Friday, October 17, 2014

This is the kind of project SF needs. Too bad people are going to lose their fucking minds over it.

You may not know this, but there is at the present time an 86-unit apartment complex at 5th and Kirkham with the wonderfully unimaginative name "Kirkham Heights."  Yelpers give KH mixed reviews; Chris B. of Long Beach says it's "very quiet" and is great for a cat, if you're into that sort of thing, but doesn't have enough electrical outlets, so if you have a lot of appliances like Chris probably does maybe you might need some power strips.  Bonnie G. from L.A., on the other hand, thinks the Heights is a "NIGHTMARE" because they told her her place would be 783 sq ft and she measured it and it's 630.  That's a 150 square foot lie!  Bonnie couldn't even fit her furniture!  I picture Bonnie angrily U-Hauling her enormous futon back to Reseda or whatever, never to return.

Anyway, owner Westlake Realty has some BIG PLANS for the Heights.  Very big.

A longtime Inner Sunset property owner is proposing to build the largest residential development the Inner Sunset has ever seen, a 460-unit project nestled into the hillside on 6.3 acres below Mount Sutro.
San Mateo builder Westlake Urban has filed an application to tear down the Kirkham Heights apartment complex, an 86-unit row of structures built in 1950 at Fifth Avenue and Kirkham Street that has been popular with UCSF staff and students from the nearby Parnassus campus. A mix of condos and rental units would replace them.
Gaye Quinn, Westlake Urban’s managing partner, said the new project would include 86 rent-controlled apartments to match what is currently on the site. Another 12 percent of the apartments would be below market rate. Westlake Urban has owned the property for 40 years.

What is it we're always saying?  San Francisco needs more housing?  And not just $5 mil luxury condos, but housing for regular people?  HERE YOU GO! It's a net gain of 374 units.  Not bad looking either!

Not pictured: Annoying neighbors w/ their indoor cats.
The SF Business Times is throwing their hat in the ring for Understatement of the Century:  "The Westlake proposal is likely to get strong reactions from the neighborhood." YA THINK?  People are gonna lose their damn minds, more like.  WHAT ABOUT THE TRAFFIC! THEY'RE GONNA CLEAN OUT THE GOLDEN BEAR MARKET AT 6TH AND JUDAH! ALL THOSE CATS ARE GOING TO MAKE A TERRIBLE RACKET!

True. But I don't think anyone would disagree that we need more housing and this is more housing.  Plus it's not one of those stupid all-concrete and glass dbag cages that are going up all over goddam SOMA.  This looks like housing for normal people who use "disrupt" to mean when someone calls during dinner.  Let's do it.

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Sorry, "sportsball" people, but my team is back in the World Series so this blog will be transitioning to pretty much an all-baseball format for the next couple of weeks or so.  In case anyone forgot, I tend to do a post for every single World Series game the G's are in and I probably will again.

2 comments:

Lisa said...

As someone who traversed the Sunset along 7th avenue frequently, while there will be some peak hour traffic impact, the area is amply served by public transport & they redid the lanes along 7th not that long ago. Seems to me it would be a huge asset and I hope the NIMBYs don't go nuts, but, as you point out, they probably will.

(And OMG a year+ working in local government and I sound like an oldz. But if anyone has CEQA questions I can probably answer them!)

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