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Old Posted Jul 28, 2018, 9:14 PM
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Pedestrian Pedestrian is offline
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Join Date: Dec 2016
Location: San Francisco
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Quote:
Originally Posted by SFBuildings888 View Post
Why aren’t they building high rises buildings in the Mission Bay district? Is it cause developers aren’t allowed to?
Yes . . . and that's because:

Quote:
It's a bird, it's a plane, it's Super Burton laying UC low
Phillip Matier, Andrew Ross
Published 4:00 am PST, Sunday, March 17, 2002

Superman may be able to leap tall buildings in a single bound -- but hey, super state Senate President Pro Tem John Burton can do him one better.
He's able to shrink tall buildings with a single call.

And that's just what neighborhood hero Burton did recently when, with one phone call, he single-handedly spiked the University of California at San Francisco's plan to build a 17-story student housing tower on its new Mission Bay campus . . . .

Never mind that the documents clearly allowed UC and Mission Bay to build high-rises of up to 160 feet on Third Street (at that time) . . . .

The dorm's height made Burton's anti-high-rise neighbors unhappy.
And when Burton's constituents are unhappy, Burton is unhappy.

And he's not shy about it, either.

"You're not building any mother-- skyscrapers at the foot of Potrero Hill," Burton, who lives in Potrero Hill, flatly told university officials in December.

To say that Burton's call and tone came as a shock to the UC brass would be an understatement.

After all, this was the guy that could make or break their budget, and not someone to be trifled with.

. . . the whole dorm downsize demand was nothing more than Burton responding to the objections his staff heard at a Potrero Boosters Neighborhood Association meeting late last year.

Indeed, John deCastro, president of the neighborhood association, said his group had been fighting to protect views on the hill and keep San Francisco from becoming "another Miami Beach by walling in the waterfront with massive buildings."
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/matie...on-3315909.php

In case you are too young or too new in town to know the name John Burton, he was the brother of San Francisco's long-time Congressman Phil Burton (for whom the Golden Gate Ave. Federal Building is named) and was, at the time all this occured, the city's state Senator and, as the article mentions, State Senate President. He also famously had a short temper and a foul mouth.
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