This day in history: August 6, 1945

Hiroshima

See also “Oppenheimer” ignites controversy in Japan.

"Devastating harm at magnitude never seen before"

From Scientific American:

....The performance of AI rests on exploitative labor practices, both domestically and internationally. And massive, opaque AI models that are fed problematic data often exacerbate existing biases in society—affecting everything from criminal sentencing and policing to health care, lending, housing and hiring. 

In addition, the environmental impacts of running such energy-hungry AI models stress already fragile ecosystems reeling from the impacts of climate change.

AI also promises to make potentially perilous technology more accessible to rogue actors. Last year researchers asked a generative AI model to design new chemical weapons. It designed 40,000 potential weapons in six hours. An earlier version of ChatGPT generated bomb-making instructions. 

And a class exercise at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently demonstrated how AI can help create synthetic pathogens, which could potentially ignite the next pandemic. 

By spreading access to such dangerous information, AI threatens to become the computerized equivalent of an assault weapon or a high-capacity magazine: a vehicle for one rogue person to unleash devastating harm at a magnitude never seen before....

See also Scorpions' Dance.

The man who read Oswald's mail

See also Scorpions' Dance by Jefferson Morley.

What's in a name---or a logo?

Twitter's old logo

Paul Krugman in today's NY Times:

....There’s a long-running debate among economists about why people are willing to pay a premium for name brands. Some emphasize ignorance — one influential study found that health professionals are more likely than the public at large to buy generic painkillers, because they realize that they’re just as effective as name brands....

What’s clear is that brand names that for whatever reason inspire customer loyalty have real value to the company that owns them and shouldn’t be changed casually.

So what the heck does Elon Musk, the owner of TAFKAT — the app formerly known as Twitter — think he’s doing, changing the platform’s name to X, with a new logo many people, myself included, find troubling?

....Google renamed itself Alphabet, presumably to convey to investors its aspiration to be more than a search engine, but the search engine itself is still named Google. 

Philip Morris renamed itself Altria, presumably in part to diminish its perceived association with lung cancer, but its customers still smoke Marlboros.

Changing product names is more problematic, because it risks losing customer loyalty, so it tends to happen only when there’s a real problem with the existing name.

....So what was wrong with Twitter as a brand name? Nothing, as far as I can tell. It was friendly-sounding and a bit funny, and resonated with the role of the platform as a place for people to chatter about a variety of subjects. 

The Twitter logo was also fine — distinctive, instantly recognizable and without any obvious negative connotations.

But Musk has nonetheless ditched all of that in favor of X, a harsh-sounding name with no relationship to what the platform does....

So what was Musk thinking with his renaming of TAFKAT?

Well, everything we know suggests that he basically wasn’t thinking. For some reason he has always had a thing about the letter X — his rocket company is SpaceX and he tried to get PayPal to rename itself X.com, and was ousted as C.E.O. immediately afterward, perhaps because his colleagues thought it sounded like, yes, a porn site. 

And that awful logo didn’t go through the usual design process (Twitter’s bird logo evolved over seven years). It was casually outsourced — he asked his followers to suggest symbols and chose one he liked.

But then, Musk’s sudden change of brand name and symbol, without a clear rationale, fits the pattern of everything else he’s done at TAFKAT.

He clearly suffers from a severe case of Tech Bro Syndrome, that weird combination of hubris and conspiracy theorizing so prevalent in his social set. 

He accused Twitter of censoring conservatives, ignoring the reality that in a MAGA-ridden nation any attempt to limit the spread of dangerous misinformation will hit the right harder than the left. 

He purchased Twitter in the belief that his personal brilliance could easily make the company profitable, no need for hard thinking about business strategy....

See also Elon Musk’s Quixotic Quest to Turn X Into an ‘Everything App’ and Elon Musk and the weird history of Brand X

Rob's comment:

Krugman probably remembers the schoolyard taunt: If you're so smart, why aren't you rich? See the New Yorker profile of Musk's lawyer who's getting rich because he's smart: How Alex Spiro Keeps the Rich and Famous Above the Law.

Old liberals like us might also remember that Costa-Gavras movie with a one-letter title that has a disquieting contemporary resonance.

Barbie in the pink

Anthony Lane on the Barbie movie:

"Watching the first half hour of this movie is like being waterboarded by Pepto-Bismol."

Barbies

Daily Kos

An electric bike/scooter hazard: Battery fires

In today's NY Times:

Batteries in E-Bikes and Other Devices Are Sparking Fires in San Francisco

Two people jumped out of an apartment complex window in the Tenderloin neighborhood of San Francisco to escape a fire that was spreading in their unit on Monday. One of them was seriously injured and taken to a hospital burn center, officials said.

That terrifying blaze was probably caused by an overheated e-scooter battery that firefighters later spotted plugged in to a charger near the unit’s front door, according to Capt. Jonathan Baxter, a spokesman for the San Francisco Fire Department. 

It was the 24th fire in San Francisco this year that has been linked to rechargeable batteries, he told me.

The city isn’t alone. Fires associated with rechargeable batteries have had a devastating effect in New York City, ripping through buildings including public housing complexes and luxury towers — and have killed more than 20 people there since 2021.

“Fortunately, we’re not seeing it to that same degree here in San Francisco,” Baxter told me. “However, one fire is one too many.”

Battery-related fires have increased steadily in San Francisco as e-bikes and e-scooters have proliferated in recent years. 

According to the Fire Department, there have been 202 battery fires in the city since 2017, killing one person and injuring eight. Fifty-eight of them broke out last year, up from 13 in 2017, and this year is on a pace to equal or exceed 2022.

The figures include fires linked to rechargeable batteries used in e-scooters and e-bikes (the most common culprits) as well as electric cars, motorcycles and skateboards....

Later: Police blow off cyclist struck by wrong-way scooter.

Origin story: How Jeff the Cyclist became Jef the Cyclist

 

Regrets in the Mission

‘We regret this bike lane:’ SF cyclist adds new signs on Valencia Street

Three months into construction on Valencia Street’s center bikeway, one daily commuter who could no longer stand the controversial bike path and its convoluted signs swapped them out with ones of her own making.

At noon Thursday, nine signs appeared on different sections of the bikeway, all covering the construction signs already in place. Each sign contained a phrase expressing displeasure: “LOL IDK how you will merge,” one sign reads.

“Uh, good luck turning right,” reads another one.

And the prankster’s favorite: “We regret this bike lane.”

The prankster said in a telephone interview that she made the signs because she finds the original signposts along the bike lane “pretty ridiculous.”

“They’re an obstruction to cyclists, and also extremely confusing,” she said. She asked to remain anonymous for fear of any consequences....

Barbie

Barbie on the brain

San Francisco: The headquarters city

Axios

Like bicycles, scooters are unsafe

Scooter safety campaign

From The San Francisco Standard:

San Francisco’s Electric Scooter Deaths and Injuries Shot Up Since Pandemic

by Eddie Sun

Fatal electric scooter incidents and injuries have shot up in San Francisco since the pandemic started in 2020, according to recently published data from the city.

According to the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA), which unveiled the statistics through its Vision Zero initiative earlier this week, scooter injuries jumped from 145 between 2017 and 2019 to 454 from 2020 to 2022—a 213% increase.

Deaths involving scooters went from zero between 2017 and 2019 to seven between 2020 and 2022, meaning all such fatalities were recorded since 2020, according to the SFMTA. (emphasis added)

Data collected by Vision Zero includes both privately owned and ride-share scooters.

These findings coincide with recent accounts of dangerous scooter incidents, including a scooter-bicyclist collision on Wednesday and a July 8 scooter crash that resulted in a pedestrian death. Both happened on Market Street in downtown San Francisco....

The uptick in the number of scooter-involved accidents occurred as ridership increased during the pandemic, according to a spokesperson for Lime, who said that the company recorded fewer than 135,000 rides before 2020, and almost 2.4 million rides since then....

See also Riding a bike is dangerous. Don't do it. Same for scooters.

The scooter safety graphic above: Why a rabbit instead of a child? Who do they think they're talking to?

Matt Davies

The Editor

The New Yorker:

....In a Paris Review interview, Caro said, “In all the hours of working on ‘The Power Broker,’ Bob[Gottlieb] never said one nice thing to me—never a single complimentary word, either about the book as a whole or about a single portion of the book. That was also true of my second book, ‘The Path to Power,’ the first volume of the Johnson biography. 

But then he got soft. When we finished the last page of the last book we worked on, ‘Means of Ascent,’ he held up the manuscript for a moment and said, slowly, as if he didn’t want to say it, ‘Not bad.’ ” 

Heather Knight held "the powerful to account"?

Liz Hafalia/The San Francisco Chronicle

“It is always surprising when someone ascends to the heights that Heather did,” the Chronicle's director of news, Demian Bulwa, announced the move in an internal message to newsroom staff. “She used individual stories to hold the powerful to account. And she made a difference.”

She "made a difference," but not always a good difference: Heather Knight comes unglued, Heather Knight sells the city's phony emergency, Heather Knight and the Big Lie about the pandemic.

Richmond Review/Sunset Beacon

Opposition to turning the city into Highriseville

Proposed 98 Franklin Street highrise

FROM:

Mary Miles

Attorney at Law

364 Page St., #36

San Francisco, CA 94102

TO:

Angela Calvillo, Clerk of the Board and

Members of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors

BY E-MAIL TO: bos@sfgov.org; Angela.Calvillo@sfgov.org

BOS JULY 18, 2023 AGENDA ITEM 55: Proposed Ordinance allowing amendment of Planning Code, Zoning Maps, and statutory requirements for affordable housing; adopting material changes in height and land use; affirming Planning Department’s CEQA determination and finding of consistency with General Plan and Planning Code secs. 101.1 and 302;

AND

AGENDA ITEM 62: Development Agreement between Supervisor Dean Preston, Mayor’s Office of Housing, and 98 Franklin, LLC, and waivers

BOS FILES 221163 (Development Agreement) AND 221164 (98 Franklin Street Project)

PUBLIC COMMENT OPPOSING APPROVAL OF THE 98 FRANKLIN STREET PROJECT; OPPOSING THE PROPOSED DEVELOPMENT AGREEMENT; OPPOSING A 400-PLUS FOOT HIGHRISE WITH NO AFFORDABLE HOUSING AT 98 FRANKLIN STREET; OPPOSING ADOPTION OF CEQA FINDINGS AND FINDINGS OF CONFORMITY WITH THE GENERAL PLAN AND THE PLANNING CODE; OPPOSING WAIVING OF DEVELOPMENT FEES, STATUTORY AND CODE REQUIREMENTS; AND OPPOSING WAIVING AFFORDABLE HOUSING REQUIREMENTS

AND

DEMAND FOR RECUSAL OF SUPERVISOR DEAN PRESTON ON ALL FUTURE PROCEEDINGS ON THE 98 FRANKLIN STREET PROJECT

This Comment opposes ALL actions proposed under Agenda Item 55 and Agenda Item 62, including the proposed development of a 400-plus foot highrise at 98 Franklin Street with 385 MARKET RATE housing units with NO affordable units. (the “Project”) and the Development Agreement waiving affordable housing requirements and developer fees for the Project.

Please distribute this Comment to all Members of the Government Audit and Oversight Committee and the Board of Supervisors and place it in all relevant Board files.

The Project and its Development Agreement were brokered by Supervisor Dean Preston between the City and “98 Franklin, LLC.” The recently “amended” Project allows an increase in height from the original proposal to more than 400 feet, and adds 40 more market rate housing units, waiving zoning and Planning Code requirements and all requirements for affordable housing. (7/13/23 BOS Packet, Proposed Ordinance at 1(a).)

The height of the Project is so extreme that it will cast shadows more than one-half mile away on residential neighborhoods and the few tiny open spaces in the area. The Project would increase the serious traffic congestion and lack of parking in the the “Market-Octavia” Project area and the historic Civic Center employment and cultural hub.

The Project and Development Agreement waives nearly all the development fees under the Code and statutory requirements, including, but not limited to, developer fees required by the Market-Octavia project. Instead of more than $55 million in those fees, the Project requires only $1 million. 

Other development fees mandated by the Van Ness and Market Special Use District, the Market-Octavia Project and its Community Improvements Program, transportation and other developer fees mandated by City codes are also waived.

In return for those required code and windfall fee waivers, the Project described in the privately-negotiated Development Agreement initially gave the City a parcel located at 600 Van Ness Avenue (former McDonald’s site) allegedly for developing affordable housing, though neither the City nor the developer are required to fund any affordable development on that site or any other.

Unnoticed to the public, on June 16, 2023, the Developer’s lawyer and the Mayor’s Office of Housing (“MOH”) privately negotiated material changes that allow the developer to give the City a parcel at 600 McAllister Street, valued at $598,000, instead of the 600 Van Ness Avenue property. The 600 McAllister site is now a parking lot that is fully occupied providing parking for Civic Center workers and visitors to nearby cultural amenities and the courts.

The alleged CEQA review under the City’s 2008 Market-Octavia Project and its many amendments did not include, describe, analyze, or mitigate this unnoticed material change in the Project’s location and description. Therefore, the significant impacts and mitigation of the separate UNFUNDED “affordable” project is not analyzed in any document.

The Project and Development Agreement were negotiated by Supervisor Dean Preston. On July 10, 2023, Mr. Preston then presided over the Board’s Land Use Committee proceeding on the Project and moved to recommend its approval to the full Board. Mr. Preston’s advocacy and his private brokering of this deal with the developer clearly disqualify him from any future proceedings on the 98 Franklin Project and Development Agreement before this Board.

1. NO “Affordable” Housing Units Exist In This Project, Since NONE ARE FUNDED BY THE CITY OR THE DEVELOPER

The proposed Project is misleading, since there is NO commitment from the City to build any affordable housing on the “affordable housing” site at 600 McAllister Street.

Where is the evidence that any affordable housing will be built?

Nevertheless, under a misleading and unenforceable edict by the “Mayor’s Office of Housing” (“MOH”), the Project waives the statutory and Planning Code requirement for AFFORDABLE HOUSING.

The Project waives zoning, height, Market-Octavia, and Van Ness Special Use District inclusionary zoning requirements. The Project also waives MILLIONS in developer, transportation, and community improvement fees.

The Project and the Development Agreement should not be approved unless the “Affordable Housing Site” is completely funded, so that the affordable housing is available no later than the market rate units at 98 Franklin Street.

2. The Project Description And The Development Agreement Have Been Materially Changed Violating CEQA And Public Notice Requirements Under The Brown Act

Both the Project and the Development Agreement contain no accurate or adequate Project Description violating CEQA. The earlier Project description has been changed on the 98 Franklin high-rise, which has been expanded in height, density, units, and physical space occupied.

The Development Agreement has also changed the location of the unfunded “Affordable Housing,” its size, height, occupation density, and number of units, with more “studio” (one-room) apartments, and fewer one-bedroom apartments at 600 McAllister than at the former 600 Van Ness location. (Memo, July 7, 2023 from Budget and Legislative Analyst to GAO Committee.)

If the City contends this large Project has been addressed in the “Market-Octavia” or “Hub” documents, the Project’s changes require reevaluation with an up-to-date Project description, analysis, mitigation and alternatives. The change of location and density of the alleged “affordable housing site” does not comply with CEQA’s requirements of an accurate, stable and finite Project description.

The Project and the Development Agreement will clearly have significant direct, indirect, and cumulative impacts on transportation, parking, air quality, energy consumption, GHG, noise, public safety, and emergency services and evacuation.

The 600 McAllister location removes an existing parking lot for Civic Center travelers to jobs, cultural facilities, and the courts. Parking is now scarce throughout the Civic Center area with the City's underground parking garage often full.

The CEQA analysis and mitigation must take into account transportation and parking impacts, which it fails to do, and the Project and Development Agreement even waives developer transportation fees.

3. Waiving Affordable Housing Requirements, Height, And Development Fees Violates The Public Interest

The purpose of development fees is to mitigate impacts of large high-rise projects like 98 Franklin/660 McAllister, not claims of unfunded off-site “affordable” units to a different location from the Project. THE PUBLIC RECEIVES NOTHING FROM THIS PROJECT, SINCE THERE IS NO FUNDING FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING, only significant negative impacts on the environment from this oversized market-rate development.

The public is deprived of benefits such as transportation impacts mitigation, open space, and of course affordable housing.

4. The Development Fee Waivers Place A Disproportionate Burden On Those Paying Fees

By waiving development fees for the Project, the developer benefits from fees that are paid for other developments.

5. The “Market-Octavia” Zoning Requirements Have Again Been Waived

The Agreement’s waiver of millions in developer fees for only a promise of an “affordable housing” project is inadequate and typifies the Market-Octavia Project’s false promises. Residents of the “Market-Octavia” development now face traffic congestion, losing more than 10,000 parking spaces, vacant “ground floor retail" space, inadequate or nonexistent open space, no mitigation of transportation impacts, and, most importantly, the false promise of “affordable housing.”

One example: After 15 years, the promised full-service grocery store at 555 Fulton has NOT materialized, while Planning has issued one waiver after another and allowed a full block of condominiums to be sold without fulfilling the agreement that it passed by Ordinance in 2008.

To date, less than 10 percent of new housing constructed in the entire Market-Octavia Project area has been “affordable,” with high-rise, market-rate housing both contrary to promises and violating the inclusionary affordable housing REQUIRED BY THE PLANNING CODE.

The 98 Franklin Street Project and the fact that the City has allocated no mney to fund housing on the 600 McAllister “Affordable Housing Site” highlight the inadequacy of the Development Agreement.

6. The Lack Of An Accurate Project Description Requires Updated Analyses And Mitigation Of The Project’s And The Development Agreement’s Impacts.

The Project changes include the location of the “Affordable Housing Site” that has no funded affordable housing, the increase in the height and other physical characteristics of the proposed market rate 98 Franklin Street structure, and other changes that require at minimum a re-evaluation to comply with CEQA.

7. Supervisor Dean Preston Must Be Recused From All Deliberations On The 98 Franklin Street Project

Supervisor Preston must be recused from all proceedings on the 98 Franklin Street Project and Development Agreement, since he has held an insider’s private role with the developer in the planning and approval of the Project.

CONCLUSION

The Board should not approve the Development Agreement or the 98 Franklin Street Project.

Mary Miles

See also Manhattanizing San Francisco about other highrises the city.

The deal: Turkey gets F-16s, NATO gets Sweden

The deal between Turkey and NATO

This massive development will damage the city

From Socketsite:

Before...

and after...

50-story S.F. condo tower casts political shade

See also Manhattanizing San Francisco

and Save Our Neighborhoods:

A reminder

Kevin Drum reminds us of the primary source of pollution:

Opposing the nomination of Lydia So

Mayor Breed

FROM:

Mary Miles

Attorney at Law

San Francisco

TO:

Victor Young, Clerk, 

and Members of the 

San Francisco Board of Supervisors Rules Committee

BY E-MAIL TO: victor.young@sfgov.org

PUBLIC COMMENT OPPOSING NOMINATION OF LYDIA SO TO MTA BOARD OF DIRECTORS, RULES COMMITTEE AGENDA ITEM 2

[BOS FILE NO. 230755]

This Comment opposes the appointment of Lydia So to the Board of Directors of the Municipal Transportation Agency (“MTAB”). Please distribute this Comment to all Members of the Rules Committee and place it in all relevant Board of Supervisors files.

The MTA Board consists of seven directors appointed by the Mayor who control a two-billion-dollar annual budget and the transportation system of San Francisco.

The Charter requires that least four directors must be regular riders MTA’s transit. At least two must “possess significant knowledge of, or professional experience” in “the field of public transportation.” All directors must also have significant knowledge and/or experience in government finance or labor relations. (SF Charter, § 8A.102(a).)

According to her resume and other file documents, Ms. So would bring no transportation experience to the MTA Board.

The record shows only Ms. So’s advocacy for the “Better Market” bicycle project, a billion-dollar (including bonds) City Project, which has banned cars on Market Street from Octavia Blvd. to the Embarcadero, will remove existing trees and historic streetlamps, and will construct more bicycle lanes on new 40-foot-wide sidewalks on Market Street.

So advocates for “Vision Zero,” a project heavily lobbied for by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition (“SFBC”) and “Walk San Francisco” that receives millions in public funding to remove traffic lanes and street parking and create obstructions to driving on City streets, claiming 13% of those streets are in SFBC’s “high injury corridors.” Vision Zero is a slogan, not a credible safety project.

Those anti-car projects already receive millions from the MTA Board, while MTA Director Tumlin complains about a looming “fiscal cliff” caused by the Agency’s reckless deficit spending on anti-car projects like those that Ms. So supports.

Ms. So’s Form 700 shows that she is an affluent person who makes no claim of transit ridership as required by the Charter. Her private investments are not those of a typical transit rider. Further, her advocacy for bicycling and against cars does not represent the interests of City travelers.

As MTA’s data shows, bicycling is the travel choice of fewer than 3 percent of San Franciscans. (Corey, Canapary, & Galanis Research: SFMTA Travel Decisions Survey 2021 Summary Report, page 5; see also, “MTA, 4/19/22, Maia Moran, “How People Traveled Through San Francisco in 2021.”) Yet the lopsided MTA Board has unanimously supported that small special interest lobby with millions in bicycle and anti-car Projects such as “Better Market” and “Vision Zero.”

With a $2 billion per year budget, MTA complains that its own foolish expenditures have caused a “fiscal cliff” (deficit), while demanding additional state and City funding for more of the same.

Meanwhile, the state of San Francisco streets is among the worst of any city in the United States.

Why should the public support another unelected bicycle advocate on the MTA Board? IT SHOULD NOT! Objectivity is lacking in every MTA Board decision (nearly always unanimous) that ignores the vast majority of city residents, workers and visitors who travel in cars and trucks. 

The Ethics Code (CGC secs. 3.200 et seq.) requires objective representation, not another yes vote for anti-car, anti-people measures. Government decisions must be impartial and eliminate “both the actual and perceived undue influence, favoritism or preferential treatment.” (CGC, sec. 3.200(e).)

Work toward meeting that worthy goal by getting the MTA Board closer to the proportional representation of City travelers with members who will represent the vast majority of constituents that travel in vehicles.

Please reject the nomination of Lydia So to the MTA Board.

Mary Miles

Repugs have to be smashed at the polls next year

Photo: Damon Winter

Letter to the editor in today's New York Times:

Can the GOP reverse course?

To the Editor:

Finally, someone with stature addresses the “elephant” in the room. Liz Cheney sacrificed her congressional seat for principle. Why don’t the seasoned Republicans who likely will never seek office or an appointed political post again, and have nothing to lose, show some courage?

I think of: Olympia Snowe, Dan Quayle, George W. Bush, George Pataki, John Danforth, Pete Wilson, Elizabeth Dole, Kay Bailey Hutchison, Phil Scott, Christine Todd Whitman, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Chuck Hagel, Nancy Kassebaum, John Ashcroft, Dan Coats, William Cohen, Alfonse D’Amato, Jeff Flake, Bill Frist, Alan Simpson, Ted Olson, William Weld and a host of others.

J. Michael Luttig could not have put it better: “It’s finally time for [Republicans] to put the country before their party and pull back from the brink — for the good of the party, as well as the nation. If not now, then they must forever hold their peace.”

J.D. Rosin

San Francisco

Rob's comment:

No, it can't be done. Might as well ask the leopard to reject its spots. It's the base of the Republican Party that's the problem---the people that elected Trump in 2016 and have him leading for the 2024 nomination. 

That's why Liz Cheney couldn't get reelected.

What has to be done: decisively and totally reject the Republican Party in November, 2024.

Another Russian falls out a window

Daily Kos:

Gotta watch out for those dangerous Moscow windows.

This time it’s a Russian bank official. I’m sure there wasn’t any financial shenanigans involved in this....

Bill Bramhall

Proposed housing blocks playground sun

Letter to the editor in today's SF Chronicle:

Why S.F. supervisors are right to halt housing development near Chinatown

Regarding “After a fleeting moment of reason on housing, S.F. supes are back to chasing shadows” (Open Forum, SFChronicle.com, June 28): 

The recent decision by the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to require environmental review for a small townhome project near Chinatown is reasonable.

The project requires analysis because it would block sunlight from reaching a public park and would be built on a site that is contaminated with toxic chemicals, adjacent to one of the few playgrounds around Chinatown.

Unfortunately, Louis Mirante’s commentary ignores the subtleties of the issue and uses the supervisors’ decision as an excuse to smear the California Environmental Quality Act.

The area near the proposed development is populated largely by working people living in cramped spaces, often in just one room, and there are so many highrise buildings that sunlight is a rare commodity. 

Residents rely on the park for fresh air, sunlight and exercise.

CEQA is working exactly as planned. By requiring projects to mitigate their negative impacts, CEQA gives people like these residents a voice in land use decisions that affect them.

Supervisor Aaron Peskin explained that housing and natural resources (such as public parks) “are not mutually exclusive concepts, but they require care and consideration.” 

Let’s take the time to consider the nuances and get housing done right.

Hanmin Liu, director

Upper Chinatown Neighborhood Association 

San Francisco

Rob's comment:

"Halt" has become a ubiquitous single word cliche. What's wrong with plain old "stop"?

See also Is CEQA Preventing Housing from Being Built in California? and S.F. supervisors shelved townhome project because of shadows....

Manhatanizing San Francisco

One by the ocean, another in the Mission

In the SF Examiner:

Sunset skyscraper proposal has a sister tower in SoMa

by Andrew Fortin-Caldera

Designs have been revealed for a pair of residential skyscrapers proposed for construction in San Francisco, but both towers face long odds of being added to the The City's skyline.

The two mixed-use skyscrapers — one 50 stories tall and the other 47 stories tall — would be located in the Outer Sunset and SoMa districts, respectively, and offer San Franciscans about 1,200 new homes.

The taller of the two Solomon Cordwell Buenz-designed structures would sit at 2700 Sloat Blvd., iterating on a skyscraper the planning department rejected in April. 

The developer, CH Planning LLC [Nevada] promised 712 apartments of varying size in the April design, with the rest of the tower being dedicated to retail spaces, a 212-car basement and bicycle parking.

The second skyscraper would be constructed at 636 Fourth St. just across from the San Francisco Caltrain Station, and would offer at least 520 apartments along with space for 130 cars and 231 bicycles.

Despite the progress the towers would make in The City's goal to construct 82,000 new units of housing by 2031, residents and officials have voiced various concerns about construction projects.

When the 50-story Outer Sunset tower was first proposed in April, the San Francisco Planning Department objected to the project's bulk, prompting a back-and-forth over the project's size and cost between the department and CH Planning LLC. 

SF Yimby reported that, in the latest filing, city staff contended the tower was 316% taller than base zoning allows.

Just last week, the Board of Supervisors killed a plan to convert a single-family Nob Hill home into 10 townhomes due to concerns that the proposed projects would cast too large of a shadow over a nearby recreation center.

Newly released federal housing data shows The City permitted just 81 units of new housing through the first five months of 2023, meaning San Francisco is off to its slowest start in approving new homes since the Great Recession.

Rob's comment:

Turning San Francisco into Highriseville has been going on for years, thanks in part to the Chronicle and John King. 

On the front page of today's Chronicle, King is boosting the dumb and ruinously expensive high-speed rail project:

That debut is at least seven years away, and progress will likely be dogged by more of the political second-guessing that has clouded high-speed rail since voters gave their blessing in 2008.

But, for the architects and structural engineers starting to craft their designs for the four stations — in Merced, Fresno, Bakersfield and near Hanford — extended timelines are the norm with a project of this scale.

“You have to have a long horizon,” said Peter Sokoloff of Foster + Partners, the architecture firm that is teamed with engineering firm Arup and was selected in April to design the quartet. “These are the most important kinds of projects for us to work on.”

It's also apparently important for Sokoloff to sing for his supper.

See also How the SF Chronicle failed San Francisco and John King and "slender" highrises in 2005.

Joke or bargaining chip?

SF Yimby

Renderings Revealed For 50-Story Skyscraper In Sunset District

Rob's comment:

Next? Developers will show how reasonable they are by settling for 25 stories.

See also The city and the Great Highway. 

Click on "Highrise Development" below for more on the issue.

And Randal O'Toole: If it's "liveable," you can't afford it.