It is difficult to say which is the most attractive neighborhood in San Francisco because if one thing stands out in the city, it is the elegant architecture from the bay to the ocean.

Neighborhoods such as Telegraph Hill, Nob Hill and North Beach have been improved thanks to intensive maintenance and marketing plans, driven by their corresponding districts and neighborhood associations.

Now it is time for the lower area of 24th Street. To that end, a meeting was held on Feb. 24 at Saint Peter’s Church, where several ideas were unveiled to improve the neighborhood.
District 9 Supervisor David Campos organized the meeting in conjunction with the Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD) and the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC). In the meeting they discussed the results of a study and socio-economic analysis of the area conducted in 2010 by the OEWD in collaboration with neighbors and business owners.

“The lower part of 24th Street is like an emerald in the rough,” said Jordan Klein, a spokesman for the OEWD. “It is as much the love that the neighbors have for the area of 24th Street that they did not want it to be touched in all this time, unchanging, with its Victorian homes and tall trees that cover the sky with thick foliage giving it an aspect of another time period.”

According to several attendees of the meeting, there is work to be done so that its beauty does not become confused with neglect. Leaves from the trees obscure many of the street lamps leaving whole blocks in near darkness. Thus, a plan was established to prune, sort and plant new trees. There are also plans to design “a lighting system that would highlight the architecture of the houses and at the same time would offer more safety to pedestrians.” Neighborhood safety was one of the most prominent points of the meeting and they agreed that in conjunction with the police they would establish a program of more intense patrolling of the area.

Hetal Patel, manager of the Brava Theater on 24th Street, outlined several points concerning the local shops. Among them, she included the expiration of many business leases on 24th Street. Several property owners, without prior notice, are demanding three times the rent to renew the rental contracts, forcing some business owners to close their doors after having spent a lifetime in the neighborhood.

To control these rent increases, an idea was presented to create a list of expiring leases in each trade, so that business owners could have time to negotiate a renewal and unite to put pressure on owners.

Likewise, the participants expressed interest in involving property owners in this process of change, making them understand that they too will benefit from improvements in the neighborhood, because when the area is reassessed in the future, they would be able to raise the rent prices. Also, it would give tenants time to prepare for that moment.

Another initiative expressed by Patel was that of establishing communication between the different businesses in the area so that they work together and not individually. The idea is to leverage planned events so that several businesses can reap benefits from them. For example, if there is an art exhibit that will attract 200 people to the area, it was proposed that restaurants and bars offer discounts; the people’s needs would be attended to and they would spend their money in the neighborhood.

On another note, the plan seeks to attract more visitors to the area, promoting it among tourism organizations in the city and in tourist guide maps. According to Klein, these are not profound changes because they want to maintain the character of the area, nor do they seek to attract large corporations. Rather it is an effort to put 24th Street on the map and have people enjoy walking around the neighborhood. Klein said that they would be careful not to overexpose the neighborhood commercially such that it would be bait for big corporations.

The meeting ended with a commitment to create a committee to organize activities at the neighborhood level with the possibility of closing 24th Street to traffic on Sundays as the mayor has done in the past. Klein explained that they have already raised $ 35,000 to pay for all these operations, but stressed that the main effort would come from the interested parties and volunteers from the neighborhood, manyof whom have already been of invaluable help throughout the past year while they were conducting the study.

­—Translation Nick Friedland