Long lines and congested sidewalks have caused some Gourmet Ghetto vendors to seek alternate means of accommodating patrons in one of the city’s busiest business districts.
The North Shattuck Association has led the effort to create parklets — semitemporary structures that extend into the street and provide additional space for seating — by collaborating with Berkeley City Council and community members.
Although plans for the structures are still in their preliminary stages, supporters are hopeful that a one-year pilot program will be implemented sometime this fall, after the planning department and City Council take another look at the plans.
“I think it’s an exciting idea, particularly for congestion problems outside of Cheese Board,” said Councilmember Laurie Capitelli.
The inspiration for the concept came from similar programs implemented in San Francisco and Oakland, where parklets have been used as public art installations as well as functional seating and bike parking, said the association’s Executive Director Heather Hensley.
Capitelli and Councilmember Jesse Arreguin — whose districts both contain the Gourmet Ghetto — have met with city planners to discuss how permitting would work. Capitelli previously introduced a resolution to the council concerning parking changes but withdrew it in order to clarify more of the details.
“We’re really looking at it as a community project,” Hensley said.
So far, the association is working with three specific sites where business owners are interested in trying out the parklet concept — the areas in front of The Cheese Board Collective, Guerilla Cafe and Philz Coffee and the street in front of Masse’s Pastries and Saul’s Restaurant and Delicatessen.
Since each parklet takes up two parking spaces, parking reconfiguration plans are also part of the discussion. According to Hensley, the program is working with designers to create 10 additional spaces elsewhere in the area, leaving a net gain of three parking spaces.
Guerilla Cafe employee Ralph Brown said the concept of parklets would lend a more artistic atmosphere to the area.
“Parking is already a concern, but most of our business comes from foot traffic,” Brown said.
Hensley said city Planning Director Eric Angstadt dealt with similar projects in his previous role in Oakland’s planning department, which created parklets while also creating additional parking spaces elsewhere in the city.
“Businesses are excited about it,” Hensley said. “They understand that it’s public space, but they would help manage it.”
Adelyn Baxter is the city news editor.
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The parklets are successful beyond anyone imagined when the first one went up on Divisadero street 2+ years ago. Businesses are lined up to get the permit to build them in The City as they see what it has done for the businesses that have them. And all the bullsheet about a car running into them is just pure BS as the parking is tight in the areas of the parklets that there is always cars on both ends of the parklet so unless a car hits the parklet driving sideways, the parklets are well protected.
Also the crap about “losing parking spaces” is crap as the chances that the car spaces the parklets are in would’ve actually been available were the parklets not there are zero to nil anyways.
In place of 2 parking spaces there is, instead, an area that has anywhere from half-dozen to dozen persons “hanging”. The Pizzeria Delfina parklet at California and Fillmore is packed all the time with persons spilling onto the already packed sidewalk.
Except for the snivelers that never get off their fat azzes and actually walk who complain about “loss of parking spaces”, once the parklets are put in and people see them, they become very accepted…… and this has happened in all the cities that adapted them from New York CIty to Philadelphia to Chicago to Boston to Long Beach to Vancouver to, of course, San Francisco.
So quit your snivelling and give the parklets a chance as they are quite nice additions to neighborhoods.
THe phenomenon of people sitting in the median is MAGICAL. It’s one of those happy accidents in Urban Planning that should be tolerated. It is the feeling of sitting in that island IN DEFIANCE of cars that makes it feel so special. You cannot offer an alternative that will be equally appealing.
Capitelli, STOP. You’re right about everything OTHER than this.
Yes! Please don’t take this away from future students. Some of my best memories…
Okok. I don’t have anything against the median, upon which I, like so many others, love to munch my Cheeseboard slices. I’d be for instituting some sort of crosswalk system to make it a bit less hairy. Regardless, I do love me some parklets! Hooray for parklets!
It is not going to be “magical” when a driver loses control of his car for whatever reason- mechanical failure, epileptic seizure- and plows through that median filled with fifty to one hundred people. If they are not going to keep Cheeseboard Pizza patrons off the median, they need to put up guardrails to prevent a tragedy that is bound to happen. The parklets will be nothing more than homeless encampments. I can see no need whatsoever for one in front of Saul’s.
Same thing can happen on a sidewalk…
YES! This is a great way to simultaneously improve the quality of folks’ experiences in the gourmet ghetto and keep them off the median. Love this idea.