To the Planning Commission:

For some time now KSD/Webcor (127 Second St) has ignored the portion of their conditions of approval regarding only working Monday-Friday 7am-7pm. Yesterday I was able to see a worker (the noise had been going on for some time) and called the police. The police were hesitant to do anything because they felt that I should be contacting City Planning to complain. I explained that we (various residents inthe Jack London District) have contacted City Planning, but to no avail.

As a result of all the work that went on this weekend, it is my feeling that KSD/Webcor should not be allowed to work in order to remove the crane over the weekend. They should also be severely fined, as per the conditions of approval. This was not their first weekend (by far) to work, but it is the first time we were able to actually document it with the police or a City Official.

We have a monthly meeting with Don Smith and Claudia Cappio (the next one is 10/19 at Jerry Brown's old place at 2nd & Harrison) to discuss the issues surrounding the four major construction projects going up in the Jack London District. Work hours and parking issues have topped the list each meeting. The City always admonishes the builders/developers, but no fines have been levied. With the learned behavior that there's not much (if any) repercussion, they have kept doing it with flagrant disregard for the conditions of approval.

Parking has never been an easy discussion here in theJack London District, but if you were to do a survey, I think the residents feel the parking issue could have been prevented had the City agreed to the Ad Hoc Jack London District On-Street Parking Improvement Committee's plan and specifically, the permit portion of the plan. (see http://jlda.org/parking/JLD%20OSPC%20Plan13.htm)

The City (meaning Don Smith and Claudia Cappio) have helped get "no construction parking" signage in the12-minute zoned parking spaces in the past month, but have done nothing for parking throughout the rest of the area because, "there's just no way we can police these problems". We need to find a better way to write the conditions of approval, so that the conditions of approval CAN be enforced. We also need to follow through and FINE these developers when they don't follow the rules. If the city can't enforce the conditions of approval that are written at the time of project approval, then the whole process is meaningless.

There's an article in today's San Francisco Business Times about two future developments here in the District, and I hope that we can implement viable COA's for these projects before their COA's are finalized.

http://sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/stories/2005/10/10/story3.html

Please take time in your next planning meeting to discuss the issue of enforcing conditions of approval and the issue of fines. I'm not against development -it will greatly benefit my business and hopefully the quality of food/entertainment/services in our neighborhood. However, I do want to see the developers held accountable when they refuse to follow the rules.

Thank you,

Joanna Adler

President, Jack London Mail Inc.

Resident, Jack London District

Posted 10/10/2005