financial institution, there should be a check, there should be an additional step and some review and approval by this commission. before that goes in. we suggested and regular letter one is to look at additional areas. there's some really, really outstanding neighborhoods of outstanding character that are not protected, have no formula retail controls right now, one is the waterfront special use districts, telegraph hill, barb bury coast, jackson square area, et cetera. a lot of those areas in the northeast part of san francisco have no formula retail controls whatsoever and we're seeing chain stores going in. recently, a starbucks went in right on the waterfront. the ferry building is a great example of a waterfront use that's all local. you go there, it's totally exciting because it's stores you will not see in debuque, it's totally unique. looking at the waterfront that way and saying let's look at

formula retail controls in those neighborhoods and jackson square makes sense. the other is requiring that when formula retail goes into a business, one of the conditions of approval is they meet all of the city street scape requirements so there's a give back, a return to the public for the use going in and all those buildings are compliant with awning, canopy, sign, all of those other requirements so there's enhancement of the public realm and neighborhood character through enforcement. there are precedents, massage parlors have to comply with street scape requirements as do liquor stores. we think extending that to formula retail makes a lot of sense and we'd love you to consider those amendments, as well. thank you. vice president wu: chris wright, lydia heron and chris schulmann.

>> good afternoon, commissioners, my name is chris wright, executive director of the committee on jobs and associations representing many of the city's larger private sector employers and we ask you to oppose supervisor mar's proposal. looking at two of the points made in the report that you received from staff, the first point argues that formula retail controls were primarily adopted to maintain unique visual character of the city's neighborhood commercial districts and i understand that's a component of it and i understand why that's there, but i think it could be argued that the primary reason that it was adopted by voters in proposition g was to protect neighborhood coffee shops, liquor stores, video rental stores, from competing from the larger big box and chains that they found themselves competing with. that doesn't necessarily apply

to the banking world. there are very few sort of mom and pop stores. i would also argue that banks are inherently different from these retail operations. they are traditionally they don't follow the same traditional roots that these retail stores, how they operate. they are networked so that you can go from one place, put your money in one place and get it out in another place. the second statement in this report mentions that and has been mentioned here today that they negatively impact street life. i would argue and it was mentioned earlier that they are anchors of everywhereville and i would argue that they are anchors of strong neighborhood commercial districts. let me just say that banks are inherently, these bank branches inherently serve local residents and retailers.

i know from my personal experience in the richman district, when i go to the bank to get cash i spend locally, i visit many stores along that corridor. i would argue that this proposal in general is unnecessary. more than half of these commercial districts already have c.u.'s or outright bans. this can be done. the approach supervisor mar is putting forward is a blanket, one-size-fits-all proposal that raises barriers where neighborhoods may not want them. i would close by saying that each bank branch employs people, 10 to 15 people. these individuals they employ represent or come from a relatively large spectrum of academic achievement. they do well. when banks want to invest in san francisco, grow in san francisco, and employ people in san francisco, that should be encouraged, not discouraged. thank you. vice president wu: thank you.

>> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is lydia heron and i'm the manager of public policy with the san francisco chamber of commerce, here today representing the san francisco chamber of commerce and over 1500 businesses and we are in opposition to supervisor mar's proposal because we believe that man dating a one-size-fits-all conditional use permitting process will restrict a number of banks throughout the city's neighborhoods each when a potential branch is desired and supported by a majority of local residents and businesses. we believe bank branches provide essential services to neighborhood merchants and small businesses depend on easy and quick access to banking services. the san francisco chamber of commerce believes neighborhood branches bring foot traffic to other businesses and we believe that there's benefit to elderly

and less mobile customers from being closer to their banks. i'm going to close with the financial institutions investing growing in san francisco should not be discouraged, they should be encouraged to stay, especially in the current economic climate, and that each new branch provides quality jobs in san francisco. thank you. vice president wu: thank you. troy campbell. >> good afternoon, honorable commissioners, my name is chris schulmann, office of small business staff and representing the office of small business and small business commission. the small business commission met on march 12, 2012, and recommended approval of this ordinance as drafted by supervisor mar. the commission noted that a number of small businesses go through the conditional use process and they believe it is not a burden to impose this requirement on financial institutions who have the resources to navigate through the process. the commissioner did not review the proposed modification by

staff. office of small business staff has reviewed the modification with planning staff and while we understand the rational e, since the small business commission has not had an opportunity to hear the item, we are unable to support the modification at this time. the commission recognizes this is a policy decision for your commission and the board of supervisors but we welcome an opportunity to hold discussions on the modification with our commission. thank you. vice president wu: thank you. troy campbell? >> good afternoon, troy campbell, interim executive director for the fisherman's wharf business district. i'm not in opposition to mar's legislation. what i'm in opposition for is any amendment to include the special use district of fisherman's wharf in any formula retail. there's been no community outreach at all about including

this type of legislation for that district so i just wanted to go on record and state that we would strongly oppose any amendment to this. thank you. vice president wu: thank you. is there any further public comment on this item? >> hi, commissioners, my name is amy weiss. the spirit of formula retail law is that neighbors get to weigh in on whether it is necessary or desirable for a business with 11 or more establish wants and standardized decor to move into the neighborhood. 11 or more and standardized decor should trigger a sea of hearing. the law has two catch-all categories. argument that financial services falls under the retail sales and service category was made in the case of 401 visa darro but unfortunately the planning department and board of appeals denied my neighbors and i due

process of a c.u. hearing. chase, a multinational bank that played a huge role in the global economic recession has one-size-fits-all national policies, takes the majority of its money out of the community, has thousands of branches with standardized decor was able to move in and displace two local businesses as well as a third potential store front. quoting from the law, the standardized architecture, color schemes, decor and signage of many retail businesses can detract from the character of neighborhood businesses. when a chase moves into that neighborhood, it makes that neighborhood look like anywhere, u.s.a., not san francisco. san francisco needs to protect its vibrant small business sector and create a supportive environment for new small business innovations. the property evicted two local businesses for chase bank to move in and collapsed three store fronts into one mega-bank

which generally has more staff than customers. quoting from the law, formula retail businesses can have a competitive advantage over independent operators because they are typically better capitalized and can absorb larger start-up costs and pay more for leases and commit to longer contracts. more than a dozen businesses inquired with the open space. a lot of wealthy property owners who don't spend time in the neighborhoods where they own property will sit on empty properties. which chains are allowed to move in without community input, they wonder? the planning department allows big banks? let's move in a big bank without community input. cha-ching. quoting from the law, money earned by independent businesses is more likely to circulate within the local economy than money earned by national businesses. with the locally based credit

union, 75% of deposits go to loans to other local members. chase bank's h.q. is on the other side of the country. although hundreds of my neighbors feel what happened at davis darro was a misinterpretation of formula retail law, the zoning administrator said the best way was move forward was to add financial services as a specific use and that's what we're doing here today. thank you. vice president wu: thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. dean preston, resident of district 5. i thank supervisor mar for his leadership on this issue and supervisor olague for co-sponsoring the legislation. i support it 100%. and i'm not going to reiterate all the compelling arguments that have been made for why it's a no-brainer that formula retail -- i'm sorry -- that financial services needs to be subject to the same formula retail conditional use hearing that any other formula retail business is currently subject

to. i did want to take issue with the proposal by the planning department staff on striking the sales and service retail provision and i think -- i've testified before on this issue and general comment with you before you, you know, there developed this myth that financial services somehow was exempt when this law was drafted. it's intentional that sale and service retail is covered and that is as planning department staff notes a catch-all category. this nuance of this type of formula retail but not this type are covered is not there in the legislation. i want to show you in fact i have the overhead, please, a list. this is -- these are all of the sales and service retail uses that are not separately listed

in the formula retail law. and so this is what the department staff is proposing to take the position that the formula retail law does not apply to any of these. the department has not -- has been inconsistent in the past between these different provisions. for example, auto zone recently had -- my understanding is that they had a formula retail conditional use hearing before you. they are one of these uses. they were under the catch-all, they're sales and service retail. so some categories have been subject to conditional use under the formula retail guidelines, some have not. financial services i would submit has become exempt by historical accident and the fact of for the sake of consistency the department has continued to apply that exemption. as ms. weiss just testified, the suggestion was made, let's clarify banks with legislation

and that's what this legislation does but i think to throw out the other categories would be problematic and to the extent further clarification is necessary, it should be done through separate legislation. thank you very much. vice president wu: thank you. >> good afternoon. mark brennan. landlord of 401 device darro, a controversial project. my father built this building in 1984. i live in district 5. my family works above 401 devis darro. i heard that 12 businesses came to rent the building. that's not true. we had two viable businesses. one was batteries plus, to be operated by a local district 5 man and his wife who is a franchise. the neighborhood or a few neighbors went crazy. they wouldn't go to any meetings he held.

they signed petitions, they had dead people sign petitions. the other business was a mexican restaurant. the man, his agent, went down to the planning department, inquired about opening there, they told him no, this is fast food, you're not allowed in, it will take you so many months and yada, yada, yada and he was terrified. we never heard from him again. the fact of the matter is, commissioners, we had 401 divis darro vacant for five years. it wasn't due to holding out for something bigger or better. we had two viable options. when we opened the building, we had martinnizing cleaners. they were there for two years and sold to dennis and his family, became martini cleaners. after his time ran out, he was not extended another term. dennis knows why he was asked to leave. it's not the commission's business. we have 10% unemployment in san francisco and every three or four years, the chronicle does a

story of the exodus of african-american families in san francisco and is it no wonder when we can't hire people when we can't hire teenagers and young people to get their first job? chase bank, the chase branch there, i don't know how many people they've hired, somewhere around 15 to 20 people. the three stores that were preceding them had zero employees. they were all family run businesses. the coffee shop wanted to leave. he was delighted to leave. we helped him move. we paid for most of his costs. it took him well over a year to get through planning and building. i think he finally got his permits to open. this notion that we're -- this commission is supposed to be for small businesses is laughable. look at the ice cream bar on cole valley, took two years to open. this is ridiculous. this planning department does not encourage small businesses, does not encourage any

businesses and we're going to go here and include any business that actually employs young people or anyone with any economic background is very telling. thank you. vice president wu: thank you. any further public comment? >> good afternoon, commissioners. i'm a resident of the alamo square neighborhood. it's a little bit of a red herring to have a conversation with the chamber of commerce and committee on jobs talking about multinational banks that suddenly can't afford to invest in a little extra time in san francisco to ensure that if they were going to have a location here in san francisco, that they are actually wanted and fit into a given neighborhood. what's interesting about the process we have so far is the amendment that planning staff is suggesting is one that we

brought to you a year ago and brought up the idea of sales and service retail as an issue that was within formula retail as was mentioned by mr. preston, we were told financial service was exempt. it's a little ironic to have staff come back a year later to essentially acknowledge that there is a catch-all category that they have either been carefully interpreting, occasionally interpreting, not interpreting at all or not using within formula retail and want to remove the entire category. i think there's a misunderstanding or lapse of judgment within the department about the intent of formula retail in the first place so i would certainly oppose that. with regards to the formula retail and financial services, let's be clear, the report from your own staff, i believe that was given last year, showed that of formula retail conditional use hearings, 70% were approved. this is not a ban. this is simply conditional use.

this is simply an extra step to ensure that there's a neighborhood voice, neighborhood participation in the choices they want to see. i think the gentleman from hayes valley, the true sake store nailed it which is we simply don't want san francisco to become like every other place. i think this planning commission does its best to do that. i think this is an obvious step moving forward. if you have seen a national billboard campaign, i would call it, for j.p. morganchase throughout the city after buying washington mutual after the financial meltdown. there are chase banks throughout the city. how many people actually go into the chase banks? we don't know. but what they do have is cookie cutter looks, cookie cutter signage that is loud, it's proud and it says corporate america and that's something we don't need in san francisco and i think the conditional use is a very reasonable and rational approach to formula retail. thank you. vice president wu: thank you.

>> good afternoon, commissioners, gus hernandez, alamo square neighborhood association. i just wanted to add my support for adding financial services to formula retail regulations. i also wanted you to be very careful about removing sales and service retail from the list. there's actually another use category called sales and service, other retail. i'm going to put up this list here. the overhead, so you see, sales and service other retail is only defined as anything that isn't actually captured under sales and service retail and it's actually a subset of sales and service retail. there's two -- you see -- video store, amusement and game arcade. all these uses are listed under formula retail right now. there's a few categories that

are missing that have come before you as formula retail. i'll give you example -- cvs pharmacy. pharmacy is not listed on here, it actually falls on under retail. target is general goods, again, other retail. a lot of things fall under other retail. it's another use category. two specific things, i think i said, video store and amusement and game arcade fall under "other retail" so there is inconsistency in the way they're interpreting this law so i urge you to please not remove "sales and service retail" from this list. thank you. vice president wu: thank you. any further public comment on this item? >> hello, my name is gia

demlorakatz and i was hired by chase bank to do community outreach work as they started to open up new branches in san francisco and i wanted to say that chase is one of the institutions that would be impacted by this, isn't opposed to actively engaging with the local community and being subject to a process that requires that. but we do feel that we are different than formula -- traditional formula retail, we're different than traditional retail, and that there's going to be an impact and unintended negative consequences so i want to talk about how we're different and how an approach that perhaps is more specific to the use of banking would be more appropriate than a one-size-fits-all extending formula retail controls. banks by their nature and structure as has been said are networked and operate throughout the city as a convenience and to provide access to customers. people bank locally. they don't want to travel across

town. they avoid a.t.m. fees when they can bank in their own community. merchants benefit from greater access to their daily banking needs and while banks might not be cool, hip or funky, because i don't know that you can make a bank in that vein, they provide a critical service. and so if the city of san francisco, as city treasurer and other officials have talked about, want to make banking the unbanked a top priority in the city, then restricting the availability of financial services is directly counter to that goal, to the goal of expanding access to low-cost banking services which chase has been a partner in. i should say that just as an example, chase, in the last year, has -- has increased its small business lending in san francisco by 150%. we're the number one small business lender by volume in california and nationally and

they're extremely committed to working with the local community and supporting local institutions. so, again, similarly, just in the last couple of years, we've more than doubled our philanthropic support, last year providing more than $7 million just in san francisco to local organizations and over $66 million in california. to continue to have these partnerships and to grow and foster as i know chase and perhaps other financial institutions are very interested in doing, i ask you to think carefully about the impact and the message that it sends by proposals like this. talked about the job growth and that's something else i want to underscore, that in our projects, over 90% of employees i think we're up to 1200 employees in san francisco are local, hired in the direct area of the branch and the company

looks forward to continuing to grow and work in close partnership all of you on future projects and with local organizations and neighbors. vice president wu: thank you. is there any further public comment? if not, public comment is closed. commissioner moore? commissioner moore: what should i say at last? it is quite a few years that we have broached this issue and in a changing economy but became increasingly more surprising with people having less money, the applications for branch banks increased. i found that somewhat a contradiction on its own. having said that, i think supervisor mar's legislation is long overdue. this issue has been asked again and again and the zoning administrator at that time basically didn't have any other tools than the ones he had. however, sitting down and rethinking of how we define

formula retail, it doesn't take an einstein to figure out that branch banks definitely fall within that category. i have gotten quite a few phone calls, quite a few emails, personal emails, but i think today's public presenting that the department's recommendation to delete the whole category of other service and other retail would be acceptable, it is not. i strongly support we consider keeping it in and should there be other ways of finer way defining formula retail, i will support that, but that will arise out of a complete separate set of discussions. i would also say there might be certain formula retail such as video stores which we might have to revise. i think within a year or two or three, there might be new categories of what potentially could constitute formula retail, i.e., perhaps there are --

coming up as one which falls into the category of formula bakeries. i think we need to stay on target with figuring out what starts to compete when it has more than 11 branches and that could be anything. so i'm strong, strong support of what is in front of us here, hope that we will refine and continue as we move forward and keep a very vigilant eye as we move into the future and things can change. i do believe that -- and i've said it many, many times, that the essence and d.n.a. of san francisco is indeed what the hayes valley merchants described and what is evident in anybody who lives with open eyes in san francisco neighborhoods. vice president wu: thank you. commissioner miguel? commissioner miguel: yes. there was a comment regarding the starbucks on the waterfront and i was totally dismayed. i think it's at pier three, when i saw it appear there.

i think it's an absolute disaster for the city in such a prominent place. it would be like putting one at the airport, which we don't do, either. along with commissioner moore and others, i've been pushing the concept that financial institutions are formula retail for at least the last couple of years. i disagree totally with the department's interpretation and that's one of the reasons i would not go along with the elimination of other sales and services because they have given me, anyway, given the commission, no justification for that at this point. you may be willing to do so at this time but the public doesn't know it and they haven't had a chance to discuss it and i would not consider it at this point.

what's retail? is that defined by negativism as it's not wholesale and it's not professional services? i do not agree with negative definitions. so as far as i'm concerned, until there is a further other explanation of this, that additional category should be put in. in general, in legal terms, although i'm not an attorney, but when i have worked with attorneys on legislation and on codes, where certain areas, items or specifics are spelled out, it usually means that everything else is not covered, period. and so the catch-all category is generally the accepted way to go. i'll stop for a minute if you have comments. >> you're absolutely right. that's exactly how we've