No more skyscrapers for San Francisco?

[bossabreezes]

Originally Posted by Omaharocks

I'd agree with this. Build build build is a worthwhile strategy in places that aren't an international magnet for scenery, climate, architecture, and economy.

The built environment essentially can't be improved in San Francisco. So I don't fault people for wanting to keep it the way it is - if you build a ton of ugly-ass 2020's apartment complexes, you risk losing some of what makes the area special, but people are still going to crowd in and pay high prices, because they want to be there.

There are ways to fix this issue, but they involve major political changes at the national level. They are not solvable for SF at the local level.

Disagree strongly. SoMA could be massively up zoned. This doesn't mean all 60 story buildings either, it means more density. Also, all neighborhoods SoMa southward along the bay could house hundreds of thousands of new residents if there was less burocracy in residential development. I'm talking about Bayview, the under utilized formally industrial areas, ect. https://www.google.com/maps/place/San+Fr...f076adff!8m2!3d37.7749295!4d-122.4194155

These neighborhoods hold little historical value and could really become something if allowed to.

Otherwise, I agree that other parts of the city should be preserved as they are extremely unique and beautiful. Dont touch Nob Hill, Pac Heights or the Castro, please.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

These neighborhoods hold little historical value and could really become something if allowed to.

Exactly locals go ballistic over bs nostalgia.

Oakland is even worse than SF in this regard imo.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by craigs

Yet when we acknowledge your point and say "San Francisco isn't for everyone," we get trolled for being "elitists" and all sorts of other negative things by the usual SF antagonists. "How dare you not remake your city to be everything to everyone, what a FAILURE!"

It's similar to when we correctly note that the city has high prices because of strong competition among people who still want to live and work here, we're told we are "fine with outrageous costs" and "don't care about problems x, y, and z," etc.

When we can't even acknowledge facts like these about our own city, lest we get trolled by the usual suspects from faraway, a lot of us get annoyed. Some people seem intent on only pushing a relentlessly negative and intellectually dishonest agenda against SF, usually rooted in partisan politics and culture war. It's even more annoying when it's coming from some momma's boy who has never worked a 60+ hour week or paid his own damn rent (not talking about you here).

I don't think anyone is elitist by saying that "San Francisco isn't for everyone" as long as the context isn't douchy, of course.

I don't think people in SF are fine with the costs. I do bet there are many homeowners who don't mind it, though.

Look, you guys are insanely lucky in many ways- Incredible natural setting, beautiful city, and an economy most places would die for. Unfortunately, those great things have caused not so great things to happen though.

[mhays]

You can't build enough to make it cheap, but you can sure as hell build enough to make it substantially cheaper.

Especially if development costs are reduced by the city. And especially if other jurisdictions do their part. Infill covering a tiny fraction of the area would do wonders.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by dimondpark

Exactly locals go ballistic over bs nostalgia.

Oakland is even worse than SF in this regard imo.

My favorite is the nostalgia over the SIGN at a tire shop:

Tenderloin’s Philosophical Tire Shop Sign Has Met the End of the Line
Dubbed by Herb Caen as “the City’s largest fortune cookie,” the ever-quoting tire shop marquee at Turk and Larkin Streets will be taken down and replaced by housing.

It is with a sad heart that we inform readers of the impending demise of the intellectual quote-slinging sign at the Tenderloin’s Kahn and Keville automotive body and tire shop, as reported by NBC Bay Area. After a long struggle with accepting the Trump presidency, the marquee sign will pass away in the weeks or months to come, surrounded by loved ones, admirers, and bewildered passersby. The sign was 63 years old.

. . . the location was purchased by the Tenderloin Neighborhood Development Corporation (TNDC) in 2016. TNDC recently pulled the final funding necessary from the state, and will soon break ground on a 108-unit affordable housing complex scheduled to be completed in the next year or two.

And they are keeping the sign! According to NBC Bay Area, TNDC plans to “incorporate the sign inside the lobby of its new affordable housing building to continue to display changing messages for its residents.” The station also notes TNDC plans “to install some sort of digital sign on the corner in homage to the original” . . . .

https://sfist.com/2019/12/27/tenderloins-philosophical-tire-shop-sign-has-met-the-end-of-the-line/

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by craigs

Minor correction: we're talking here about San Francisco's Proposition E; this year's statewide Prop 13 would have paid for school construction and much-needed maintenance around the state. It appears to have failed.

Right-I had a minor facepalm moment there but I'm well familiar with the proposition we are talking about. The two props have something in common though: I voted against both.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

I'm no genius, however, wouldn't restricting office space just make affordability worse and worse?

San Francisco will always be an important city, but this could cause lots of companies to decide to set up shop in Oakland instead. Which is great for Oakland, but SF can (and still should) handle more development. Both office and residential.

Yes its the same reason why rent control is always a failure.

You wont stop the demand, youll just restrict supply thus drive up cost.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

My favorite is the nostalgia over the SIGN at a tire shop:


https://sfist.com/2019/12/27/tenderloins-philosophical-tire-shop-sign-has-met-the-end-of-the-line/

Its not just San Francisco, you wouldnt believe the people in Phoenix desperate to preserve anything old even if its trash just because there isnt much old in the city.

We actually have residents and business owners upset that a neighborhood north of downtown that was LITERALLY either abandoned or full or meth houses 15 years ago is now gentrified.

Pining for the glory days that never were, its idiotic and half the time Im the bad guy saying "Do we really need to preserve a 1950's care dealership building? Is this really "historic" enough to prevent development?"

Apparently to some residents it is. We even have guys in the country club putting up signs to "stop the tower" over a 10 story condo that is a quarter mile from 20-30 story office towers.

Its madness.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Im the bad guy saying "Do we really need to preserve a 1950's care dealership building? Is this really "historic" enough to prevent development?"

Apparently to some residents it is.

SF has an entire preserved 20s/30s "auto row". Actually, several of the buildings were by famous architects of the day:

Here's one:

This one sold Packards

https://www.sfheritage.org/past-events/2014-semi-annual-meeting/

And this one Cadillacs:

https://noehill.com/sf/landmarks/nat2001001179.asp

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

SF has an entire preserved 20s/30s "auto row". Actually, several of the buildings were by famous architects of the day:

Here's one:

This one sold Packards

https://www.sfheritage.org/past-events/2014-semi-annual-meeting/

And this one Cadillacs:

https://noehill.com/sf/landmarks/nat2001001179.asp

ours did not look like that I promise you.

[craigs]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Yes its the same reason why rent control is always a failure.

You wont stop the demand, youll just restrict supply thus drive up cost.

If newly constructed apartments fell under rent control, you'd be right. However, San Francisco's rent control applies only to apartments constructed before 1977, so it plays no role in new construction.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by craigs

If newly constructed apartments fell under rent control, you'd be right. However, San Francisco's rent control applies only to apartments constructed before 1977, so it plays no role in new construction.

I was saying in general not whatever San Francisco's specific plan is. Rent control never accomplishes its goal of maintaining affordability, it does for a handful of people but the prices overall continue to climb as fewer landlords will participate in the rental market.

[mhays]

Rent control moves a group of low-income people ahead of others in the low-middle range. The latter get screwed.

(The ranges are different in SF of course, and not all the favored group actually have low incomes.)

[simms3_redux]

I read page 1 of comments. I just lived in SF for 7 years (and recently moved away for a million reasons, not all of them SF related but many of them wholly SF related) and worked in commercial real estate there (private equity/development). I have moved away and while there are aspects of that city I absolutely miss, I agree with Chris08876 on his points made on page 1.

In fact, I'm still fairly emotionally invested in the city, and its commercial real estate, which is why I'm bothering to post, but the politics in that city have me so steamed that I just cannot even anymore.

That city is the blind leading the blind. I just cannot even any more. Good luck to it and its people and may patience, extra extra extra patience, reach its populace who see the world through similar lens as I do. Many other cities (including the one I moved to) are not as much "on fire" as SF is (in terms of global economy etc), but many many other cities are actually benefiting from SF pointing a gun to its own head. SF will suffer its own consequences and they are starting to bear.

It's the same crazed mentality that makes housing and real estate in general there so tricky to navigate as the mentality that gets Chesa Boudin elected to DA. In my opinion, it's literal insanity. I don't care whether it's the kind of insanity that you see "on the streets" there, or the insanity coming from your SF friends on social media, or the insanity in laws/propositions that get passed that make solving the very problems plaguing that city that much harder to combat (real estate related included), but it's insanity.

How about Prop D on Super Tuesday that penalized local landlords for having vacancies by taxing them? Literal insanity. It's a slew of other [mostly local] laws/[propositions] passed over the years and a slew of macroeconomic (and local cost-of-living) conditions and changes that have resulted in more retail vacancies around town. Let's add another tax and make it HARDER to own/operate real estate in the city. That's the SF political way and they happen to think their ideology and solutions are the best and that everyone else is a dolt.

Over it.

[dimondpark]

Originally Posted by Pedestrian

My favorite is the nostalgia over the SIGN at a tire shop:


https://sfist.com/2019/12/27/tenderloins-philosophical-tire-shop-sign-has-met-the-end-of-the-line/

Omg that is sooo stupid.

Oakland's old former Broadway Auto Row is being redeveloped into high density housing but developers had to incorporate the old brick(totally unremarkable) facades of the old storefronts and Im like, for what? Its shit.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by simms3_redux

I read page 1 of comments. I just lived in SF for 7 years (and recently moved away for a million reasons, not all of them SF related but many of them wholly SF related) and worked in commercial real estate there (private equity/development). I have moved away and while there are aspects of that city I absolutely miss, I agree with Chris08876 on his points made on page 1.

In fact, I'm still fairly emotionally invested in the city, and its commercial real estate, which is why I'm bothering to post, but the politics in that city have me so steamed that I just cannot even anymore.

That city is the blind leading the blind. I just cannot even any more. Good luck to it and its people and may patience, extra extra extra patience, reach its populace who see the world through similar lens as I do. Many other cities (including the one I moved to) are not as much "on fire" as SF is (in terms of global economy etc), but many many other cities are actually benefiting from SF pointing a gun to its own head. SF will suffer its own consequences and they are starting to bear.

It's the same crazed mentality that makes housing and real estate in general there so tricky to navigate as the mentality that gets Chesa Boudin elected to DA. In my opinion, it's literal insanity. I don't care whether it's the kind of insanity that you see "on the streets" there, or the insanity coming from your SF friends on social media, or the insanity in laws/propositions that get passed that make solving the very problems plaguing that city that much harder to combat (real estate related included), but it's insanity.

How about Prop D on Super Tuesday that penalized local landlords for having vacancies by taxing them? Literal insanity. It's a slew of other [mostly local] laws/[propositions] passed over the years and a slew of macroeconomic (and local cost-of-living) conditions and changes that have resulted in more retail vacancies around town. Let's add another tax and make it HARDER to own/operate real estate in the city. That's the SF political way and they happen to think their ideology and solutions are the best and that everyone else is a dolt.

Over it.

Holy crap. I just looked up that DA. Why do people think not dealing with "quality of life" issues is a good thing? That's the type of shit that will get regular people like me to move to the burbs after a time.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

Holy crap. I just looked up that DA. Why do people think not dealing with "quality of life" issues is a good thing? That's the type of shit that will get regular people like me to move to the burbs after a time.

Pretty classic sweep under the rug mindset "we have no idea how to solve this so we'll ignore it"

Soviet factories that didn't hit their quotas, had their quotas retroactively reduced etc.

[craigs]

Now, I don't care who takes potshots at the new DA. He's an idiot.

[coyotetrickster]

Originally Posted by bossabreezes

Disagree strongly. SoMA could be massively up zoned. This doesn't mean all 60 story buildings either, it means more density. Also, all neighborhoods SoMa southward along the bay could house hundreds of thousands of new residents if there was less burocracy in residential development. I'm talking about Bayview, the under utilized formally industrial areas, ect. https://www.google.com/maps/place/San+Fr...f076adff!8m2!3d37.7749295!4d-122.4194155

These neighborhoods hold little historical value and could really become something if allowed to.

Otherwise, I agree that other parts of the city should be preserved as they are extremely unique and beautiful. Dont touch Nob Hill, Pac Heights or the Castro, please.

SOMA was recently upzoned with the Central SOMA plan. There are several large projects already approved, with the high profile One Vassar getting approval from planning the other week. Tishman Speyer has a two-tower residential development (two 40-story towers) planned along Townsend, near the ballpark. The Central SOMA plan strategically upzoned certain parcels up to 400 feet in the area and upzoned the default height to 85 feet, other corridors were approved for heights between 100 and 160 feet.

[Pedestrian]

Originally Posted by simms3_redux

the politics in that city have me so steamed that I just cannot even anymore.

That city is the blind leading the blind. I just cannot even any more.

So you're a big fan of Aaron Peskin, no doubt.