Groundbreaking info

DPW has removed all the homeless encampments and cut down the weeds on the street per our request (and the requests of countless other residents and businesses) and we're delighted to announce that our contractor Mike Glynn will be starting work on the retaining wall at the north end of the street in the next 10 days. 

We will be reaching out to businesses on the street to ensure accessibility can be maintained as much as possible, and regular street parking will be affected - please bear with us during this work phase and contact annie at psgsf.org or emily at psgsf.org if and issues come up.

We will be having three work days in December where volunteers can join us in making this project happen. We're volunteer led and believe in the power of the community to get things like this done, so please come out and help! Volunteer days are as follows:

Dec. 1st. 10am-1pm:
Tree planting with Friends of the Urban Forest - FILLED (more always welcome!)

Dec. 8th. 10am-1pm:
Building the sidewalk: installing edging and landscape fabric, and putting in decomposed grantite - NEEDS VOLUNTEERS

Dec. 15th. 10am-1pm:
Installing sidewalk edging rocks as wheel stops to prevent cars driving on the sidewalk  - NEEDS VOLUNTEERS

We hope you can join us - please sign up here to get involved (there will be drinks and snacks for everyone, as well as buckets of good karma to take home!)  http://pennsylvaniagarden.blogspot.com/p/volunteer.html

Groundbreaking date to be announced soon

Great news: PUC has approved everything, DPW ditto, and we are once again re-doing the timelines and getting the quotes revised so we can break ground in late October. FuF will help us plant trees in early November, and after that we'll install the decomposed granite sidewalk. Look out for a notice about tree planting day soon - we need YOUR help to do this. If you signed up in the past to help us, now is the time we need you. Thanks!

More documentation

Today I emailed off a package of 10 documents to the PUC for their approval before they will release funds for us to start this project. Emily spent a lo of time back and forth with our landscape Architect Andrea Alfonso to get many of these ready, and it was a big relief to mail them all off today. They were:

1. Letter of support and analysis by Geotechnical Engineer (Reza Baradaran)
2. Letter of support by Landscape Architect  (Andrea Alfonso)
3. Final Layout Drawing by Landscape Architect (Andrea Alfonso)
4. Letter of support from Structural Engineer (Bryce Neuman)
5. Structural Drawing by Structural Engineer (Bryce Neuman)
6. Letter of support from DPW (Director Mohammed Nuru) 
7. PUC spreadsheet for 24 hour storm reduction/ Rain garden sizing calculator 
8. Watershed diagram 
9. Updated timeline and maintenance plan for the project
10. SPUR narrative and description

We're very grateful to Landscape Architect Andrea Alfonso,  Geotechnical Engineer Reza Baradaran, Structural Engineer Bryce Neuman and DPW Director Mohammed Nuru for their persistence on this project!

More tree work

Today I had a meeting with Friends of the Urban Forest on site to discuss the trees we need for the project. Heidi and Greg from FuF were amazed to see how the trees at Pennsylvania Garden have grown with little to no water. Heidi is going to help us source the trees we want, and Greg is going to help us organize the planting day. We need a lot of help from the community on that day - hope to see you out there to help us plant the trees!

Trees

DPW, who owns the land where our project is situated, wants to plant trees all along the west side of the street. Today I talked to Doug at Friends of the Urban Forest again about what we hope to accomplish.

We have selected 5 species of trees for the project in anticipation of a November planting date. We hope to have the following:

Acacia baileyana "purpurea"

Agonis flexuosa "After Dark"

Melaleuca linariifolia

Olea eurpoaea

Sophora secundiflora

With a bit of luck FUF can get hold of these for us. They were all chosen  for the following reasons:

a) Not too tall - there are power lines overhead
b) Does well in relatively hot and dry conditions with very fast-draining soil (our soil infiltration test showed a very high drainage rate)
c) Evergreen ideally
d) Low litter from fruit, flowers etc as cars will be parked underneath, and agaves planted nearby which collect litter and make them look funky.
e) Has a canopy that people can walk under with minimal pruning, as a sidewalk will run alongside them.
f) The north end of the street gets a bit of evening wind from 17th street: 3-4 trees might be in a windy spot some of the time

Meeting with DPW

Andrea Alfonso, our landscape architect, Emily and I went to meet with Mohammed Nuru, Director of DPW today to get his apprival for the plans. He's strongly supports this project, and told us again today that the Mayor Ed Lee also supports the project and wants to see it completed.

Great to get that kind of "thumbs up"!

Mohammed looked over the structural engineer drawings, the landscape architect drawings, and answered our questions about encroachment permits and so on. We are just awaiting the final soils analysis - the infiltration test results were much better than expected.

Mohammed told us to call DPW to ask them to remove the 2 large homeless encampments so I'll do that today. Emily is getting a letter of support from Mohammed. We are a go!

Water infiltration test

Yesterday Emily, Matt and I dug a 3' x 3' x 3.5" hole at the site of the proposed rain garden at the north end of the project.

This is the latest request from the PUC in order for them to release our grant funds and get started on the project.

It took 2 hours to dig the hole in the very rocky ground, then we soaked the entire are with a sprinkler for an hour or so to saturate the ground before the test.

After that Andrea, our landscape architect from DPW came by the help us perform the test.

We filled the hole and timed the draining - every 60 seconds we took a reading until it was empty. This is supposed to be repeated three times.

With a bit of luck this is the final hurdle from PUC.