Based only on the results of 56,131 mail-in ballots returned, a quarter of the 238,235 which were issued, San Francisco Ballot Measure B which would clear the way for the development of 8 Washington Street as approved is losing the dueling ballot measure fight with 55% of the mail-in ballots marked NO versus 45% YES.
The “No Wall on The Waterfront” folks are also ahead with respect to San Francisco Ballot Measure C which would allow the approved Ordinance increasing the building height limits for the 8 Washington Street Development to take effect with 61% of the mail-in ballots marked NO versus 39% YES.
The mail-in ballot counts for Measure A (Retiree Health Care Trust Fund changes): 69% YES / 31% NO; and Measure D (Prescription Drug Purchasing Policy for the City): 80% YES / 20% NO.
We’ll have the early counts for the votes cast at polling places in San Francisco later tonight.
UPDATE: Including 23,032 election day ballots from half the polling places in San Francisco, the percentage of NO votes on Measures B and C have increased to 60% and 65% respectively. If the early results hold, it’s back to the drawing board for the development of 8 Washington Street.
UPDATE: With 98 percent of San Francisco precincts reporting and 39,240 election day ballots counted, the percentage of NO votes on Measures B and C have increased to 62% and 67% respectively. The “No Wall on the Waterfront” forces have won and the up-zoning for the development of 8 Washington Street has been overturned at the polls.
And people wonder why housing is so expensive here.
Yup.
The kicker in all of this: the affluent want to live here. They are settling to live in the housing of the middle class. The middle class is settling to live in the housing of the popular class which doesn want to pay market rate anyway.
One unit that wasn’t built on the waterfront is one unit ultimately gone for the people who blindly opposed it.
But try explaining that to people who have been shielded from the real world thanks to rent control. For them they rationalized the recent blows from the owner crowd as a fight of good vs evil.
1967 just called. It wants its fruits and nuts back.
UPDATE: Including 23,032 election day ballots from half the polling places in San Francisco, the percentage of NO votes on Measures B and C have increased to 60% and 65% respectively. If the early results hold, it’s back to the drawing board for the development of 8 Washington Street.
This is great! My hunt for an Ellis/TIC deal goes on… 200 more potential buyers still in the market thanks to this vote.
Yes, this is what I tried to explain to the no wall people. I said, do you want them moving here? To lower 24th? Farther up valencia? To mission street itself?
They seemed to think that’s not a possibility. Oh well
Experience is that thing you get right after you need it.
@Sam: They’ll learn soon enough, the hard way.
We should build as high as possible as fast as possible. We are the luckiest city in America. But yet we vote against our own interest…
Some people believe in unicorns and the never ending free lunch. They will get a lump of coal in theor stockings. It will come in the form of an Ellis eviction notice once the nice guy landlord has croaked and the heirs have sold their buildngs
There is just not enough housing for everyone in SF
UPDATE: With 98 percent of San Francisco precincts reporting and 39,240 election day ballots counted, the percentage of NO votes on Measures B and C have increased to 62% and 67% respectively.
The “No Wall on the Waterfront” forces have won and the Board of Supervisors’ up-zoning for the development of 8 Washington Street has been overturned at the polls.
“The kicker in all of this: the affluent want to live here. They are settling to live in the housing of the middle class. The middle class is settling to live in the housing of the popular class which doesn want to pay market rate anyway.”
That was well put. I don’t always agree with you, but that’s a nice distillation of a central aspect of sfre these days. Also, it bears mentioning I think that tomorrow’s “millionaire condo” is the day after tomorrow’s upper middle class rental. Which frees up housing elsewhere in days to come.
Oh well. This is one for the books. Aaron Peskin teaming with millionaires and somehow getting grass roots progressives to move against the creation of low income housing funds. I mean, wow.
Wow. Because Snellgrove will just go back to the original plan. And the ensuing, lame, gaming of an EIR that Peskin (maybe, because this is really about appeasing his more monied constituents) or someone else tries? It will be easily upheld. And an actual “wall” will go up.
This is pathetic. Heads at planning should roll. My understanding is that one of the planners attached initially has already long since take a job in SoCal somewhere like Ojai. Due to burnout. But that’s not enough. People need to be fired. This is a travesty. Through every channel? Contested everywhere? And some rich folks game canvassers, so it’s on a friggin ballot? Horrible.
Last. The sftu mobilized to fight bmr housing creation. House parties and stuff! How utterly bizarre, and how little soany of these folks, who yes, I spoke to at length several times too, got it. End result? Much more of a “wall” and no park. But the jackson Square richies preserve their views.
Great job, progressives! Psyche.
The people have spoken. They want more parking lots & chain link fences.
Well, at least that chain link fence and parking lot look nice.
It’s good to be Boston Properties.
They get to keep their monopoly on views from Embarcadero Center. And less than a half mile away they’re building a 1000-foot tower that’s too far along to be stopped by voters.
The city DOES need parking after all.
Wait a minute. Aren’t these the same people who voted for Transit First?
losers
I used to enjoy visiting Socketsite but not so much anymore. I don’t get the anger.
Then beat it, nerd.
Because of anti-progress Progressives’ ignorance, the scars of 1960s Urban Removal will remain a blight in this location. The Brutalist Tower-in-a-Park podium-based 25 story Gateway Apartments, and the anti-urban three block long cyclone fence across the street––the WALL that blocks the City from its own waterfront––guarantee that the dead zone in that area will now persist.
Brilliant.
Communists win again.
I had thought we finally put bad, old San Francisco behind us. Not so.
Boo hoo all you sad sick wannabe landlords/real estate whores – suck it Socketsite
Of course this is not a huge setback. Pun intended.
Actually the reader/poster owner crowd on SocketSite will benefit since any restriction increases the pressure on existing housing.
The waves of rental restrictions have made my place 60% more desirable these past 5 years.
The waves of NIMBY building restrictions have made SF RE property almost as expensive as NY.
The gravy train keeps rolling.
@sfjohn
Your vitriol makes no sense.
The defeat of these two measures doesn’t affect landlords at all. These units aren’t rentals. A building is still going to go there; one that is probably going to look more like a wall than what was planned.
So much for letting planning do its job.
UPDATE: San Francisco’s Certified Election Results 2013.