Site of Haight recycling center may become garden
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/11/22/BAS71GCSGA.DTL
John Coté
November 23, 2010
A recycling center in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park that has been
the source of both contention and environmental contribution for 36
years is facing imminent closure so the site can be transformed into
a community garden, The Chronicle has learned.
The city's Recreation and Park Commission is expected to consider a
proposal to convert the roughly 1-acre patch next to Kezar Stadium
into garden plots, a nursery and other features at its Dec. 2 meeting.
The Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council, which runs the recycling
center and native plant nursery, would have to be evicted from the
site for the transformation to take place. The nonprofit has been
operating under a month-to-month lease since June 2001 and has warned
supporters for months that it could be closed.
Mayor Gavin Newsom's staff acknowledged in late August that the mayor
was "actively exploring" moving or shutting down the recycling center.
"We are excited for the prospect of a sustainable gardening space in
Golden Gate Park for the community," Francis Tsang, a spokesman for
Newsom, said Monday.
He added that the administration hoped the nonprofit group and its
native plant nursery would continue to be a part of the repurposed site.
The recycling center, which opened in 1974 at a different location,
has been the subject of complaints for decades, first over noise from
trucks and recyclables, then as an alleged magnet for the homeless and crime.
Critics say it has outlived its usefulness in the era of curbside
recycling. Now, they contend, it often functions as an ATM for the
homeless, who raid sidewalk recycling containers for bottles and cans
to cash in at the center while leaving a mess in their wake.
'Economic necessity'
Customers, though, say the recycling center gives seniors,
fixed-income and other residents a simple way to get back the deposit
they pay on bottles and cans.
"I've seen it become something that is an economic necessity for
certain populations that are being edged out of the city, and part of
that population is the elderly," said Tina Heringer, a painter who
sells gym memberships to support her art. "This is one way a senior
can get some cash for a loaf of bread."
Ed Dunn, the recycling center's executive director, has said the vast
majority of recycling done there is by people with homes and cars.
This year, he recorded a video of customers, including a woman with a
cane and a man with a young daughter in a Snoopy T-shirt.
A push to close the center gained traction after a 53-year-old
homeless man was beaten to death in August near the site, although
Dunn said there was no connection to the recycling center and the
attack was almost as close to the Police Department's Park Station.
Newsom, who moved to the area last year, has suggested that replacing
the recycling center with a community garden is what's best for the
neighborhood and the city's premier park.
"There is a wait list of over 500 people for plots in the existing
gardens, with much of that need coming from the adjacent
neighborhoods," the mayor wrote in a draft letter to some department heads.
The garden plan includes plots for residents, a greenhouse, compost
bins, an outdoor classroom and a tool-lending service, according to
renderings prepared for the city.
Cutting down noise
Lena Emmery, president of the Cole Valley Improvement Association,
said closing the center would be "a big relief for the neighborhood
in terms of the noise."
The center now accounts for only about one-tenth of one percent of
the city's record-setting 77 percent rate of diverting waste from landfill.
Dunn has blasted Newsom for threatening to put the center's 10
employees out of work after being elected lieutenant governor in
November on a platform of creating jobs by fostering a green-collar economy.
Newsom spokesman Tony Winnicker said the city would try to help the
workers find similar jobs.
"At issue here is what's the best use for that piece of Golden Gate
Park," Winnicker said.
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