today i'm at the presidio trust, a treasure within san francisco, because the presidio trust is really a national park in the center of an urban setting. it dates to the very founding of the city. national park. toting me today to talk about this amazing exhibition at presidio habitat is cheryl hanes. can you tell me a little bit about the idea of the presidio habitat? >> succinctly, i have been long involved in the presidio. i was here when it was still a military base in the 1980's. i remember driving down walmart to the golden gate bridge and seeing the military guard at the gate and being utterly fascinated. >> so presidio habitat is an exhibition where you have invited, how many artists to think about the habitat? >> we put together a list of possible participants, local, national, or international, of people who are concerned with environmental concerns, made some sort of contribution to the landscape and conversation we're having here. we said that broke -- proposal requests and we received 25 back. from that 25, we went through and chose tend to realize in the landscape. >> inc

the research for camelot is owned by the presidio and it has historically been used for parking in the vicinity of the palace for fine arts. this is for visitors to part of the exploratory and. this would be used for construction and a temporary bypass parkway. we would lose about 2158 parking spaces. -- 258 parking spaces. in order to redress the lawson parking, we have been meeting with the affected parties, the export-oriented, the theater. we have the community to help address some of the strategies. we have met with the association for the executive board leadership. in terms of the strategies that we came up with, this is broken into three distinct items. hong as we said, creating a lot. trees will vote to hide some of the existent traffic. we're proposing creating additional parking spaces and this will yield about 18 spaces. we're proposing cynosure which is part of the proposal that we made today. -- signs which is part of the proposal that we made it today. these are part of the actions that we looked at. this has been removed as a compromise. we feel that this is a good solu

i am a member of the presidio and an employee. each year we hire and train 16 trainers and many chaperones. exploratory and has been working with the staff to allow them to -- each day i work with my staff with hundreds of thousands of visitors. these are people of all ages and backgrounds. this is a place for people can explore and learn the exciting world of science. the solutions before you will help us to continue to operate and fill our mission. i ate respectfully submit that you approve the proposal. >> thank you. >> the people that attend our performances all seem to come at the same time. there is a little bit of a different issue here than the means of the -- we were trying to mitigate the impact to the neighborhood. when you have close to 400 cars coming at the same time, this creates a large traffic jam. most of the cars come from lombard street. my fear is when we lose 258 parking spaces, there will be a traffic jam backed up towards the lombard street and we will be basically gridlock. our strategies were to try to cre

he was one of the architects to be chosen to do the presidio habitat. when you heard about this project, what inspired you about that call? >> our inspiration is a great blue heron. it was the site itself that attracted us. this is an incredibly beautiful outdoor room. we did a bit of reverse engineering once we knew we wanted to work here. which animals live here? the great blue heron jumped out at us. we walked around, and quickly, you get into another pace. you slow down, leave the city behind you. you can feel the wind and the breeze. in our increasingly frenetic, fast-paced, connected life, the chance to be of here and slow down a bit was part of the agenda. as part of the installation, it was suggested that this would be deliberately not mowed because it would allow the sustaining of insects, plants, that would graduate -- that would gravitate to the area. >> that is right. i think you quickly notice that. >> thank you for being here. presidio habitat is an exhibition at the presidio trust. it will be in san francisco through may 2011. we hope you

the bicycle planning from the masonic to presidio is one of the key areas we identified as part of our analysis over the last couple of months. one of the things that we found is there is a desire to incorporate a bicycle facilities somewhere in the geary court. through our analysis, we found there is already earmarked route east of presidio on post and west of masonic, there are other options available from the geary corridor. we identified that through our analysis as well as through feedback from the cycling community and general community, including ride along in this corridor. there are other options, but with those being the two possibilities, it leaves the segment between masonic and presidio. so the need to incorporate a bicycle facility there is another area. commissioner maxwell: a bicycle facility is where you store your bike when you get on a train? >> it could be a class 1 or dedicated bike lane. when you are describing could be bicycle amenities. these are the sort of thing we are trying to sort out, the amenities we need to incorporate, bicycle parking, how does one acce

you are looking for something with a lower price tag might consider renting a historic home in the presidiothis neighborhood was built in the early 1900s for doctors. >> the house was vacant for 30 years now the presidio trucht is refurbishing them for rentals. >> what the historic character, we do that, we need to make it suitable for modern use. >> that means new kitchen and lighting and wiring but everything else is the same. >> they came back to take a look. they used to live here. >> i was surprised to see this. >> there are three homes and eight duplexes from rents to $5,000 to $10,000 a month. biggest house is almost 4,000 square feet. they remember it was a lot to clean. >> its a wife killer but that didn't stop me because i loved the house. >> at this open house, some people are looking to rent, some want to step back in time a bit. >> it makes you feel good, presidio trust that restores these buildings and makes them accessible. >> it's not quite easy to get a look at this home. alpine ranch is on more than 300 acres in san mateo county hills. >> the ranch house was built in 1870s

when i worked of the presidio common-law -- the presidio, in early 2002, we gave a lot of housing to university students. the gentleman before may has spoken about how the university has deprived the city of a lot of housing, and the planning inspection has been slow, but in some of our discussions with planning, we have been able to ratify that. i have them to rally together. i am aware of those issues. i work with a few partners who do business not only in this nation, but abroad, and again and again, what has not been matching is that the banks are loaning money to institutions of learning, and this has not been mentioned. i heard the planning department say that something about the institutions planning housing for having a plan for student housing so the city could work with them closely and in a better way, but as far as money is concerned, without money you cannot do much. the financial institutions today are embracing universities and institutions of learning to give them money. the other thing i want to point out is there are areas in our city where there hundreds of units t

looking back from the golden gate bridge to presidio, you are more aware of the park land and less ofds. and the viaduct will parallel the existing one and to the south and can be built while the existing one remains in operation. and the two bridges there with open space between them and your views constantly change and not aware of the traffic in the opposite direction and notice the views more. and the lanes of course are a foot wider than they are today. and they will be shoulders and if your car is disabled, you can pull off to the edge. and the next area, the tunnel portal will have a view centered on the palace of fine arts and as you come out, you can see alkatrez island and bay. and the next area is about 1,000 feet long. and when you come into one, you can see through the other end. it's almost like driving through a building than through a tunnel. and noise from the roadway will be sheltered. and the traffic will be out of view. >> when you come out of the last sort tunnel and as you look forward, you see the golden dome of the palace of fine arts and what more perfect way

you take a right or left turn and all the homes between geary and the presidio and geary and golden gate park are burned down, empty or filled with water. i wanted you to give you an impression the level of devastation that's there today, sadly, with leadership like with people like latoya it will change. the tourist part. the mardi gras is still open. take out your pact books and spend some time in new orleans they need your investment and support. i'm going back if you want to go i will go with you. i want to do last minute thank yous there was one person not mentioned in the discussion today about our work in new orleans that's toni irons. toni irons is a member of the puc who single handedly restores the school in the middle of the broadmoore. he's an amazing person. [applause]. i do want to point out that i'm a little embarrassed about the attention i'm getting today. there are 25 people that everyday for the last 6 weeks have worked on this project. i want to ask all of the volunteers to stand up. >> we have shirtos like this. come on guys! you deserve it. tom, patty, everyone, tha

i am a member of the presidio heights residents. this is an important step, a first step in protecting our neighborhoods from these types of industrial facilities. the citizens want to know what is going into their neighborhoods and of well affect their safety. it is crucial that additional legislation be drafted and introduced as soon as possible on the safety hazards presented by wireless facilities and utility poles as these hazards are not addressed by the legislation before you today. as you can see from the news item i'd is headed back of the projector, back in 2007, wild fires were started in malibu because of wireless antenna equipment. the overloaded and broke in 50 mile an hour winds when they are supposed to withstand a 92 mile an hour wind. developing a new set of rules, governing the wireless equipment. i think we have to have an inspection here. there is no inspection protocol in place. it is therefore essential that san francisco's the ford and use the powers under the constitution to ensure the wireless facilities ins

i am member of the presidio heights residents for safety. we support the legislation by mar, avalos, and campos. but we would like to go a little bit further. we are very concerned about the antenna's proliferating above the ground. we would prefer them to be below the ground in commercial and residential neighborhoods. i think this is going against our policy by overloading the utility poles with possibly dangerous or hazardous lead batteries and other issues on those polls -- poles. we live in a city which has earthquakes, which has high winds. those environmental situations can cause a hazard. let me once again go to the projection here. let me put this on. this is from southern california in malibu. the telecommunication company said these polls would go up to -- poles would go up to 92 miles per hour. the wind was 50 miles per hour. homes were burned down. lost homes, not lost lives, but lost memories. this is "the wall street journal" about wifi, which is a threat to the trees. this was in last weekend's edition. they have been some --