Minutes from Corbett Heights Meeting - April 24, 2008
Hi All -
Thanks to everyone (32 people) who attended the meeting last Thursday.
And also, thanks to all of you who helped distribute the fliers - Nathan, Ted, Rick, Kevin, Mark, Janice, David, Jeff and Cindy.
We had some great news: An hour before the meeting, I went to pick up a check for $5,000 that will be used to improve our pocket parks. Here's the background:
Several years ago, when the developer of the Corbett/Mars lot was hoping to get neighborhood approval of his plans, he at first was resistant to making any changes. In time - lots of time - he came around and actually became very receptive to our wishes. The first thing he did was to completely eliminate one of the 6 bldgs, leaving it as open space. He made an agreement with the neighborhood which covered the details of the design that we had agreed on, and a second agreement in which he agreed to donate a minimum of $5,000 on behalf of Corbett Heights Neighbors to be used to improve/beautify our pocket parks. This donation would be forthcoming on the condition that the neighbors would not resort to calling the authorities every time there was a complaint. I set it up so that any issue was directed to me and I either settled it personally with the neighbor or sent the complaint to the project sponsor. In most cases he was not aware of the issue and quickly took care of it.
He said the money would be given to us when 3 of the 5 units sold. That just happened last week. Bob Rickard was/is the project sponsor/owner, and we have him to thank for this.
The Neighborhood Parks Council is acting as our fiscal sponsor. They were ecstatic when I originally spoke with them about this process a couple of years ago. They said it was exactly what they were hoping to have happen with developers around the city.
Seventeenth Street has always been a traffic nightmare. There's never been a reasonable solution to the fact that cars speed dangerously down the hill endangering pedestrians and other vehicles.
I invited Adam Gubser, a transportation planner with MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Agency), to discuss our options for dealing with this problem.
What seems like the best, and possibly only solution is called a chicane. Here are some photos of what was done on Beacon Street, just down from Diamond Heights Blvd:
A pilot traffic chicane was installed in 2005 on Beacon Street to address further speeding on the street. A traffic chicane is a series of raised islands that force drivers to zig-zag their way through the device. Drivers who would usually have a chance to speed through the street in straight line would now have to slowly zig-zag their way through the series of islands in the street. Chicanes also offer the opportunity to add landscaping to the area.
The first photo shows Beacon Street traffic chicane, looking north. Drivers who had a straight shot through this street segment must now zig-zag through the series of traffic islands to get through.
The 2nd photo shows Beacon Street traffic chicane, looking south. Again, drivers must zig-zag their way through the series of islands. Note the additional trees and landscaping help beautify the area.
The 3rd photo is of an overhead view of the Beacon Street traffic chicane. This gives a better view of what drivers face when driving through a chicane. Instead of a straight shot through the street, they must slowly zig-zag their way through the series of islands shown.
If the photos don't come out, open up this link and scroll down almost to the bottom to "Traffic Chicane" Beacon St. Diamond Heights.
http://www.sfmta.com/cms/ocalm/13567.html
The only problem with this solution is that we would probably lose about 4 parking spaces on 17th St. I personally like the idea of the planted median in the middle of the street, but am not too impressed with the way they created the bulb-outs.
It's been determined that STOP signs would be ineffective in that location. And there's a very long waiting list for a streetlight, and Mr. Gubser doubted its effectiveness - in addition, the cost would be around $350,000.
I'll be sending out an email asking for your opinion on this. Whatever we decide to do, if approved, will take a while to have happen.
Jane Warner of the SF Patrol Special Police spoke about what she and the other officers have been doing since they began patrolling our neighborhood. About a year ago, after a spate of break-ins and other crimes, I invited the Patrol to consider including our district in their nightly patrols. As it is now, Jane or another officer cruises by in an ominous-looking, black Crown Victoria. They slowly go down every street in Corbett Heights. This takes about 15 minutes and is repeated nightly. The time of the drive-by changes nightly.
I personally have seen them on several occasions. The idea is that with a police presence, criminals are less likely to strike.
We have all acknowledged that the SF Police Dept. has a weak record on cruising down our streets. With the budget the way it is, it will only get worse. For this reason, the SF Patrol Special Police is a good deal for us. But we do need to support them. Currently people are paying between $25 - $50 per month per address. If you are able to contribute, let me know and I'll send you the payment information.
Next, Joe Curtin, President of CAPA (Castro Area Planning + Action) spoke about MUNI's TEP (Transit Effectiveness Project). MUNI is planning to reroute several bus lines in the city. A number of them will directly impact our neighborhood:
The 24-Divisadero would be rerouted to 24th Street, and be able to access the BART Station there.
The 33-Stanyan would turn at Castro to replace the 24 south of 24th Street.
The 37-Corbett would discontinue service to Church and Market. It would instead turn onto 17th Street at Castro and Market, go down Hartford (impossibly), then go down 18th Street traveling east and eventually stopping at the 16th Street BART Station.
The 35 Eureka would terminate at 24th Street, and would replace the current 37 route to Buena Vista and Cole Valley.
The Castro Shuttle would be discontinued.
There will be a meeting to discuss this on Saturday, May 10th at the Harvey Milk Academy, 4235 19th Street at Collingwood. 10:30AM. Neighborhood input will be welcomed.
More information on this can be found at the TEP website: www.sftep.org.
Undergrounding: Amazing that we can almost see the light at the end of the tunnel. In the next week or so, PG&E will begin de-energizing and removing their overhead wires. This process will begin on the 900 block of Corbett. They expect to reach Clayton by the end of May. They will then begin the next phase - down to Douglass.
Comcast and AT&T need to do the same. AT&T is hoping to complete their de-energizing in June or July. Not sure about Comcast.
The poles are scheduled to come down in late summer (or early fall).
By the way, I have a copy of the original Corbett phase undergrounding ordinance that was submitted to the Board of Supervisors in late 1979, and finally approved in January of 1980. It was going to be started that year, barring hundreds of thousands of delays.
"Reclaim the Sky" event: Another neighborhood that went thru the same painful undergrounding process organized a celebration/block party when the poles were finally removed. We'd like to do something similar. Any ideas?
Walgreen's purchased Star Pharmacy in the late 70's. Star Pharmacy operated out of a single store on the corner of 18th and Castro for decades. Shortly afterwards, Walgreen's applied to increase in size by acquiring the Castro Cafe. Next they applied to the Planning Dept and the Merchant's Ass'n. to acquire the store across the street at 4129 18th Street. The promise was that this would be their last expansion. Until they opened up around the corner on Market and Sanchez. Then in the 90's they applied to expand again by taking over the Phoenix Bar (formerly Toad Hall). Once again they promised that this was it.
Adjacent to the 18th Street store, a decades-old, neighborhood-serving laundromat shut down. Walgreen's has had the lease on this storefront for over a year. Their plan is to open a "specialty pharmacy" on the site. They say that more interaction between patient and pharmacist would be possible. There are currently 60 of these specialty pharmacies operated by Walgreen's in Northern California.
If they are granted their conditional use permit, and are allowed to expand again, they will have a total of 14,606 square feet of retail space on 18th and Castro (between the 2 stores).
The members present at the meeting were asked to vote on whether we would support this latest Walgreen's expansion. The final vote count was: 0 in favor, 13 opposed, 4 abstained.
Aerial Pesticide Spraying to combat the apple moth is still scheduled to take place this summer. There has been a lot of opposition to this taking place in such a congested location as San Francisco. To get more information about this, visit these sites:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/04/15/BA6I105DG1.DTL
http://www.cassonline.org/
http://www.playnotspray.org/
Corona Heights Market Trends:
Corbett Heights Neighbors is getting a website and a blog. Thanks to Michael Sterling and
That's all for now.
- Gary
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