Who knew that downtown San Francisco had a protectable ecosystem?
I spent many years working in downtown San Francisco. Indeed, more to the point for this article, I spent many years working in the Transamerica Pyramid. I know the area well. It is entirely urban, in that it is an amalgam of high rises, low rises, and some trees planted on the sidewalks in little patches carved out of the cement. The Pyramid building itself has behind it a small, man-made garden featuring some redwood trees. They are nice redwood trees, but they are mere trees, as opposed to the ancient giants found in Sequoia National Park, Muir Woods, or Redwood National Park. The Pyramid borders on North Beach, the City’s Italian district, as well as what remains of the old Barbary Coast. It is a nice area but it is, again, decidedly urban.
You’d think, therefore, that environmentalists would find the Pyramid and its environs uninteresting. If you thought that, though, you’d be wrong. Just yesterday, the San Francisco Board of Stupidvisors knocked down a planned development for an area next to the Pyramid in significant part on environmental grounds. That is, they didn’t just vote it down on aesthetic grounds (reasonable given the Pyramids now-iconic stature, not to mention the proximity of historic North Beach and the Barbary Coast), nor was traffic a primary consideration (also reasonable given existing transportation chaos downtown). That would have been too easy. Instead, they denied an urban building in an urban area in large part because of ecosystem concerns. I’m not kidding:
A developer’s plan to erect a 38-story condominium tower next to San Francisco’s landmark Transamerica Pyramid was knocked down by the Board of Supervisors Tuesday night.
After nearing five hours of public testimony from dozens of speakers on both sides of the debate, the board voted 10-0 to overturn the Planning Commission’s determination last month that the project’s environmental impact report was adequate, accurate and complete.
“This EIR is fatally flawed,” said Board of Supervisors President David Chiu. “It doesn’t acknowledge the significant cumulative impacts of wind, of shadows, on transportation, on parking, on transit, on aesthetics,”
[snip]
Among the project opponents were the Sierra Club, San Francisco Tomorrow and Aaron Peskin, the former president of the Board of Supervisors who got his political start in the city’s development wars. They said the state-mandated environmental impact study submitted by the developer did not adequately address such issues as the creation of new shadows, wind tunnels, the effect on migrating birds, the fate of nearby redwood trees, traffic and visual aesthetics.
Shadows? Migrating birds? Redwood trees? This is an urban area. It already has shadows, the migrating birds have successfully dodged buildings for decades, and the redwood trees are a man planted garden. For those reasons, though, the Stupidvisors are going to stop a project that could otherwise be a very delightful and useful addition to a neighborhood that is a nice amalgam of housing, business, residential and shopping.
I don’t have a problem with zoning restrictions. I think it’s nice that my home isn’t near porn shops and heavy industry, nor do I need to worry about those businesses moving in some time in the future. I don’t have a problem when a city that has a “cute/historical” franchise, one that attracts tourists because it’s lovely to look at, works hard to maintain the city’s unique character. That character, after all, has a cash value. I also don’t have a problem with protecting our environment to a reasonable extent. Putting aside the loopy-loo Global Warming crowd, there is much to be said for clean air, clean water, and a civilized sharing of space with nature.
Having said all that, though, I do have a problem when a city treats it’s downtown as if it’s a national park, rather than a cement filled, heavily built-up, decidedly urban area that hasn’t been a real home to nature for more than 100 years. Once a city does that, one begins to suspect that those who think this way are not motivated by love for the environment but, instead, wish to see humans reduced once again to the level of Stone Age cave dwellers.
