March 2009 Update

The Open Space Workshop Series solicits the ideas and the priorities of neighbors and neighborhoods around the City.  Many longtime coalition members know that without actionable, transparent and accountable policies developed in partnership with the community, City plans can gather dust on a shelf while more and more open space opportunities are missed. The key to ensuring a meaningful vision for open space in San Francisco is to develop a direct relationship between individuals at a neighborhood level and the City, with shared responsibility and power. 

At these workshops, our hosts facilitate small group work that allows creative thinking to emerge and priorities to be discussed between neighbors. The goal is to capture what each community in San Francisco experiences, needs, and hopes for as it relates to the various types of open space from neighborhood parks, to large natural areas, to safe, accessible and green bicycle and pedestrian routes.

Approximately ten of the twenty scheduled community outreach workshops have been held to date, and the remaining workshops will be held in March.  Please visit www.openspacesf.org/event for the workshop calendar.

The three key outcomes we are striving for with this outreach process are:
1)  Garnering your ideas for a long-term (100 year) Vision Plan for Open Space;
2)  Creating a ranked priority list of the public’s views on what open space issues are most important to tackle and in what order;
3)  Publishing an Action Plan for the next 5-10 years with all the best ideas from our workshops and from online participation.

You may track our progress throughout this entire community engagement process at http:// www.openspacesf.org. Minutes from all meetings are posted at http:// www.openspacesf.org/osmeetingnotes.