Residents Call for City, Developer to Proceed with Promised Rec Center Staircase

BY JESSICA ZIMMER

For almost a decade, residents have advocated for development of staircases from the point where 22nd Street turns onto Texas Street, next to The Landing at 1395 22nd Street, past the Potrero Hill Recreation Center, ending at the park entrance on 801 Arkansas Street. An abbreviated stairway at 22nd and Texas streets currently runs past The Landing and ends in a pile of dirt, unconnected to Missouri Street.

The hoped-for staircases would connect Dogpatch to Potrero Hill, giving Hill residents better access to the 22nd Street Cal Train station and Dogpatch inhabitants improved passage to the Recreation Center. In 2015, the stretch of envisioned staircases was termed “the Serpentine Steps,” because they’d follow the winding path of serpentine rock in the area.

“The one piece of staircase we currently have between 22nd Street/Texas Street, which leads to nowhere, is a deadend walkway that serves no one. The developers and the City need to fulfill their commitment to the community and finish the connection,” said Katherine Doumani, Dogpatch Neighborhood Association (DNA) president.

According to Rachel Gordon, San Francisco Department of Public Works (DPW) spokesperson, while DPW is responsible for the land on which the existing path traverses, the trail is an unmaintained “unaccepted street.” Unaccepted streets don’t meet requirements to be fully municipally adopted, including a minimum 40 feet right-ofway and roadway width of at least 26 feet from curb to curb. Although it’s a public right-of-way, the dirt path isn’t open to automobile traffic and has no sidewalks or drainage.

Gordon said DPW assigns responsibility for unaccepted rights-of-way based on the center line of the right-of-way.

“Consequently, adjacent owners are responsible to maintain to the center line of the right-of-way adjacent to their property. If an adjacent property owner or an independent third party seeks a permit to develop all or a portion of the unaccepted right-of-way with a stairway,

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