[yonran]

I read the articles about Robert Tillman (e.g. https://missionlocal.org/2019/04/historic-mission-district-l...), and apparently the only thing he did that made him a “total jerk” was making a proposal to produce a necessity of life in a city with a desperate shortage, following all the zoning procedures to the tee, and refusing to concede to extortionary demands from politicians and other self-appointed gatekeepers.

By the way I never saw a “tantrum” from him; he followed the law methodically and for that he was ridiculed by the press as a deviant (“kamikaze” according to Joe Eskanazi https://missionlocal.org/2018/06/the-strange-and-terrible-sa...). He publicly shared his research (e.g. https://groups.google.com/g/sfbarentersfed/c/mHT2l4zDyKg/m/X...) and I think would have wanted his project to be an example to others of how to make the rule of law the norm in San Francisco, but that was not the agenda of the politicians and the press.

I get that people (such as Supervisor Hillary Ronen, gatekeeper Erick Arguello, and so-called “Progressive” journalist Tim Redmond) are upset about people profiting off the housing shortage. But if they are upset about a landowner making ~$130k per unit for investing in alleviating the shortage, they should be livid over every single homeowner in the neighborhood who sells a house for $2 million and makes more profit per unit without increasing the housing supply at all. That they asymmetrically target housing producers while remaining silent to idle speculators gives a perverse disincentive against creating housing and reveals a NIMBY preference by these so-called “Progressives”. In the end I think their advocacy does more harm than good in San Francisco even when it is in the name of capturing some value for the poor.