Townsend Street from Third to Eighth streets – an area encompassing the Fourth Street Caltrain depot – is being significantly renovated to improve safety and transit speed, with the installation of Muni bus loading zones, protected bikeways, and an 1,000-foot-long raised sidewalk where no safe footpath had previously existed. The Townsend Street Corridor Improvement Project…
Over the past ten years California’s four large investor-owned utilities (IOUs) have been rocked by disturbances. The 2010 San Bruno natural gas line explosion was followed by more than 2,000 wildfires in the ensuing decade, sparked by IOU equipment. The 2017 Camp Fire, caused by a Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) transmission line, was the…
For years Walden Development has worked to develop 901 16th Street and 1200 17th Street, known as the “Corovan” site. In 2013 the developer proposed to build housing and Kaiser Permanente medical offices at the site, an idea that was fiercely rejected by nearby residents. A subsequent plan to construct roughly 400 housing units and…
The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) will install parking meters along both sides of 18th Street between Connecticut and Texas streets by the end of the year. The meters will operate from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. with four-hour time limits, charging $1.50 for sixty minutes. Residents and businesses located along the 18th Street business…
For a timeless moment, the retail economy along Fourth Street from Channel Street to Mission Bay Boulevard North limped along. Early arrivals to Mission Bay kept waiting for a “critical mass” of residential and commercial complexes to be built to trigger a deluge of neighborhood-serving merchants. If the grand openings taking place along the corridor…
In May, The Potrero View reported that according to Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD) data there are roughly 6,500 fossil fueled backup generators, “BUGs”, in the San Francisco Bay Area, with some 800 in San Francisco alone. These numbers exclude the thousands of smaller gasoline, propane, and diesel-powered generators located in backyards and…
People are being swept out of San Francisco, washed away by pulsating torrents of tech cash. Children, always in short-supply in this Peter Pan playground, are being replaced by a rising population of designer dogs, who soon enough will have their own dedicated restaurant, probably called “Doggy Diner.” African Americans, making their last stand at…
Denise Smith and her youngest son, Roland Byrd, Jr., 23, moved into 626 Mission Bay Boulevard in 2018. They’re the first family to occupy a two-bedroom, one-bath townhome in the 100 percent below-market-rate (BMR) rental building, which opened last fall under Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation (TNDC) management. Smith was born in San Francisco in 1956.…
Although Styrofoam trays and plastic straws have been banished from its cafeterias, the San Francisco Unified School District (SFUSD) still relies on individually packaged meals and disposable utensils for the bulk of the 6.8 million meals it serves annually. According to SFUSD estimates, the school system generates some 6.3 million gallons of landfill-bound trash,…
The San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency (SFMTA) will alter its 22 Fillmore route and field the 55 Dogpatch next year, triggering significant reductions in parking access on Potrero Hill. More than a dozen spaces will be eliminated to make room for new bus stops and provide adequate turning areas at corners. As a result…
In July, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed legislation establishing a one-year pilot program in which Department of Building Inspection (DBI) fees will be waived for Accessory Dwelling Units (ADUs) and 100 percent affordable housing projects. Under the legislation, co-sponsored by District 4 Supervisor Gordon Mar and District 5 Supervisor Vallie Brown, charges…
Following a June community gathering to update neighbors, Recology submitted a project application to the San Francisco Planning Department to develop its 900 Seventh Street truckyard as a Special Use District (SUD) that’d mix commercial and industrial space with housing. Modified from a preliminary scheme the employee-owned waste management company submitted to the Planning Department…
The View turns 49 years old this month. It’s an astonishing accomplishment: almost 600 issues produced, perhaps 15,000 pages, by an un- or poorly paid crew dedicated to civic journalism. By all accounts the monthly is a beloved community institution, a colorful, informative, thread in the fabric of our neighborhoods. It’s a place – now…
District 10 Supervisor Shamann Walton was quick to deliver on at least one campaign promise after he took office last January, announcing in his first week that switchbacks on the T Third Street Muni Metro line would be eliminated. Mayor London Breed helped Walton secure the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority’s promise to end the…
Associate Capital presented alternative Potrero Power Plant development designs to the San Francisco Planning Commission last spring, which included restoring the 300-foot concrete smokestack and adjacent 131-foot Unit 3 control room, as well as preserving elements of Station A. Claus Spreckels, who founded the company that became the Western Sugar Refinery, built Station A in…
By J. Eric Miller Robots have walked, well, rolled, the streets of 21st Century San Francisco, but whether they’ll do so in the future is uncertain. Led by District 7 Supervisor Norman Yee, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed legislation last year that restricts the use of delivery robots. Initially calling for an outright…
After years of political promises, 53 Potrero Terrace households moved into brand new apartments last month at recently constructed 1101 Connecticut Street. Once dubbed Project X, the building reflects completion of the initial phase of a plan to fully redevelop the Annex-Terrace complex into mixed income housing by 2029. Johnnie Ledbetter was the first resident…
From its perch at 1050 Wisconsin Street the Caleb G. Clark Potrero Hill Health Center (PHHC) serves a wide range of City residents, including long-standing Hill patients, municipal employees, and new clients from the Excelsior and Tenderloin. “This health care center stands out because patients feel like they’re coming home. Many patients at the center…
Crane Cove Park, a long-awaited waterfront commons located at Pier 70, is expected to open early next year without the iconic crane booms that gave the park its name. The greenspace will offer public access to a beach, boat landing and, in 2021, an aquatic center featuring a small cafe and meeting space. But the…
More than 6,400 backup generators – not counting the thousands of small engines in household garages and backyards – are littered throughout the San Francisco Bay Area, squatting at police stations, health care facilities, internet server farms and other places. Ninety percent use diesel, a fuel that when burned can emit high levels of asthma-inducing…
Workers at Potrero Hill’s Anchor Brewing Company – the production facility and Public Taps – voted to unionize last winter. The action made the “craft-brewery” – if it can be called that, under beer-giant Sapporo’s ownership – an early adopter of labor organizing in the industry. Anchor Brewing was founded in 1896 in San Francisco.…
Citing economic and neighborhood needs, the Golden State Warriors want to build a hotel and condominium complex instead of the retail building that was initially approved as part of Chase Center construction. The new facility, which’ll adjoin the Chase Center on the northeast corner of South Street and Terry A. Francois Boulevard, would feature 142…
San Francisco Port Commissioners want vaping company, JUUL, to relocate from Pier 70, by shortening the firm’s lease or enacting a municipal ordinance that bans vaping firms and firearm manufacturers from leasing or subleasing commercial property. The nicotine-supplying e-cigarette enterprise sublets offices in Building 102 on 20th and Illinois streets. As reported in the View,…
Improvements to the 22nd Street Caltrain station are on schedule, with work to remove the asphalt walkway and replace it with a larger concrete plaza – along with additional plantings and lighting – on the facility’s southbound platform starting this month. Covered scooter and motorcycle parking opened at Iowa and 22nd streets earlier this year.…
Most San Franciscans probably believe that if a neighborhood experiences a plethora of intermittent fires someone would attempt to find a way to stop them. But when it comes to blazes occurring between Highway 101 and Potrero Hill, overlapping jurisdictions amongst several state and municipal agencies has left oversight largely to nearby homeowners, who are…