Upper Market Community Plan

Upper Market Community Plan

 

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Project Background & Summary
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Study Area
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Public Participation & Workshop Summaries
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UPDATE:
17TH STREET PLAZA

Based upon the work completed in the Upper Market process, the 17th Street Plaza was chosen as the City's pilot Pavements to Park project. The Upper Market Vision and Recommendations document outlined a range of public realm improvements that could be completed in order to enhance the surrounding neighborhoods.


For more information about this project, please visit the Pavements to Parks web site

 

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The Upper Market Workshop Series
has been completed.

After three successful community workshops, the Upper Market neighborhoods have developed a community vision and design guidelines. These documents were endorsed by the Planning Commission on October 23, 2008.

The two documents that were produced as a result of the workshop series are:

Upper Market Community Vision and Recommendations Community Vision and Recommendations

The Planning Commission endorsed the Upper Market Community Vision and Recommendations, as a standing statement of the community's broad work in the workshops, and a call to action for future work on the recommendations made by the community through that process.
Upper Market Development Design Guidelines Development Design Guidelines

The Planning Commission adopted the Upper Market Development Design Guidelines as a policy of the Planning Commission, requiring adherence to the Guidelines as a Driving Criteria for Project review and Approval. This document directs building and site design to be of the character and quality specified by the community through the workshop process.

Project Background & Summary

In the fall of 2007, residents, developers, merchants, community members, and planners worked together in a series of community planning workshops to create a community vision for the Upper Market corridor (generally defined as Market Street between Castro and Octavia Streets). The San Francisco Planning Department, in conjunction with Supervisor Bevan Dufty, hired an urban planning and design consultant team, headed by MIG, to lead the public visioning process and create two documents, the Upper Market Community Vision and Recommendations and the Upper Market Development Design Guidelines.

The project team held three public workshops from September to December 2007 to work with the community to formulate a community vision as well as to create planning and design strategies for implementing the vision. This resulted two documents: first, the Upper Market Community Vision and Recommendations, and second, the Upper Market Development Design Guidelines.

The Upper Market Community Vision and Recommendation contains the community's ideas for improving the corridor through both the public and private sectors, which are provided here for consideration of the Planning Commission and the Board of Supervisors. The ideas contained within this document will all require further study and review prior to implementation, and it is the community's hope that many of these recommendations will be adopted by these decision makers as key initiatives for future efforts by relevant agencies.

The Upper Market Development Design Guidelines provides a clear vision for how the community would like to see development occur along the corridor. The purpose of the guidelines is to outline elements of the vision to developers and property owners along the corridor. What elements are included will be determined by the developer and the property owner. It will be the responsibility of City of San Francisco Planning Department staff to review each proposed project along the corridor to determine if the proposed project meets the intent of the community's vision and design guidelines. The determination will be incorporated into the planning staff's case report for all projects that are presented to the City Planning Commission.

Study Area

The Upper Market study area is located in the central portion of San Francisco. The Community Design Plan focuses on the Market Street corridor between Castro and Octavia Streets. This includes private and public parcels fronting onto Market Street, as well the street right-of-way. Various residential neighborhoods adjacent to the Upper Market Street corridor form an integral part to the area's overall identity and character.  Those neighborhoods include the Castro, Duboce Triangle, Eureka Valley, Mission Dolores, and Hayes Valley.

Upper Market Study Area

 

Public Participation and Workshop Summaries

The City of San Francisco initiated the Upper Market Visioning Workshop Series and Design Plan project in the summer of 2006. The planning process involved a year of collaboration between City staff and MIG consultant team.

The project's planning process was designed to facilitate community agreement around a shared, newly created vision for the overall Upper Market area of San Francisco. The process included five stakeholder interview sessions and three community workshops. The stakeholder interviews were conducted in July and August 2007, and included youth and representatives from community organizations, as well as business, government and political leaders.

The Upper Market community displayed an enthusiastic level of participation throughout the community planning process. At least 100 community members attended each of the three public workshops held in the fall (September, October and December 2007). All the workshops were held at the Harvey Milk Civil Rights Academy. In addition to the public workshops, representatives of community groups, public agencies, and the development community were interviewed to help form an understanding of the area's issues.

Community Workshop 1: Community Visioning
September 11, 2007

On September 11, 2007, nearly 180 community members convened for the first workshop which focused on an existing conditions analysis of and discussion of the corridor and community visioning for the future. Community members' perceptions aligned with the initial analysis, and participants contributed additional thoughts on the study area's assets, issues and opportunities. Large and small group discussions were conducted to hear ideas on community preferences for future Upper Market area improvements. The results of the community dialogue and comments created the foundation for a robust, multi-faceted vision and community design principles.

Community Workshop 2: Emerging Design Strategies
October 27, 2007

On October 27, 2007, approximately 100 community members convened for the second workshop to confirm the emerging community vision framework created during the first workshop and review emerging design strategies to achieve the vision.  The community refined and detailed the vision framework and expressed approval for most of the proposed design strategies.

Community Workshop 3: Preliminary Design Framework
December 12,2007

On December 12, 2007, approximately 100 community members convened for the third community workshop. The purpose of this third workshop was to discuss the refined community design strategies developed during the first two community workshops. Participants reviewed proposed additions to the Upper Market Vision Framework (composed of Vision Elements and Community Design Principles).

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