The battle over planters and tents on San Francisco sidewalks is intensifying. On one side are the residents and business owners who have used the seemingly innocuous metal containers as a way to mitigate the damage and chaos caused by drug-filled encampments. When installed, they take the place of tents, almost instantly solving a problem.
At the epicenter of the fight is The Eye Institute, one of San Francisco’s most valued nonprofit health care facilities. Located at 711 Van Ness Avenue, they had been struggling with the crime and squalor from the encampment that surrounded them for many years.
The San Francisco Department of Public Works (DPW), however, is on the other side.
DPW, with its $453 million annual operating budget and workforce of nearly 1,800, has been fixated on the intersection of Van Ness Avenue and Larch Street. Someone has been flooding the city agency with complaints about the planters, and the agency has responded. If they succeed, the Eye Institute and other planter sponsors will be forced to remove the one thing that has alleviated untenable street conditions.
Specialized health care nonprofit takes action to solve problem ignored by city
The Eye Institute performs crucial vision care services to the community, from providing contact lenses to performing complicated surgeries. People are referred to the institute from all over the state. It serves everyone, including senior citizens and low-income and homeless patients. California Pacific Medical Center, located a block away, sends their patients to the institute.
A clear, safe, and clean pathway into the facility is paramount, especially for people who are visually impaired.
“Our mission is to provide healthcare access,” says Viveka Rydell-Anderson, CEO of Pacific Vision Foundation and administrator for the Pacific Vision Surgery Center. “People are in walkers and wheelchairs. Tents were all around us, there were so many. Patients couldn’t access it.”
Navigating the encampment was no minor inconvenience. People who lived in and visited the tents had set fires, broken into the building, left garbage and human waste on the street, used and sold drugs, and threatened workers. They would stay up late, playing loud music and yelling, disrupting essential medical procedures.
For this reason, The Eye Institute and several adjacent businesses, such as Wicklow Management, jumped at the chance to clean up their surrounding blocks with the planters when the option became available. According to Rydell-Anderson, in early fall 2023 the city collaborated with them so they could put out the planters. Once installed, a significant portion of the negative issues they had been dealing with quickly disappeared.
Pictures of the area before and after are dramatic:
DPW threatens businesses with legal action
The Eye Institute’s peace did not last long. An unspecified person started filing complaints with the city, claiming the planters on Larch Street did not allow for adequate pedestrian and wheelchair space. Additionally, people had been entering Larch Street, stealing the plants and painting graffiti on the planters. The lack of planter maintenance was also part of the filer’s complaint.
DPW’s Bureau of Street-Use and Mapping inspector Michael Means was assigned to the case. When he inspected the planters on Larch Street, he determined that they were in violation.
Means then began sending alarming letters to the planter’s sponsors (misspellings are his):
This is to inform you of your responsibility for the repair and maintenance of the sidewalk fronting your property.
Under the provisions of Article 15, Section 706 of the Public Works Code, it is the responsibility of property owners to maintain the sidewalk in front of and or surrounding their property, including driveways and sidewalk structures and to repair any defects which may cause injury to persons or damage to property. In the event of such occurrences. nronertv owners are able for anv claims that mav arise.
Our recent inspection of your sidewalk reveals that there are detects or conditions requiring correction at this time.
We have marked your sidewalk and are nottying you to lake immediate action to repair the defects. The enclosed notice indicates the types of defects to be corrected. All work shall be performed in accordance to City specifications, and the finished work must be defect-free.
As the responsible property owner, we urge you to make timely arrangements to review your sidewalk and have the work done by a qualified private contractor of your choice. In accordance to Section 706.2 of the San Francisco Public Works Code, repairs must commence within thirty (30) calendar days from the date of the Notice, and be completed in a timely matter. Failure to comply will entitle the City to have the work done and bill you for the repairs, including verification costs and filing fees. If the bill is not paid, a lien for the above amount, along with a 12% administrative fee, may be placed against your property.
An unspecified person started filing complaints with the city, claiming the planters on Larch Street did not allow for adequate pedestrian and wheelchair space.
Please be advised that betore work can commence, you or your contractor must obtain the appropriate permits) as indicated on the attached Notice. Please contact the permitting agency listed on the Notice for additional information and reguirements. All permit applications, whether made in person or by mail, must be accompanied with a copy of the Notice.
Wicklow Management, a property management company located next to the Eye Institute received similar notices. They must clean their planters and replace the stolen plants or face financial and legal repercussions. However, the conditions on Franklin Street, where the company is located, had deteriorated. Their response to Means:
“Unfortunately we have not been able to get to our planters due to an encampment. … We are happy to maintain our planters once the city clears the encampment and cleans up the mess from the trespassers.”
Wicklow Management attached photos showing evidence of the mess, chaos and open drug scenes and sent it all to Means. He did not respond.
Nor did Means respond to the Eye Institute when they tried to discuss the matter.
DPW refuses to give a straight answer
The Voice of San Francisco reached out to Means, who did not return our calls and emails. We then contacted Rachel Gordon, director of policy and communications for DPW, asking if they would take steps to ensure the affected community members could keep their planters.
Gordon sent the following prepared statement:
Federal and state law require accessible sidewalks. In San Francisco, Public Works is tasked with ensuring accessibility in the public realm. At the same time, we are committed to working with community members who want to install planters and other beautifying elements in neighborhoods.
When we receive complaints about planters or other objects potentially blocking access, we dispatch a street inspector to assess the situation, with the goal of working with the sponsor. We will issue a notice if any adjustments to achieve compliance are required. As we are finalizing regulations for our new Love Our Neighborhoods Permit, under which sidewalk planters would fall, we are continuing to document unresolved cases.
Because her response did not address exactly how DPW would be working with the Eye Institute, we asked for clarification: Yes or no. Will DPW help the residents of 711 Van Ness Avenue keep the planters?
Gordon’s response:
We will work with the planter sponsor to see if they can be placed in a matter that allows accessibility.
Because Gordon’s message was still vague, we asked again:
- Should the planter sponsor (Eye Institute, etc) ignore the warnings from DPW?
- Will you be reaching out to them so you will actively help them keep the planters?
Gordon’s response:
The sponsor should contact the inspector listed on the notice.
That inspector is Means, the same DPW employee who has ignored the Eye Institute and Wicklow Management.
Therefore, we returned to Gordon. Because she alluded to DPW’s commitment to help, we pressed for hard answers. Because DPW is “working with” the planter sponsors, is it safe to disregard the threatening correspondence from DPW?
Gordon’s response:
No one should ignore warnings from a regulatory agency. Public Works always is willing to work with people to see if there is a legally acceptable solution. In this case, the inspector has been communicating with the property manager. And, as mentioned earlier, we are finalizing the regulations for the new Love Our Neighborhoods Permit and are in a holding pattern for enforcement action beyond warnings except in the most egregious, life-safety situations. At this time, in this specific case, no further action will be taken. That may change under the new regulations, but again — and I want to emphasize this — we will work with folks on achieving compliance.
So for now, the planters on lower Van Ness Avenue remain. Whoever has been issuing the complaints may be frustrated by their lack of progress because the technicalities they’ve been attempting to exploit haven’t been effective. The planters do not encroach on the sidewalk any more than the holes for the trees do.
Will those who want the encampment to return keep trying to find ways to harass community members? Will they continue to rip out plants and vandalize the planters, then file more complaints that DPW will investigate? Perhaps, but it appears the so-called hostile architecture activists and city employees won’t find the fight easy. Those, like Wicklow Management, refuse to be bullied.
As for the Eye Institute, they are enjoying the relative serenity and cleanliness that a vital healthcare provider and its patients require. Despite the threats, DPW has held off on imposing fines and levies or taking any legal action.
That this has been a battle in the first place, however, remains baffling.
“I just want the city to be aware that we are working very very hard to provide access to sight saving care,” says Rydell-Anderson. “Each of us shouldn’t’t have to figure out the best solution to the tents. We have a solution. It’s here; it’s the planters.”