Get to Know the GBD: The Green Benefit District
Fallen Bridge park in Potrero Hill is one of several green spaces maintained by the Green Benefit District.
In our blog, we often highlight local organizations working to improve our neighborhood and support the businesses, makers and people of Dogpatch and Potrero Hill.
Recent newsletters highlighted the work of the Dogpatch Arts & Business Association (DABA) and the Dogpatch Neighborhood Association (DNA). This month, we turn the spotlight on the Green Benefit District (GBD).
If you’re new to Dogpatch or Potrero Hill, it might be easy to take for granted the sidewalk gardens lining 22nd Street, landscaped public spaces and pockets of green found throughout our neighborhoods. But before the GBD was established, there were fewer green spaces and limited resources dedicated to maintaining and improving them.
The Dogpatch & Northwest Potrero Hill Green Benefit District was formed and approved in July 2015. It was created to focus on parks, greening and public-realm improvements in a primarily residential neighborhood rather than a traditional commercial business district. Its work is funded through property-owner assessments, grants and donations.
Once a dirt parking lot, the Minnesota Street flyover is now a gathering space maintained by the GBD.
The GBD grew out of a grassroots effort by Dogpatch and Potrero Hill residents who wanted a better way to preserve, maintain and improve public spaces as the neighborhoods experienced significant growth and development.
Its neighborhood-driven model means that rather than relying solely on city resources, property owners collectively invest in the public spaces that contribute to the character and quality of life in Dogpatch and Northwest Potrero Hill.
Today, the GBD maintains and improves parks and landscaped areas, supports street trees and sidewalk gardens, cleans public spaces and develops projects designed to make Dogpatch and Potrero Hill greener and more inviting.
The organization is led by Executive Director and Dogpatch resident Donovan Lacey, who works closely with its locally elected, 15-member volunteer board to review the project pipeline and develop new ways to expand green spaces and improve the public realm.
“Over the last year the GBD has completed and brought online several of our most ambitious projects to date, including the Minnesota Street Flyover, the renovated Minnesota Grove and the Potrero Gateway,” said Lacey. “We have now turned our focus to our next set of projects including a native plant garden on Minnesota Street, improvements to the Dogpatch 22nd Street Underpass including lighting and public art, a living sound wall on San Bruno Avenue, string lights on the Dogpatch 22nd Street Commercial Corridor and major upgrades and expansions to our sidewalk garden program.”
“We invite the community to join our meetings, meet our Board members and our staff, propose a project and volunteer for a planting day,” Lacey continued.
Donovan Lacey executive director of the Green Benefit District sits on a park bench that he built on a slow street that he helped organize.
A Weekend in Dogpatch and Potrero Hill with Donovan
Need some inspiration for weekend fun in Dogpatch? We asked Donovan about his favorite way to spend a Saturday or Sunday in the neighborhood:
“I am generally in the neighborhood during the week making sure our green spaces and public open spaces are looking their best, so on the weekends I often head out of the neighborhood to our garden plot at the Connecticut Friendship Garden or ride my bike with my family to Heron’s Head Park or to the Ferry Building.
“You can often find me hanging out with friends and family at Standard Deviant, Long Bridge Pizza and the Connecticut Yankee. During the week we often pick up some tacos from the Street Meet Taco Truck and head over to one of the picnic benches at the new and improved Esprit Park.”
