THIS MEETING FOR TODAY HAS BEEN CANCELLED: Excelsior District Improvement Association (EDIA) - TUESDAY, July 22nd - 6:00 P.M.

[Mel Flores]

Due to a scheduling conflict

this meeting for today has been cancelled.

Community members, please review the meeting notes below in preparation for our next meeting on this same topic.

Excelsior District Improvement Association

Greetings EDIA Members, Neighbors and Friends –

Please join us for our meeting

Tuesday, July 22nd at 6:00 P.M.

Crocker Amazon Clubhouse

799 Moscow Street (Moscow Street at Italy Avenue), San Francisco, CA 94112

We anticipate an update from the

San Francisco Ingleside Police Station.

A continued in depth community discussion

will follow focused on adding a

Residential Parking Permits (RPP) program in the Excelsior.

A San Francisco Municipal Transportation Authority

(SFMTA) representative will attend.

Neighbors will work with RPP program representatives 

to determine the details of our Excelsior program.

Some relevant notes from our prior meeting are attached below.

Please join us to stay informed.  Come to meet your neighbors.  Please feel free to share this invitation to our meeting.

We really look forward to seeing you at our EDIA General Meetings. 

We value everyone's participation and feedback. 

Mel Flores

melfl...@gmail.com

REMINDER: EDIA meets monthly on the 4^th Tuesday (Except November and December).

 

EDIA is a non-profit organization open to all residents of the Excelsior District,

and neighbors and friends from the surrounding areas of San Francisco.

  Homeowners - Renters - Businesses

ALL ARE WELCOME!

 

EDIA GENERAL MEETING

Crocker Amazon Clubhouse

Moscow Street & Italy Avenue, San Francisco, CA 94112

Meeting notes from June 24th EDIA meeting:

Excelsior District Improvement Association Meeting Notes (Prepared by Peter Albert): 

June 24, 2025

Meeting Presenters:

Brian Manford, SFMTA

Charlie Sciammas, Office of Sup. Chen

Peter Albert

Bill Holdenstern

Bruce Colville

 

Excelsior RPP Update and Proposal  Item

Introduction by EDIA President Mel Flores

Mel gave a brief background to how the RPP item got noticed and placed on the EDIA agenda, and pulled up data slides on the laptop and projector for the community and city staff present to review.

Parking Data and RPP Context Slides - (Peter Albert) 

Mel introduced Peter Albert, who further introduced himself as a grandfather and childcare provider of Excelsior resident Jack Holdenstern and regular stroller-pushing user of area sidewalks, as former president of the Duboce Triangle Neighborhood Association which also supported expansion of its S RPP district, and as a retired planner who worked at SFMTA. He presented findings to the group about the data gathered during the Excelsior's first try at establishing RPP east of Mission. He presented maps showing SFMTA data, including the existing V District and the approval rates per block groups from the petition and online survey efforts from 2017-2019 that showed key support on that subset of blocks outlined. 

He also included data from SFMTA showing where parking on Excelsior Streets was "oversubscribed" and where parking meters on major commercial streets like Mission and Geneva seems to push parkers onto streets that aren't metered but also aren't managed by the V RPP district.

Peter also included info and data from the 2014 "Balboa Park Area Circulation Study"  of the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) that supported establishing the V District, which included destinations that attracted drive & park traffic from outside the area: folks who want to use the Muni or BART Fast Pass (which is valid at Balboa Park, but not Daly City, which has pay parking), along with employees at nearby institutions like City College and SFUSD sites who could take transit but choose to drive because parking in the Excelsior is "free."

Peter also discussed the SFMTA's "D11 Parking Survey Summary" findings, consistent with the SFCTA's studies that a significant number of cars parked in this part of the Excelsior originated from locations more than 2 miles away. This seems to confirm that people outside the community see the unmanaged parking, particularly near Mission and Geneva, as attractive so that they can ride BART or Muni, or drive and park for their jobs at the nearby schools and college, ot just avoid paying the meters on Mission, Geneva, Russia, Ocean, etc.

From this data, Peter outlined a "Proposed Expansion of V RPP" subarea that outlined a contiguous set of blocks annexed to the V RPP District that are most affected by all these parking-issue factors: walkability to the BART Station and major employment sites, oversubscribed parking on residential streets, and proximity to the commercial streets managed by parking meters.

The last graphic was a map from the "Best Neighborhood Network Sites" study of average household incomes in SF block groups. This showed that the existing V RPP District tended to be wealthier than the area we were studying for annexation. The key point here is to make sure a "Proposed Expansion of V RPP" proposal tilts toward better income equality of beneficiaries of an expanded V District. Specifically, the subset of blocks I outlined were shown as lower-income households than the average of the V district, which includes portions of Westwood Park and Mission Terrace. 

Background and Update of Existing, Stalled RPP Effort (Bill Holdenstern)

Following the slide presentation, Bill Holdenstern outlined the RPP effort that the community undertook between 2017-2019 for RPP parking. This wasn't geared toward comparing annexation versus a new RPP District, but it did show support from Excelsior neighbors and it did initiate the data gathering that SFMTA reflected in its study. This effort encompassed many more blocks than the ones outlined as "Proposed Expansion of V RPP." Bill then explained how the pandemic affected the community progress, effectively shutting down the RPP effort as SFMTA turned its focus on the urgent issues related to COVID-19 impacts in March 2020, citing staffing and urgent-priority workload issues. Bill reported that what was especially frustrating for the Excelsior community that worked so hard to get a RPP proposal considered was after the quarantine was lifted, the message from SFMTA seemed to be that the community had to go back to "the drawing board" and start all over again, including circulating petitions and gathering documentation of community support for RPP all over again.

SFMTA Initial Thoughts - (Brian Manford)

In response to these proposals and community concerns, SFMTA representative Brian Manford offered that the proposed annexation district seemed contiguous and do-able (whereas SFMTA seeks to avoid annexations that create disconnected islands or that makes an existing RPP district too large). Brian also offered that annexation might be easier for the community already used to V RPP provisions, as a new RPP would have different provisions governing number of permits allowed and hours of operation, although he reported that hours can vary within an existing RPP District based on need and desire of the community. Brian also offered to review how the validity of "yes" votes gathered between 2017-2019 might still apply, provided the residents still live in these areas, so that any re-petitioning could avoid asking residents who expected their RPP support was heard and recorded the first time.

Comments from Office of Supervisor Cyanne Chen - Charlie Sciammas

Charlie Sciammas, representing Supervisor Chyanne Chen's office, was acknowledged for helping coordinate this discussion with EDIA and, along with Mel Flores, for securing SFMTA presence at this meeting that office's interest in supporting what a majority of residents sought to improve quality of life, while also recognizing that it would be unlikely to get unanimous approval of all residents. Brian Manford of SFMTA reminded the group that there was a difference between having a majority of support from residents who responded to surveys versus a majority of all residents on a block. Excelsior community members present expressed their appreciation for this, and their hope that SFMTA's own parcel-by-parcel findings from the online survey could be included in avoiding duplication of petitioning so that ant re-petitioning could focus instead on getting feedback from those who hadn't already weighed in.

 Community discussion at this point included the following:

• Appreciation for having data that could help the community focus on areas of greatest impact and need
• Appreciation for SFMTA's support for an annexation proposal, versus a new, from-scratch RPP district.
• Concern that enforcement should be rigorous and sustained if the residents did get included in the V RPP district. One resident of the existing V District noted that some cars not clearly permitted were not being ticketed.
• Discussion about how enforcement happens: if SFMTA patrols use license plate numbers and no longer require a sticker affixed to a car, how might residents know when a car is a scofflaw versus a legitimately-permitted vehicle? (One idea raised was that stickers could still be provided for transparency, even if SFMTA staff only used license plates for enforcement)
• Hope from the Excelsior that RPP might bring more regular presence of SFMTA parking staff so that other safety issues, such as blocked sidewalks or crosswalks now plaguing the neighborhood, would be more consistently flagged and addressed.
• Concern about the costs of RPP per household, and the support for a proposal that the first couple of permits could be cheaper than the third, fourth or fifth. (On this point, SFMTA reminded the group that the overall RPP area's permit fees should be based on the costs of implementation, including enforcement)
• Support for SFMTA coming back to EDIA for follow-up meetings in summer 2025.
• Appreciation for Supervisor Chen's on-going support for this community effort.