San Francisco retracts program to pay to reserve park's lawn areas amid outrage

City walks back test policy allowing reservations of areas of grass
costing upwards of $200 in Dolores Park after locals decry ‘invasion
of the techies’

Nicky Woolf and Julia Carrie Wong in San Francisco
Tuesday 24 May 2016 20.42 BST

San Francisco has been forced to walk back a new policy that would allow groups to pay to reserve areas of grass in the popular Dolores Park, in the latest controversy between the city’s wealthy gentrifiers and its poorer residents.

The test policy by the parks department, which began at the beginning of May and was supposed to last two months, had caused outrage among local residents. The cost to rent a grass area for “permitted picnics” would have been between $33 and $260, depending on the size of the group.

“It’s the invasion of the techies,” said Ken, who declined to give his last name but who said he had been coming to Dolores Park since 1977. “This park has become a techie playground … with (Mark) Zuckerberg’s house looming above us.”

David Noble, a musician and social worker who was in the park on Tuesday morning for a work meeting – a meeting for which they had not reserved a space – said that the policy was “just not very San Francisco … it doesn’t sit right with me.”

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