Upper Market Community Design Plan Approved

By Jaime San Felippo

On Oct. 23, after a year of public workshops and round table discussions, the San Francisco Planning Commission approved two documents that were produced to represent the ideas and goals of community members and designers who worked on the Upper Market Community Design Plan.
The idea of splitting the Upper Market Community Design Plan was intended to make the entire information user friendly for everyone that would want to access it.

The first element of the plan is the Upper Market Community Vision and Recommendations, a document that represents the ideas of the Upper Market Street community, both residential and commercial, of what residents would like to see happen to their neighborhood in the future.

This document includes the top five community desires: socially engaging sidewalks, improved pedestrian crossings, improved pedestrian safety as well as more open spaces and green spaces, such as more parks in the neighborhood. The commission endorsed this document unanimously.

The second document is entitled the Upper Market Development Design Guidelines. This would serve as a guideline for developers in all future projects along the Market Street Corridor between Octavia and Castro Streets. This covers architecture design as well as the type of housing that will be included in new buildings along the corridor.

As developers submit their plans to the planning department, the planners will use this document as a checklist to make sure developers are taking into consideration what the community wants. Developers are not required to meet every point on the list.

The commission adopted this document as policy unanimously.

“Now that these have been passed people will start to see individual projects and plans coming through the planning department real soon,” said Abigail Kiefer, a San Francisco planner that has worked on the project since its inception.

The Upper Market Community Design plan was initiated by Supervisor Bevan Dufty when he realized two years ago that many plots of land, mostly gas stations, along the Market Street corridor would be going up for sale with the potential to drastically change the landscape of the neighborhood. He also wanted to make sure that the GLBT community was still a driving force in the neighborhood.

These two documents are meant to complement and work with the Market & Octavia Plan as well as the Castro Community Benefits District’s Streetscape Plan.

These guidelines are intended to keep the GLBT identity alive in the neighborhood by providing more diverse housing for the community. This would include building studios, family housing and senior housing, so residents will have appropriate housing in the Castro area at every juncture of their life. A more active upper story design is included in the plan as well, asking for more balconies and active rooftops.

“There has never been a question in my mind about the passion of the people in the Castro,” said Supervisor Dufty, as he addressed the Planning Commission. “I want it to be a thriving hub for the GLBT community. It is important to have a sense of what matters.”

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