Plan Potrero Hill SF

You are invited to community meetings to discuss the proposed exterior design of the

UCSF Mission Bay hospital complex:
Tuesday, Oct. 2 and Wednesday, Oct. 24
6:00-8:00 p.m.

UCSF Mission Bay Campus
Genentech Hall, 600 16th Street, Room N-114

See flier: hosp ad pot view oct 2007.pdf

You are invited to community meetings to discuss the proposed exterior design of the

UCSF Mission Bay hospital complex:
Tuesday, Oct. 2 and Wednesday, Oct. 24
6:00-8:00 p.m.

UCSF Mission Bay Campus
Genentech Hall, 600 16th Street, Room N-114

See flier: hosp ad pot view oct 2007.pdf

(reprinted from the September 2007 Potrero Boosters newsletter)

Since December, dozens of Potrero Hill residents (between 30 and 70 neighbors at every meeting so far) have been working to come up with a stronger, more responsive, and more thorough community-based planning process. These workshops were convened by the Boosters, the Dogpatch Neighborhood Association, the Potrero Hill Association of Merchants and Businesses, and Save Potrero as a way to improve the long-term rezoning process that has taken the City’s Planning Department most of this decade to develop. We will be publishing our community land use recommendations in late October.

At Tuesday’s Boosters meeting (September 25), we be will continuing our conversation from the last meeting on September 8, where we discussed strategies to get meaningful contributions to public benefits into our neighborhood planning.

Here’s some of what we’ve accomplished at Plan Potrero Hill in these past months:
• We’ve built a growing consensus around a new land use map, showing the centers of our new neighborhoods, and locations for open space.
• We’ve contained bioscience uses and large offices in one large portion of the Central Waterfront.
• We’ve combined the Showplace Square and Central Waterfront neighborhoods, and added the Port, Mission Bay, UCSF, and public housing land to our planning area.
• We’ve added the Department of Public Health’s ENCHIA standards to our public benefits discussion.
• We’ve demanded that transit improvements have to be part of new developments in our neighborhoods.
• We helped develop one of the best Planning Dept. proposals in years for getting sites for affordable housing.
• We’ve revived discussion about legalizing in-law units.
• We’ve influenced the Planning Department staff consensus, changing their proposed zoning map and getting us closer than we have ever been to good planning for our new neighborhoods.
None of these things were true in December 2006.

The big remaining problem, as it was in December 2006, is creating a real public benefits program to go along with the zoning. It’s hung us up for most of the summer, just like it’s hung up the Planning Department.

In December 2006, the proposed Potrero Hill area plan needed strong analysis of neighborhood needs, a clear strategy for funding necessary improvements, and official ‘nexus’ studies connecting the two. In September 2007, those things are still needed, especially the ‘nexus’ studies. The Planning Department tells us they will have those studies late this year.

But what are our neighborhood’s priorities, once we have those studies? (We will make some progress on this question at Tuesday night’s Boosters meeting.) And, just as important, how does the Planning Department handle building projects in the ‘pipeline’ – those who have current applications and are pushing for approval now, before the plans are adopted?

The city’s Planning Commission’s made one ill-considered attempt at a decision on that second question with a vote on August 30, where they decided to exempt all pipeline projects from making any significant contributions to public improvements if they are approved in the next few months. That was a spectacularly stupid vote (some commissioners were falling asleep as they were voting!), with potentially huge implications. At this point, many years into a long planning process, there are dozens and dozens of projects, with thousands of housing units, in the Showplace Square/Central Waterfront ‘pipeline.’ Any decision on those pipeline projects could affect more than half of the entire future development of our new neighborhoods; so exempting those projects from contributing to public benefits could destroy our planning before it’s even completed.

Fortunately for us, we continue to have a Board of Supervisors that is willing to protect our neighborhoods during this critical final stretch of the community planning process. This past Tuesday, Supervisor Tom Ammiano introduced a strong set of interim controls designed to limit approvals of ‘pipeline’ projects in the Eastern Neighborhoods while plans for those neighborhoods are being completed. At the moment, interim controls are our best hope to ensure that everyone contributes their fair share to our future neighborhoods, and Potrero Hill has to show up to support the Board when the time comes to consider the controls in October.

For more background and info, join us on Tuesday! NOW MORE THAN EVER, your input is critical in making this neighborhood, your neighborhood.

In observance of the Yom Kippur holiday, this Saturday’s Plan Potrero Hill meeting is cancelled.

The next Plan Potrero Hill meeting is TUESDAY evening, 7 pm to 9 pm, as the main part of the Potrero Boosters regular monthly meeting at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House.

On Tuesday, we will continuing our conversation from the last meeting on September 8, where we discussed strategies to get meaningful contributions to public benefits into our neighborhood planning.

(Our Public Benefits Working Group will then work to get more information on those strategies, and the group will be presenting draft recommendations to all of us at Plan Potrero Hill in late October. Then, we will be ready to draft, present and publish our final document of community planning recommendations.)

On a VERY related subject, this past Tuesday the Board of Supervisors began to take action to protect our neighborhoods during this critical final stretch of the community planning process. Supervisor Tom Ammiano introduced a strong set of interim controls designed to limit approvals of ‘pipeline’ projects in the Eastern Neighborhoods while plans for those neighborhoods are being completed.

This action is in direct response to the Planning Commission’s ill-considered vote of August 30, where they decided to exempt all pipeline projects - those with applications pending at the Planning Department - from making any significant contributions to public improvements if they are approved in the next few months. There are still rumors that the Planning Commission may decide to be better public servants and re-visit that decision, and we hope they do. But unless that happens, interim controls at the Board of Supervisors are our only hope to ensure that everyone contributes their fair share to our future neighborhoods, and Potrero Hill has to show up to support the Board when the time comes to consider the controls in October.

For more background and info, check out the Plan Potrero Hill blog over the weekend, or
Join us on Tuesday, and participate!
NOW MORE THAN EVER, your input is critical in making this neighborhood, your neighborhood.

Tony Kelly, Potrero Boosters

A belated posting . . .see page 16 of this report - The SFMTA Planning Overview

Please join us for a Community Workshop
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
7:00-9:00 p.m.
UCSF Mission Bay Campus Genentech Hall, Room 114
600 16th Street at 4th Street UCSF Mission Bay Community Task Force

See attached PDF for more details: community_workshop_X3.pdf

As announced at the August meeting, the next meeting of the UCSF Hospital Replacement CAG* Action Team will be held:

Monday, September 17
6:00 – 8:00 p.m.
UCSF Mission Bay Campus
Genentech Hall, Room N-114
600 16th Street

UCSF is continuing the community involvement process for the new clinical facilities for children, women, and cancer patients to be built on the Mission Bay site just south of the existing UCSF research campus (bounded by Mariposa, 16th, 3rd, and the new Owens Street ). (See map http://www.community.ucsf.edu/MB_hosp_site.pdf )

    At the August meeting, the agenda focused on proposed pedestrian and bicycle access to the hospital site, as well as public transit. We also discussed that, according to updated cost estimates, the Mission Bay hospital project was $200 million over budget—which has forced us to re-think the phasing and site plan for the facilities. The Medical Center shared a proposed revision to the site plan, which involves developing the full east block first, and building on the west block in a later phase. We will present an updated proposal at the September 17 meeting, which we feel addresses some concerns expressed in August. We will also report on the helipad test flight planning session that was held in early August with neighbors.

    The UCSF Mission Bay campus is accessible using the MUNI T-Third light rail line. If you drive, please park at NO COST in the SURFACE LOT (near the UCSF Police Station); this lot can be reached by taking 16th Street to 4th Street . Complimentary parking is not available in the garages. Please bring photo id to show at building security desk. We will have refreshments, but you may want to eat dinner beforehand!

For more information about the Mission Bay hospital design process, please contact Barbara Bagot-López, Associate Director of UCSF Community Relations, at bblopez@cgr.ucsf.edu or 476-8318.

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For past meeting agendas and presentations, please see http://www.community.ucsf.edu/MBHosp_RelatedDocs.html .

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FYI: Explanation of various UCSF- and Mission Bay-related meetings and groups

• UCSF Community Advisory Group (CAG)—Formed in 1992, the CAG is comprised of representatives from a wide variety of San Francisco neighborhood, civic, ethnic, labor, and business groups who function as a sounding board, giving UCSF unvarnished views on issues including campus space needs and expansion opportunities.
• *UCSF Hospital Replacement CAG Action Team (CAT)—Subcommittee of the CAG, focused on Hospital Replacement project, which over the years has included the Mission Bay , Mount Zion , and Parnassus campus sites; currently focused on Mission Bay hospital.
• UCSF Mission Bay CAG Action Team—Subcommittee of the CAG, focused on Mission Bay campus-related issues and projects; e.g., location of central utility plant on research campus; design of cancer research building.
• UCSF Mission Bay Community Task Force—Formed in March 2007, the purpose of this group is to provide UCSF and neighbors with the opportunity to have an honest dialogue about the desires and needs of the community and the future direction of UCSF in and around Mission Bay over the next five years.

Contact person for above UCSF groups is Barbara Bagot-López bblopez@cgr.ucsf.edu.

• Mission Bay Citizens Advisory Committee (CAC) —this committee is advisory to the San Francisco Redevelopment Agency regarding the Mission Bay redevelopment area, 303 acres of land including UCSF’s 58-acre campus. Contact person for the CAC is Kelley Kahn kelley.kahn@sfgov

* This meeting is hosted by the “Hospital CAT”