Residents of our famously sunken Mission District well know that even a light rain like last April's backs up sewer pipes, flooding homes and businesses with disgusting sludge. Imagine then the damage of heavier rains of winter. Yet city planners are readying to build an affordable housing structure, playground and park at 17th and Folsom streets, which is, according to the SFWeekly, basically a bowl to which all water will flow. "It is an area where tidal flows naturally want to accumulate, as water flows there from across the city," PUC official Karen Kubick confirmed on SFGate. And the Weekly warns that the development "is not currently designed to handle rainwater runoff." Add to the conundrum basic topography: Part of the Mission Creek watershed, "some cartographers believe this area was a lagoon or at least marshland when the Spanish settled San Francisco in the 18th century." Given that that actually solving the structural problems that cause this flooding would take ten years and millions of dollars, how will SF handle it when what is now a parking lot becomes a location for families and kids to live and play? We're hoping future residents of 17th and Folsom got life jackets for Christmas.
·Mission District Flooding: I'm Used to It [SF Gate]
·That Sinking Feeling: Mission Parks Have a Water Problem [SF Weekly]
·Arguing About Fences [CurbedSF]
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