Residential towers will be an increasingly common part of South San Francisco’s skyline in the city’s Lindenville neighborhood, El Camino Real corridor and a pocket east of Highway 101, per new plans reviewed by the City Council last week.

The plans within the zoning ordinance were released this month and, in addition to indicating what type of buildings will go where, include policy to streamline project approval. The ordinance is part of the city’s general plan, a comprehensive document outlining future development that the city has been working to update since 2019.

Among the biggest changes, buildings up to 85 feet tall (generally a seven-story structure) are called for along much of El Camino Real and in the south of downtown Lindenville neighborhood. A southern area east of the highway would have a cap on overall building density but not height, potentially producing structures significantly taller.

The increased heights are a key part of the city’s plan to nearly double its housing stock by 2040. The general plan calls for 17,800 new units in the span to cope with tens of thousands of jobs planned also to pour into the area, largely in the booming biotech sector.

And Mayor Mark Nagales indicated he would like to explore further density, both expanding the proposed east of Highway 101 residential zone further north and allowing taller buildings along El Camino Real.

“It looks like we might have to build up,” he said, pointing to state laws requiring residential development in line with job growth. Such laws call for more than 4,000 homes to be added in the city just in the next eight years. “I don’t want to restrict us because it might hurt us in the long run.”

Offering a glimpse of the transformation set for the east of Highway 101 area, two residential developments set to replace low-lying industrial buildings near the highway were already approved this year. Those projects will be eight and seven stories, one with two buildings boasting 480 units and another with 292 units.

Those developments each have a “floor area ratio” under 5, well below the maximum 8 proposed in the area in the new zoning ordinance.

Another major factor likely to up the rate of new construction, also in line with state law, the zoning ordinance is set to streamline the city’s review process for large residential projects, something that could cut bureaucratic red tape that often clogs the development pipeline.

The city’s current process entails at least six meetings with various city committees and groups, a number that often balloons for larger projects that require changes based on city input.

But Senate Bill 330, a law that became effective this year, imposes a five-meeting cap. It also requires cities adopt objective design standards for developers to adhere to, reducing the discretionary review process in which city officials often request changes that can range from exterior color to building height. The law requires cities to approve projects that meet the standards.

Those standards proposed in the zoning ordinance relate to facade articulation, art requirements for blank walls, open space minimums and landscaping and height transitions to meld with nearby buildings.

Nagales and Councilmember Mark Addiego expressed concern related to the review process changes. The plan suggests cutting both the Housing Standing Committee and the Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee from the process, in addition to giving final approval authority to the Planning Commission, removing the City Council from the role. A meeting to gather neighborhood input would also be eliminated.

“There needs to be an opportunity for the public to review and to have their say, in terms of what comes to South San Francisco,” Nagales said. “As much as I like to build housing, I also am concerned about … now limiting the number of meetings because there are projects that we have had that we needed multiple meetings.”

He said the City Council should retain the final say, a point with which Addiego agreed.

“The Legislature is doing their best to write us out of the process,” Addiego said. He added that the council was “quite often … chastised” by some members of the public who felt they had not been adequately informed of new developments, and retaining neighborhood meetings could alleviate that.

City Manager Mike Futrell, however, warned that though the City Council could elect to retain certain meetings, “for a project that completely complies with the rules, if it gets to the City Council, there’s nothing you can do except vote yes.”

“Under state law, so much authority has been removed from the City Council that, residents may come and may be frustrated, but you’re really left with little power to do anything about it,” he said.

City staff will amend the zoning ordinance based on the council’s input. The City Council plans to adopt the complete general plan later this year.

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TIBURON (CBS SF) — Marin County authorities have joined law enforcement agencies across the San Francisco Bay Area in a hunt for the source of anti-Semitic hate flyers that have been delivered to homes from Tiburon to Palo Alto.

In joint announcement, the Marin County District Attorney Office and the county’s police chiefs association said flyers have showed in Tiburon and the unincorporated Wildhorse Valley neighborhood of western Novato.

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“The flyers were usually in a plastic bag with rice and thrown on driveways from a moving vehicle,” the joint statement said. “In addition to listing the names of prominent national health care officials, the flyers implied a connection between people of Jewish faith and the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Marin County District Attorney Lori E. Frugoli called the flyers “infuriating and repugnant.”

“We reject this hateful behavior,” she said. “The DA’s Office remains committed to working with our community, law enforcement and Not in Our Town to track and prosecute these crimes when we are able.”

Over the last weekend, dozens of anti-Semitic flyers were discovered in several Palo Alto neighborhoods. The Palo Alto Police Department said they were searching for the source of the flyers that were found on Feb. 20. and were “similar to those found in other communities in recent months.”

The flyers listed numerous federal government officials, identifying them as Jewish.

“The flyers directed people to a website with various videos espousing certain viewpoints, many on topics of political nature,” Palo Alto Police said.

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Police Chief Robert Jonsen said that his department was currently determining if criminal charges can be brought forward to the District Attorney for review.

“These types of acts are a reminder to all of us that hate crimes and hate incidents are serious and are taken seriously by the personnel of the Palo Alto Police Department,” he said.

Authorities in Berkeley reported a similar incident on the same day when hundreds of residents of the Berkeley hills complained about getting plastic bags left on their doorsteps with anti-Semitic messages over the weekend.

The Berkeley Police and City Council issued a joint statement condemning the action.

Investigators said the messages were delivered at random in Berkeley to a neighborhood by “a small, fringe White Supremacist extremist group that targets Jewish communities as well as other minority groups throughout the Bay Area.”

The release noted that multiple cities across the US have “been hit with identical anti-Semitic screeds blaming the COVID pandemic on the Jewish people.”

“As the center of the free-speech movement, Berkeley has always supported people’s rights under the first amendment. But let’s be clear — the Berkeley City Council and our community soundly reject and condemn ANY hate filled messages and any inference to discrimination of any kind to any person or group,” the statement read.

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It went on to assure Berkeley’s Jewish residents that the community would stand together “to reject anti-Semitic messages and all forms of hate speech.”

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Tucked away in the southeastern quadrant of San Francisco is a historic neighborhood that many residents believe has been overlooked for far too long.

Just steps from Daly City may be one of the reasons the Visitacion Valley – also known as the Vis Valley – often features in everything from historical recognition to the city’s investment in services stayed the track. And over the years it has built a reputation for being one of the neighborhoods least known to SF residents.

“In a way … I like this well-kept secret,” said Edie Epps, a lifelong resident and co-founder of the Visitacion Valley History Project, which reminds newcomers that the neighborhood is spelled with a “c” rather than a second. T. “Together with colleagues from the history project and other city representatives, Epps has worked to ensure that the Vis Valley finally receives the attention it deserves in his opinion.

A woman is crossing Schweriner Strasse in San Francisco, California on Saturday, October 22, 2021.

Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

But despite the isolation from the crowded streets and the gentrification of many neighborhoods of San Francisco, locals also say the reluctance of the area had real downsides for the historically lower-income community – most notably, that the city neglected it for decades, making promises and interest to give up on things like more residential and retail development, including one more grocery store.

And while neighborhood advocates say it’s a treasure trove of historic structures and eclectic architecture, Visitacion Valley doesn’t have any designated historic landmarks or long-established shops. Notable structures to be demolished include a trio of early 20th-century commercial buildings.

“It’s one of the most overlooked neighborhoods in the city,” said Kerri Young, program manager for the San Francisco Heritage nonprofit, which spent October promoting the neighborhood for its program on underrepresented parts of San Francisco. “There are great buildings and great sights. It’s just that they are no longer officially recognized. “

The neighborhood has defied itself over the years – especially in the context of historical recognition – in part because there weren’t always advocates who advocate it, said Diane Matsuda, president of the city’s heritage protection commission, through the more than 230 sights and attractions eleven historic districts were taken over.

“To be completely, completely honest, historical preservation has really focused on pretty buildings, and pretty buildings belong to a lot of wealthy whites,” said Matsuda, adding that the commission passed a resolution in 2019 to promote social and racial justice to create priority in the choice of structures.

“Only … only recently have we started to look at monument preservation from a much broader perspective.”

In contrast to the stately or grandiose buildings that are often considered landmarks in neighborhoods like Pacific Heights or the Financial District, the structures worth mentioning in the Visitacion Valley are more humble and more closely linked to working class communities, proponents say.

An expansive view of the Visitation Valley will be offered by Opal Bolsega on Saturday, October 22, 2021 in San Francisco, California.

Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

The area has long been a place where low-income populations have found homes due to their remote location and major employers in the factory and railroad industries. According to 2010 census data, the median household income was $ 47,760, compared with the San Francisco median total of $ 78,710.

Fifty percent of the Vis Valley’s population is made up of Asian and Pacific islanders, with Hispanic / Latino, Black and White making up 25, 9 and 14 percent, respectively. In comparison, 49% of the population of San Francisco is white, 34% Asian, 6% black, and 15% Hispanic / Latin, according to the census data.

Throughout October, the history project carried out hiking tours to show hidden historical gems in the Vis Valley, from forgotten street houses to the former Schlage lock factory – an important employer for the residents of the Vis Valley – and Little Hollywood, a micro-district that Known for its Spanish Casas -style detached houses.

Here are some of the landmarks that proponents say showcase the neighborhood’s unique – and somewhat buried – history.

St. James Presbyterian Church

One of the most famous structures in the area, the Arts and Crafts-meets-Mission Revival-style church, was founded in 1906. It was redesigned in 1923 by the famous Bay Area architect Julia Morgan. The stained glass windows – depicting the parable of the sower – are from an abandoned church in a ghost town in Nevada that was stolen by the St. James communities, who happened to know it was abandoned. The structure is among the many buildings the neighborhood community – and proponents of SF Heritage – are looking to consider for landmark status.

St. James, with its mostly Filipino community, is one of the many churches in the Vis Valley that reflect the diversity of the region. A Catholic church, the Church of the Visitacion, sits on the estate of first California governor Peter Burnett and the city’s first motel, Auto Camp.

St. James Presbyterian Church can be seen during a walking tour hosted by the Visitacion Valley History Project on Saturday, October 22, 2021 in San Francisco, California.

Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

Homes on Schweriner St. can be viewed on a walking tour hosted by the Visitacion Valley History Project on Saturday, October 22, 2021 in San Francisco, California.

Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

Schwerin Street

Schweriner Straße is just around the corner from the Jakobsweg, where different living styles testify to the architectural diversity of the region. The Art Deco-inspired Visitacion Valley Elementary School, completed in 1937, stands directly across from an Eclectic-meets-Storybook-style house, right next to a Streamline Moderne house. And the eastern portion of the Vis Valley is a collection of homes that hailed from Southern California: palm-fringed Mediterranean and mission-style bungalows and artisans that make up the Little Hollywood neighborhood.

Geneva terraces

For a town with few Eichlers, it may surprise some that there are a few and relatively affordable ones in the Vis Valley. These so-called Geneva Terrace Townhouses are part of the neighborhood’s long history of turmoil – and inequalities – related to home security.

In the 1960s, Eichler planned to develop luxury apartments in two high-rise buildings in the row house complex, but changed plans to secure federal funding and make the towers more accessible to the bourgeois population. After the Eichler Corporation went bankrupt in 1967, the San Francisco Housing Authority stepped in to subsidize rents, and eventually the project was converted to Federal Area 8 Housing.

Over the years, residents have complained of mismanagement, poor maintenance and inhumane living conditions in the towers. The complex became notorious for crime and the US Housing and Urban Development Department called the entire neighborhood “a neglected urban backwater of 18,000 with rampant crime, horrific schools, and a deplorable housing project called Geneva Towers,” according to SF Heritage.

In 1998, many people watched (some wept, others cheered) as the towers were destroyed in a controlled demolition led by redevelopment plans by the HUD and an elected residents’ council. They have been replaced by low-income townhouses called heritage homes, and they remain one of the few affordable housing developments in the city.

A house made of mud bricks, hidden in a cul-de-sac on the hillside

Like so many San Francisco residents, Opal Bolsega had never heard of Visitacion Valley in her 15 years living in the city. But 30 years ago, when her agent was looking for a down payment with only $ 20,000, she found a house on Delta Street – a cul-de-sac overlooking the Cow Palace and San Bruno Mountain. She fell in love.

The multi-story house, painted by a group of graffiti wall painters about 20 years ago, is an unusual example of an adobe house in the Vis Valley, and in other ways the neighborhood may look more like a warmer part of California.

Local historians have told Bolsega that the house was built before 1895, and their own research suggests it is one of the oldest properties in the neighborhood, but the official timeline is still unclear.

Opal Bolsega of Visitation Valley speaks to The Chronicle at their home in San Francisco, California on Saturday, October 22, 2021.

Yalonda M. James / The Chronicle

A (welcomed) demographic change

To the locals, the Vis Valley sometimes feels more like a small town than a metropolitan area. And so many have chosen to stay for their entire life sometimes. Epps, 70, raised four generations in her parents’ home, a small craft that her Italian parents bought after her father started working for the Southern Pacific Railroad, a major employer in the region at the time.

Another member of the history project, Betty Parshall, 86, lived her entire life on Wilde Ave; she owns both the house she grew up in and the one next door. And although vintage cars are widespread, more and more younger people and families in particular are moving in, a trend that has undoubtedly played with its home values. They have increased by 8% in the last year.

But Vis Valley is still more affordable than many other parts of San Francisco, and it has a kind of anachronistic calm that can be felt by a world far removed from the urban vibe of the city. There’s a charm, say the locals, that just can’t be painted over – and maybe can’t be painted over either.

“There’s Noe Valley, all these other valleys,” said Epps. “And that’s great, but we are the Valley. … And its story … it just stays in you. “

Annie Vainshtein is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: avainshtein@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @annievain

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Sometimes it is difficult to keep up with the New York Times position on San Francisco.

When I read this newspaper I’m never sure if I should worry about San Francisco because The City is inundated with tech people, or because it is losing tech companies to other cities, because The City is too crowded, or because people leave because it was adopted by the extreme left or because San Francisco is not as progressive as San Franciscans like to think.

So I was surprised to see on October 11th that New York Times newsletter writer Soumya Karlamangla not only took the time to write about one of my favorite streets in The City, but that she got it more or less right has made . Karlamangla described Clement Street as a great example of the “15-minute town” where residents can get almost all of their daily needs and more within a few blocks in an otherwise common residential area. She also explained why this has helped the neighborhood weather the COVID pandemic relatively well.

The bigger history of San Francisco and one big advantage over other cities is that we have a lot of Clement Streets.

There may not be a Green Apple Book or Good Luck Dim Sum on every street in San Francisco, but there are numerous streets like Clement that have great and sometimes affordable shopping, restaurants, and useful little shops all in one compact, walkable block are found in an otherwise residential area. A mile or two west of that strip of Clement Street is a similar looking business district on Balboa Street around 35th Avenue. Noe Valley residents know that 24th Street serves a similar role in their community. From Chestnut Street in the Marina to Third Street in Bayview-Hunter’s Point, The City is dotted with these local highways. Of course, San Francisco also has large shopping streets that are less accessible to pedestrians, as well as a handful of malls, but these walkable shopping streets in the heart of residential areas have proven to be surprisingly resilient.

It turns out that some of the habits we developed during COVID – like strolling to Balboa or Clement streets, which are much more desirable.

This seems obvious to the San Franciscans, but it is still true that we have organically evolved what city planners around the world want to create.

That there are so many of these streets that form the backbone of so many neighborhoods may be due to the hills that make it difficult to walk long distances. Outside of some parts of the city, walking 20 blocks in San Francisco is much more daunting than in New York, Chicago, or Boston. Ironically, the chronically inadequate public transportation and the difficulty of finding parking spaces in so many parts of the city – including Clement Street, Chestnut Street, and Columbus Avenue – are also incentives for people to stay in their neighborhood.

These little shopping streets may have helped San Francisco weather the COVID pandemic, reduce reliance on Amazon and other services that thrived during the crisis, and keep people safe as vaccination rates are so high in San Francisco but they should also be central to building a post-COVID San ​​Francisco.

It’s always been great to live in a city just blocks from a neighborhood institution like Clement Street, but as we move from the skillet of COVID to the accelerated fire of climate change, those institutions may become more important and attractive .

This also has a potential downside that cannot be overlooked. San Francisco has long been a city of neighborhoods, but that has often cut in more than one direction. In a city as diverse as San Francisco, divisions, even if at first glance benign, harden when we spend less time outside our neighborhood. If you live, work at home, shop and dine on Clement Street in Inner Richmond, you are unaware of the diverse economic and health effects that the pandemic has had on several other neighborhoods just a few miles away. On the whole, the 15 minute neighborhood is extremely convenient and enjoyable, but it isolates communities from one another and makes us believe that what we experience every day is what all San Franciscans experience. But that doesn’t apply to any of us.

Another danger is that roads like Clement exist in middle-class and affluent communities but cannot easily survive in areas with less money. It cannot be overlooked, for example, that there are more boarded shops on Third Street than in Chestnut. This reflects both the different economic circumstances of these communities, but it also means that low-income residents of Bayview-Hunter’s Point do not benefit from the quality of life and health benefits of 15-minute neighborhoods.

If only the middle class and the rich have access to roads like Clement, and if they are so coveted that only the rich can afford to live near them, as we see in other Bay Area counties, then we are as a city failed.

It has become a cliché to say that the pandemic and recovery exposed our deep inequalities, but it’s also true. To overcome the pandemic, we need to build a city with accessible, vibrant urban communities in all neighborhoods. It’s nice to see Clement Street get a good report in the New York Times, and it’s a good model for post-pandemic San Francisco, but it’s also a reminder that neighborhoods remain the driving force behind San Francisco and good public order should seek to maintain more roads, like the Clement section, which may not attract the Gray Lady’s attention, but are nonetheless indispensable to so many San Franciscans.

Lincoln Mitchell has written numerous books and articles on The City and the Giants. Visit lincolnmitchell.com or follow him on Twitter @LincolnMitchell.

Columnist San Francisco

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A mountain lion was seen on the streets of San Francisco Tuesday morning, the city’s animal welfare agency reported.

The initial viewing on home surveillance video showed the lion walking past a row of houses on the 300 block of Gaven Street in the Portola neighborhood, southwest of intersection 280/101 at 3:50 a.m.

Later that morning, a person reported seeing a lion – believed to be the same – near Bernal Heights Park, on the other side of Interstate 280, about half a mile from Gaven Street.

San Francisco Animal Care and Control spokeswoman Deb Campbell said there were no plans to capture the animal.

“Either it’s under a bush waiting to leave town, or it’s already gone,” she said. “Mountain lions are pretty hard to pin down. You don’t want to annoy people. “

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The harsh reality of fire-prone California has caused a kind of awakening in Jackson Oaks, a wooded hillside community in Santa Clara County surrounded by dry, oak-strewn grasslands.

Warm winds blow in a steep, arid canyon almost every afternoon, a situation that has filled the residents of the 505 ranch-style homes on the east side of Morgan Hill with a premonition that was not there until the last few years California wildfires raged years.

The tales of fiery destruction and death have turned the scenic view from Jackson Oaks of Anderson Lake into an alarming panorama of fuel. Hundreds of communities across California are faced with the same situation as they seek to save their neighborhoods from the increasingly threatening forces of nature.

“We all know the danger. Every year there is a bushfire around here somewhere, ”said Jim Realini, president of the Jackson Oaks Homeowners Association. The residents “saw the news and heard the stories, and we said to everyone,” We live in one of these areas. “Everyone is much more aware this year.”

Jackson Oaks is one of 222 California churches that are doing something about it. Residents have joined Firewise, a federal program that helps neighborhoods near the wilderness – areas called the “Wildland-Urban Interface” – prepare for forest fires.

The program, which encourages residents to work together on fire safety projects, has grown steadily in California and has increased after the November campfire destroyed 14,000 homes and killed 85 people in the town of Paradise, Butte County. Over the past year, 81 California neighborhoods and parishes have joined the program, a 57% increase in one year.

“We’ve really seen tremendous growth,” said Michele Steinberg, director of the wildfire division of the Massachusetts National Fire Protection Association, which founded Firewise in 12 communities in 2002. There are now 1,500 participants across the country.

“It’s really sad that these types of disasters are required for people to take action, but I think people are finally starting to understand it and say, ‘Yeah, this is happening. I’ll do something about it, ”she said.

Firewise, managed by a consortium of forest fire organizations and federal agencies, recognizes and rewards neighborhood groups for completing a six-tier program. Members must form committees, conduct forest fire risk assessments, develop action and evacuation plans for residents, and use volunteers to clear the brush and work on other projects to thwart the fire.

The program provides annual grants to participating homeowners associations and jurisdictions that are granted by the Fire Protection Association with assistance from insurance companies. Many insurance companies give homeowners involved in Firewise a 5% discount.

Jackson Oaks joined the program four years ago, and Realini has since persuaded neighboring Holiday Lakes Estates to join, meaning residents of around 1,100 homes in the hills above Morgan Hill are now participating. He said his homeowners association, which holds two working groups a year, receives a $ 500 annual grant that he uses for fire safety work.

“Typically 20-22 people work and there are a lot of seniors,” said Marian Sacco, vice president of the homeowners association and director of the Firewise program. She said the neighborhood volunteered an average of 2,400 hours a year to weed and clean debris on empty land, including a large median along the main road.

Realini recently drove around the neighborhood to show the chopped up juniper bushes, what he called “turpentine torches,” which were piling up in the neighborhood, waiting to be dragged away. Up to 70% of homeowners have cut down the fire-prone bushes that were used as landscaping when the area was developed in the 1960s and 1970s after the firefighter declared them dangerous.

Morgan Hill is one of many places in California where fire is a constant threat. Around 5 million homes have been built nationwide along the intersection of wildlands and cities, meaning they come up against volatile open spaces and often overlook chimney-like canyons.

The California Department of Forestry and Fire Safety has designated 189 communities with nearly 3 million residents as “Very High Risk Zones”. This includes large houses that cover the hills and protrude from wildland areas in the hills of the East Bay and are located in every county from Marin to Santa Clara.

Firewise is a nationwide program initiated by the National Fire Protection Association. It disseminates information on how to adapt to the threat of forest fires and encourages neighbors to work together and take action to protect homes and lives.

What is required of a Firewise community?

A Firewise location must have eight to 2,500 single-family homes. Residents must form a board or committee and work with the local fire department or the California Department of Forestry and Fire Safety to prepare a forest fire risk assessment.

Each location must document the equivalent of one volunteer hour per residential unit for measures to reduce the risk of forest fire. This means that in a community with 100 homes, residents have to volunteer 100 hours a year.

How does a neighborhood apply?

Applications can be submitted online at portal.firewise.org.

See morecollapse

At least 5,000 homes in the hills of Lafayette and Walnut Creek are in “priority areas,” the fire department said. At least 5,000 more cover fire endangered ridges and slopes in the Oakland and Berkeley hills.

In many cities and counties, strict state fire protection regulations apply in high-risk zones. These include restrictions on building materials and fire retardant landscaping requirements. Street widths of at least 22 feet, which allow fire engines to maneuver as residents flee, have become common in new hillside neighborhoods.

Cal Fire has done everything to improve the situation and requires 100 feet of “defensible space” – essentially fire protection – around homes, but the rule can be difficult to enforce.

The Firewise program, which includes state and local regulations as well as best practices from fire safety experts, is growing in popularity everywhere but has made great strides in Marin County, where thousands of homes are nestled in the hills and canyons adjacent to Mount Tamalpais.

Fire scientists have long classified Marin, with its narrow, winding roads and wooded hilly landscapes, as the next possible candidate for a catastrophic fire. These include forested land in and around Mill Valley, believed by many to be the most dangerous place in Marin, and 251 square kilometers of unregulated wooded and oak-strewn land – more than five times the size of San Francisco.

Todd Lando, executive coordinator of FireSafe Marin, a nonprofit that helps homeowners reduce the risk of fire, said Marin County has 43 approved Firewise neighborhoods, including a dozen in Mill Valley. That’s more than any other county in the state, he said.

Marin County hasn’t had a major wildfire since the fall of 1995 when a smoldering campfire, lit by some students, spiraled out of control on Mount Vision in the Point Reyes National Seashore, blackened 12,000 acres and destroyed 45 homes.

Still, Lando said, there is good reason to be concerned. A huge fire burned over Mount Tamalpais in the Mill Valley in 1929, and an even bigger fire struck in September 1923, scorching 50,000 acres from Novato to Bolinas. This fire was bigger than the Tubbs Fire that raged in Napa and Sonoma counties in 2017, killing 22 people and destroying thousands of homes in Santa Rosa.

“If that fire started today, we would be looking at 5,000 to 8,000 houses burning,” Lando said. “It’s been nearly 100 years of vegetation growth, with very few fires since then. That story of fires is a story that repeats itself. So we have every reason to believe that fire can happen today. “

Another area with intense focus is in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, where the number of houses built in areas with high fire risk has been growing steadily for decades.

Kristen Cook, who heads the Firewise Council at You Bet, a former gold rush town in Nevada County, said the program grew from zero to 600 participants after handing out flyers in February reading, “Are you ready for wildfire? You bet. “

The main concern in the wooded community is the narrow 9 mile long road that winds through the forest and is the only way in and out. Cook is working with residents to ensure they have “bags” of clothing, water, radios, tools, and medical kits ready, and to park their cars outside with at least half a tank of fuel.

“In the past, a red flag day meant it was hot, so let’s go to the river,” Cook said. “The campfire created awareness of what a red flag warning really means.”

Back in Jackson Oaks, Realini stopped his car on a cliff overlooking the vast gold-colored canyon and distant reservoir and pointed north, which is officially known to be the greatest risk of fire. He was on a winding mountain road, one of two roads in and out of Jackson Oaks. A recent fire safety study estimated that if everyone were to leave at the same time, it would take residents 2½ hours to get out.

“In the afternoon, from around 3pm to 6pm, we get a north wind, and that’s where most of the fires come,” Realini said, taking in the view. “We all know the danger now and we still have a lot to do.”

Peter Fimrite is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @pfimrite

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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – Two North Bay communities reported a bear walking around neighborhoods on social media posts on the same day.

Cotati Police posted a video on their Facebook page on Monday of a bear caught on a house surveillance camera. The bear was seen casually walking down the driveway of a house in the W. Cotati Ave area around 12:30 p.m. went

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Also on May 3, Sebastopol Police Services announced in a Facebook post that a bear was discovered in the Pleasant Hill Rd., Lynch Rd. Area. and Robinson Rd., about 18 miles from W. Cotati Ave. away. Police said the image of a bear came from a camera near Hessel Road, about halfway between the two locations.

It was not known if the bear was the same in each location.

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Both police departments urged people to “show some indulgence and give him a wide berth” and not “try to get a selfie for Tik Tok!”

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New neighborhood-level data on vaccination in San Francisco shows that the highest dose percentage area is Japantown and the least vaccinated area is Treasure Island.

In Japantown, 37% of 3,532 residents received one or more cans, followed by Twin Peaks, where 24% of 8,019 residents received a shot or two. As of now, only 5% of Treasure Island’s 3,064 residents have been vaccinated.

The tenderloin, another quarter with lower incomes, is also lagging behind with 13% of vaccinated residents.

“A mobile vaccination station needed along with the tenderloin on TI,” tweeted Matt Haney, San Francisco supervisor, on Saturday afternoon, noting that Treasure Island has a large number of elderly, low-income residents.

The data comes from the city’s updated vaccine tracker, which now has a table showing each neighborhood’s population, the number of neighborhood residents who received vaccines, and the percentage of each neighborhood’s residents who received at least one shot.

A major reason Japantown and Twin Peaks are ahead of other neighborhoods, according to the San Francisco Department of Health, is because they both have large numbers of qualified care facilities. Residents of qualified care facilities could be vaccinated as part of phase 1a of the city.

The data doesn’t show that the richest and whitest neighborhoods get higher proportions of doses.

The marina, for example, lags Bayview-Hunters Point with 13% of the vaccinated population compared to 18% of the population. In other affluent neighborhoods like Pacific Heights and Haight Ashbury, a lower proportion of residents are vaccinated than in lower-income areas like Chinatown and Excelsior.

Overall, Asian San Franciscans have the highest vaccination rate of any ethnic group at 32% of the administered doses – close to their 34.6% population.

White residents, on the other hand, lag slightly: around 30% of the cans went to white, non-Spanish residents, although they make up over 42% of the city’s population. Hispanic and black residents are also slightly behind when it comes to vaccination rates, although not as much as the white Franciscans.

The ethnicity data is self-reported, which means it does not exactly match the U.S. census estimates used to categorize San Franciscans. For example, 14.5% of vaccines were given to people who identified their race as “other” or “unknown”, even though those categories in census figures made up only 0.5% of the city’s population.

When it comes to age, the city seems to be following the California framework: people over 65 make up only 17% of the population of San Francisco, but have received 48% of the footage so far. People under the age of 34 received 17% of the shots while making up almost 40% of the population.

Overall, San Francisco has vaccinated about 17% of its population with at least one dose. Overall, that’s better than the US: 14.6% of Americans have received at least one shot, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Susie Neilson is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: susan.neilson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @susieneilson

Neighborhoods with the highest percentages of vaccinations per capita, according to the San Francisco data tracker.

Top 6

Japantown: 37%

Twin peaks: 24%

Inner sunset: 23%

Sea cliff: 22%

West of Twin Peaks: 21%

Western addition: 21%

Bottom 6

Treasure Island: 5%

Presidium: 9%

Lakeside: 10%

Lonely Mountain / USF: 12%

Nob Hill: 12%

Hayes Valley: 12%

See morecollapse

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SAN RAFAEL (KPIX) – Coastal communities are still grappling with rising sea levels caused by global warming. The US Geological Survey predicts the ocean could rise up to seven feet by 2100 and about 600,000 homes could be at risk of flooding. Many of them are in Marin County.

Sea level rise threatens homes and infrastructure near Stinson Beach. The State Coastal Commission has the final approval authority there and wants to stop the construction of walls and let nature take its course. Residents and the district are pushing back.

“We anticipate that there will be a fire, we anticipate that there will be an earthquake, and we plan to do it. But how much will the ocean really rise? “Asked Mike Matthews, president of the Stinson Beach homeowners association.

Matthews is all too familiar with the threat of sea level rise.

It first took center stage six years ago when property owners in low-lying neighborhoods known as Calles and Sonoma Patio received a letter from the county warning them that a rise in sea levels would affect their ability to Obtaining permits for improvements to their properties.

“A lot of people who loved their beach house and a minute and a half walk to the beach suddenly found that they weren’t going to get permission for anything,” said Matthews.

Any structure within 1,000 feet of the coast called the coastal zone could potentially be affected.

“That means, ‘I can’t sell your house,’ and that means it is depreciating in value, so there was an extreme response,” said Matthews.

The county was pressured by the Coastal Commission to update its local coastal plan, and the commission proposed something called a “managed withdrawal”. That essentially means relocating or abandoning all structures in the coastal zone – in this case the entire city instead of protecting it.

“If you say, ‘well, we’re going to move these houses’ – well where are you going to move them to?” Jack Liebster, County Marin Planning Manager, asked. “These are pretty expensive areas, and where do you get the money for them? That’s … a big question,” added Liebster.

He says a managed retreat could also prevent plans to elevate or protect a low-lying section of Highway 1 near Stinson Beach. “Highway 1 is an icon for the state of California, and it wouldn’t be very good if a piece was missing in the middle of the highway,” Liebster said.

In 2018, Marin County officially proposed a more moderate plan for sea level rise. Liebster says the Coastal Commission sent it back with changes the county refused to accept. The discussions have come to a standstill until now. This year, he says, the district is back at the table with some new ideas.

“One of the things we are considering are nature-based alternatives,” Liebster said. Among other things: Using dredging material from the bottom of the bay to raise the level of the wetland, a project already being carried out in the San Rafael Canal District.

At Stinson Beach there are plans to create a dune system by importing more sand and planting beach grass. That worked well at Lawson’s Landing, a popular campsite at the entrance to Tomales Bay.

“The Lawson family is definitely friends with European Beach Grass,” said Willy Volger, partner at Lawson’s Landing.

He says the beach has actually gotten bigger there over the years, but he knows things can change so a managed retreat could become a necessity.

“The beach is a moving, living thing and we hope that it can grow with us and that we can stay here. But when things don’t work that way, we have more property continuing up the hill, ”said Volger.

Back in Stinson Beach, Seadrift’s exclusive, gated community thought ahead.

“When they could, they got permission to install a very expensive rock wall on the edge of the Seadrift properties on the ocean side,” said Matthews.

Multimillion-dollar homes in Seadrift are built on raised foundations, but the less affluent Calles and Patios neighborhoods of the lowlands remain vulnerable and may soon become unable to protect themselves.

“I wouldn’t want a house down there now,” said Matthews.

He hopes this time around the talks with the state on a local coastal plan will include more compromise, with a focus on shorter 20 years instead of the 100 year plan proposed by the Coastal Commission.

“It is true that you have to look for the worst events in planning, but you want to have a sense that they will actually occur. Let’s see what actually happens and then we get it, ”said Matthews.

The Coastal Commission declined our request for an interview for this story. Two years ago, when we were looking at the same topic in Pacifica, their top expert KPIX announced that there was no time to compromise.

WEB LINKS

KPIX: Homeowners fear losing property due to guidelines to counter sea level rise

Coastal protection: adaptation of sea level rise

Marin County Foundation: Nature-Based Adaptation

San Rafael: Tiscornia Marsh Restoration Project

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San Franciscans fled the city last year. Previous reports have shown that many of them have left for more spacious homes in more affordable regions. Our analysis found that they have left even the densest parts of the city in droves, eroding downtown and other once-bustling neighborhoods.

The Chronicle received data from the U.S. Postal Service about households in San Francisco that changed their address during the first nine months of the pandemic. The data shows that from March to November 2020, in most postcodes, the number of residents who left the country increased dramatically compared to the same period in 2019. USPS has not provided batches of address changes from one zip code to another totaling 10 or less, citing privacy concerns. This means that the data will likely not include all of the address change requests made by those zip codes, but it will still capture the majority of the requests made.

Only two postcodes – 94129, which includes the Presidio, and 94124 at Bayview Hunters Point – had fewer extracts in the first part of the pandemic than in the same period in 2019. The Presidio’s postcode saw a 72% postcode decrease who move out, while Bayview’s zip code saw 47% fewer moves. These two postcodes are among the five least densely populated in the city.

At the other end of the spectrum, 94108 – the densest zip code in San Francisco with more than 52,000 people per mile – saw a nearly 620% increase in excerpts. The zip code 94108 includes parts of downtown, Chinatown, and Nob Hill. Right next door, 94104, a zip code that spans a tiny part of the financial district, the move out rose more than ten times, or over 1,000%. The 94104 zip code is not one of the densest zip codes for the resident population, but it is in a busy part of downtown.

Additionally, zip code 94123, which represents the Marina and Cow Hollow, had about 150% more excerpts from March to November 2020 than the same period last year, as did zip code 94122 inside Sunset. Both postcodes are above the median density of the city.

Overall, our analysis shows a strong association between population density and increased exodus during the pandemic. Using U.S. census data, we recorded the relationship between the density of each zip code and how the statements changed during the first nine months of the pandemic. We excluded postcodes with fewer than 100 extracts in 2019.

Roughly speaking, for every 10,000 people per mile increase in population density, the excerpt change in a zip code was 25 percentage points greater.

While downtown San Francisco small business owners are hoping many office workers will return to the city soon, a significant portion of these moves could be permanent. Big downtown tech companies like Google and Facebook have announced they will allow more flexible hours after the pandemic, while some companies like Twitter are trying to give up office space in San Francisco indefinitely.

Even if many San Franciscans fled downtown, most didn’t go far: Research by the California Policy Lab found that most Bay Area residents who moved in their first three years stayed San Francisco at higher rates during the pandemic Leaving rates have shifted quarters of 2020 to other parts of the state.

Susie Neilson is a contributor to the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: susan.neilson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @susieneilson

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