This week San Francisco will see votes on the continued landmarking of a number of city hangouts, particularly in the Marina, the appointment of transit and law enforcement officials, an important Westside water upgrade, and the departure of a quirky rooftop trailer park from Cow Hollow.
On Monday, the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee will consider the reappointment of a number of city commissioners, including San Francisco Metropolitan Transportation Authority board members Stephanie Cajina and Dominica Henderson. Cajina currently serves as vice chair of the SFMTA board of directors. Assuming they clear the Rules Committee, Cajina and Henderson will be considered for reappointment by the full Board of Supervisors next month.
Later in the day, the Land Use and Transportation Committee will mull a full 18 proposed landmark designations for sites in and around District 2, sponsored by Supervisor Stephen Sherrill and Board President Rafael Mandelman. Since the passage of Mayor Daniel Lurie’s Family Zoning Plan last year, supervisors have been starting up the process of protecting certain sites with landmark designations; Mandelman himself introduced legislation to protect more sites relevant to LGBTQ history last October.
The sites being considered this week include several historic places and hangouts familiar to Marina and other Westside denizens, ranging from the Presidio Theater on Chestnut Street to the First Church of Christ Scientist on Franklin Street. Once they clear the Rules Committee, they will be voted on by the full board the following day and then head to the Historic Preservation Commission for another approval.
Also being considered by the supervisors Tuesday are two appointments to the Sheriff’s Department Oversight Board, including Gale Renee Roseboro, who currently serves as director of college pathways at the San Francisco County Jail, and court interpreter Carla Cuevas. The two candidates were nominated by Supervisor Shamann Walton and recommended by the Rules Committee March 16.
Planning Commission: Westside water war, and bye-bye Bambi
On Thursday, the Planning Commission will hear an appeal of a mitigated negative declaration on the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission’s (SFPUC) proposed Westside Potable Emergency Firefighting Water System Project, which will augment both city firefighting and drinking water resources with a reinforced high-pressure water line serving the Outer Richmond, Outer Sunset, Parkside, and Lakeshore neighborhoods.
Last year, Planning Department staff drafted the declaration in lieu of a full Environmental Impact Report under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The appeal was filed in December by neighborhood activist Eileen Boken for the Sunset-Parkside Education and Action Committee (SPEAK), contending that SFPUC “failed to make this dual purpose explicitly clear with respect to population growth” and that the project would have significantly more costs and environmental consequences compared to a smaller-scale augmentation of the existing Auxiliary Water Supply System (AWSS).
The commission will also be reconsidering what had been a considerably more amusing project: a proposal to festoon a Filbert Street residential rooftop with an additional deck, a spiral staircase, and what appeared to be the permanent installation of an Airstream Bambi travel trailer. Back in February our newsletter noted the project, which had originally been a much more prosaic proposal for a rooftop greenhouse. At least one of the new decks appeared to be on top of the trailer itself, presumably offering a “Vultures’ Row”-style view of the neighborhood’s other rooftops; predictably, almost 80 neighbors spoke out against it.
Perhaps sadly, the commission is set to review it again this Thursday, when they will be presented with a considerably scaled-down version of the project. The trailer is now gone, and in its place is what planning staff deem “a 10′ foot high, 166 square foot sitting room and bathroom at the roof level” which is “modest and minimally visible from the public right of way and maintains the matching light wells between the neighboring property.” They now recommend approval.