HANC’s March meeting began with a short presentation by Jacqueline from Downtown Streets.  Downtown Streets has taken over the cleanup of Haight Street and some neighboring streets from Taking It To The Streets.  There will be groups working in the Haight-Ashbury from 11:00 am to 3:00 pm, Monday through Friday.  Housing for participants will be managed by the Homeless Youth Alliance.  Downtown Streets will manage Porta-Potty surveillance and will help with cleanup at the 4/20 event.

4/20

Captain Bailey of the Park Police Station and Supervisor Vallie Brown spoke about the 4/20 event.  Captain Bailey was at last year’s event.  This year, there will be twice as many buses, and twice as many ambulances as last year.

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By James Sword, HANC Board Member

Editor's Note: After the Voice was published, Rec and Park announced April 8 as the start of playground closure.  The full announcement is repeated at the end of this article.

The Panhandle playground is scheduled to close in April. Whether it’s the first, second, or third week in April is still to be determined, but most likely within the first two weeks of April. The Recreation and Parks Department  (RPD) will send out alerts when the date is finalized.

The naming of the playground is still an ongoing issue. Members of the community have been in touch with RPD to discuss the matter and it is likely there will be an agreeable resolution for Gus’s family.

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By Bruce Wolfe, HANC Vice-President

San Francisco’s District 1 Supervisor, Sandra Lee Fewer, started a movement with interest and the advent of the first community-owned residential property in her district that prevented evictions. SF Community Land Trust (SFCLT) purchased a multi-unit building on Fulton Street that would have displaced many renters who are seniors and persons with disabilities, and provided them with lifetime leases under their current rents, perpetuating the trend towards “forever homes” and aging-in-place; a much needed convention in our current world of living longer and healthier. Plus with an overbearing, inflated real estate market that seeks to empty buildings for unscrupulous developers and speculators this out-of-the-box solution will solidly help.

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As you know, there has been ongoing construction on Haight Street.  The Department of Public Works calls this the “Upper Haight Transit Improvement and Pedestrian Realm Project.” 

Phase I of the project consists of sewer replacement work.  It began in September, 2018, and is expected to end in May.  At the time the Voice was sent out for publication, work was expected to progress at the Cole and Haight intersection and along both the north and south sections of Cole Street, as well as in the western half of the block of Haight Street between Shrader and Stanyan.  A small section of sewer lateral pipe near the corner of Haight and Clayton was also scheduled to be replaced.

Phase II of the project is expected to begin in mid-May and is anticipated to be completed by September, 2020.  Phase II will include increased pedestrian lighting, tree planting, bulb-outs and curb ramps, bus bulbs, sidewalk replacement, street base repairs and repaving, some fiber conduit work and a decorative sidewalk at the Haight and Ashbury intersection.

You can find out more information about the project and sign up for email updates at  http://www.sfpublicworks.org/upper-haight.

By Tes Welborn, HANC President

The Coalition for a Complete Community submitted its proposal for the interim use of 730 Stanyan on February 28.  The proposal can be downloaded from our website at https://www.hanc-sf.org/the-voice-and-docs/730-Stanyan/ (“Submitted CCC Interim Proposal”) . 

CCC is a community-based coalition of neighbors, merchants, businesses, non-profit health and human service providers and representatives of neighborhood and community organizations who live, work and or perform a service in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood – all volunteers.

Since meeting in October 2017 ,the CCC has held over two dozen working committee meetings and sponsored three large community meetings in the neighborhood resulting in a plan for the permanent affordable housing use of the site and this proposal for the interim use of the site.

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By Alex Aquino, HANC Board Member

HANC's monthly (except August) general membership meeting is usually held downstairs at the Park Branch Library, 1833 Page Street (between Cole and Shrader) on the second Thursday of the month, beginning at 7 pm.  Our meetinngs are open to the public and free to attend.

Now that cannabis is legal, the annual 4/20 event is regulated by the City.  Overall plans will be like years past. It’s on Saturday this year so we will be adding more security, ambulances on-site, and clean up staff. 

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By James Sword, HANC Board Member (@sandDadSf on Twitter)

In case you haven’t heard, the Panhandle Playground is getting a $3.5 million refresh. After 2 years of planning, lots of scrutiny of the process and policies involved, the construction is scheduled to start in April and run through the end of the year, possibly into 2020. The playground will be updated for the first time in decades and many of the current features will be preserved, but modernized (the final design can be found here: https://sfrecpark.org/wp-content/uploads/Panhandle-Playground_Construction-Plan_90-percent.pdf).  There will be swings, slides, a new climbing structure and some cool new elements laid on top of a rubber floor – we successfully fought to have a sand box included, but a sand surface throughout was not realistic (if you want to know more about the sand fight throughout the city, visit https://savethesandsf.wixsite.com/savethesand).

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By Calvin Welch, HANC Board Member

Have you noticed a new trend among local and elected officials of talking about very appealing initiatives aimed at addressing serious (and generally expensive) social problems but forgetting to tell us where the money is going to come from to implement them?

A Few Examples

State Senator Scott Wiener proposes a massive density increase of major California cities (but upon close reading of his proposal so far no such massive increase in the suburbs) along transit lines with no mention of funding the increase in transit capacity needed to ensure even existing levels of transit service. 

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