potrero view

May 2009

Open Space Planning Continues Despite Economic Slowdown

By Lisa Tehrani

Multiple efforts to develop and preserve open space in Southeast San Francisco are underway.  Earlier this year, at a Potrero Boosters Neighborhood Association meeting, the Neighborhood Parks Council (NPC) hosted a workshop to gather input on how residents view their local parks, and to identify what should be done to improve them. The effort stems from the Mayor’s Open Space Task Force, which was initiated in late 2007.

Open Space 2100 will “help provide a long-term, sustainable roadmap for using, acquiring, developing, funding, and managing open space in San Francisco.” The two year effort will result in an open space framework, including a long-range vision plan that will establish open space goals for the next 100 years, and a ten year action plan.  It will also include an updated Recreation and Open Space Element (ROSE), to be included in the City’s General Plan. That document will guide open space planning for the next quarter-century.

Several City departments are involved in the open space planning effort, including the Planning Department, the Mayor’s Office of Greening, and the Recreation and Park Department.  NPC, a nonprofit park advocacy group, has held 20 planning workshops throughout San Francisco.  The draft ROSE document is scheduled to be issued this month, with NPC likely to solicit additional citizen input before it’s finalized.  According to Meredith Thomas, the Council’s Deputy Director, “The work Planning is doing will not mean anything unless we hold the City accountable to these processes.  Implementation has to be actionable and accountable to the communities, or it is going to gather dust.”

Booster meeting participants wanted more open space, particularly along the waterfront. They also expressed a need for greater amenities and programs at existing parks. Many touched on Jackson Park, especially in light of recent budget cuts that reduced that park’s staff and associated programs. There was also significant interest in developing more open space for food production through community gardens.  

Thomas noted that the biggest theme emerging from the workshops is how well residents know their neighborhood, and what types of open space will serve them best.  According to Thomas, Potrero Hill is fortunately to have a savvy group that’s focused on “reducing the red tape and making the projects happen.”

With approval of the Eastern Neighborhoods Area Plans, new public amenities are slated for Showplace Square to support impending residential development. The Planning Department will host a separate series of community meetings, outside the Open Space 2100 project, to develop a framework and implementation strategy for those amenities, as well as to identify location-specific improvements. That effort will feature community design charrettes, which will inform concept designs, cost estimates and an implementation strategy.  

According to Planning Department Program Manager Ken Rich, half of the Showplace Square area is slated to become residential.  “We agreed to work with the neighbors over the years while new development was coming in to make sure public amenities in the forms of parks, roads, new transit and things like that came along with this new rezoning.”  Planning staff circulated a colorful “Streets and Open Space Concept” that included preliminary ideas for open space at Townsend Circle and the intersection of 16th and Irwin streets, among others sites. In addition, it identified a number of green connector streets, where traffic calming and landscaping would be added.

According to Planner Susan Exline, “It is kind of exciting for this community to take it a step further than we have been able to do in a lot of other neighborhoods.” She said that the 16th Street and Irwin public plaza has been suggested because it would be located on existing public lands with excess right-of-way that would be inexpensive to develop into open space. “You can see on the map there are a couple of drawings, but it does not get to details. That is what this process is about,” she explained.

Thomas noted that the Clean and Safe Neighborhood Parks Bond that passed last year should generate $185 million dollars for parks and open spaces by 2013. Almost $34 million of that bond will be dedicated to the Port Authority for District 10 waterfront projects. In addition, $5 million will be available for a community opportunity fund, a new neighborhood grant making program; $5 million will be directed to trail work; $4 million will be dedicated to tree cultivation; and $11 million to building freestanding restrooms.  “We are going to hold the Planning Department accountable for the five to 10-year Action Plan,” said Thomas.  “Our City is going to have to approve something that is real and actionable.”

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