flexiblity. because really what's fundamental because people are shopping at a store not so much to buy something but for the experience of being in that store. number three, we need to start looking at a district level and thinking about, do we need more flexiblity in terms of the uses that go in at the ground floor? there are a lot of different factors that make a successful commercial district, but businesses and institutions support each other, so the retailers that are there are reliant on foot traffic, and we already know that, you know, if there's a hospital nearby or some other large employer, you know, or offices, that those, you know, generate foot traffic to support retail, but generally, we've said we want to keep, you know, the nonretail uses out of the ground floor. well, you know, we'll talk a

little bit about that more later, but there are some uses that we might want to start thinking flexibly especially when we start thinking about vacancies. so there are three areas that we think are important to start looking at. one is in new ground floor retail, how do you make sure that it is as marketable as possible to the retail that is out there looking? so there's been a lot of articles about ground floor spaces that have been left empty. well, there's some easy things you can do. like, making sure those spaces are not huge. it's generally really a lot harder to fill the large spaces than the small ones. there's also things we can do to look at how do we, you know, make sure the ceilings are high, etcetera. in certain areas, we might want to think about other kinds of uses, and, you know, even in a particularly long commercial

district, maybe outside of the core nodes of shopping, maybe the ground floor should not necessarily be retail at all, and this has been a planning department sort of sacred cow, and it's been really important to a lot of neighborhood folks, like retail on the bottom, retail on the bottom. well, that's something we might need to think about. the last conclusion in implication is just around this experience being the reason people come to commercial districts, and i think the -- the businesses together with the neighborhood create an experience, but the businesses themselves need all the help they can get to get people in the door. so i've noticed that our office is doing a lot more to partner with folks around festivals and around promotional campaigns. this is not just a coincidence, this is more and more important to support the businesses that are there. we need cbd's, we need more chants associations and other

cultural organizations to really pull people in and get them to the commercial district because they aren't necessarily coming there for shopping purposes. so that's the really sort of quick and dirty part of our study. i'm going to do a couple more slides and joaquin is going to go into some questions about vacancy in our commercial districts. i think maybe we'll just wait and do the comments and questions until after, but i wanted to let you know, this is where the findings of the study kind of end. what we know from -- from having a lot of conversations with folks about this is that the real concerns people have about changes in the retail sector are about vacancies and concerns that we're going to see or that we are seeing more and more vacancies on the ground floor in our commercial districts. so we wanted to spend just a little time talking about whether these changes are -- are making an impact, and we have a little bit of data to share, and then we're going to

look at the programs that we have and the policies that we have to help. so we made this onion picture. call it a bull's eye, but call it an onion to look at the layers of factors that contribute to vacancies. the outside is one that i call retail economy. the changes that are happening nationally, they have some impact. they create some changes to the demand for retail space, but i think they're one factor among many factors that contribute to have a cannies. if you go to the core of the onion and go out, it all comes down to the building owner. a lot of us have done a lot of work over the years to deal with vacant storefronts. you can have all sorts of thinged lined up perfectly, but a building owner has to sign a lease. i just think that it's really

important that there might be some panic out there, oh, we have a vacancy problem. i'll talk about that in a minute. i don't think there is one, but more importantly, you have to understand what's going on with a particular district and a particular space to know if there is a problem, what's the problem. so there's the owner level at the core. there's brokers, which are sort of their own ecosystem and have their own goals. sometimes a broker has to get a certain rent, and they might hold that space until the building comes in. there's the green i sspace. obviously, you can have everyone motivated, but if the building is just a wreck, and you can't get the ada, then, that's a challenge. the neighborhood conditions are a factor that we talked about a little. city regulations and processes as they relate to neighborhood, as they relate to the building, you know, sometimes, these are

things where everything is in place, but then, you have nine months or more that you have to wait in line. tenant demand and capacity, that's sort of my term for local demand or local supply of businesses looking. and you know, we have a lot of small businesses that want to be in storefronts, but it's a lot to handle. you know, if someone's really good at baking a cake, it doesn't really mean they're good at leasing space. and you guys know how hard it is and how much needs to be managed when you're a small business. the last one is the retail economy. again, there's not any science behind this picture, but we wanted to show there's lots of different factors and every building is unique, and we don't know all of them until we dig in. so i'm going to let joaquin answer the question of what is a healthy have a canvacancy ra

>> thank you. amy, and thank you, commissioners. so the question this seeks to address is what is a healthy vacancy rate, and do we have a vacancy problem based on what this data is telling us. the answer over the next two slides is it depends. whether we're thinking of these rates holistically throughout the city or whether we're thinking of one commercial corridor over another. economic specialists typically out about five to 10% as a guide. that being said, the perception of whether or not there is a vacancy -- vacancy problem in a particular neighborhood varies. sometimes even when you have a low vacancy rate in a neighborhood commercial district, there could be a singular vacancy that is a

constant demand for attention in a neighborhood commercial corridor. this graph that you see on this slide in front of you shows that citywide vacancy rates have stayed low. that's even during the recession. as the bearer economy began growing out of the recession, enhanced retail space caused competition, and that caused rented to grow significantly. the vacancy rates as of 2017 quarter three is 3.2%. there has been a modest increase in the vacancy rates since 2015. it's important to note this data comes from costar, it's primarily drawn from ongoing survey of citywide landlords. we and our consultants do not think this data collection is rigorous enough to give us the clearest picture of what is going on at the neighborhood level. this graph also provides some context for oewd concern when

vacancies in a neighborhood get to high as well as if they're too low. when vacancies are under 5%, we begin to have some questions around are the rents rising, the affordablity of those spaces, if we want to tenant them, as well as some of the spaces needed for changeover a given time that's healthy to see on a given corridor. this slide addresses the five lowest in our invested neighborhoods portfolio where we've been doing this tracking. this tracking has been made possible because of the job squad who does the biannual or quarterly outreach, depending on which neighborhoods we're looking at. we're talking about geary, lombard, chinatown as an entire neighborhood that have developed over time in our experience in the neighborhood. noriega, japantown, lower fillmore, central market,

tenderloin, including larkin street and 6th street, the spine being market street itself. west portal, ocean avenue, castro, noe valley-24th street. san bruno, calle 24, and now the full latino and multicultural district. the mission street in the excelsior and outer mission. bernal mission, and -- and finally broad randolph. more and more of our work is concentrated on those neighborhoods which have really been demanding our attention over the past few years where most of our work has been focused on stablization over attraction, well, that depends on which neighborhood we're talking about. what you'll see here, the five invested neighborhoods corridor

with the total highest storefront vacancy rights include these, including lower fillmore and the western addition, and the excelsior. these taken together average about 16.4%, and that was at the end of 2017. it's important to remember that the numbers of the -- of storefronts that we're counting that lead to that data differ. you know, in some areas, we're talking about 50 storefronts that we're talking about that lead to that number, versus, say, the excelsior, which is 541. the five lowest vacancy rates include west portal, noriega and the sunset, noe valley. yes. union street, and chinatown. and together, they average around 6.6%. interesting to note that from 2013 to 2017, we did see a decrease in vacancies in the bayview from 24.1% to 21.4%.

in central market even more dramatic of 22.4% down to 6.8%. and now, just to focus, just for a few moments on the invested neighborhoods programs and programs that we provide for small businesses just to provide some additional contexted. so we're focused on supporting small businesses and the neighborhoods where they reside and do their business. as amy mentioned, that could be all layers of the onion. we design and deploy our programs based on community needs and desires, based on our own internal and external capacity, and all of that is aimed at recognizing an economically thriving, safe,

resilient, sustainable district that meets the immediatneeds o residents. some of our services are available citywide where others are related to specific neighborhoods. invested neighborhoods, our citywide services are available to any business interested or in need of a particular service. we're in partnership with these, we have opportunities to develop, package and deploy specific services to address the particular needs of that particular district. our ability to track vacancies and that data that we just showed before is a direct result of that program. as we track those have a cannies, not only as you saw and some of the staff that are not here that you recognized were also working deeply in those neighborhoods but were also reflecting the neighborhoods in which we're

working and the communities that we serve. we refine and create new services as it relates to the needs of the neighborhoods or might be coming out of the retail study. and we have also employed various tools to prevent and fill have a cannies. as i mentioned earlier, business retention has been a priority for our office due to the economic pressure that our small businesses are feeling, and economic pressures both on retail and on the increase of cost of doing business, including rents, so that we can make sure that we mitigate potential vacancies. in some targeted neighborhoods, business retention is paired with our business attraction, and we do our best to provide resources to complement the needs there, as well. we understand that positive anchors support our existing businesses.

so some of the tools that we have, i'll talk about over the next few slides quickly. we have our economic development plan so that when we're first working in a neighborhood, we are developing our customized economic development plans and strategies so we can focus our services the right way. our community benefit district program, which all of you are very familiar with, merchant association and capacity building that we provide, a nonprofit capacity building. work that we're doing more frequently now around cultural district. when we're talking about latino, japantown, district wide marketing assistance that we're providing both on its own or that could be connected to construction mitigation. and then, also, public realm enhancements. we -- in all of those areas, we

have staff that have expertise in doing this work around public space, planning, development and activation, public furnish and fixture installation, landscaping, greening and environmental sustain ability, public maintenance and also cleaning. in terms of our small business strengthening and retention programs, we have our job squad that goes out there pretty much on a consistent quarterly biannual basis, providing resources and a point of contact as an out reaching arm in partnership with the office of small business. we have our technical small business service providers. i think one of the smartest things that we did was to be competitive for bringing in the small business development center to complement the work that we're doing so we could concentrate the resources that were being provided to small businesses. our ada program to increase accessible and reduce risk for our small businesses.

construction service has been a large issue. our business retention and relocation programs, the grants that we have available for those purposes, our loan programs, all of those go towards supporting our strengthening and retention work. additionally, when we talk about business attraction, some of those same tools are used to provide attraction small businesses to our corridors. when we talk about targeting certain sectors, whether that's grocery or restaurants, art, night life, nonprofits, production, distribution or repair or even catalyst properties that we think we want to stablize or activate for the benefit of the entire corridor. and then all the work again that was on that onion that we do in addressing each of those pieces through our small

business acceleration program to make sure that departments are ready and coordinated in a positive way to make sure that businesses are supported when they go through the process and through all the departments all the way through. and that is the list of some of our programs, but then, to talk about some of the recommendations we wanted to discuss with you, i wanted to bring amy cohen back up to talk about those. >> so we've broken recommendations into a couple of categories, and these are very preliminary. the study is the study. it has a lot of findings and some implications, but we've been working with planning and departments and want to engage with you on what some of the programs going forward with be. we are interested in looking at our small business assistance to figure out are we doing everything that we can to help

small businesses individually adjust to the changes that are out there, so that's something that we can do with the sbdc and you guys. we're going to look at our commercial district management programs and commissioner adams, i think you said, renew all the cbd's. that would be one of those kinds of goals that how can we continue to grow the capacity in our commercial districts to sort of manage the whole public realm and to promote the area and help the small businesses. that's work that we plan to continue. we didn't talk today or come with any information about the dbi program, but if you saw our presentation at the board of supervisors land use committee last month, they also asked to look at that program and determine whether it needs to be refined in terms of an enforcement approach, so we put that here. we can talk about it, but it's not our program. and then, we've been working

with planning on a number of different angles to look at policy and zoning related changes that might need to be put in place to accommodate the changes in retail. so the first batch of the sort of -- i guess the first undertakings should be really on a case by case basis with the districts right now that are going through planning processes. so step back for a minute. we all think that there's these -- there are changes happening, but because every district looks different and some of them don't have a vacancy problem, some of them might but don't think they do. some of them -- you know, it sort of varies subjective. the way we've approached it with planning, well, as much as we can do sort of individualized approach, we will, so we have individualized planning work happening in several districts right now, the mission, excelsior and

third street and outer mission -- or mission chavez to randall. so the first step is looking at what types of changes might need to be contemplated in terms of uses in those areas during those processes. what we have to contribute, as you know is our invested neighborhood data as an analysis tool, and then, the planning department is intending to do a use mix and vacancy survey, and we've talked about coordinating with them to maybe look at the neighborhoods where there's vacancy concerns. because this data is really helpful to think about do we need to contemplate changes or are things actually in the normal range. so the first recommendation is actually case by case and looking at these cases and figuring out, do we need to do anything? then, there's some other recommendations on a kind of policy level that may be -- may need to be looked at citywide

but also can be looked at case by case. so one is what i basically just talked about. number two is looking at uses, particularly within a storefront. there's a lot of enthusiasm, i think, at the planning commission because they've had a lot of these come up where it's been really challenging for an existing business to add a use that was not eligible as an accessory use, and they had to almost start a new business within their businesses, and so there's changes that we need to look at to allow a single business more flexiblity within their storefront. the third one is potentially looking at office and professional services controls that exist in certain ncd's. and as i mentioned in the bulk of the presentation, you know, starting to be more open to some of these professional service uses on the ground floor, at least in certain

areas. again, this isn't necessarily things that will be looked at citywide. another one that i didn't mention before, but if we were to become more flexible about what goes in the ground floor, there are things we can do around storefront design guidelines to increase or maximize activation, if you put in something that doesn't have a lot of public visiblity, do we do things to make sure that there is good lighting and visiblity, and you know, i think there are things that we could do. even though people say, you know, having a nonprofit in a storefront isn't very activating, well, maybe there's ways to make it contribute more to the corridor. and then, the lastati recommendation is working with mta to work with curb management, working with businesses on a case by case

basis or whether there's some bigger policies that need to be looked at. oh, sorry. that's the end of our presentation, so we'd be happy to answer questions. >> well, thank you very much. that was very, very informative. commissioner questions? >> thank you so much for your work on this. it was a really great report, and the conclusions were also really great. a couple things. have you noticed that rents and ncd's are higher? is that anything that came through your conclusion? 'cause an he cecdotally we hea that. and yeah, i'm curious, you know, i think something i'll bring up later in the meeting is for new businesses to be able to have kind of a master

list of all the resources and point people for you guys, so i know who to refer because one thing that i've noticed, you know, being connected to retailers and something that's pointed out in the -- in the conclusions is some businesses are having a harder time transitioning into these newer types of models,en taintment types -- entertainment types spaces, things like retail in the healthy sf program. you've shown that some stores, even when they introduce new protos, they still can't compete. something that i find, we also may need to do an assessment, also, what are the needs of these businesses, where they're at? in addition to ada issues, there's other predatory lawsuits out there that the

city hasn't gotten word of yet. i think for some of the safety stuff, i thought it was important to bring up collaboration again. a lot of corner stores that stay open really late, they're the ones that keep the lights on on a lot of blocks, and we should be collaborating in a positive way with those businesses. i think all the work you're doing, i want to make sure it's not, you know, being met with counter -- counter active work that's being done by other departments, including department of public health, who is kind of for a lot of businesses, the grim reaper behind a lot of their fee schedules and a regulatory environment, and so while we're helping to build a business on one end, there could be something that's counteracting that work. for example, there's a store on third street that was -- on a

month to month lease was going to relocate to a vacant storefront, i think that was vacant for a decade, and because of laws on the books, they weren't able to, you know, transfer a certain license due to -- due to restrictions on license transfers and whatnot, so you know, we need to create an environment in which we're not fighting ourselves from both ends, you know? and i'm curious if the job squad folks can take out literature for -- with them -- for the merchant organizations and help do that outreach, and if that

>> -- to try that out in terms of being able to fund some of those many improvements to help someone bump up the technical capacity that they have around pos systems or around ipads or what have you, so that's something that's developing right now. >> thank you. nice. >> thank you. >> any other commissioner questions? well, i have a couple here. first off, a few years ago, we did a small business commission and planning, worked with a fast track on cu's for certain small businesses. it was 90 days. do you know what the success rate on that is? >> my undering based on the advocacy day comment made by a

planning department representative, they were near 100% compliance in working with the small businesses and in expediting those services. however, the details around how the -- how much time had actually been saved, i think, is up for debate, and i think that's something we maybe need to delve deeper. please stop me, regina if i'm going in too deep. the next process was what's actually being prioritized from the point of view of the small business, and that's still -- but we can get back to you on that, as well. >> and then, the next question, but you know here, like, after 20 years, we finally have, you know, the patio this weekend finally opened up as hamburger mary's. and it's for real. i actually went there to check it out. there were people in there,

eating, so i mean somebody must have did something to prod him, so thank you, if that's your department. the other thing i want to talk about is formula retail. some of it's changing and some of it's very successful. in san francisco we have a formula retail if any retail wants to open up. i think it's good because it gives that neighborhood an opinion on if they want something or not. but in other parts of the city, there's an out-and out-ban. and we talk about -- like, when i look at upper market, for example, i know the castro does have some have a canny issues, and it's not that bad. but look at market at where some of these businesses are, it's like a ghost town. we're doing great in midmarket, and we're doing great in the castro across, but it seems

like at vanness and noe, there's a lot of these older buildings. these builders or developers think they're going to get some kind of a national tenant in there. it's never going to happen because there's so many restrictions. i just want to ask your take on that. >> i'm going to ask amy to come up and speak about this one in particular. i'll say sometimes it's a case-by-case basis in terms of how we fill those spaces. i will say what regulations a community chooses to support or accept, we would just ask that moving forward, those communities consider the changing nature of retail, which in our opinion right now is real. and if it's going to become more difficult, if it becomes more difficult to attract specific retail, to -- or types of retail to your commercial corridor, what flexiblity will

you have in what you are willing to allow into your commercial corridor. that's one wholesale approach you might want to take from a neighborhood commercial district point of view. and also, what unintended consequences that or those chases may also create in your neighborhood. i think all of those need to be discussed, certainly what the report is telling us, in terms of taking a few steps back, about the policies that we've been pursuing, and what allowances we may want to make for the benefit of the overall corridor, balancing against what is the cultural identity of that neighborhood or corridor as a whole. but i'll have amy come up and provide some comments as well, just around those development pieces. >> yeah. >> i'm not deeply engaged in the upper market. i think that the footprints of those spaces are big. >> right. >> same with some of the midmarket, so i think size is

part of it. but the ban that you're talking about, the formula retail bans that you're talking about are in hayes valley, north beach. they're not actually in upper market, but what's coming to my mind, though, is a lot of the national retailers don't actually know where there's a ban and where there's not, and so i think there's always hesitation if these developers are holding out for some of these bigger national retailers, maybe they are and maybe they aren't. but i think there's probably always a little bit of hesitation on the part of national retailers for various reasons. but one is oh, i don't want to have to go through the cu or maybe they don't want to go through the ban. but i think all of those factors contribute to the vacancy on market. >> i liked your onion, but what's true is a lot of it -- i've seen, and being involved in a lot of these different

neighborhoods in my business, and you know, amy, you know, sometimes it is the landlords. like, there's some odd reasons, like with hamburger mary, when we had the patio situation. a lot of businesses keep places vacant. you go in and talk to them, and nothing ever happens for a while. and also, too, the broker aspect of it. i know in san francisco there are some brokers that are territorial, and you're smiling, and you know it's true. you know, one thing that we did many, many years ago in the castro was we had a broker's tour, and it worked. i think you were part of that when we first started the cbd. >> maybe. >> but we had all those brokers, and these people are no idea about the neighborhood. and i think, you know, it's these little things, too, i think that can help. i think after a while, i think we are going to start seeing

price persquare foot start to come down because i'm personally seeing it in some neighborhoods. other neighborhoods, you know, where you have nothing, i real credit -- you know, you invest in neighborhoods, because mission bernal, there's nothing available in mission bernal anymore. and for a while there -- i mean, maybe that's a perception thing that you talked about, but i went to my favorite spaghetti place over there, you know, without mentioning their name on a friday night. and that neighborhood was rocking. you know, and you didn't see that, you know, five years ago. they had like a night time event where they had all the businesses open, and an art walk. they just seemed very active. and then, again, it goes to they had an event that night, and they brought people in. >> and they have a bill board that markets the businesses.

>> and it just didn't seem like there there was a lot of vacancy in that neighborhood. whatever you're doing, you're doing -- it's like wow. whoever thought this no man's land at one point like it is, so i'll give you credit for that. so i have no more questions. any other questions before we go to open public comment? >> i just have one question for the commission. if it's for a comment now or comment later is what additional -- just in terms of the small business constituencies that you think should be aware of this, whether they're looking -- whether they're concerned about their own individual business or businesses of their associates or they're concerned about the vitality of their overall corridors in the years ahead, in terms of how -- how -- how proactive, how much more specific should we be from your -- from your point of

view? just i know it's a lot to absorb in a short amount of time from programs to policy to recommendation, but if there are suggestions you have about what level of engagement you would like to see happen around the recommendations of the study, the data of the study, we would love to hear it from you. if not directly today, then certainly later on through regina to help guide us in it our next steps. >> and one of our things that commissioner nunez, i thought was brilliant what you said earlier, because i see the same things. you have the city helping them on one hand, but then, you have, like, the health department coming in behind them saying well, wait a minute. or a restaurant wanting to move and there's an abc issue. and having those work together for the betterment of that business instead of the distraction of it. and i know commissioner ozuna,

she wanted to speak. >> yeah, definitely that piece, and i think something that we've discussed with you all before, and it's in the report, the regulations and fees are really compounded for small businesses, and i think that maybe needs to be honed in specifically. and i think maybe looking at the fee schedules and assessing which ones may be redundant and which ones can be turned into workforce opportunities, whether it's a fee related to street cleaning or whatnot. so i think that from me and from constituents that talk to me is probably the number one thing that's going to keep pima float. >> that's big to me because we have two measures on the ballot, if you're taxing landlords, that's going to get passed through to small

businesses. and again, you know, small businesses are nickelled and dimed to death in this town. and you know, there are some fees, and i think there are some things out there that, you know, maybe we should look at. because you talk about the future vitality, but some things we have to look at them now, because if we don't look at them now, we're not going to have a vitality to look at in the future. >> i think we have the high end high dollar store places, and low end, and then you have the middle ground, and the middle ground is being obliterated. we know certain demographics are in those sectors, and i think having attention to how those sectors may it be

disproportionately targeted or regulations aren't equally applied to every sector, i think that needs to be looked at, as well. >> commissioner dwight? >> i do think it would be useful for you guys to bring your show to the individual merchant association, either at cdma or you can do the leaders of those groups in their own forum, or -- but i think even down at the neighborhood level, you know, your cbd's are a great effort, and there's -- but there is a broader group of merchant associations, business e so's. you know, i've -- i run a manufacturing business, and we have traditionally until recently had a retail component to that because i've always firmly believed in manufacturing a theater, being able to come to our factory and see something being made is not unique, but it's certainly

increasingly novel here in the united states. and so we always regarded that as the experience that we could provide. also providing local pickup for those, since many of our y customers are local, they like to come in and pick up their bag. or try on things. you know, people still buying over the internet, if fit is an issue, then, there's a lot of back and forth, and sometimes you can avoid that if you can go in and try on in person. and you look at these on-line retailers, like warby parker, who are doing these pop up shops, so that you can just kind of keep -- or minimize the risk of retail so that you're not locked into long-term leases. but these pop up shops are retail experiences. and on-line retailers are realizing that something some brick and mortar component can

be useful to them. but we need to turn that around for our existing retailers, especially, and teach them if it's not already obvious to them because there are many people who, you know, who might not even be using e-mail to the extent that they should be. we think all these things are obvious because we talk about them all the time, but on the ground and in the trenches, it's not always obvious because you're busy running your business. whether you're running it into ground or whether you're running it into the future, you're usually head down and if you're not savvy, sometimes hearing from people like yourselves and people who are doing these things in their own businesses, their peers in their neighborhood merchant groups can really be helpful. and you know, in doing it in a way that's nonthreatening, right? what the stationary store is doing and what the apparel

store is doing, they don't have to keep it close to the vest. it's going to be good for everybody. but it's very obvious that resisting amazon, to use that as sort of the big ogre, it's not just amazon, it's all of the sophisticated on-line retailers and categories is not a strategy. that -- you're doomed if you're resisting amazon. you know, it's easy to say amazon is doing to neighborhood retailer what china did to manufacturing. china did it with cheap labor, but amazon did it with innovation. they' they're changing the way to stop. like they say in star trek, resistance in -- resistance is

futile. it's in the moment, the thing that you need to be doing, and so flexiblity and agility are a key component to going forward in these businesses, whether it's having a short-term lease or a retailer who's traditionally on-line who wants to try brick and mortar retail, to a brick and mortar, thinking about what's the next experience i need to compete? from having a dj and food this week to something different next week. it might be having a conference or it might be having a lecture. >> over the past five years, we -- we realize that its

application to a traditional brick and mortar needed to change for accessiblity purposes. but that also, it seems now in terms of supporting these immediate needs of popping up at certain times in a specific manner like we just did in the excelsior at certain times of the year to create a sense of experience for a certain period of time and maybe how to replicate some of those idea doe -- ideas. those big ideas that support a brick and mortar space, they may not benefit as well as some other experiences. >> i think bringing your story to the neighborhoods, to the extent you can pull that off. i know it's labor intensive for you, but i think that can be really useful. i believe firmly in

neighborhood business associations as the way to do grass roots development in the neighborhood. >> yeah. >> you know, i've been on the board of the chamber of commerce. that's not for small business in my opinion. what's for small business is your neighborhood association and its relationship to cdma. and the council of district merchants, which is named merchants, but it's really about small businesses, whether you're a merchant or a service business or whatever. i mean, even service businesses are going to have to be experimental. and the better you are at it, the better your business. >> thank you so much, commissioner. >> commissioners, hearing some of the presentation and thinking about, first, what amy cohen said about the 40% of the retail sales are on-line and

thinking about some of the legislation that you've recently heard and provided comment on is that much of the regulatory environment that we have is around the brick and mortar, and if we have more on-line, more revenue -- more sales going on-line, you've had discussions about equally applying those regulatory requirements to align. so i don't know if there's a recommendation that goes into their final report that if we're going to be putting sort of land restrictions on our brick and mortar businesses or developing taxes and/or licenses and fees, if -- [ inaudible ] >> so since you've had that discussion, i just wanted to mention, you know, in terms of sort of doing the level playing field between our brick and mortars and on-line retailers. >> absolutely. commissioner riley?

>> yes. this commission has been working on streamlining some of the permit process and eliminating some of the unnecessary or outdated permits so -- to make it easier for the small business. i'd like to know how we're doing so far in the process of the permits. so maybe it's time to take a look at it again to see whether or not we can stream line it more and eliminate some of the outdated ones. >> just in terms of having an assessment of how our accelerator program has been doing and providing some real-time data in terms of the business portal and how it's been doing and providing some of the real-time data there. >> any other commissioner comments before we go to public comment? okay. let's open it up to public comment. do we have any members of the public who would like to comment on this presentation? come on up.

>> hello. my name's david broadwin, and i live in the noe valley. i think the presentation was great, but there's just a couple of things that i'd like to add for consideration that i think might be helpful. first, while it's great to have spaces with tall ceilings and so forth, i think we might have pushed that one too far in relation to small neighborhoods. i see businesses going up in my neighborhood that have 15 foot ceilings. they're putting money into something that they've never recapture. and then, i feel sad for the tenant because people are going to have to pay too much because the developer has to try to recover their costs for

overbuilding the space. so i think the whole situation would be better if we could maybe tamp down some of those requirements to allow a little bit more modest structures that would still be very attractive and would better suit the needs of the area. another suggestion is about price transparency. in our area, a lot of the building owners are not local, and they're not big professional operators. so they're probably looking at their storefront from across the country and reading everything about all the d dot-combillionaires in san francisco. i'm wondering if there isn't some way that the city could create a -- kind of a legitimate and trusted way for landlords -- for building owner to see come up to speed about the current pricing pressure, because i think there would be a little less holding out if

people could see realistically how is it possible that there's downward pressure on commercial space when at the same time a single-family residence is selling for $4 million in the same neighborhood. i think people are having a hard time understanding it. >> great. thank you. >> thank you. >> great. thank you. excellent. thank you very much. any other members of the public? welcome. >> hi. thanks, martin and amy. did he observe neiman. noe valley. the biggest complaint i here from the tenants trying to rent are the city regulations and processes involved in opening a new business and how they handicap a business. i would say this beautiful purple circle -- well, maybe i i i'm reading this wrong, but i'm here to say i think city

regulations and processes are a bigger issue than what i see on this chart, and i hope that we can work on reducing some of those, some of which david has mentioned. i also hope that the planning commission is starting to look at the planning codes for each neighborhood, because on 24th street, we have prohibited -- a planning code in terms of space. like when real foods finally sells, we're supposed to divide that in half, which will look ridiculous, you're talking about two 13-foot storefronts, and nobody's going to want this. all of this, is the planning commission looking at individual neighborhoods and asking them to review their planning codes or does the initiative have to come from the neighborhoods to review their planning codes? there is no -- and just work through the supervisors to change them, to get rid of some

of the cu's? we have cu's for everything on 24th street, which is why i think we have vacancies more than what you thought, so... >> can you? >> our preliminary conversations with planning, we're going to look at your district and say your vacancy rate is really low. if there's concern among folks and they go to the supervisor, then i think it would be kind of a case by case, according to the way. so there's nothing stopping that, but i think that planning isn't saying we're going to do an across the board deep dive into everyone's zoning right now. >> no. that would be insane, but i have to wait to see who gets elected supervisor. >> thank you. next? >> hello. good afternoon, commissioners. thank you oewd for putting this

great report together. super timely. my name is vas kineras. i've been a small business owner on fillmore for 25 years. i took it from a noninterat the ti time -- non-internet business to a highly internet business. and actually, fillmore street was one of the test cases for this report. so it's really interesting, because as a small business, we see the small of creating experiences for consumers to come into our stores. and analogously, we should do this on a street wide level. it's really important to think of these merchant corridors not just as individual businesses, but a collection of businesses that create a brand in these different merchant corridors. the brand consists of the

history of the neighborhood and also the type of brands that are in these neighborhoods, so it's important to highlight these not only to our surrounding neighbors, but to other parts of the city and our tourists, as well. it can only strengthen us. i want to think about these merchant corridors as experiences and where people can go and spend a whole day in different neighborhoods, so i really look forward to working with oewd in the future in helping these merchant corridors, and thank you again for your time. >> thank you. next speaker. >> hi. steven cornell. just a couple of thoughts. when we talk about changing the or loosening some of the regulations in neighborhoods, let's think about a little bit about why they're there and how they came about. the biggest changes in the start of this was back in the '80's, when union street and

west postal came to the city and said -- or to the planning department and said we have a real problem. union street, all of a sudden, started having a lot of bars and restaurants, which caused the rents to go up. a landlord can actually get a lot more money out of a bar or restaurant than it can a standard retailer. and the neighborhood became less neighborhood shopping area but a destination area. union street was and is very vibrant, but it isn't a neighborhood shopping area. so by changing regulations, putting regulations -- putting restrictions on bars and restaurants slowed that process down. at the same time, west portal went through the same thing with financial institutions. all of a sudden, there was a million financial institutions, so they put a stop to financial institutions to slow that process down. financial institutions, again,

can pay a lot higher rent to a landlord than a traditional business. the latest -- the latest one that was doing the same thing, we got a law that came in because all of a sudden nail salons were popping up all over the place, and they tended to pay a lot higher rent. so for instance, in west portal today -- excuse me, about a month ago, they had 23 places you could get your nails done in three blocks. it seemed a little bit high. that caused a -- regulations of nail salons. it is something to think about when we start taking regulations away, why were they put in, and you know sometimes, we're going to create a lot worse situation. i believe in -- all of us in business are trying to get more business. one of the ways we can do that

is taking care of our own. i've always said the city of san francisco, our largest employer should sit there and take care of its own and not say do -- tell you not as i do. recently, i've -- okay. >> you've got 30 seconds. >> recently i went to a meeting at the mta, about 15 of us. they served us cookies and milk, so to speak, they all came out in styrofoam containers. here they're telling us, we can't sell them, we can't use them, but the city is using them. lastly, the puc tells us about toilets, with flappers, that just kills a businesslike mine. where do they buy them? never from san francisco businesses. >> thank you. >> thank you. >> anymore members of the public? seeing none, public comment is closed. i definitely have to agree with what thet