Andrew Dalton, for SF Weekly, takes a look at some changes coming soon to one of them:
On a Wednesday night in January, in the cafeteria of a private high school just across Interstate 280 from the Balboa Park BART station, a group of 100 or so neighbors and activists gather to discuss the future of the neighborhood. Specifically, they come to deliver their opinions regarding what should be done with the Balboa Reservoir, a nearly 18-acre plot of city-owned land next to the City College of San Francisco.
The Balboa Reservoir is an odd space, not least because it doesn’t look much like a reservoir at all. It’s an open and flat parking lot (unusual for the area) smack in the middle of a neighborhood mostly populated by single-family homes. The reservoir sits, sunken a few feet below the surrounding area, between Mt. Davidson to the north, CCSF to the east, and a new low-rise condo building with a ground-floor Whole Foods to the south. New residents of the complex, which fronts Ocean Avenue, can look straight out their third-floor windows and enjoy a view of the three-story earthen dam that separates the reservoir from the quaint Westwood Park neighborhood to the west. On a recent Saturday, the parking lot that serves as the reservoir’s asphalt bottom was empty save for a man on a recumbent tricycle pedaling laps around the perimeter while a woman waited for him in the passenger seat of a parked Prius.
Read on for lots more background and astute reporting. (Also, take a walk around this area if you get a chance. I was there a lot when I was a CCSF student in ’03 or so, and there’s heaps of history and geography and interesting vibes around there. Randy’s Place, am I right??)
I feel like we should write “stuff’s not happening” because of all the NIMBYism. We need more homes in SF, we either have to suck it up, or move out. I mean, seriously, every activist says, NO! And sure, who wants to change? But let’s think about this – if we never changed, we’d never grow. Do we want to keep SF so overinflated price-wise that no one can ever move in? Do we want to keep it a playground for the 3%? I don’t. The college itself will be worthless if there’s no housing anywhere near there that students can afford.
Do you really believe that we can build so much housing that SF is going to become appreciable less expensive? Would you want to live in an SF like that?
yes, i believe this. the scumbags who are literally, as i type this, talking about airplanes they have flown, would never move into my building except for extreme scarvity. we allow more housing for them, then fewer of them move into places like where i live. it’s simple economics and it’s the only way to save the sf that i know and love.
if this, is intended as, some type of parody of a sinvere, constructive, comment, then i, believe it is sucesful. yes.
deth to shift key, except apostrophe.
zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz I fell asleep reading this.
then how did you post your other shitty posts thereafter, cuz? talent!
Someone’s tampon is in a twist.
you suck