>> you're watching san francisco rising with chris manners. today's special guest is katy tang. [♪♪♪] >> hi. i'm chris manners, and you're watching san francisco rising, the show that's focused on rebuilding, reimagining, and revitalizing our city. with us today is katy tang, and she's talk to -- talking to us

about assistance and services provided to local businesses. can we talk about the role of the office of small business? many small businesses are struggling to help. how can you help? >> director tang: we are here as the city's central point of information for all things small businesses, so we can help people start, stay, and grow in the city. if you want to start a small business, we can pair you up with small business advisors, who can talk you through your business plan, help you develop it, whether it's regulatory requirements, business permits, and just help you understand the journey that was up ahead. and if you'd like to stay in san francisco and perhaps your business is facing challenges, we can also pair you with a business advisor who can assess your business needs and figure out whatside that would best

help you. so for example, perhaps you need more marketing assistance or you need to be connected to a loan, a low interest loan or a grant program, if that's available. those are services we can provide to you, whether you're starting out or trying to stay in san francisco. and of course, if you want to expand and grow into a new space, we can help assist you with that and help prepare you for the journey ahead. we have a team dedicated to assist you you with all the small business needs, all the requirements needed to help you establish your small business in san francisco. >> do you have an e.s.l. program for people who want to start small businesses? >> director tang: we have staff that can speak spanish and mandarin and cantonese, and we

understand if english is not your first language, it can be difficult, so we want to be as helpful as possible. >> excellent. i know that s.f. shines was created to help with restoring and improvement. can you tell us more about that? >> yes. it's run out of a sister development and it's much needed in the small business community. if you are trying to improve your storefront, whether it's outside, perhaps you want to make some interior improvements, a lot of times, that involves a lot of cost and resources to be able to do so. for example, you may need to hire an architect to submit drawings so you can get your work done. currently, s.f. shines is offer a pairing of business sign

services. you can be paired up with an architect to get your drawings done to help you start to do the actual work. we hope that people will stay tuned, and you can find out more information on our website. that's sfgov.org/osb. >> let's talk about the shared spaces program. it's been a huge success, and outdoor dining spaces are very popular. >> the shared spaces program, especially during the pandemic, really helped spaces survive. to have an outdoor space where people could safely gather was critical, and the office of small business has been working

with these shared spaces during the pandemic. some may or may not have been up to the city's code regulations, so department of public works and other departments have been trying to figure out what violations are and help businesses come into compliance. the planning department and the city have decided that they'll give businesses until 2023 to come into compliance. also in the meantime, for businesses that want to start new shared spaces, new parklets, that is still an on going program, a new program, so people can always submit their applications for shared spaces regardless whether they started one during the pandemic or not. >> do you anticipate there

being other shared spaces programs in the future and how do small businesses go about finding out about them? >> small businesses can find out about it by visiting our website, sfgov/osb or you can call 415-554-6134, and we can connect you with the planning department and other agencies that would be connected with the shared spaces programs. >> over the pandemic, businesses have been victimized by vandals and other crimes. how can you help them? >> the city offers a program called the vandalism relief fund, and this would allow businesses suffering from graffiti or broken windows to apply with the city through our

neighborhood services division, and you could get up to 1,000 or 2,000 if you submit certain documentation, such as a photograph of the damage or a copy of the receipt or document showing the amount you paid for to correct the incident. we are so excited that the city now has a centralized permit center, where people can come and get their business done, hopefully, in the same day where there are several different agencies, ranging from department of building inspection, planning department, public health, fire department, all here to help people, whether you're building a new business or even new construction, to be able to, again, fit all of your appointments in one day and get things done quickly. so starting in may, our office

of small business has actually started working out of 49 south van ness at the permit center, and we have a team of two staff who are dedicated to helping small businesses through their permitting journey. so we do encourage people, you can come to the permit center or you can e-mail us at sfosb@sfgov.org, and you can communicate with our staff dedicated to helping you with your permitting needs. we hope that people will consider consulting with us before you even sign a lease so that we can help you on the path to success and understanding the journey of setting up a small business in san francisco. >> well, thank you so much. i really appreciate you coming on the show, miss tang. thank you for the time you've given us today. >> director tang: thanks for having me. >> and that's it for this show. we'll be back shortly.

you've been watching san francisco rising. for sfgovtv, i'm chris manners. thanks for watching. apply. >> (music). >> wishing sfgovtv all the very best ownless 30th anniversary thank you, for keeping san francisco informed how we're fighting. >> the rec and park development i want to thank sfgovtv for thirty years of the community services. >> hi this is shamming anyone water departmenters i want to wish sfgovtv a happy 30th nonthank you so much you are watching san francisco rising with chris manor. today's special guest is sarah

phillips. >> hi, i'm chris manors and you are watching san francisco rising the show about restarting rebuilding and eare imagineing the city. the guest today is sarah phillips the executive director of economic workforce development. welcome to the show. >> thank you for having me. let's talk about the city economic plan and specifically the city's road map to san francisco future. can you give a brief overview and update on progress? >> absolute e. in february 2023 mayor breed released the roadmap comprised to 9 strategies to move the city forward understanding there was structural and lang lasting changing by the covid impact. 134 were shorter term impacts how people using transit

downtown and coming out and are using small businesses, some of them remember long-term structural impacts. the way we work. how often we are in an office and how much office space companies who had headquartered in san francisco need. some of those were structural impacts how we stop. there has been a long-term change as online shopping takes up a greater share how we performs and covid-19 took a shift that would probably take 10 to 15 years happen and collapse what happened ofern the timeframe to 2 years so saw structural impacts how people shop. we have seen a lot of progress rchlt we are 9 months in and significant things we have seen is efforts creating permitinant services and homes for people experiencing homelessness is dramatic. we increased the number of shelter beds dramatically and take-up of the beds

dramatically, and there is more work to do. on the safety side there are exciting things that happened. we increased our police pay among the highest in the bay area which is a important thing for recruitment. police recruitment across the country is down so recruiting the best we can means we need to give a high pay set. august the highsh return in graduates. we see 75 decrease in retail theft and 50 percent reduction in car break ins which is quality of life crime san francisco experienced so there is real progresses we are seeing on clean and safe sides. one thing important in the mayor roadmap we are not trying to get back to 2020 vision. i think covid showed having a

downtown with people sitting at offices isn't the best downtown it can be. i think it is a opportunity to bring 24 hour life use downtown. >> music and concerts is a great way to bring people to a specific location. golden gate park we had lots of events in plazas throughout the city. can you talk about those and if there is upcoming events too? >> i think you touched on something key to the mayor road map. for san francisco and particularly san francisco downtown to move forward and be successful as a great american city, it is about bringing people together because they want to be together not because they center to be together and music is a strong part that. the planet concert sear ries coming up and happening throughout the city not just golden gate park but downtown locations are a great example.

there are smaller examples as well. the landing at--is a new plaza we constructed in the mayor roadmap where two streets come together akwraisant to a couple restaurants closed to cars in daytime, chairs and seating and throughout the week they have lunch time and evening music to bring people together after work. they participate in that. something we are working on setting up for next year which is really exciting is our sf live program and that will bring a full 2024 concert series where we match local venues bringing their work and partnership to useian square, music center plaza and embark cadero. we will be able to announce concert series through the sf-

>> you mentioned vacant to vibrant, that program has a lot of attention lately. can you talk generally what exactly that program is? >> yeah. so, we opened a program where we put out a call for landlords willing to offer groundfloor space for free for 3 to 6 month jz small business or storefront operators who had a proposal what they would do for 3 to 6 months. it is pilot. we had a incredible amount of interest. we had--i'm forgetting the number of landlords, but more then we expected because we are in a place where commercial real estate understands they need to come to the table to help make our groundfloor lively and resulting in a transition where the groundfloor is seen less as a money making operation, but more as a leader to lease upper floors.

if you have a active ground floor yields better on the other 80 percent of the building you are trying to lease. that was great, a lot of cooperation scr over 700 small business or operators responded to that call. it is pop up. there is no intention this would result in forever small businesses, but there is certainly a hope and i think what we are hearing, i don't have the final data, but there are 17 activators in 9 different spaces, some are colocated, which is why the difference, and out of those 9 spaces that are being leased for free, now 7 of them are in discussions for long-term leases so the spaces continue. it is the program. we are hopeful to have a second and third traunch and hoping to pilot in other neighborhoods with other partners. it is not an inexpensive program because there is a lot of capital that goes into popping up for short amount of time but what we are seen is they visit the businesses, the

businesses are successful and san francisco want to support this activation so hopeful to expand it. >> that's great. can you talk a bit about why piloting programs and testing things is so important? >> absolutely. you know, i would say not only the important generally but important in san francisco specifically. the benefit of pilot programs in the reasons they are really important here is, it allows us to try something and say, there may be consequence but let's understand those in real time rather then waiting to start a strategy while we think about them on paper and if they are too great we can modify the program as we go. mta has absorbed the strategy whether a bike lane or other to figure how best to use the street? is this working? is it working for bikes and cars and buses? maybe not, let's switch it

around and pilots have been important to oewd to our office particularly because we tend to have the ability and the mayor's support through the budget process to pilot things through request for proposals or rfp process where we can put out a small amount of funding, try activation and small public plaza, see if it works and i think the benefit there is, if it doesn't work we tried it and had the benefit of seeing real time and when it does work, we are able to uplift that and move into a permanent strategy and that is where our agency turns over something we piloted to another agency because it is part of the city operating procedure. pilots also give people hope. when we have the short-term whether it is physical public plaza or activation that shows

change is possible and allows them to vote for what they like. >> lastly, in lith light of the current ai boom, do you think there is a way to leverage those new changes to take a bunch of san francisco's status as a tech hub? >> i do, i think they work together. san francisco right now has a strong vacancy problem in our office space. and there is a back-story to that. our zoning downtown has not prevented other uses, in terms of permitting uses of the multi-story building has been open including allowing residential but we put other barriers, cost and code barriers et cetera and what happened also during the height of our preevious boom is that, the amount that tech companies were willing to pay for office space bid everything out so we-without intentionally zoning a single use downtown, we de

facto became a single use downtown and thereat is the opportunity you are pointing out. now because downtown was so convertible from work from home, particularly as tech based downtown was and how much companies put at the market in the office spaces we are seeing high vacancy now, all most 30 percent so there is lot of square feet but that presents a lot of opportunity. we have the ability to absorb expansion of the tech industry we are so strong at. we have seen over 800 thousand square feet of ai space leased just in 2023 alone and there is still more demand out in the market, more ai companies looking for space so that is a growth spot absorbing some of the vac ancy. the opportunity too is prices for downtown lease s have also dropped and that opens up a breath of opportunity to a

breath of companies that were priced out in 2018, 2019, 2020. san francisco has always been great at starting companies and allowing them to grow here. when our prices are too high it prevents that growth so now we are a super fertile ground for more start ups and invasion on the smaller end of the sector because they can come and enter our market and we have the space to offer. to talk about san francisco's assets and the leveraging that, we sit at the epicenter of really great university and educational institutions. we are between uc berkeley and stanford. the graduates produced just from those institutions alone stay in the bay area and want to rise up and work here, provide a real opportunity for the start ups to build their companies and companies to grow here so we confident we will absorb a certain amount of office space with ai tech. with that, we are interested in increasing our human capital

growing graduates. downtown university is something the mayor is open to pursuing and we are in conversations with uc berkeley we love to have as a partner in our downtown and then residential conversions are a great partner to that. as we build back the office space, people will want to live downtown again and we have a number buildings that can be converted to residential. the costs are high. mayor breed and her partners on the board made significant changes to reduce the costs. we waived fees for change of uses in the downtown area. there are code changes that will make the conversions easier. there is a ballot measure on the march ballot that will attempt to reduce costs for those as well. it is ongoing process and none of those changes we talked about absent ai growth downtown, but institutional growth downtown, arts growth downtown and residential conversions downtown are

long-term changes so one thing i want to say recollect i do think there is a opportunity per your question, but we also need to be patient because what we are talking about is is a real shift to the make-up of the downtown since from the growth it has been starting at since the turn of the century so that isn't a 2 year change, that is a 10 year change and we center to watch as it goes. >> thank you so much. i really appreciate you spending the time here today and your creative vision and positivity, so thank you so much. >> thanks so much for having me and hope you all downtown and shop. >> that is it for this episode. for sfgovtv i'm chris manors, thanks >> come shop dine and play. taraval street is open for business. >> i am a coowner at 19th.

this establishment came about when me and my brother andy, coowner, we decided that it time for us to take a step up in the barber industry, and open up a space of our own. ory business is a community that shows their true artistic side of the barber industry. we are involved in teraival bingo so stop by, get a hair cut and when you do you get the barber sticker made just for us. i say in three words we are community, arts and here to help any way possible we can, so come by, visit at barber lounge, 907 taraval in the sunset. you can find us on instagram. >> time for teraival bingo supporting small business, anyone can participate. it is easy, collect stickers on a bingo gameboard and enter a raffle event.

good afternoon everyone, this meeting will come to order. welcome to the april 29th, 2024 regular meeting of the land use and transportation committee of the san francisco board of supervisors. i am supervisor myrna melgar, chair of the committee. joined by board of supervisors president aaron peskin and vice chair dean preston. the committee clerk today is mr. john carroll, and i would also like to acknowledge and thank karina mendoza for sfgovtv for staffing this meeting. mr. clerk, do you have any announcements? yes. thank you, madam chair. please ensure that you've silenced your cell phones