"Smart growth" coming to the avenues

While it looks for a new editor, SFStreetsblog maintains its dumb "smart growth" attitude. In its Todays Headlines feature the other day, Streetsblog sneered at people in the avenues worried about City Hall's development plans for their neighborhoods:

Yawn…NIMBYs in S.F. complain that their neighborhood is “different” and high-density housing doesn’t belong (Examiner)

From the Examiner's story:

The Affordable Housing Bonus Program would apply to some 30,850 parcels in San Francisco, primarily in areas zoned as neighborhood districts where commercial use is either required or permitted on the ground floor, with residential units above. Projects that develop at least five units of housing would benefit from the program.

Incentives for developers would include taller height limits — ­up to an additional two stories — and increased density for building 30 percent of the homes on­-site as below-market-rate...Taller buildings, however, did not sit well with residents at the meeting, who argued oceanfront property along the Great Highway is ripe for developers who want to take advantage of the program.

Supervisor Tang tried to reassure people:

Tang emphasized that it’s highly unlikely a wall of developments will rise along the water anytime soon. “All of the sudden, we’re going to get these seven­-story buildings on the beach ­— that is very unrealistic,” Tang said.

Maybe not "anytime soon," but the relentless development machine is in motion, thanks to Tang and City Hall.

Tang is already on record in support of a lot more development both in the Sunset and the Richmond Districts, which was reported last year (See also her bloated Sunset District plan). 

The densification of the western portion of San Francisco can only be done by bulldozing existing buildings, since there aren't many vacant lots in that part of town. Developers would presumably buy up existing low-rise buildings, demolish them, and then build a taller building on the property.

George Wooding in the Westside Observer on City Hall's dense development policies.

Streetsblog hated it when "nimbys" in Marin objected to "smart growth" after the Wincup housing fiasco.