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Join HANC, community gardeners, and the urban agriculture community, at our general meeting on Thursday, July 12, beginning at 7:00 pm, downstairs at the Park Branch Library, 1833 Page Street.

Within the last year, community garden and urban agriculture sites in San Francisco, including the Free Farm (at Gough and Eddy), Hayes Valley Farm (at Oak and Laguna) and the Kezar Gardens and Ecology Center (at 780 Frederick), along with the more high profile Gill Tract (on UC Berekley property in Albany in East Bay), have all had to reckon with the uncertainty of tenure and permissible use for growing food for people. Each of these sites has its own story of impending change of land use, displacement or eviction of farming activities in favor of housing and commercial development except in the case of Kezar Gardens and Ecology Center which is being faced with the possibility of being evicted in favor of another community garden. At the HANC general membership meeting on Thursday July 12th we will hear from community members involved with these sites and learn more about the current status of these sites and solicit discussion from members about land tenure and community gardens and urban agriculture.

The Free Farm is currently on a vacant lot owned by St. Paulus church at the corner of Gough and Eddy. Earlier this year, St. Paulus signed an agreement with Maracor Development to go ahead with a plan of selling the land to them and having it developed for market rate housing and a new church building for St. Paulus. The Free Farm has some 24-36 months until “entitlement” or when the city gives final approval for the building project. This will include an environmental impact report, community meetings with the neighbors, coming up with a design, and dealing with all legal and building issues. Once entitlement is reached the church signs the property over to the developer. Maracorp Development has required that the Free Farm be removed from the site 6 months before entitlement happens. The Free Farm is currently searching for a new location (or locations) in the city.

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By Tes Welborn, HANC Treasurer

Ed Lee vs. The People of San Francisco

Calvin Welch gave a brief summary of development since World War II. While financial interests built office space until both resident displacement and a glut came to pass, community activists all over San Francisco worked to slow or stop displacement and to create a new model, community development. Community development focused on resident needs-- transit, neighborhood retail, housing, and the related struggle for local hire. The Haight struggled with hospital expansion and fought it back to retain housing.

Welch also presented much information on Mayor Ed Lee's legacy, which focused on large development and tech. Lee focused only on jobs while he ignored the need for housing for those new workers and the folks who would provide them services. His policies led to the greatest population transfer in San Francisco's history, with 400,000 people leaving San Francisco over his 6 year term, and 400,000 new, higher income residents arriving.

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By Carlie Leduc, HANC Board Member

Our May meeting started out with a presentation from Allison Collins from Yes on C.  Proposition C is a corporate tax that will fund Childcare and Early Childhood Education.   “Proposition C was designed to levy a tax on commercial property leases in addition to the existing tax, which ranged from .285 percent to .3 percent at the time the measure was placed on the ballot. Proposition C exempts commercial landlords with less than $1 million in gross receipts, along with rents for nonprofit, government, arts, industrial, and non-formula retail uses, among other state exemptions.” - ballotpedia.org

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Our November meeting featured a presentation on high speed internet access, to every San Francisco home, by fiber.  Questions remain about whether the fiber would be city-owned and controlled, or a public-private partnership [PPP].  We note that PPPs often continue the practice of privatizing the profits and socializing the costs - we pay for the new fiber system, and private companies make a profit on it.

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By Richard Ivanhoe, HANC Board Member

Despite a move from the Park Branch Library to the Bindery due to a mix-up with the library key, February’s HANC meeting was well attended.

Park Police Station Captain Una Bailey introduced herself. She grew up in Ireland, and has been with the San Francisco Police Department since 2001. She had been captain of the Special Victims Unit until she was assigned to be captain of Park Station this past October.

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By Rupert Clayton, HANC Board

Things seem to be moving fast on the city’s nebulous project to buy the McDonald’s site at 730 Stanyan Street (between Haight and Waller Streets) and use it for some undetermined affordable housing purpose. After vague press reports in the past couple months, we now have an official announcement that the Mayor’s Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD) will hold a community meeting on the project at 6 pm on Tuesday November 7, 2017 at Park Branch Library.

Clearly, many HANC members and neighbors are interested in how the site is developed. About 60 people gathered at our October 12 meeting to share ideas on possible uses and to learn what the planning and development process might look like. HANC assembled a panel to facilitate the discussion: Peter Cohen, co-director of the Council of Community Housing Organizations; Mary Howe, executive director of the Homeless Youth Alliance; and Dean Preston, from Affordable Divisadero.

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