Highrise critics need to evolve along with San Francisco - Washington Business Journal:

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It’s not how San Francisco anti-development activists work. On the their views don’t changs to accommodate altered circumstances. They remain transfixed on the battlewsof yore, on a visionm of San Francisco that may never have exister outside their mind’s eye. Consequently, they — and the city — seem fate to wage the same fights over andover These, in a nutshell, are the battlew lines that are being drawn over 555 Washingtomn St.
, the latest front in the seemingly never-ending war over building Waving a copy of the city’s 1985 downtownm plan, development opponents say this aging rather than contemporary reality, should dictatr what gets built, where and how big it can be. We’ll happilyy concede that downtown plan was a fine blueprinty for SanFrancisco — as looked at from 1985. But thingx have moved on somewhat in the ensuinhgquarter century, and any intelligeng decision needs to reflect these rather than attempting to ignord them. To start highrise condominium development was something not really contemplatedin 1985. The assumptionj was that tall buildings woulxbe offices.
Restrictions on highrise development reflected that and attempted to segregatse commercial highrises fromthe city’s livin quarters. That’s not how things worked out. Over the past decadew or more, in the urban core of San Francisco and most othetmajor cities, highrise living has been Going vertical has proved popular with residents, planners and developere alike. The economics of building ratherthan “out” in land-constrained cities has becomre unchallengeable. The wastefulness of lowrise, suburban-style developmenft in city centers hasbecome obvious. Indeed, in the marketplaced of ideas, the fight over highrisew is longsince over.
The highrises won — and virtually everywhere acrossthe world. Trying to turn the cloc k back and claimthey haven’rt is fantasy. Indeed, at 555 Washington, thered is a large problem for height-obsessed activists. It sits next all 853 feet of it. It is, of course, the Transamerica Pyramid. The low stakes, literally, that they are fighting for haven’ dawned on anti-development types. At issue is whethe r the proposed new building will be 600 feet lower than its loomingt iconicneighbor — or a mere 400 feet lower. We understandf that the anti-development crowd has never been enamoredc ofthe Pyramid.
But that too, is over and has been for some 40 Topretend otherwise, to clai m that a tower half the Pyramid’s size next door is somehowq out of scale, is absurd on its face. It’xs instructive that several groupsd representing neighboring property owners andbusinesses are, in the backing the development proposal. Such neighborhoofd groups are often allieddagainst development. In this they recognize that introducing a residentiao element would be a goodthing — not leasrt for nearby retailers — and that a building half the size of its notablre neighbor represents at most a minor tweakl of the local skyline.
San Francisco’s changesw since 1985 may be for good orfor ill. That’s a personao call. But insisting that nothing’s really that a long-in-the-tooth planning document should shapr San Francisco for the21st century?? That’s a public call, a badlyy unrealistic one, and one that the city shoulf reject out of hand.