Editor:

In answer to the article of July 17 in the SF Examiner by Adam Shanks, “Is SF affordable housing now as easy as 1234 Great Highway?” I would like to say that it is not easy, for three reasons:

1. To house hundreds of senior citizens at the most dangerous place of a Tsunami Evacuation Zone is an unsound and irresponsible idea. It could be reasonable if they were housed in one- or two-level buildings, with a car and an able driver ready to take them away from the beach, but inside a mid-size building of seven-stories, the logistics of elevators, stairs, prompt help and transportation make the proposition a script for a horror movie, or at least, with news spreading through the world, the laughing stock of American housing policies. 

2. To deface an area of outstanding natural beauty, such as this western coastal line of San Francisco that receives global tourism which brings needed revenue to our City, is also an unsound and irresponsible idea. Tourism is one the three main industries we have alongside banking and insurance. Tourists like cities that make sense, with high-rises in downtown, mid-size buildings in mid-town and low-rise buildings in residential neighborhoods. The Sunset District has the privilege of being on a very long and gentle topographic incline to the ocean which gives this residential area its natural beauty. A visitor who looks at our City from a high viewing point, easily spots a building that doesn’t belong because it is too high for the location.  

3. To think that affordable and transitional housing issues are separate from banking policies, interest rates and economic practices is utterly naive, as is ignoring the fact that real estate developers will always seduce political partnerships for their own profit, no matter how mindless and irresponsible, such as this idea. The issue is, in fact, much bigger and complex, involving poverty, mental health care, rehabilitation and social work programs.

Mr. Shanks’s article makes light of what are serious matters for the future of San Francisco and may even mislead the public into thinking that this is a “done deal” when it is not. There are neighborhood and citywide renters, merchants, homeowners, taxpayers from all walks, the arts, education, construction, healthcare, and IT, organizing to bring, as it were, water to this drought of intelligent, imaginative and caring ideas. 

With only a little study, imagination and effort, our public officials can find sensible alternatives. In fact, we could even take a clue from the brilliant architectural studio, Practice for Architecture and Urbanization in New York City, that has used available technology to find and present for its city suitable sites for a million New Yorkers in keeping with existing neighborhood character (low heights in residential areas, higher in mid and downtown areas; preservation of historic areas). (New York https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/12/30/opinion/new-york-housing-solution.html?unlocked_article_code=1.800.Kk3Z.2bMyR34XifW0&smid=url-share

Come on, San Francisco, let’s value what we’ve got and do the same!

Luis Pine