1 CHAPTER 2
EXECUTIVE
SUMMARY
2 CHAPTER 2
Community Engagement
Throughout the Specific Plan process, the planning team conducted a variety of engagement activities that included public workshops, pop-up events, stakeholder interviews, and Council, committee, and commission meetings. In order to hear from community members, stakeholders, and businesses of different backgrounds, the planning team used a variety of engagement platforms throughout the planning process. Both in-person and virtual events and meetings were organized, and interactive surveys and features of the project website were used. Whenever possible, meetings and materials were available in a bilingual (Spanish/ English) format.
Introduction
The Lindenville Specific Plan will be the guiding document to help realize the General Plan's vision for the area as a mixed-use neighborhood, employment hub, and cultural
center of South San Francisco. Walkable, connected
districts, including the South Spruce corridor, are
envisioned as lively destinations where people have easy access to retail, parks, and other community resources.
The Plan will preserve the city's industrial heritage but will also provide new opportunities for people to live in the district. A revitalized Colma Creek has the potential to become a community-serving linear park with restored
ecology that benefits the health and wellbeing of people and wildlife.
Pop-up at the South San Francisco Concert in the Park
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 3
Vision for Lindenville
The Vision established by the General Plan was developed through extensive community input from City Council, Planning Commission, and local stakeholders. The Specific Plan sets out to continue the city’s industrial legacy, but also create a Colma Creek Mixed Use Neighborhood, and allow for the enhancement of existing features, such as the revitalization of Colma Creek into a community-serving linear park with restored ecology, and the development of new spaces for housing, creative and artistic uses, and improved pedestrian and bicyclist paths.
The policy set forth in the Lindenville Specific Plan is consistent with the goals of the General Plan, but it refines the land use pattern and creates specific development standards and implementation policies that put those ideas into action.
Lindenville is a vibrant and inclusive neighborhood that maintains a base of job opportunities, promotes the creative economy, and creates a new residential neighborhood where all people can thrive. 4 LINDENVILLE SPECIFIC PLAN
Major Strategies to Achieve This Vision
As South San Francisco begins to prepare for climate change impacts and as demands change in the housing and industrial sectors, Lindenville presents a unique opportunity to balance multiple priorities through development and land use changes, infrastructure improvements, and implementation actions that can have multiple benefits.
The following cross-cutting strategies will be used to guide the future changes in Lindenville, create the Colma Creek Mixed Use Neighborhood the community has envisioned, retain an industrial core while allowing some higher-density employment, and reach the goals the Specific Plan sets for Lindenville. These strategies support the Vision and are implemented by the more detailed standards, guidelines, and actions found in following chapters.
WHAT DO WE MEAN WHEN WE SAY MIXED
USE?
Mixed use can be defined in two ways: neighborhood and vertical mixed use. Neighborhood, or horizontal mixed use, describes an area with housing adjacent to retail, commercial, and other uses. While an individual parcel might have only one use, the area of proximate parcels may have a diversity of uses. Vertical mixed use describes parcels with buildings that have homes on the upper floors and a distinct use on the ground floor. The Colma Creek Mixed Use Neighborhood of Lindenville is expected to have both types of mixed-use development patterns.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 5
Establishing Character Areas
The Specific Plan establishes four distinct Character Areas, the Colma Creek Mixed Use Neighborhood, the South Spruce Avenue Corridor, the Employment Areas, and the South Linden Avenue Arts and Makers District. Standards and policies for each area are intended to guide the “look and feel” of each of these places, specifying the attributes that make each of these places distinct and unique.
Each area contains standards to implement the Vision for Lindenville, and to create a unified sense of place and address land use compatibility. Guidance for the areas covers land uses, mobility, open space and blue-green infrastructure, and urban design, as these are some of the building blocks for a complete neighborhood.
Likewise, building design standards aim to create character, distinction, and visual interest within Lindenville. Materials and craft maintain a strong link to Lindenville’s industrial past. New developments are encouraged to use colors and materials that reference the former industrial uses of buildings.
Lindenville Character Areas
6 LINDENVILLE SPECIFIC PLAN
Creating A Complete Neighborhood
The Colma Creek Mixed Use Neighborhood in Lindenville will help the City achieve its sustainability goals and provide more neighborhood choice in South San Francisco.
Allowing mixed use land uses will spur the creation of new housing opportunities and community services, which when paired with local job centers and mobility and open space improvements, creates a complete and walkable neighborhood, where people can easily reach destinations within a short walk or bike ride. The introduction of housing in Lindenville also creates opportunities for people to live closer to work, help reduce traffic congestion by internalizing trips, and increase housing production to enable the City to meet its housing goals.
PROMOTING HOUSING AFFORDABILITY
The Colma Creek Mixed Use Neighborhood and South Spruce Avenue Corridor allow for the construction of a variety of housing types with distinct height and density standards. Townhomes and less intensive building types may be located in areas adjacent to existing residential, while mid-rise apartment buildings can be placed along transit corridors or adjacent to commercial uses. Live/work types are allowed throughout Lindenville, including along South Linden Avenue in the South Linden Avenue Arts and Makers District. Allowing these distinct housing options can create rental and ownership opportunities within Lindenville, in turn creating a community with people of different income levels and family types. The Plan sets a goal of 20% of housing units built within Lindenville to consist of deed-restricted affordable housing for households at or below moderate-income levels. The affordable housing strategies incorporated into the Plan to meet this goal include targeting the use of citywide affordable housing production tools and funding sources, assisting affordable housing developers in overcoming development constraints, and incentivizing commercial and market-rate housing developers to produce affordable units. Policies and actions related to affordable housing are included in the Land Use and Housing chapter.
PROVIDING SUPPORTIVE SERVICES AND USES
Residents of a complete neighborhood should be able to dine, shop, socialize, and fulfill daily needs all within a short walk or bike ride. Allowing mixed use development creates opportunities for non-residential uses and services to set up shop alongside residential uses or at a walkable or bikeable distance from residential areas. These supportive uses will generally be located along the South Spruce Avenue Corridor, in the South Linden Avenue Arts and Makers District, and within the Colma Creek Mixed Use Neighborhood. People are more incentivized to live in the Colma Creek Mixed Use Neighborhood when there is supportive infrastructure, like public transit, expanded bike lanes, and improved sidewalks, that can connect them to neighborhood-serving uses and job centers. This Plan supports the creation of complete neighborhoods by requiring active ground floor uses in strategic locations and allowing a diversity of resident-supporting land uses in Lindenville.
Complete Neighborhood Diagram
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 7
Land Use Districts
8 LINDENVILLE SPECIFIC PLAN
Building on the Industrial
Legacy
The changing economy has led to a decline in small
businesses, light industrial, and other flex employment uses across the region. There is a strong demand for industrial space throughout San Mateo County and South San
Francisco, but businesses are competing for a shrinking supply of space as industrial properties are redeveloped.
Building on Lindenville’s industrial legacy, the Specific Plan continues the locally and regionally important industrial uses and jobs while also encouraging the adaptation of existing older industrial areas into new and modern industrial spaces, crafting a second-generation Lindenville, “The Industrial City
2.0.” Lindenville retains the logistics, manufacturing, and warehousing uses it is known for, but the policies and
standards of the Specific Plan allow for more flexibility that can support emerging industrial and creative uses. This can maintain the diversity of business types operating in
Lindenville and keep South San Francisco at the forefront of innovation. The Specific Plan retains the same capacity for industrial uses as set by the City’s General Plan and includes strategies to prevent the displacement of existing Lindenville businesses. Some of the business retention strategies include increasing City outreach and assistance to local businesses and supporting renovations and new construction needed to meet the evolving needs of industrial businesses.
Cultivating Arts and Cultural
Identity
Lindenville contains a burgeoning group of artists, makers, and creative businesses that enhance the identity of the Plan Area, in particular South Linden Avenue. Following the
direction laid out in the General Plan and the Public Arts Master Plan, this Specific Plan establishes an overlay that facilitates the retention and creation of new creative uses in the South Linden Avenue Arts and Makers District.
Accompanying guidelines to the overlay seek to create a lively and flexible District that has active ground floor uses and a variety of building types that support a range of creative industries. The Arts and Makers District requires arts and marker uses on the ground floor of buildings and minimizes the regulatory requirements for the adaptive reuse of existing buildings along South Linden Avenue. The Arts and Makers District additionally serves as a transitional area between the existing, traditional industrial spaces in Lindenville and the new, mixed use residential uses in the northern portion of the Plan Area. When paired with mobility and infrastructure improvements, the enhanced South Linden Avenue corridor better connects Downtown South San Francisco to the San Bruno BART Station south of the District.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 9
Building Climate Resilience
Human-induced climate change has begun to affect climate systems and created extreme weather events in cities throughout the world. South San Francisco has witnessed changes in sea level rise, precipitation, and heatwaves. Lindenville faces flood risk that is likely to be exacerbated by rising sea levels and increased intensity of precipitation and extreme storm events. There are multiple potential sources of flood risk surrounding Lindenville, with the San Francisco Bay to the west, Colma Creek running through the north section of the Plan Area, and Navigable Slough in the southeast Plan Area.
Climate change will increase pressure on the existing infrastructure systems managed by various agencies, particularly the stormwater system. Opportunities to increase system resilience throughout Lindenville include reducing impervious coverage with new development, increasing detention capacity, and using green infrastructure in parks and streets to remove pollutants and reduce runoff volumes entering the stormwater system. While green stormwater infrastructure can lessen impacts from increased rainfall and sea level rise, interventions within Lindenville alone will not fully mitigate these potential impacts. Watershed wide improvements, both up and downstream from Lindenville, will be required to minimize the potential extent of future flooding. This will require proactive initiatives with OneShoreline, surrounding communities, and State and federal agencies.
Lindenville is also susceptible to urban heat island effects due to the extensive impervious and low albedo surface areas and its lack of tree canopy. These conditions can exacerbate heat stress within the Plan Area during extreme heat events. The widespread commercial and industrial land uses (which require large expanses of asphalt and concrete) and building typologies (which require more roof space than typical residential neighborhoods) in Lindenville contribute to the substantially high percentage of impervious coverage.
The Specific Plan’s blue-green infrastructure network works with the open space network in creating new parks and green spaces in Lindenville that are regenerative, enhanced with stormwater management strategies, and designed to increase Lindenville’s urban forest canopy. Strategies to build climate resilience are woven into all of the chapters of the Specific Plan and have influenced the development of the policies, actions, and standards of the Specific Plan.
Source: Hassell Studio
Source: SERA Architects
10 LINDENVILLE SPECIFIC PLAN
Enhancing Open Spaces
Open space and blue-green infrastructure enhance the quality of life, improve ecology, and support resilience in Lindenville. While blue-green infrastructure improvements could solely mitigate flood risk, pairing the infrastructure with open space improvements provides multiple benefits. The open space network contains existing green spaces and new public park and open space typologies that can be used by residents and workers of all ages and abilities. New mini and linear parks located throughout the mixed-use residential neighborhoods create places for residents to gather, engage in recreation, and foster health.
Additionally, the open space network connects to the Centennial Way Trail and other active transportation features that connect to Orange Memorial Park and to the Bay Trail. These active mobility connections provide opportunities for physical and passive recreation and reduce greenhouse gas emissions from motorized vehicles. Other open space improvements, such as the naturalization of creek and flood channels, help to restore the ecology of waterways and habitats, increase the biodiversity and resiliency of the area, and create new recreation opportunities.
The open space framework is based on the following strategies:
• Colma Creek Greenbelt. Colma Creek Greenbelt is a nature-based enhancement to the Colma Creek flood channel that provides an active transportation connection through multi-use trails, facilitates passive recreation and gathering opportunities, and provides plant and animal habitat while addressing the area’s stormwater and floodwater management needs.
• Railroad Neighborhood Park. A new neighborhood park north of Colma Creek that is a local destination, providing publicly-accessible spaces and facilities for community gatherings, cultural events, recreation, and the social needs of both locals and visitors.
• Lindenville Linear Park. The Lindenville Linear Park runs north to south, connecting the Colma Creek Greenbelt and the Centennial Way Trail via green-lined pedestrian and bike path.
• Mini Parks and Plazas. Mini parks and plazas provide smaller-scale open space throughout Lindenville that support community gathering spaces adjacent to new development.
Source: SERA Architects
Source: SERA Architects
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 11
Parks and Open Space Framework Plan
12 LINDENVILLE SPECIFIC PLAN
Promoting Health and Environmental
Justice
Lindenville has historically supported light industrial, manufacturing, and service and repair businesses, which all contribute to the City’s legacy as the “Industrial City.” This legacy, plus its location adjacent to regional transportation infrastructure, has created environmental conditions that need to be mitigated to ensure the health and wellbeing of current and future residents and workers, and to create a healthier community overall. Lindenville has a disproportionately high pollution burden from diesel particulate matter and traffic, two pollution sources that stem from the area’s industrial and logistics uses and its proximity to highvolume roadways. The high proportion of freight truck traffic traveling to, from, and through the area disperse diesel particulate matter, and exhaust from nondiesel vehicles contains many toxic chemicals that may pose health risks to Lindenville’s residents and workers. The area’s industrial legacy also means that there are sites contaminated with hazardous chemicals that require remediation.
These historically contaminated sites, and the storage and disposal of hazardous substances, pose threats to soil health, groundwater quality, and human health.
South San Francisco faces sea level rise from multiple sources, but the low-lying areas in Lindenville also risk exposure to runoff containing toxic chemicals from rising groundwater.
Healthy communities are places that foster positive health outcomes for all who live, work, and play in them. Good nutrition, physical activity, and access to healthcare all influence health. However, health is also influenced by many other factors, including safe and sanitary housing and low exposure to pollution. A neighborhood’s physical, social, and economic environments combine to make residents healthier and more resilient to long-term changes and short-term shocks.
Considering the overall pollution burden of Lindenville, the Plan includes policies and design standards meant to protect residents and building occupants from air pollution and industrial pollutants present in the soil. The policies, actions, and standards of the Specific Plan have been developed through an environmental justice lens and with the intent to make Lindenville a healthy, livable community.
Connecting Communities
The mobility network of Lindenville is designed to be multimodal, safe, and connected while advancing sustainability and livability goals. Street space is limited throughout Lindenville, with each street presenting an opportunity to prioritize walking, biking, transit, truck, and regional auto access. In the layered network presented in the Specific Plan, each mobility mode is prioritized within a subset of streets to offer high quality infrastructure for that mode, it is tied directly to the anticipated future land uses and local and regional mobility improvements.
Street design standards call for bike and pedestrian improvements throughout many street types, but they also allow for flexible curbside zones that can better serve the transit agencies, businesses, and people who use those streets. Bike, pedestrian, and transit improvements in particular help to create a walkable and bikeable environment that is safe and comfortable for people of all ages and abilities. These improvements are focused in and around the Colma Creek Mixed Use Neighborhood. By having safer mobility options, more residents and workers can be incentivized to use them over single occupancy vehicles, which furthers the Plan’s climate and sustainability goals and promotes reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. Likewise, due to the industrial and auto-oriented nature of the Plan Area, many streets in Lindenville continue to accommodate auto and truck travel to US-101 and I-380. The layered network approach ensures all Lindenville residents, workers, and visitors can travel throughout the Plan Area and are connected to the rest of the city and region.
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 13
Transit Priority Streets Bicycle Priority Streets