Membership Meetings: 2nd Thursdays ~ 7-9pm
Park Branch Library, 1833 Page St, SF, CA 94117 (except August)
By Richard Ivanhoe, HANC Board Member
You may have noticed that some trees have been removed from Haight Street, and other trees are surrounded by wood and plastic. We contacted the Department of Public Works with our questions, and here’s what we were told:
38 trees are scheduled to be removed from Haight Street, and 44 trees will be planted as part of the “Haight Street Transit Improvement & Public Realm Project.”
Congratulations to the remaining tenants at 520 Shrader! The tenants were threatened with an Ellis Act eviction. Instead, the nonprofit San Francisco Housing Development Corporation purchased the site, with help from the Mission Economic Development Agency. Here’s a picture of tenant Jude Stalker at a press conference celebrating the purchase.
By Calvin Welch, 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.
Senator Scott Wiener’s wildly controversial SB 50 is currently in political limbo but the assumption is that it is not dead. Indeed, SB50 is only one of several "market-based solutions" now being considered by the California State Legislature (dominated by the Democratic Party) and strongly supported by Mayor Breed, Governor Newsom and the entire Sacramento delegation of San Francisco elected officials: all Democrats.
By Bruce Wolfe, HANC Vice-President
At HANC's May membership meeting we heard from Bruce Lee Livingston of Alcohol Justice and Kevin Ortiz of Jamestown Community Center about the effects Supervisor Vallie Brown's legislative proposal on streamlining the sale and availability of alcohol will have on people and the neighborhood. As community health advocates and harm reduction specialists they drew down on the other end of the spectrum.
What started as a necessary approach to use a vacancy tax to fill long-standing empty storefronts, this streamlining bill instead seeks to highlight alcohol sales as the panacea for economic development. Like bus shelter ads, of all the technology, online services, airlines and a plethora of other marketing brands there is plenty of other businesses for landlords to choose from to support and benefit the Haight St merchant corridor and neighborhood.
By Christin Evans, HANC Board Member
As Phase 1 of the multi-year construction project along Haight street wraps up, local merchants are bracing for the more extensive impacts anticipated with Phase 2 and expressing their frustration with the City on its slow response to their concerns.
Phase 1 work was primarily located in the roadway with much needed sewer main and lateral replacements and repair. But the SFMTA-funded project expected to kick off Phase 2 on June 3 will move the work onto the sidewalks with work planned to install conduit for new traffic lights, street lights and community wifi. All the concrete between the buildings will eventually be replaced with new planter boxes and the removal of one third of the trees along the corridor.
By Bruce Wolfe, HANC Vice-President
Have you seen these antenna systems going up around your neighborhood? What is it? Who put it up? Who does it serve? These are cellular phone hotspots. But are they, really? While there are many community issues and objections with this technology, in this article we’re going to focus on the types and how they appear publicly, and the actual technology will come in a later one.
As you can see in the image there are two different kinds. The one on the right you probably have seen while riding along a highway high up on a tower or on a building. These are high-powered to cover longer distances thus all that equipment is needed. The one on the left is truly a hotspot, lower power and output, which means there need to be more of them to cover more area; and they are used this way because of cost and myriad obstructions to the radio waves.
By Richard Ivanhoe, HANC Board Member
As reported in the March Voice, the Coalition for a Complete Community timely submitted its proposal for the interim use of 730 Stanyan (the former McDonald’s site) to the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD) on February 28. As the RFP requested, the proposal provided for a combination of youth services, senior services, and community services for a five-year period. One other proposal was submitted, to use the site for street soccer and food trucks. MOHCD said it would announce its selection in April but did not do so.
We have learned that neither proposal was selected. We have heard that MOHCD is hoping to use funds from a bond measure anticipated for the November ballot to reduce the interim use period from five years to one to two years, even though they have an extensive list of projects awaiting funding. We have heard that the short-term plan is to use the site for parking through Labor Day (this use began this month, June 2019).
By Rupert Clayton, HANC Land Use Chair
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.
Even a brief trip to Haight Street or one of the city’s many so-called “neighborhood commercial districts” (NCDs) is enough for a visitor to see that there are a whole lot of empty storefronts around San Francisco. This clearly is a bad trend for merchants and residents and the discontent has now reached the Board of Supervisors.