Quote:
Originally Posted by RST500
The heights are a little awkward. The two supertalls make the others look small in comparison. Is that the final skyline or is there still space for more?
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I kind of agree. Of course there is room for more, including another site zoned for 700' (to the roof, not including crown/spire), which has no proposal yet, so isn't included in the rendering. It would be directly south of the transbay terminal. Unfortunately, every spot zoned above 600' is right next to the transbay terminal, which is cool in terms of density, but does make the overall skyline a bit more awkward than if those taller buildings were spread out more, IMO.
The reason it was planned like that was to appease NIMBYs who may have otherwise flipped out about blocked views of the bay/east bay hills, and/or shadow impact on nearby plazas, no matter how minimal. To risk really pissing of the wealthy NIMBYs who care about that is to risk some stupid height limit/construction limit stuff getting passed, as has been proven multiple times in the past...most recently just a year ago, when said NIMBYs ran a giant anti-development propaganda campaign in order to get a tiny 11 story building killed at the ballot, because it would have blocked some of their views and would have replaced their precious tennis club (never mind that half the NIMBY view-complainers live in highrises themselves, or in the case of Boston Properties, own multiple highrises in SF, including the city's new tallest tower...it was mostly about preserving a few views and some property value). They got their way through a combination of voter apathy, and by confusing many of those who
did vote with claims of fighting evil developers and saving our parks and waterfront or whatever, and now any waterfront height increase needs a city-wide vote (so it's never going to happen). SF is in a situation where NIMBYism is way less strong than it was 20 or 30 years ago, as is proven by all the new highrise construction that hasn't been opposed as horrible "manhattanization", but there are still plenty of NIMBYs who are just waiting to go apeshit the second the shadow allowance on Union Square gets exceeded by 0.00001%.
edit: though it still is an awesome skyline. 10 years ago, I never would have thought all of that would get built.
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