The Mission District has the most new parklet applications of any neighborhood in San Francisco, according to the city’s parklet permitting tracker.
Since July, 2022, the Mission has had some 78 new parklet applications approved, and another 29 are being processed. Those applications cover curbside parklets that take up on-street parking spaces, and those that encompass both the sidewalk and the street.
Self-reported data submitted to the planning department suggests that 87 of these Mission applications were replacing pre-existing, pandemic-era permits. That matches a trend across the city; roughly 78 percent of approved applications were for structures that reportedly already had a pandemic-era permit.
After the Mission, the Marina has the most new approvals, with 49 to date.
But the new permitting program comes with some growing pains: Bars and restaurants that enjoyed the relative Wild West spirit of the pandemic’s parklets, with few rules and no fees, now face the inevitable regulations that come with the city’s more permanent Shared Spaces program.
Parklets built during the pandemic were done at no cost to the business, aside from construction. But, like a lot of things in San Francisco, the future of parklets looks smaller and more expensive.
Starting in April, businesses seeking a parklet permit were met with a one-time fee ranging from $1,000 to $3,000, and annual fees of up to $2,000, depending on the type of parklet: Sidewalk, curbside, moveable or permanent.
In addition, the latest Shared Spaces Manual includes new fire regulations and disability accessibility requirements. Ramps must be added, space made for fire crews and, in a number of cases, roofs removed.
Many of these rules, said the Planning Department’s Anne Yalon, have always been in place. “The city really wanted people to get back on their feet after the pandemic,” said Yalon. “So there wasn’t a lot of enforcement of shared spaces.”
Now, restaurants and shops have until May 30 to bring their parklets up to code. Otherwise, they must come down or face fines that will be added to next year’s taxes.
The Mission has had more parklets
approved than any other neighborhood.
Fully approved
Partially approved
Requires applicant input
Requires city input
Mission
Marina
Hayes Valley
Chinatown
North Beach
Castro/Upper Market
Russian Hill
Pacific Heights
Sunset/Parkside
Outer Richmond
Potrero Hill
Haight Ashbury
Inner Richmond
Bernal Heights
West of Twin Peaks
Noe Valley
Nob Hill
Inner Sunset
Financial District
Western Addition
South of Market
Tenderloin
Bayview Hunters Point
Presidio Heights
Japantown
Mission Bay
Lone Mountain/USF
Outer Mission
Glen Park
Excelsior
0
10
40
50
60
70
100
110
20
30
80
90
Parklet permits
The Mission has had more
parklets approved than
any other neighborhood.
Fully approved
Partially approved
Needs applicant input
Needs city input
Mission
Marina
Hayes Valley
Chinatown
North Beach
Castro/Upper Market
Russian Hill
Pacific Heights
Sunset/Parkside
Outer Richmond
Potrero Hill
Haight Ashbury
Inner Richmond
Bernal Heights
West of Twin Peaks
Noe Valley
Nob Hill
Inner Sunset
Financial District
Western Addition
South of Market
Tenderloin
Bayview Hunters Point
Presidio Heights
Japantown
Mission Bay
Lone Mountain/USF
Outer Mission
Glen Park
Excelsior
0
40
60
100
20
80
Parklet permits
Chart counts only newly-legislated parklet permits, as opposed to pandemic-era parklets authorized by the city at the time. Chart by Will Jarrett. Data from Shared Spaces.
According to Oscar Hernandez-Gomez from the Planning Department, there isn’t a clear way to gauge how many parklets there were before the new permit system rolled out. Even now, he said, some owners of existing parklets have yet to apply for a permit, and some exist but have been “abandoned.” Still others applied but went on to take theirs down, deeming the process not worth it.
For some, not worth the cost
Many businesses have expressed appreciation for the permit program’s leniency and communication. But construction costs, red tape and permit fees are discouraging for some owners.
“It’s hard enough maintaining stuff in the Mission,” said Nat Cutler, owner of The Monk’s Kettle bar on 16th Street. “When the city changed all the regulations, it would’ve required us basically rebuilding the parklet.
“At least to do it properly, so we wouldn’t have to do it again in a year. It was going to cost us $20,000 to 30,000.” So, this week, down comes the parklet.
Those at the nearby Delirium Bar echoed the sentiment — it just wasn’t worth the cost. “People were having sex in [the parklet],” chuckled Jeffery, a bartender. “And bringing their own drinks, basically setting up another bar out there.” So, owners last week decided to take the whole thing down.
Many businesses are happy to keep their shared space. Victor Escobedo, owner of Papalote and its locally famous salsa, said he “invested several thousand dollars” in his parklet.
“I wanted it to be permanent. [City personnel] were really good about having little seminars online and in person; they were super transparent.”
Curbside parklets are popular enough that the $3,000 permit fee initially set to go in effect on April 1 was challenged by District 11 Supervisor Ahsha Safai, who proposed waiving all one-time permit fees for every applicant, and reducing annual fees for those earning below a certain threshold. The proposal will be up for approval with the Board of Supervisors’ Budget and Finance Committee in June.
Bill Barnes, Safai’s chief of staff, said the new permit costs discourage small businesses from keeping parklets up, and that the loss of parklets could take a toll on service workers.
“These city fees are a killer,” said Barnes. And times haven’t been easy for businesses in Safai’s southern District 11. “There’s been challenges with filling storefronts in Oceanview and Outer Mission, specifically,” he said. “This is the cost to get people in the door.”
Complaints shutter some shared spaces
While some shared spaces are down temporarily to be rebuilt under the new guidelines, others are gone for good.
At Emmy’s Spaghetti Shack on Mission Street near 29th Street, owner Emmy Kaplan was glad to take down her covered shared space last year, anticipating the complex and costly timeline of new regulations.
“If someone doesn’t like you or your particular parklet, they can call and complain, and you’ll be cited,” Kaplan said. Staff and building residents are happy to have the two parking spaces back.”
The Shared Spaces map allows you to toggle through complaints, often filed by neighbors, against parklets around the city. There are currently 62 open complaints against establishments in the Mission. Many, like the parklets at Mixcoatl and Adobe books, list graffiti and “blight” as grounds for protest.
Steve Spingola, co-owner of the nearly century-old Phone Booth bar at 25th Street and South Van Ness Avenue with his partner, Jared Wendt, is all too familiar with such complaints. His parklet has been scaled down to seats on the sidewalk with slim, extendable tables, brought out only during business hours.
Spingola said they are considering removing the tables altogether.
“Our neighbors love us, but we got a new tenant upstairs, who moved to the city during the pandemic.” He said the multiple calls tenants made to police complaining about noise and other violations meant the citations started adding up.
Wildhawk Bar at 19th and Valencia streets downsized their parklet from two parking spaces to one — and that one got about eight feet shorter, according to Robin Parsons, a woodworker whose specialty is building and taking down parklets.
Across the street, say goodbye to Media Noche’s corner parklet. Manager Alicia Garcia said that when they saw the new rules, someone came out to see about downsizing their too-big structure. Turns out they had to remove it altogether.
“There’s a PG&E drain,” said Garcia, pointing to a storm drain at the corner. “So we aren’t allowed to have one anymore.”
New rules and regulations
Fly Bar, at Divisadero and Fulton streets, was the second shared space Parsons built. They’re in for some changes once they’re through with applications, said Parsons. He’s retrofitted a few parklets, and it can be grueling — “a lot of people are involved. The city is making it very difficult for businesses to take their spaces.”
Parsons said places like the narrow streets of North Beach will look a lot different as structures start to come down or be rebuilt. “If your business has less than 10 feet of sidewalk between it and the parklet, it can’t have a roof,” said Parsons.
He noted that this rule is intended to provide a path for fire ladders, but presents challenges with the rainy weather we tend to have in the Bay.
Malek Florece, manager at Mona Lisa Restaurant on North Beach’s main drag, Columbus Avenue, said that his restaurant has been “fighting with the city to get our permit. We really have no idea if we will get one or not.”
“Neighbors want the parklets gone; they miss their parking. So they’re coming down. We were hit hard with covid, and the parklet allowed us to double our volume. But we might lose that.”
Further west in the Castro, where afternoons bring gusty winds down from Twin Peaks, new controls around outdoor heaters mean a chillier dining experience.
One popular Mediterranean restaurant was forced to get rid of its outdoor heaters because of the parklet’s roof. New rules require five feet of clearance from flammable materials around a heater, as well an SFFD Operational Permit for storage and use of liquid propane gas.
They had to choose: Keep warm, or keep dry. A worker at the Castro restaurant said it was easier to just get rid of outdoor heaters.
“People have come to prefer outdoors,” said the worker, who asked to remain anonymous. “We serve a lot of older queer folks, and many choose caution; those with pre-existing conditions especially.”
Still, they are keeping the parklet. And, said the worker, the coming months look promising: A new program called Summer of Fun, a project of Noise Pop, Manny Yekutiel and philanthropist Daniel Lurie, is booking local musicians to play in shared spaces around the city, with a stipend for the performers.
Just under a mile north, on Divisadero Street, is another dense corridor of shared spaces. At The Page, a popular bar at Page and Divisadero streets, owner Bob Wait said his shared space is getting smaller by about 114 square feet.
It’ll cost about $30,000 to comply with regulations, and Wait hopes to break even in a couple years.
The bar has faced some opposition to local music happy hours in the shared space. “Regardless of how many neighbors may be on the record,” said Wait, “one anonymous objector may trigger a series of reviews and hearings.”
At Transfer Market, a corner store just up Divisadero, proprietor Rami Jaser said he was eager to see shared spaces come down. “You can’t take out parking for restaurants that don’t do anything for the neighborhood,” he said.
Jaser commutes from Daly City, and is unhappy with how much harder it’s become to find parking. With family an hour south of his home, Jaser said, he needs a car.
“I used to have a driving job in the city for a living. I feel bad for all these trucks that have to go to the stores.” Ultimately? “Parklets suck,” said Jaser.
“We’ll see how it goes,” said Wait at The Page. “I think a lot of San Franciscans like the idea of the city having a more vibrant outdoor music and drinks scene. So, businesses and various agencies alike are still trying to work it out, trying to figure out what kind of city we want to be.”
Take a look at which spots in the Mission have secured permits so far, according to data from the Shared Spaces team:
Map by Will Jarrrett. Basemap from Mapbox.
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I think it is important to remind us more strongly that the parklets were a pragmatic city response to the economic hit restaurants and bars took with the deadly COVID-19 pandemic.
As creative, attractive, and helpful as many of these parklets were to some of our hardest-hit San Francisco entrepreneurs, the program exacerbated the inequality that makes San Francisco a city more divided between the affluent and the poor and working class.
In the Tenderloin it seems the city gave us a “token” parklet on Turk between Leavenworth and Jones. A few use it. (It is very hard to find a safe space to simply sit down and rest here.)
Initially, the parklet hid a row of homeless dwellers.
The garish tagging on the concrete blocks that protect the parklet are occasionally painted over, but the yellow gibbets that appear to have been designed to be used for hanging greenery appear to never have been used for any purpose.
I call them “gibbets” because they look like the drawings that kids make when they play the word game “hangman.”
I think they are offensive because in our beautiful world that allows millions to die of COVID, that is a hairs-breadth away from nuclear war, and that funnels billions to the rich when their banks fail– these “gibbets” look more suitable for lynching people than for hanging bunches of artificial flowers– which even MUNI has funds for to beautify their failing shelters.
What is wrong with the Tenderloin that it promotes such thoughtless chump-projects?
I still recall the yellow brick road of ugly acrylic sidewalk “pills” that were painted up and down the sidewalks, intended to direct children through our benighted neighborhood, including “Pill Hill.”
I believe Dean Preston is capable of looking into this. I think he is earnest. It is a shame though that he is associated with the Democratic Party through the pseudo-left DSA.
Take a look at Turk Street’s gibbets:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/Leavenworth+St+%26+Turk+St,+San+Francisco,+CA+94102/@37.782902,-122.4132743,3a,75y,122.61h,89.42t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s_sVZIhLvTURCM0QfM0X5iA!2e0!7i16384!8i8192!4m7!3m6!1s0x8085809aa2f09a57:0x52a3843266f2a2db!8m2!3d37.7827943!4d-122.4140676!10e5!16s%2Fg%2F11gdyjwzcm?entry=ttu
The folks at El Buen Comer told me they removed their parklet after a worker was attacked by someone who was sleeping in it. She had asked the person to move so the restaurant could open up
Great reporting and write-up on this issue. Thanks! Our business has a parklet and we’re sorry to say that the regulations have caused us to remove it. There are a number of reasons, but the main one is that it will cost us $30k to rebuild it to meet current code and it will shrink our space by a third and that won’t be worth it for the amount of tables and labor it takes to serve those tables. We had our parklet adjoined with a neighboring business, but because of a manhole and regulations that said an access port to the manhole was not enough they’re having to move their parklet towards our business to avoid the manhole.
It was beautiful while it lasted and I loved the European vibe to the city. So great seeing everyone outside and what patrons for all these businesses were like. Also, we had a bunch of regulars who were outdoor-only diners. We made sure to talk with most of them and apologize. For a lot of people, the pandemic is not actually over and my heart goes out to them.
>”but we got a new tenant upstairs, who moved to the city during the pandemic.” He said the multiple calls tenants made to police complaining about noise and other violations meant the citations started adding up. ”
This has been a real point of contention coming out of the pandemic. There was a brief window of time where people were able to move to more interesting areas of the city and lock in lower than usual rent. Some of them however, have made the assumption that the quarantine level of neighborhood noise was the norm and have begun calling calling in complaints as things get more lively again.
Are they really shared spaces if you can’t have sex or drink your own alcohol in them? Bring a book.