past with some they combine the permits on to one statement. if you're allowed to have an option of opting in or opting out and some people would rather pay across the years and others at one time so looking at also. we appreciate the work that you're doing and look forward to the conversation. thank you. >> thank you very much. are there any other members of the public who wish to comment on this hearing? okay. seeing none through the chair if we could close public comment. >> public is closed. [gavel] >> thank you very much to everyone that came out and like i mentioned we heard stories throughout the work as well, so one of the things that the controllary office made a recommendation through the report is improve turn around time. departments must measure time and targets to drive change and monitor performance so i don't know if there is something to be answered by the controller's office or the

other departments here but i want to know which departments -- how many of the city departments are having this as a measurement? because i think it's important to gauge from a customer experience standpoint how much time it takes for people to go through the process? in the report it says on average someone i think went through a process and took four months but we see cases someone went through and waited two years to do a full build out. >> yeah, we didn't find that i recall and my team can speak to this maybe any departments that could readily produce that information. there were some places where you could discern part of it by digging deep through the data but it wasn't a top line item for any of the departments that we spoke with. >> okay. and second question is based on one of the recommendations as well is to link the low awareness permits

and have them packaged together with the critical to open permits so applicants can apply for them simultaneously. there was an example pointed out about the treasure's office the new business registration with the assessor's new business registration as well as the clerk if i -- fictitious registration and i am wondering if departments are open to how we might collaborate and package the permits together? >> i am from the office of the treasurer and we are looking in great interest how we can package all of the items into the business registration. one of the challenges with working with the assessor's office the businesses have to do a form called a 571l which is catchy and for ensecured property taxes and that form is state mandated

and we're not allowed to change it so we're working with the way that we share data with them so they can get notified of businesses that open that will need to fill out this form and transfer the relevant information over to them so it's a bit easier and then we're doing some advocacy with the state to see if we can carve out our own 571l or at least add the business account number to make it easier for businesses. >> great. thank you for informing us of some of the efforts and in particular about the weights and measures and including that as part of the health inspection process. i don't know if anyone is here that can answer that. >> good afternoon. richard lee acting director of environmental health. weights and measures is part of our unit but i want to point one thing out is that the registration is not required before a restaurant opens, so just like also for the

certified food manager training that is not required so those things can actually happen after a restaurant is open and it's not going to be needed before it's opened. in terms of the inspections -- in terms of the food inspectors doing the weight and measures inspections that's not going to be actually allowed because there is a requirement that you have to be certified to do those weights and measure inspections so we have weights and weights inspectors certified to do that. our food inspectors are not certified to do that but again it will not delay the approval of permits. >> okay. is there any way potentially they could -- i understand one doesn't have to be done before opening a shop -- i guess a store most likely but the other one, the actual health inspection you need before opening and is there a way to package the inspection -- even

if they're two different people and have them occur at the same time or create additional efficiencies in that way. >> we will have to look into it. we would have linkage between the weight and measures and others to make sure it's done but we have to look into that. >> okay thank you. one other recommendations had to do with referring customers to the planning department at the beginning of the process so i wanted to find out -- i don't know if it's through the planning department or someone else that encounters customers first. currently what is going on, maybe why aren't people referred to planning first? how is that happening? i know in some cases customers know to go to planning first but i wanted a better understanding of that. >> i could make a brief comment about that and if any other department wants to chime in. what is behind this recommendation is that there

are plenty of places that the process can be slowed down or become expensive the planning in particular if you're trying to start a business in an area not properly zoned there is not much often that you can do about it and sometimes business owners experience that obstacle down the road when opening a business when they sunk time and money into that and probably despite the best efforts of departments people will come into the process from a lot of angles and are the ways to route people toward the planning department early on no matter where they come in the process? >> okay. and then i don't know if planning wants to chime in. >> sure. i'm the assistant director of planning. as ryan mentioned we're not always in control of when people reach out to us but when they do reach out to us we have dedicated staff that staff the public counter

as well as other planners that cycle through and all of the planners when we encounter folks thinking of opening a business and we tell them don't put money down on a lease or things of that nature until we're confident it can be permitted and try to walk them through the variables and oftentimes we get folks interested in opening a restaurant in a neighborhood but not have addresses in mind and in a neighborhood there could be different zoning districts and that could affect that. we try to work with them to articulate that message and every property has different rules in san francisco and once we zone in on a address we can steer them to locations where there is an easier path to open the business. we have a preliminary zoning form that i know other

agencies use. we will have folks come in with the form filled out and a way to start the conversation and ask the right key questions to give them right information, and we do have one of our small business liaisons is at the public counter and a really good point person working with the new acceleration team quite a bit. a couple of other points. efforts that the planning department has launched i would say in the last six months to a year to help particularly expedite small businesses, not 100% restaurants, but small businesses in general as well as small permits. we have restructured our staff who are working on what we call -- they're the inner agency referrals and from the health department and the entertainment commission and the alcohol beverage control police department, those types of referrals. we restructured that so there is a little more oversight and coordination and

we have performance measures in place for the turn around time on the zoning referrals. our objective is usually turn them around within 30 days. i ran a query of the last six months and we're beating that measure and turning it around in 15 days and volume of 830 referrals in the past six months so we focused on that. the other we created a small projects team last december to help deal with the influx of small projects, residential and commercial and we have one dedicated person on the team and processing the commercial permits so anything that doesn't need a public hearing and just needs the notification we are expediting it through that team and we have seen some significant improvements through that. >> thank you. thank you for highlighting the changes that were made and i like working with planning on the issues and something that we hear from the small business community and sure you can make it through a department quickly and maybe

planning went quickly and go to another department and there is another backlog that is separate there, so for example i know we have fire department here, dbi, so i would like to bring them up as well if they're here in the audience today, but again we have first them quickly through other departments so i think that the new person, the client service manager that will be hired soon i hope will help with that facilitation of the process through the multiple departments but from the fire department's perspective if you could talk about your backlog. how is it that you treat the businesses that you have available? so for example i know that planning department you're making the effort to really move through the cue of businesses that don't have to go through a public hearing or smaller nature but does fire have a similar structure or how does that work? >> good morning supervisors.

ron thomas assistant director at the office of building inspection. our colleagues from the fire department have just arrived. >> [inaudible] >> hi good afternoon. i have talked with all my inspectors how we can try to speed up the process of permitting the restaurant business and for the fire department when we look at a restaurant we look at two different occupancies, a b occupancy for less than 49 people and a2 for more than 49 people. that's 50 and above. one of the biggest problem that we find out with business owner is they go and sign a lease. they put in a lot of money invest in the business and find out that the business they want to run in the building it's not approved for let's a a2 so that means they can't run a business of 50 or more people and have to go through a change of use and

that process is pretty long because it has to go through planning and building department if i understand and part of being a2 there are life safety requirements depending how much people are in there. if you have more than 99 people you need sprinklers and more than 199 you need two exists and more than 299 you need a fire alarm system and one of the permits that takes a long time to approve is the people who signed up to rent these spaces are not aware of all the changes they have to do upgrade the business to be code compliant so at the front desk when someone says i want to start a business in san francisco and we ask them the address and we help them with the research and if we can't find anything supporting them we then ask them to check building department records and i agree

with planning up here and before a business starts anything, dumps money into anything and do investment they should find out if the activities they want will be approved in that space. i think that would shorten it a lot and most of the turn around time -- let's say they're established and just a change in ownership of the moment hey say i'm the new owner and we're out there next week and if nothing needs to be maintained or approved we send them straight to the tax corrector and that's the first hurdle the fire department faces and the second one is we send the paperwork to the tax collector and it's bounced back and says the location is not registered and then we have to call up the business owner and try to explain explain to them and although you have a business certificate to operate in san francisco you didn't find a place when you applied because

they don't have the location attached to the certificate so now they have to update that and i have to wait for that before i send the paperwork again and please issue a license so the staff have looked into those two problem exercise if we can get. >> >> those problems resolved working with the department i think with the fire department the process will be much faster. >> thank you for sharing the challenge with us and it's not a linear process along the departments and that makes it more difficult. in terms of the issues that you brought up from planning's perspective when people are for example coming to you first potentially or actually any other juncture is there some collaboration between the fire department for example to let them know that you should check and you could meet their requirements even before beginning? >> there is typically not a

lot of coordination and our code is complicated enough to stay on top and we're not well versed on the other codes and 49 is a trigger for them and not united states since the code simplifications efforts happened and we suggest anytime they're opening a business and a first time person doing this we recommend they go to the office of building inspection and ask answer questions and even if we don't know what the trigger point is we refer them in advance of finishing out their day at 1660. >> okay. i am glad you're all in the same room and talk with each other and hopefully help with the process moving forward and dbi -- i know folks have spoken about multiple inspections and it might not be just dbi and fire and other things so your perspectives.

are there ways that your department can make that process a little easier for people especially if they have to rebuild things or what not? >> starting a new business that is specifically a restaurant we can see already through the control's analysis and presentation it's complicated and daunting task for anyone that wants to take on that endeavor. a small part of it, even though it's a very important part is the actual construction side of it, but as a prelude to that is the permit process itself. we have begun discussion on the executive team and how we can plan forward and we have looked at issues how we can deal with immediately within the environment that we control including our website, creating a faq specific to restaurants and full chart of the permit process itself. currently i am

the point person for this effort. also for for project chess which is the new building with the new permit center. oftentimes now is termed as the one stop shop. this discussion needs to be more extensive on how we accomplish this goal. it's a very broad goal in one sense to execute it and have staffing from various agencies is something that needs to continue discussion. we do have a core now at the city permit center at 1660 mission street primarily at the first floor but finishing up on the fifth floor and in a way a one stop service if you have your other ancillary permits and outside of construction type permits in hand and under your own control. we can help definitely with

referrals to other departments such as san francisco department of public health and we do make that effort and we try to educate our staff to do that in in the point to point contact on the fifth floor. however when we get to that point it's the design professional we're faced with and not necessarily the owner of the project so we maybe able to fix and address the nuts and bolts issue and provide information about informations in the future once the permit has been approved, but the owner not being present and not necessarily wanting to get into the technical issues of getting a permit maybe engaged in the future and have more hands on approach with this effort that we're putting together with a number of city agencies, so talking about the multiple inspections that's really coming down to the ability of the

contractor, the subcontractor, maybe the project manager if they have one, and other people engaged and involved in the inspection side of it. that one takes on a very different number of individuals who need to be engaged that weren't necessarily engaged on the front end getting the permit itself so we can separate the two tasks, big tasks, one to get the permit up front, have the permit issued to actually starts the construction side of it. hand off but continue coordination with the staff that's -- professionals are engaged in constructing the site. i will through our efforts of coordination in our department we have looked at and discussed how we can specific to restaurants but also small businesses in general see how we could have a better

interdivisional communication to see that we don't have at the end of a project when it really becomes acutely sensitive to time to the beginning of the payment of rent, things of that nature, and people are trying to at least get the temporary certificate of occupancy and things fall through the crack and prevented from having that opportunity to start in a timely manner or around the time they need to start their business. we're familiar with the fact there is a training period for any restaurant that takes anywhere from one week to upwards to two, three weeks. we have been witness to that process as well, so we know that even before you have your first customer walk through the door there's a lot of work to be done and more than just getting your certificate of occupancy or temporary one to operate so within our department a more holistic look at the process discussion between the

interdivisional agencies, towards inspection and any subsequent revisions during the course of construction that are needed to be approved in a timely manner we will continue to look at that and engage our own staff and we started that recently and bring in staff and expand it with more staff and both in the inspection and the plan approval side so we can focus on this and make it better more efficient, and usable customer friendly process. >> all right. thank you. i think that's a great segue to something that i'm going to make a request of from some of the departments here. i realize we can't solve all of the problems in this hearing and there is much more work to be done, so one of the things i would like to ask of all of the departments and planning dbi, fire, tax

assessor's office and work with jane kong and the staff and further the small business portal so in the next phase we can take applications on-line and take payments and we need the coordination of all of you to bring the portal to a better place of people. secondly i would like to request that the following departments conduct an internal assessment. as the last gentleman there needs to be an internal look how you do your work and some of the challenges you face so i would like to make a formal request so in six months that all of of the departments conduct a internal assessment of your own processes and keeping in mind with the interactions with other departments that you may interface with and receive a report to the board of supervisors by january 31 and

then from there take that information and see what next steps need to be taken given the internal review so some of the things that i hope you think about is eliminating burdens for internal staff and make the processes more efficient. how do you eliminate hurdles for the applicants, the customers we're working with? and identify the needs that your department may need to actually achieve these improved efficiencies? so potentially it's funding, other resources. please think about that as well and lastly if you can in your internal review think about the eight recommendations that were made through this controller's office report. i think they're very broad yet easy to tackle so i would like to you take the recommendations and see how your department can respond to that so with that colleagues i want to thank you for your time and everyone for being here and the

ongoing work and helping the small businesses in san francisco. as we know they're incredibly important to the fabric of our city and neighborhoods so i also want to thank the small businesses that are in san francisco who have dared to open up shop here and hopefully in the future it will be easier if you want to expand or grow your businesses so with that colleagues i don't know if you have questions or comments but i want to thank you for your time and with that look forward to the upcoming information that you will provide to us so with they will make a motion to file the hearing. >> okay. thank you supervisor tang has made a motion and i want to thank you for this hearing and all of the department heads and staff that came hear. ms. kong it's good to see you again. i remember working on the portal with you and the first month while on the board of supervisors and thanks for the leadership and everyone that makes that happen and means a ton to us but the broader san

francisco community so the work is not unnoticed and thank you for your work and for every department here so with that we have a motion by supervisor tang and take that without objection. madam clerk do we have any other business in front of us? >> there is no further business. >> okay. we are adjourned. [gavel]

my name is randy shaw. i would like to welcome you all to the tenderloin museum. [ cheers and applause ] >> and you know it's not a dream, it really exist. i brought joaquin torres and amy cohen a few weeks ago. i wanted his honest assessment. i said what do you think? he said, you know, i can't believe it's actually going to happen. that is a

common thing. and i want to say right at the outset two people who are not with us today who i just want to acknowledge because without their infused spirit and legacy we wouldn't be here. one is lloyd cooper. many of you know that lee roy was a long mentor of mine and from fall of 1979. we met with lee roy in his office and he was selling us this idea that tenderloin could be improved and here we are still doing it. it's quite impressive. the other one is cattle, whose wedding photo is here since 1985. he meant so much with my relationship with him because he opened the door to

the sro community and became a major donor. we got many many people who care about the tenderloin. you can see it on the board. it's the owners of the tenderloin, people like paul brushte and who dug into their pockets and said we believe in this museum. that's what's happened. i want to thank all of those who donated and for believing in us. we didn't think this was going to happen. thank you all. [ applause ]

>> i go to a lot of these events and you can have people going on and on thanking each person. everyone here was invited. most of you need some support from the media. the media was great. you all deserve thanks. so please don't associate me not mentioning a person by name as not recognizing. there are some people from institutions that i have to call out today. when we hear about pro bono assistance it can often mean a saturday having your staff paint or an architecture firm or it could mean 6 years on a project. i never forget. i feel like some of these folks