I’ll give you this, the Powers That Be are doing a better job with the Japantown BNP this go-around owing, to me not seeing stuff about “no more highrises.”
(If that’s too cryptic that’s all right. Basically, this whole process is a focus group for the City to get reactions about what it already wants to do. If you want to participate, well then be my guest.)
All the deets:
I mean, is it necessarily a good thing to “expand the Special Use District?”
I don’t know. (Last year, a couple Angry Young Men were pretty p.o.’ed about one meeting being “dominated” by aging white hakujin who live south of Geary. These AYM wondered why those residing on the wrong side of the Expressway were even included in a Japantown meeting…)
Preserve, restore and enhance Japantown as a vital, prosperous, and livable community that authentically reflects, embodies and continues its cultural heritage and history into the future.
The Japantown Organizing Committee invites you to attend a series of community meetings. We need your input and guidance on their recommended changes to the 2009 draft neighborhood plan.
We will meet to discuss:
Important neighborhood planning
Development issues
Questions about Zoning
Before the end of 2011, the final Japantown community recommendations are scheduled for consideration by the San Francisco Planning Commission. Your help at these meetings is vital to shape the neighborhood recommendations to the Planning Commission.
Now last I heard, a few years ago, the powers that be were going to earthquake safe the Japantown parking garage on Post and then during construction people would be able to park their cars on the northbound lanes of excessively-wide Webster Street. But I suppose that got replaced with this linear park idea.
Today, June 27th, 2011, from exactly 6:30pm – 9:10pm, will see yet another BNP meeting for Japantown.
As with many of these kinds of meetings in the 415, the big decisions have already been made and your input is as a kind of focus group participant, you know, do you like the lighter beige or the darker beige swatch kind-of-thing.
For one thing, Chinese-Americans and Korean-Americans, who are already there in J-Town…
San Francisco’s Japantown at night:
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…have been left out of the process, by design.
Oh well.
Anyway:
Location: JCCCNC – Issei Memorial Hall
Time: June 27, 6:30pm – 9:10pm Topic: PUBLIC REALM/TRANSPORTATION & CIRCULATION
Japantown Landscape Vision:Install professional, well orchestrated Japan-influenced landscape vision to increase canopy, greenery and Japanese botanical species.
Public Open Spaces:Use the Japantown landscape vision to enhance our central core of existing gathering spaces and create transition areas to other public open spaces.
Transportation/Circulation:Leverage all city projects to fund improvements to traffic, pedestrian safety, signage and connections to adjucent neighborhoods and parks.
Community Meeting Issei Memorial Hall @ JCCCNC 1840 Sutter Street, SF (between Buchannan & Webster Streets) Date: June 27, 2011, 6:30-9:10 pm
Topics: Public Realm/Transportation and Circulation
Japantown Landscape Vision: Install professional, well orchestrated Japaninfluenced landscape vision to increase canopy, greenery and Japanese botanical species.
Public Open Spaces: Use Japantown landscape vision to enhance our central core of existing gathering spaces and create transition areas to other public open spaces. Transportation and Circulation
Leverage all city projects to fund improvements to traffic, pedestrian safety, signage and connections to adjacent neighborhoods and parks
Basically, San Francisco Government, the people who brought us Redevelopment, the people who tore down perfectly good houses (or “drafty old Victorians,” in their words, back in the day), the people who still haven’t apologized for that, the people who messed up Japantown big time with the whole concrete and clay and general decay motif, well, they’re back and they have a Plan.
Now, if you want to affect the plan, you need to be part of the leadership element of an area “community group.” It doesn’t matter all that much how many people are in your group, but you’re going to need a title and a group name to matter. If that’s not the case, then the best you can hope for is a chance to voice an out-of-the-box idea that’s slightly novel or crazy enough to work.
But I’ll tell you, the big decisions have already been made.
Here are the final ten minutes of last night’s meeting on Sutter, with three kind-0f focus group leaders offering feedback on what the audience members were saying. (Don’t mind the alarmingly loud iPhone buzzing at the end…)
Anything that the Planning Department has decided that’s not appropriate for this particular part of the Western Addition (like young people from South Korea, or China, or Taiwan opening up businesses on or near Post Street or a taller building (you know, one that could actually pay for itself and Other Things Too) that could block the view of that horrible Peace Pagoda*) is considered contagion. Oh well.
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On It Goes…
*I looked it up once and that Peace Plaza pagoda thing actually is Ur-Japanese, it actually is just like some stuff that was all over part of the southern part of Japan’s biggest island, but it seems more Pan-Asian or Chinese to most Japanese people that see it. They don’t recognize it as anything Japanese at all. This concrete thing is the Vaillancourt Fountain of the West Side.
Anyway, feel free to rubber-stamp what, apparently, has already been decided for you starting tonight.
Here’s the sked:
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The 1st Community Meeting
Wednesday, June 1
6:30 to 9:00
JCCCNC- Issei Memorial Hall
1840 Sutter Street
* Food and Refreshments
* Japanese Interpreters will be at each meeting
Special Guests:
Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi
Planning Director John Rahaim
Agenda:
6:30 to 7:00 Registration and Food
7:00 to 9:00 Program
► Facilitated Breakout Sessions for Public Input
1. Community Land Use:Maintain current building heights and scale with a focus on business and residential mix — No highrises.
2. Cultural Character: Establish architectural standards to maintain the Japanese/Japanese American character of the community core.
3. Japan Center: Retain the malls’ basic scale and rehabilitatestructure; support business that perpetuate Japantown’s cultural authenticity.
The gymnasium at the Japanese Cultural & Community Center of Northern California on Sutter was a lively scene today:
Date: Saturday, May 2, 2009
Time: 11:00am – 4:00pm
Location: Japantown Peace Plaza
Street: Post and Buchanan Streets
City/Town: San Francisco, CA
In recognition of Japan’s national holiday celebrating children, the Japanese Cultural & Community Center of Northern California is presenting its annual Children’s Day Festival. There will be entertainment, food, games, and hands-on arts & crafts activities for youngsters. Bring your family and friends and enjoy the fun! Admission is free.
