Last December Curbed brought news of the task force to explore the idea of a Central SoMa Eco-District, or district-scale sustainable development projects that would work together to reduce environmental impacts. They described it as a "interwoven and closed-loop system for waste, water, urban food production and energy," and threw out ideas like rainwater catchment systems that are used to irrigate parks and urban agriculture, on-site wind and solar energy generation, and wastewater filtration systems under the freeway. Tomorrow the Planning Commission will get an update on the task force's work to date and plans for the upcoming year. They've created a Sustainable Systems Framework, which is a guide for implementing measurable sustainable development projects in San Francisco. So what does that mean? It's data sets and matrices and open‐source platforms...ok, we're lost. But it seems important, so kudos to the team.
The concept is also being adjusted to different scales, depending on context. This means applying it to a district scale (a la SoMa) or singel undeveloped project-based, or even smaller neighborhood-based that focuses on existing commercial corridors.
In order to get the ball rolling, the task force released a report with recommendations and implementation strategies for the Central SoMa pilot. The report will inform the sustainability policies that will be developed over the next few months and integrated into the Final Plan. The Central SoMa Eco‐District pilot is the only one really fully developed, so the task force wants to bring in a consultant to get things started.
· Eco-District Informational Hearing (pdf) [SF Planning]
· San Francisco to Explore Idea of a Central SoMa Eco-District [Curbed SF]
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