Plan Potrero Hill SF

I.
At our March 31st workshop, we took a closer look at the neighborhood hubs identified on March 17th.

In particular:

Daggett Triangle and the 16th street corridor:
-It is rumored that CCA may move its Oakland campus here, resulting in a significant increase in population, traffic and need for parking. Dick Millet will try to find out more about this and report back, so we may consider that eventuality in these plans. This is all the more important since Ken Rich of the Planning Dept. confirmed that CCA is not required to submit an institutional master plan to the City.

-There is already increased traffic along Missouri, Texas and Mississippi Streets, between 7th and 16th Streets, and 16th and 17th Streets, reflecting use by both UCSF and CCA. The UCSF population in particular has good incentive to use our street parking, since it’s free (and then walk across the railroad tracks to their buildings), and their lots are not.
Metered parking here on the Hill was discussed and that conversation continues.
(Let’s also find out if CCA has a transit or shuttle requirement.)

South Side Neighborhood Hub (22nd to Cesar Chavez, btw. 280 & 101):
There is currently a small Neighborhood Commercial district near Rhode Island and 24th Streets; although it is zoned NC-2, it is not really operating as such.

Dogpatch:
-Residents there say connecting 3rd Street at 20th to Espirit Park is not needed since the many businesses along those corridors do the job just fine.
-However, this area does need to be connected to Pier 70.

Whole Foods area (including DeHaro, Rhode Island, Carolina, 16th and 17th to the west of Jackson Square Park):
- While this area is currently is under formula retail controls, there seems to be good consensus that the neighborhood wants local businesses in that area; the idea being that while the Whole Foods is wanted, a mall is not.
- 17th Street is too narrow in this area:
o Try a 2-hour no parking window on the east side of 17th Street in the early morning, and a 2-hour no parking window on the west side of 17th Street in the early evening?
o Ken Rich noted that the number of cars on17th at Whole Foods would stay just about the same even if more retail were added in the surrounding area.
- Signaled left hand turns are needed from 17th Street onto Potrero Ave.
- Strong need to minimize curb cuts.
Also:
o Discussion about how many stories high will be built in the area: just 1 or 2 stories high, or 5 or 6 stories high?
o Is stackable parking a viable idea for this stretch?

Roundabout (Henry Adams St, Townsend St, 601 King St):
- Added to the list of Hubs.
- It is already operating as a Hub with Roche Bobois, Union Bank and BofA, Starbucks, etc. as well as significant new residential development, above ground floor retail).
- (It is also the possible that the Concourse will have many more residential units.) There will be thousands of people living there, so ample services and parking for these new residents is critical.

9th Street and Brannan mall (Trader Joe’s, Nordstrom, Bed Bath & Beyond, etc):
-Added to list of Hubs.

Franklin Square (Bryant, betw, 16th and 17th):
- Added to list of Hubs.

Franklin Square’s First Community Design Meeting For the Playground Re-build will be Thursday, April 12. For the complete meeting announcement, click here: Franklin Square

General:
-Where are good places to put small, walkable alleys (with no car or truck traffic or very limited) off larger thoroughfare?
- It would be useful to connect our planning process to the Port’s process (see below), via public benefits. One example would be to mitigate our neighborhood’s parking stresses. There is more on this below, particularly as the Port is doing their planning process for SWL 337, currently a Giants parking lot*.
- Parking:
- City Parking garages are likely not a practical idea, since the bond would need to be paid for from the garage’s revenue; it is City policy to discourage public underground parking.
- Under highway areas (for example, under 280 on west side) will be explored as parking lots.
- Streetscapes: We’ll be talking about this in a lot more depth over the coming weeks. Corinne Woods let’s us know:
“The Complete Streets movement continues to grow, aiming by policy and practice to make streets work not just for cars but for everyone: pedestrians, bicyclists, mobility-impaired folks and transit riders. Last year San Francisco officially adopted policies for both “Complete Streets” and “Better Streets”, and now the Streetscape Master Plan project will attempt to knit these fine policies into a coherent set of standards and projects to improve and “complete” the public realm for all.”

II.
David Beaupre of the SF Port let us know that the Port is (a) in the midst of doing a Master Plan for Pier 70 (a 65-acre site), and *(b) doing a public planning process for the 14-acre site south of China Basin Channel (currently a Giants parking lot. For more info, click here: Seawall Lot 337.
David will give us an update again in early May.

III.
Ken Rich from the Planning Dept also joined us. He stated that it’s the Planning Dept’s preference to come to us (these community meetings) and listen, rather than the community coming to Planning Dept run presentations/workshops.
So, come on out! And tell your friends and neighbors.

He also acknowledged the current lack of transit planning in the Department’s area plans for the eastern neighborhoods; apparently, getting the MTA and the Planning Department to coordinate efforts has been a notorious problem for years.
Multiple residents suggested the neighborhood use public pressure to get the MTA to join in planning for the eastern neighborhoods; just like the Planning Department, there is good work being done by line staff at the MTA but it is much harder at times to get everyone at the top to buy into the process.

IV.
We will be adding weeknight meetings by the end of April, in an effort to get as many folks here as possible. A reworked schedule of meetings with topics will be emailed out and posted by April 12th.

One of the most useful things we can do in this process to clarify our thinking and share ideas, is to bring pictures as examples of what we’d like and what we wouldn’t like. (For example, Elements of 4th Street in Berkeley have been referenced many times pointing to certain elements that folks think would be fine to duplicate here, while others are things to avoid). A link to find downloadable 3D maps to help in this effort will be posted shortly.

We’ll also have a laptop and projector at all our future meetings, so we can look at these images together. Next meeting is THIS Saturday, April 14th, 9:30am at the NABE.

Any ideas on providing childcare at these meetings would be appreciated (anyone know of a babysitter or three? And what would the cost be?).

A PDF of Focusing in On Those Hubs can be found here: HUBS_march31

At the March 17th meeting, participants used markers to draw and write on several neighborhood maps, identifying preferred neighborhood hubs, and noting other desired neighborhood features. In addition to an aerial view port map (unavailable online, but similar maps can be found at the Port’s website), we used 4 maps from the 2002 planning process (map1, map2, map3, map4) and a mixed use alternative map proposed by the community the following year: mixedusemap2003. (To view, just click on the link/map name, highlighted in blue.)

Below is a list of the identified hubs and notes.

HUBS

1. Potrero Ave, from 16th – 17th Streets: TRANSIT HUB, housing, retail.

2. 16th and 17th, from 7th Street to Missouri Street (Corovan-owned property): HUB (commercial?)

3. Dagget Triangle: CULTURAL HUB; arts, student housing (CCA), open space, commercial.

4. 16th Street, from Kansas to 7th: COLLEGE CORRIDOR (CCA, UCSF).
Note that the daytime population here can go to approx. 40K; primarily 18-40 year-olds.

5. 22nd to Cesar Chavez, betw. 280& 101: SOUTH SIDE NEIGHBORHOOD HUB;
- is this part of the public housing rebuild?

6. 3rd Street, from 18th – 22nd Streets/at 18th, 20th, 22nd Streets: DOGPATCH NEIGHBORHOOD COMMERCIAL HUBS.

- connect 3rd and 20th to Espirit Park (pedestrian)
- keep NC-2 scale?

7. 17th street, between Mississippi and Arkansas: NEIGHBORHOOD COMMERCIAL HUB (PHAMB vetted).

8. Whole Foods as a HUB, or a stand-alone?

Other notes

1. New pedestrian/bike bridge - from 16th, or 17th, to the Bay.

2. Identify transit corridors:

-16th
-Illinois.

3. Connect open space (Jackson Square Park) to Mission Bay open space.

4. Define view corridors; Preserve view corridors.

5. Step back heights from 40’ at street, to 55’.

6. More small alleyways in Showplace Square; New street grid in this area.

7. Connect across Potrero Ave. (pedestrian/bike).

8. Connect Potrero Hill & Dogpatch – 18th, 20th Street bridges – need better pedestrian/bike access.

9. Preserve NC-2 on 18th and 20th Streets.

10. Higher heights and density along Potrero Ave.

11. Pedestrian and bike access under 101.

12. Preserve Showplace Square in a smaller area - 8th Street to 101.

13. Preference for residential over PDR along 7th Street.

14. Discourage PDR around Jackson Square.

15. Adding PDR & arts to NC district for Potrero Hill, to extend districts.

16. North of 16th Street – new sewers/infrastructure needed.

17. 16th Street should not look like Geary Blvd.: pay attention to streetscape and signage.

18. Need light-PDR protection north of 16th – Neighborhood Industrial District.

A PDF of the Neighborhood Hubs document can be found here:  Neighborhood Hubs

About 40 neighbors turned out Saturday morning, Dec 16th to continue our neighborhood’s community-based planning process. Here is a summary of that meeting, with my thanks to Jen Serwer, Dick Millet, and Tony Kelly, all of whom supplemented this summary with their valuable notes.

In attendance were residents of Potrero Hill and Dogpatch, representatives from the Planning Department, the Port of SF, and UCSF/Mission Bay. Dr. Rajiv Bhatia, Director of Occupational and Environmental Health for the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH), and Cynthia Comerford, Senior Health Program Planner in the Environmental Health Section of the SFDPH, also attended and gave a thorough and engrossing presentation on the Department’s recently completed (May 2006) Eastern Neighborhoods Community Health Impact Assessment (ENCHIA) and the Healthy Development Measurement Tool (HDMT), ”an evidence-based guide for decision-makers to consider health in land use planning.” This presentation was the morning’s main focus, and there is more on it below.

Tony requested that folks give him their top three interests for these workshops, with an eye toward setting future meeting agenda. You can email these to Tony, at: president@potreroboosters.org, or bring them to the next meeting, when we will also begin setting agenda for future meetings. The next meeting is: Tuesday, January 16th, 6:30pm, at the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House (NABE).

There was also a brief review of the first meeting and then a discussion of Supervisor Maxwell’s resolution - Establishing City and County of San Francisco Policy for the Eastern Neighborhoods Rezoning and Community Plans Area - that had been expected to pass at the Board of Supervisors the previous week, but had instead been continued until January, after Supervisor Daly raised last-minute objections. The Resolution’s importance is that it gives to the SF Planning Department clear guidelines regarding the expectations of the Eastern Neighborhoods when implementing the policies already outlined in the City’s General Plan.

Robin Talmadge, a Potrero Hill resident and volunteer in Supervisor Maxwell’s office, announced that she had organized a meeting with Supervisor Daly to discuss his objections, and was inviting all to attend. THE RESOLUTION WAS SUBSEQUENTLY PASSED ON JANUARY 9TH. Thanks to Robin and to many other community members, and to Supervisor Maxwell and her office, who have worked to see it through.

The Planning Department has pledged to follow the guidelines of the resolution in developing area plans for the eastern neighborhoods; we’ll know if they do over the course of 2007, as the City’s new plans for the Eastern Neighborhoods are presented at the Planning Commission and then at the Board of Supervisors.

To read the complete text of the resolution, click on its link, highlighted above, or go to:
http://www.sfgov.org/site/uploadedfiles/bdsupvrs/bosagendas/materials/061342.pdf

If Robin or Tony or Joe Boss, or anyone who has been involved in the creation or passing of this Resolution would care to write about it for this website, that would be great. Though it has passed now, it remains to be seen how it will be implemented. The process of having gotten this Resolution passed, the issues involved, and the interests that both supported and opposed it, can provide a great deal of history and context to the current planning issues facing us in the Eastern Neighborhoods. There was a brief summary of recent events and links to recent hearings on the issue, in the email sent out to listserv members on December 17th. (I believe that is archived somewhere on this site.) However, it would be far better to have a comprehensive account.

On that note: Content is welcome for this site.
Cort Dugan, our very generous webmaster, gave a wonderful presentation about the site, how to use it, navigate it, and contribute to it. He’s done an amazing job getting this up and running, adds frequently to it, and maintains it for all of us, on an ongoing basis.
All content relevant to this website and the community-based planning process is welcome. Many of you have been involved in local planning or politics for a while now, and have insight and a lot of history to share that is relevant to this process and our undertaking here.
Please share.

As mentioned above, about 2/3 of the meeting was devoted to the presentation given by Dr. Rajiv Bhatia and Cynthia Comerford of the SFDPH, about the Eastern Neighborhood Community Health Impact Assessment, and the Healthy Development Measurement Tool:

In November 2004, the SFDPH, undertook an 18-month-long process to “assess how land use development in San Francisco can best promote the conditions required for health.” This process and subsequent report - ENCHIA - focused on several San Francisco neighborhoods, including the Mission, South of Market, and Potrero Hill.

Operating on the understanding that the necessities to achieve optimal health are not limited to “health services and individual behavior alone” but rather encompass the whole of the “neighborhood conditions”: from adequate housing, access to public transit and proximity to open space, to things like cooperation, trust, and civic participation, with many more in between. ENCHIA sought to parse the relationship between health and these many conditions, using a set of methods called Health Impact Assessment (HIA). They succeeded in doing this, and achieving a number of other outcomes.

Among the many important products to come from the ENCHIA process, is the Healthy Development Measurement Tool, a set of metrics that addresses a broad range of indicators and data points that lead to healthier neighborhoods. This methodology is significantly broader than the scope of what the Planning Department measures. And while it is not feasible to move all indicators forward, the HDMT seeks to move each indicator, and as many indicators as possible, as far forward as possible, to have the broadest overall/deepest impact on an area.

For example, the tool employs maps that can address specific criteria and multiple metrics at once - measuring for instance, proximity to schools and parks, while also measuring proximity to noise, and at the same time, distance to retail services and health facilities. While there are caveats, this tool can be tested and used by communities to evaluate their actual experiences and unique challenges and prioritize and focus in on what they deem most important. (It is being tested now in Executive Park.)

Both the ENCHIA and HDMT websites are the best sources of information, including comprehensive lists of data points and indicators, examples, and the tool itself, and provide excellent summaries and explanations of the sometimes complex process and Tool. They are well worth taking the time to explore, and to consider how the report and the Tool can be of value in our community-based planning process.

Websites for each can be accessed by clicking on its link, highlighted above, or by going to: http://www.sfdph.org/phes/ENCHIA.htm for ENCHIA or,
http://jcmurray.gotdns.com/sfdph/hdmt/index.php for the HDMT.

Looking forward to seeing you all at the next meeting:
Tuesday, January 16th, 6:30pm, at the NABE.

About 40 people came to the Potrero Hill Neighborhood House (NABE) on Saturday morning December 2 to begin a new and truly community-based planning process for Potrero Hill and its surrounding neighborhoods, including Dogpatch, the Central Waterfront, and Mission Bay.

Potrero Hill’s current population is 11,000. The re-zoning of lower Potrero Hill/Showplace Square and the Central Waterfront is expected to bring about 6,000 housing units, or 10,000 people, to the neighborhood. This doesn’t include Mission Bay, with its plans for 6,000 housing units / 10,000 people on their land. Combined, we may see a tripling of the population of zip code 94107 in the next 30 years.

After a decade long effort to re-zone the eastern neighborhoods, met with delays and frustration, the purpose of this process is to determine as a neighborhood our needs with regard to land-use, affordable housing, open space, public benefits, and amenities, and to develop a core set of recommendations and present a plan to the Planning Department.

A number of folks gave me their notes on the meeting – thanks especially to Dick Millet, Jen Serwer and Tony Kelly - and I’ve compiled them here. This should serve as a recap in advance of this Saturday’s meeting . (This will be the 2nd of these workshops: Saturday, December 16th, 9:30am – 12:00pm, also at the NABE, 953 DeHaro at Southern Heights.)

The 2 ½ hour meeting began with some history and facts on the community planning process to date.

In 1989 the City developed a plan for Mission Bay that was not implemented due to the recession.

In 1999, the Potrero Boosters and residents of Dogpatch created a community plan of land use recommendations for the Central Waterfront. In addition to influencing the current Planning Dept. plans for the area, that process also inspired the Department’s Better Neighborhoods and Eastern Neighborhoods re-zoning programs.

Our model is the central waterfront plan that was developed using a community planning process, which was largely incorporated into the S.F. planning dept. plan.

The following needs were identified:

OPEN SPACE: The City’s current plan for the southeastern neighborhoods says there will be just 1 acre per 1,000 people. Corrine Woods said the Neighborhood Parks Council study determined however, that there should be 10 acres of open space per 1,000 people.
Judy West spoke about opportunities that exist with the sewer right of way, and possible park sites.

RECREATION FACILITIES: (City fields): We need 3 times more than currently exist.

COMMUNITY MEETING SPACES: particularly in Dogpatch. Discussion about the possibility of saving the Quonset hut on 16th and Illinois for use as a community space.

SCHOOLS: All Potrero Hill schools were on the closure/merger list this year. Potrero Hill Parent Group has data available on how to save, change, and improve these schools.
Stacey Bartlett, a member of the Potrero Hill Parents Association, and a research survey specialist, informed the group that there are 450 kids on the Hill: and virtually no child care available on the Hill – particularly lacking is facilities for preschool and toddler care.
UCSF Mission Bay childcare facilities are for staff first, with a waiting list for community members.
Daniel Webster may close next year.
AND the planning department calls for the tripling of the population of Potrero Hill over the coming years. This increase in population is due primarily to the addition of the UCSF Mission Bay neighborhood, 3rd Street, and the expanding areas around lower Potrero Hill. One challenge we face is that the Dept. views these as separate neighborhoods, somehow existing in a vacuum with no effect on Potrero Hill.

WALKABILITY: Residents need to be able to walk to shops, schools, work, and recreation facilities.

LIBRARY: Library being renovated – will it handle 3 times the population?

HUMAN SERVICES: Exist, but frequently on the “threatened”, “to be closed” list(s): See Department of Public Health website. What are the guidelines? And, how do we meet them now and in the future?

ELDER CARE: One convalescent hospital on Potrero Hill. The NABE has lunches daily, and offers Tai Chi on Mondays.

NEIGHBORHOOD SERVING RETAIL: Keith Goldstein discussed trying a new NC district at 16th and 17th (following the work done by the Potrero Hill Merchants Association on developing this idea. Keith is the current President of the PHMA.).

PARKING: try a public parking garage? A “public” garage to make the district a “destination”. Could solve some of the issues that accompany 1:1 parking.

TRANSPORTATION: in the 2002 Better Neighborhoods plan, transportation was not addressed. It was pending a ‘transit effectiveness’ project, which ignores growth.