Trinity Ugliness

From the news (an ugly group of buildings on Market Street with some Christian connection. Besides the Trinity name they have doves and triangles in their logos, too):

San Francisco's Board of Supervisors unanimously approved plans to demolish a converted Market Street hotel containing rent-controlled apartments and to replace it with hundreds of new dwellings.

Residents of the apartments at Eighth and Market streets cheered in the gallery after the supervisors' vote Tuesday, because the plan guarantees 360 replacement apartments for the tenants that will be rent-controlled for life.

Those dwellings, which should be constructed by the fall of 2010, are part of a larger plan to build up to 1,900 units there.
"Today I am reminded that protecting the most vulnerable among us, and doing the right the thing for those who are in need, is also good for the whole," said Supervisor Chris Daly, who helped broker the agreement with property owner Angelo Sangiacomo.

The plan also calls for 230 other units that will be rented at below the market rates for poorer households.
The vote puts the developer of the site, Sangiacomo's Trinity Properties, on the fast track for construction in a city known for its drawn-out project approval.

"It has been a long time in the making ... and it's gratifying to see the product of all of that would be a unanimous vote," said Walt Schmidt, chief financial officer for Trinity Properties. The developer filed the first building permit for the site with the city on Monday.

Sangiacomo, 82, is often called the father of rent control because rent increases on his properties in the 1970s helped inspire a public response to protect tenants.

Ken Werner, who has lived in an apartment at Trinity Plaza the past 14 years and works at a single-room-occupancy hotel in the city, said the vote relieved him, calling it a victory for renters in the city.