The Recreation and Park Commission unanimously approved plans for a community garden at the site long home to a recycling center run by the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council.

The decision late Thursday night came after hours of public testimony during a City Hall hearing on the proposed conversion of the city-owned property next to Kezar Stadium in the southeast corner of Golden Gate Park.

HANC, as the group is known, has run the recycling center at the location for 36 years, and also operates a native plant nursery there.

Recreation and Park Department officials said that the advent of curbside recycling and the need to dedicate more space for increasingly popular community gardens bolstered their resolve to act.

”HANC’s time has run out and it’s time for us to have a community garden,” said Commissioner Tom Harrison, a retired park gardener.

City officials, during several mayoral administrations, have threatened to shut down the program. They say it is incompatible with the park, creates noise and serves as a magnet for the homeless and crime.

Mayor Gavin Newsom, in the waning days of his administration, is now prepared to issue a 90-day eviction notice aimed at closing down the recycling operation, although the nursery may be allowed to stay.

But HANC has a strong and vocal constituency on the city’s political left that has successfully beat back past talk of eviction, and isn’t giving up the fight now. ”It’s not over,” Richard Ivanhoe, the nonprofit group’s president, said after the vote. ”There’ll be a new mayor after Newsom leaves office next month.”

HANC supporters note that the Kezar operation employs 10 people — with good health benefits — and serves the community by buying back cans and bottles and providing a convenient drop-off program for other recyclable materials.

In other action Thursday, the commission, on a 6-1 vote with Commissioner David Lee opposed, approved a lease with Ortega Family Enterprises, a New Mexico company, to take over the boat-rental and food concession at Stow Lake in Golden Gate Park and oust the family that has run the operation for more than 65 years.

A grassroots campaign emerged to retain the current vendor and stop plans to remodel the aging boat house and add a cafe with food and beverage offerings more robust than the snacks now available.

The vote does not put an end to the controversy, however. The Board of Supervisors still must approve the lease, and the city’s Historic Preservation Commission may intervene, setting the stage for continued battle.