>> if i could remind all of us to turn off or silence our cell phone. -- phones. thank you. we are going back to the order on calendar. we're going to take up item number nine, the central strategy informational presentation. >> thank you. i will make a comment and staff will do most of the presentation. this is an economic strategy involving multiple departments that the office of economic and workforce development has been working on for quite some time and the planning department was one of those agencies. it prioritizes economic development activities carried out by a number of public and private entities in the corridor. it is not a land use plan. it is a collection of cross- departmental actions courted by 08 w.j. -- coordinated by oewd. this district has been the focus of some attention. the planning department has been involved in a number of different activities in the market and along market street in general. we're working with oewd on a special use district that would better regulate uses and provide incentives for revitalization goals. we are working with oewd with mid market infrastructure financing district that would help fund public improvements in that district. we're managing the urban design component of better market street strategy which is the redesign of the street itself. we have completed and are in the process of publishing the mid market historic resources survey. if there are future considerations we will be -- this will be in the planning department as well. there are multiple activities that we're working on that owed ewd is working on. this is the economic umbrella for those activities. i will introduce jordan klein and with us is amy: -- cohen. >> i am here to present on this a " -- a central strategy. revitalizing while increasing economic opportunity and creating local opportunities for local residents. that is available on line. i will give you background information on central market, discuss the methodology and time line behind the creation of this document, review a few choice segments of the findings and over the action plan and implementation of evaluation. in 2010, then-mayor newsom directed our office to direct our efforts to revitalize central market and we launched the partnership and called it a partnership and acknowledgement of the fact the city cannot do this alone. it will require a partnership of not only city agencies but nonprofit partners, the private sector, philanthropy, in order to address the many challenges that face the central market district and those challenges include the preponderant of vacant and underutilized buildings. many of them historic resources that are in poor condition. a lack of neighborhood serving retail, a lot of negative behavior in the public from -- realm, and a -- there opportunities including payroll tax exclusion and expansion of technology companies in the neighborhood. an expansion of cultural institutions in the neighborhood and small businesses. a new energy from our friday of city agencies and external partners. it seems like people are ready to see something happen in this neighborhood. some of the incentives and programs that we have implemented in central market over the last couple of years include committed to benefit districts, payroll tax exclusion, and other incentives. it dedicated loan fund and the number of safety initiatives and others. you can see the boundary -- companies in that area are exempt from paying tax on net new jobs created and they are the first source -- their wors -- there are requirements that go with that. twitter moved giant earlier this week -- last week. -- moved in last week. those companies represent over 4000 square feet of leased office space. over 200 jobs projected, increasing to over 3800 over the next several years. there are a number of large development projects. the most visible one are the cranes at 10th and market. crescent heights will create over 650 units of new housing. there are a number of projects and these represent thousands of new housing units and hundreds of thousands of square feet of new retail space coming to the neighborhood. there is also associated growth in small businesses. these are businesses that have moved to or expanded in the neighborhood over the last two years. there are a number of arts and cultural organizations. central market has long been a center of arts and cultural activities for the city but that is exploded over the last couple of years, burning man has moved their headquarters to sixth and market and american conservatory theater purchased. as we engage in this work, we found there are dozens of organizations and hundreds of individuals dedicated to revitalizing central market but we found there were not always acting in a coordinated way. we were addressing opportunity to leverage each others work and there was duplication occurring korea the direction of the mayor, we set out to conduct a community engagement process to identify and prioritize the strategies that would contribute to economic development and to create a framework to guide public sector activities and the activities of our nonprofit and private-sector partners. this is the study area outlined in black. market street between fifth street and 10th street. we recognize the economic health and success of central market is closely related to that of the adjacent neighborhoods and so much of the research and community engagement that we conducted also involve those neighborhoods. in addition to the the multi- agency city staff team that was referenced earlier, there were a bunch of -- a broad team of partners that help us create this document, including a number of community-based organizations. i will go through the methodology. the scope of our research included a review of reports in the neighborhood, demographics, and transportation data. we're engaged a consultant to conduct case studies of other cities around the country where arts and cultural activities played a central role in community revitalization. she produced her own separate report which is one of the appendices of these -- this report. there are fascinating findings i encourage you to check out. we also conducted community engagement, including five different public meetings, a survey of residents, merchants, and also an intercept survey. 12 focus groups of different stakeholder groups, 25 interviews, three rounds of public generation of the action plan, and we set up at to -- an interactive survey. we also have monthly meetings of the steering committee that included city staff and community representatives. the project overall lasted about 10 months which involved us -- allowed us to be as inclusive as we could be and to reach out to hundreds of stakeholders. the northern california chapter of the american planning association acknowledged this process last month with its 2012 graduates planning award. we're excited about that. there are findings were organized into these seven categories fit. i have reduced the over 60 slides and findings to about five in the interest of time that you can fool the -- can find the full presentation available at centralmarketpartnership.org. there is a notable gender imbalance. over 60% is male. there is a smaller percentage made of the families and a huge concentration of extreme poverty, over 30% of households earning less than $15,000 a year. a team of uc-berkeley students conducted an inventory of every business in the district and if you compare the ground-floor retail in central market to other corridors in other low- income neighbors -- neighborhoods in san francisco and oakland, you find there is a higher concentration of liquor stores, i used and thrift and discount shops in central market even as compared to other low- income neighborhoods. we studied housing and i think one of the key notable characteristics is the concentration of residential hotels in central market. it is tough to read this slide but it shows the high concentration of units in the area are single room units. we did a study of commercial and retail real estate. the statistics to call out is the vacancy rates in central market are the highest citywide. these are from about a year ago. we were planning to update these numbers later this year. we suspect they have gone down notably in referencing the technology leases earlier and there are a number of businesses that occupy some of those vacancies, we think those lower -- numbers are lower. we looked at st. activity. this slide, far from the better market street team, shows transportation by mode on market street and i circled the two numbers. as pedestrian activity and is -- the first is pedestrian activity. i think that is reflective of some of the challenges in the neighborhood. public safety and vacancies. it reflects a real opportunity. there's a lot more but i will move ahead to the action plan. these guiding principles are what rose to the top during our community engagement process. this action plan is intended to promote the development of a healthy economically functional low-income neighborhood and we want to increase economic diversity while preventing the displacement of existing residents and businesses. maximize economic opportunities for everyone, create jobs and create workforce development opportunities. the city and its partner should focus on the things that would not happen by themselves and on items implement will -- implementable and sustainable. civilize existing community, and hanson activate the public realm, establish a creative arts community, build community capacity, and improve safety. each of these objectives has a list of strategies and action items attached to them. some of the priorities are indicated and shaded. each item has indicated a lead agency and key partners. in most cases, the lead is a city agency but in some cases it is a nonprofit partner. i will not go through every strategy. i did want to highlight some that were related to planning and land use. this is not a land use plan. it does not include any recommendations with land use controls but it does recommend some priorities whose implementation will require subsequent land use planning and we're working with the planning department on some of these items, promoting these active use along historic buildings. one project that will be coming forward in the next few months is this trend which i mentioned. it was historically a cinema and has been vacant for long stretches including since 2005. it is being adapted into a live action theater. incentivize and protect our pieces. there are many organizations coming to the neighborhood and some are finding -- having difficulty finding space or being priced out as the neighborhood recovers and rent goes up. that could be included in the sud. also a desire to limit further clustering. insure the implementation of better market street. the next phase of that is happening in july. we're working closely with the planning department and dpw and the mta to ensure that residents and merchants are able to take part in the dialogue. and establish a tax increment financing district. governor brown had not yet dissolved the redevelopment agency's. -- agencies. we are exploring the x -- possibility of a district to finance better -- projects a better market street. implementation, we will continue, there is ongoing community engagement including meetings of the central market partnership every other month. and the advisory committee is meeting tonight. if anyone wants to stick around. there is a team of interagency city staff that meets to address this action plan. for the first time, there is dedicated funding for central market revitalization in the proposed budget for 2012-2014 and we have engaged in -- an independent evaluator to track projects -- progress to adjust accordingly. that concludes my presentation. thank you very much. i am available for questions. president fong: thank you. is there additional from staffs any public comment? -- is there additional from staff? any public comment? >> in the enthusiasm for doing this, i am asking the mayor's office of economic development paid attention to the laws we put into place very painfully in the early 1980's, late 1970's to fund housing and transit. we lost all that capacity on the deal that was cut on the merchandise mart. this area is sensitive for stabilization of low-income people. a lot of them are not the people that are the problem on the street. there is a lot of -- low-income people that are an asset to the committee. they need housing and their housing is fragile. they need transit. and we cannot do any more deals where the developer gets a windfall. the building owner gets a windfall and all the sudden gets glamorous tenants and not one penny is paid into the affordable housing funds and then we take our city money and to a dedicated bus line for that building. that is insanity. we have to as we go through this process build the money back in for low-income services for housing and transit and not have stars in our eyes because all this and we have glamorous tenants. i think a glamorous tenants are where people love to give press conferences about. we really need to keep low- income people that really need housing in this neighborhood and housing should be upgraded and money should be there for housing and transit. thank you. president fong: any additional public comment? public comment is closed. commissioner wu: thank you. i appreciate one of the major goals is to stabilize the existing community to prevent displacement. i think the philosophy set up there is the right one. i think that focusing the plan is really going to matter. there are some elements within the actual objective that may or may not stabilize the population that lives there. to focus on the ones that are helpful, the full-service first restore, increased job training and employment opportunities, the focus on arts, and i think, nicolas of arts. there's different levels of arts, the theater and grassroots that have been happening in that area for many years. i see a big focus on business attraction. i want to call out dottie's as a company that came from within san francisco that is not bringing and -- in an outside the high end products. i wanted to ask a question following on the comments -- twitter is negotiating cba with the city and i wanted to get an update on that and understand what the process is. they have been given all these incentives to come into the neighborhood. what are they doing in terms of giving back to the neighborhood and affordable housing, in terms of other considerations? >> sure. the city administrator is the agency responsible for negotiating community benefits agreements with companies that have payroll over $1 million and have taken advantage of the payroll tax exclusion. i understand they are in the process or have completed a fact sheet about defining how the process of negotiations will work. it is under review by the city attorney's office and should be released sometime within the next several weeks. we have been advising people who are interested in taking part or hearing about that process to attend the cac meetings because that is the public forum designated for those. commissioner wu: the cba will be discussed and there will be at unity to have real input into that agreement? >> absolutely. commissioner wu: thank you. commissioner antonini: thank you. a few comments and questions. i am old enough to remember this area was not always economically depressed. in the 1950's, you would come in from out of town to see "the sound of