BCNA

(Editor’s note: This is part 1 of a two-part series on affordable housing by June A. Osterberg for the Barbary Coast Neighborhood Association.)

The City’s 2013-2014 Civil Grand Jury last year chose three topics for its investigative reports that are of special interest to BCNA members and other residents of the Northeast Waterfront community.

They are: The Port of San Francisco, the Mayor’s Office of Housing, and Rising Sea Levels.

The Civil Grand Jury’s well-researched and well-written findings and recommendations are too lengthy to be reproduced in these pages.

But the BCNA intends to carry locally relevant excerpts and quotations from the reports, beginning with housing, before the valuable reports disappear onto shelves at City Hall.

The Civil Grand Jury is an 18-member government oversight panel in the Office of the Controller.

Copies of the bound book of all the reports are available at City Hall. They also may be seen at the Main Library, and the reports can be found online at www.civilgrandjury.sfgov.org. Continue Reading→

BCNA NEWS

The BCNA recently carried accounts of a remarkably participatory public meeting of NEWAG (Northeast Waterfront Advisory Group). Besides much public comment, the evening was noteworthy for the Port Staff’s distribution of a one-page flyer depicting “Northeast Waterfront Current and Planned Land Uses.”

A color hand drawing depicts the area from Pier 7 to Pier 35.

The “Potential Development Sites” are Piers 19, 19-1/2, and 23, a portion of Pier 29 and 29-1/2 and Pier 31.  On the land side, several Port property seawall lots are shown. Continue Reading→

BCNA NEWS

(Editor’s note: This is part 2 of a two-part article on the Northeast Waterfront Advisory Group meeting held Oct. 1. Part 1 was posted on Oct. 2.)

Let us begin with an observation that NEWAG meetings have evolved into a useful function on the rapidly changing waterfront.

The monthly public meetings of the Northeast Waterfront Advisory Group have become an open forum in which community residents can express their concerns and opinions about proposed Port projects.

At the same time it is a useful tool for the Port to “perform outreach” and inform the neighborhood about some of its plans and projects. Sometimes this occurs before presentation is made to the Port Commission. Continue Reading→