not happy. i'm not satisfied until every single person on the street, every person that struggles every god damn day works three jobs to support a family has a house to live in, and please support the marvel. please. >> president melgar: thank you. thank you. thank you very much.

next speaker, please. [applause] >> good evening. good evening. thank you, commissioners and everyone from the community that's here. i'm here to say i'm a spanish teacher, and i know that the community needs and wants the latino community to still be around. i'm also totally against this and feel that the communities -- i've been in the city for over 45 years, have seen the changes like most of you up here have, and would like to continue going to my carnicerias, fruterias, and all the stores that have closed here over time. i come here, and it just doesn't look like the mission district anymore, it's changed so much. i feel like the city's really beautiful and a lot of people want to live here, and there's a lot of beautiful buildings that people can choose to live

in, and totally against this monster. thank you. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> commissioners, tony robles, senior and disability action. ironically, i started my freshman year in high school here in 1979. much has changed since then. if you're a person of color, a person that grew up in san francisco, you feel like you're an extra in somebody else's movie, somebody else's bad movie. don't be fooled by the rendering and the manipulating of numbers and a mercado and a little bit of art because that's how they take over our communities and make us feel like strangers in it the places we were born and raised. i strongly am against the maximus proposal. it is ill-conceived, and make

no mistake here, the incentive is maximum profits. we need a project that takes into account the community members who are in the most need. we need 100% affordable. anything less than that is a maximum insult. >> president melgar: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> my name is spencer hudson. i'm here to ask you -- >> president melgar: can you speak into the mic, please. >> how's that? my name is spencer hudson. i'm here to ask you to oppose the monster and support the marvel, the marvel that has been designed by the community with input from the community and for the community. i would like to speak on behalf of the 20 to 30,000 people who in san francisco are homeless at one point during the year, and i am dismayed to hear people who are supporting this monster talk about safety as if people who are homeless or

people who are low-income are in some way dangerous. they are not dangerous, they are desperate, they are desperate for housing, they are desperate for lives, they are desperate for their livelihood. you should be taking not just the easy way of doing a whole bunch of checked boxes and okaying this mission, this monster, you should -- >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> okay. how do i do this? okay. hi. my name's betsy. i'm a junior at mission high school, and i was raised here in the mission. unfortunately because of gentrification, i can no longer recognize the city that has raced me to become the amazing leader that i am today. these corporations are making a war between our people here in

the city. this is fear. i am tired of having my friends to help pack boxes because they can no longer afford to live here in the city. if you side with these people, you are only going to destroy the culture that many families here in the city have created for generations. do you really want to be responsible for that? do you really want the people that have to come out may not be able to live and experience what i've lived through here in the mission? so please don't start with the monster, and help the youth. thank you. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello. my name is gabriela lopez, and i'm a former teacher in the san francisco unified school district, and now i'm a commission member. i have met many people, mostly low-income communities of color

who have histories here who have contributed so much to these communities and through no fault of their own are forced out. we know these stories well, we know about the effects of gentrification, the high cost of living that is almost impossible to survive of supporting a family. we know that latinx working class i am grant communities face a higher immigration rate than any other groups in the city. we also know that these families have young children and need -- immigrant communities face a higher immigration rate than any other groups in the city. we also know that these families have young children and need -- >> president melgar: thank you, commissioner lopez. thank you, commissioner lopez. next speaker, please. >> hello. my name is francis lee, and i

live around the corner from marshall elementary at the 16th and b.a.r.t. station. i am new to the area, but i would challenge and urge you all to spend time at 16th and mission plaza. take the bus there. observe the people who live, work, and shop there. observe the families who are walking their children to school every morning like i do, and it'll become very clear very quickly that the maximus proposal does not meet their needs. a mercado food hall is not on the top of the list for anybody. i'm pretty sure that nobody has ever come to the mission and said they couldn't find a place to eat. thank you. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello. my name is michelle reeves. i live and work and the mission, and my kids go to san francisco public schools. i am on the evaluation team at

meta where we help people apply for the city's affordable housing lotteries. i can tell you of the 1,300 people served with over 3,880 applications to those lotteries in 2018 alone, the average rank number was number 1,573. the average number of units per lottery was 12. if you don't like averages, i have medians, too. you can ask me for those. i assume you know that with each new lottery, you put your hat in there again, and you have to get a new number. meanwhile, these are my neighbors, my friends, my co-workers, my kids classmates that are living in overcrowded and unsafe housing. while they wait in line, number 1,573. >> president melgar: thank you, miss reeves.

next speaker, please. >> hi there. my name is debbie thomas. i am a member of the democratic socialists of america and i am a mission resident. san francisco's treatments of our unrecognized neighbors is a united nations recognized abuse. 192 affordable units is a spit in the ocean. we know, and we know, we know that when condos go up, tents go up, too, so why are we not taking this opportunity to ensure that every single unit that is built in the future gets someone off the street and into permanent housing. not 36% of the units, 100% of the communities. and you have this historic opportunity to end this daily misery of our neighbors. a vote for the monster's a vote for more homeless people. a vote for the monster is a

vote for more people forced into the criminal justice system. a vote for the monster is a vote for a whiter mission district. the vote is obvious. vote fore the mission instead. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> i'm diana martinez, and we are in opposition to the monster on mission. the environmental impact of the marvel will be much less detrimental than the monster. the marvel will allow families to stay in the neighbor where they work and where their families and lives are. they don't have to drive or b.a.r.t. in like so many other displaced people do. unlike what the monster will encourage, privileged people driving in and out, creating grid lock, creating pollution while the kids play in the shadows.

i am tired of hearing maximus say the monster won't displace people. a developer who doesn't acknowledge this population's existence has no place in the mission. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. [applause] >> hi. can you hear me? my name is naemia, and i am a high school student at mission. the city i saw as a child is not the same city i see now. the city that housed and protected my whole family. i've seen my tias and tios get forced out of their houses. i've seen community businesses that have been around forever get shutdown. i've seen our beloved trees

fall just for generic condos to be built. every week, new monsters loom over our heads. the frisco i saw as a child walking through the mission is not the same. yuppies enter this town like it's theirs, making their patches grow into monsters, expensive monsters. only thing they do is shadow our schools, make us wait for grandmother's son, make our neighbors have to pack up and leave. now it's our turn, our turn to take back the family businesses, our turn to make the mission fluorish with art. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello. my name is allison. i'm standing here with the others today to say no to the monster and yes to the marvel. the city's priority must be on providing 100% affordable housing to actual low and

no-income san franciscans. the monster would be horrible for our domestic violence survivors and shelter are. where are people supposed to go for safety? gentrification is violence. thank you. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi. my names elijah, and i also go to mission hi. i am children of immigrants from the philippines and nicaragua, i see out of plait yuppies that don't belong, causing business shutdown and grid lock throughout the community. i don't want to see this happen to plaza 16 because i don't want to lose our culture and our pufl community.

i seen displacement before and a lot of my family is moving out of the city because of housing prices. if we build the marvel, we'll begin to stop the problem. i envision myself living here for the rest of my life, and i will be committed to fighting this monster. thank you. [applause] >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi. hi. my name is edward molina, and i'm also here -- i'm also a student here at mission high. i'm here with the plaza 16 coalition and poder because i oppose the monster in the mission. i live in the bayview district but raised in the mission because my buelo and abuela live on 16th. i would get picked up and go down to mission sees businesses and stores come and go. family owned homes and businesses would be taken from

the community. gentrification in the mission district has been a major issue, and i'd like for you, the commissioners and planning department, to hear and listen to each and every one of us. this is your opportunity to stand with us and make a difference in our future. stand with mission and build the marvel. [applause] >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> my name is daniel, and i'm here with the democratic socialists of america in support of the plaza 16 coalition. listening to the statements from the community over the past couple hours it seems very simple to me. the mission knows exactly what it needs. all we need to do is live. this community knows that the monster will cause displacement and suffering. the community knows it will cause further gentrification in the neighborhood. we've seen this before. the community is telling us loud and clear, with you he need to do is listen. to the union workers, i also want to say i hear you and i

e empathize with you. thanks. >> president melgar: thank you. just make an announcement, folks. we had originally intended to break public comment at 7:30 for commissioner comments. given that there are so many folks in the audience still, we're going to go for another 15 minutes and leave only the last 15 minutes for commissioner comments. we have a hard stop of 8:00 because that's a position with the school. look at where you are in the position. i don't want you to be surprised. we only have time for about 20 more speakers, so come on up and please try to be succinct and try to take up a lot of time between speakers skbl hi. my name is gary, and i'm a member of seiu local 1021. i want to go on the record that through our process, we support the plaza 16 coalition and the monster in the mission.

as our members know, what is the greatest need, and the greatest need is 100% affordable housing. and i am also a tenant at the redstone building, historic building at 16th and capp. that's a building that's filled with organizations that do social and economic justice work, and we know that the score is, too. you know, if monster in the mission comes in, some other developer may be like we work. the fourth largest property owner in the city, they may want to swoop in and make a $21 million cap on the building, which they did, so we're fighting that currently. just in general, from my own perspective, if the maximus deal goes through, if somebody calls the cops -- >> president melgar: thank you. your time is up. thank you. next speaker. >> hi.

i'm dee guinn, and i live at 16th and b.a.r.t. station, and i want you to know that i support the marvel in the mission. if there's to be more housing, it should be 100% affordable specifically for the working and homeless. they are the ones that need housing the most. i worked on proposition i, but unfortunately, that got defeated. i also worked on proposition c, and the majority of san franciscos do really have heart. that's what makes san francisco what it is here, that's what brings people from all over the world, and i want you to continue that tradition. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello. i'm a senior at mission high school. personally, i've experienced eviction myself, and i know that's an uncommon thing and --

within the community. like speaking from mission alone, i know countless students who commute from oakland, even richmond. i know students who have to -- if it's not eviction, then it's the problem of rent. i know classmates, friends of mine who have to support their families, they have to work. they have to work to pay for rent. and all i just have to say is if someone's going to say that, like -- all i want to say is that what we need isn't "more affordable housing," what we need is affordable housing. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good evening, commissioners. my name is alejandro bojorquez, a native of san francisco. i am a proud member of 1021

seiu, and i'm a shop steward for the hall of justice chapter. i want to start by making three points. one, i have a large family. i have a family of 28 first cousins, which none remain in the city and county of san francisco. they still work here. they commute from the east bay and down the peninsula. second point is my unit of 21 colleagues, only four live in the city because of affordability issues. thirdly, i'm a proud parent of two san francisco state students, a junior and a freshman. and it pains me to see them having to talk about planning their future outside of san francisco when they should be more concerned about planning their undergraduate degrees. thank you. no monster in the mission. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> my name is cassandra

gutierrez. i'm a fourth generation native. i'm here with homie, and my father who's passed but who's stood here before you. i'm standing here before you thinking of four generations ahead, my children, my great grandchildren. think about -- it's not just immediate displacement, it's market. people are going to change, we migrate. so think about what we're going to do long-term. i'm not going to be here forever, my kids won't be here forever, but think about what the mission will look like 20, 30 years from now. >> thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi. my name is hector, and i was born and raised in san francisco, and i live two blocks away from where they want to build the monster. i'm totally against the monster, and we need more

low-income housing in the mission. secondly, when i came out of work about two months ago, there was a protest in front of city hall, and the monster/maximus were protesting there. when i was observing, one of the representatives started talking to me, harassing me, started cussing me out, and taking pictures of me. when i walked into mission high school, he put his hand on my shoulder and said, do you remember me? i said yes, you are the monster. the scare tactics are not going to work with us. no monster. thank you. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good evening. my name is ken trey. i am a retired social studies teacher. i've lived in the mission for 40 years. i've seen friends and colleagues, students, families

been driven out of the city, and san francisco teachers are not going to support any development that's going to further the destruction of the mission community. i'd like to introduce annabeannabel annabell ibanez, the current president of uesf. >> we stand with the plaza 16 coalition. we don't support the maximus development. we know when a developer comes and divides our community, it's a clear indicator of what they're going to be doing. and this is why we urge you to oppose the development. listen to the community. the community came up with the build the marvel development. that is a true community development. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hello. my name is sarah, and i'm the director of housing rights committee of san francisco. we strongly object to the maximus plans.

projects like this equal eviction. in the week after this project was announced, landlords in three buildings in two blocks told tenants they were evicting them or raising their rent because of this plan, they could get more money. landlords believe they're evicting people because of this project. landlords believe they can get more money. i don't know why you all don't. we fight evictions all throughout the city, and people can define -- maximus can define eviction over and over, but as neighborhoods like forest hill say zero affordable housing, you've got to listen to a few neighborhoods in san francisco who are desperately begging for affordable housing. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good evening. my name is becky, and i'm with

causa justis, just cause. maximus is claiming they're going to put in all this affordable housing, but we know that folks who are already in affordable housing are going to be displaced. we are against the monster, and support the marvel. we don't oppose development, we just want it to be led by the community by the folks that best know who is needed for them. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good evening, commissioners. laura with causa justis cause. i think it's important to note that maximus is not building housing for anyone here, they're building housing for their own pockets, and unfortunately, some people here are being used by them.

also, i want to know if anyone here can afford paying 4k or more for rent. as an immigrant, i cannot pay that. the people i work for cannot pay that. i recently learned that a new market rate building has over 60% of its units empty. we cannot allow that in the plaza, and commissioners, i'm asking you to please support us, support the community. we are presenting an alterna alternative -- >> president melgar: thank you. thank you. next speaker, please. >> working here in the mission district, i see too many families, many of whom have two to three jobs to make $30,000 a

year for a family of four. every day come in and out of the nonprofit i work for urgently seeking housing, and you are in denial if you don't see that this is a direct result of developers like maximus who refuse to work with our community. it is inhumane to displace the black and brown working class communities who are the backbone of this neighborhood and replace them with 270-plus units that are not affordable. it is the city's responsibility to respond to our neighborhood and not the money. thank you for your time. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. okay. i'm sorry. is there somebody who has a disability? yes, go ahead, please. sorry about that. >> hi, everybody. i'm a san francisco native here for 30 years, 20 of them specifically in the mission, and i'm in favor of 100% affordable housing here.

we talked to people who -- building this monster, it's not -- it's not for -- we can -- people will get the same amount of building work whether it's affordable housing or not. and i also wanted to share that one assignment i had recently for a local newspaper as a photo journalist for an event by mission for all, i went to cover this event, and they invited some youth there to -- you know, it was the 1979 building, and everyone was inside, and they were inviting all these people and artists, you know, trying to recruit them basically for their cause. and we published a story about how mission for all was part of maximus, and we actually received threats after we do that. the community is saying maximus is unethical, they're harassing

people, so please listen to our people. and 100% affordable housing for all. thank you very much. >> president melgar: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> my name is tyler, and i'm a member of d.s.a., democratic socialists of america, san francisco chapter. we're pleased to be standing beside plaza 16 and all the other people standing in line. fully affordable is what's going to solve the housing crisis. thank you. >> president melgar: thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> hi. my name is dawn beckler. i've lived in the mission for 30 years. i have a rent controlled apartment. i live on social security. i have no plan b if i guess displaced. i also chair a 35,000 member strong health care organization that recognizes that a home is a very important health indicator for people's lives. and the last thing i want to say, it's sad that the building

trades organization feel it has to -- feels it has to maintain itself at the expense of the community. thank you. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. we now have time for five more speakers only, so go ahead. >> my name is roberto yanez, i'm with our mission, no eviction. [chanting] >> those are the chants that we've been chanting in the streets for the last seven years. those are the chants that we took to city hall. we are here at mission high school. we have asked developers to build housing for teacher. not one developer has done it. this area here used to be part of the mission district. you know what they call it now? delores heights. it's because of the

speculators. valencia street, they call it have valencia corridor. the little we've got left, we're fighting for. our neighborhood has had more luxury development builds than any other neighborhood in san francisco, and this department, planning department, has allowed that. and this commission has allowed that. >> president melgar: thank you, mayor hernandez. thank you. next speaker, please. >> thank you so much for listening to the community. i stand with this community and artivists, cultural workers. i've seen what's happening with real estate speculation, i've seen the neighborhood gentrification. i've seen how monsters come in from the outside and can with money literally change the face of a neighborhood.

i stand with those who are imploring you to please support 100% affordable housing. i've been working over 50 years in my life, and i still have to work to live in this city. and s.r.o.s are not the answer for family housing, okay? i just want to say that no to financial barriers that marginalize our communities. please say no to the monster and yes to 100% affordable community-planned housing, the marvel. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good evening, commissioners. hernando vasquez. mission high is also my alma mater, and also is marshall school. 50 years ago my home was on 16th street between south have notness and shotwell. we moved a little years later

to capp street and 18th street. i can tell you that most of my friends, neighbors and family have been pushed out. unfortunately we've been reduced to simple statistics in reports for those past 50 years. we have to stop the monster. there's a viable alternative, and please, please vote for the marvel. thank you. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon, commissioners. eric arguella, calle 24 district. we stand with plaza 16 and the district. we have not seen any to very little of these benefits, so we know that does not work for our communities. what we have seen the last ten years is 100% affordable. the community has advocates. we have about 1,000 in the pipeline for the mission. that's still not enough. we need 100% affordable

housing. thank you. >> president melgar: thank you. next speaker, please. >> hi. my name is seli, and i'm 28 and i'm a third generation san franciscan, and i'm here representing spriesk rising alliance, which actively mit votes non-english speaking voters. i want to reiterate what was said earlier about the mission displacement. i remember growing up here that the city used to be a lot more black. it was 12% when i was a child, and today, it's less than 3%. it's irresponsible for our government bodies to not be taking active members to retain people of color because right now the status quo pass currently points towards a system of white supremacy, and san francisco is actually up there with seattle and pld with

the faster growing white populations of many cities. it's 2019, and we have trump as a president -- >> president melgar: okay. thank you very much. [inaudible] >> president melgar: you will now be our last speaker. >> it's abundantly clear from this huge showing of community support that the mission doesn't want the monster. we believe in excellent development that creates healthy vibrant communities of opportunity. gentrification isn't inevitable, it's a product of a flawed system that puts profit before people. we need community-led development, build the marvel. >> and i'm erin. i work with affordable housing residents in the mission zp and when we talk about housing in the mission, people feel hopeless. when we talk about the marvel, they feel hope. please grow that hope and build the marvel.

>> president melgar: thank you very much. i'm sorry we won't be able to take further public comment. i do encourage you to submit public comments in writing. so we will now have commissioner comments, starting with commissioner fong. i want to remind my fellow commissioners that we only have 15 minutes, so that's two minutes each. >> commissioner fong: okay. thank you. for those who haven't -- i haven't met before, i'm a fourth generation san franciscan. great grandmother born here in 898. i want to standing -- 1898. i want to thank the planning commission for holding this hear, and the police department, and mission high school. look at this ceiling. this rivals any of our great theaters in san francisco. our job up here is to try to find balance, and i don't see any balance tonight. there was not one person here that said that they didn't want

something developed, and so is it's really a -- so it's really a question of height on this site. to actually be here tonight, i'm surprised that this hearing actually happened. you have to be honestly a little bit tone deaf to understand the -- not understand a project and bring it this far. you want to thank you for the burritos. that was a clear gesture that you guys take care of community whether you guys are supportive or not supportive. thank you. and just -- i know these plans are -- this is just informational, but looking at the two different plans, what strikes me is the courtyards. the current plan is an interior gated courtyard. the marvel, which i don't know much about, is an open courtyard for this neighborhood. one thing i want to mention is

that development over -- over transit is vitally important, but i want people to move here and live here because they want to live in the neighborhood, not because they can jump on b.a.r.t. and get out of the neighborhood. so you know, you want these people, whoever ends up living here at whatever level, you want them to be part of the neighborhood, so those are my comments. >> commissioner johnson: thank you. i want to start by saying thank you. thank you for welcoming us into your lives, into your stores, into your families, and the stories of your ancestors why your children. thank you for inviting us into your stories of hope and vision, and of joy and sorrow and pain. you know, when i think about our work and i think about the

future of our city, i want to see neighborhoods in which people of all backgrounds have the opportunity to live, work, and thrive here. and i want to see projects that really reflect and honor the past, the present, and the future of an equitiable and just san francisco. what does unite us is we all want housing, and i agree with my fellow commissioner, that it's a question of what that housing is going to be and what it represents. i think -- and i think that what i see in this moment is us being called to a larger vision. and we need a larger vision at all levels. this is cnot a question of who belongs and who doesn't belong. we need to move beyond community benefit that actually don't have agreements. we need to move beyond the way that we're operating right now

as a city, in which we're not actually releasing the pressure or the pain of people that experience displacement every single day, and a city in which people are being told that they no longer belong. and i'm here to say they do belong, we do belong. so as we move forward, i really call on all of us from all sides to our city officials to our community leaders to developers to take this as a moment and an opportunity to rise above anything that you have done to date, to see an opportunity to have this being a changing about the not only for brick -- about -- not only for brick-and-mortar building, but as an adjustment to building a more collaborative

community. >> thank you all for inviting us and having us here in your home tonight. last time i was here was 25 years ago, and the lowe. i lived in the mission in two different locations on guerrero and 20th and then have a lens i can can't -- valencia, and 17th. there was some tension here tonight. i felt it, we felt it. i think there's been a lot of tension in our entire country over the last two years, and i'm embarrassed about who our president is and a lot of stuff we're dealing with locally has to do with him, there's national issues going on, there's world issues, there's state issues, and there's local issues. and don't for one second think that any one of us aren't

hearing what the community is saying. i do come from the construction city, and i track our members that live in the city and those who don't, and 20% of our members every year have to leave this city. 20% of our members that were already living here that are from here that grew up here, that went to school here have to leave the city. that's just not 20% for one year, that's 20% every year. so we're all facing these issues. and please don't think that any one of you is being overlooked or not listened to. thanks. >> commissioner richards: thank you. can you hear me? as a commissioner, my duty is fore -- first and foremost fore tfore -- for the people that live here, before the people that

are moving here. what's interesting is tonight there's a growing body of evidence or interesting or studies that actually indicate that market rate housing in low-income communities does not reduce prices, it actually increases prices. now we have the anderson ucla class of business september 2017 study, and last week, we had an m.i.t. study on upzoning and now there's another study. what that tells me is we do have a supply and demand problem. the problem is the supply of the right kind of housing is wofully inadequate. and we have increased such an incredible kind of that housing. otherwise, we're going to become a city and our census data already shows that, that

the kind of housing that we need to produce are leaving the city, and the people that are moving into the city that are buying the market rate housing outnumber them, so we're becoming a richer, whiter city just like portland and some other places. i don't think that based on everything i'm seeing that the market can't solve the problem by itself. the market will have to produce so many units that it will flood the community, displace people in the immediate future, and drown the community. i truly believe that. without -- with some actual subsidies, maybe we'd be able to do it, but the conundruments, we can't stop migration. the proposal, we always tell folks we have to have land, but

here, we have a developer who has land. it's an interesting thing, if we were actually able to do 2816 mission and 2675 folsom, we could have the same number of affordable housing units produced as at 16th and mission. it would be a 1.0 versus a fraction of what we need. the problem is we need money to retitle the projects or redesign them because affordable housing isn't designed like market rate housing. and also, we need the money to build it, so that has to be part of the solution. if anything were to come out of this tonight, i really would like to say, you know, all -- we need to be creative here. everything needs to be on the table, but we can't create market rate housing and then leave fallow land sitting for a decade. i think we already learned from

viva sf in the last decade, so that's what i have to say. >> commissioner moore: thank you for the clarity that you brought with your testimony. many of the things you said when you look drew the drawings seem obvious, but hearing them with your life stories makes them so much more three dplengsadpleng three dimensional. i think the power of what you said can shape this project. i think the testimony, speaking about the 8,000 houses that have been last since 2000, and the 87% of market rate housing which has been built since 2008 sets a clear story of what is really happening. there's not only a deficit of

affordable housing, there is a complete and absolute and total loss of affordable housing that meets the deficits that even became apparent when maximus in 2011 presented the parkmerced project. parkmerced is a large affordable housing project which is being destroyed in order to create basically market rate housing. and as i heard, if i am correct, some of those displaced people are now supposed to appear here on-site. that somehow does not add up when you look at it, the numbers don't quite match. i think mr. medina's comments on house prices relative to the affordability prices couldn't be said better. we talk about housing prices and lack of housing every week, however, the distinctive attributes of what type of

housing is missing is missing in that discussion. i'd like to speak about myself. i've sat on this planning commission for a number of years, and this commission has strongly helped shape the -- what's it called? the beast on bryant. it took a long, long time. it took many, many hearings, it took years of push back, and ultimately, the developer saw that there was a way. i do hope that when we take on the maximum -- monster in the mission, the planning commission looking at the eir and the plans as they evolve, that we have an ability to help thap shall project that is a win ---help shape that project that is a win-win for all. i give the mission a lot of credit and credence. the department has done a

incredible job, and everybody who's representing the community who's fighting week in and week out. i still think there can be changes under taken that can benefit all. >> commissioner hillis: first, thank you to mission high school, thank you to the mission high school students that came and testified. thank you for those who we don't typically see at city hall. thank you to plaza 16 for allowing us to be here and hearing your stories. to me, this is a lot more about how we provide affordable housing than one project in this city. it's clear, even though we see affordable housing projects -- housing projects week in and week out, what we're doing as a city is woefully inadequate to

provide the housing we need. if if you look now, m.t.a.s budget is $1.2 billion a year, and we somehow get excited that we're spending 300 million on a bond issuance of affordable housing. i think the voices that are here talking about how we change -- i think san francisco could be a leader. we're creative, we're progressive. we have led, but we need to do a lot more in how much affordable housing we provide. i've said this before, our property taxes are earmarked or we're asking for our property taxes to go for affordable housing, but we really need to think creatively about how we fund affordable housing. the voices here were strong and powerful, and hopefully we can keep that momentum to make

those changes. thank you. >> president melgar: i will close it up and say thank you to the community, to mr. guthart, to the staff for having this hearing here. i think it is incredibly important. i think there's two issues. one how we plan for our future as a community, as a city, how we spend our money. but as to this specific project, i remain skeptical as what was presented to us really doesn't come up to my standards. so i would expect a developer who is coming to this community present something that has been vetted by the mayor's office. i would expect to see plans, i would expect to see a lot more than has been provided. i am skeptical that this would

actually happen and remain open to having the community continue to advocate for what the community needs. thank you. and thank you for coming here. [applause] >> commissioner hillis: thank you.