Dubbed Connect SF, the City of San Francisco is about to launch a city-wide effort “to both consolidate and coordinate all transportation-related planning efforts to improve mobility for all people in San Francisco.” And by the middle of 2018, the effort is expected to yield “an overarching 50-year vision... Read More »

With decades-old systems that were not built to withstand the effects of sea level rise, extreme storms, urban flooding nor major seismic events, the San Francisco Bay Area’s businesses, homes and public infrastructure are increasingly at risk. And in an attempt to develop a unified vision and strategy for... Read More »

Chosen based on their “creativity, sense of community, potential to make Market Street a more vibrant public space and ability to identify Market Street as uniquely San Francisco,” the fifty (50) teams which will each receive a $2,000 stipend to prototype their ideas for San Francisco’s Market Street Prototyping... Read More »

Armchair and professional planners, architects, designers, artists and makers take note: San Francisco’s Planning Department is partnering with Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to produce the Market Street Prototyping Festival. The Prototyping Festival will be held on two miles of Market Street from Embarcadero to 10th on October 2,... Read More »

Set at 80 percent of the combined land and structure values of single-family homes in San Francisco, the threshold for “demonstrably unaffordable and financially inaccessible housing” in the city is now $1,506,000, up from $1,342,000 ten months ago. While merging units in a building where the least expensive unit... Read More »

In late August of last year, the U.S. Department of Justice announced an update to their cannabis enforcement policy. While cannabis remains illegal federally, the Department of Justice is expecting individual states to create “strong, state-based enforcement efforts…. and will defer the right to challenge their legalization laws at... Read More »

The development of a long-term vision, design and implementation plan for Ocean Avenue between Manor Drive and San Jose Avenue is underway. Building on a number of studies, designs and plans which have already been completed for the area around Balboa Park, the Ocean Avenue Corridor Design project will... Read More »

According to the Planning Department’s Annual Report for Fiscal Year 2011-2012, a total of 2,548 new housing units were permitted from July of 2011 through June of 2012 with the highest concentration in Mission Bay (click graphic to enlarge). Over the same period of time, the number of approved... Read More »

There’s always another perspective to consider. And with regard to who’s to blame for “bad” design in San Francisco, here it is (slightly edited for spelling and flow): “You can blame bureaucracy all you want, but in the end, it’s simply not the problem with bad design in San... Read More »

As a plugged-in reader wrote four months ago: “The planning code is a nightmare to navigate. The so called “design guidelines” are tools used arbitrarily by any of the planners to approve or disapprove a design. They are already speculating about adding Historic Districts throughout neighborhoods such as Noe... Read More »