SPUR Publications

Starting a garden or farm in San Francisco just got a little bit easier. Pulling together the most recent changes to city laws, the San Francisco Urban Agriculture Alliance recently released a guide to the regulations for growing and selling food within San Francisco. The guide covers a host of topics including: Finding land Gardening on private versus public land Water access Selling what…

SPUR is pleased to issue a call for applicants for a twelve-week fellowship in the summer of 2012. The Piero N. Patri Fellowship in Urban Design is a hands-on position for a current graduate student or 2010/2011 graduate in urban design, architecture, landscape architecture or a related field. The fellowship provides the opportunity to gain firsthand experience working in the urban design and planning field on a project that will have a positive impact on the city of San Francisco and the Bay Area.

Ever the pioneer in the political process, California is once again experimenting with its democracy, this time with new approach to helping the public understand reform proposals. Conducted earlier this year, the What’s Next California Project is California’s first state-wide deliberative poll, in which a random sample of the population is polled on important public-policy issues, then gathers to discuss them and is polled again. Is this the future of polling?

This is a time of significant flux in the Bay Area’s regional planning landscape. There is a serious proposal in the California State Legislature to change the way the Metropolitan Transportation Commission is governed and increasing talk about whether it and other regional agencies can play a stronger role in economic development.

Thanks again to all who have provided input on the Ocean Beach Master Plan Draft Recommendations from Public Workshop #3. We received valuable comments, ideas, and feedback from over 100 community members. We will take this feedback into account as we refine the recommendations and develop a Draft Ocean Beach Master Plan document. Below you can read comments received from three sources: via…

Urban animal husbandry, though nothing new, is a cause for concern for many people – especially planners. Chickens, rabbits, bees and goats conjure up nightmares of odors, noises and animal cruelty. When Oakland’s planning department held a meeting to discuss changes to urban agriculture regulations, nearly 300 people showed. Like many other jurisdictions nationwide, the city is proceeding cautiously as it updates its animal regulations.

In San Francisco, traffic planners are reversing the outdated, 20th-century strategy of engineering downtown streets into multi-lane, one-way motorways. Last month, the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) converted a one-way commercial stretch of eastern Hayes Street to a calmer two-way traffic configuration. It’s just one project in a larger move toward making streets less focused on whisking cars through town and returning them to…

The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission took two steps in support of urban agriculture at a recent meeting. The first step was making it easier for community gardeners and urban farmers to install new water hookups at their sites. Currently, the price of a new water meter installation is approximately $8,500. That high cost barrier has led many garden projects to source their water from…

At this year's Silver SPUR Awards Luncheon, SPUR Executive Director Gabriel Metcalf reflected on the contrasts between what he called "the totally dysfunctional state of our country right now and the remarkably functional state of our city and region." We are at a moment in history, he says, where solutions to the big problems are not coming out of Washington — they’re coming out of…

In January 2012, we will launch a SPUR office in San Jose. Our San Jose Director, Leah Toeniskoetter, reports on the city's new Envision San Jose 2040 General Plan. The big idea in the plan is to create urban villages, specific areas that will provide active, walkable, bicycle-friendly, transit-oriented, mixed-use urban settings for new housing and job growth.

Outside of the much-discussed mayor’s race, there were some important items on the ballot this year, and voters appear to have ignored the noise and focused on the business at hand. Here's our take on the election results, and an analysis of how SPUR's recommendations fared in the final count.

Thanks to all who have provided input on the Ocean Beach Master Plan Draft Recommendations at Public Workshop #3 and afterward. If you haven't given us your feedback yet, please do so by the END OF WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 23RD! These Draft Recommendations represent a comprehensive, ambitious, and (we think) exciting approach to the future of Ocean Beach. Now is the time to make…

Please see attached for translated versions of the 'Ocean Beach Project Description' and 'Summary of Key Moves.' SPUR 致力為公眾服務，並與地方，州立及聯邦機構一同為Ocean海灘創立一個長期的發展眼光。我們邀請了公眾為Ocean海灘的總體規劃建议草案提出意見，其中包括海岸保護，自然資源及公眾入口等內容。這份建议草案基於來自公眾，律師，及城市機構方面的資訊投入，分別在3次的公眾合作營中完成及匯報。建议书概述了一個大膽及有前瞻性的眼光，為求增加公共空間的易達性，保護和恢復生態資源，及保護重要基礎設施不受未來幾十年海平面上升和侵蝕的影響。建议书提出改變一些街道布局的計劃，其中包括Great高速路及Sloat街。 我們希望能夠得到你們對於建議書的意見反饋，並於接下來的幾個月時間繼續修改和完善建議書的內容。 如果你們錯失了參加我們公眾合作營的機會，或者想在復雜事物中尋求關於Ocean海灘的新鮮話題，請瀏覽以下網址：www.spur.org/oceanbeach 獲取關於工作營的更多資訊。

In late October, SPUR shared with the public a set of draft recommendations for the Ocean Beach Master Plan, a long-range vision for managing coastal erosion, infrastructure, access and ecology on San Francisco’s western coast. Of the six big ideas in the draft, here are two that propose the most significant — and most exciting — changes to streets, public spaces and coastal management at Ocean Beach.