and the item before you is a request for the conditional use authorization to permit nihonmachi little friends school to construct a building on the property, the school is located on two parcels one on bush and one fronting suter and this will consolidate all of the programming to the suter street program and this building will be located on the west portion of the lot and replace off street parking and circulation and a playground. and existing programming on the site is located on a building in the east side and the two buildings will be linked through doorways, the school serves 90 preschoolers and it may result in a slight increase in enrollment. conditional use authorization is required pursuant to planning cold section, 249.31 for uses over 4,000 square feet in the japan town special use district and section 209.3 for a child care facility providing less than 24 hour care for 15 or more children. by license personnel, of the state of california. in addition to the cu, request, a variance from the rear yard requirement is necessary pursuant, to 134, as it projects into the rear y

village to raise a child and that absolutely wrang true to me when we walked through the daos of nihonmachi little friends and my kids are in high school and college and they are in a family with great diversity and so my husband and i had pondered when they were younger how we were going to insure that they appreciated their rich cultural heritage and as soon as we walked through the doors we knew that we were going to be okay. as with the richness of san francisco there were kids from all different backgrounds, there were a multitude of languages being spoken and our kids made friends with young people with whom they continued to be friends now. we were friends with parents, who we continued to be friends with now. and through that process of being empowered by being part of little friends, we began to explore other resources in japan town and the larger city and we realized that there were a lot of opportunities for families in san francisco. and through the 40 years since nihonmachi little friends opened the doors there are thousands of family whose have gone through the same process of

and our church which my husband works at is one block away from the nihonmachi little friends on bush street and so we are only a half a block, a block and a half away from this projected site where they will be doing the renovations. my children, both of them who are one is graduating from college and one is going to college, now. are both graduates of the preschool. from the bush site, and so this, preschool, has definitely been part of the big part of our family. and so, i come here today, to speak not only as a former family that went to nihonmachi little friends but also as a resident and also as a organizer for the jtown task force and we have been in information with kathleen amatzu and her staff and the architect and they came to present over at our meeting last month. we appreciate everything that they want to do, and it is well deserved and the bush site is getting old and they need a new place where they can consolidate both sites both and bring the families and children together, we are supportive. and they have been very good at communicating to their neighbors on that bl