Saturday, November 26, 2011
At last count, there were six residential towers approved but unbuilt on Rincon Hill near the Bay Bridge. Pre-2008 visions of a bustling high-rise district seem as distant as ever.
But one must-have for urban neighborhoods is nearly in place: a dog park.
Construction is down to punch-list items on the landscaped space with a black metal fence that runs alongside the foot of the Bay Bridge at Beale and Bryant streets. The city agreed this week to lease the land from Caltrans. Supporters have a month to raise the $5,000 necessary for the 10-year lease.
These are small steps toward the sort of amenity that more settled districts take for granted. They're also reminders that neighborhoods evolve not just in the sky but on the ground, often in ways more subtle than mapped out by planners or economists.
3 comments:
San Francisco has lots of parks and dog parks.
SF with a 2010 census population of 805,235 has 13 dog parks including very large off-leash areas in GGPark and also at Crissy Field and Fort Funston which are both National Parks. We have about 1/20th of SF's population but doesn't it seem like every other Pacifica home has a dog or two? Is work underway yet for our dog park at the Art Center? Seems to me a contract was awarded in Sept or Oct for the project. Waiting for Spring? A little info from city hall would be nice--if they know anything.
In Pacifica, about 20% of households include dog family member pets. GGNRA and other open space concerns have gobbled-up and removed 60% of what was city land. (You know our land that we no longer own is "our economy"). Then again, where are our dog parks, and dog run areas?
Not providing for dogs that need physical exercise and socialization is another city failure traced to land loss, inadequate economic planning, and primarily a poor choice of civic leadership (from 2002-10). The old, friendly faces on city council (Vreeland, DeJarnatt and Digre) needed to be gone 11 years ago (2002). The result is the usual: "nothing (or the inadequate little) for Pacifica".
And, Anon (12:27am, on the city council agenda 11/28/11 article), these issues in Pacifica are just about us folks-- not related to AOL Huffington (which is generally a pretty good news source), and clearly not about national politics. However, I think you could make a substantial case against environmental ideology (or the tribal NIMBY version of such locally) vs. the more productive sustainable development model.
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