Cultural districts gaining ground to preserve community heritage
April Spears doesn’t want to stop change from coming to the Bayview, the San Francisco neighborhood where she was born and raised. She just wants to have a say in how it happens.
For decades, her neighborhood had a reputation as a gritty industrial dumping ground, rife with poverty and neglect — the place where San Francisco put its biggest, foulest-smelling wastewater treatment plant. But more recently, in part because of the opening of the Third Street light-rail line, the Bayview has become a draw for developers eager to build housing and retail.
From the kitchen of Auntie April’s, the soul food restaurant she owns on Third Street, Spears has watched her neighborhood transform in slow motion, with the pace quickening of late. Greater investment in the Bayview isn’t unwelcome, Spears said, but an influx of development is kin-
dling anxieties about its future — particularly the future of its deep-rooted African American community.
“They’re building milliondollar condos on Third Street now. That’s not for the existing community,” Spears said. “I can’t afford a million-dollar condo. If you think about the average working family, there’s no way those places are being built for us.”
Like the Mission District before it, many of the Bayview’s working-class residents are being pushed out of their neighborhoods by surging development and gentrification. That’s a big reason Spears and some of her neighbors are working to create a cultural district in the Bayview — an organized enclave of residents and merchants intent on preserving and promoting the community’s African American heritage.
For years, the city recognized cultural districts using a loose set of guidelines, with no set definition for what a cultural district actually was. But last week the Board of Supervisors passed legislation to create the first formal process for establishing them.
The proposed ordinance, introduced by Supervisor Hillary Ronen, also seeks to establish a clear definition of what cultural districts are so that their purpose “doesn’t get co-opted or manipulated,” Ronen said. The legislation also envisions some city funding for each cultural district, along with philanthropic donations and contributions from the public.
Her legislation defines the districts as areas that embody a “unique cultural heritage” because of a concentration of cultural and historic assets, like arts, services or businesses, “and because a significant portion of its residents are members of a specific cultural or ethnic group.”
The Bayview cultural district, which is still in the planning stages, is expected to be the first to coalesce under Ronen’s legislation. Another potential district in the Castro is in the planning stages, and residents are working with District Eight Supervisor Jeff Sheehy. Forming a cultural district requires the sponsorship of a supervisor and the approval of the full board.
But beyond drawing attention to a district’s positive qualities, Ronen’s legislation would bestow San Francisco’s cultural districts with the tools of self-determination, creating organized pockets of residents who help steer the evolution of their communities.
“Getting that designation as a cultural district, people will say, ‘They do have something good going on over there,’ ” Spears said. “It’s not only to preserve what was, it’s also to show what is, and to guide what will be.”
Ronen said cultural districts aren’t intended to freeze development and turn vibrant neighborhoods into living museums.
“We’re not saying no to anything. We’re saying, ‘Develop, do whatever — just preserve and enhance the great parts of this neighborhood,’ ” Ronen said. “These are not tools to stop development or stop change. These are tools to enhance the rich culture and community that’s already there.”
With Ronen’s help, the Calle 24 Latino Cultural District, for example, established special regulations within its borders in the Mission last year. New businesses eyeing a storefront there must obtain special permissions if they want to merge two or more storefronts that total more than 799 square feet combined. New merchants are also required to seek special approvals from the city if their storefront was previously occupied by a business that had been in operation for at least 30 years and had made significant contributions to the neighborhood.
“They’re starting to get it,” said Erick Arguello, Calle 24’s co-founder and president, referring to developers looking at locations within the cultural district, which runs along 24th Street in the Mission. “They’re saying, ‘This is a cultural district, and it’s viewed differently. How can we fit into it, instead of hurt it?’ They’re calling up-front now, rather than after the fact,” he said.
Raquel Redondiez, director of the Filipino Cultural Heritage District in SoMa, said developers are increasingly recognizing her group as a community gatekeeper, thanks in part to its status as a cultural district recognized by the city.
Cultural districts don’t have the power to slow or stop a development from happening, but some, like Calle 24 and SoMa Pilipinas, are becoming integral parts of the planning process in their communities.
“Developers are being told by the city or by supervisors or even by the Planning Department, ‘Hey, have you talked to the Filipino community about your project?’ ” Redondiez said. “It allows us to be able to educate them on what kind of development actually would be beneficial to the community.
“And as a result, we’ve been able to negotiate more affordable units and a greater range of affordability” in those developments, she said.
San Francisco has also recognized cultural districts in Japantown, officially called the Japantown Cultural Heritage and Economic Sustainability Strategy. There’s also Compton’s Transgender Cultural District in the Tenderloin, named after the 1966 riot at Compton’s Cafeteria. And the Leather and LGBTQ Cultural District, the city’s newest, was formally recognized May 1.
Rachel Ryan is a co-owner of the Stud, a historic gay bar on Ninth Street, and a community organizer with the cultural district. Ryan has watched with dismay as bars and other businesses in the area withered under the pressures of rising rents and property values.
“We’ve watched so many businesses and bars either close or go through these ordeals trying to keep their doors open,” she said. “There are so few businesses left that we’re trying to band together and figure out what gives us more traction,” she said.
The leather and LGBTQ district is still setting its priorities, but Ryan said the process has been uplifting.
“It’s definitely given me hope,” she said.