North Beach Neighbors supports Luke’s Local in their efforts to open a new grocery store at 580 Green Street. We believe this will greatly enhance our neighborhood by activating a long vacant storefront, adding local jobs, and providing community-serving goods and services. We’ve been engaged and advocating for a neighborhood-serving use of this space for the past five years.

We state our support with a strong preference of the following:

• Highlighting Neighborhood Makers and Partners: Our neighborhood has a rich presence of craft food makers and artisans. We believe Luke’s Local should partner with them to lift up their work and highlight their products prominently. 

• Improving Exterior Streetscape: The store location at 580 Green Street is a prominent location that sees thousands of residents and visitors pass by daily. We believe Luke’s Local should contribute to the built environment by improving the streetscape with additions that could include a parklet, benches, trees, flower boxes, well-placed loading zones, and bike racks. 

We look forward to continuing to engage on this project to make sure that it contributes to our neighborhood.

A new map was just released by the San Francisco Redistricting Task Force. It's a dramatic change. It would cut North Beach in half at Columbus Avenue, and remove parts of Russian Hill, Chinatown, Nob Hill, and Financial District as well. It would instead add the Tenderloin to District 3.

We need to act now to make sure the task force hears us loud and clear: this would break up our neighborhood. Neighborhoods on boundary lines get fewer resources and suffer from less attention from the city.

Here's how you can take action:

1.) Write To the Task Force Today
E-mail rdtf@sfgov.org now and let them know you oppose "March 18th Map 2B." Instead, mention that you support the "District 3 United Neighborhoods Plan" (see map). Share why it's so important to you personally that North Beach not be split into two different districts.

2.) Make Public Comment on Wednesday
This Wednesday, March 23rd at 5:30pm, the Task Force will meet to continue drawing new maps. You will have a chance to give a 2-minute public comment. This can be done virtually or in-person.

Here are details for the meeting and how to join. We expect this meeting to span the entire evening, so you can choose when to tune in to give your public comment as it fits your schedule.

Here are the most important points to cover in your email or public comment:
-Columbus Avenue is NOT a boundary. It is the backbone of our neighborhood. Drawing the line there, as it does in Map 2B, would cut North Beach in half.

-Please add all of Russian Hill to District 3 to balance population. We support the "District 3 United Neighborhood Plan", backed by more than a dozen community organizations in District 3.

-We share numerous traits and a have a history of working collaboratively with Russian Hill. We have mutual reliance on hospitality and tourism, shared shopping corridors, and overlapping schools and community services.

North Beach Neighbors has joined more than a dozen organizations in District 3 to endorse a District 3 United Neighborhoods plan. This would accommodate the needed population growth of District 3 by including all of Russian Hill, a community that is currently split between two districts. We believe that shared traits between Russian Hill and the rest of District 3 - from a reliance on tourism to shared schools and small business communities - are best served together.

UPDATE: Thanks to our advocacy, the boundary lines were moved in the final maps released on December 20th. The boundary will now be at Broadway & Jones. This keeps North Beach and Chinatown whole and together. Thank you to the nearly 100 people who wrote in to ask for this change!

We were thrilled to be on hand to celebrate the opening of 178 units of affordable housing last week at 88 Broadway. North Beach Neighbors has been at the table advocating for this project for 8 years now. Our President, Bruno Kanter, shared our involvement with a crowd that included Mayor Breed, Assemblymember David Chiu, affordable housing developers, and neighbors.

North Beach Neighbors is proud to recognize the end of another successful North Beach Farmers Market season. As a founding group and sponsor of the market, we continue to champion the market as it completes its 4th season.

This year included a move to a new, larger location at Columbus & Greenwich next to Joe DiMaggio Playground. As a result, attendance grew by 60% and the number of vendors almost doubled!

The Market will be back open in Spring 2022, and you can follow along with all the updates on the market website.

North Beach Farmers Market Lead Organizers: Melanie Lesser, Miles, Nick Ferris, Danny Sauter, and Sri Artham

We’re thrilled to welcome three new members to our Board of Directors:

Blair Helsing, Kevin Robinson, and Sabrina R Matlin

We look forward to seeing how each will bring their love and passion for our neighborhood to the work of North Beach Neighbors. To learn more about our new board members, see our Board of Directors page.

Sabrina R Matlin

Blair Helsing

Kevin Robinson

Mayor London Breed joined North Beach Neighbors last week to celebrate the end of our North Beach Delivers program. She surprised a family with a delivery from Piazza Pellegrini, and also shared commendations with the organizers Teddy Kramer, Sri Artham, Danny Sauter, and Eric Dew.

The North Beach Delivers program raised more than $150,000 in revenue for local restaurants across North Beach, Chinatown, and Russian Hill. Thank you to so many of you that ordered each week, to our dedicated volunteers, and to our community partners who believed in our work.

North Beach Neighbors has lost a dear friend and the organization's first president, Marsha Garland, who passed away earlier this month. Read a full memory of Marsha’s life and a note of her passing.

In light of COVID-19 guidelines on Social Distancing, North Beach Neighbors conducted a survey of over 100 persons who live and/or work in the neighborhood, asking them how we can accommodate social distancing.

See the survey results.

North Beach Transit Survey Results
Last month, we invited our members and the community at large to give feedback on transit in our northeastern corner of The City. You shared where the system was working well, and where it was falling short.

We're sharing the results of that Transit Survey with you so you can see how your neighbors feel.

See The Survey Results
 

Our work was also picked up by Streetsblog, a national publication devoted to covering transit news. See their full article here. 

Sign our petition now!

Washington Square Playground urgently needs a child safety gate to prevent our babies and toddlers from being seriously hurt. 

The recently remodeled playground in North Beach is very well utilized but in the months since it opened, parents and care providers have been challenged to keep their little ones safe due to the lack of a safety enclosure. 

This playground is designed for young pre-school-aged children when bolting and running away are common normal behaviors.  The playground's proximity and unobstructed access to the very busy Columbus Avenue (at Filbert Street) with its speedy cars and busses make a dangerous invitation to a bolting toddler. 

Join North Beach Neighbors in asserting the need for a child safety gate at Washington Square Playground as an urgent and important safety measure.  Please add your name to our petition and share your stories or concerns that you or your children have encountered since the new playground opened.

Sign our petition now!

Earlier this year, we released a Small Business Roadmap which contained 5 key recommendations on how to make our neighborhood a place where small businesses can not only survive, but thrive.

Our #1 recommendation was to make more allowances for restaurants and limited restaurants, doing so by changing the period in which a conditional use is required.

Now, we have good news. Our recommendation was adopted!

Moving forward, a conditional use will be required after 36 months of non-use, a significant improved from the previous mark of 18 months. This previous period was too tight, causing many new merchants to be caught in a spiral of endless delays if they missed the 18-month deadline.

Thank you to Aaron Peskin's office for their support on this legislation.

Thank you to the countless small businesses across the northern side of the city who supported our effort.

Thank you to Russian Hill Neighbors and Lower Polk Neighbors who endorsed this and see the value in building strong neighborhoods next to one another.

To be sure, much work remains. With vacancy rates in North Beach now over 20%, we cannot count on one change to reverse an environment which has been breaking down for years. We look forward to continuing to work with city departments, officials, and neighbors to make sure our neighborhood is one which is truly open for business.