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Alarming U.N. Climate Change Report May Be Too Conservative

News /
Climate scientists have raised concerns that the latest report from the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is "too conservative," referring to its lowered projections on the range of future warming based on a slight lack of temperature increase over the last decade. Despite this possibly encouraging bit of news, the IPCC's fifth major assessment continues to report unequivocal warming due to human causes.

Saving San Francisco Building Owners Millions in Energy Costs

News /
Earlier this year a new ordinance requiring energy audits for existing commercial buildings in San Francisco went into effect. The audits identify upgrades a property owner can make to improve overall building efficiency. So far, the first 195 building audits have identified 32 gigawatt-hours of potential annual energy savings, with a value of $6 million. With thousands more audits slated to happen over the next two years, what kind of savings might we expect to see from this simple reporting requirement?

California’s New Urban Agriculture Property Tax Incentive

News /
One of the biggest challenges urban farmers face is access to land. Signed into law on September 28, the Urban Agriculture Incentive Zones Act — introduced by Assembly Member Phil Ting and supported by more than 25 organizations across the state — will increase the use of privately owned, vacant land for urban agriculture and improve land security for urban ag projects.

How Will BART Expand to Serve Its Growing Ridership?

News /
As BART ridership continues to grow much faster than expected, the agency is exploring ways to increase capacity and improve service. The study currently underway, called BART Metro Vision, looks to when BART would serve more than double today's ridership, and works to measure which investments will deliver the most benefits to Bay Area rail transit.

Making Way for Bus Rapid Transit on Van Ness Avenue

News /
This month the San Francisco County Transportation Authority (SFCTA) and San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) unanimously approved the final environmental impact statement/environmental impact report (EIS/EIR) for the Van Ness Avenue Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Project. When finished in the spring of 2018, the BRT line will serve the two miles on Van Ness Avenue from Lombard Street to Mission Street. The idea behind bus…

Next Steps for Fixing the San Francisco Housing Authority

News /
The City of San Francisco has embarked on an ambitious plan to re-envision the troubled San Francisco Housing Authority (SFHA). SFHA is a federally recognized public corporation with a commission appointed by the local government and a mission to provide affordable housing to low- and moderate-income people. Concerned over the SFHA’s growing financial woes and poor organizational management, Mayor Ed Lee asked the city administrator…

Design Competition Considers Life After Highway 280

News /
In the June issue of The Urbanist , we explored the idea of removing Highway 280 north of 16th Street in San Francisco in order to reconnect the Mission Bay and Potrero Hill neighborhoods. This summer, the Center for Architecture presented a design competition to consider what might happen next. Here’s a look at the winning entries and the ideas they propose for transforming this urban barrier into a healthy neighborhood connection.

A New App for Discovering the City That Might Have Been

News /
In connection with our current exhibition , SPUR is thrilled to announce The Museum of the Phantom City: Unbuilt San Francisco, a free phone app that brings lost treasures of architecture and planning into contemporary life. Created by Irene Cheng and Brett Snyder, the Phantom City iPhone app evokes an alternate city on a mobile phone platform by mapping architectural designs and master plans that…

The Bay Area’s Housing Market: Where Will It Go Next?

News /
As rents and home values in San Francisco continue to explode, residents and policy makers are trying to make sense of what this means for the city. Is San Francisco an anomaly within the region or a prophecy of things to come? SPUR will co-host two forums on the housing market to explore some of this question and more.

Fight or Flight: Sea Level Rise Leads to Increased Consideration of Managed Retreat

News /
Under the threat of sea level rise, a number of coastal communities around the world will have to decide between protecting coastal homes and structures or giving way to the persistent impacts of coastal erosion by retreating from the coastline. A recent FEMA-funded study warned that each year, on average 1500 homes and the land on which they are built could erode into the…

Green Infrastructure for San Francisco's Western Neighborhoods

News /
As a city with a combined sewer system —meaning that stormwater enters the wastewater treatment system—the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) is undertaking projects around the city to divert stormwater into landscaping, in order to reduce demand on the aging sewer system. One of the eight green infrastructure projects in the SFPUC’s 20 year, multi-billion dollar Sewer System Improvement Program is the Sunset Boulevard …

Connecting San Francisco's Northeast Neighborhoods

Research
The northeast neighborhoods of San Francisco — North Beach, Telegraph Hill, Russian Hill, Fisherman’s Wharf and the edges of Chinatown — have some of the city’s highest densities of residents, workers and tourist activities. Yet there are currently no major plans to increase transit capacity serving the area. SPUR convened a community workshop to assess transit needs in these neighborhoods.

Ocean Beach Implementation Studies: Multimodal Transportation Analysis

News /
SPUR and its partners kicked off the Multimodal Transportation Analysis on July 26th, making it the second in a series of three implementation studies that will help agencies analyze and move forward with recommendations made in the Ocean Beach Master Plan (OBMP). The OBMP presents a number of recommendations that would have significant transportation implications, most notably the closure of the Great Highway south of…

A City Within the City: Exploring the San Jose Flea Market

News /
The San Jose Flea Market hosts one of the country’s most extensive collections of items for sale, building upon San Jose’s legacy as a city of many people and cultures. The flea market opened in 1960 with 20 vendors brought together by George Bumb, a man with a vision to sell usable items that he saw being sent to landfills. Since then it has grown…

Learning from Hurricane Sandy: Preparing for El Niño Events & Sea Level Rise

News /
Six months after Hurricane Sandy wreaked havoc on the northern Atlantic Coast, New York City released its plan to protect the city in what may be the most extensive climate adaptation plan to date. ‘ A Stronger, More Resilient New York ’ matches coastal protection strategies with the needs of New York's varied waterfront land uses. As SPUR and its partners move forward with the…

Green Light for San Francisco’s New Urban Agriculture Program

News /
The San Francisco Board of Supervisors has given the green light for the Recreation and Parks Department (RPD) to take the lead coordinating the city’s support of urban agriculture. Among SPUR's recommended priorities for this program are developing a strategy to reduce community garden waiting lists and operating as a "one-stop-shop" for the people seeking assistance with urban agriculture projects.

Historic Preservation in San Francisco

SPUR Report
San Francisco is a city celebrated for its progressive history, distinctive architecture and phenomenal geography. We believe it is critical to protect the historic fabric of the city, while supporting growth and change in the right locations. In this report, we describe how to fully integrate preservation into the city's processes for land use planning.