Gays in SF: Just another special interest group
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| Photo: Rick Gerharter |
For all the talk about rainbow coalitions, gays in San Francisco are becoming just another special interest group, like the Bicycle Coalition or the Chamber of Commerce. Witness the push by the LBGT community to collaborate with a predatory UC to turn the old Extension site on lower Haight Street into a massive housing development---450 housing units on less than six acres. What's in it for them? More than 100 housing units for elderly gays.
Never mind that UC lied about why it stopped providing night classes for working people on the site.
Never mind that the property the city is allowing UC to privatize to fatten its bottom line has been reserved for "public use" for more than 150 years. UC has had the property tax-free from the city for more than 50 years only because of its education "mission."
Instead of allowing UC to use the property for its own gain, the city should have gone to court to take the property back for the people of San Francisco as soon as UC abandoned its education "mission" way back in 2004.
Never mind that it's a dumb idea to add more than a thousand new residents to an area that's already gridlocked most of the day with all the freeway traffic on Octavia Blvd. only a block away from the site.
City progressives, led by Supervisor Mirkarimi, have been instrumental in allowing the sell-out on a project that's going to trash a national and a state landmark.
Labels: History, Housing in the City, Octavia Blvd., Ross Mirkarimi, UC Extension
posted by Rob Anderson @ 11:40 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
The irony is that openhouse--an organization devoted to the aging, has conspired with UC/AF Evans/the current developer appointee to destroy Richardson Hall annex--an OLDER but beautiful part of the extension complex, which was named to Historical Register. Shame on you openhouse! You could have at least compromised by going with an alternative plan put forth by a local architect who placed your 8 story tower near the middle of the development. Instead the existing proposal puts your building directly opposite two 7 story buildings, which on 2 lane Laguna St. will create a canyon.
Even more shameful has been the efforts of our "progressive" political leadership that's allowed UC to hijack the property. All the supervisors had to do was refuse to give UC the zoning change it needed for this project. Instead, they came out with a lot of flim-flam about affordable housing, which is nothing but bullshit.
And our gay chauvinist leadership---Dufty, Ammiano, Leno, et al---has been pushing this project against the interests of the rest of the city because this awful project includes housing for gay seniors. That makes the city's gay community into just another special interest group, like the unions, the bike Nazis, and the dog people.
Supervisor Mirkarimi deserves a special mention for his typically dumb, spineless leadership on the project. He also pushed the Market/Octavia Plan and praised the chronic traffic jam called Octavia Blvd. It will take generations to undo the damage Mirkarimi has done to San Francisco as a supervisor.
Even more shameful...
"Rob Anderson did not ask my permission before he stole my photo and used it. He complains (and rightly so) about UC's bad faith, but he has no problem stealing a photo from a working photographer. Is that bad faith? I've asked him to show some good faith and remove the photo now."
-- Rick Gerharter
I haven't heard from Gerharter yet, unless this second-hand message is supposed to suffice. I gave him credit for the photo and even linked to his website, which surely generated him extra traffic.
You can't assume that because it's a bike lane you don't have to do an EIR, and you can't assume a professional photographer will accept an attribution as payment.
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