The Myth On Market Street series: Who is behind the Myth?

pstrongReport from the Mid-Market PAC Meetings, a project of the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency:/strong/p pDIV align="left" TABLE cellpadding="5"TR VALIGN="TOP"TDIMG SRC= "../sites/default/files/arch_img/449/photo_2_supplement.jpg" //td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TD/td/trTR VALIGN="TOP"TDTR VALIGN="TOP"TD pby Fiona Gow/PNN staff/p pMeetings by those interested in the massive recharacterization of thebr / Mid-Market Street have been going on for some time now. Considering thebr / number of people who make that area their home as well as the number ofbr / small businesses that will surely be kicked out the moment wealthybr / developers come in, it seemed only logical that these meetings would be abr / volatile place. I was assigned to cover the Mid-Market PAC meeting on Mondaybr / afternoon, in large part because Joe, a columnist atbr / POOR, had been one of the only representatives of the low-income community present at the meetings for the last several months./p pThe agenda alone was really all I needed to look at to know how thebr / meeting would proceed. The two main items on it were presentations bybr / Nordstrom's and AGI Capital, both of which want to create hundreds of newbr / parking spaces for shoppers to put their cars while they spend money in thebr / area. The Nordstrom's rep sold the idea of parking on the grounds that itbr / would reduce valet parking and since people would be parking their cars somebr / distance from the stores, there would be more pedestrian traffic and hencebr / more shopping./p pDee Gray, co-editor of POOR Magazine, asked the rep if he'd consulted thebr / people who actually live in the Mid-Market area to see what development theybr / would like to see. He admitted that no residents had been directlybr / consulted, but that there had been meetings with other coalitions similar tobr / the one meeting that afternoon. Looking at who was at this meeting, thosebr / were not very inspiring words./p p Dee asked if affordable housing wasn't the most necessary development,br / to which the representative responded that the findings of numerous studiesbr / would guide him in the right direction. Nordstrom's, as longtime investor inbr / San Francisco, would do what was best for the city. He said that thebr / community wasn't being ignored. A grocery store was being considered forbr / placement on the first floor and possibly some housing on the top floor./p pThe second presenter from AGI Capital wasn't much more enlightened. Thebr / focus of the discourse was on how pleasant the walk down Stevenson Alleybr / could be for the people who parked their cars at the new structure onbr / Mission Street. In addition to parking, this structure would be a multi-usebr / one, meaning there would be offices, businesses and some housing, butbr / probably not low-income housing./p p Both presenters said they would see what's most lucrative and what isbr / best for the city. No one is asking them to be benevolent, but when they saybr / they are considering what is best for the city, they should really clarifybr / whose city they are talking about. And when they say the studies show thatbr / parking would be best, we need to ask what criteria is being used in thosebr / studies. If developers and business people are the only attendees at thesebr / meetings, surely the interests of low-income people already living in thebr / area will be ignored and displacement will be inevitable. According to otherbr / attendees at the meeting, this was the first time that any acknowledgmentbr / had been made of the fact that a huge number of low-income people live inbr / the mid-Market area. Surely those people deserve to be heard more thanbr / anyone since, it is their lives that will be most affected by megabr / developers brazenly moving in./p p Joe needs more company at these meetings. If you are interested inbr / attending the next Mid-Market PAC Meeting, please call POOR Magazine at 863-6306./p p/p/td/tr/td/tr/table/div/p