Committee recommends Board consider ordinance restricting sleeping and cooking in San Francisco parks

The Government Audit and Oversight Committee voted 2–1 on Dec. 5 to send an ordinance to the full Board of Supervisors that would amend San Francisco’s park code to prohibit creation of shelters, and to bar sleeping in parks during newly proposed overnight hours.

The ordinance, read into the record as Item 1, would amend park-code provisions (including section 3.13) to prohibit modification of park landscapes to create shelters and to prohibit sleeping in parks during the overnight period proposed in the bill. Ally Schlager, staff to the local homeless coordinating board, told the committee the local board reviewed the mayor’s initial ordinance and recommended three changes: keep the existing hours (10 p.m. to 6 a.m.) rather than expand them to 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. (a 4–2 vote); require explicit…