Aaron Peskin: Mr. Highrise

C.W. Nevius is right that Aaron Peskin isn't the only reason the condo tower on Washington Street was rejected by the Board of Supervisors, since, as he points out, the vote was 10-0. But he gets it wrong when he calls Peskin "an unapologetic foe of development who earned his stripes fighting new projects." 

In fact Peskin supported the highrises on Rincon Hill, the Market/Octavia Plan (at least three 40-story highrises at Market and Van Ness) and even UC's hijacking of the old Extension property on lower Haight Street for a massive housing development to fatten that predatory institution's bottom line. Housing development is so much more profitable than providing night classes for working people.

The UC project is particularly egregious, since the site and the buildings are a state and a national landmark that's going to be trashed by a 450-unit housing development on a six-acre property a block off the perpetually gridlocked Octavia Blvd. (Supervisor Mirkarimi earns a Dishonorable Mention on both the M/O Plan and the UC travesty, since he was point man for both projects on behalf of our aggressively pro-development Planning Department. And of course he voted for the Rincon Hill highrise condos.)

As I've pointed out before, the main thing Peskin didn't like about the Washington Street tower is that it was too close to low-rise North Beach where he lives.

San Francisco Magazine kisses Peskin's ass.