Healthy People 2020 Community Innovations Project

Our project has just received a Healthy People 2020 Community Innovations Project grant in the amount of $10,000!
We're delighted, needless to say. Thanks go to Emily for writing up that grant.

In the meantime, we have been hard at work, getting rounds of landscape architect drawings drawn and accompanying narratives written for PUC approval, and researching structural engineers and permits for DPW.

If anyone knows a structural engineer who can do a drawing for us, please let us know.

As those of you on the street will know, the area has never looked worse in terms of dumping and vandalism. Hopefully on day soon we can start work on cleaning it up for good.

March update

View north: Before

Following an on site meeting with Mohammed Nuru and Sandra Zuniga of DPW the design for the SPUR project has been approved.

As the landowners, DPW has veto power on all designs of course, which overrides any community input, and also the power to add or alter features. In this instance DPW was very pleased with the plans but has stated we must reduce the number of bio-retention cells (BRCs) to 3, and double their individual size. Their placement along the street is to be determined, but you can see before and after pictures of these features in the images accompanying this article.

View north: BRC locations

This results in 3 fewer parking spots on the street and as a result we're reducing the plantings in some areas to mitigate that.

Prior to that meeting we also met with Ken Kortcamp and Rachel Kraai from the PUC who recommended we add a bulb-out at the top of the street to prevent traffic cutting the corner and running into cars parked on the east side of the street. We added that feature to the plans too.

Lastly we met with our construction engineer, Mike Glynn, today. he has secured the steel beams for the project and is working on another project nearby, so we hope he can do his part at the SPUR project while his machinery is in the area. We tentatively set an April 1st start date, as a joke!

View north: BRC plantings

We are getting firm quotes on the materials we need for Phase 1 of the project, such as boulders, trees, plants and so on.  Do you want to be involved? We need help! Please contact us right away if you're interested in being a part of this project.

February update

Last November we received word that the grants we worked so hard to apply for in July had been announced, and we'd received a total of $85k from the PUC and Community Challenge Grants.

Following several meetings with the PUC and a great deal of additional evidence which was requested from us to justify our need for the supportive structure, last week the PUC have however, applied additional conditions to the spending of their grant monies. Basically, they cannot fund the supportive structure. This critical element in reducing crime and creating community space on the street is also the most costly element in the entire project - we were lucky to get a quote for "just" $60k for this.

As a result we are currently $15k short of the funds needed to complete the project. We will be looking for additional sources of grant income to fill the budget and welcome your suggestions and help with how to get the $15k from you all.

In the meantime we're grateful for the continued strong support of DPW and SFPT who have continually shown their approval of our plan to the CCG and PUC, and have encouraged us along the way. We're looking forward to meeting with Mohammed Nuru (Deputy Director of DPW) to discuss our plans and fine tune the details.

Once again anyone interested in being part of the process is always welcome to contact us and join in: as some of you know this has been a significant amount of work that has fallen mainly to a very small group. If anyone is interested in getting involved, please send us an email. In particular we need help with fundraising and grant writing, quotes and suppliers, meeting with members of the granting bodies, writing narratives, briefs and project descriptions, laying out and printing materials.