August 16, 2005

Neighborhood Planning Improvements Proposed

By Alison Fromme
Special to the Neighborhood Newswire

In an effort to streamline neighborhood development projects, Supervisors Jake McGoldrick, Sophie Maxwell, and Ross Mirkarimi are sponsoring legislation that’s been dubbed “Better Neighborhoods Plus.” The proposed law would impose consistent standards for new developments and ensure the installation of necessary community infrastructure, according to the Better Neighborhoods Plus Consensus Working Group, which helped draft the legislation.

“There have been a lot of inconsistencies with city planning processes and their outcomes,” said Peter Cohen, of Asian Neighborhood Design and a Working Group member. The 34-member committee, formed in April 2004, includes representatives from the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association, the Housing Action Coalition, Catholic Charities, and the City Planning Department, among other organizations.

“This legislation is really critical because, in the past, public improvements discussions didn’t happen until they were brought to the Board of Supervisors, where things became highly politicized,” said Betty Chan, Legislative Assistant to Supervisor McGoldrick.

If adopted, the law would require that neighborhood planning efforts include a funded outreach program “to engage the full spectrum of residents, commercial tenants, property owners, community and neighborhood-based organizations, developers, faith-based, community, and public service and facility providers, as well as other organizations and individuals... in the community planning process” for areas larger than 40 acres.

The Planning Department stated that the proposed legislation “builds upon the success of the Department’s existing Better Neighborhoods planning program, which uses community-based dialogue as the basis for the neighborhood planning process.” Two key elements of the proposed law are “Public Improvement Plans and Neighborhood Impacts Analyses,” which would require the Planning Department to determine community-specific needs and impacts related to transportation, housing, employment, the environment, community services, cultural resources, and other areas as part of the development process. The legislation also outlines management and accountability requirements, including standardized procedures for annual progress reports, regular public hearings, record keeping, and budget tracking.

According to the Working Group, the legislation’s potential benefits include increasing affordable housing supplies, economic development, promotion of neighborhood-serving businesses, and preservation of cultural resources.

The ordinance wouldn’t fully apply to planning efforts currently underway in the Mission, Lower Potrero Hill/Showplace Square, and East SoMa. But these neighborhoods would still be subject to many of the law’s requirements, including the Neighborhood Impact Analysis. In July the Board of Supervisors appropriated $300,000 for these purposes, as part of the Planning Department’s overall budget. If the Better Neighborhoods Plus legislation doesn’t pass, these funds will not be spent.

Response to the proposed legislation has been mixed. Some community activists fear that it would limit neighborhood input into projects. Others suggest that the legislation should be limited to eastern neighborhoods as a pilot program before it’s adopted city-wide.

“In the past, community folks didn’t know what part of the process they could weigh in on,” Chan said, explaining that the legislation mandates community outreach. “And, we want to avoid situations where legislation is trailing development, as it is now.”

The Planning Department also maintains that Better Neighborhoods Plus “formalizes the community’s participation in the planning process, and gives them a role in the plan’s implementation” as well as “represents the codification of common sense planning.”

The Planning Department has planned public hearings on the legislation on September 1, 8, and 15.

For additional information on the legislation, please see the Planning Department’s website at http://www.sfgov.org/site/planning_index.asp.