HVNA

In a major test of the Market and Octavia Area Plan and of the city's parking policy, the Planning Commission unanimously rejected a developer's request last week for far more parking than is allowed, even with a conditional use permit. 

No sizable city in the country, or likely the world, has been able to say with any certainty how many parking spaces it has, public or private, until now. Over the last 18 months, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (MTA) has tallied every publicly accessible parking space within city limits, including free and metered spaces on-street and every publicly accessible garage [PDF map].

Mayor Gavin Newsom yesterday announced one of his most ambitious plans for re-shaping San Francisco, telling reporters at a press conference with Caltrans Director Will Kemption and Caltrain Director Michael Scanlan that the city would move forward with plans to tear down sections of I-280 through San Francisco.  

There was widespread government and public support for a two-way, traffic-calmed Hayes Street between Gough and Franklin at the Board of Supervisors' Land Use and Economic Development Committee meeting today, but there is a fundamental disagreement with the MTA on how to get there.

Advocates are calling for all livable streets supporters who have the time to turn out to the Board of Supervisors' Land Use and Economic Development Committee meeting today at 1pm to voice their support for a two-way Hayes Street, as was called for in the Market and Octavia Plan. 

The Board of Supervisors, in one the first tests of the new progressive bloc, failed to muster a supermajority vote to support an appeal that would have overturned the Planning Commission's approval of a conditional use (CU) permit, which allowed seven more parking spaces than the ratio set in the Market/Octavia Plan for a proposed condominium and commercial development at 299 Valencia Street.