The poorly-paved 250-foot stretch of Treat Avenue between 15th and 16th streets has long been deserted, filled with litter and cars parked on both sides of the street.
This part of Treat Avenue is one of some 2,000 “unaccepted streets,” roadways that the city has left to nearby property owners to maintain and keep clean. The city has no responsibility over streets like this stretch of Treat, which has posed a particular problem for neighbors here: For more than 150 years, besides dealing with detritus and regular wear-and-tear, the residents and business owners on the block have been fighting against perennial flooding in the area.
But if neighbors get their way, this block of Treat Avenue is likely to get a makeover soon.
Last Saturday, some 50 neighbors who live nearby gathered in front of Dandelion Chocolate’s factory on 16th Street to look at four conceptual renderings of how the block might be transformed into an inviting, sustainably designed public space.
The four alternatives were inspired by residents themselves and put together by Greening Projects, a nonprofit that specializes in creating urban green spaces, and Terrain Studio, a landscape architecture firm.
The first plan, called “The Surface,” would create a social hub with game tables, a community farm, garden planters, a kids’ playground, a dog park with synthetic lawn, outdoor fitness area and lounging chairs. Food trucks and a local market would be set up on the north end of the street, with an artificial grass wall separating the space from a parking lot to the east. On the west side, facing Harrison Street, there would be parking spaces and a sidewalk, and a protected bike lane in between.
Jorge Romero-Lozano, founder of Greening Projects, said this plan is the most popular among residents, and is also the most viable. Once approved by Public Works, the plan would take two to three years to complete, and cost $2.5 million to $3 million — a sum that neighbors hope to raise, in part, with community help.
“I think plan one is what people are pushing for,” said Romero-Lozano.
Another popular option, he said, would be adding a rain garden on top of the first plan.
The rain garden, which looks like a green landscape with bushes on the surface, has a two- to three-feet deep hole in the gravel ground with a fan-shaped cover. When it rains heavily, runoff water would flow through the hole and into a pit. The pit would then collect and retain the stormwater, keeping it from overflowing and flooding the street.
This option, however, would cost $5.5 million to $6 million, about $3 million more than the first plan. And it would take three to four years — one year longer than the first option.
Another plan, called “Artstreet,” is similar to the first choice, but adds art walls to both Harrison Street and Alabama Street. It also paints the lounging chairs and the asphalt overlay on the ground. The plan would take about two to three and a half years, and costs $4 million to $4.5 million — $1.5 million more than the first option.
The last plan is rather ambitious, which will cost $125 million to $168 million and take 10 to 15 years to build. It aims to resurface part of the buried Mission Creek along Treat Avenue from 18th Street to 14th Street, and along Alameda Street from Rescue Row to 7th Street. While the costly plan won’t happen any time soon, the firm still included it, hoping to show the residents what it would be like to co-exist with Mission Creek in its original pathway.
This would not be the first time Romero-Lozano and his nonprofit joined hands with Terrain Studio to carry out a makeover like this. They have an ongoing project on another “unaccepted street” in Bernal Heights on Ogden Avenue between Gates and Folsom streets, called “Ogden Avenue Gardens.”
Already approved by Public Works, that project aims to improve flooding in the area using rain gardens. So far, Romero-Lozano said, the project has been able to gather nearly $300,000 from grants: $148,750 from the city’s Community Challenge Grant and $150,000 from the Watershed Stewardship Grant.
Both grants can only happen if the group raises certain amounts of public matching funds: The Community Challenge Grant requires a 35 percent match, about $52,000; and the Watershed Stewardship Grant requires a 25 percent match, or another $37,500.
Romero-Lozano said they are “more than a third of the way there” for public fundraising for the Bernal Heights project, having secured more than $30,000 out of some $89,500 needed from neighbors’ donations and gifts. Plus, the firms have received commitments from volunteers to help with the fundraising.
For Romero-Lozano, the public fundraising and volunteering is more meaningful than the grant money. “It’s not just getting funds, but also getting people,” he said. “Because the hardest part is maintaining them and keeping them going afterwards.” If not maintained well enough, he added, the grants will be taken away, and the street condition will likely go back to the way it is now.
“That’s why the matching part is important,” he said. “If you donated [or] you volunteered, you feel it belongs to you.”
Steve Hamill, a dog trainer at the San Francisco SPCA Veterinary Hospital on Alabama Street half a block away from Treat Avenue, said the area “is a little rough sometimes.” Hamill has been working there for about a year, and said that the change would be a boon for dog walkers like himself.
Upon learning about a potential dog park in the space, Hamill smiled. “That would be convenient,” he said. “That’ll be great for the area.”
These designs look so inspiring. I hope they do something nice with that space that the community can use. A park would be awesome right there.
Re-wild it or leave it industrial. The only nearby residences are the condos across 16th. If they want the benefits of further gentrification of what is still largely a PDR zone, they should be the ones to pay for it.
Regardless of how it’s zoned (perhaps still an easement or owned by Caltrans?), it is in no way ‘industrial’ and is currently little more than a parking lot for tents, trash and cars. Rewilding makes no sense to me (esp relative to your alternative suggestion) and would clearly benefit from the community-centric rehabilitation and activation that’s being promoted.
I agree that the city should be economically diverse it’s not beneficial to anyone to continually suggest that every improvement is gentrification or broadcast PDR space retention as a tipping point issue.
“…dog park with synthetic lawn…”
When ripe, that’s a pretty disgusting smell!
Considering the parklet across the street in front of the Public Storage is largely in disuse, I can only imagine a similar future for this section of Treat if they decide to redevelop it. Not to mention it’s completely full of cars from workers at nearby businesses. Maybe it will be nice and bring more foot traffic through, but I remain skeptical… at the very least some more regular maintenance of the lot would be nice. even as a parking lot, often some “spaces” are inaccessible due to trash dumping.
I don’t understand why everything in SF takes 2-3 years (errr +16 months of delays)??
Nice to see them trying something with that weird triangle of asphalt.
Nobody I know was invited to any meeting last week. Would like to see the list of who attended. This is not a good time to spend money on any unnecessary projects especially in the Mission district where the neighbors are asking for help with other problems. Which of her many city agencies is working on this project? We assume the next step will be to ask “the neighbors” to approve a special district tax to pay for the “improvements” and maintenance of this project.
It’s as good a time as any to start planning this sort of project- by the time it actually gets started things will likely be very different in the city. It’s kind of like the old saying: the best time to plant a tree is 25 years ago, the next best time is today. Getting this in the pipeline now makes sense, since it will likely be years before anything gets started.
That being said, I’d want to see realistic estimates on upkeep and maintenance for this rather ambitious project- relying on hypothetical future volunteers seems like wishful thinking. People love giving money for building things, but upkeep is one of those boring details that gets hand-waved away.