Corbett Heights Neighbors - October 22, 2009 - Meeting Notes

Greetings Neighbors -
Big crowd last night for our quarterly meeting - 33 people showed up.

I'd like to thank the folks who distributed the fliers: Nancy Peoples, Ted Teipel, Pat Hufford, Marianne Mitten, Kathy Flanders, Kevin Dunn, Rick Johnson, Kazumi Matsuyama, Janice Low and John and Leslie Koelsch. Your help was greatly appreciated!!

Recently, long-time resident Don Cassidy passed away, and will be greatly missed. Some time ago, his wife Catherine told me an amusing story about Don's family. His parents and grandparents lived together at 364 Corbett. Sometime in the 60's, the neighbors at 366 Corbett build an addition onto the top of their house. This blocked the Cassidys' view of Twin Peaks, so they decided to raise their own house by 5 feet in order to regain their lost view. Sometime later, the neighbor to the east at 362 Corbett decided to sell. Fearing they would possibly lose their downtown view at some point in the future, Violet and Rod Cassidy decided to purchase 362 Corbett, thereby ensuring that their view would remain. Violet died a year or so ago at age 105.

Traffic Calming: Antonio Piccagli of MTA has been updating me regularly on the status of our traffic calming solutions for 17th Street. Because of its proximity, the Buena Vista and Roosevelt project has been merged with ours, so MTA is, more or less, treating them as one. The following is from an email I received from Antonio on October 12:

Our Five-Year Prioritization Plan (5YPP) is up for approval by the County Transportation Authority (TA) at the end of this month. If the TA approves the plan, we should get funding for many of the items in the BV/Roosevelt/17th St areawide project in a few months. We submitted the 5YPP for comment over two (over three?) months ago and still don't have approval. The process is long and frustrating and has had significant comment and changes from individual supervisors, which has extended the process well beyond our wildest imagination.

As regards the speed radar sign... The Signal Shop should be installing the speed radar signs on Market St (inbound before Romain and before Hattie) soon. If sufficient money is left from that job order, I will submit the work order to have the crews install the 17th St speed radar sign. However, before I can authorize the expense, I have to make sure that the money is there to spend. If we do not have sufficient funds, we may have to wait until the rest of the area wide funding comes in (see comments above). All of the funding issues have reduced our ability to
implement in the short term, but it seems as though we may get funding for the rest of the project faster than initially projected. In summary, the wheels are turning, albeit slowly. I would love to get everything installed faster than this but too much is out of my hands, and some is even out of our agency's hands.

And following are the speed radar signs that will be installed sometime soon (the last one will actually be moved a block west and is not new.)

SPEED RADAR SIGNS - INSTALL

3600-3700 block of Market Street (one sign on the odd side, roughly between Argent and Romain Streets)
4300 block of 17th Street (one sign on the odd side, between Temple and Ord Streets)
3000 block of Market Street (one sign on the odd side, between Hattie and Danvers Streets. Note: the existing sign on Market between Douglass and Eureka is to be moved to this new location)

Next, a neighbor on Ord Street spoke about Propositions C, D and E.

Prop C: A yes vote means that SF can enter into a naming rights contract for Candlestick Park. 50% of the revenue from the sale would be used to fund directors of recreation centers in the city.
The city is short on funds, but 4 years ago the majority of SF voters chose to keep Candlestick Park as the name. The question is whether, during the next budget crunch, the Golden Gate bridge naming rights will be sold as well.

Prop D is an ordinance that would create a special sign district on and near Market Street, between 5th and 7th Streets to allow new general advertising signs in that district. This district would not be subject to the citywide ban on new general advertising signs or the ban on all general advertising signs in the Market Street Special Sign District. The signs would include roof signs, video signs, rotating signs, wall signs, signs with moving parts and signs with illumination. This proposition, if approved, is only reversible by another ballot measure.
Please check out: http://nonewbillboards.org/

Prop E: "Shall the City prohibit an increase in the number of general advertising signs on street furniture and specifically prohibit new general advertising signs on city-owned buildings?" This is a good one! In 2007, 62% of voters had approved a non-binding resolution that called for no new advertising in the public right-of-way. Prop E would allow this to become law.

136 Ord: There are many reasons that we love our neighborhood. The 100 block of Ord Street, west side between Market and Corbett, is one of them. The 4 "inner" lots are recessed between 30 and 90 feet back from the sidewalk. This creates a most unusual, and extremely beautiful, park like atmosphere. The fact that the 4 homes are almost hidden behind walls of green, adds some mystery to the block as well. During our last meeting, in July, the project sponsor, who purchased the property about a year ago, spoke to us about his plan to build a new 3-story home in the front of the lot - 15' back from the sidewalk. Clearly, the construction of this home, in one of the center 2 lots would eliminate the contiguous green stretch that has been enjoyed by the entire neighborhood for almost 100 years. About a dozen neighbors, in partnership with Corbett Heights Neighbors, have decided to apply for a Discretionary Review. A D.R. is a special review process by the Planning Commission that is used when there are exceptional and extraordinary circumstances associated with a proposed project. In this case, the project sponsor's plans have complied with sufficient planning code requirements. The D.R. will allow CHN and the neighbors to show the Planning Commissioners what it is about this wonderful site that we feel is important enough to be preserved. There was a presentation about and a description of the project, followed by questions from the group of attendees. Afterwards I called for a vote by the CHN members present, on whether to support or not support the decision to use the discretionary review process to protest this project. (All of Corbett Heights was informed prior to the meeting that this vote would take place.) The vote: 19 in favor of supporting our efforts to seek a discretionary review; 0 against.

150 Corbett: There is a 2-flat older building at 4347 17th Street that is on a lot that goes through to Corbett. On the Corbett end is a 2-car garage. The owner of the lot would like to merge the 2 flats in the building on 17th Street, and construct a new 4-story building on the site of the garage.
This scenario is repeating itself throughout our neighborhood and beyond. There are many things wrong with this project, but the 2 most outstanding problems are the reduction of rear-yard open space, and the scale - an imposing, 4-story building on such a small lot. I will be sending out another email that details the variance hearing that will be taking place next week. I hope you can attend, or at least write a letter stating your opinion.

Lots of Grocery Store Options: With the almost certain approval of the Whole Foods store (they hope to break ground next summer) on Market at Dolores (former S&C Ford dealership), the existing Safeway, and the possible addition of a Trader Joe's on the site of the old Tower Records store, there will be 3 giant grocery outlets within a 3 block stretch of Market Street. Trader Joe's has entered into an agreement with the owner of the Market & Noe Center (Tower building) to lease the entire building. The entire ground floor would be the retail store, and the 2nd level would be TJs offices and storage. The Radio Shack would very likely move into the vacant Plant It Earth store across the street. The other 3 businesses would need to leave also. There is a very long process of approval or denial ahead, and the residents and businesses in the general vicinity have greatly varied opinions on whether or not this is a good idea. The presence of such a large, mostly empty building has had a very negative impact on neighboring merchants and the neighborhood as a whole. And the presence of such a high-profile store would certainly revitalize the block. But many are very concerned about issues such as pedestrian safety, loss of street parking, illegal parking, backed-up traffic and the impact on other retailers - especially food retailers.

Corbett Heights Neighbors has grown to include 3 new streets - Douglass and Ord, north of 17th Street, and Ord Court. 3 people showed up from our newly expanded area.

Vacant Building Inquiry: I received an email from our local police station - Park Station - requesting information on any vacant buildings that we're aware of. We know of one at 4388 - 90 17th Street, but if you know of others, either let me know, or send an email to: sfpdparkstation@sfgov.org.

Garden Cleanups: We've recently had some cleanup days in several of our pocket parks, and the results are remarkable. The planting beds on either side of the Corbin Stairs got a great facelift with major weeding and a slew of new plants - in addition to a whole truckload of mulch that was supplied by DPW. "Sweetgum Corner" on Mars at 17th Streets had chest-high weeds prior to our workday there. After weeding we spread another truckload of mulch from DPW, and planted a bunch of new plants. Fred Breiten and Nancy Peoples have been generously keeping it watered.
On Halloween we're hoping to organize another group of dedicated neighbors to finish the cleanup of "Merritt Park" (Merritt, Danvers, Market) that was started by the city.

Please come and join us!

- Gary