What’s it like to be the odd bloc out? Just ask the 13,360 residents of District 4 who voted to transform the Great Highway into a city park.
They stand against some 23,000 Sunset residents who voted to keep the coastal road open to motor traffic. The latter lost that battle in November 2024 — and settled the score by ousting their supervisor Joel Engardio 10 months later.
As District 4 prepares to vote for his replacement in June’s special election, the cars vs. park battle remains front and center. But only one candidate, one far from front-runner status, supports the park over the road.
The other four District 4 hopefuls, mindful that supporting the park ended Engardio’s tenure even if it was popular with the city writ large, say cars should return on weekdays.
“A lot of them seemed focused on getting back to what they had, rather than working with the reality we have right now,” said Alice Duesdieker, vice-president of the group Outer Sunset Neighbors.
Duesdieker said she is disappointed that there is no candidate who is “forward-looking” on her top concerns — Sunset Dunes and transportation.
Heidi Moseson, a board member of the nonprofit Friends of Sunset Dunes, agreed. The minority that voted for the park is “a big and motivated voting bloc,” she said, and “it feels like all the candidates are just very casually ignoring that.”
Instead, the top-tier candidates go to great lengths to point out their support for returning cars to the oceanfront road — perhaps the mathematically obvious position, given that District 4 voted at a 64-36 tilt against the park.
Out of five candidates, only Jeremy Greco, a campus administrator at Presidio Hill School, supports keeping the park as is. But he is relatively unknown and has not yet raised any money even as rivals have amassed scores of thousands of dollars.
“The current slate of candidates probably consider it a political reality that this position is needed to win,” said Cyn Wang, a board member of the Westside Family Democratic Club.
Regardless of the views of the eventual winner in the race — or the near-supermajority of district residents — it is not within the purview of a supervisor to open or close a public park. That was a citywide matter, which nearly 55 percent of city voters decided in 2024.
Still, for District 4 residents who favor the park, the candidates’ positions on Sunset Dunes are about more than the oceanfront road.
“If this is their view on Sunset Dunes, I can kind of assume what their views are on transit and public spaces,” said Nina Strachan, a Sunset Dunes supporter and organizer of the Sunset Community Band.
Strachan lives in the Outer Sunset near 32nd Avenue and Judah Street. She said she can’t drive, and relies on biking and the N-Judah to get around — something she hopes her future supervisor will prioritize.
“A lot of these candidates are trying to say, ‘pedestrian safety is really important to me,’ and that just doesn’t feel genuine,” she said.
Urbanists living in the neighborhood who support Sunset Dunes tend to also want even more open space, more housing, better public transit and more bike infrastructure, Sunset Dunes supporters say.
But they find little support among the June candidates.
Jane Natoli, former Bay Area director of YIMBY Action, said the “more urbanist-minded” voters on the Westside may feel “trepidation” that there is “not a lot of alignment with the candidates” in District 4.
Wong is a hard candidate for many urbanists to support even though he voted for the upzoning plan, because he favors returning cars back to the Great Highway, and actively worked on a ballot measure to make it happen.
But that is who the YIMBYs have. The Friends of Sunset Dunes group failed to find candidates to fill this void for the June special election, though it is hoping against hope that someone steps up and wins in the November general election.
That is a long shot. Anyone running in November would face a steep uphill battle against an incumbent just recently elected to the post, and perhaps a voter initiative on the same ballot to reopen the road. Such a measure, which is in the signature gathering process and requires some 10,000 to get on the ballot, would likely bring voters to the polls who are against the park.
Moseson, for her part, said the Sunset needs leaders who “bring constituents along” and understand some decisions may be good “even for people who are worried about them.”
But for now, she said, “we seem to have leaders who are just trying not to get yelled at.”
So more that a third of D4 voters supported Sunset Dunes? That’s not insignificant. You wouldn’t know it from all the noise by the haters out there.
So more than 45% of the city’s residents supported keeping Great Highway open. That’s not insignificant.
I’m hoping some of these candidates secretly favor the park, but just won’t say it because of the reactionary recall.
I’m an Outer Sunset resident and home owner, and I strongly support Sunset Dunes. This has been such an ugly corrupt process. There is a lot of ugly money behind the candidates against the park, which leads me to believe developers are after the land. The park has had a positive affect on the neighborhood. Businesses by the park are booming with 10,000 people a day visiting the park. The loss in the district for the referendum wasn’t about people’s feelings about the park, it was about big money coming in with misinformation, and absentee landlords that don’t want their property taxes to go up. It’s nasty and corrupt and rhe Outer Sunset deserves better.
This story is about the miss-match between a segment of the D4 voters and their candidates for elected office–this problem was made much worse by the 2022 Redistricting Task Force. The RTF purposefully drew the current district boundaries to support the candidacy of Joel Engardio in his race against Gordon Mar. The map was entirely outcome-determinative, and now democracy in the district is compromised.
Something else:
Jane Natoli refers to herself and other YIMBYs as an Urbanist.
Urbanites and Urbanists aren’t the same thing. Urbanites are people while live in and understand cities. Urbanists think the city is alright, but they only read about it in books.
Now that return to office is back and an AI boom is underway, more traffic is indeed speeding through the avenues. Also, Chain of Lakes drive has become a smog spewing parking lot at commute hours. This is the result of poor execution of the Lincoln Blvd. detour by SFMTA / Ex Supe Engardio; and why there is a persistent anti-park majority in the Sunset.
You are likely making this up because you have no data to prove this.
And if you do have data, it sounds like a case for stricter traffic enforcement on streets. I assume you’d support that right?
What a lie. There are not AI startups on the West Side.
@Bill M – Chain of Lakes was like that on weekdays even during ☆The☆Compromise☆, so that’s not relevant.
As for the inadequate execution of signal priority on Lincoln Blvd., Engardio was the only politician I know of who did anything to move it forward. Activists now going by Friends of Sunset Dunes participated in this as well, though the Open [sic] the Great Highway activists petulantly refused to have anything to do with it.
Just so we’re clear on who not to blame here.
‘“If this is their view on Sunset Dunes, I can kind of assume what their views are on transit and public spaces,” said Nina Strachan, a Sunset Dunes supporter and organizer of the Sunset Community Band. ‘
This is terminal single issue idiocy right here.
“Either someone supports everything I want or they oppose everything I want.”
The assertion that someone who opposes the Great Highway land grab is anti-Muni, anti-pedestrian or anti-bicycle is patently absurd and has no place in a civilized politics.
“Either you are with us or you are against us” is never the correct answer.
They are not wrong. The Sunset is the NIMBYest neighborhood of the city. It puts the Mission to shame. No other neighborhood fights nursing homes!
Even if they lose, I think the pro transit and pro city folks ought to run someone. Make it clear that the other candidates are guardians of the rich BMW drivers of the Sunset.
What do nursing homes have to do with opposing Muni, ped and bicycle projects because one opposes closing the Great Highway?
When you all denigrate everyone who does not agree with you as “rich,” especially given the economic demographics of many YIMBY and urbanists, then you are guaranteed to piss off more people than you magnetize with this toxic single issue nonsense.
Working people often need to drive to earn money because transit does not go everywhere, is not rapid and many need to tote work equipment. If they’re doing well, they drive nicer cars.
I have a 1988 BMW 325ix gathering dust in my garage that I used to drive to a contract job in Milpitas in the late 90s. Am I rich?
I bicycled out to the Presidio and back today. Am I poor?
Perhaps the real legacy of this park is that it will set back other public safety, transit and recreational initiatives in the neighborhood by years, if their new Supe is a hard-nosed pro-car zealot. A lot of the time the BofS will defer on local matters to the Supe of that district.
Could Sunset Dunes turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory for the sandal-wearing tree huggers of D4?
Show me even the smallest bit of progress in these areas for the Sunset.
The Sunset operated for years as a quiet gated community with special privileges and rules. No more. What the ballot initiative showed is that the rest of the city has a way to fight rich Sunset residents.
When I see the Sunset accept a home for the homeless and stop fighting nursing homes I’ll change my mind.
Rich? You’ve prob never even been in the middle of the avenues
None of the candidates is anti-park. They are all for a weekend park and a weekday highway. It isn’t an all or nothing matter. Tell me, what is it that we lose in park infrastructure by a compromise?
You appear to be unaware we already voted on this and your side lost. Get over it already.
2 days is not a fair compromise. Especially since YOU LOST.
No private highway for the BMW SUVs of the Sunset
That’s getting rid of the park. Find another shortcut.
@David D – People keep repeating the word ☆Compromise☆ as if it’s fair and reasonable and kumbayah. Yet the last attempt at ☆Compromise☆ actually removed Friday evenings and — oopsy! — had a clause to run cars through Sunset Dunes on weekends for random undefined reasons.
This article is very biased in favor of the gentrifier-led road closure.
The deceptive initiative was put on the ballot at the last minute. Preston, Engardio and Melgar and others failed to meet with their constituents to discuss because everyone knew it would have fierce (and entirely reasonable) opposition.
We don’t need rusting giraffes on asphalt. There are no dunes in the park. In fact, sand still needs to be removed!
But real estate prices have climbed, and money is to be made by “nonprofits” on the road.
Harry —
This is a story, by definition, about the minority of D4 voters who supported the park and now have no serious candidate who agrees with them. You are, somehow, missing this.
JE
Parks are where middle class and poor folks go for recreation. It’s nuts to call that gentrification.
Turning a park into a private highway for the Sunset’s BMW drivers? That’s gentrification.
God forbid anything becomes improved. Imagine trying to get the Golden Gate Park approved now? A highway on the ocean is a relic of the ’70s. Open it up for kids.
Other neighborhoods are getting parks. That road wasn’t even busy and it cuts through a beautiful beach. Putting a park in is not gentrification. You really have no idea what you’re talking about.