thank you. i would like to open it up for public comment if there are no other questions. okay. we're going to limit it to two minutes per person and again, there is a buzzer that goes off with 30 sec onds to go. [ reading speakers' names ] >> thank you supervisor mar. hello everybody. my name is sal and i'm the owner and operator of the market for the past 28 years. i'm here to just due to the fact that big retail stores and formula stores will do an extremely detrimental impact on the city here. we have, as you mentioned walgrens and cvs and they used

to be only drugs, but right now you walk in and it's food. the city approved for the past two years two targets in the city and one might think target is a clothing store, but it's not. they are a big-box store and their main purpose is to sell food and this will impact small business in san francisco. i will give you an example of what big-box stores do as far as competition. we were selling muni passes for the past over 20 years and then walgreens took over. the city gave it to the contractor and gave it to walgreens and i tried about a year and a half until now to get it back, but they won't. right now if you go throughout the city, you will see clipper cards only at walgreens.

after doing the city the service of over 25 years, we could not get it simply because wall green had the upper hand. big-box stores have a terrible impact on the businesss in san francisco. it will close many small stores and it will layoff people and in my opinion, it becomes a monopoly over the whole city here. so i came here to just give you this feedback from somebody who has been there the past 28 years. >> i will say it's some of the best turkey and cranberry sauce sandwiches in the whole city. [ laughter ] thank you for being here. >> thank you. >> next speaker, mr. wu. >> thank you, supervisor mar and good afternoon. my name is steve wu and i'm from the tender loin

neighborhood development and we're here to talk today about what is going on in our neighborhood in the tenderloin. and we have been up to an effort to bring fresh food to the neighborhood. it's one of the only neighborhoods without access to a grocery store. and so what we have been trying to do is to organize the corner stores, which there are a number of in our neighborhood, to provide more fresh food. we realized that the corner stores are actually a resource to the neighborhood. and if we could just work with them to provide healthier food options, our residents would be better off. and so with that said there is a lot of changes going on around the union square/powell street area, with target coming in, with the wallgreen expanse that could o fresh food to the neighborhood, which is good. but we're wondering what the impacts will be on our small

businesses in the neighborhood and our effort to help our small businesses, the corner liquor stores reform into a more robust bodega-type of store? so we really don't have an answer for what those impacts might be., if a wal-mart were to move into district 6, it could be really tough on the small businesses that we're trying to work with. you know, one thing that we're worried about is that small businesses, small liquor stores, you know, there is real hesitancy to see more of them in the tenderloin, because there is an abundance of alcohol and liquor. if wal-mart were to move in and draw the customers towards wal-mart to buy fresh food, it's going to discourage the liquor stores to provide anything other than liquor, tobacco and lotto tickets. >> can i ask you how have

other neighborhoods or cities dealt with giving incentives to allow them to have healthier options and get rid of the cigarettes and liquor and unhealthy stuff? >> i'm not sure too much about what other cities have done. but i think there are a lot of opportunities #6ñto help incentivize. if we could help these businesss and incentivize businesses through maybe some sort of financial incentives, that potentially we could encourage businesses to want to take that risk, to try and take that leap of faith to provide fresh food. so i think there are many conversations going on around that. i know supervisor mar, you have

been talking about some incentive programs that we really would be interested in to hear more. so thank you for your leadership on this whole issue. >> thank you, mr. wu. mr. cohen and if there is anyone else who would like to speak, i don't have any other speaker cards, but please come forward. >> good afternoon, supervisors, peter cohen and i'm here today just as and a citizen and activist in my neighborhood work. for the last ten or more years i have been very involved in the upper valley area on retail issues. so i guess i approved a little bit of history. i worked on the initial legislation and i'm really happy to see this level of really deep, analytical work being done in a phase 2. because at the time, we didn't have a really good data or studies and there was actually a reticence to do that. and i think i testified here,

supervisor mar, several months ago, that i think the next step in terms of really understanding formula retail as the an economic level, we have to get down further into this kind of analysis. and the tools, i think that we need to review projects are just what is coming out here. you know, eventually we have a set of criteria now that we established for the planning commission and the board, but they are relatively soft, i think, kind of a low bar and pro forma for businesses large and small to argue their way through the criteria. so the next step i believe is to add strength to the criteria and perhaps some new ones such as those that require a more analytical, quantifiable approach to understand the impacts of these businesses. the one thing i would also say, it differs so much across the

city. we really had to recognize that there is no one size fits all. and that is, in fact, why doing this kind of study on a project-by-project basis is really helpful because you can ferret out the positive and negatives in each case. my last point is not to be too focused on big, the small businesss in a cumulative sense can have a widespread approach. so you might want to think of a couple different scales of criteria and analyses. but this is great. thank you. >> thank you. next speaker. >> my name is daryl roberts, we represent a large group of entities, lucky's, walgrens, et cetera. i feel it's imperative that you guys take into consideration what kind of negative impact

such as a big-box store would come into san francisco, such as a wal-mart. i do live in the east bay and i noticed that people have a tendency to gravitate to stores such as a big box wal-mart because of its lower prices. however, we all kind of know that wal-mart does not offer its employees fare and economic wages. it makes it harder for us to compete as far as negotiating with our employers. so i want people to really take that into consideration. thank you. >> thank you, mr. roberts. next speaker, is there anyone else who would like to speak? seeing none, public comment is closed. supervisor wiener. >> question for planning that may or may not have the answer to. do we have any indication that wal-mart is trying to come into san francisco? we have heard wal-mart come up several times. i haven't heard that, but maybe i am just missing information. >> good afternoon supervisors,

anne marie rogers planning department, i have not personally heard of a proposal on the table for wal-mart to come in, but i have not looked into the issue. >> i think we all want to support our small businesses and avoid having overproliferation of chain stores. we also know that in different parts of the city, there are different needs. this is just general comment, different needs in different parts of city in terms of access to food and there are parts of city that have tremendous access to fresh produce businesses and there are others that don't have as much access. so i think being mindful to avoid a overproliferation of retail distinguishing neighborhood needs and in terms of wal-mart.

if there is an actual push from wal-mart that i'm not aware of to come in, i would love to know about it. using the wal-mart example is probably not the case because it's such a loaded thing. >> i would say that some researches like stacy mitchell the author of "big box swindle." and other óq5zybusine leaders in chinatown see a wal-mart coming in with the strategy of a smaller store going into an urban area that we see from new york to pennsylvania, that is the strategy going on. and some rumors have kind of been circling that there is an interest in the bay area. but that is any understanding as new strategis are developed by big box formula retailers. >> i thank you for that and i know wal-mart does have some smaller stores now and has different varieties, but again, if there is tangible -- if

there is an actual push by wal-mart to come into san francisco, i would be very interested in knowing that. >> thank you. supervisor cohen. >> thank you, i think my question is directed towards -- is it mr. russeau? so the hearing today we're discussing possible impacts of formula retail on the fresh food business. and you heavily referred to a chicago model as, i guess, the way that you determined -- how you put together your formula to determine how you would crunch the data. i'm curious to know if there is a similar model or a similar study that doesn't just focus on fresh food business, but maybe focuses on home improvement stores? >> i'm sure there is, supervisor cohen, i'm not familiar with it. because the questions were asked about the fresh food business, we looked for studies that were focused on that particular industry. but my guess is that there would be something out there

that would cover that. and, in fact, the chicago study, they were reviewing, the wal-mart supercenter had grocery and other items. so they were certainly considering other types of stores as well, but it wasn't particularly focused on home improvement. >> thank you. >> supervisor olague? >> yes, i guess i have a couple of questions and i don't expect answers today, but it's for the planning department. is there some way of adjusting the planning code so when a walgreens or any other formula retail comes before the commission there is a way to limit what they can sell? >> that is an interesting question. i believe there may be some legal limits on how the city can use land use controls when

it might conflict with fair commerce regulations. >> right. >> but i'm not particularly familiar with that. it's something we could certainly look into. >> okay. that would be great, just wondering one way or another. and then this came up when i was talking to some of the small businesses. someone suggested that we have an inclusionary ordinance, sort of what we have for housing and new developments that are mixed-use. is there any way of requiring a percentage be independent or family-owned retail? or is that not possible? >> again, i think it might be possible. again the limits for what we can regulate as far as interstate commerce and what is fair competition. we can look into that and get back to this body. >> okay. finally conditional use. i know this were some areas of the city where big box is

allowed without hearing. >> that is correct. >> where are those? >> petraro. it's not like the sud so it would depend on the underlying use. >> i would like to understand that a little bit better. you can answer it here. thank you. >> thank you. >> >> thank you, miss rogers. thank you everyone for testifying. thank you to fred russeau and miss flowers of it's useful know there is a broad

cataloging coming together to fight for jobs. also food activists and organizations throughout the city that want better access to fresh and affordable food, but also small business openers owners that worry about large formula retailers coming in and potentially ending decades' of service to our neighborhoods. i think the report highlights after two years up to 1300 jobs may be lost in a large retailer moves into a central area, but then also the data of in one district after two years, the loss of maybe half the food retail businesses, mostly small businesses could be lost. so i

think it's serious findings in this. i hope to look at the data more closely with others. but i wanted to just also say that strengthening our existing formula retail policies are critical and supervisor olague, former president of the planning commission and many others we should put our heads together to figure out how to do that.k[úó i don't think it's enough to say no to formula retail, it's really important from talking to many of the small business owners and business advocates to do everything possible to protect our existing small merchants that they are better able to meet the community's needs, especially with food retail. i think one of the reasons local businesses keep more money in the neighborhoods and in the communities. a 2009 study the differential impact of locally-owned business and big-box stores in new orleans, for example, shows that while big box shows only recirculate

16% of the revenue into the community and sometimes it's with donation and other things. locally-owned businesses put more money into the community. also small businesses are the largest producers of jobs in the city and the backbone of our economy. diverse sectors and community areas and unique small businesses are a major draw for tourists and a big part of our economy in the city as well. so in the absence of strong local controls, developers and large big box commercial interests and landlords prefer to deal with chains when they are renting out their commercial spaces often. which tends to drive up commercial rents and even makes it more difficult for the small businesses. so i will say that i have been working with a broad coalition of groups and community members and city department staff as well to strengthen our existing laws and help the small businesss in our neighbors. but especially

to level of the playing field for many of our unique small businesss in relationship to the larger, corporate retailers. in the next few weeks i and my staff and the coalition will roll out a series of legislative initiatives to balance local interests and national chains and the first piece of legislation that we'll be introducing probably in the next week or so will incentivize small existing businesses especially food retail in areas where there is a relative lack of access to healthy food. and to change their business models so that they could provide more of the fresh foos that affordable for residents in their neighborhood of the we think this legislation will level playing field and take advantage of initiatives from the department of public health

and also our economic and workforce development. so i look forward to working with many of you colleagues, but many of the coalitions in our neighborhood and the small business sector as well. we'll be announcing that in next week or so. if there are no other questions? >> i have a question. >> supervisor cohen. >> thank you, supervisor mar. i'm glad to hear that we're going to be working on this and you will be introducing some legislation. i represent a lot of southeastern neighborhoods and with visitation valley and with the loss of redevelopment agency, there was in the redevelopment plan this particular part of san francisco was slated to have a grocery store to come on board. so now there is no redevelopment agency, so a lot of things are influx at this point, but one thing that is really critical that i look forward to talking to the coalition, your office, as well as neighbors is how do we figure out what is that

balance? there are at least businesses, family-run businesses eastern on bay shore or leland avenue that have been providing food to the visitation valley community. yet the greater neighborhood, there is still a cry for a grocery store, some kind of entity to come in and enhance or compliment what is already on the ground. also keeping in mind that the greater bayview community just recently as of june of last year, finally received a new grocery store that has come in, and that has hit the actually exceeded local-hire marks on ensuring that they are hiring from the community and those working at fresh and easy -- i'm, i didn't mean to give them a plug. [ laughter ] that they are reflecting the

needs, not only the dietary desires of the community, but they are hiring from the community. so that is something that is also really important to me as i continue to really dive into this particular issue. i think you said -- you nailed it right when you said "balance." balance is key. that is a tricky one. i don't know if there is a formula, because we don't want to be too generous are our land use when comes to formula stores, but we have pronounced needs that mom and pop stores would not solely be able to provide support for our neighbors, at least in the southeast. i can attest to that. thank you. supervisor olague? >> i just wanted to thank supervisor mar for all of your work on this and finally, i think i don't know if they have requested it, but i think this information might be of interest to the small business commission and the planning commission. so i don't know if you have the opportunity to pass on the report to them, but i think they would be

interested in seeing the findings. >> thank you. so colleagues, can we continue this item to the call of the chair without objection? thank you. [ gavel ] miss miller please call item no. 2. >> item no. 2, ordinance amending the transportation code to redistrict large vehiclñ >> thank you, i know there is a lot of people here to testify on this item. supervisor carmen chu is the sponsor. >> thank you very much, chair mar, for having this item before the committee today. i wanted to thanks supervisor cohen, who is a co-sponsor of this legislation. i want to layout of the folks who will be speaking today. i will say a few opening comments. the mta will do a quick presentation for you of the legislation. of course, the mta is here if you have additional questions. i believe that we have somebody from nancy miers from and the

bayview station is also here to speak about some of the issues that they have faced in the neighborhood. generally the legislation is a fairly straightforward piece of legislation and takes all of two pages. so it's a pretty straightforward one. it primarily allows for the mta, who is the body who does regulate parking in the city overall to be able to restrict where they see that there is a need and where they do post signs oversized vehicles as defined as 22' in length or 7' in height. campers or trailers, 5th wheel travel trailers, house cars, travel couch mobile homes as defined by the california vehicle code between of the hours of 12:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m. this is not intended to be a citywide restriction. it's only area s where the mta would create management opportunitis in different parts

of city. we first came across the issue because of many of the constituent issues in the sunset district. i want to be clear this is not something unique to the sunset. we have seen this problem replicated in other parts of city. colleagues i have passed out a number of remails that we received from all over the place, whether from the bayview or richmond district, et cetera. we have a ton of emails coming through about this legislation. i would say that no legislation is perfect and that is why we did not pursue a citywide ban on oversized vehicles. in many parts of the city, especially the area that i represent, there is a lack of parking regulations that make neighborhood streets a very attractive street for the storage of large, oversized vehicles. this is also true where you have large, unbroken areas of concrete, where you don't have

driveways or other things that break up parking available. we have seen panel trucks, construction vehicles, dump trucks, recreational vehicles, campers, parked all over the cro. city. for many of us, some of these vehicles are impeding the visibilities for pedestrians, cyclists and motorists. they also create a very large barrier that present areas for undesirable behavior that we have seen in our neighborhoods. i think this is also true all over the place. we know that we have been working on this issue for quite some time. so this is not a piece of legislation that we brought willy nilly and off the fly to the board. over the past several years we have been working with our neighborhoods to really enforce the 72-hour rule and currently vehicles can't stay in a

parking spot for more than 72 hours, but as many of you know that has been a very ineffective tool. by the time someone notices that a car is parked more than 72-hours and it takes a period of time before the mta or dpt and when they finally go out there the 72-hour clock begins of so it's been a very ineffective way to regulate. so we're looking for a way to create a more flexible tool for the mta to manage parking in a better way. this legislation is aimed at oversized vehicles and to that end we did want to indicate we did meet with many people about this issue. we met with the homeless coalition and i understand that they are not

supportive of the legislation and that letter has been provided to the committee as well. however, we did want to help to ameliorate some of the issues that came up. we did meet with some folks from hope, bevan dufty and others was the fact that many of the vehicular people are reluctant to surrender their vehicles for case management. one thing we have been working on with bevan is finding a location to store vehicles should people accept services and try to move into a different housing situation. we're working towards trying to finalize something that could work and be able to house individuals, cars or rvs for a periods of time to figure out

how to transition individuals. i know it's not an easy issue, not a slam-dunk issue. even though you will hear a lot of testimony will the homeless component and i certainly don't want to say that doesn't exist and people are not housed in cars. but there also a number people who are just parking their very large vehicles all over the city and not even where think live. one study that the mta put out was an oversized vehicle parking study and found out of 208 vehicles for which the mta collected registration data, 121 were actual ly in the registered to san francisco residents and of ones that were, only 20% of those were actually parked within a quarter mile of their