Livable Market/Octavia Plan comes to Supes

After nine years of study by the Planning Department, community meetings, and Planning Commission hearings, the Market and Octavia Plan is coming to the Board of Supervisors for final approval.

This plan originated in the need to fill the gap created by the demolition of the Central Freeway, destroyed in the Loma Prieta earthquake. The plan includes mixed use, reduced parking, and higher density.

The Sierra Club supports the plan as a demonstration of how designing a neighborhood to be a walkable, livable community, with neighborhood businesses and transit close to all residents, can enable people to live with fewer cars. Developers whose proposals comply completely with the plan will be able to proceed quickly through the planning process.

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi proposed final details to reduce allowable parking to maximums supported by the neighborhood, allowing auto ownership, with parking, similar to the current ratios in the neighborhood. The supervisor also added an additional $10-per-square-foot affordable-housing fee to fund an increase in affordable housing from 15% to about 18%.

Howard Strassner, ExComm, Sierra Club San Francisco Group