Another Fox Plaza tower?
A scary idea from the We Need Housing movement: a second tower for condos at Fox Plaza. (Examiner editorial). Another tower will make that area and that property exactly twice as ugly as it is now, and it's already one of the ugliest buildings in the city. Fox Plaza is so ugly that when Starbucks moved in recently it improved the look of that property.
Labels: Examiner, Highrise Development, Housing in the City
posted by Rob Anderson @ 7:07 PM
4 comments
4 Comments:
It isnt an idea that was born out of what you call the "we need housing movement"
The site is entitled for two towers and there were always plans to build another when the market could support it.
I'm curious, if the new tower was shorter and didnt block any views - would you still be against it?
Are you just against adding any large amount of housing to SF?
"Entitled" by who, when? There's more at stake here than obstructing views. There are purely aesthetic considerations, as in the Fox Plaza monstrosity. And building condos for the rich---a new variation on the Trickle Down theory---doesn't directly address the city's affordable housing crisis. It's not rich people who are having trouble finding affordable housing in SF. The "market" will always accommodate developers and people with money, as long as they can get the city's political leadership to go along, as it did at Rincon Hill. If Chris Daly---and the Board of Supervisors and, alas, the Mayor---were genuinely progressive they wouldn't have allowed the Rincon Towers at all, since its main effect will be to increase gentrification in the city. The We Need Housing movement ignores the potential problems associated with increased population density, including pressure on an already-stressed Muni. We now have around 800,000 people living in SF. How many more can the city accommodate before it becomes a place we don't recognize? The assumption seems to be that the more people living in the city the better. How cozy we will all presumably be, strolling along our newly "vibrant" streets and/or riding our bikes (because the We Need Housing folks are often allied with the city's bike fanatics, who insist on limiting the parking spaces provided for new housing units).
Thanks, but you didnt answer any of my questions.
And you didn't answer mine. No, I don't support condos for the rich to address the city's affordable housing problem. The city's pell-mell rush to produce housing is producing bad planning decisions. I'm against large housing projects anywhere in the city. We need to encourage smaller projects to retain the city's quality of life.
Are there any large housing developments on the Marina, in the Mission, on Pacific Heights, in the Castro? Of course not. To the extent these are attractive parts of town, the housing has been built on a much smaller scale than, say, Fox Plaza, or, God help us, Rincon Hill.
Post a Comment
<< Home