Planning Department

"Why wait five or six years before doing anything with the space?" was the question Brad Leibin, an‎ architect at David Baker Architects, was asked to help solve about an affordable housing project planned for West Oakland's San Pablo Avenue at 34th Street. "So we started to make a difference on that streets-cape immediately ... that project got me really interested in interim uses."

The city's proposed Transportation Sustainability Fee -- which would be assessed on new development to speed up construction of walking, biking, and transit infrastructure -- moved forward today with approval from the SF Planning Commission. The commission approved a maximum rate slightly higher than the city had initially proposed but far lower than what some livable streets advocates wanted.

San Francisco agencies have re-introduced the Transportation Sustainability Program, a bureaucratic overhaul that could dramatically expedite improvements for walking, biking, and transit, while discouraging car parking in new developments.

The SF Planning Department released a design guide this week for "living alleys" [PDF], providing a template to transform SF's narrow, low-traffic streets into places to gather and play.

Mission District residents who equate streetscape improvements with rising rents dominated a community meeting discussion yesterday about public space upgrades along Mission Street.

San Francisco's newest on-street plaza opened downtown this week on Annie Street, a one-block alley that runs near SPUR's Urban Center between Market and Mission Streets, about halfway between Third and New Montgomery Streets. Temporary concrete and wood seats have transformed a large section of the alley into a car-free space for gatherings and events in the middle of the bustling Yerba Buena District.

City planners are shaping up plans for Ocean Avenue, following public workshops that will help develop a vision for both near-term and long-term improvements. The near-term plans, for the commercial stretch of Ocean west of Phelan Avenue and the City College campus, are far along in their development. Meanwhile, a long-term plan for the remainder of the avenue, stretching eastward to the Balboa Park BART Station, is still in its earlier stages.

The Planning Department has an online survey about the Haight Street proposals, available until July 3.

The SF Fire Department will allow many of the new streets built in the Candlestick Point development to remain narrower than 26 feet under a compromise with street safety advocates. SFFD had insisted at the 11th hour that all new city streets must have at least 26 feet of clear roadway for firefighters to set up fire trucks and reach the tops of taller buildings, even though wider roads are known to increase driving speeds and traffic crashes.