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:
Click to expand
…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.
Click to expand
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.
“Over the next several months there will be community meetings focused on the chapters of the Draft Plan. The purpose of these meetings will be to educate the community on the contents of the Draft Plan and get input on the recommendations in the Draft Plan. Come and give input on the community-led organization, process, and timeline. And, learn how you can get involved and participate in improving the Draft Plan.”
How it’ll look tonight. Sometimes they have a pretty good turnout:
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Host: Japantown BNP Committee
Location: JCCCNC
1840 Sutter Street
San Francisco, CA 94115 US
View Map
When: Tuesday, April 27, 7:00PM
Phone: 415-346-1239
Come and learn about the next phase of the Japantown Better Neighborhood Plan….the community review.
Can you see some of the themes of the evening? Click to expand:
Here’s the takeaway – the Organizing Committee is aware of a little blowback over The Plan. In the words of one attendee, “There was a feeling that these issues weren’t fully explored.”
O.K. then, but realize that there’s no developer chomping at the bit to start digging, and there’s no Environmental Impact Report yet, and the Planning Department hasn’t assigned the 20-hour-per-week worker to get going on things, and the Board of Supervisors hasn’t voted yet, etc. So it’s all going to take a while. And The Plan will change.
Al right, what’s on the mind of The Community?
Well, parking for one thing. The Community Wants Parking during renovations and after. So, if you tear down the underground parking garage and lose 700 spaces, where is everyone going to park? What’s that you say, Transit First? Yeah, they’ve heard of that concept, but they don’t accept it. So, an inadequate parking situation will “kill the merchants of J-Town.” That’s what they’re saying.
(By the way, did you know that the Cathedral Hill Hotel (the former Jack Tar Hotel) on Van Ness is going to turn into a 550-bed hospital one of these days? Is there worry about the 2500 employees “on any given shift” stealing the parking spaces that belong to J-Town? You bet.)
And where would the merchants go during the renovation time? Would you want to shut down Webster Street and put in temporary structures complete with running water and electricity? Would that be following the post-Loma Prieta earthquake Santa Cruz Model when businesses set up in temporary buildings? Yes. Would the developer pay for that? Maybe yes, maybe no.
And There You Have It.
Look forward for another meeting before year’s end. After that, who knows?
Come and learn about the status of the Japantown BNP Draft Plan and how to get involved in making it responsive to community needs. The Japantown BNP Organizing (formerly Steering) Committee is hosting this community meeting to share information on the status of the plan and to develop effective steps to incorporate community input into the process.
The agenda for this meeting will include:
* Summarizing the Draft Plan.
* Reviewing the Planning Commission Resolution approved on June 25.
* An update on the Planning Department’s proposed workplan and funding for the next 12-months of the plan process.
* Getting the community involved in reviewing and improving the Draft Plan.
* General questions.
Below are the materials that will be presented today to the Historic Preservation Commission (nee Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board) by Planner Matt Weintraub sometime this afternoon after 12:30 PM (item #9 on the calendar) at Room 400 of City Hall, 200 Polk Street.
