Progress Park sits in the shadow of Interstate 280 in San Francisco’s burgeoning Dogpatch neighborhood, a community park that just a few years ago was a fenced Caltrans property filled with rocks and debris.
The space used to be a magnet for homeless camps and illegal dumping. Now neighbors head there to play bocce, owners bring their dogs to the canine play area, and workout groups gather at the open space’s foam matting and exercise bars.
The park was built with private and public donations, a $21,000 community grant from the city, and a lot of hard work by neighbors. Those neighbors, along with a group of community members in nearby Potrero Hill, are proposing to tax themselves to pay for the upkeep of this and other open spaces in adjacent neighborhoods. Taking a page from business owners who for years have formed community benefit districts to help pay for security, landscaping and other quality-of-life improvements, the groups are working with Supervisor Malia Cohen to create a “green benefit district.”
The Board of Supervisors on Tuesday will vote on legislation by Cohen that would amend local law and pave the way for the creation of the district. Like community benefit districts, the new tax would have to be put to a vote and approved by a majority of property owners in the district.
Taxes would be assessed at 9.51 cents per square foot of property, meaning that homeowners such as Bruce Huie, who helped create Progress Park, would pay about $170 a year. Buildings housing nonprofits and industrial uses would pay half as much. The district would raise an estimated $440,000 a year – $360,000 for the Dogpatch area, which is larger, and $80,000 for Potrero Hill projects.
Hard to maintain
“It’s easy to set up projects like this, but it’s not as easy to maintain them,” Huie said, noting that the city’s parks department is stretched thin. “This neighborhood is changing. It used to be strictly industrial, and there was no one here at night. Now there are families coming in, people are bicycling and running – we want to create an atmosphere that’s conducive to people.”
The benefit district is a particularly useful tool for neighbors looking to rehabilitate Caltrans properties, said Jean Bogiages, who lives on Utah Street in Potrero Hill. The state-owned land is often regarded as an orphan by city officials, she said, and the state hasn’t been interested in spending the money to spruce up the lots that hug Highway 101 around 18th, 17th and Mariposa streets.
Bogiages and other neighbors have already worked to create two neighborhood parks near the 18th Street freeway overpass, Fallen Bridge Park and the Benches Garden. They envision other nearby Caltrans lots as terraced open spaces that could provide places for people to eat lunch or sit in the sun, and they want to build a green wall made of plants as a freeway sound barrier. They hope to attract businesses that can sell coffee or snacks – much like the ones on Octavia Street in Hayes Valley – and widen the sidewalk to make it safer for pedestrians.
The neighborhood already has raised $15,000 and hired a landscape architect who put those ideas into sketches and detailed plans.
“We want to activate the space so we can use it, reorganize it in a way that it becomes a community space,” Bogiages said, gesturing to the fenced-off area, overgrown with weeds and the site of frequent fires. “We are trying to change the whole way it fits into the community.”
Cohen, who worked with neighbors to create Progress Park when she was a candidate for supervisor four years ago, said she hopes the idea of a green benefit district will be embraced in other neighborhoods as well.
Support growing
“Literally, up to this point, it’s been neighbors taking up a collection and pooling their resources together,” she said. “We are looking to create something more stable that has longevity.”
While some neighbors were initially skeptical about taxing themselves, support has grown among property owners, Cohen said, once they understand the concept.
The district would be its own nonprofit, managed by a part-time director and governed by a board that is elected by the neighborhoods. The money could only be used in the district, for maintenance and repairs of parks and publicly accessible spaces.
“Part of enjoying San Francisco is having open spaces that enhance our quality of life in the neighborhoods,” Cohen said. “We either have to make do with what we have – which is nominal on this side of San Francisco – or come up with creative ways to solve the problem.”
Many neighbors are excited. Dogpatch resident Kim Metting van Rijn had to drive to Mission Bay Park to exercise her dog. Now she just walks to Progress Park – along with some neighbor pooches, which she now helps care for.
“It’s so great I can just come across the street,” she said on a recent sunny day as her dog played at the park. “The small businesses around here are so thrilled, and it just makes life easier. Everyone seems to care more about the neighborhood now.”
Marisa Lagos is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: mlagos@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @mlagos
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