there are ones that are passed to include those par cels. i would run from octavia to market. the grocery stores can more easily locate at -- 555 folsom. however, it does support the policy before you today. that concludes my presentation. >> okay. is there public comment on this item. i do have one speaker card and i think it's for a block of time. 10

minutes, yes. eric and pat. >> good afternoon commissioners. for those of who you don't know me, i name is pat tura. myself and the vice-president appreciate the opportunity to address you at length today. over the past 5 years. dtna has put great effort to ensure the area of the market corridor. it all began with the market

octavia plan. since the plan went into effect dt and a works with the developers and city to implement aesthetic concerns and the plan. all the cranes on the market are in part in fruit of this process. we welcome the neighbors and businesses that will join our neighborhood when those cranes turn into buildings. one development coming so fast is that we have been unable to influence and shape the influx of formula retail. in a moment eric will take you through the process d t and a gave to that reaction. before we move to those details, i want to give you a brief view of upper market today and what those contemporaneous -- cranes as i

mentioned is what you will see. this is a map of the market corridor with a total proposal all entitled with the exception of one on this map. so we have 8 entitled projects for a total of 553 new units and a total of 67450,000 square foot of space. 114 units, 5,000 square feet of new space. we'll see that very soon. 1001 market, the now home of whole foods. the developer of this project said this was one of the most visible corner parcels along san francisco symbolic street. 85 units,

31,000 square feet of new space. we have 115 units. 8150 square feet. we have 125, with 88 units 6500 square feet. right across the street from that 15th and market we have 22 units with 4800 square feet. moving up to 16th street we have the new home of bank of the west with 18 units and 5,000 square feet. up on the edge of the corridor we have 376 castro with 26,000

square feet. when those cranes come down, we'll know what it will look like. now we'll take it to eric. >> good afternoon, commissioners. thanks for giving us time to speak. i will give you more detail as to how we an arrived at this point. it's before the cranes started to go up. we notice the small businesses went belly up. some land owners were holding the space for guaranteed income. the example is the market center next to cafe which remains vacant for several years. dt and a had concerns about trader joes. cvs designed

to match the neighborhood needs. what the process realized is we need to determine the right businesses for the neighborhood. a formula retail matrix we called it that would evaluate applications on a variety of criteria. however in 2010 as the economy picked up the dta became concerned with the applicants. and as a result rents were increased. research indicated that formula retail businesses in the triangle on upper market portion of the triangle were 28 percent after doing research which is up from 25 percent in 2008. meanwhile we saw

businesses thriving. they have a ban on resale of the corridor. since they are opposed to retail they are willing to fight on every project. versus 2 nearby comparison corridor, the upper market was higher than the comparison areas. and valencia street less than 5 percent. that's compared to 28 percent in upper market. a research also uncovered something else that former retails covered about a quarter of the total number of businesses which require a number of visual spaces because they are located in the corner which are more visible. the land use created a formula retail concentration index for the corners and we found the major index from down to 40 percent which was by

large retail uses like pottery barn to a low of 29 percent. although that is dominated by safe way. not to mention whole foods down the block. looking at all this we decided to get input from the community. over the course from 2011, to d t and a website and e-mail exchanges took the pls -- pulse of the neighborhood. by increasing dominance of the neighborhood -- the upper market and castro would disappear. that's how we got where we are. you have seen tis planning commission about the verizon store and you will see

us again when proposed starbucks and markets. we need to do something broader. thankfully supervisor wiener, director ram and planning staff were receptive to our concerns. now i will take it back to pat. >> we see the policy before you today is a success in developing a retail strategy for the upper market corridor. a collaborative effort has begun with the supervisor wiener to study the retail environment which will support a small strong business strategy versus merely filling vacancy. this is a pivotal time in the neighborhood where 10s

and thousands of square feet. supervisor wiener has taken on the project as we get under way. the retail study will provide a market plan for full implementation. while many of the recommendations in the plan have been implemented it still remains incomplete. what are the primary businesses people locate in the neighborhood, what are the primary reasons they leave the neighborhood. where the gaps between what the neighborhood needs and what will exist. all of these factors require considerable consideration and better understanding of what fits the needs of neighborhood at large. d t and a and our neighborhood associations, thank you for your consideration today and we

hope you will approve the policy, thank you. >> thank you. >> i have a couple more speaker cards. michael colter, wendy mag, peter cohen. i'm wendy mag, i'm a local residue and local merchant. the years ago purchased a business within this upper market corridor. we are very excited about this as the beginning of a policy that can address this area from octavia to castro. this is a beginning of the neighborhood of the corridor. this is a boom

in both coming residents and retail. we are looking at what we can do to shape this where people will come and the residents moving in will spend time there. the transit corridor has created a need and a desire to keep people out of their cars so they can get other places in the city but it's also an opportunity to invite them to stay home, stay within a few blocks and get what they need. the more that we can support, invite and protect the small locally owned businesses that attract people to stay home, stay in the neighborhood, come to the neighborhood, the more that is going to happen. as a local merchant, as a local resident, i would like to ask you to consider supporting the policy. thank you. >> thank you.

>> good afternoon, commissioners, peter cohen. i was involved this drafting this particular -- measure. i'm glad to see this a very effective form of policy. what is before you today is a great addition to that recognizing that some of the things we did not account for in that original policy piece are things that we need to control for now. that is that formula retail wants to concentrate, it wants to be a dominant presence in any commercial district whether it's upper market or elsewhere. very classic kind of the

geography of locating businesses is gas stations and we don't have a lot in san francisco, but it works nicely if you go anywhere across the bridge. there is gas stations on four corners, you wonder why. there is a certain business logic to why you want to be located to other competitors as close as possible. so we have this natural market basic instinct to do this. this policy intend to counter balance that anden insures the formula allows for these committees and still balanced with other businesses. i want to acknowledge, erin started a nice job, i spend a

lot of time with the planning staff. this was really easy. i want to give real props to erin for working with community and sorting out something nicely. lastly i want to reinforce the staff's suggestion on the geography of the proposal to make sure that it goes all the from octav ia to castro and you can see the upper market corridor is identifying from octavia to castro. that is the upper market. so i greatly encourage you to take that staff recommendation. thank you. >> thank you. did michael cohen come back? hopefully no ticket. >> hi. i'm an independent business owner on the market street corridor. as a locally owned business, i really

support this amendment as well. giving us small guys a chance to compete in the city and i also am really in favor of the fact that it extends all the way down to octavia with all of this new construction. i hope you all agree. thank you. >> thank you. any additional public comment? okay, seeing none, commissioner moore. >> it must be serendipity, that the two things building very well on each other it's astounding to me to see in one spot the many projects we all approved in the last two years because i recognize all of them because i never think comprehensiveively about the total number of the impact of the total number of projects in

one area. that presentation was significantly helpful to see how consequential our actions are when they really occur in these areas. i'm glad that the department quickly jumped to the role of helping because the concern about formula retail m this commission has been discussed for quite a few years and it's not as much about talking, it's about doing something about it. i consider this to be a very effective legislation and very appreciative about the sensitive way in which all neighborhood organizations helped and continue their own work in it. as measure cohen described, but i want to acknowledge mr. star by phrasing it in a way and it starts with good self examination. here despite these efforts that the department doesn't have quite tools for doing this correctly. this is a

first attempt to sharpen those tools. i appreciate that and i'm in full support and would like to jump in and make a motion to support this legislation. >> second. >> commissioner antonini? >> i have a few concerns to check with mr. star. this is basically only saying that given this formula for the propensity of retail. >> and the commission would still have their discretion? okay. my main concern ask concern is we are going to be creating an awful a lot of retail space. proponents would say we want to fill it with small local businesses. that would be ideal but i see a lot

of vacant store fronts in san francisco as an example that sit without a tenant there for years and years. i'm not sure if this is entirely true but the retail space is a loss leader for their development and they can afford not to rent it. i'm not sure if it's the entire amount that they are getting but it's a factor and the other thing about this legislation that concerns me a little bit is if certain types of formula retail such as banking, there is a reason why there are branches in different neighborhoods and just because there is one bank in the neighborhood doesn't mean you are going to use that bank and probably you will be traveling somewhere else by car to do your banking and not be able to stay within your neighborhood to do that service. the same is

true of groceries which we want to consider because we want people to be able to take care of their shopping needs within their neighborhoods. most of the neighborhood stories are formula retail. i'm not sure if lend dee has 10 or more and there are some in san francisco that we would like to attract, but if they do over the formula retail threshold it's another reason why they say i don't want to go there. i think we have to look at -- i would be more inclined to favor a situation where 20 percent were in terms of the same type. in other words you had another cellphone store or another of the same type because just to lump all formula retail together as some kind of mass of types of stores, the grocery stores are different from

cellphone stores, different from banks and other things. i think it's one of the flaws i see in this. i'm not entirely, i think it's still allows us the discretion. it's just the staff recommendation which might not carry the day. >> commissioners sugaya? >> well, that maybe true, but i think if we adopt the policy, it's a policy. if it should carry some weight in terms of the staff recommendations that come forward. it reminds me also that we talked previously about formula retail in terms of signs. i don't want to have that disappear from the conversation. i know this is directed at something a little broader but the commission did have some discussion with respect to signage on formula retail and generally other sign situations in commercial areas.

so, hopefully that will still on the burner somewhere and then i just want to make sure that the motion included the inclusion of the wider octavia to castro street area. >> commissioner border? >> yeah, i think this is a great policy. i actually live right at market and octavia, right across the street from the 1400 block market project that is being built now. there is a lot of new space coming on the market and something we need to consider about how we more thought fully consider a case. i do believe that we only get disapproval recommendation by staff while we have at times over turned those approval situation. i think we have robust discussion and it makes it think harder about why we

believe a particular business should be in a particular location. so, this is not a -- doesn't mean there will never be formula retail and never been an instance where we never find it affordable but it looks into an opportunity to look at how to make it necessarily and desirable of backing around to how we choose to weigh that. >> commissioner hillis? >> on the 20 percent figure. if we looked at formula retail now on the corridor, would any block meet -- where would those blocks meet or exceed that point of threshold? >> we rant -- ran a couple scenarios. it's about 11 or 12 percent. but that's analyzing the pete's coffee store, one that already exist. when you

get to the corner properties, you include both frontages so that significantly increases the percentage of formula retail. >> i guess i want to make sure we are formulateing the percentaging. i think it bridges that gap. where i think a ban is tough to do this is almost sending the signal where i think valencia and in this case there is too much formula retail on upper market and we are trying get an established neighborhood. i would like to make sure that percentage is low enough that we are basically saying, we are setting the signal to formula retail that you don't want more formula we re tail on this corridor which is what we are trying to do. >> i think we set it low enough by using the methodology and then we ran it through few

scenarios and determined the appropriate percentage based on that >> most applications in this contradict would fall into this and would come back with a disapproval? >> i wouldn't know about most, but again the corner lots that we ran and particularly in the coroner -- of church market because of the safe way so that makes the numbers go up considerably. >> i'm supportive of it. i just want to make sure it's strong enough because the neighbors have been here and we have other retails coming up and there is a sentiment that there is too much on market street which i would agree. i don't want to get into a position where formula retailers think they can go in a spot. it's not

20 percent, that you should prove and the commission wouldn't prove it. >> right. the policy does say that we evaluate based on the condition of the criteria and the office does to have recommend approval or disapproval because there are other criteria we look at. >> do you know for example on kings street, i know it was redevelopment before. because i think it would be good to look at other areas in the city. i think king street suffers from too much formula retail. it doesn't have great character. if there is other places in the city where we should adopt kind of a similar cu downtown along market street, i think suffers from the same, kind of too much formula retail well don't have that cu for formula retail. >> i think it was a good portion of king street was in the redevelopment area so the

controls were different and redevelopment plans apply there. >> commissioner antonini? >> another thing why this is another good example. you have fine grain older structures, a lot of them but we are creating a lot of very large new structures and i don't know if staff has had any interchange with interaction with the developers to find out how many square feet the retail is going to be, whether they are going to be allowed to break these into smaller discrete units or whether they have to be marketed as a large retail space because certain spaces make it harder for local firms to be able to fill them because of the fact that there are so many square feet involved. for example, the formula, the

pottery barn space. is a really big space. if for some reason they pulled out of will, it would be hard to fill that space would be my guess. it just, that's my only concern. has there been any communication with the projects sponsors or yon i don't remember the exact details of our approvals where we were able to provide retail space into smaller units? >> no. but there are non-residential use site controls which favors smaller store fronts in neighborhood conditions. it's probably around 3000 square feet. they

can break it up into smaller stores. >> that would be allowed if they can't use the larger space? >> correct. >> rogers? >> thank you commissioners, i would like to add a couple thoughts into this discussion. first as was instead we do have very blunt tools for controlling formula retail. it's either prohibited or it's allowed in some commercial districts such as downtown and markets. while this admittedly is again still a blunt rule, it's providing guidance to community members and developers where they can run the calculation and get a sense where this is a spot that is over concentrated or not and make the decision about whether or not to proceed based upon that knowledge. so, we think that that is a big improvement