April 25, 2007

Where Will the People Play?

By Robynne Boyd
Special to Neighborhood Newswire

Maintaining enough open space for San Francisco’s dense population is challenging.  With five and a half acres of parks, playgrounds, or urban wilderness for every 1,000 people, the City has about half as much green space as the national average.  According to the Neighborhood Parks Council and the San Francisco Parks and Recreation and Planning departments, the eastern neighborhoods – the Central Waterfront, Dogpatch, East SoMA, the Mission, Showplace Square and Potrero Hill -- are in particular need of more open space.  Other neighborhoods with an open space deficit include North Beach, Bayview-Hunters Point, and Visitation Valley. With a hefty amount of development on the horizon for San Francisco’s southeastern neighborhoods, City agencies involved in open space acquisition and maintenance are brainstorming ways to ensure open space access in the coming years.
A host of state and local agencies are responsible for open space in the City, including the Public Utilities Commission, Municipal Transportation Agency, and Department of Public Works. While there’s a consensus amongst these agencies that more funds are needed for open space, none are willing to take sole responsibility for the job.

Rose Marie Dennis, Director of Communications and Public Affairs for Parks and Recreation, said her Department was working with the Planning Department to examine open space disparities in the eastern neighborhoods. “We’re having fledgling discussions analyzing where the gaps are. At this stage we are looking at what we’ve got, and what we think our priorities need to be as demographics shift in that area.”

Amit Ghosh, the Planning Department’s Chief of Comprehensive Planning, added that the two departments are “…analyzing how much open space is really needed in the areas, how much will it cost to do this, and what will be the source of funds. We are looking at the private sector to bear part of this financing,” said Ghosh.

Ghosh pointed to numerous ways for open space to be created and/or funded in the eastern neighborhoods.  Likely funding sources include imposing impact fees on new construction, requiring large developments to provide publicly-accessible open space, obtaining federal grants, and issuing general obligation bonds. Ghosh noted that impact fees have already been assessed as part of Rincon Hill development. 

Other agencies are also brainstorming ways to carve-out open space from the City’s limited real estate. The Port’s development of Pier 14 last summer demonstrates the inventive effort necessary to create new open spaces in a dense urban environment. The Port constructed a public pedestrian pier on top of an existing breakwater at the Downtown Ferry Terminal.  The 637-feet long pier cost $2.25 million to build, with funds coming from 11 different primarily state sources.

“There really isn’t proper planning” for open space explained Nancy Wuerfel, Chair of the Park, Recreation and Open Space Advisory Committee, a Board of Supervisors-appointed citizens' advisory committee that comments on Parks and Recreation planning documents, speaking in her own capacity. “This City is not making the commitment it needs to the parks, although technically we already supposedly have the funding we need,” said Wuerfel.   According to Wuefel, the Open Space Fund, which garners revenues from an annual City tax levy, is supposed to pay for open space acquisition, but because Parks and Recreation itself is short of money, it’s constantly juggling the need to pay its employees, maintain existing open space, and demands to acquire additional green space. Open space acquisition is last in line among these priorities.

Wuerfel explained that while other City agencies have the ability to acquire and sell their open space assets, Parks and Recreation needs voter approval to dispose of any of its land.  As a result, Parks and Recreation can’t sell property in an area that has sufficient amounts of open space to fund purchases in high-need communities.  And under current City budget policies Parks and Recreation doesn’t have enough funds to maintain the properties it already owns. “And that’s where the hot potato comes in,” said Wuerfel, “Because the maintenance of these properties is not funded. “We’ve created a monster in that there isn’t a steady a financial flow to Rec and Park that if they get an acre they also get dollars to maintain it.”

As a result of the financial squeeze Parks and Recreation requires that any potential acquisition has to have three-years of funding for maintenance identified before a deal is concluded. “We haven’t actually bought land in a while,” said Wuerful, “Getting the right land in the right place to serve an unmet need is really tough.” One solution Wuerfel suggested would be to require developers to create and maintain open space, although she admits this would require new legislation.

Isabel Wade, the Neighborhood Parks Council’s Executive Director, concurs.  “With so much development moving south if there isn’t a game plan that highlights the gap areas and which parcels of property to preserve right now for open space, we’ll never have the quality of life in these neighborhoods that people expect,” said Wade  “And that’s why we’re saying we need an open space task force and need to get all agencies involved to tackle this together.”

According to Dan Sider, San Francisco’s Greening Director, the City is exploring establishing a task force to examine the best way to fund open space acquisition and maintenance. Perhaps more encouraging is that by the end of the year a process to revise the General Plan’s Open Space Element – which provides guidance on how land use planning should be conducted -- is likely to be launched. “[The City] acknowledges that it's been some time since the Open Space Element was last revised in depth” said Sider.  Sider wouldn’t comment on what the General Plan revisions might consist of, or even how the revision process is likely to be implemented, other than to note in an email that “only the process itself can answer the question of what aspects of the open space element will be revised.  Scoping the extent of the revisions is a critical component of the process.” 

According to Wade, if the City doesn’t act soon to preserve the necessary open space parcels now, soon enough San Franciscans will be “kicking ourselves in the foot for missing such a tremendous opportunity.”