RE: [lowerhaightorg] Re: urgent notice of pre-application meeting for 690 page street

[r...@3-page.com]

Joanne, with all due respect (and some urban planning expertise): adding garage spaces will not solve or even lessen the shortage of parking in the neighborhood, it will make it worse. 

The solution is counter-intuitive: Having parking is a car-ownership magnet, and attracts more mostly unnecessary cars, more traffic, and more parking problems for other neighborhoods. Having a parking spot makes someone much more likely to fill it with a car, rather than figuring out another way to get around.  Look at it as an urban vs. suburban transportation issue.  

The idea of adding spaces to solve a parking shortage is similar to the notion that adding freeway lanes will solve congestion:  It doesn't work, it really makes it worse. Demand will always outpace supply.

Hayes Valley (Octavia Boulevard Plan area) has a .5 to 1 maximum for residential parking, (and often HVNA gets parking reduced even further) and it has to be sold or rented separately from the housing unit so as to make the housing more affordable (A parking space adds $50-100K to the unit price-catnip for developers!).  I hope that the neighborhood will take a stand for affordability rather than parking.  More housing and less parking. 

The issue is also one of neighborhood economics:  Owning a car (with all associated costs) is a minimum of $5K/year.  With a car, someone is more likely to patronize more distant businesses, often with free parking, like suburban malls.  Without a car, most people spend closer to home, support more small, independent businesses, and also have more money to spend. (Parking lots are also an environmental nightmare, but that's another rant)

We must address the issue of adding garage doors.  Since they're subdividing the lot, having one point of egress for all the properties would be tricky. That's why I think there should be no parking at all, except to replace the Car Share spaces.  We can collectively oppose any new curb cuts, thus not reducing the public parking curbside spaces that exist now for those who need them.  

City guidelines for adding curb cuts specifically dissuade them on transit and bike routes:

INTERFERE WITH TRANSIT, BICYCLES, OR PEDESTRIANS
New or expanded garages or curb cuts that are
located along Transit Preferential Streets or that would
otherwise adversely transit stops, bicycle routes, or
primary pedestrian streets cannot be approved over
the counter. The application will be routed to a planner
for further review.

http://www.sf-planning.org/ftp/files/publications_reports/Guidelines_for_Adding_Garages_and_Curb%20Cuts.pdf

We need to find out who the planner is for this project. 

Another issue:  The City loses public parking inventory when anyone "privatizes" the curb by adding a curb cut.  The permit for this is under-priced, especially when one calculates the cost of someone replacing the public space with a rented parking space in the neighborhood ($250-300/mo). Conservatively, 20 years would price out at $60K, without factoring in rent increases.  The city should probably charge $100+K for a curb cut permit, but we can take this issue on later. 

Rob

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: [lowerhaightorg] Re: urgent notice of pre-application meeting
for 690 page street
From: Scott <Scot...@gmail.com>
Date: Thu, January 17, 2013 9:32 am
To: lowerha...@googlegroups.com
Cc: Joanne Schwartz <joand...@yahoo.com>

Boom!

I say they add 12 additional spots and put it underground. ( of course I have yet to actually view the project)   :)

On Tuesday, January 15, 2013 10:56:55 AM UTC-8, Mitch wrote:

+1 for being reasonable.  Wouldn't it be great to add 12 more good folks, their families, friends and doggies to our neighborhood?

Dmitry

On Monday, January 14, 2013 2:43:09 PM UTC-8, bjneuman wrote:

Team -

How does this building proposal eliminate all of the street parking? also, why should it be a neighborhood concern that a privately owned (surface!) parking lot that brings in money for the landowner from leased spaces is eliminated?

To offer an alternate perspective:

There are LOTS of reasons to build or to not build, but I for one would never go an rally at a planning meeting against a project because i considered scarce the space provided on public land for folks to store their private property. our neighborhood is dense, no doubt! and desirable, to boot. does keeping other people out so that those who are still there can park their cars make good planning sense? i dont believe it does. this project is not enormous like many others along market street - in fact the building sizes sound quite modest. these buildings wouldn't overwhelm the area, and actually sound like a very reasonable way to infill an underutilized space.

thanks,

Bryce

On Sunday, January 13, 2013 2:04:45 PM UTC-8, joandbasil wrote:

The proposal is to replace the old Baptist center with four new buildings-- each 4 floors and 3 units for a total of 12 new units. The plan contains the mandatory 12 on site parking spots but the neighborhood will lose the present 9 street spots which border the center and the parking lot: approx 10 - 12 spots some contracted to City Car Share and others rented to nearby residents who can afford $250 per month.

As all folks in the neighborhood know, this is already quite a crowded little area-- lots of people and cars, short on parking and green space. The last thing we need is four additional buildings of three units each with resultant loss of lots of parking.

The pre-application meeting will be held January 24, 2013. Time of meeting 6:30PM. Location 690 Page Street at the existing building. Property owner/sponsors Urbano Ezquerro. Victor Quan, Tony Kim, to...@townconsulting.com (415)246-8855.  Development proposal #0843/016 (hard to read).

For more info or answers to questions re: SF Planning Code, Residential Design Guidelines,or general development process in the city please call the Public Information Center 415-558-6378 or contact Planning Dept via email at p...@sfgov.org. More information www.sfplanning.org.

While we are still able to voice our concerns we must look closely at this proposal and how it will impact our sweet little neighborhood-- already overwhelmed with autos, gridlock parking, good folks, their families, friends and doggies. Our voices must be heard before it is too late to establish a base of reasonable growth, green space, and urban sanity. Hope to see you at this important community meeting.

Joanne Schwartz

429 Steiner

joand...@yahoo.com

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[bjneuman]

rob -

thanks for this thorough response!