Neighborhood Continues to Brainstorm Ideas at Second Upper Market Community Plan Workshop
Third and Final Workshop Scheduled for Dec. 10

A group of attendees at the second Upper Market Community Plan workshop discuss their ideas for the neighborhood Oct. 27. The last community meeting will be held on Dec. 10.

By Sarah Doss

On Saturday, Oct. 27, about 100 community members from the Castro and surrounding neighborhoods gathered at the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy to again discuss ideas for the Upper Market Community Plan.

The workshop was the second in a series of three for the plan, meant to give planning suggestions for the area of Market Street that stretches from Octavia Boulevard to Castro Street. The plan is part of a three-phase timeline meant to give community members an opportunity to steer the plan and provide feedback as it develops.

A consultant team, Moore Iacofano Goltsman (MIG), along with Seifel Consulting, has been hired to assist the Planning Department in completing the workshop series. Supervisor Bevan Dufty is sponsoring the project.

“It’s up to the community to make the ultimate decision,” said Daniel Iacofano, one of the three principals at MIG. The project team’s goal is to weed out any unnecessary designs and stick to what suits the neighborhood best.

The workshop was conducted in a manner similar to the first one: the assembly was broken up into smaller groups, where group leaders took votes and wrote down ideas on paper easels.

Later, chosen representatives went through the main points that each group discussed, while a couple of project team artists summarized the group reports on the wall in well-organized charts and graphs.

One of the design priorities mentioned was changing and beautifying sidewalks to make them more comfortable for pedestrians.

“Sidewalks are the sisters of plazas,” said Anchi Mei, one of the project managers for MIG. “Sidewalks are where life happens.”

Some of the examples for this design included wider sidewalk space for more outdoor patios and gardens. Other ideas mentioned the possibility that the sidewalks could be paved out of something other than cement.

There were also large plans to make the streets of Upper Market more bohemian by placing art sculptures in traffic medians and at bus stops.

“[The] Castro has no architectural character,” said Mei, “We need to find a consistent design that will bring the area together as a community.”

Dufty also attended the event and joined a small group to help with the collaboration.

“We need cultural elements that will sustain this neighborhood into the future,” he said.
The group discussed architectural designs that could be implemented along the Market Street corridor.

A word uttered throughout the meeting was “inclusivity,” which the project team used to describe how the Upper Market area has many identities to be celebrated. Incorporating these identities into one vision was the main strategy for this event.

Mei realized after working with a smaller group that upper Market community members had a hard time settling on a select number of priorities. “This neighborhood wants it all,” she said.

By the end of the meeting, the groups were able to focus on the most important issues, without breaking into heated debates.

Some groups were concerned with the recycling center next to Safeway. Other groups had an interest in making the neighborhood safer for children.

Mei claims the meeting was a total success in helping to narrow down the needs of the community.
“It’s a work in progress,” she said. “We’ve got a lot of good ideas that will help the process.”

The results from the second workshop are scheduled to be ready by Monday, Nov. 5, which will be available to download from the San Francisco city government Web site.

The third community workshop will be held on Monday, Dec. 10 in the evening at the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy. The project team will present the design framework and its application to proposed development sites.

For more information, or to see the presentation and notes from the first community workshop, visit sfgov.org/site/planning_index.asp?id=66778.

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