in conjunction with bessy carmichael elementary school and was the result of a land swap between sfusd and rec and park. finally this park sat heart of south of market youth and family special use district -- a plan that our residents advocated for to ensure that families would have central consideration in this part of the south of market as we develop the entire neighborhood from the water front to the forecast this part of south of market was selected due to the clustering of youth and family related organizations, including the only public school in the neighborhood, bessy carmichael k-8, eugene friend rec center and affordable housing developments ranging from the dela cruz and studio apartment, and upcoming hugo hotel with the furniture hanging out of it, which you have seen is finally coming down for demolishment and will soon be affordable housing. because it used to be an industrial and commercial neighborhood, abag has projected population growth of 2.1 million people in the region and san francisco needs to build in order to meet the demand. as san francisco continues to gro

in 2003-2004, bessie carmichael was built. at that same time, it took us over a year to work with the rec and park to actually get this park built. it didn't just pop out of nowhere. it tookpt community's efforts to get the name and also to get the park built, which in 2006 it finally was there. and then in january, 2009 city and county of san francisco adopted the plan and this youth and family plan had two goals. one was to provide affordable housing in the area defined and two, intended to protect and enhance youth and families et cetera. this project does not meet those goals. building market rate housing is not going to house the people that need it in the neighborhood. thank you. >> thank you. >> did you want to speak? if you want to speak, come on up. >> this one? >> either. >> okay. hi, my name is pete lee. >> you can lift that microphone up. >> oh, yeah. [laughter ] >> cool. my name is still pete lee. i've spent -- i don't know -- four, five years working with kids in the tenderloin. and one of our -- one of my favori

they went to school to, bessy carmichael education center, that we fought for tooth and nail with the vmd park. please help us. we look up to you, commissioners, to please help us protect and save our land in san francisco. the torinos own a lot of property and it's just about enough. we don't want any type of development in the south of market. please help us protect it. i am one of his tenants. we have not been evicted, but we're in the process. being filipino-american, sometimes a struggle here in the city, because i am -- a lot of people would see that i am low-income, but south of market is home to us and please help us protect our lands, please. we look up to you, commissioners, for everything from parks and recreation and land use in san francisco. please help us protect our land. and in essence, you know, we are being -- we're in the process right now. he bought the property within one year he subpoenaed us with eviction notices just wanted to let you know how they are. thank you. >> if you look at the size of the park i play basketball there a lot. it's a small fraction of ti

that's a mural that we gave a grant to bessie carmichael school to paint that mural on their harrison street campus. one of the other things we started, we did a focus group a few years ago with residents that live in the neighborhood. and what we learned is that, one of the things we learned, they really wanted to evening things to do that didn't involve going to a restaurant or bar. they talk about yoshi's, things like that. well, those are hard to do. we tried to create neighborhood events and worked with local galleries and restaurants to be open free thursdays for people to come, that's what we call third thursdays. we don't do these any more we have gifted them to another organization in the neighborhood that continues to operate those programs and they continued to grow. it all sounds great but we do have challenges ahead of us and i wanted to touch on a few of those. because we are such a diverse neighborhood with universities, with residents, with the convention center, with hotels, with major retailers and small mom and pop shops and office buildings, balancing the diverse n