Public Works highlights permits portal launch, youth wellness center and audit finding

Public Works Director Carla Short used the commission's Feb. 12 meeting to highlight recent department work, including the Jan. 29 launch of a new online permits portal, progress on neighborhood facilities for unhoused young adults, and positive results from a state audit.

"We went live with our public works permits portal" Short said, noting the initial launch covered four of Public Works' most-used permits: street space permits, sidewalk repair permits, right-of-way conformity inspections, and temporary occupancy permits. She said those four permit types account for roughly 62 percent of the department's annual permit volume and that the portal will allow applicants to apply, track status, and collaborate online.

Short also announced the opening of a Transitional Age Youth Health and Wellness Center at 888 Post Street, a roughly 10,000-square-foot facility offering showers, laundry, secure storage, a small clinic, computer workstations and an outdoor pet area targeted to unhoused adults ages 18 to 27. She cited the city's 2024 point-in-time count showing more than 1,100 unhoused young adults in the city as context for the program.

Short highlighted a state compliance audit of the Third Street Bridge rehabilitation project, saying state auditors "found that the project costs were allowable, adequately supported by accounting records and source documents, and in compliance with relevant criteria," and that the audit resulted in "0 audit findings." She also noted the 6th Street Pedestrian Safety Project received a complete-streets award from the County Engineers Association of California.

Short announced that Deputy Director Alaric de Grafenreid will leave Public Works at the end of the week for a role as director of compliance at the SFMTA Office of Civil Rights and thanked him for his service. She also invited volunteers to the department's neighborhood beautification day on Feb. 14 and summarized staff-led Black History Month activities.

Questions from commissioners during and after the report clarified that the new TAY center is a voluntary, walk-in facility run in partnership with the Department of Homelessness and Supportive Housing and local nonprofit GLIDE, and that the permits portal has not yet been fully integrated with the broader citywide PermitSF system.

Short provided a website for the permits portal and said the department would gather user feedback as the system expands.