you are saying it would take three to six months for small businesses to have more of a way in and consider the other banks in the neighborhood as well? >> there are always out wires in the different situations, but three months to six months is pretty standard for conditional use. fees are based on construction in range from $19 for no construction to a simple change of use, or $2,500 for $200,000 worth of construction. that concludes my remarks and i would be happy to answer any questions. supervisor mar: thank you. supervisor wiener? supervisor wiener: i have a question about some of the remarks made at the beginning. from my own perspective, i think that the goal should be to make sure that we have banking services available in neighborhoods without having

overconcentration in neighborhoods, trying to find that balance. i think that when there are no controls in terms of a conditional use, it can lead to over-concentration. when there are too many controls, you can have too many services. hear, by defining it as a formula retail, instead of simply creating a citywide cu, we are effectively banning banks in the beach valley and chinatown, correct? >> correct. supervisor wiener: i do not know how many banks are already in each of those neighborhoods. i know i am for getting at least one. from the planning department's perspective, is it healthy to have a neighborhood with zero banks? >> it is not. but there are a limited number

of categories called limited financial services that allow a smaller store fronts or atms. in theory, you could have a branch there. those are not considered under the definition of financial services. supervisor wiener: does the planning department have a rationale for supporting the blanket ban of bank in the north beach, hayes valley, and chinatown? >> i understand that immediate neighborhoods were consulted in were fine with that. the fact that limited financial services were committed -- permitted allowed them to have more shops. supervisor wiener: sometimes there might be one or two neighborhoods, neighborhood people, that may or may not reflect used in the neighborhood.

was any consideration given to having a citywide cu said that there would be controls everywhere, but bans know where? >> it was discussed. that was considered. in the end they felt it was more appropriate to include it in a formula retail. supervisor wiener: again, what was the rationale for that? >> we did not actually say the rationale, but the individual commissioners talked about wanting smaller banks and large chains to have an easier process going. supervisor mar: that was my understanding as well, they felt that it would overly burden those institutions to take that approach. in many ways that was the rationale for not supporting

that approach. i was just responding that in the small business commission discussion, there were a number of residents and business owners who said that they were supportive of this approach in the north beach and other areas. supervisor wiener: so, ok, the commission was fine with bands in those neighborhoods? even if it meantn itans -- bans in those neighborhoods? >> yes, based on research. supervisor wiener: ok. in the staff report, we talked about overconcentration. in the finance formula, retail,

it could allow the risk of overconcentration to be addressed as very important. but, i am looking at the language of formula retail ordinance as it is being inserted into talks about the number of formula retail in general in the neighborhood, without breaking it down by category. when the department looks at the over-concentration, with the department be looking at an overconcentration of banks that law or of all formula retail? -- banks? or of all formula retail? >> if the neighborhood is over saturated to the point of losing identity, we take that. supervisor wiener: is that the case in the current areas that already have -- >> yes.

supervisor wiener: i know that in the north valley it would be the seventh bank along the 24th street, where the department is recommending conditional use. some have opined that it leads to overconcentration in by wonder what the health planning approaches are. again, we all come from different perspectives as to why we support or don't support the legislation, but to me that is a particular one. >> do you know the name of the bank? supervisor wiener: i would rather not -- i will let you know when we talk. supervisor mar: supervisor cohen? supervisor cohen: can you talk to me about how check cashing places factor in? >> they are considered french financial institutions.

they are not included in this definition. i think that they have special controls through each neighborhood commercial district. the over-proliferations are even addressed. supervisor cohen: already addressed? >> in other situations, i believe. it is a separate news category. neighborhoods that do have an issue with that are banned outright or require additional use. supervisor cohen: so, we are not speaking in many kinds of certain terms today? >> no. supervisor cohen: i am also concerned about the outreach. do you have a list of neighborhood organizations that were reached out to? >> part of our required noticing is the 20 days in the paper for

larger issues. sometimes we do for outreach wilwe do not have been requirems for supervisors. it was widely discussed whether it was in richmond, district 2, or the other districts in the city. i do not have the list, but i know that there was a good sector of the small business district disgusting -- discussing this over the last several months as well. when it came to the small business commission as well. supervisor cohen: i do have a couple of concerns. i would be interested in knowing where those neighborhoods were reached out to. because there are other neighborhoods inside of

district 10 and at what to make sure that they weighed in. they have not spoken to our office. i am thinking about the bay shore corridor and leland avenue. there are a few anchored institutions in particular. as you said before, i would also be interested in knowing more information about the french financial and if there is an average used for folding this definition into the legislation that we will be entertaining today. >> the commission did not consider that. supervisor cohen: i understand that they did not consider that in the financial institutions that are not part of the commission and whether they are even reached out to. >> i am definitely interested in

possible legislation that could create that as another consideration. i am glad you brought it up. i will definitely get back to you on the controls that we have four french financial. supervisor cohen: thank you. supervisor wiener: i am also particularly interested, in the neighborhoods where this results in a blanket ban on banks, whether outreach was conducted to the residents who actually rely on the banking services. i guess that this is just another question, which would be -- with their be a way to craft of the language of the legislation? so that it would be defined as a formula retail, without having any bans? affectively, the cu, so that we do not have neighborhoods where

there is a blanket ban on banks but it would hat -- it would still have to go through a conditional use? >> there is probably a way, unless it was part of what was before the voters. i'm sure that there is a way to craft that to make sure that they are not banned within commercial districts. supervisor mar: these are banks with 11 or more districts each. not all banks are caught up in this legislation. >> correct. supervisor mar: thank you so much, mr. starr. i wanted to invite up regina, the director of small business for the city. maybe you can address a little bit about the different neighborhood input processes. >> good afternoon. my name is regina tracy, from the office of small business, as

the supervisor noted, the commission did support this legislation and, for many of the reasons stated here in terms of seeing this as a reasonable expansion of formula retail controls, to be able to deal with maintaining the unique diversity and visual retell, the daytime -- not daytime, but the retail environment for commercial corridors, the concentrations are like what you see and how that can affect -- affect the flow and traffic of a commercial corridor. in terms of the outreach, on behalf of the office of the small business commission, as with any piece of legislation that comes your office, we highlight it in our bulletin. we send it out to the key business leaders in the area.

but we did not do a specific -- we did not do specific calls to reach business and organization. we did not pull them on this particular matter. -- poll them on this particular matter. i know that there were some discussions on this regarding the cost for financial-services. the commission noted that there are others that have to pay for the additional use process and have to wait six months, as with any business under a formula retail control. those are bars, restaurants, specialty foods, entertainment, massage establishments, auto repair, tobacco paraphernalia establishments, or walk up areas, like if a small business does more to have atm machine

outside their property, a parking lot, or professional services in the north beach sacramento see district. so, again, the commission found that this met the reasonable expansion of a formula retail control to work to maintain the unique character of the city's neighborhoods. supervisor mar: thank you. supervisor cohen: can you tell me who you did speak to? >> we did not poll. it was an e-mail to our business organizations that we generally communicate with on a regular basis. supervisor mar: -- supervisor cohen: give me an indication of who the respondents were.

>> they are usually merchant organizations. supervisor mar: was it -- supervisor cohen: was at valley merchants? >> all the merchants, all 45 merchant organizations received information about legislation. supervisor cohen: i understand that, but who responded? >> in terms of e-mails, no direct response. i do not recall of the top of my head was in attendance, but i can follow up with that. >> no one responded to the e- mail, but you count that -- supervisor cohen: no one responded to the e-mail, but you count that as outreach? >> correct. from our standpoint, we send the information out and do not have the capability of being able to follow up with each business organization on the policy

matters. merchant organizations know our procedures and know that we send them out on a regular basis. supervisor cohen: would you be willing to do more upbeat before the item came to the full board? >> shirt. -- sure. supervisor mar: i know that when the small business commission heard this, there were representatives from a number of neighborhoods to testified. i know that it engaged in number of associations in the richmond district on the issue. i spoke before a number of groups about the issue as well. we received a number of communications where we give them more information. i do not have numbers for them,

but i will let you know from my office. i can tell you that it was based on a small business network of neighborhoods and others, but i am not sure if we have the capacity to reach out to every single neighborhood. we felt that that showed strong support, which went to the unanimous support of the small business commission in a neighbor biddy unanimous support in assuming -- >> another concern is that i am assuming that the message that went out was all in english? supervisor cohen: in my district, i have many merchants that do business that do not speak english, or english is not

their first language. the chinese or spanish. i understand that there has been a significant amount about -- and people have been very excited about it. we are leaving a lot of other people on the table. at the very least, they are not educated or knowledgeable about what is going on. >> -- supervisor mar: i definitely acknowledge that we need to do much more multilingual outreach. but it does seem that the groundswell of support from the various coalitions of this ring -- interesting properties, even smaller communities would look at this.

captioned by the national captioning institute --www.ncicap.org-- -- supervisor wiener: does the small business commission support banning banks? it looks like right now they are using gulf ended is financial services on the ground for this principally permitted. i am sorry if i misread the planning code. so, this would swing it all of away from prince of be permitted to band. i apologize for not having read the planning code, but it looks like a combination of not permitted at all or conditional use. i am guessing that it has to do with square footage, but i suppose it could not.

and a small business commission has as opposed to putting controls them, which a lot of really -- and out of us will be supported. >> the commission did have some discussion around this topic and we understood that their recommendation would be in aban, -- mean a ban, and that not having a bank in a merchant area does impact merchants in terms of the ability to do banking close by. >> we are talking about 11 inches or more. whites do you know how many are

flawed under 11? not many, but there are a few. it has been the commission's way of weighing in on controls as they respected what each so, if the board of supervisors in a policy matter wanted to go in the direction of conditional use, i would say that a conditional use, we have made a conditional use as i have read off the list for small businesses, falling within the purview of the discussion. as to whether it should be a

control or straight out additional use control. supervisor mar: in also think that before these were put in place, idea no where i became for a former retail? someone who the board had included banks where they anticipated that and believed it was already included. they would say absolutely, they want to have a conditional use to avoid concentration of banks, as it hurts the neighborhood, but we do not want to have no banks either. does the small business commission have a view on whether formula of lying to

financial-services on this second, as opposed to the ground level. >> the commissioner has not had an extensive discussion. i think that i can say that from the discussion, they have not had one on the first part of the second floor and retell control relationships to this call or any other conditional use or formula retail control. they have steps and an opinion on it. i think that what i can say is that the gist of their discussion on a bunt -- ground floor uses . supervisor mar: credit unions

can create a unique neighborhood character within neighborhoods. i think that that is why it was supported by a broad range of groups. i asked my staff, and it is not a ban, because smaller institutions could get through and be supported by neighborhoods. there are 11 branches or less, and i do not have the list, but i will make sure that my staff is the list of credit unions that do not fall within the formula retail definition. i wanted to thank the small business network's for engaging on this issue as well. supervisor cohen: -- >> the commission did have discussions on the other financial services not being part of the control. they do occupy some of the quarter spaces in the outlying

areas, but they would fall under this. they would appreciate that that was not included. supervisor mar: thank you so much. if there are no other questions, let's open this for public comment. we have a number of cards. [reads names] and if there are others that would like to speak, i see a few other cards. we will limit people, as we have a number of hearings today. 30 seconds, please do your best to stick within the timeframe. >> basically, we need to minutes. i will not speak about what i was supposed to speak on, but i will speak about the process. i am listening to the deliberations that the planning commission.

i have listened to the deliberations that small business. they demanded gray areas where they were taking place. when this came before this committee, the questions asked are very, very confusing. i would say that if one of you chooses to do something like this, you actually have a point that should be distributed to all the supervisors. this concerns every district, even though the ones not based in chinatown cannot be grandfathered in. secondly, it is the responsibility of representatives to do some focused outreach, ok? we have budget associations that work, because all of a sudden

they take. they work with representatives. the representatives get everything done at this rate. you are a representative because you are supposed to represent. you have to do some outreach and i am suggesting that the smart business commission, or the planning commission, should be doing that. now, in some of the district we need to stop cash cashing places. in some of the districts, we need credit banks. i have five seconds and i turn it over to you. thank you very much. supervisor mar: thank you. next speaker. i will call a few more. [reads names] >> yes, good afternoon,

supervisors. my name is russell pritchard. i own a small business called valley home interiors. i am a very active member of the hayes valley neighborhood association. at this time i wanted to state again, 100%, support of having those institutions added in the form of retail bands. we want banks to be completely and forever banned from our neighborhoods. this is and has always been the position of the merchant association. this is the fourth meeting i have addressed in the last year, starting with the planning commission. if you look at the minutes from that meeting, you will find the hayes valley neighborhood association has been fully supportive of this issue and the banks in hayes valley.

so, we would certainly urge for you to pass this committee, urging your fellow supervisors to support this ban. thank you. >> afternoon. my name is kate stewart. i am a self-employed insurance agent that comes from a long line of agents in the city. my own father has been at it since the early 1970's. i am proud of what we do. together we employ about 10 staff people. we are employers and play a vital role in our community. we are affiliated with state farm brought -- state farm bank. we do offer checking accounts, savings accounts, and other loans within our locations. i believe