quaul litative components. we could have it set as the first two items as a means of registry or if the registry also requires the additional -- to have the registry or if it's a marketing component to have the last two bullet items. it is up to the commission to provide some direction in terms of how we want to work with the registry. one thought i had is that the business can submit an application and the application ask for some information in terms of the last two items, and then the commission can review the applications and make as your regular meetings, you could set it once a month, the commission reviews the applications that have been submitted to the office to be designated as a legacy business. i just wanted to open it up

for some discussion because in the next month i need to start really focusing on this and getting something solid to begin to prepare for the board of supervisors. once the legislation passes we have already started being contacted by businesses that want to be contacted when the legislation passes and then if we do want to devise any programs around it, will there be some funding that needs to be attached to it. >> sort of like a historical landmark designation in real estate of sorts? >> yes. >> which would, ultimately the idea is that there would be some financial benefits to having that in terms of either generational change in ownership or even -- well, generational change of ownership within a family line or even selling the business to new owners but that there be

some accommodation so they don't just go out of business. >> correct. >> so the tax possible incentives, when will that start coming into play? will that be ready to roll for them when they are able to apply? >> at this point that's not known yet. that will not, we're looking at separating out the legislation so we move forward the registry. the tax refund in terms of the transfer tax for the tax credits, that's on hold. it's not that it's not going to be under consideration but i think we want to look and see if there's a more substantive package to incentivize property owners to retain or sell the property to the business. so we're going to be having future meetings taking a look at, meeting with property owners, realtors, things of

that sort to see if they have some ideas in terms of incentives that we're not thinking of. >> so any timeline in mind of that, like the last half of 2015? >> i think so. i think so. we don't want to have it too far along but, you know, i can't say specifically. but i think definitely by the end of 2015 we want to have a solid program in relationship to those types of incentives established. >> you've set a deadline to yourself, to the commission, february-march to develop rules and regulations. is this part of our mission to do so? >> yes. currently as the legislation, in terms of that specific deadline in the current legislation -- excuse me, commissioner tour-sarkissian -- it is specified in the legislation that the commission is to

develop a program, to come back before they have a public hearing at the commission and go back before the board of supervisors to present it. and that is at the end of june, by the end of june. currently as it's written in the legislation. all of this may get adjusted depending on the timing of when the legislation gets passed. so i'd like to stay with this internal time frame because again as soon as the legislation passed in april but we kind of have a program idea involved in what may be needed in terms of any additional budgeting or support to fund a program, if it does need to be something that's added to our budget then i need to have a good idea as to what that is by the end of march or early april in terms of meeting the budget cycle. >> okay, so we going to do

this in the time frame eventually. >> yes. >> and you have that planned? >> yes. so i just i guess maybe open it up to you if there's things that you need from me to help make some decisions, if there's any guidance and direction in terms of, you know, when we ask a business about their contribution to the neighborhood's history and identity, i mean we've established some minimum criteria with our business recognition program. we've established a minimum criteria with the annual business -- during small business week that we make suggestions to the board of supervisors when they select their small business honoree, we can work with them on that, but in terms of businesses that are operating in neighborhoods maybe, it may be helpful to hear what you may think of as, you know,

substantially contributed. not that they have to be all of those things but an idea. so if somebody, if a business is coming before you to say they they would like to be considered for a legacy business and this is one of the criteria, in terms of has contributed to the neighborhood or history or identity of a particular neighborhood or community, what would you be looking for for them to say that they have or to justify that, if that makes sense. >> what incentive is there for a business to want to be in the registry if they are not at the point where they are considering change of ownership? is it just the designation so that people see it and go, oh, they are a historic business? >> i think it's a designation. for the office of small business to create some kind of identity around that, it's a marketing -- it's a branding.

it's something that we, just as the historical preservation society created some marketing materials around legly restaurants and bars. >> uh-huh. >> you know a similar kind of thing that we can -- to develop, something additional for them in marketing and promotion and something for us to help market and promote them. >> the contribution, the way i see it, is either effective contribution to the community within that neighborhood, what type of services that business provides. that's one aspect. and the second is more aesthetics, you know, the precedents, how long the business has been in that neighborhood, what architectural unusual, you know, kind of setting it presents. i think the service it provides and for how long is

quite important as to how long they have been and how long they have been providing that service is an element they can take into consideration. second, of course, is the way that business fits the history of that neighborhood. i think elements around these two poles in my opinion should be developed. if that's answering your question. >> yes, it does. >> also a business' contribution to the neighborhood and unrelated to their business, through thur philanthropic outreach and other things that go on in the neighborhood. some of the most important businesses are those that play an important community role in our community. you could be a stationary store and that's kind of mundane but i've been the anchor and at my stationary store has been a meeting for the last hundred years that's kept this thing going on. whatever it is, it could be all

kinds of scenarios. i think one interesting thing will be is there a hard line in terms of how old this business -- because clearly tenure is part of the equation and whether that is just a weighted number or whether it's to be an antique you have to be a hundred years old and if you're not you're just retro. i don't know. >> the designation is 30 years with no more than two years with break in operation. there was some discussion that there have been businesses that, you know, if they have had to relocate, either growing or something that there may be down time during that period of time. >> or simply went out of business and got resurrected by some clever person who wanted to resurrect that name. that happens a lot in consumer products. a business can be defunct in 50 years and suddenly you see the name oh, where did that come from?

somebody bought the trademark. >> does that meet the criteria of a legacy business if something like that comes forward or does it not. >> i remember you saying that they don't need to have been in the exact same location for 30 years. i'm thinking of original joe's in north beach who was there and then they went away and then they came back, but that's -- things like that to qualify --. >> yes, uh-huh. >> it's been 30 years. >> we don't necessarily want to disqualify businesses that have grown, they started out in one tiny space and then they had to degree so they had to relocate or -- yes. so it's really about business continuity. i think the business years is business continuity in business, but those are things that each individual circumstance may be

of consideration, may come under consideration, i'd say, but if it's really the same business owners --. >> what's the genesis of this idea? where did this come from? >> i think with supervisor campos the genesis was especially in the lower 24th in the mission district around the preservation of some of those businesses. and looking for a way to say these are businesses that have been in this neighborhood, you know have been in business for this amount of time, are important to the community, to preserve. >> this is not a veiled attempt to address formula retail, is it? >> no. no. >> i would say no. >> so we have a number of criteria here. now are we going to say that they need to meet all of them or, you know,

a percentage they could be --. >> i think that's what we need to think about. >> a store that does a lot of contribution or the jewelry store that was the first one to do whatever it was. i'm just -- can't really necessarily say they did all of those things. are we going to say two out of three? i think we need to work on deciding that. >> yeah, i think it gets somewhat subjective. you are a legacy business. or i am, no, you're not. well, i'm going to call myself one anyway. >> go ahead. >> one question, it says business has contributed to the neighborhood's history. so we're talking more about neighborhood than community at large. that contribution has to be brought to specific neighborhoods. >> in the city of san francisco it gets hard to differentiate sometimes because it's such a small place. >> it says neighborhood or community. >> it can be wider.

>> it could be wider. it could be either. >> moved around the city at large. >> it could be the community at large it could be the community of the industry, it could be specific sort of ethnic or demographic community beyond just the neighborhood. >> i mean clearly some businesses are historic no matter where -- like booty and bakery, it doesn't matter where it is in the city, it's a part of our city and has been for 120 years so that would be one i think that would obviously you wouldn't maybe fit some of the criteria because it moved a couple times, i think. >> right. >> now at fisherman's wharf, probably has other fa sits but that's something very. >> there's some very old businesses in the union square area. are they to be considered or is it strictly

neighborhood commercial corridors? >> it isn't specifying a specific geographic area so, i mean --. >> lichtman, jones could have been part. >> i think the commission, these are some things for us to think about. >> interesting concept. >> or i could, you know, go back -- you could ask me to ask the supervisors in the finalizing of this legislation do they want to get more specific or not so that there are some broader parameters to allow the commission to work with, you know, to allow the commission to work with. some discussions that i have had with nate alby and supervisor campos' office is if you include an entity a large, let's say we have two founding

very large retail entities, levis and gap, right? they are still headquartered here. if they are part of the registry but then they may not necessarily be eligible for the program but then they may have means to help fund a marketing program, you know, so i think professor isobell sort of alluded to some of that. i have asked nate to see what supervisor campos' thoughts are on that to provide direction to make sure that he is the legislative sponsor to make sure we're following his legislative intent. but if it's still relatively broad these are things up for the commission's consideration. >> are there any other cities that have done --. >> no we're the first. cities like new york and seattle are interested in what we're doing to see if this is just another step to help doing

some preservation for the small businesses. >> the way i see it there are four points, two of them, the first two are objective and two are subjective, correct? so objective, the first two will be the entry door and then the subjective element will be developed -- i'm just thinking out loud -- developed by the commission such that there are standards for the selection process. is that your understanding of what we need to do? >> seems to me that the last two we are going to have to sort of say meets a certain number of them but i don't think realistically that many businesses can do all of those things in those last two bullets. they may be missing one element there and i don't think that should exclude them. they are all quite significant. so i think we have to decide whether if they

meet one then that --. >> one of the two, or even in these two there's different elements so there's more than two. so i think we need to kind of think realistically woo a business would have been able to have done. >> what will be helpful, now that we've had some discussion, is if you can start articulating some thoughts and put them in writing to me and over the next week and a half so perhaps, say, by february 3rd if you could get -- then i can combine them. yes. >> please finish. >> i was going to say combine them so at the next commission meeting -- earlier would be helpful, but at the next commission meeting combine it so that we can have again more

information to look at for you to work with. >> what i was going to ask is the task is to take the two last bullet points and to kind of come up with standards, not so much which would be governing, but kind of a list of points and elements we would take into account to qualify a business. correct? >> correct. >> thank you. >> you want to take public comment on item no. 4? do we have any members of the public who would like to make a comment on item no. 4? seeing none, public comment is closed. director's report. >> so mr. president i did schedule point of information items 8 and 9 just to ensure that due to dan sider's

schedule to make sure that he could be here in time. so if we could move through the ayen today as it's ordered or if --. >> well since mr. sider is here, i would like to make a motion that we move items 8 and 9 ahead of 5, 6 and 7 if everybody is in agreement to that. >> second. >> all in favor? >> all right. so i shall call item no. 8. item no. 8 is discussion and possible action to make recommendations to the planning commission on the current small business priority process pilot program to a proposed community business priority program. >> welcome, mr. sider. you've got the beard going too. >> my winter coat.

>> sorry, most of us have coughs up here too. >> commissioners, good afternoon. thank you for having me here in afternoon. it's great to be back in front of you all again. so today i'm here to talk about something that i think is very near and dear to this commission, certainly a number of you worked on closely just a couple of years ago. so in 2013 the beginning of 2013, members of this commission, along with members of the planning commission and our respective staffs held a series of conversations that were really designed to take a look at the planning process as it relates to small businesses and see what we could do to speed things along to get rid of unnecessary process. what we wound up with is the acronym that i think a number of us now know well at the bottom of this slide, the sb4p,

small business priority process pilot program. it's a bit of a mouthful, but it's a program that we all developed a level of consensus around and were able to use it to help a number of small businesses through our planning process. skipping ahead here a bit too quickly. commissioners, what the sb4p does, it does two main things. firstly it guarantees the planning commission hearing within 90 days of the date of application. typically that's 120 days, that's our target, 120 days. i would level with you, commissioners, that today given our current application volumes it's a challenge, it's a real struggle to meet that 120 days. so the sb4p

guarantees a 90 day hearing and it also guarantees placement on the planning commission's consent calendar. if you are a small business owner a sb4p placement is you come in at noon and walk out an hour later with an anoofl in your hand. how have we done this? we've done it by cutting red tape i think is the quick answer. we have cut away the mountains of paperwork that i think all city departments are wont to generate. because we have removed that process, that extra burden, we are naturally able to process sb4p applications much more rapidly and very importantly, that increase in speed with respect to the sb4p applications does not slow down our non-sb4p applications so it's nonzero sum.

the fact of the matter, commissioners, is that our practice, the planning department's practice of preparing these massive case summaries, these massive case motions for each and every planning department -- planning commission item and certainly the smaller and more conventional small business items is just a practice that doesn't lend any value to the process. now, to that point and you may have seen this example on the next slide before but i like it and i'm going to show it to you one more time. on your left-hand side we have a 17-page motion approving a 900 square foot restaurant expansion and on the right we have the 10 page motion for at&t park. the point is of course that there is no intrinsic value to lengthy approval documents. now owing to that presumption

our sb4p projects are approved using a two-page project summary and motion which you see on the right-hand side of the screen, rather than the 20 or 30 or sometimes 40-page approval document. that's incredibly time saving for us and that time saving will be passed along to the applicant. that's current policy. i'm here today for a few reasons. no. 1 is because the sb4p is a pilot program, that's one of the four p's, it will expire because it has a sunset date built in. no. 2, we are seeing even greater planning department backlogs compared to where we were a couple years ago when sb4p came online. lastly, we have had a lot of experience using the program over the last couple years and we think it's time to take that experience and put it to use. in order to frame the changes

i'd like to show you the existing criteria a project has to meet before enrolling in the sb4p this is just a snapshot of the application's eligibility criteria. the point is there's a lot of them. and i think that what we need to communicate clearly is that the program from department land if you will, from the planning department's perspective, the program has been very successful but we haven't allowed it to flourish because the criteria are so strong so stringent, the program hasn't flourished. we have had an impedence, if you will, in the enrollment. so we are recommending a package of changes primarily to these eligibility standards and it's our hope that these changes will re-invigorate the sb4p what you can see on the screen now, i hope it's not too small in the letters in front of you, is the sort of existing criteria, a very high level of

review in english rather than bureaucrat-eze what the limits are, i guess the bar of entry is to participate in the program. going to advance the slide now and what you'll see on this next slide is a series of red lines, strike-throughs and underlines that indicate the major changes that we're going to be proposing. i can see it's hardly legible on the screen, i hope you got our handout from last week. if you didn't i have copies up here. these spell out exactly what we're going to be suggesting as proposed modifications. so what i'd like to do is just quickly run through the salient changes here because this is sort of meat and potatoes of what the proposal is from the planning department right now.

with respect to the first criteria, in this case what makes good policy case in certain geographies in san francisco also makes sense elsewhere. so rather than limiting the program as it is now to just our neighborhood commercial districts and just our invest in neighborhoods corridors, we are proposing to roll this out more broadly. we are proposing this apply city-wide. the second change, no. 2,, is one this commission has been very involved with over the past years, i suppose at this point. we have had a very robust dialogue about formula retail and now new legislation has come online that's effective today and we are proposing in the sb4p to bring on board small formula retailers. these are the formula retailers with fewer than 20 establishments. we're also proposing to bring on board certain changes of use between one formula retail operator and others and lastly

formula retail operators that are financial services, limit edify napx services or personal services when they don't occupy space at the ground level. that final category would be specific land uses not at the ground level regardless of the number of establishments. i am joined by commissioner burns, to your right, commissioners, kanisha with our staff and she is our retail expert, she is imnepbltly qualified to answer your questions. skipping ahead to no. 3, we have refocused the criterion relating to large footprint businesses and we are looking away from the raw size of individual stores and really concentrating on what matters to the planning department from a policy perspective which is

the consolidation of storefronts, losing multiple storefronts for single entities that occupy both, or more than both. no. 5, this relates to parking. and our approach here is to be a little less punitive in the process. previously any business that provided off street non-residential parking could not participate in the program. we are suggesting that those applications that propose new off street non-residential parking not be allowed to participate, but those that already have it are not automatically disqualified. we're getting to the end here. no. 8, and this is an interesting one, previously restaurants could only serve beer and wine under the sbf4. if you sought a abc license to serve hard alcohol you could not participate. what we're

talking about is changing that requirement in order to really focus in on the nighttime entertainment and the bar uses, those use that is we see having a real potential for negative externalities and allowing bona fide restaurants that choose to serve hard liquor to the participate in the program. and no. 9, lastly, we have added in three more out of the ordinary uses uses we think just because of their nature should probably not be handled under the sb4p drive up facilities, fringe financial services and xwroupbd floor office uses that are closed to the public. now, commissioners, because of the potentially widening scope here we are proposing that the sb4p be retitled and yes of course there is a new acronym to come with it, the community business priority processing program, slightly less