What was the impetus for ENCHIA?
Like many metropolitan areas, San Francisco contends with multiple, and often competing, interests and needs when it makes decisions regarding economic and land use development. Ideally, City decisions will strike the right balance among social, economic, and environmental interests. In order to do this, the public health effects of planning decisions should be included as considerations by policy makers. The underlying aim of most public policies, laws and institutions, particularly those concerned with land use, transportation, and the environment, are to protect and promote public health and welfare. For example, the stated purpose of the San Francisco Planning Code is “….to promote and protect the public health, safety, peace, morals, comfort, convenience and general welfare…” ENCHIA aimed to complement the scope of issues being considered in the Eastern Neighborhoods planning process based on the experience of the Department of Public Health and community organizations in respondi
