San Francisco Mission District

Community Health Through Land Use Planning

Purpose

To support community involvement and advocacy for local land use and transportation planning policies that promote the health and well-being of San Francisco’s Mission District residents.

Lead Organization

Mission Economic Development Association (MEDA)

Goals

1. Increase capacity of MAP members to include health impact analysis in land use advocacy.
2. Increase understanding of Mission District residents about the connection between development, land use, and community health.
3. Successfully model HDMT application to land use planning processes by community based organizations.
4. Strengthen pressure on City Planning Department to include health impacts in review of development projects and land use planning processes.

Major Activities

1. Community capacity building and leadership trainings
2. Community advocacy campaign around land use and health
3. Application of Healthy Development Measurement Tool
4. Land use and health policy recommendation formulation

The Mission Anti-Displacement Partnership (MAP) is a collaborative of five community-based organizations with collective skills and experience in land use and neighborhood planning, housing policy, community economic development, environmental justice, health care delivery, and grassroots leadership development. Since 2000, MAP has taken a leadership role in addressing the gentrification and displacement of the Mission’s working class residents by informing and mobilizing the community around land use planning efforts. The Mission District in particular, has faced intense gentrification pressures over the past decade and is currently undergoing redevelopment or other significant planning processes. The Mission is one of the city’s poorest neighborhoods, with a population that is half Latino, a third White, and 11% Asian. Census 2000 data shows that only 8% of the city’s population lives here, but nearly 1/3 of the city’s entire Latino population calls the Mission home.

MAP’s early efforts to get the planning department to enact interim land use controls served as the impetus for the Eastern Neighborhoods Community Health Impact Assessment (ENCHIA), a 18-month long process facilitated by the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) to assess the health benefits and burdens of development in several San Francisco neighborhoods, including the Mission and South of Market. Residents of the Mission face disproportionate exposure to environmental contaminants and unsafe housing conditions. As a result, Mission residents have high rates of asthma and other respiratory diseases, diabetes, elevated lead levels in children, and high rates of pedestrian accidents involving children – all conditions directly impacted by the built environment.