From community involvement to small business revitalization, the first-term supervisor has a lot planned for District 11.
Artists Shrey Purohit and Ellen Lo led Ingleside residents to spend an afternoon painting a new mural designed to abate graffiti.
The new tenant of the former Pacific Super supermarket on Alemany Boulevard wants a name that harks back to its building’s roots.
From community involvement to small business revitalization, the first-term supervisor has a lot planned for District 11.
Supervisor Chyanne Chen has been busy since taking office on Jan. 8. Her schedule is jam-packed with community events across District 11.
Chen oversees what many have deemed as the forgotten part of the city with neighborhoods including Ocean View, Excelsior, Mission Terrace, Cayuga, Merced Heights Crocker-Amazon and much of Ingleside. She shares coverage of Ingleside’s Ocean Avenue with District 7 Supervisor Myrna Melgar.
To get a sense of what lies ahead, we’re revisiting the questionnaire and interviews The Ingleside Light had with her while on and off the campaign trail.
Chen has already hit the ground running by attending multiple community events and meetings like Ocean Avenue’s Lunar New Year celebration and an annual safety walk in Mission Terrace. She plans to continue attending these types of activities and if she is unable to go, Chen will send a member of her team in her place.
She also plans to build coalitions with neighbors, neighborhood associations, community-serving organizations, schools, faith-based organizations and local businesses to foster community movement, dedicate resources for community-based planning processes to create spaces for sharing experiences and gathering insights, push public agencies to join efforts and adopt community-centered approaches with emphasis on language translations, childcare, cultural competence and intergenerational engagement, partner with the community on solutions and shaping of investments like with a participatory budgeting process, similar to District 7’s and strengthen the neighborhood-based economy by supporting family child care providers, domestic workers, day laborers, street vendors, worker-owned cooperatives and micro enterprises.
Since Chen wants to ensure children and residents in the community have safe places to go she said she would support proactive measures to deter crime in neighborhood parks including deploying community ambassadors, increased foot patrols, implementing better signage to alert authorities with anonymous tips and strengthening community programming to increase staff and community presence. She also wants to emphasize neighborhood-based approaches while working with the District Attorney’s and Public Defender’s offices and probation department to focus on accountability and restorative justice so that possible harm drug dealing poses can be addressed.
When it comes to increasing public safety outside of the park, Chen said she will champion public safety solutions and wants everyone to feel safe. She also doesn’t want the city to use excessive force or for civil liberties to be stripped when tackling crime and wants strategies to include having ambassadors like retired officers from local neighborhoods who speak Chinese, Spanish and Filipino, implementing culturally relevant training for police officers to uphold standards of transparency, respect, community engagement, due process and use of force principles and practices and have consistent police participation in community events and are visible on buses and sidewalks. Chen also supports neighborhood watch groups and the expansion of violence prevention strategies, investments in human capital such as meaningful access to affordable housing, education and quality employment.
When it comes to preventing crime toward small businesses, Chen plans to work with small business owners, stakeholders and the community to identify specific safety concerns, ensure approaches or solutions are data-driven and reflect lived experiences of small business owners. While solutions can come in many forms, key areas of improvement she has considered included public infrastructure like street lighting, training programs for employees with tools and best practices for crime prevention and partnering with law enforcement. Chen also plans to partner with nearby Community Benefit Districts to leverage neighborhood influence with the city’s Office of Economic and Workforce Development to develop strategies for supporting SBs in efforts of permitting, technology and energy efficiency grants, facade improvements and overall business planning.
Other ways Chen detailed boosting small businesses included prioritizing strategies to fill up our empty storefronts with affordable, locally serving retail, neighborhood services, family entertainment and community-based organizations like expanding grant and lending programs for community-based organizations to purchase their own spaces, supporting efforts to incubate worker-owned and community cooperatives to complement and strengthen our small business sector, supporting the creation of a San Francisco Public Bank to provide affordable lending programs for small businesses who otherwise have difficulty accessing capital, monitoring the implementation of the commercial vacancy tax to assess the impact on filling storefronts in our commercial corridors and continue supporting the implementation of the Small Business First Year Free program, which provides fee relief for smaller business enterprises.
She also supports the renewal of the Ocean Avenue CBD and their efforts for service and boundary changes to better service community needs like sidewalk sweeping, placemaking and public art, community events and landscaping maintenance.
For increased ridership along the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency lines that serve the neighborhood, Chen wants to address ways that public transit can best meet community needs including making it a practical option for social trips, shopping, student and working-class communities, especially in non-financial district areas. She also believes there is a need for more funding and would support bringing a regional transportation funding measure for the 2026 ballot. In addition she also supported Prop L in the 2024 election, which would impose additional tax on transportation network companies and autonomous vehicle businesses that provide passenger service for compensation that would go towards supporting public transportation and passed with 56.92% of voter approval.
Chen also supports expanding protected bike infrastructure especially around schools but since small businesses continue to rely on patrons who arrive by car, she will work to find solutions that benefit both parties and will work with SFMTA to be more transparent, responsive and connected especially around project-based initiatives so all voices are heard.
In order to boost the commercial corridor in some parts of District 11 like along Randolph Street and Broad Street, Chen first wants to advocate to preserve and protect cultural legacy of many Black households and immigrant communities and seek to promote long-term intergenerational stability, housing security and generational wealth for current residents. She also believes working with the community is key and will lead with a community planning process. Chen will also support a range of developments that must include deeply affordable and middle-income housing, support creating partnerships with community housing organizations to develop a variety of housing models like affordable homeownership, land trusts or limited equity models and seek partnership with local Black churches that possess surplus lands.
She also plans to create partnerships and collaborations with local artists to expand the network of public art throughout our commercial corridors, invest in the expansion of storefront facade and corridor beautification programs, explore the creation of an International Cultural District to uplift and protect the legacies of our diverse D11 communities through the expansion of arts, culture, protections and programming and find ways to sustain and expand vibrant and healthy public plazas to ensure safe, accessible, intergenerational and culturally based public spaces throughout our district to gather, play and exchange.
One issue that Chen feels has been ignored throughout District 11 is the need for vibrant public spaces and the need for more public investments. Her solutions including building and creating activities like public table seating for lunchtime gatherings, dedicated mahjong and chess areas, farmers and crafts markets and outdoor cinemas and community programming like open mic nights and celebrations in possible locations like the Persia Triangle, the plaza adjacent to the Kapuso at the Upper Yard building complex and the Broad Street commercial corridor which she plans to advocated for funding for.
Chen also plans to advocate to maintain and expand the district’s tree canopies in other District 11 commercial corridors like Mission Street, Ocean Avenue, Geneva Avenue, Broad Street and Randolph Street. She will request an audit to see how 2016’s Prop E is going and will work with Friends of Urban Forest for continual planting and support urban farms like Hummingbird, Geneva and Sisterhood.
One of Chen’s main focuses while in office will be on completing projects like the long-awaited new Ocean View Library. She also wants to finish tackling the Balboa Park Area Plan and will advocate to leverage investments from general obligation bonds and cultivate partnerships with external public entities to fund capital improvements and is also looking into implementing participatory budgeting to help complete some of these plans.
She also has her sights set on completing the next phase of the Geneva Car Barn project since expanding intergenerational community programming will be one of her highest priorities. She plans to make every effort to see that the office building is included in the next park bond. She is committed to working with community advocates, the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department and its charter mandate for equitable investments to identify capital and operating funding sources.
Chen plans to identify ways to make the City College of San Francisco more accessible and better serve the needs of students and the community. She plans to partner with the college on strategies to grow enrollment for students of all ages and diverse academic goals and help the college stabilize and grow the budget and reserves through additional revenue strategies. She believes there are opportunities to work with existing companies to create workforce development programs in major industries such as healthcare, infotech, biotech and hospitality.
After the first year of implementation of the 2022 Empty Homes Tax this year, Chen will convene a hearing to analyze data to advance additional strategies targeted toward reducing vacancies.
As for Recology, she doesn’t support monopolies and believes in competitive bidding. Chen also feels that it must occur at regular intervals in order to ensure accountability.
With citywide budget decisions coming up, Chen wants to make sure that cuts in the budget are minimized for District 11. She supports fully funding the Dignity Fund.
She also wants to form committees or teams to make sure they have their priorities set, continue to learn and craft policies that support children, focus on community safety, ensure there is bilingual support and meet with constituents regularly.
Artists Shrey Purohit and Ellen Lo led Ingleside residents to spend an afternoon painting a new mural designed to abate graffiti.
The new tenant of the former Pacific Super supermarket on Alemany Boulevard wants a name that harks back to its building’s roots.
Hundreds of students have been turned away from chemistry classes over the year due to a faculty shortage.
City College's faculty union is asking the court to reinstate laid-off faculty members.
We’ll send you our must-read newsletter featuring top news, events and more each Thursday.
