SAN FRANCISCO FINALLY has a new Planning Commission, and while the majority of the commissioners will be appointees of Mayor Willie Brown, the panel takes office with a clear and unequivocal mandate from the voters. A majority of the district-elected supervisors won in 2000 with campaigns emphasizing the problems with the developers-first attitude of Brown's city planners, and the passage of Proposition D last spring, which reconstituted the Planning Commission, was one of the new board's top priorities.

As Cassi Feldman reports on page 24, there's a real internal rebellion going on at the Planning Department too, with long-range planners trying to push more neighborhood-friendly policies. They're in the process of rewriting zoning regulations for South of Market, the Mission District, the Bayview, Visitacion Valley, and Showplace Square and are holding community meetings to get public input. The idea of this "community-based planning": Give the people who live and work in a neighborhood as much of a role in planning its future as the people who pour big money into development projects.

But Brown's handpicked planning director, Gerald Green, shows no sign of changing his politics. That attitude isn't going to work anymore. If the planning director and the new commissioners continue doing business as usual, they'll not only defy the will of the voters but also create a public outcry that will only lead to more dramatic changes in the makeup of the planning panel and the mayor's role in determining city planning policy.

The new Planning Commission needs to make clear from the start that it's heard the message the voters have sent. Among the things that ought to be at the top of the commission's agenda:

• Support community-based planning. The panel ought to direct Green to shift resources away from permitting work – essentially, approving new projects – and into long-term planning efforts. Sup. Jake McGoldrick has secured funding for several more staffers in that area, but the mayor hasn't released the money, and both the commission and the department need to be calling on Brown publicly to hand the money over and get those people hired. Neighborhood planning should be done to meet the needs of the neighborhoods, not the developers.

• Stop rubber-stamping projects. Virtually every major development that came before the last commission has had Green's backing and won approval, in many cases unanimously. Developers got the message: go through the mayor and get the planning director on board, and the commissioners will follow in lockstep. The new panel has to show its independence not only from the mayor but also from senior planning staff.

• Stop the backroom deals. The commission should direct Green to prepare and make public a log of all of his meetings with developers, including the topics of the meetings and who was present. Notes from those meetings, including preliminary proposals from developers, should be posted promptly on the department's Web site. As a first step, Green should be directed to rescind his order barring long range-planning staffers from attending meetings with developers.

• Show some respect for the public. Meetings of the Planning Commission have never been terribly user-friendly, and under Brown's commission anyone who showed up to oppose a developer was treated like an unwanted intruder. The new commission ought to meet regularly in the neighborhoods. There should be occasional evening meetings so working people can attend.

The new commissioners have to show right away that they've gotten the message from the voters: business as usual is over.