A silver lining: Rincon Hill highrise scrapped

A lot of people are going to be hurt by the market meltdown and the recession, but the City of San Francisco is going to be better off now that the huge, destructive development projects okayed by Supervisor Mirkarimi and our progressive Board of Supervisors are in financial trouble. We are happy to learn from SF Curbed that a Rincon Hill highrise project has been suspended due to a lack of financing.

The awful Market and Octavia Plan, too, is likely to be scrapped, along with the 40-story highrises planned for Market and Van Ness. We can only hope that UC's plan to trash a state and national landmark on lower Haight Street for a massive housing development will also be stopped. The long-range problem, however, is that these projects have already been approved by the Board of Supervisors and will be revived as soon as the financial situation improves.

Supervisor Mirkarimi talks about how he is "standing shoulder-to shoulder with working families of San Francisco," but his voting for projects like Rincon Hill---luxury highrise condos--only accelerates gentrification in a city that needs affordable housing. Nor does his support for Critical Mass benefit the city's working people, unless you think making it harder for them to get home from work on the last Friday of every month is helpful.

(Ross's smarmy TV ad can be seen here.)