with conditional use and formula retail is no different and those are just the thoughts that i have. >> commissioner dwight? >> i am very concerned about sort of stoeking this anti-big, sentiment, and i think that we do have to remember that big companies do good things on a scale that small businesses cannot. and we have a good number of very large companies in this city that supports the arts and they support the community health on a scale, that would never be possible, by a small businesses. wells fargo, and sales force.com, and just to name a few. and i also think that it is very important to remember that here we are talking about specifically about retail, but, big companies effect availability of the rental space downtown and so if you are a company just looking for office space, and big, can be a challenge and so, you know, this is not just limited to our merchant corridors and you know, i think that having big companies downtown is a good

thing and it stimulates a lot of activity in the city and creates jobs and generates wealth for the city itself and so this sort of anti-big sentiment, troubles me a little bit. i also think that big companies, can and do, bring in innovative retail concepts to the market and they don't just do it under subbrands in a way that sort of be subversive or to get around things and puma opened a fantastic store under the own store in the meat packing district, and they brought in a lot of energetic people and companies to an otherwise blighted area that today is one of the hottest retail areas in new york city. and so, big companies can help activate, they can help energize and they can help to stabilize even small retail areas and i think that we should not forget about that.

and i am especially concerned about this notion of banning because like you say once you ban it there is no going back, and every neighborhood in this city, has gone through transitions, and the neighborhoods that are hot today are cold before and the ones that are cold right now, and have been cold are heating up and sometimes it takes someone with the financial resources of a large company to come in and put a stake in the ground, it is not just the small businesses investing in these neighborhood district and sweating it out for ten or 20 or 30 years and generation and all of a sudden saying that we found out that it was cool and the big guys that came on long, sometimes the big guys make it cool. mid market, that area would not be activated were it not for the big companies with a lot of money without the twitter and the other companies come in that place would not happen and it is now an opportunity and you look at the hukle berry

bike shop, they are in a symbiotic relationship and it is the whale with the sucker fish on it, it happens in nature and in business, and it took the whale to provide the he co-system for the little guys and to say that you made it cool and so we are not going to let the big people come in and just a little hypocritical at this point and so we have to acknowledge as a city, 49 square miles or not, it is a relatively big place with big needs, and i don't think that it was trading an environment that is hostile to the companies because they are big or international or have more than 11 stores. i think that most small retailers would dream about the day that they would have ten, 15, 20 outlets. >> that would be awesome. >> and everybody dreams of that success. and who are we to be stifling, the dreams of success for small businesses? it is a really sort of strange,

unamerican concept to me. so, hopefully, the policies will be such that they are flexible, and allow the, you know, whatever level for everyone to have in the public dialogue and to acknowledge that timing, location, all of those things, factor into what at any given time is a good decision or what happens, a controversial decision for a neighborhood. >> commissioner dooley? >> well, listening to commissioner dwight and i feel like we go back to the same thing which is i don't think that it is impossible to say one size fits all in terms of policy. and i think that you know, we have had that kind of concept in formula retail in the planning code and i think that this is the time to have the opportunity, to refine it. and you know, in terms of the international companies i do feel kind of comes under the

same thing of the buying power, the rental power and i know that that is something that in the ncds is a concern. if someone says to the landlord, i can pay it, 100,000 dollars a month, you know? and then, it does crowd out smaller, start ups or whatever. but i am not saying, that that is going to be the case, everywhere in this city. i think that clearly downtown, for example, you know, and it should, it is an area for a national brands and for prestige companies but i do think that when we look at a company, they should be considered formula retail. we are not saying that they are banned. they just have to have the cu and i think that that is a good process. i would have to say, coming from north beach, which has a total ban, on formula retail,

we have been successful with that. we don't have vacantcies for more than a week and you know, but i am saying that that is just that neighborhood and it does not always have to be that we are heavily visited we have a represent reputation and the haze valley folks feel like they are in the guides now because everything is san francisco or and so i do think that there is that side of the issue, the same thing with say athleta. they may be a one off store but they are not like a brand new person they are someone who has a major corporate person behind them, and i don't think that they have to be banned but i think that they need to be acknowledged as being formula retail. >> thank you. >> commissioner?

>> director? >> i guess, commissioners i just have a couple of questions for you. so, a couple of things, that i know that i have heard from the commissioner in the past, is the formula retail that is evolving. and so let's say, like with walgreens, it is adding food, and so just question is there anything that would you like to see anything in this economic analysis and any kind of trending? and trending in terms of you know, formula retail involving or different, you know, any sort of trending? things to be able to provide you with some information, direction, and if they are trending or if they are trending in concern things which is like adding food or alcohol, things of that sort, and also, i think that some of the issues of why we are seeing a lot of the formula retail neighborhood by neighborhood, is that it is coming from the

local merchants over the concerns around rents. and so in this economic study, do you want to see like, is there any justification to that, so has there been, or what have the rents been like in areas where there has been, you know, formula retail there. so i am just asking, is there any information like that, that you would like to have this report address to provide you some feedback? >> commissioner o'brien? >> i want to take up your first point. i totally agree, i think that is a great point and i think that you should take a look at how many different types of product and stuff is going inside. and we have had this discussion before a little bit around, i think liquor stores and i think that you go to walgreens or some of these stores now and they are getting into the business selling everything under the sun and, maybe that is the way that it has got to be i don't know, but i think that it is certainly worthy of being a part of the

investigation. and something about let's analyze how many stores are trending in a direction of selling more and more products, is there a level of detail that we should go into on formula retail controls that will take into account, you know, some sort of a measure of how many different types of products are going to sell? and i have no problem with it being a little bit lower than being able to just go in and sell the pieces of plastic and sell milk and drugs, and papers and newspapers? i would love to see just it a little but that would be my preference but i think that is a good point and i wanted just to alert that as an important consideration. >> commissioner dooley. >> i would like to follow up on that also, because i have attended the commission meetings that were hearings about a walgreens or another type of that type of a store that carries a lot of things,

and some of the commissioners there have brought up the loading, and you know, whether, when walgreens just had a limited amount of stuff compared to now where they have everything in the world. and i think that we, you know, we like to have that looked into in terms of what they are going to need, and what their impact might be in terms of, are they going to need big semis, pulling up all of the time? because they have such a huge amount of stuff and that i think that, is an area that we is a little confusing and it is part of a concept, it used to be that a drugstore had limited things and maybe you could buy the toilet paper there, but now that they carry a larger amount of stuff, i think that the terms of those kinds of impacts

and what kind of space do they need. and if that is going to be a impact. >> from the grocery stores. >> exactly. >> and you know, even in our town, that is scarce, real estate, the grocery stores have, you know, a larger area to unload and load and i think that we are not going to need to start looking at these, i guess, you call them drug stores, but you know, they carry so many things and i think that we need to start looking at them a little bit differently in terms of what, what is going to be required for them to you know, do what they need. commissioner dwight? >> maybe just a couple of other variations to put on your radar screen not to discuss here, but you might want to consider pop up retail which is done by sometimes by large corporations just to test the concept in the market.

and then the other is to consider shop-in-shops a corporate entity coming in and taking over a portion of the existing establishment and could totally be done by having an agreement with a retailer and i want to have my own physical display and that can take on pretty significant dimension inside of the store. just saying, is should be on your radar screen because you have the opportunity now to look at all of the variation and there is a lot of novel retail concepts coming up and we saw it with the park or when they brought the bus to town, you know, and on-line retailer and glasses who say, hey we would like to have a physical presence and a pop up sort of format and they ran a foul of mobile retail, and so we are just seeing these concepts and i would be disappointed if san francisco was a place that was hostile to retail since we like to think of ourselves as an innovation capitol and sort of

stole that one from the valley and i think that in all things, sort of, innovation we should keep an open mind and open policy. i think that what we have proposed is under the economics of the heading we wanted to evaluate the other things like total employment and wage in formula verses non-formula retail and the employment data by income or race impact on public revenues for example, sales tax, and property tax and payroll tax and spill over consumer spending and neighbors near formula retail verses non-formula retail and spill over efrks on residential rates and no control in the area

where it requires the cu and the areas that are out right bans and in addition we are hoping to get san francisco specific data about the impact that the new formula retail may have on non-form law retail for example, we would like to look at information about non-formula retail businesss that may have closed or experienced reduced income following the opening or the opposite. >> we don't have numbers but we would like to be sure that we consider all of that information and as much as we can gather in a short time before changing policy. >> director? >> so, i think that in terms of, and so when you are asking to have them sort of do and taking a look at a form law retail and what is sort of the

arrogate in terms of what it brings verses non-formula retail. are you going to ask the entity that is doing the rfp to sort of make sure that there is some sort of weight and balance of doing that, because, if you take, you know, let's just say a larger clothing store verses a smaller clothing store, how are you going to equate so that the scale is not tipped just by volume? >> i think that the short answer to that is that we don't want to finalize after the consultant is selected, we will finalize the scope in working with the consultants so the number one point is to choose neighborhoods that reflect the different conditions on the ground, the different economic levels different rates of activity and the different areas served so is this a regional hub? is it a local hub, or a city

wide district, and we want to make sure that we have a good balance and then, we want to make sure that the districts that are chosen in terms of comparison have it a balance of formula retail that we will study. so will there be big box stores in addition to smaller stores? and we want to make sure that we have all of our possibilities covered in there including, perhaps, entities that are not currently considered formula retail but may be in the future. and for example, gas stations, or gyms or other personal service. and chains that we doents currently subject to formula retail controls but may in the future, we want to be sure that we have that to the extent that we can predict how that will happen we want to have data because we don't know when we will have the opportunity to study the information. >> commissioner dooley? >> i wanted to also request, i remember in the 2007 study,

they had some kind of broader statistics about formula retail that is based outside of san francisco, in terms of that verses a local business, and how much money comes back to the city and if the other way how much money is taken away from the city that would not be, if it was local. you know? just that whole, question of where a company may be spaced. that i think is important, because that is more of a general kind of an idea. and i always found that very interesting. my other question is as we know right now, there is a stampede of legislation being proposed and i don't know how many formula retail applications are in the pipeline. but, have you guys considered some kind of a moratorium,

until you get this sorted out in for a few months? >> just so that you know, i coula lot of strange things possibly happening, on either end of it like someone is pushing through, tighter requirements and then two months later, you guys have come up with something, that would work. for on a more general basis? >> we are not right now. we do not have a moratorium on formula retail on table right now. we have asked that the planning commission, we have asked the planning commission and in term they have asked the board of supervisors to take a pause on passing new legislation that would impact this. and that may or may not happen. i know of one proposal, i believe from supervisor martha will probably be on hold until the conclusion of this study, for example. >> i don't think that we could characterize changes that will be recommended by the planning department as one way or the

other. stricter or less strict. >> i do think that there is an acknowledgment that probably the controls would be more effective. if they were slightly more refined, and so that perhaps, the criteria varied from use to use, or. five was considered. and i was just considering because i know that we have all been contacted from different merchant districts that are like the hair is on fire and they want to get it done right away. they may have a specific, you know, project, that they are looking at. and you know i just try to find some way to kind of respect, if they back off, that then they don't don't see, all of a sudden a bunch of things going in that maybe won't work. six months from now. >> what i agree is that we cannot change the voter approved requirement that a neighborhood commercial

districts, formula retail requires the conditional use authorization and so widespread formula retail will not come fleeding on to union street without public discussion, so it would require the oversight and the close oversight for the commission, but where, i can see perhaps some concern will be in districts where the formula retails don't typically apply like in portions of the c3, or pdr and that is where the controls could be, for example, an option in those situations. >> commissioner dwight? >> i heard on your first line, item of your stud y you mentioned looking at wages, you might also look at benefits because i think that is a big issue. and that is always an issue and the people getting hel healthcare and are they getting other benefits that they might or might not get with a small company. >> i know how hard it is to

provide those benefits. i presume that you should let your consultant know of course to look at the starbucks effect. i think that is a very well studied phenomena that starbucks has while perhaps it hasens the demise of marginal retailers has really grown a category to something that was never even conceived of and has really stimulated a specialty, retail category that today, is a huge business for small and big companies. and it is, i think, proven that look, a lot of small companies are on the verge of disaster every day. and you know, i am not, i am not one to say well we out to be proping those up, if they can go on indy go, go and get $50,000 to extend their life that is great. i don't think that we ought to legislate, sort of, you know, putting the companies on life support. and i also think that it is proven that when large entities

prove a category, that that creates a symbiotic effect where they find a way to differentiate themselves and i think that today it is regarded that star bucks coffee is not that great even though they pioneered the category, what they do is a phenomenal mix of things but they have allowed all of these other people to come and do specialty things around them that are independent, you know, entrepreneurs who are getting or starting great companies and san francisco is a great beneficiary of the coffee movement. >> and so look at that, and there are some negative effects but there are some significant positive effects of the big companies growing markets. >> great. >> director? >> one item that has not been discussed, and commissioner dooley's comments made me think about that in terms of the discussion of the dollar state

here is the distinction between franchised formula retail and non-franchised formula retail and for our office and for the small business consultation, we kind of have this, and we work with them as though they are small business owners because they have to do a lot of things very similar to a small business even though they may be able to take advantage of the national companies marketing and things of that sort. so, i think that it would be good to, i don't know exactly how, but to get some sort of economic data, you know? around franchisees in creating the controls there may be some distinctions around a franchise formula retail as opposed to, you know, a corporate-owned formula retail. >> that is a good one. >> any other comments?

>> well sophie, thank you very much. >> thank you. >> and this is very, very informative. >> you don't know how we have been looking forward to this presentation. >> and you know, write down everything that we had to say. you know? listen, you know this is a tough one. but it is something that does need to be addressed and we are seeing it a lot and it is city-wide and i really appreciate that your commission and your department is taking this on right now. because it needs to be discussed. so thank you, and thank you again for coming tonight, >> thank you. >> and go home and take care of your kids. >> director? >> i just before you leave, so, we agenda this as an action item, but if the commission is just comfortable with having individual commissioners making

suggestions and recommendations, christian has been making note of that and then we will just, you know, we will reaffirm what the commission stated and send it over to the planning department, as well and if you are fine with that we don't need to take a formal action on that. >> i think that we are fine with that. >> great, thank you. >> and i was taking notes because we are truly trying to sort out this issue, so input is valuable across the board, thank you. >> thank you. >> item five. >> it will be a presentation by the san francisco department of the environment on mandate and non-mandate programs. they will have staff providing specifics energy, commuter benefits and the green business program. and this is agenda as a discussion item only. >> good evening, everyone, thanks for having us tonight. as christian mentioned we are here to speak on the commuter

benefits program, the energy watch program, and the green business program. and my name is sueellen at tkinson and impart of the clean team and i manage the clean business ordinance. >> there we go. >> five years ago san francisco adopted the ordinance for the suitable transportation for the people commuting to and from the city. >> it requires employers with 20 or more employees nationwide to offer commuter benefit to all full and part time employees in san francisco. those commuter benefits could be as a pretax deduction and employer paid subsidy or a provided transportation program. >> the ordinance passed with strong support from the business community, and in a vote by the board of

supervisors. over the past five years, we have engaged in very extensive out reach and education initiative including partnerships with the chamber of commerce. >> and these out reach in education, programs include our commuter benefits website and tabling events for both business and commuters and brochures, and free, one on one consultations with employers about our programs, and a phone hot line that we man, and i have also actually a e-mail hot line so that we can answer the questions by phone in e-mail. >> and we are proud to share that over the past five years, the ordinance is or has been a local success here in san francisco. and each year, we are saying more employees using commuter benefits in san francisco. and in 2012, 10,000 employees were actively using the benefit. >> more benefits in the program translates to fewer single occupantcy vehicles, driving to, from and within the city

each day. this helps us to reduce the carbon emissions attributed to car and truck traffic and helping the city to reach the climate goals. >> and employees, and employers, realize cost savings through the use of commuter benefits programs, of course, the employees get to enjoy lower cost commutes and employers enjoy, savings on payroll taxes including fica and they also enjoy usually happier employees. requiring commuter benefits has the number of positives, and businesses have really supported this program over the past five years. and responded positively. and as you can see here, over the past five years that we have been implementing the program the number of bitss that have worked with us has increased dramatically, from 2009 to 2013, we have seen a 400 increase in the number of businesses that are working

with us on our program and we are hoping through the coming years through more and more improvements in the out reach program that we can reach even more. >> and in 2012, we heard that about 3800 businesses in san francisco were offering commuter benefits of those businesses, nearly 40 percent reported that the ordinance inspired them to offer the commuter benefit in the first place and so that is about 10,000 employees that did not have that program before. >> and while the ordinance has had positive benefits for san francisco, we are also very proud that it has an influence nationally. and the requirement in the ordinance is that the business offers the commuter benefit just to the san francisco employees, and but as the companies that reported to us that they are offering a program, 61 percent have actually taken an extra step and offering that program to all of their employees and all locations. and so it is really been fun to

see that something that we are doing here locally is having an impact nationally. we are also seeing that the highest participation rates in commuter benefits are actually at the smaller businesses. and so we are seeing a 36 percent participation rate among the employees at businesses with fewer than 500 employees, including those with fewer than 100. in the coming year, our program is focused on enhancing our business collateral and improving the material to provide more robust information to employers about options for a complete transportation program including commuter benefits but also the other transportation programs that we offer. >> we are also focusing more on enforcement of the ordinance, to insure that all businesses that are required to offer benefits to their employees, understand the requirements and are working in these programs