A Corridor Under Pressure Over the past several months, a series of decisions affecting Hayes Street have moved forward with increasing speed and decreasing coordination. What once appeared to be isolated actions (temporary closures, event permits, and incremental activations) now points to a broader pattern in how public space is being managed, and who is being included in those decisions. … Read post
San Francisco has spent years making it easier to close streets than to keep them open for the businesses and residents who actually use them. On the 400 block of Hayes Street, we are watching this play out in real time: a Shared Spaces permit already under formal administrative complaint for 71 weeks of sustained noncompliance is now being layered … Read post
A new proposal for a year-long weekly farmers market on the 400 block of Hayes Street (Gough to Octavia) is being framed as simple community activation. But the real issue is deeper. Every new “activation”, whether a market, event, or shared space extension, is being decided on the assumption that the street must remain closed. No one in City Hall … Read post
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What began as a temporary COVID-era street closure is now being treated as something permanent. Recent public records show that District 5 Supervisor Bilal Mahmood directly requested and drove the City’s initiation of a Public Life Study on Hayes Street, with the Planning Department leading the technical work in coordination with SFMTA, SFCTA, and the Supervisor’s own office. This is … Read post
A local park, a proposed change, and a process that left neighbors with more questions than answers. What Happened On Saturday, neighbors gathered at Koshland Park for a Recreation & Park hosted open house on the upcoming playground renewal project. What was presented as an opportunity to learn more and provide input instead left many attendees with more questions than … Read post
A summary of key findings, limitations, and omissions A group of UC Berkeley students produced a study comparing user behavior on the 400 block of Hayes Street under non-closure, closure, and event-based conditions. Closure supporters have cited the report as evidence that the street has become a “thriving public space.” The study was explicitly created “to support the long-term continuation … Read post
Over the past several years, residents and businesses have been repeatedly encouraged by SFMTA staff to document and report conditions, impacts, and potential violations related to the Hayes Street closure and the permit governing the use of the street. Many people have done exactly that. Photographs, written reports, and formal correspondence have been submitted documenting a wide range of concerns … Read post
For several years, the public conversation about Hayes Street has been framed as a simple choice:Support the street closure — or oppose public space. That framing is false. Many residents, merchants, and stakeholders have consistently supported the idea of improving Hayes Valley’s public spaces. What has been missing is a genuine willingness from City Hall and those shaping the current … Read post
Understanding the process behind a critical neighborhood issue Responsible civic participation requires understanding how policy decisions are made — and explaining them clearly to the public. At its core, that means examining the process: how decisions develop and how policies are implemented over time. For the past five years, our coalition has focused on documenting and analyzing the decisions surrounding … Read post
Under Shared Spaces Permit No. 1316522, the permittee is responsible for ensuring: These are not optional guidelines. They are enforceable conditions of operation. Over the past year, we have documented repeated violations of these terms, including: When residents have attempted to inquire about permits in the past, operators responded with verbal hostility. As a result, neighbors now document from a … Read post
When a neighborhood association responds to routine civic oversight by reframing it as harassment, invasion of privacy, or harmful conduct, the issue is no longer about a street closure. It is about governance. In Hayes Valley, a private nonprofit administering activity on a public street under a city permit characterized ordinary documentation of public conditions as improper behavior. That response … Read post
Today, we issued a formal notice to City agencies documenting a sustained pattern of disparaging and delegitimizing communications that have affected civic participation and decision-making in Hayes Valley. The notice is shared for record and awareness. It is intended to document an ongoing governance failure that has distorted public process over time, with real consequences for residents, small businesses, and … Read post
For more than 60 consecutive weeks, residents and small businesses have documented permit violations on the 400 block of Hayes Street and submitted them to SFMTA. Over that same period, conditions have not improved. They have persisted, and impacts have escalated rather than been resolved. Repeated concerns about economic harm to neighborhood retail and increased traffic congestion on surrounding streets … Read post
The earliest evidence of undue influence and eroded process. In January 2025, just two weeks into Supervisor Bilal Mahmood’s term, a SFMTA/ISCOTT hearing was held to consider the Head West street closure permit. This for-profit marketplace had begun seeking a higher frequency (4x) of dates in Hayes Valley during the early pandemic — compounding the impacts of the already contentious … Read post
A transparency update from Hayes Valley Safe Over the past year, residents and small businesses in Hayes Valley have repeatedly asked basic, good-faith questions about the future of Hayes Street — including whether the current temporary closure was being evaluated neutrally, and whether public funds were being used to advance a predetermined outcome. Those questions went largely unanswered. In January … Read post
Civic documentation is a basic part of how neighborhoods hold public decisions accountable. It means observing and recording how public space is being used, especially when that space is operating under a city permit. This includes photographing street conditions, signage, barricades, access, and compliance with permit terms. What civic documentation is: This kind of documentation is common. Journalists do it. … Read post
Two more retail businesses have exited Hayes Street. Timbuk2, a long-tenured brand that spent nearly two decades in Hayes Valley, has moved on. Arden Home, a design-focused home goods store, has also said goodbye to the neighborhood. Different brands. Different customers. Same corridor. Individually, each closure can be explained away. Together, they add to a growing pattern that deserves closer … Read post
2025 in Review: Receipts, Resilience, and a Reset for Hayes Valley For the past five years, we’ve marked time with either an end-of-year reflection or a start-of-year reset. This year feels different, not because the challenges disappeared, but because the full picture finally came into focus. 2025 was the year the pattern became undeniable. What many neighbors and small businesses … Read post
How San Francisco’s Living Alley Rules Undercut the Hayes Street Closure and Reveal a Double Standard on Linden Purpose of this briefThis brief examines how San Francisco’s Living Alley guidelines define temporary street and alley closures as small-scale, low-impact, and resident-protective, and how the long-running closure of the 400 block of Hayes Street departs from those principles in practice. It … Read post
For nearly 2 years, the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association (HVNA) has operated a parallel approval system governing access to a public street. This isn’t about events or programming. It’s about who controls access to a public street. A de facto gatekeeping and sublicensing system in which third parties are directed to apply for access to Hayes Street through HVNA’s own … Read post
To our neighbors, public officials, and anyone paying attention— For over five years, we’ve shown up in good faith and we’re still showing up. We’ve submitted public comments, organized businesses, met with agencies, and tried to elevate the voices of residents who’ve been left out of the loop. We believed perhaps naively that if we did the work, we’d be … Read post
On December 16, the San Francisco Entertainment Commission approved a year-long amplified sound permit for the 400 block of Hayes Street. The approval authorizes recurring amplified sound on Fridays and Saturdays for up to six hours per day, tied to the ongoing Hayes Street closure. While the approval has now been granted, the hearing and application record raise serious concerns … Read post
A 2020 Governance Record of Retaliatory Exclusion in Hayes Valley Part of the Hayes Street Series — documenting the governance patterns that predate and shaped later decisions around Hayes Street. Purpose of This Summary This summary is not submitted to re-litigate internal disputes from 2020. It is submitted to document early warning signs of governance abuse that later escalated into … Read post
Most people remember COVID as a time of fear, isolation, and uncertainty. What’s easier to forget is how the breakdown of everyday civic life accelerated power shifts that were already underway. In Hayes Valley, the pandemic didn’t create civic dysfunction. It exposed and intensified it. The cracks were already there Well before 2020, many neighbors were already raising concerns about … Read post
For anyone new to our work, it may look unusual that neighbors have spent more than a year documenting the weekly conditions of a weekend street closure. But the truth is: we should never have had to. For nearly five years, the Hayes Street closure has operated under a patchwork of “temporary” permits that drifted further and further away from … Read post
What Changed in the New Hayes Street Permit — and Why It Matters (New permit takes effect this Friday) Over the past few days we’ve taken a close look at SFMTA’s newly issued 2025–26 permit for the Hayes Street weekend closure. The rules differ dramatically from last year. Contrary to the perception that “nothing has changed,” the new permit introduces … Read post
A particular email has stood out during a recent record retrieval — not for what it proved, but for what it revealed. 1. The Hayes Street closure permit holder has been forwarding social-media posts about our account to the Supervisor as ‘incidents.’ On October 3, the permit holder sent an email chain titled “HVSafe barricade removal.” The message suggested there … Read post
posted at 11 am Our team has reviewed SFMTA’s staff report and slide deck released ahead of next week’s SFMTA Board hearing. What is being shown publicly and what is being left out raises serious concerns about transparency, data integrity, and decision-making during one of the worst financial crises in the agency’s history. SFMTA now faces a $322 million budget … Read post
posted at 9am SFMTA’s presentation hides the downturn on the closed 400 block by combining its sales tax data with two other blocks. Our team’s review shows that this approach was not a neutral analytic choice — it materially masked the harm and produced a misleading economic picture for the Board. This analysis explains how the data were combined and … Read post
The 400 block of Hayes Street is closed off on Fridays and Saturdays to project an Instagram version of urban joy. Little music setups sprout up, chalk boxes appear, tango lessons unfold, and bubbles drift through the air between Octavia and Gough; meanwhile, playgrounds, parks, living alleys, and public parcels within blocks in each direction sit underused. But that’s apparently … Read post
What began as a temporary pandemic closure in 2020 has stretched into its fifth year. Somewhere along the way, the City stopped asking if the street should reopen and started inventing new reasons to keep it closed. The most powerful of those reasons arrived in 2023 under a single word: “activation.” The Turning PointWhen the permit came up for renewal … Read post
For years, the Hayes Street closure has been described as an “experiment.” But experiments are meant to teach us something — not divide a neighborhood or drain the lifeblood of its small businesses. After five years of trial and error, the lesson is clear: this hasn’t worked. It’s time to move past the talking points and start telling the truth … Read post
The Backstory — Why These Rules Exist San Francisco’s City Charter isn’t vague about this: Supervisors make laws, they don’t administer them. That line was drawn for a reason — and it goes back to incidents like Aaron Peskin’s notorious late-night calls to department heads. Those drunken phone calls and attempts to direct agency staff triggered reforms clarifying that supervisors … Read post
San Francisco’s Shared Spaces program was meant to help businesses recover. Instead, it’s been used to keep Hayes Street closed for nearly five years. What began as a temporary Shared Spaces closure on Hayes Street in 2020 should have ended years ago. By late 2023, SFMTA staff were prepared not to renew the permit — citing safety issues, merchant complaints, … Read post
Over the past two years, Hayes Valley has been used as the first large-scale test case for the City’s Pay or Permit Parking (PPP) program. The idea is simple: residents with permits can park for free, while visitors must pay at meters instead of following two-hour time limits. In theory, PPP is meant to increase parking availability, reduce circling, and … Read post
For three decades, the Hayes Valley Neighborhood Association (HVNA) has been treated by City Hall as the voice of our neighborhood. Agencies check the box by consulting HVNA, and politicians cite HVNA statements as if they reflect community consensus. But here’s the truth: HVNA doesn’t represent the diversity of Hayes Valley. Its board operates in a silo, behind closed doors. … Read post
400 Block of Hayes Street Closure A year since the last renewal, Hayes Valley is still living with a “temporary” closure run by HVNA; SFMTA’s failures of process, enforcement, and accountability are clearer than ever. The Record Since Last RenewalAs the Hayes Street closure future remains in limbo, it’s worth asking a simple question: what has SFMTA actually done in … Read post
This month, Hayes Valley will lose one of its most cherished small businesses. After 20 years at the corner of Hayes and Octavia, Miette is relocating to the Fillmore. While their story continues elsewhere, Hayes Valley is losing a piece of its heart. For many, Miette was more than a candy shop — it was a place of celebration, of … Read post
What breaks our heart isn’t just the policy failures. It’s the way real people have been dismissed, week after week, through the Hayes Street closure. Take Viktor. For years, he’s poured everything into his Hayes Valley shop, Cotton Sheep, one of those rare places that gives a neighborhood its soul. When he spoke up in the early days about how … Read post
At first glance, an “impact” or “feasibility” study sounds responsible. But here’s the problem: if the street closure was pushed from the beginning without transparency or broad consent, the study can’t correct that bias. It just papers over it. And whether it’s branded as an impact study (measuring consequences) or a feasibility study (judging if permanence is possible), the purpose … Read post