>> this is the regular meeting of the small business commission held on monday, march 12th, 2018. the meeting is being called to order at 5:35 p.m. small business commission thanks media services and sf govtv for televising the meeting. members of the public, please

take this opportunity to silence your phones and other electronic devices. public comment during the meeting is limited to three minutes perspeaker unless otherwise established by the presiding officer of the meeting. speakers are requested but not required to state their names. spelling which is optional will help ensure proper spelling of names in the meeting. speaker cards will be called in the order in which they were placed in the basket. additionally, there is a sign-in sheet at the front table. sfgovtv please show the mall business meeting live. >> okay. welcome, everybody to the small business commission meeting. it is our custom to begin and end each small business commission meeting with a reminder that the office of small business is the only place to start your new business in san francisco and is the best place to get answers to your questions about

doing business in san francisco. the office of small business should be your first step when you have any questions about what to do next. you can find us here on-line, at city hall, and best of all, all our services are free of charge. the small business commission is the office plaforum to voic your opinions about concerns that affect the vitality of small businesses in san francisco. if you have a small business, it starts here at the office of small business. thank you. first, item one. call to order and roll call. [ roll call. ] >> president, you have a

quorum. >> next. >> twiitem 2, please. >> item 2 is public comment. do we have any members of the public who would like to make any comment on any small business matters that are not on today's agenda? seeing none, public comment is closed. next item, please. >> item three, presentation of the small business commission certificate of honor, honoring members of the neighborhood's vests program. discussion item. >> thank you, and i get to come down here to do this. so on behalf of the small business commission, tonight, we would like to honor the

invest in neighbores initiativ, and honor this office. this is when i'm going to talk off the top of my head, and i can probably speak for the other commissioners when i say this, when i go to other neighborhoods in this city, whether it's west portal, the excelsior, noe valley, a lot of people know i'm on the small business commission, and they're all coming up to me saying thank you. diane adid this for us, and amy did this for us, and jorge did this for us, and they all think it's our commission, but it's all invest in neighborhoods. we are all in the same boat. we have the same clientele, and it's that seamlessness that everybody thinks we're all that one big happy group, which we

are. and your office has done some amazing things. like, in the notes. this started under mayor ed lee, and he hired joaquin here to chair it up here, what, how many years ago now? five years ago? i've known her for 19. you know, it's been a big impact on the neighborhood. you know, especially with what chris does with the cbb's. there was never any contact with cbb's prior to this. i'm not saying anything bad about prior administrations, but it's just that things were done differently. now, it's more of a hands-on approach with businesses and the city hall, whether it's helping businesses relocate, get a restaurant from one side of mission street to the other, you guys are there to help them. half of your guys aren't here tonight because they're at

neighborhood meetings tonight, on aymond night. and not one neighborhood meetings, but there's several neighborhood meetings going on tonight. one of the first things i wanted to do as president of the commission this time around is honor your group. because you guys do a fantastic job in representing the city and county in san francisco, especially on the neighborhood level because that's what it's all about folks. each and every one of you should be very proud of what you have done. so with that, i want you to come on up, and you can get your picture on the tv and that, and let's say a little bit about each and every one of you here. so the first one i'm seeing is amy cohen. and this is a good one because amy helped -- helped us start the cbd's in the castro and noe valley. it was 19 years ago, but when she came into the work for the

newsom administration, she was working in a bank branch on sbsan bruno avenue says you are crazy in working in that neighborhood. why are you opening up something on san bruno and portal? and now, it's a busy neighborhood. and that was one of the best things that you did personally to help me out in my business. but right now, so amy, come on up, and for your vision and commitment and investment in economic and neighborhood workforce. [applause] >> angel's not here, but angel's an angel. no, you've got to say that about him. mr. angel, you know, a lot of

businesses that i've referred to angel who have -- need to be -- who are losing their lease, need to move, need help, sbdc, he's amazing, and he's come up with some ways to help small business owners actually buy their building. not many places do that, so he's great. angelique gross. is angelique here? should have just stayed off here. so congratulations, angelique. thank you for everything you've done helping out neighborhood services. >> next is commissioner adams. >> and then i'm just going to

go off -- it's the easy way. [ inaudible ] >> there's a lot of you. i didn't know -- chris. chris corgis. get up here, chris. so chris is your liaison to the cbd's, and that's not an easy job. and you've got to deal with a lot of neighborhoods and a lot of attitude opinions, and you know what? and if streets aren't cleaned and sidewalks aren't steam cleaned, they may go to the cbd's, but then, they'll also go to chris, and then, chris will have to get on them. so chris, thank you. >> thank you. >> and thank you for everything you've done. now you've got to get some of those renewed. >> absolutely. >> darcy bender. is darcy here today? yea, darcy.

[applause]. >> thank you for helping to provide storefront in san francisco. >> you're welcome. thank you. >> francis chin. where's francis? get over here francis. [applause]. >> so the businesses in chinatown, which is not easy, you've got neighborhood meetings now, and council on district merchants. so good job. somebody had to do it. thanks. congratulations. juan carlos? where's juan carlos? [applause]. >> there he is. central market-tenderloin. he's got an easy one. we should give you, like, five of these. well, good job, because midmarket is changing, and we're a member of that in my

other job, midmarket cbd. midmarket is changing, and you've been a big part of that. so thank you, juan carlos. >> thank you, thank you. >> ellen mar. [applause]. >> helping with the neighborhoods, again, cbd's, jumping in there with everything. >> yes. >> congratulations. you just keep doing what we're doing, and help us get these cbd's when they come up to renew. >> thank you. >> thank you. congratulations. >> thank you. >> larry mclendon. over in the bayview. >> yep. >> that's where all the good restaurants are going, and brew

pubs. >> yep. >> well, thank you for a great job over there, they're opening up. [ inaudible ] >> jorge rivas. jorge's not here, but jorge is -- he's busy in the excelsior with two neighborhood meetings in the excelsior tonight. so jorge, we're on tv, here you go, and we'll get this to you later. tina rose navarro. [applause]. >> okay. and you're doing the echo system stuff. >> sure. thank you. >> there you go.

-- and you' >> thank you very much. >> tricia medina. you do a lot because i see you everywhere. >> i do. [ inaudible ] >> you do all the black ramps for all over the place. you do the ones in the castro. that's where i see your name. >> yes. >> so keep the money flowing. >> i will. >> there you go. congratulations. >> thank you. >> and last but not least, joaquin torres. and this one's special because one of the things that you did, and i know you were part of it, and it was your idea was the fire mitigation, and we just had a fire just not too long ago. when was the last -- [ inaudible ] >> we had west portal.

>> the second one in wewes wewes west portal. [ inaudible ] >> but here, i just want the people to know that when the first -- that first fire in west portal came where squat and impossibgobble, and i reme was watching tv, 7:00 in the morning, and you were there with the mayor. you guys were already there, moving businesses around and taking care of things. you kept your promise. that building got built to looking exactly like it did before the fire. and the other one, too, on ocean -- i was looking at regina -- was the ocean avenue with the bakery. that caught on fire, and you helped them move, and now

they're more successful than before the fire. i've got to sing your praises. everything you're doing for the city, whether it's business or economic development, you're an amazing individual. i'm so proud you're my friend, and these places are a better place because of your leadership, so thank you. [applause]. [ inaudible ] >> yep. let you say something real quick. >> president adams and commissioners, vice chair dwight and small business commission, i just want to thank you for recognizing this group. i want to give out a shout out to rick carillo, very strong member of our team, he kept us in check in the way that i know he's doing the same for you. but the success of the program is built on the people that you've recognized. everyone who's here right now, whether -- and is based on

decades, decades of succeeding and failing and flying and constantly being flexible in the work that we do. if not for the leadership of amy cohen and lisa pagan, we would not be where we are today. if not for the leadership of mayor newsom for beginning this work, we would not be where we are today. if not for the drive and confidence of mayor lee, we would not be where we are today. and to all the people who service the neighborhoods and be responsive to the ideas and critiques that everyone provides to us or all the diverse stakeholders, whether it's elected officials or otherwise, we can respond because of our passion, our commitment or creativity, and i just want to say thank you for recognizing this team of

extraordinary individuals. it's really an honor to be part of this group and to support our neighborhoods, so thank you. >> thank you. and just really quickly i want to give a shout out to the people that aren't here tonight. deanna ponce-de-leon, i want to just give her a shout out. holly hyong, another one. she's out there in the neighborhood, and she's helped me with a lot of business lending. we talk a lot about that, and creative ideas for that. valley brown, the work that she's done in the western addition. and tabitha tapaya, the work

that she's done. and last but not least, lauren slough. the work that you've done is incredible. keep it up, and we're all very proud of you here at the small business commission, so thank you. [applause]. >> yes. let's get a picture of everybody. we want to get everybody in front of the flag.

[ inaudible ] >> one, two, three. one, two, three. let me take one more. okay. thanks.

thanks. [ inaudible ] >> mr. president? before we close out, i just want to extend my great appreciation to joaquin torres and his leadership and the entire staff of the invested neighborhoods program. you're really integral for the office of small business in terms of us being able to deliver our services, and it's always exciting and fun working with a group of people who have that true entrepreneurial spirit, so i just want to extend any appreciation and it's very well deserved, your recognition, so thank you. >> public comment? >> and before we move on, any other commissioner comments?

>> i just also want to say thank you and congratulations. you guys have done a tremendous job. >> okay. and public comment, because we have to have public comment. we have public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. thank you all. [applause]. >> next item, please. >> encore performance. >> item four, presentation of the report office of workforce development state of the sector. presentser is joaquin torres, office of economic and workforce development. >> commissioners, before you start, in your binder, so in case you want to pull it out under number four is the powerpoint for the executive summary. >> oh, but our screens are so

clear now. we can see it digitally. >> good evening, commissioners. commission president adams, vice president dwight, and other small business commissioners. joaquin torres, deputy director here at the office of economic and workforce development. thank you for the commendation for all of the team. we're here to thank you very much for having us. tonight we're here to talk to you about an overview of our recently completed state of the retail sector, challenges and opportunities for san francisco retail neighborhood commercial districts, and that will be presented by amy cohen, our director of neighborhood programs and invested neighborhoods. she's going to review some of the data and implications for the retail study, highlight some policy items, and then we'll also discuss some of our economic development programs in addition to some of the recommendations that have come out of the study so far. our public meetings so far have been at the land use committee,

the board of supervisors, in addition to the planning commission, and so you'll be the third body that we're speaking to today. and we can discuss during the q&a session about what some of your recommendations are or your considerations that you're asking us to make are. but for now, i would like to invite up amy cohen to begin her presentation. >> thank you, joaquin and commissioners, and i just did the math, commissioner adams. it's been not quite 19 years since i've been doing this work, but i have been doing it about 13 years. that's when i think about when we might have met, so i was pleased to be given the opportunity to work on this study, we actually had an add back in the budget from then supervisor mark farrell who was interested in what changes were happening in the retail sector and how that was affecting the city's commercial retail district, so we convened an

interagency team to figure out what we should study and how to study it. we decided to work with strategic economics, the company that has done a lot of work in san francisco, especially a really deep dive in retail when we were looking at formula retail in 2017. so when we landed on with them is actually a series of three issue briefs, and you can find them on our website in what is called the full report or the final report. the first one was a national brief on national industry retail trends and implications for san francisco. the second is what makes a successful san francisco commercial district, and the third is costs and challenges of doing businesses in san francisco. and we merged the findings from those three studies into an executive summary, which you have, and an even shorter presentation, which i'll give today. but the idea was really to look at what's happening nationally and in the sector, but also,

figure out how are those changes applying to san francisco and how are they playing out, and what do we need to do differently. and i think having been around, as you guys have, for the last 13 to 19 years doing this work, we -- i think it was really helpful to finally have something on paper that says things are changing. this is not a -- a very quantitative study. it's more a literature view, and it's interviews with brokers, and some sales tactics that we have and looking at information that they had access to. i think it's a very useful and kind of high level scan of what's happening generally in retail and how it affects san francisco and it should prompt and has already started to prompt some thinking about what changes we need to have in terms of our expectations of what does make a successful

commercial district and what do businesses need to survive. so we're not going to get deep into the implications but we're going to try to highlight some of the findings and some of the implications here. and we have made ourselves sab available to go and do other presentations and do more. so i'm just going to start. this part of the presentation has been given by the strategic economic folks at the last two hearings. so the -- the major finding is that there is a lot of restructuring going on in the retail industry. not surprising to you. when amazon started, it was just a book seller, and it was competing with book stores, and now it's competing with everything. and nonstore sales accounted for 12% of the total national retail sales in 2016, but more than 40% of recent retail growth is on-line. that's really, really

substantial. when we -- by the way, when i say retail, a lot of the terminology is kind of lumping everything together, but if you go into the executive summary and the study, you'll see we do have some ways of looking at distinct things that go in storefronts, so retail is one category. restaurants can be another category. services are another category. you'll see in the executive summary it kind of defines them, but i'm going to lump some of them together tonight. as you know, there are a lot of retailers closing nationally. there's different reasons for them, but you know who they are. and while there are a lot of closures, there are some retailers that are growing. most of those are discount, they're general merchandise, they're formula retail, and grocery stores are growing. and the one that's not listed

here but also has shown growth although it's starting to evening out is actually restaurants and bars. so a big part of the job is to look and see if these closures that were happening nationally were also affecting us locally, and you know examples of where they are. there are some advantages that san francisco has compared to other places. we like to eat out, we like to shop local, we have a lot of tourism, so in some ways, we are insulated compared to a place where all of the retail economy is mall driven. but what our consultants concluded is our retail sector is softening. it was clear from the sales tax revenues that have started to even out between 2015 and now, it was clear from rents. we don't have a quantitative study on rents, but the brokers have said that rents have started often, and there's been more interest in retail space from nontraditional retail

uses, more like services, whether it's accountants, whether it's salons, gyms, and you guys have seen all of this. so medical services, the big one. so this is all happening while we are on -- while we've been having all sorts of challenges relates to retail, small businesses, and our commercial districts that are not necessarily related to the changes that are happening to the retail economy, so i'm not going to go deeply into these, but employee recruitment and retention and labor cost issues, you know, these are related to our affordablity challenges in san francisco. this has been going on for sometime. it's not necessarily related to the structuring of retail. high rents is a constant exactly for small businesses and storefronts. land use and mer mying requirements. in some place they are put in use with the intention to

prevent something, but in other cases, it wasn't put in place with the intention of preventing it or slowing it down, but they do slow it down. the demographic shift in san francisco have been a challenge for certain kinds of businesses, and the public realm challenges, like, cleanliness, safety, the presence of homeless encampments. so what are businesses doing? the consultants found, you know, a lot of evidence that businesses are already adjusting, that businesses are working really hard to adjust to those changes, and they're doing a lot of things that you've seen to decrease labor, fast, casual, sort of over the counter. they're doing a lot of things to increase revenue streams. they're doing a lot of delivery. you can see more examples when

you get into the report, but there's a lot of effort. that said, not everybody business is going to be able to adjust or is able to adjust fast enough. i always give the example of video stores, and there are still a few video stores, but they had to get really creative to stick around, but it's not unheard of. so therefore, main conclusion that came out of these -- these studies, and i'm going to go through them, both the conclusions and the potential implications. first, to thrive in a more challenging business environment, retailers need to embrace new technologies. so we do need to think through, what does this mean in terms of the technical support that businesses need. basically, if you're a restaurant, any but the very high end, you need to have a delivery app. i mean, that's just becoming a reality that that is a main, you know, source of income or

of revenue for a business. or using a reservation program. you know, these are things that not all businesses do, but if you're a restaurant, it's really important. there's lots of examples of that, so what do we need to do help businesses with becoming better at betting on-line and getting apps? the other implications is really around the curb, and we need to start thinking through a coexistence even more about, you know, the arrival of delivery vehicles or vehicles that are transporting shoppers needs to coexist with people walking, biking, and taking the bus and all of those things and parking. so it just poses a little more conflict than we already had around who uses the sidewalk, and we need to be smart about that. number two, retailers really need to be flexible and creative to provide a more

engaging and interesting experience. so this is already happening. you see lots of examples. book stores have become event spaces. you know, the main way they get people in the door is for a lecture or some kind of community meeting and oh, by the way, there's books here. a lot of look stores are doing food and beverage on top of whatever they're selling before. so you went in to get a beer, and you're getting t-shirts. they're going in all over the place. i'll talk later about some of the policies that may need to be adjusted to allow that 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