• Promote Upper Noe Valley and support the vibrancy of our commercial district.
• Support Upper Noe Rec Center
• Maintain neighborhood safety
• Organize neighborhood festivals
• Advocate for street maintenance and improvements
• Preserve J-Church service that serves our community and provides access for all.
• Greening and trees
To assist our Supervisor and City agencies in assisting us, we create an annual list of specific projects and concerns, some of which need outside support. Items on the list can then be matched against available grants and discretionary funds.
Here is a list of projects that we will address and hopefully complete this year. Your participation is welcome.
1. Traffic signal at Cesar Chavez and Church
2. Upper Noe Traffic Plan to look at all modes of transportation in our neighborhood
3. Short term parking solutions for Church Street.
4. Lighting Project Phase 2, extending decorative lights north on Church Street
5. Inventory missing street trees
6. Church Street tree trimming
7. Rec Center audio-visual system
8. Replace the play surface in Upper Noe playground
9. Improve sidewalk lighting – LED porchlight distribution?
10. Conduct more emergency response preparation, (NERT)
11. Organize UNN forum for Neighborhood Watch Leaders
12. Automated membership/dues/newsletter system
13. A more formal/regular/inviting process for informing our community about land use issues
2024 Neighborhood Goals/Results
1. Hybrid / Zoom meetings => acoustic panels added this year make it possible to move forward with an audio/visual upgrade.
2. A more formal/inviting process for informing our community about land use issues => in process
3. Enhance Upper Noe Merchants as an association => Working together on improvements to Church Street.
4. Church St. Branding Project banners and lights => Banners installed and some lights. More lights are on the way.
5. Short term parking solutions for Church Street merchants => This community discussion is started and will continue.
6. Fill empty storefronts / preserve businesses => Veteran’s and Pomelo’s are undergoing construction. Locations of businesses that closed or moved were quickly occupied by new businesses.
7. Upper Noe Traffic Plan to look at the big picture for all modes of transportation => This has been discussed with SFMTA. Might need a traffic study.
a. Repaving schedules: Noe St, Church St and others => Most of Noe paved and the rest slated for 2025.
b. Install stop signs on Church St at 28th St => DONE
8. Inventory missing street trees => No progress and added to 2025 Goals
9. LED porch light distribution campaign – Lighting Upper Noe => No progress and added to 2025 Goals
10. Emergency response preparation, such as NERT training and a neighborhood hazard survey => No progress and added to 2025 Goals
11. Organize UNN forum for Neighborhood Watch Leaders => The demise of SFSAFE had SFPD scrambling to fill the gap to support neighborhood groups. That is now in place and we can move forward.
2023 Community Goals & Results:
1. Install Stop Signs on Church St at 28th St => no sign yet but petition submitted with 362 names; 100 calls to 311. We got SFMTA’s attention.
2. Fill empty storefronts, Veteran’s Liquor, Hall Realty => no progress; initiated conversations with owners but cannot force it.
3. Sampling tour night to promote restaurants (Supper Noe) => no action (looking for volunteers)
4. Day St mural along the Upper Noe Rec Center wall => tabled due to low interest.
5. Repave both Church St and 30th St along the MUNI tracks => some repair of potholes was completed but this route is not on the City’s repaving schedule. We tried to attach it to the J Church project but the request was rejected.
6. Improve Street Lighting between 30th St and Randall => no progress (lots of interest in this)
7. Preserve J-Church stops, parking and access to institutions, shops and restaurants on Church St => J Church project stalled; no changes yet.
8. Trim trees to improve street lighting on Church St => no action taken but unknown if DPW or owners trimmed.
9. Conduct more emergency response preparation such as NERT training and a neighborhood hazard survey => no action (interest level is unknown)
10. Create a more formal/regular/inviting process for informing our community about land use issues. => still in committee; no results yet.
2023 Neighborhood Goals Survey click here.
2022 Neighborhood Goals & Results
Transportation
Stop signs: Noe at Day Street – – In response to persistent community support, SFMTA installed stop signs on Noe in January, 2023 so that the intersection is now a four-way stop.
Stop signs: Church at 28th Street – – investigating and building consensus. An idea has been floated to move the 26th and Church stop sign to 28th St so that stops are more consistently every block or two. This would also remove SFMTA objections that another stop sign would impede the J Church.
Monitor Restoration of the J-Church to underground service all the way to downtown – – Restore The J is tracking data.
Rescind the J-Church Improvement Project – – needs follow up now that the J is restored
Repave both Church St and 30th St (200 block) – in discussion with SFMTA, DPW and Sup Mandelman’s office. They do not have a work schedule for streets with MUNI rails. At SFMTA’s request, UNN has begun documenting 30th Street patches, potholes and broken pavement.
Slow Sanchez Rules of the Road – – A draft of suggestions to help the community use the slow street more harmoniously is in committee awaiting approval. VIEW THEM HERE
Upper Noe Merchants
Enhance cooperation and vitality within our business district – – merchants need more parking space availability. We are looking at whether parking meters would help.
Fill empty storefronts – – identifying empty shops and looking at the available codes that can help fill them.
Supper Noe – – a proposed neighborhood walk and dine event. This has been tabled for now. Several of our restaurants are changing ownership and concerns about COVID stifled interest.
Public Safety
Better lighting on streets between 30th and Randall – – not started
This addresses concerns that most of the streets between 30th and Randall are so dark as to be intimidating for pedestrians. This is not a new complaint. SFPD and SFSAFE have recommended that we should encourage residents to leave their porch lights on all night. Those lower lights would do way more to illuminate the sidewalks than the high street lights. Our efforts would be to promote this and possibly distribute energy efficient bulbs to residents. We have no plans to identify street trees or to prompt any action by the City to trim trees.
Trees trimmed along Church St between 30th to improve lighting – – not started
This concern is directed at Church St between 30th and Cesar Chavez. On this broad commercial corridor, some tree trimming would improve lighting for pedestrians. This project will likely entail identifying dark spots, conferring with homeowners and making reports to 311.
Emergency Preparedness
Make Upper Noe Rec Center an emergency staging area – – in committee, under investigation.
Bring NERT training back to the Rec Center – – in committee, under investigation.
Neighborhood hazard inventory – – not started.
Park
Acoustics improvements for Rec Center – sound system and acoustic dampening – Low priority. tabled for now.
Finish the Day St mural – Low priority. tabled for now.
UN Block Party – High priority. Work will begin on this in May. Added to the May 18 community meeting agenda.
2021 Neighborhood Outcomes
Upper Noe Neighbors was quite active in 2021. So many neighbors pitched in to attend meetings, voice opinions, lend ideas, and make things happen.
Some Upper Noe high points of 2021:
•Almost every local shop and restaurant survived the enormous strain of COVID restrictions
•Slow Sanchez permanence and design (installation in process)
•Restoration of J-Church service (coming in February 2022)
•1900 Diamond Development modifications (agreement on a final design)
Please contact hello@uppernoeneighbors.com for more details about each of these and/or to learn how you can help attain these goals.