No. 46, May 2005 Futures Collaborative
Petition
goes out to 500 property owners
by Marjorie Beggs
Thirty percent of TL property owners
said they support a community benefit district for
their neighborhood — in
concept — so North of Market Neighborhood Improvement
Corp. has moved forward with the next step, petitioning
the 500 owners: Do you approve of the district? Yes or
no?
At the April Tenderloin Futures
Collaborative meeting, attorney and community activist
Elaine Zamora said the petitions had just been mailed.
NOMNIC won’t pursue
the district idea unless 30% answer “yes.” It’s
not 30% of all owners but 30% of respondents, and it
isn’t one-owner, one-vote, Zamora explained. It’s
weighted according to how much property is owned.
TNDC’s Jerry Jai asked about
district services. Daily steam-cleaning of sidewalks,
extra trash cans and pickups, and graffiti removal
are sure bets, but there also could be safety services,
Zamora said.
And the possible adverse effects? asked David Villa-Lobos,
Community Leadership Alliance director.
“There have been fears that the cleaning will
displace street people and that owners’ costs might
get passed on to tenants,” Zamora responded. The
Coalition on Homelessness and housing advocates have
been on the steering committee almost from the start
of planning, she said, and she expects they’ll
continue to be part of the decision-making process.
Kevin Leong, director of NOMNIC’s TSIP program,
added that membership in the district’s governing
body is still open “and you’re welcome to
participate.”
Zamora estimated the proposed benefit
district’s
annual budget at around $900,000 — 81% of it for
services, 12% admin and 7% contingency.
After lights out
A March 26 PG&E fire that caused
a two-hour power outage affected 25,000 people scattered
around the Tenderloin, Civic Center, downtown, South
of Market, Chinatown, Western Addition, North Beach.
Two reps from the city attorney’s
office explained what residents and businesses can
do when the lights go out.
“This was the second big outage recently — the
one in December 2003 affected 120,000 people,” said
Jackie Minor, deputy city attorney. “We’re
stuck with PG&E as our electricity provider, but
we’re filing a series of claims against them to
get recovery for the outages and the three substation
fires.”
The city attorney is asking for
penalties to be assessed against PG&E, with the
money to go directly to fix the problems. Also, individuals
and businesses can file claims for personal injury,
property damage, lost wages, lost revenue and food
spoilage.
During
an outage, food begins going south after four hours if
it’s in a full refrigerator, one day in a half-full
freezer and two days in a full freezer, Minor said. The
March outage, which started at 7:15 p.m. and ended a
little after 9 p.m., wouldn’t have hurt food.
In March, the city attorney’s Outage Victims Hotline
in four languages — 554-7423 — generated
a couple dozen calls; PG&E’s Web site, where
claimants can download forms, got 700 visits.
Outages aren’t funny business, but a source passed
on a good one to The Extra: The Mission substation, site
of the March fires, is less than a mile from PG&E’s
headquarters, the California PUC and City Hall. At a
recent dinner, TURN (The Utility Reform Network) honored
PG&E with its Keeping the Home Fires
Burning Award.
Lessons from the Mission
Organizers from the Mission District
came with a show-and-tell on preventing gentrification:
The People’s Plan
for Jobs, Housing, Community for the industrial zone,
Division to Cesar Chavez, Guerrero to Potrero. It’s
the community’s response to the Planning Department’s
rezoning proposals to boost new market-rate housing in
the city’s eastern neighborhoods.
Eric
Quezada, senior organizer of Mission Economic Development
Association, and Fernando Marti, a fellow with Asian
Neighborhood Design, had barely started when acting NOMPC
President David Baker asked them, “Is this a model?”
“I’m not sure this is a model,” Quezada
answered. “This has been a long process, four years,
and we developed strategies and learned lessons that
might interest others.”
One lesson: With no plan in place, changes will happen
without community input.
Concerns about gentrification and
blue-collar job loss sparked the creation of the Mission
Anti-Displacement Coalition in 2000, according to The
People’s Plan.
More than 1,000 residents got involved in the planning
process, which began with a mapping project to track
land-use changes. (Last year, Urban Solutions prepared
a TL neighborhood profile that could be a baseline for
a similar project here.)
The People’s Plan calls for preserving mixed uses
along neighborhood corridors; allowing development in
exchange for public benefits; new housing in light industry
areas; and preserving residential areas’ scale,
character and density.
“One thing we’re calling for,” Quezada
said, “is changing the inclusionary zoning so the
12% affordable designation for new developments is for
family housing, not for studios and one-bedrooms.”
In March, City Planning began its “scoping sessions” for
rezoning in SoMa, Showplace Square and the Mission. More
than 100 Mission residents and leaders attended to support
putting The People’s Plan in the EIR.
Collaborative members had no questions
about the plan, but seemed impressed with it — a
model, perhaps?
Errata
Issue 45’s food stamps story didn’t say
that DHS’ March Food Stamps in a Day was conducted
with the Haight Ashbury Food Program, which was using
the Hamilton Family Center gymnasium for that day only
and has no other connection to the site. The Extra regrets
the omission.
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