SFist: Tonight: Saving - or not - the UC Laguna campus

aj

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 13:38:42 -0800

I know! Let's ask GMZEEO to tag it.

Suzanne

Tue, 12 Jun 2007 12:13:53 -0800

I live in the neighborhood and have attended some of the meetings. My concern is that the city will lose a chunk of land zoned public since the early 1900s. The land was sold to UC for very little because it was zoned public. Now they want to get the zoning changed and make money off of it. According to an article in the Examiner Monday if the development doesn't happen it's the end of the UC Extension! Give me a break. Like UC Extension/UC have no other revenue sources?! That land is a public asset whose development HAS to be considered within the context of all the housing development that will be happening in the Market/Van Ness corridor in the next 10 years. Where else will public lands be preserved or added? Show us that map and then let's make an informed decision.

andrew

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 11:17:11 -0800

Damn, I too was hoping it could be another porn studio.

KWillets

Fri, 08 Jun 2007 10:39:17 -0800

4-3 against Landmark designation. There go my porn studio hopes.

sonofsoma

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 23:18:33 -0800

The development of the UC site reminds one of the missed opportunity that occurred when they demolished the blighted, crime-ridden Housing Project at Hight & Buchanan a decade or so ago. Instead of replacing it with Public Project Failure v2.0, the block should have been cleared, graded and planted as a public lawn. (think: The Marina Green) Is there any doubt that the area desperately needs a large park? The UC site could easily be made into something akin to Dolores Park... that is if anyone at City Hall cared about delivering real public amenities to its tax paying residents. I have little doubt The City has already spent more money "studying" the UC site than it would have cost to create a basic large city park there.

Theo helper

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 15:09:56 -0800

Bravo Theo! You should also include the lovely, quaint Fillmore St McDonalds to your list of places worth bronzing.

theo

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:56:14 -0800

Jeffrey W. Baker, You, sir, clearly have no sense of California's historical legacy. Only a mendacious pro-development dot-com yuppie like yourself would be so dismissive of the historical value of UC Laguna's attractive Mission style wall and gymnasium(?). In fact, it is the only adjacent Mission-style wall and gymnasium(?) north of Market Street, west of Van Ness and east of Fillmore. We owe it to our grandchildren to make sure that it is not destroyed. And yet, a philistine like yourself would have it so. You would probably also oppose the preservation of the Berkeley IHOP/Mexican Restaurant. Good day, Theo

HM

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:51:51 -0800

I've seen the plans of this campus. It will knock socks off. It will provide lots of green and access and views. If you live in the area it will be your new favorite urban plot to hang out - a micromini Delores park without the annoying dog shit. The existing unusable piece of crap is not a landmark structure. Sure it has history, but it does not add positively to the nature of the neighborhood. The plans that I have seen do incorporate much of the historic elements, but they really open the campus up to the community. The architect/landscape firm that is coordinating the campus is GLS Lanscape|Architecture. They are based in the Mission and do brilliant work. Don't believe the hype of the reactionary preservationist motherscratchers, look up their designs for yourselves! See: "glsarchDOTcomSLASHucExtensionDOTphp" for images of what they are thinking.

Jeffrey W. Baker

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 14:41:20 -0800

Ah yes, historic buildings. Why, some of them are nearly 100 years old! Golly gee! Idiots in the local historical preservation scene really need to get their lazy asses back east, or maybe to Europe, or possibly Sumeria. There are no buildings of historical value whatsoever at UC Laguna. The only thing worth consideration is the WPA mural at Woods Hall Annex. The rest of the site should obviously be redeveloped for the benefit of contemporary San Franciscans who actually have to live their lives here.

Persona non Bergman

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 13:15:39 -0800

The Armory Building in the Mission is a PERFECT example of sticking a cog in the wheel of progress. It seems funny in retrospect that anyone would have been comfortable actually "living" in that place, or working some 9-5 Web.1 dotbomb job with those tiny prison windows and that medieval castle (Moorish ?)architecture to report to daily, but there you go! Frankly, I can't think of any better suitor for that monsterous dungeon than an S/M porn company. Little Kink.com---home at last!

Adam

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 13:09:47 -0800

agreed about the little bit of chain link fence, it really made a big difference. Is the AF Evans plan just bland like the rest of SF big development or is it actually bad? I'm all for building more houses in the neighborhood.

josh

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 12:54:36 -0800

I live on Buchanan, across the street from this site. I totally disagree with the characterization that it's used by "the local crack-dealing set". Clearly, its primary use is as a toilet for homeless people. But since they boarded up all the windows and installed chain-link fencing around all the sleep-able nooks not visible from the street, it's been a little less nasty, although it looks terrible. I understand why people aren't overjoyed about the AF Evans plan, but they should really think hard about what happened to another historic building, the Armory. Neighborhood groups in the Mission opposed every development plan that came down the pipe, and they ended up with ZERO community space and ZERO affordable housing units when Kink.com bought the site. Also: an interesting wrinkle is that the City claims that it still owns a strip of the property that's the continuation of Waller St between Buchanan and Laguna.

josh

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 12:52:47 -0800

art evans evens it out

Thu, 07 Jun 2007 12:30:24 -0800

arthur evans is a bigtime republican who is helping the recall against jake. he was also mentioned in that LA Times article about hippies in the haight. he will lie lie lie to get a handle on that land. don't believe him or UC.