In 2011, Livable City helped San Francisco make some big steps towards a more livable, sustainable, and equitable future.

• Sunday Streets: Sunday Streets, a partnership between the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), Livable City, neighborhood and business associations, nonprofit partners, hundreds of volunteers, and tens of thousands of participants, had our best season ever. Nine events were held across city neighborhoods. LIvable City manages the Sunday Streets program and organizes every event, and are working with our partners to create an even more successful 2012 season.
• Livable Neighborhoods: Livable City's Livable Neighborhoods campaign made enormous progress in transforming San Francisco's sprawling Planning Code a more effective tool. 2011 saw the approval of several ordinances which Livable City helped author. Planning code controls were overhauled to ensure that street-facing buildings provide active, pedestrian-oriented frontages, and minimize the impact that driveways impose on walking, cycling, and transit, and on neighborhood character. Minimum parking requirements were removed from the SoMa and Tenderloin neighborhoods, from historic buidings, and parking exceptions were made easier in the transit-oriented Neighborhood Commercial and Residential-Commercial zoning districts. Livable City also helped author ordinances that provide incentives to preserve and rehabilitiate historic buildings, simplify controls on neighborhood-serving restaurants and cafes, permit reactivation of long-shuttered neighborhood storefronts, encourage secure bicycle parking in new and renovated buildings, and remove minimum parking requirements in Chinatown and North Beach.
• Affordable Housing: 2011 saw San Francisco become the least affordable city in the US in which to rent an apartment. Livable City helped author planning code changes that ease the restrictions on accessory housing units - smaller apartments in existing residential or commercial buildings. These changes include easier exceptions from parking requirements in the transit-rich neighborhood commercial and residential-commercial districts, and permit a single unit to be added, so long as the zoning otherwise allows it, without triggering off-street parking requirements. We also helped author pending legislation that provides incentives for affordable projects and on-site affordable units in market-rate projects in the Downtown and Van Ness corridors.
• Complete Streets: Livable City advocated for neighborhood projects in 2011 which will make Muni faster and more reliable, and make neighborhood commercial streets more walkable and vital – restoring two-way transit to portions of McAllister, Haight, and Hayes Streets, and removing rush-hour tow-away on 18th Street.
• Car Sharing: Livable City helped enact Planning Code changes to permit any off-street parking spaces to become car-share spaces, and require car-share spaces in large commercial projects. 2011 also saw the debut of San Francisco's first on-street car share spaces, which will help extend car sharing to new neighborhoods and increase its visibility.
• Mission and SoMa streets: SFMTA's ENTRIPS study finally got underway in 2011, and Livable City advocated for more walkable, bikeable, and transit-friendly Folsom, Howard, 7th, 8th, 16th, and 17th streets.
• The Hairball: Livable City has long called for a redesign of the Cesar Chavez - Potrero Avenue - Bayshore Boulevard - US 101 interchange, which imposes a barrier for pedestrians and cyclists moving between the Mission District and the City's Southeast neighborhoods. The Planning Department's Cesar Chavez east study got underway this year, and includes walking and cycling improvements to the Hairball and to the eastern end of Cesar Chavez Street.
• Market Street: In 2009, Livable City created a strategy for reviving Mid-Market. Late in 2011, the Office of Economic and Workforce Development released its Central Market Revitalization Strategy late in 2011, which builds on several of Livable City's proposed strategies. In 2011, Livable City worked with Supervisor David Chiu on a set of Planning Code amendments which will advance many of the Mid-Market strategies, from historic building renovation to housing diversity and affordability to supporting the arts and production businesses.
• The Waterfront: Early this year, Livable City stopped a Port proposal to convert the plaza behind the Ferry Buiding into a parking lot. We advocated for improvements to the waterfront as part of the planning for the America's Cup events, including creating new waterfront open spaces, providing a separated bicycle path along the Embarcadero, and completing gaps in the Bay Trail between Fort Mason and the Presidio.
• Livability Awards: Livable City's first ever Livablility Awards acknowledged several San Franciscans who made San Francisco a more livable place.

2012 is already off to a busy start; ordinances authored by Livable City will have hearings in January and February, and several more will get introduced. We can't do it without you! Consider a tax-deductible year-end contribution to Livable City.

San Francisco prides itself as being one of the country's great food cities, and a leader in sustainabiility. The overhaul of decades-old laws now underway will make San Francisco's Planning Code friendlier to locally-owned restaurants and cafes, and to growing food in the city.

Livable City is leading an effort to reform San Francisco's zoning laws to make it simpler to open neighborhood-serving, locally-owned restaurants and cafes. The 1987 law that created San Francisco's Neighborhood Commercial zoning districts distinguishes between full-service restaurants, which provide table service, and self-service restaurants, which includes all other restaurants. In order to limit fast-food chains, strict limitations were imposed on the size and number of self-service restaurants.

The definition of self-service restaurant is so broad that it includes both fast-food chains and locally-owned taquerias, cafes, coffee houses, crepe houses, and bakery-cafes.The strict size limit of 1000 square feet doesn't take into account other regulations, like the Americans With Disabilities Act and health and environment code requirements, that have increased restaurants' space requirements. Some of these restrictions have also been made redundant by the 2007 passage of San Francisco's Formula Retail ordinance, which creates mandatory neighborhood notification and conditional use authorization for any chain retail businesses, including fast-food and other restaurant chains.

Beyond providing local residents with jobs and business opportunities,, providing 'eyes on the street', and fostering walkable neighborhoods, neighborhood-serving restaurants and cafes provide city dwellers with important "third places". According to sociologist Ray Oldenburg, third places, which he calls "great good places", foster community cohesion, livability, and local democracy by hosting "the regular, voluntary, informal, and happily anticipated gatherings of individuals beyond the realms of home and work."

Livable City worked with Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi to craft an ordinance which permits locally-owned, neighborhood-serving self-service restaurants and cafes as a principally permitted use in the city's small-scale neighborhood commercial cluster districts, and to increase the permitted size to equal that for other commercial uses.

The Planning Department staff recommended that the Planning Commission take the opportunity presented by this ordinance to simplfy and rationalize the Planning Code controls on restaurants. It proposes consolidating the 13 restaurant definitions in the Planning Code into three. The three definitions will focus on the two aspects of restaurants that typically cause the most neighborhood concern - alcohol service and chain retail. Restaurants would be a principally permitted use in most zoning districts, but tighter controls would remain in neighborhoods, like North Beach, that want them. Controls on formula retail restaurant controls will get tighter on Taraval Avenue and Mission Street. The Planning staff also recommend standard conditions of approval to address noise, litter, trash receptacles and odors. (The staff report detailing the changes can be found here (Staff report [pdf])

This ordinance was endorsed by the Small Business Commission, and was recommended unanimously by the Planning Commission on November 17. The next stop is the Board of Supervisors' Land Use Committee in January.

Sunday Streets ended its 2011 season on a high note with a successful Mission event on October 23. The 2011 season included nine great events, with improved routes, greater attendance, more cultural offerings, deeper community partnerships, and better weather.

Sunday Streets transforms city streets into safe, car-free recreational space for walking, cycling, jogging, dancing, yoga, and other activities.Sunday Streets is a partnership between Livable City and the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency, other City agencies, and other program and neighborhood partners.

We have already begun thinking about an even better 2012 season. Please take some time to answer the 2011 Sunday Streets questionnaire to let us know what you thought of this year's events, and what you would like to see for next year.

Livable City has been the organizer and fiscal sponsor of Sunday Streets since it began in fall 2008. We work with the Municipal Transportation Agency, the Mayor's Office, and various City departments, including the Shape Up Coalition and Health Department, as well as other nonprofit and community partners, like the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, the YMCA, and neighborhood and local business associations The program is made possible by generous program sponsors and in-kind support from city agencies – and by our amazing volunteers (to for information on volunteering, check out the Sunday Streets volunteer page).

For information and updates, and to let us know what you liked about the events, or to give us your ideas about the events in 2011 and beyond, use the Sunday Streets website. Your generous gifts will help us grow the program in 2012 and beyond! To donate to Sunday Streets, use Livable City's secure web site, and check the 'Sunday Streets' box to let us know your contribution is for Sunday Streets.

San Francisco will host the America's Cup sailing race in 2012 and 2013. Working with the America's Cup Environmental Council, a coalition of environmental organizations, Livable City is working to make sure that this event sets the highest possible standard for sustainability, minimizes its impact on the environment and waterfront neighborhoods, and provides lasting benefits to the city.

Some of our goals include:

• The America's Cup transportation plan relies on sustainable transportation modes, and minimizes auto traffic;
• The event generates minimal waste, and sends nothing to landfills;
• Long-discussed transportation improvements, like the E-Line streetcar service between Fisherman's Wharf and the Ballpark, are in place for the 2013 events;
• The event creates permanent improvements to the waterfront, including a separated bicycle path the length of the Embarcadero, and new waterfront open spaces;
• That permanent facilities built for the event on Piers 27-31 and 30-32 provide public access and waterfront open space, and improve pedestrian, cycling, and transit access on the Embarcadero.

On June 26th, Livable City was part of the Grand Opening festivities for the the "'Deepistan National Parklet" in front of 937 Valencia Street in San Francisco. Parklets are tiny public spaces created from parking spaces for all to enjoy. This will be the first residential parklet created in San Francisco.

In addition to the 'Deepistan National Parklet, another parklet opened last week in front of Four Barrel Coffee at 375 Valencia, between 14th and 15th, joining the parklets in front of The Freewheel Bike Shop, at 914 Valencia (across the street from the Deeplet), and at The Crepe House at 1132 Valencia (between 22nd and 23rd).

Parklets are just one technique for converting automobile-dominated streets into thriving public places. They are part of a growing toolbox of low-cost transformations which the Next Generation New Urbanists call "Tactical Urbanism" – incremental, near-term, and small-scale improvements in support of longer-term transformations. Tactical Urbanism is also a way of overcoming fear and skepticism about big street changes. Pilot projects, using low-cost and reversible construction like paint and movable planters give the community has a chance to experience how the changes work without a permanent commitment. New York City's Transportation Commissioner Janette Sadik-Khan, one of tactical urbanism's most adept practitioners, said “You have to experiment, try things out. If it doesn’t work, okay, you move on and try something else.”

The City has embraced tactical urbanism in its Pavement to Parks program, which has facilitated parklets all around the city, as well as larger open spaces in four neighborhoods. The The Valencia Street corridor is a laboratory for both tactical and strategic urbanism, which began with the 1999 Valencia Street road diet which made room for Valencia's first bicycle lanes. Livable City was instrumental in advocating for the widened sidewalks between 15th and 19th streets, a piece of Strategic Urbanism which integrates lighting, landscaping, pedestrian safety improvements, and public art and opened last year. Strategic Urbanism creates the fertile ground for more tactical urbanism - the wide sidewalks invite sidewalk seating, container gardens, vendors, and art.

Over the past year, Livable City's Livable Neighborhoods campaign has led the effort to overhaul San Francisco's Planning Code. Livable Neighborhoods passed another milestone, with Board of Supervisors' approval of a second comprehensive ordinance overhauling street frontage controls.

Livable City's most recent success was working with Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi on a through reform of street frontage controls in the city's Residential Districts, as well as changes to parking controls in other districts. This ordinance updates street frontage and ground floor controls for the city's residential and industrial districts, limiting the width of street-facing garage entrances, and limiting 'snout buildings', which push their garages into front yards. The ordinance makes it simpler to get exceptions from parking requirements to preserve historic buildings, and to save landmark and significant trees. This ordinance was unanimously recommended by the Planning Commission on January 13, and was approved unanimously by the Board of Supervisors on April 11.

Great streets and public spaces are essential elements of a Livable Neighborhood. Another essential element is good buildings which frame and engage those streets. Livable City's Livable Neighborhoods campaign is working to bring a simple set of standards for creating pedestrian-friendly buildings to every San Francisco neighborhood. These standards include:

• Storefronts on non-residential ground floors in mixed-use areas of the city, with lots of transparency to allow light and views in and out. Transparent storefronts create interest for passersby, and enhance safety by providing 'eyes on the street'. Security gates or shutters for closed stores should be open grillework rather than solid metal, and should fold away from view when the stores are open.
• High ceilings on non-residential ground floors create attractive, light-filled spaces that can accommodate a variety of uses. They also lift the first residential floor a few feet further from the street, which makes that housing more livable. Ground floor ceiling heights of around 14' should be required for non-residential uses, so long as it doesn't mean losing a floor of housing.
• Pedestrian-friendly building fronts on residential buildings should provide a pattern of porches, front stoops, or building lobbies at ground level that create safe and walkable neighborhoods.
• Hide parking from view, where it is provided at all. Parking should be underground wherever possible, freeing up builidng space for jobs, housing, and neighborhood-serving uses, but at the very least from view behind active residential or commercial uses. Garage openings should be compact in size, to keep building facades lively, minimize conflicts with pedestrians, and minimize the loss of on-street parking and loading spaces.
• Provide visual interest and safety by avoiding long blank walls. Utility cabinets, meters, and the like should be minimized, and placed in less prominent locations.

Over the past year, Livable City has led the effort to overhaul the Planning Code's street frontage controls.

In 2010 we worked with Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, author of the Market & Octavia planning controls, to amend the city's Planning Code to require active, attractive, and pedestrian-oriented ground-floor street frontages for new and renovated buildings in the city's Neighborhood Commercial (NC), Commercial (C), Residential-Commercial (RC), and Mixed Use zoning Districts. The ordinance was unanimously approved by the Board of Supervisors in April. Now street frontages of new and renovated buidings from Downtown to our smallest neighborhood commercial districts will help make our city more walkable, friendly, and safe.

The Market & Octavia, Balboa Park, and Eastern Neighborhoods plans, approved in 2008, require active street-fronting uses at ground level, and parking hidden from view, in several of the city's residential and mixed-use neighborhoods. Livable City championed those changes, and has worked to extend many of these progressive provisions citywide.

More Planning Code changes, which will overhaul parking controls north and south of Market Street, remove barriers to new housing and neighborhood-serving small businesses, and update the Planning Code's antiquated sign and awning controls, are coming soon.

Accessory units, also called secondary units or in-law units, provide housing for thousands of San Franciscans. Accessory units fit into existing buildings, and are often found on the ground floors of one-, two-, or three-unit buildings, or above shops on the city's commercial streets. Legislation championed by Livable City, to encourage bringing accessory units up to housing and building code while preserving existing tenant protections, was unanimously approved at the Board of Supervisors this month.

Changes to the city's planning code in the 1950's and 1960's restricted such housing units by imposing limitations on the number of units on a residential or commercial lot, and by requiring an off-street parking space for each unit. Nonetheless, thousands of units were built before these requirements were imposed, and thousands more were built without permits over the last few decades. Units built before 1980 are subject to rent control, even if built without permits.

These units (no one is quite sure how many, although estimates run as high as 40,000) are a significant and affordable housing resource for San Francisco. Other cities, notably Portland, Vancouver, Seattle, and Santa Cruz, have taken steps to legalize new and existing units, and even to encourage them in transit-served neighborhoods. Until recently, however, dealing with accessory units was considered the 'third rail' of San Francisco politics, and previous efforts to legalize them had failed.

Livable City has supported legalization of these units in transit-served areas of the city since our inception. We supported planning code changes to allow greater density in transit-rich residential and commercial districts (while retaining controls on height, building setbacks, and open space requirements), which were approved in Hayes Valley, Duboce Triangle, and parts of the Mission in 2008, after a lengthy neighborhood planning process. These new zoning districts, RTO (Residential Transit-Oriented) and NC-T (Neighborhood Commercial Transit-Oriented) also have no minimum parking requirements. These planning code changes removed the Planning Code barriers to legalization. A provision of the city's building code, however, threatened to negate existing tenant protections when units were brought up to housing and building code.

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi sponsored legislation to provide for amending the existing certificate of occupancy for existing buildings when they are brought up to code, preserving the status quo for rent-controlled units. The legislation was supported by both tenants groups and the San Francisco Apartment Association, and praised in a Chronicle editorial ("A Truce in the Housing Wars", June 13 2009).

2011 also saw major progress towards legalizing accessory units. Planning Code changes to off-street parking requirements will make it easier to legalize, or to add, an accessory unit without off-street parking so long as the unit otherwise complies with city codes.

Creating new NC-T zones was prohibited by court order until the city completed its update of the General Plan's Housing Element. With the Housing Element adopted and the injunction lifted in Autumn 2011, the City is now free to take further steps to legalize accessory units, and Livable City is working with policymakers to make further progress in 2012.

Despite many challenges, San Francisco made significant progress towards becoming a more livable, sustainable, equitable city in 2010. With your help, Livable City was an integral part of that transformation. Just a few of the highlights include:

• Sunday Streets. Thanks to support from city agencies, neighborhood and business associations, nonprofit partners, hundreds of volunteers, and tens of thousands of participants, San Francisco's Sunday Streets expanded to nine events and to new neighborhoods. LIvable City manages the Sunday Streets program and organizes every event, and are working with our partners to create an even more successful 2011 season.
• Livable Neighborhoods. Livable City's Livable Neighborhoods campaign made enormous progress in transforming San Francisco's sprawling Planning Code a more effective tool. In 2010 we authored controls for creating attractive, pedestrian-oriented building frontages and parking requirements in the City's dozens of mixed-use zoning districts. A similar reform of residential and industrial zoning controls will be heard in January.
• Better Streets: In 2007, Livable City organized a coalition of community organizations to call for a renewal of San Francisco's street design standards to improve pedestrian safety, environmental sustainability, and neighorhood livability. The Better Streets standards were adopted this month, along with complementary amendments to city codes and San Francisco's General Plan. Adoption of the standards was a major milestone, but is only the beginning - Livable City is working on standards for traffic speed and traffic volume, for street lighting, and an action plan for transforming our streets.
• Valencia Street: Livable City worked with neighbors to advocate for widened sidewalks, street trees, and sidewalk lighting on Valencia Street, and helped secure funding. The first phase of Valencia Street improvements, from 15th to 19th Streets, were completed this year. It is a great asset to the community, and demonstrates the possibilities for transforming neighborhood commercial streets across San Francisco.
• Mission and SoMa streets: Livable City advocated for, and participated in, plans for improving safety, accessibility, and livability in South of Market and the Mission District. A Mission Streetscape Plan was completed in 2010, and a larger plan for South of Market, Mission Bay, the Central Waterfront, and Potrero Hill got underway.
• Linden Street: Architect Dave Winslow managed to successfully transform Linden Street in Hayes Valley into San Francisco's first Living Street. Livable City was able to provide critical support for the project this year, and was acknowledged at the street dedication this fall.
• Market Street: After helping defeat an ill-conceived proposal to erect giant billboards in Mid-Market, Livable City outlined a revitalization strategy for the neighborhood, which the City has partially adopted. Livable City, working with Walk San Francisco, helped secure up to $2 million for pedestrian safety improvements on Market, Mission, 5th, and 6th streets.
• Climate Action: Livable City helped author San Francisco's landmark Climate Protection ordinance in 2008. In 2010, every City department adopted a Climate action plan of its own, and energy conservation standards for commercial buildings were approved.
• High Speed Rail: Livable City advocated for using the huge investment California will make in the high-speed rail through San Francisco to transform eastern San Francisco into a more livable place - putting Caltrain and high speed rail underground, and removing sections of the Southern Embarcadero Freeway above it can reconnect neighborhoods, reduce pollution, blight, and traffic danger, and free space for needed jobs and housing.
• Pavement to Parks: San Francisco's Pavement to Parks program continued to transform asphalt into ad hoc community open spaces. Livable City nominated the greening of Naples Street between Geneva and Rolph, which was transformed into Naples Green in 2010.
• The Hairball: Livable City has long called for a redesign of the Cesar Chavez - Potrero Avenue - Bayshore Boulevard - US 101 interchange, which imposes a barrier for pedestrians and cyclists moving between the Mission District and the City's Southeast neighborhoods and Waterfront. This year, the Planning Department secured a community planning grant to devise a plan for improving the Hairball.
• Upper Market: Livable City worked with neighborhood associations to draft Planning Code changes for Upper Market Street's orphan block, between Castro and Noe streets, that will extend most of the progressive Market and Octavia planning controls.

2011 is already off to a busy start; at least three ordinances authored y Livable City will be up for adoption in January, and several more will get introduced. We can't do it without you! Consider a tax-deductible year-end contribution to Livable City.

Managing on-street parking intelligently is essential to livable and vital neighborhood commercial streets. Sound parking management makes the short-stay, high turnover parking that merchants need available at the times they need it most. Good parking management reduces traffic generated by drivers cruising for parking spots. Good parking management generates more money from meter fees than from fines. Good parking management encourages office commuters to use transit, and encourages long-stay parkers to park off-street, leaving convenient on-street parking for shoppers, diners, and theater- and movie-goers. Good parking management discourages overflow parking into adjacent residential neighborhoods.

San Francisco's Municipal Transportation Agency held a public hearing on proposed changes to parking meters on Tuesday, October 20. MTA's SFpark program ("circle less, live more") have done an outstanding job creating a proposal that is rigorous, fair, and based on extensive research and outreach to stakeholders. SFpark's proposal was effusively praised by parking guru Donald Shoup as 'pathbreaking'. It is some of the best work MTA has done in its nine-year history, and will move on-street parking management into the 21st Century.

Currently, parking meter hours extend from 8am to 6pm from Monday through Saturday in all San Francisco neighborhoods, except for the Port of San Francisco's meters along the Embarcadero, which operate until 11pm seven days a week. MTA is proposing extending meter hours from 11am to 6 pm Sunday citywide, and until 9 pm or 12am in certain neighborhoods, based on occupancy. The proposal differs greatly from the recent Oakland parking debacle, in that it is:

• Strategic – MTA's proposal is based on sound policy criteria and data collection. While the changes will increase revenue, it is part of a larger strategy to make parking more convenient and achieve overall goals for Muni reliability, comercial vitality, and climate protection.
• Informed – MTA did extensive interviews with stakeholder (merchant groups, transportation advocates, business associations, etc.) to help make the proposal as smart and sensitive as possible.
• Locally responsive – unlike today's one-size fits-all meter hours, the current MTA proposal is tailored to the needs of specific commercial district, based on neighborhood land uses, parking availability, and peak demand, yet keeps the system as simple as possible by proposing just three evening meter hours – 6pm, 9pm, and midnight - weeknights and Saturdays, and unform citywide hours on Sunday.
• Convenient – time limits will be extended to four hours in the evening, and two hours during the day, giving folks enough time for, say, dinner and a movie, or a long lunch. SFpark's smart meter retrofit will allow wider use of digital parking cards and credit cards, which will mean no more pocketsful of quarters necessary.
• Interactive – Implementation will be accompanied by through outreach plan to merchants, residents, and visitors.

A map of the extended hours proposal is available here [pdf]. The full report is available here [pdf].

Despite being well recieved by parking experts and some neighborhood merchants, the Mayor's office bullied MTA into tabling the proposal. Three MTA directors are working to bring it back, and recently it appears that the Mayor's opposition is softening.

Please email the MTA Board and Mayor Newsom in support of the proposal:

As of today, the date where the proposal will be considered for adoption by the MTA board is not scheduled, but we will let you know when we do. Emails to the mayor and MTA board between now and then are very helpful!

The City's Planning Code requires off-street parking in new buildings across much of the city. However, off-street parking is not required in buildings built before off-street parking requirements were established (1955 for residences and 1960 for non-residential uses) or in more recent buildings which were granted exemptions, so long as those buildings don't add housing units or change their use. Garage additions in such buildings are purely voluntary, and currently don't require any special planning approval.

Adding garages to existing buildings can compromise the livability of neighborhoods. They can remove scarce housing or neighborhood-serving storefronts. They can make streets less safe for pedestrians and cyclists. They can disfigure historic buildings, destroy front gardens, and remove street trees. On commercial streets, they remove on-street parking and loading that serve merchants and provide meter revenue to maintain the transportation system.

Garage additions can actually reduce the amount of available parking in neighborhoods. Most require the removal of one or more on-street spaces, yet many garages are not used to store a car. Geographer Mary Brown found that garages added to the Mission District neighborhood she studied had eliminated over 40% of on-street parking spaces, yet only half of the garages were used to store a car, generating little increase in neighborhood parking while making the neighborhood less green and walkable.

Two proposals to address the issue of garage additions have been adopted.

Supervisor David Chiu championed an ordinance regulating garages in Chinatown, North Beach, and Telegraph Hill. The legislation exempts housing in Telegraph Hill and North Beach from minimum parking requirements, meaning that new construction and buildings changing uses won't be required to build garages if they don't need them. New driveways are disallowed on Columbus Avenue and on Broadway, to minimize interference with pedestrians, cyclists, and transit on these important streets. New garages in existing buildings would require conditional use authorization, with criteria aimed at preventing new garages from removing existing housing or reducing it in size, making sidewalks impassible, defacing historic buildings, or preventing excessive loss of on-street parking. The ordinance was approved by the Board of Supervisors in the Spring.

In December 2009, the Planning Commission discussed a proposed policy on adding garages to existing buildings citywide.

The staff proposal is not to amend the Planning Code, but rather to create a policy to guide staff when deciding whether to approve or disapprove the addition of a non-required garage. If the Planning Commission adopts the proposed policy, the Planning Department will generally disapprove of garage additions to existing buildings which:

• remove a residential unit;
• remove 20% or more of residential unit
• have an adverse impact on an historic building
• remove three or more on–street parking spaces
• remove one on-street parking space to create a single off-street parking space
• don't provide at least 6' clear passage on sidewalks
• remove an existing street tree
• are inconsistent with existing General Plan policy, Design Guidelines, and Zoning Administrator bulletins.

Livable City supports these policies, which will better protect the interest of neighbors in maintaining safe and livable streets and neighborhoods. We also welcome the Planning Department's proposal to work more closely with the MTA to lessen the impact of garages on walking, cycling, and transit, and with the Public Works Department to lessen the impact of garages on street trees and sidewalks.

We support two further changes to the policy. First the final version should be clearer about which sorts of garage additions will be approved or disapproved by the Planning Department. Second, since garage additions have such a potential impact on the safety, livability, character, and parking supply of neighborhoods, the Planning Code should be amended to require garage additions to have the same 30-day neighborhood notification requirements as other building additions and changes of use.

This policy complements Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi's Street frontage ordinances, which will require new and renovated buildings to hide parked cars from view behind street-level active uses, like storefronts and residential entrances. The street frontage ordinance for San Francisco's mixed use districts was approved unanimously in May, and the ordiance addressing Residential and Industrial districts was introduced on August 2.

'Peak Oil' is a term used to refer to the peak of global oil production ('production' is something of a misnomer; 'extraction' is more accurate). After the peak, the amount of oil extracted worldwide will inexorably decline. Oil is a finite resource, and there is less and less debate as to whether oil extraction will peak and then decline; the debate is increasingly about when it will happen. Some energy experts, like Princeton Professor Ken Deffyes, think oil extraction has already peaked, while others foresee a peak within the next few years, and still others predict a peak after 2020. Other fossil fuels, including natural gas and coal, are also subject to depletion, and extraction of these fuels will also peak and decline in the future. Fossil fuels are the world's most important sources of energy, and are both used directly for transportation, heating, and cooking, and also generate most of the world's electricity.

Because of the lack of transparent information about the state of the world's oil reserves, uncertainty about the impact of technology on oil extraction, the turbulence created by political and economic "above ground" factors, and strong economic incentives for both governments and oil companies to artificially inflate their declared reserves, it is likely we won't know that peak oil has happened until after it has happened.

The Board of Supervisors created a Peak Oil Preparedness Task Force to advise the city on how to prepare for peak oil. The task force released its report and recommendations in March. Livable City was asked to comment at a recent Board of Supervisors hearing on the report.

San Francisco's Northeast Waterfront stretches along the Embarcadero from the foot of Market Street to Fisherman's Wharf. The shift to container shipping in the 1960s, which made the Northeast Waterfront's finger piers largely obselete, and the removal of the Embarcadero Freeway in the 1990s, set in motion a tremendous transformation of the waterfront which is still underway.

Livable City is working to transform the Northeast Waterfront into one of the world's great public waterfronts, with more and better-connected public places, historic buildings preserved and restored, new buildings that knit city and waterfront together and enliven the surrounding streets, and investments in walking, cycling, public transit that connect the waterfront to the rest of the city.

The piers and landside seawall lots (triangular lots which were formerly wharves, filled when the Embarcadero was constructed at the turn of the century) were transferred from the State of California to the city in the 1960's, and uses of these piers and seawall lots are still governed by state tidelands law and under the jurisdiction of the State Lands Commission. The Port was set up as an enterprise agency, and expected to pay for its own operations and upkeep of its facilities through commercial leases (because Port lands are public trust lands, they cannot be sold). The Port still maintains some traditional maritme activities – fishing at Pier 45, the Pier 35 Cruise Ship Terminal, the Pier 70 dry dock, and bulk cargo at Piers 90-96 – but increasingly relies on office and retail uses for revenue. The balance between public uses of the waterfront and the private uses which help the Port meet its financial bottom line (and maintain its deteriorating infrastructure) is an uneasy one.

Livable City believes that the Waterfront is one of San Francisco's most important public assets, and that public values like recreation, open space, accessibility, historic preservation, and environmental restoration should be the foundation of waterfront planning. The right commercial uses can complement the watefront's public assets, and help to pay for them. Livable City's action plan for the waterfront includes:

• Improve and expand the public spaces along the waterfront – the promenade, plazas, public piers, and parks – and linking them up.
• Improve walking along the Embarcadero by widening the pedestrian promenade on both sides of the Embarcadero, improving crossings of the Embarcadero, and calming traffic.
• Improve cycing along the Embarcadero by providing a continuous bi-directional bicycle path on the water side of the Embarcadero.
• Improve the speed, reliability, capacity, and accessibility of the Embarcadero's light rail line
• Remove parking from the piers, to free space for public access, and eliminate dangerous conflicts with walkers and cyclists.
• Preserve and restore the historic bulkhead buildings along the waterfront, and finding appropriate public and private uses for the buildings.
• Preserve and improve the Port's "paper streets" – the final blocks of Jackson, Drumm, Davis, Vallejo, Front, and Union – as public open spaces and view corridors.
• Improve walking, cycling, and transit access between the waterfront and the rest of the city, including Washington, Broadway, Sansome, Battery, Green, and Bay streets.
• Ensure that new buildings on the seawall lots (now mostly parking lots) contribute to making the Embarcadero a great street by linking the city and the waterfront, and enlivening the land side of the Embarcadero. Buildings should be lined with active, pedestrian-oriented ground-floor uses along the Embarcadero. Allowable building heights should be raised from 40' to 45' or 55' to allow for taller ground floors which can accommodate more uses. These taller ground floors still allow for the tapering of building heights from the base of Telegraph Hill towards the water to preserve views. Any parking should hidden from view underground, and garage entrances located away from the Embarcadero and Broadway.

The Planning Department's Northeast Embarcadero Study is focusing on appropriate land uses for the Port's seawall lots along the Embarcadero, from Washington Street to North Point Street. The Planning Department's Fisherman's Wharf Public Realm Plan is looking at streets and public spaces in the Fisherman's Wharf area north of Bay Street. The Port has several advisory groups and ongoing planning efforts for specific projects along the waterfront. Contact Kate McGee at the Planning Department (kate.mcgee@sfgov.org) for further information, or to submit comments

Another fine short film from Clarence Eckerson of Streetfilms, focusing on efforts by advocates, including Livable City, the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition, and the Market Street Association, to make Market Street great again.

The news of late has been dominated by big economic and political stories. Dig a little deeper, however, and many of the big stories in 2008 – the mortgage crisis, gasoline prices, the crisis in the auto industry, and accelerating climate change – have a lot to do with the way we build and live in our cities. Livable City's Investments With a Future initiative is seeking to coordinate investments at the federal, state, regional, and local level that provide green jobs and economic recovery in the near term, while fostering a shift towards more livable and sustainable ways of living and working.

Cities around the world, including London, Stockholm, and Singapore, have implemented congestion charges as a strategy for relieving traffic congestion, reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, generating funding for transportation improvements, and reducing the negative effects of automobile traffic on walking, cycling, and transit. Congestion charging schemes generally work by charging a fee to motorists to drive to or within certain routes or areas during the most congested hours of the weekday. Motorists who choose to drive and pay the fee benefit from reduced congestion, while those who choose to ride transit, walk, or cycle should enjoy improved access via sustainable modes. Certain vehicles, including buses, taxis, and cars registered to residents of the zone, may be exempted from the charge, or given a discount.

The San Francisco County Transportation Authority is studying various congestion charging options for San Francisco in their Mobility, Access, and Pricing Study (MAPS). MAPS will study several congestion charge alternatives, including a congestion charge in the greater Downtown area (bounded by Embarcadero, Harrison, 11th, Van Ness, and Broadway), in a smaller portion of the downtown, or citywide. The study is also exploring alternatives for the hours during which the charge would be collected (during the entire work day, or just in the morning commute period), what traffic changes might occur, and