SF New Developments

Thanks to the dozen or so neighbors who responded to my call for help and who took two minutes last Monday and Tuesday to send an e-mail to our elected Board of Supervisors, the Rincon Hill neighborhood will have an opportunity to hear the plans for two proposed bocce ball courts or, even more exciting, consider an alternative idea that may provide higher utility to the community while still helping the businesses at One Market achieve their goal of activating the park space. See what happens when you engage your local government? Change is possible.

Here is a 2 minute clip from Channel 7 news last Tuesday about our successful effort to get a legitimate community outreach process that involves us.

The main point of hitting the brakes at the Board of Supervisors on Tuesday was not to kill the bocce ball courts idea but to make sure that we as residents South of Market Street were shown the respect we deserve to be brought into the discussion about what is planned for our shared public open space.  Up until Tuesday, only residents who lived on the north side of Market Street were given such consideration. While the behavior of our Supervisor Chris Daly might make some of us cringe at times, it is Chris Daly who helped the Rincon Hill Neighborhood Association to persuade Board President David Chiu to send the “Bocce Ball Courts” idea to the Supervisors’ Land Use Committee at a later date for further public input.

Meanwhile, you may have read in the San Francisco Examiner about our neighbor Adhamina Rodriguez and her desire to build a childrens’ playground for the hundreds of kids who live in our neighborhood or stay in the child care centers or visit the Embarcadero YMCA each day. The article discusses a triangle of asphalt bordered by Steuart Street , Howard Street , and The Embarcadero.  Adha met with the Port of San Francisco to discuss the property being temporarily used as a childrens’ playground, and they did not seem too willing to turn a potential revenue source into public open space (even for a temporary period of time). As a mom of a growing son in the Rincon Hill neighborhood, Adha is determined to lead the charge …. and we’re hoping you might get behind us to push for a childrens’ playground instead of bocce ball courts on the existing park space near the Streetcar Museum .  Adha provided this design of a playground space – the caveat is that it would require us to raise about $150,000 (if we were granted the permission to build it on the existing park by the Streetcar Museum ).

Please join us at a neighborhood meeting on Tuesday, August 24th at 6:30pm at The Infinity’s Club Lounge (333 Main Street, enter the central courtyard from Main Street and go up the stairs tot he right to get to the Club Lounge).  We will discuss the bocce ball courts and Adha’s playground design, and I hope we can reach a consensus about how we would like to proceed as a community.

Transbay Transit Center Groundbreaking

Thank you to Singer Associates for allowing the neighborhood blog guy to plug in his audio recorder with the big kid local TV stations and radio news station reporters on Wednesday morning for the groundbreaking of the first high-speed rail station in the United States , the Transbay Transit Center .  I have not had time to parse all the audio or retrieve photos from my camera, but I did post an MP3 audio recording of Mayor Gavin Newsom’s remarks which remind us of the purpose of the Rincon Hill neighborhood and our tall condo high rises – it is all about sustainability and healing our environment.

Dog Park Open on Saturday for Volunteers and Well-Behaved Dogs