project, it's 2 pages. we think it's going save time and money for the city and applicants and we hope you find this type of briefing useful. die want to mention this is a sort of expand the pie solution. we are not trying to expand the project. we are trying to make it move through the process quickly. one more point on the overhead to drive this point home. there is no value added solely by the virtue of the

length of the document. on the left we have a 17-page motion for a restaurant expansion. i would like to ask you if you have any guesses for the project on the right. any set for that page on the right? 18 ballpark. we have a situation where a 42,000 feet baseball stadium was an approved with a 10 page motion and a 19 square foot expansion for a restaurant 27 pages. back to the s p 4, we are only opening up to conditional use applications. this is the most common application type that requires a hearing. we are further limiting this proposal to further types of conditional use applications. we are really

trying to target these projects. what type of proposals cannot participate. you can see shows on your screen now. no formula retail uses, no storefront consolidation, no outdoor activity at the rear of a property, no commercial parking. no removal of housing, no use sizes beyond as of right limits, no hours of operation beyond hours of right limits and no alcohol accepting beer and wine for bona fide restaurants and no massage establishments and tobacco paraphernalia and medical can bus dispensaries. the last one, i apologize the image on the screen is not visible. the package is visible. this applies to areas where are both

zoned neighborhood commercials and where the mayor's invest in the program area. the conflict of those two areas is visible on the screen in black right now. if you are not familiar with it, the neighborhood program is a departmental effort to strengthen and revitalize economic activity. these areas have dedicated staff from office of small business and work force development and we think there is a natural synergy between the sp 4 and the program. the last couple of issues you should beware of, if you do participate in the s p 4 we'll ensure that we have staff ready hee available to help you and you will become aware of this program and we are asking the

applicant to apply for these documents. the last slide, s p, this is an exploratory program. we are adopting to do through a policy. we can go back and adjust it. the ability to do that, we are also an allowing a bit of flexibility on a director who can -- disqualify a program that you do not approve or a type of project that really strikes us as being out of the ordinary or particularly complex. the director can also modify the geographic eligibility for the program within the nc district and this is an effort so we don't get over enrollment and

under enrollment. the small business commission conducted a hearing and recommend that you adopt you today which is what we are suggesting as well. we think it a policy that's going to stream line important projects for small businesses without adversely affecting further application. thank you for your time commissioners. i'm available to answer any questions. >> thank you, any public comment on this item? seeing none, commissioner antonini. >> thank you. i think this is extremely well done. i do have some questions. the first is in regards to not an allowing this quicker approval for small business that had was providing

a commercial parking place or which i would think would have less of an impact than one who didn't because presumably this is a new use. many of their patrons might be driving this. they would be parking on the street or they would be parking in provided places. it would seem as though that shouldn't be a disqualifier for this. that is my opinion. the second area i had concern over is that you are allowing a fast tracking for beer and wine. there are issues of the kind of impact of establishments can serve alcohol but the type of alcohol really, especially if it's a full service restaurant already, they have to have over 50 percent food service. it

shouldn't make any difference. the other thing i would want to include is discretion over appearance. abbreviated report is a great idea. i always thought our report said the same thing three different times. i think it's a great plan, if we are approving, we would like to see what it is. we want to see what it's going to look like and perhaps even a quick map of what the inside are going to look like too, although that's less of a concern. the other situation would be we may want to have a consideration on the disallowing any formula retail for san francisco base companies particularly those that are just reaching the threshold or are fairly low number. i think the san

francisco soup company is one example and there are a number of them that were originally not formula retail but they have now become that. we want to look at with some discretion on that. and you already answered my question about staff discretion because i understand the director and staff can pull out ones they feel do not fit into here. i think this is actually very good legislation and i would have time permitting loved to have participate with the other commissioners because i'm a small business owner and have been for 41 years and i think of all the services, i think dentist and along with pod -- we have the usually small

business issues but the medical issues where they would be able to send patients to hospitals and it has to be done in house. also the need for parking for a lot of businesses. >> commissioner wu? >> thanks. i would like to thank you. using the policy is a way to test ideas that we've had seeing what we did last week and now this week. and i think this is a targeted way to start to get at maybe issues of backlog which i assume we are going to be seeing more applications to the department in the next coming years. looking at the map it occurred to me that i do think we should keep it in these are nct's, but there are a number of mixed use

districts that somewhat function like that, so soma, chinatown. i wouldn't suggest put ting it in this pilot but i do think looking forward if the pilot is successful we want to look at what other directs do have this heavy retail commercial corridor phenomenon. >> commissioner hillis? >> just a question on this definition of small business. how is that, i know it's a confusing definition watt small business commission but how is it defined? >> it's a good question. it's not defined. we approached the question as we have the question of what is pdr, in the planning code we define what it is not instead of what it is. it's a criteria that makes something none knot eligible in

the program. >> okay. i know formula retail is exempt, but formula retail can they come in and say it's otherwise, would it be kicked out? >> it's not included in the planning code. it a term of art. the office of small business has a working definition which involves a hundred employee threshold. as far as your policy is proposed it's really an element which is eligible to participate. we have named it a small business. we are saying what can't participate rather than what it is. >> okay. then i agree with commissioner's wu's comments. do we know what applications would have been part of the policy in the last five years because it's limited to these. it's a lot more obviously in

the cities. do we know how many of these, how many cu's have been filed in the district? >> we don't. that's part of the reason we are approaching this with a soft touch as we can to allow flexibility to expand and contract because of the way our information is structured, we can't pull those out without coming to each individual case file. we want to make sure the program isn't over subscribed or under subscribed. >> i won't if others can benefit from this. what we are giving people is a short process. things would come off the consent calendar. i agree we almost get too much information on some of these simpler items. so it's a good policy. >> commissioner moore? >> i want to thank mr. side who has done an excellent job to put this together and guide us through it. i also want to mention for all planning

commissioners that this is first time in my time in the commission for a model of grading policy, there are many other issues by which this commission could organize together with other commission to address policies on other issues, housing etc. in this particular case it's exciting and exhilarating time because working with three commissioners from the small business commission, their director and mr. cider create a high level of dialogue which is truly amazing. since there was not a lot of turnover, except for commissioner miguel, it created like a continuity which allowed to really dig deep as far as quite a few of the commissioners of small business owners themselves, but it did not over step into areas where there was not really collective

expertise. i personally wanted to take more time to find it very -- enriching as part of the scope. >> most of us remember john's cafe and i don't know that a lot of people would have been driving from somewhere else to go to that cafe where one would presume doggy day care might see a lot more traffic with people dropping their dogs off. i mean i know this was just something arbitrarily picked off but the kind of thing that would need more attention. if it was an abbreviated report it would have to come before the commission and presumably the commissioners would read their consent calendars and pull off

things that weren't appropriate. i wanted to point that out. was there a consideration given to a process that might involve a landmark building or contributing resource in a historic district? >> the thought wasn't given because the existing policies would continue to apply. >> i will make a motion to for the commission to adopt the resolution for the the small business priority processing pilot program. >> second. >> on that motion to commissioner antonini, hillis, moore, sugaya, wu, fong? ayes. >> that motion passion 7-0.

formula retail in the upper market ncd proposed planning commission policy that would establish a methodology for determining the concentration of formula retail and set the appropriate level of concentration for formula retail in the upper market neighborhood nct and ncd. preliminary recommendation: adoption the department would still evaluate on the applicable criteria to the planning code on the deliberation and the commission would still retain it's discretion to approve. if

it's based on the other applicable criteria and code and recommend approval and disapproval accordingly. the department worked very closely with the association to develop a proposed policy including the methodology including the concentration and setting the maximum concentration for the upper market neighborhood. upper market is going through transformation now. you can see a lot of construction cranes. there are in addition to thousands of square foot of retail under construction now. many of the commercial spaces will be located on prominent corner lots. the neighborhood association had as well as the department was that these new retail spaces would be filled up by retail. and what the

appropriate concentration is. this new policy would address both of these issues by sending a clear methodology. also one of the added benefits of the propose to other neighborhoods should it be successful here. on the overhead i have an example of how to policy would work. so the green lot is the subject lot and it currently contains a pete's coffee and eye glass store. what the store policy would do is create a 300 foot buffer along the property and every property within that 300 buffer, would be included in the calculation. for example with the subject site it has 50

feet of frontage and 2 store fronts. to simplify the measuring process we would just take 50 feet and divide by 2. divide each parcel into formula retail store -- frontage and come to a concentration. if it exceeded 20 percent, staff would recommend disapproval. so, i do have 1 collection to policy and one just general correction. this policy was intended to apply to properties that one from octava blvd and

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