Moving

San Francisco’s clampdown on parklets fuels turmoil

When the pandemic broke out, crowds of people who settled inside rushed outside to have puppies.

It was then that Lynnet Spiegel knew she had to figure out how to get her pet store outside.

Fortunately, San Francisco officials created Shared Spaces, a program that allowed parking lots, sidewalks, and other public spaces to be used for commercial activities – commonly known as parklets.

Spiegel was thrilled. She hired a contractor and spent $ 20,000 on a parklet in front of Jeffrey’s Natural Pet Foods on Powell Street between Joe DiMaggio Park and Washington Square. There she hosted puppy socials, training courses, and other events for new dog owners in the neighborhood.

But it has become more difficult for the pet store.

Almost 18 months since she built her parklet, Spiegel recently received several quotes threatening fines if she doesn’t make structural changes, including lowering the side walls, moving plant pots off the sidewalk, and trimming the roof.

The parklet – and maybe their business – could be in jeopardy.

“I’m fighting Amazon and Chewy and I’m trying to keep a brick and mortar store open,” said Spiegel. “The only way for me to stay alive is to have other customer incentives than just buying groceries.”

Spiegel is not alone. As the Parklet program becomes a permanent fixture on the streets of San Francisco, tensions are simmering between city authorities, who are forced to impose a semblance of order on what is largely an ad hoc system, and traders, who are still emerging from the pandemic recover.

“As we are moving into a permanent program, the quickly built structures have to adapt to long-term use,” said Robin Abad, who heads the Parklet initiative. “We have turned a crisis response into a permanent opportunity to redesign the use of our roads for the benefit of the people who live, work and visit here.”

The Examiner spoke to business owners in North Beach and Chinatown, two neighborhoods where parklets were essential to the survival of commercial corridors, about the uncertain future of these outdoor spaces.

When parklets first hit the streets last summer, they were a boon to traders. Many said this was the only way to survive the lull in protection on the ground. According to the Shared Spaces website, at least 1,800 requests were approved, of which over 1,000 were for the parking lane.

It was also totally free-for-all.

Parklets ran all along the line in terms of design and durability. Random floors and ramshackle roofs were one end of the spectrum. On the other side were sprawling buildings adorned with lights, speakers, and decorations.

Initially there were bare guidelines, but enforcement was lackluster. Some community members have raised concerns about compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act, traffic disruption, and first-aid access.

A law on the permanent use of sidewalks, parking lots and other parts of public space was introduced by Mayor London Breed in March and subsequently passed by the Board of Directors. Its aim is to enable companies to benefit from outdoor dining beyond the pandemic, and to codify stricter rules and regulations for parklets.

Abad said the passing of the law has given the city an opportunity to enforce compliance in some security-related areas now rather than waiting for the permanent version of the program to go fully into effect next year.

Notices of violations and fines are currently only issued to parklets in urgent need of repair to restore emergency access, particularly potential obstacles for fire departments to reach the building and comply with ADA rules, he said.

All other violations are expected to be lifted by July 2022.

When Chelsea Hung received an injury notice giving her 14 days to make structural changes to her parklet or risk fines of up to $ 500 a day, she was devastated believing she was meeting all fire safety and accessibility concerns .

Hung spent over $ 5,000 building the parklet in front of Washington Bakery and Restaurant, the business near Portsmouth Square that her family has owned and run for 25 years. She has modified the parklet several times since it was first built to accommodate changing city guidelines.

Given this recent injury – one Hung doesn’t quite understand because she says it’s written in a technocratic slang referring to city codes – she wonders if it would be easier to tear down the parklet instead.

Chelsa Hung, whose family has owned the Washington Bakery and Restaurant in Chinatown for decades, said she was surprised to receive an infringement notice from The City regarding the restaurant’s parklet. (Kevin N. Hume / The Examiner)

“We don’t know if the rules will keep changing,” she said. “We are faced with this dilemma of whether to continue investing in outdoor restaurants.”

Spiegel could face a similar dilemma. Her quotes require her to slightly reduce the size of her parklet, a move she says would force her to reduce the size of her puppy training classes.

“That wouldn’t be feasible,” she said. “It’s intolerable.”

Dealers agreed that fixing fire and accessibility issues is key to keeping the streets and residents of San Francisco safe, but they expressed dismay at how many of their violations fall into those buckets, especially after a year and a half with no problems.

“I think the confusion was that it was given piecemeal and it was given afterwards,” said Hanna Suleiman, who owns Caffe Greco on Columbus Avenue. “Nobody came to say, ‘You could do this and you couldn’t.’ They gave people the opportunity to do what they wanted and now they are coming back after over a year. “

Hanna Suleiman, owner of Caffe Greco, built the parklet in front of his North Beach restaurant before the pandemic broke out.  (Kevin N. Hume / The Examiner)

Hanna Suleiman, owner of Caffe Greco, built the parklet in front of his North Beach restaurant before the pandemic broke out. (Kevin N. Hume / The Examiner)

Suleiman’s Parklet dates from before the pandemic. It was built in 2010 as one of the first publicly accessible parklets in the city, taking strict design and construction quality criteria into account. During the pandemic, he expanded it to include four motorcycle zone spaces and added a roof.

Now, he says, he is being asked to “follow guidelines that I was not aware of” within 10 days or face fines. He spent about $ 9,000 on the parklet during the COVID-19 crisis, and he believes he would have to spend up to an additional $ 5,000 to adapt it to the new code.

“I think there should be guidelines, no question about it, but there should be reasonable guidelines,” Suleiman said. “The idea was that this was built to help small businesses and now it is going to destroy small businesses.”

Several vendors told the Examiner that they could not decipher something as basic as the messages themselves and that they had received little help from the city. They said various quotes were from multiple agencies with no clear point of contact, and when they turned to numerous email addresses, they would hear nothing or waver between people for weeks.

Some of those who want to do this but need more time due to ongoing delivery bottlenecks, rising construction costs and staff shortages have not heard of possible extensions.

“It’s a total communications breakdown where businesses are being told contradicting things week after week and The City is failing to coordinate a unified, helpful approach to compliance,” said Aaron Peskin, supervisor of the North Beach and Chinatown borough belong.

Officials acknowledge the transition was confusing.

Abad told The Examiner that starting this month, departments will be issuing notifications to dealers in a single package with a cover sheet to help business owners “understand what they need to fix and create a plan for it.”

cgraf@sfexaminer.com

ChinatownnewsNorth BeachSmall Businesses

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