The City of San Francisco reaps approximately $60,000.00 per year from this site in both property taxes and currently $0.00 per year sales tax. The new store and residential plan will increase that amount approximately 3 to 4 times this amount. These taxes go directly towards funding the City’s schools and infrastructure costs. Outside of this very direct benefit, we feel this project will provide additional economic benefit in three ways. This project will help eliminate crime, drug dealing and vagrancy from this effected area. It will also introduce a much needed neighborhood serving business to the street thereby benefiting all the merchants with increased loyalty from the people living closest to the site and furthermore go against the tide of grocery store closures that has been occurring throughout San Francisco.
During the 1990s, Haight residents complained of a crack epidemic sweeping the neighborhood. The longtime hippie crowd, known to cruise Haight Street looking to buy or sell "buds" and "doses," had given way to a crowd looking for harder drugs. In recent years there has been a noticeable crime issue in the Haight and the rest of District 5 centered on the intersection of Haight & Stanyan. A vibrant neighborhood serving project will create what famous urban planner Jane Jacobs calls “more eyes in the streets”. With the mixture of both residents and neighborhood shoppers, it will become clear that illicit activities will no longer be welcome here. It has obviously reached a boiling point as Cole Valley Improvement Association (CVIA) & the local Supervisor, Ross Mirkarimi, initiated a task force, made up of residents, city representatives and people from community organizations aimed at cleaning up the area around Alvord Lake, a slice of green at the end of Haight Street that is this neighborhood's gateway to Golden Gate Park. The area has become a magnet for drug users and homeless kids, according to police and neighbors. We feel this project will help combat this ongoing issue in the neighborhood.
Recently within San Francisco, there has been a rash of grocery store closings negatively affecting convenience for residents, the economic state of the neighborhoods and the environment by causing shoppers to drive in search of their groceries: even more full-service grocery stores are rumored to be close to closure. Full line grocery stores are in danger of becoming a thing of the past in urban areas – slowly becoming exiled to the suburbs. As such, city residents are forced to shop at smaller, more expensive markets with less selection and quality. Full line grocery stores provide a much needed focal point for a community and allow shoppers to get everything they need quickly and conveniently. A failure of the City of San Francisco, its politicians and its residents to back a project such as this one to the hilt expedites suburban sprawl.