>> commission thanks sfgovtv which can be viewed on sfgovtv2, or live streamed. 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 unless otherwise established by the presiding officer of the meeting. speakers are requesting but not required to state their names. completion of a speaker card, while optional, will help ensure proper spelling of speaker names in the written record of the meeting. please place speaker cards in the basket to the right of the. they will be card in the order they are placed in the basket.

there's a sign-in sheet on the front table. sfgov tv show the office of small business slide. and before i welcome everybody, i just want to open up for the record, i want to congratulate mayor london for our 45th mayor on july 11th. i also want to congratulate district date supervisor rah ral mandelman and i would like to congratulate supervisor valley brown, district 5 supervisor who appointed last week. congratulate her and everyone in your new positions. and, 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. it's the best place to get answers inform your questions about doing business in san francisco. the office of small business should be your first stop. when you have questions about what to do next, you can find us online or in-person here at city hall. all of our services fre servicef charge. it's the public forum to voice your concerns about policies that affect the economic vitality of the small businesses in san francisco. if you need assistance with small business matters, start here at the office of small business. >> item 1, call to order and roll call. commissioner stephen adams. >> here. >> commissioner matthew corvi. >> here. >> kathleen dooley. >> here. >> mark dwight. >> here. >> william ortiz-cartagena is

not here. iran riley. >> mr. president, you have a quorum. >> next item. >> item 2, general public comments. public comment for items that are not on today's agenda. discussion item. >> do we have any members of the public who would like to make a comment on items not on today's agenda? seeing none. public comment is closed. next item, please. >> item 3, presentation. update on the cannabis equity program and possible recommendations to the planning commission to include the cannabis equity program in the community, business priority processing program. discussion and action item. the presenter is nicole elliott director opposite cannabis. >> one moment. commissioner dooley. >> i'm going to need to recuse myself from this item. i am involved with the cannabis

industry. >> do we have a motion to recuse commissioner dooley. >> >> second. >> all in favor. >> aye. >> you are recused. >> motion passes 5-0. >> ok. so it was 5-0. >> 5-0. ok. >> and we're including commissioner dooley. >> she can vote in that? >> ok. >> 5-0. >> welcome. >> thank you, commissioners. nicole elliott director of the office of cannabis. thank you for having us here today and for agreeing to hear and weigh in on this item. i am joined by my deputy

director eugene hillsman, he is right behind me. he will also be presenting on components of the equity program as well. last time i was here was before we had, in place, a final regulatory structure. it was less than a year ago. since then, the city has issued an equity report that was done by my office in collaboration with the human rights commission in the controllers office. supervisor cohen led the charge in implementing or incrafting an equity program incorporated into the regular la tosh regulatory . so before we get into the over all request, i wanted to familiarize you all with that program so you can better understand the program and the population that we're targeting with this request. so just starting at the very beginning, looking at what supervisor cohen put in article

16 of the police code. this is a requirement to do an equity program. you will recall when i brought this before you before the equity program was established, there was a plate holder for this program. it acknowledged would we put in place a program, we didn't know what it would look like at the time. in that program it would take priority in the over all regulatory scheme. you can see here the over all mandate that was vested with our office in consultation with the human rights commission. and then the establishment of the program itself. this program has two buckets, if you will. it has equity applicant. they are required to meet in our offices reviewing applicants and determining whether or not they do meet that criteria. there's an as set test and one of the most interesting components is the criteria they

must met. three of the six before you having household that earns no more than 80% a.m.i., having some involvement with a criminal-justice system between 71 and 2016 for cannabis relate reasons. same with a member of your immediate family, number four right there. housing insecurity post 1995. attendance at the san francisco unified school district for no less than five years between 1971 and 2016. and or living in a census tract where 17% of the households had incomes at or below federal poverty from 1971 to 2016. it's one of the main components of the equity program for applicants. what we are looking at now is the ownership criteria. which is the last component of the being an equity applicant ex it's ensuring that you have an ownership stake in that operation in a very real

ownership stake in the operation. this gives you sort of the options that an equity applicant would have when applying and serving as 40% interest holder in c.e.o., 51% sole pro pry to bproprietorso on and so second. >> qualifying criteria you can see a serious commitment to local hire to employing workers who have -- who do meet the equity applicant criteria who have experienced consequence of the war on drugs and then a community investment plan as well as really the meat of this picket, which is an equity plan for on site or off site incubation. it's technical assistance if you don't have a location or if the applicant does not need a

location, which to be incubated and that technical assistance must be the same amount as the provision of space and security for no less than three years. and those are -- we've crafted some big rules on that that you can find on our website. he will hand it over for interesting incubators and talk about the permit applications pending before us. >> thank you. in the next slide, we just have a brief analysis of some of the numbers we've received so far. on the left, what you see are a list of some of the people who have been interested in applying to become an equity applicant.

so in the blue category, you see the number of people who have actually started the process. so this just includes essentially the draft application. so they have not been submitted successfully, of which case the red group is what you see there. we've had about 256 applications to date that have been submitted. that means they've started the process, they provided documents, that's the first step to be verified as an equity applicant. in the orange category on the left, you see the verified numbers so that's people the office has conferred the status of approval t the approval to. they receive identification number. on the right, you see the number of the ways that people are verified. director elliott just described to you the conditions associated with the equity program and here you can see a rough break out of the specific catagories, right. up in the top right-hand corner you see sfusd so if you attended an sfusd school for five years,

it does not have to be consecutive. you see income below 80% and medium income at 80%. the category to the left of income bucket is the census group which is if you lived in a census track below 17% poverty in san francisco for five years, that also does not need to be consecutive, and then the one to the left of that is criminal justice involvement and this is specifically for cannabis-related crime. arrested or convicted or judged to be a ward of the state. those are the four major catagories that individual use to be terrifie verified. two other catagories. one is criminal justice involvement of a family member. it has to be specifically for cannabis-related crimes. but it's ro restricted to beinga parent, siblings or child and next to that is housing or security. ren sented by foreclosure,

eviction or housing subsidy. >> here you can see, based on incubation and people who are looking to become incubated. on the left we see activities to incubate so these people are stressing some additional support from the industry and on the left you see the permit types associated with the activity. the graph describes what activities people with are looking to be incubated for and essentially a description of the demand for equity applicants. so below it you see cultivation delivery manufacturing testing labs, distribution and store front retail and on the right you see cultivation delivery manufacturing testing, distribution and store front retail. this is merely an expression of interest so there's really no

cost to describing your interest to the office of cannabis. we use it as a way to connect applicants in incubators. you come to our website and say you are interesting so there's no cost selecting as many options you would like and incubators could do the same thing to equity applicants starting as a signal o of their interest. in the final slide, just a description of the current activity is our permanent application process which opened up on may 22nd. essentially on the left, you see based on the two catagories we just described, in the blue group it's equity applicants. right now we have about 65 applications from them and equity incubators at 18. you can submit multiple applications. that's why, especially when you look at the right, the

permit-type group essentially you can apply for multiple permit types. this is the way of describing the interest and application process so far. on the left, equity incubate oars and on the right the permit activity people are interested in. as you can see, the vast majority of those activities are retail, which makes up a significant portion of that graph on the right. and then the left is the interest in cultivation and manufacturing with demands in distribution and delivery. with that i'll turn it back over to director elliott. >> so when crafting the equity report prior to the program being put in place, the controllers' office took the lead on benchmarking other jurisdictions and outlining key barriers to entry for potential equity applicants. those barriers included access to capital and financing, access to real estate, licensing and

regulatory fees, legal and regulatory compliance and geography. this request is seeking to try and address some of those barriers. you are all familiar with cb3p and i worked on it and so with that, the goal of the program was included in the report as a recommendation for implementation of the city. and the goal of the request is to allow those who are participating in our equity program to receive the benefits of cb3p if they opt into that. with that i'm happy to answer questions. thank you for hearing this item today. >> great. >> first o. i want t off, i wany great presentation. yes, you are involved with that cb3p program. and this is, in m in my opiniont it was put into place for.

we should absolutely get behind this. i'm going to see what my other fellow commissioners have to say. any questions? do you want to hear from the public? let's go with the public. we'll open this up for general public comment right now. do we have any members of the public who would like. >> i have speaker cards. adel followed by chris callow way. >> welcome. >> thank you for allowing me time to be here. i'm here today to ask for a level playing field. most of the equity applicants like myself, i was awarded a permit. we're struggle to go meet and compete with the big boys and there's some really big boys in this industry. we don't have all the tools and the mechanisms that they have so

our process that is simple for them and a lot of these folks have done this before many times before and they come with the architects and the contractors and their advisors and their lawyers and we don't have a lot of their baggage. so you may ask why should you do this and i asked back why wouldn't you not do this. i mean, we've already start aid fair process and i would like to see this campaign continue to be a fair progress. there's a rap singer named drake that started as a tv show actor now he is the sixth richest rapper in the united states and he has a song called "starting from the bottom now bee we're h" most of us would like to say we're starting from the bottom. so this year is your opportunity now to help some of the people that didn't have all the

incentives and the equity that some of our competitors have and did have so this is your chance and i hope you take it favorably. thank you for the opportunity to speak with you. >> thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> my name is chris and i'm qualified as an individual applicant in the cannabis equity program. i can tell you from my experience, looking for retail locations throughout the city, that it's challenging to find one landlord that will approve the use but to find a retail place that hasn't been already applied for an existing location or also within 600 feet of a cool. so when you do find a location, that meets the criteria, you kind of face other challenges as well. as far as income so we have income restrictions to qualify for the program and then our landlords want to see income obviously that would allow us to move forward and create a business there. so, i will ask that you make

these resources, whatever resources are available within this program that would help expedite the process within the planning department. for someone that doesn't have a lot of resources that's trying to open a cannabis business, going through agoing through ayd pros would be challenges for someone like me. so i just ask you take into consideration when you consider us, thank you. >> thank you. next speaker martin and brandon brown followed by edward brown. >> welcome. >> hi, thank you commissioners, for the opportunity. i'm here in support of inclusion for equity cannabis applicants to participate in the program. small and mid size businesses to chase a lot of challenges in the cannabis space. i've been in the medical cannabis movement since 2002 and in recent years i've -- i'm shocked to see the amount of huge business that's just forcing its way into what was

originally a movement to help desperately ill and sick people so, i think the inclusion to this program would go a really long way to helping local community-minded organizations and applicants participate on a level playing field. thank you. >> thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> brandon brown. >> welcome. >> hello, my name is brandon brown. i am an equity partner in business called cdxx we're trying to open up on bay view. we have a place called my art gallery where the last year we've opened our space up to the community as a community art gallery. we have local artists where they hang their art and we do paint nights which are really popular right now. all for free as a way tone gage in the community. and so, with that, i also worked, i was on the working group for human rights. to help create the program to

help make recommendations to help push along from a business stand point and i've always gone through the application last year and years before so i'm familiar with the planning process. like you said, i really thank you for letting me talk and i like what you said earlier that it makes sense that this is when i read this cb3p, it makes sense that this is the last step to, already what we see is the successful program. which i feel like a lot of times we implement these types of things and they don't workout that well. like in other cities but our equity programming is working really well. so this is the last step that the c.u. process right now it will take up a year to two years and we've been waiting a year and a half and paying rent like this other guy was saying about real estate. imagine that rent burden, on top of that the people that are the

equity businesses are community-based already due to that fact that we have someone that is from the community like my equity applicant rodney c.e.o. 40% owner. he is a pillar of his community. he doesn't have cannabis experience. we can train him to do that. the point is that he brings in the community and it allows -- it's already giving back in that sense. it's a program that is giving back and giving people opportunities that we're doing nothing and sitting on the couch looking down at this great opportunity to make millions of dollars and that's something they wouldn't have had last year. so, this is kind of a big deal and i don't mean to get on a soap box here but, i feel like a lot of times that equity program it's a first social equity program that i've seen like this. and especially in an industry that can do so much good.

i feel like you guys are someone who already agrees that this is a good idea so i don't want to bang too hard on this so the 90 day period would be huge for us when you look at a possible two years. i mean you do the math on it, it's a lot of money. and yeah, the equity portion is already, we have to give up half, 40% or half of the company equity applicant has to be. it's not like it's easy to find funding where you can give up percentages of the company overtime and so, the dynamics of it and so on and so fourth, the time frames are huge. >> never get off your soap box. [laughter] >> seriously. never get off it. edward brown and that's the last speaker card i have. >> hello members of the public and commissioner. we have a unique set of circumstances here. the office of cannabis has identified and verified hundreds

of individuals who by definition are among the most economically and socially vulnerable. who make up the business class, otherwise known as equity applicants. on may 27th, part one of the application opened and the with in the cold and eugene and ray have worked to provide opportunities and resources to the business class during this part of the application. the second part is the applicant to obtain a building permit. navigating this process will ultimately will determine the success and failure of this equity business class. the cb3p program was crafted out of a small business priority processing pilot program and the intent was to assist and streamline the conditional use authorization which require a commissioner hearing. currently the planning department has a goal of holding these hearings within 120 days of filing. in light of this vulnerable

business class, a typical four-month processing time when viewed in the light of market rents and the licensing required for cannabis permits, the cost are over anywhere from 12 to $34,000, potentially higher. again, i urge you to allow this equity business class and the cannabis uses to be allowed to participate in cb3p by continuing to have cannabis on the list of prohibited uses to the cb3p program, you will continue the harm imposed on them from the war on drugs and you will act as a barrier for them to participate in the cannabis industry. as eugene has shown, this business class are mostly people that went to san francisco unified school district and they're also our lowest income small businesspeople. so i urge you to vote for in conclusion and i thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> one more speaker. >> rudy c.

>> how are you guys doing today. thank you for allowing me to speak. it's late. we were in the wrong room. someone just text us. so, first of all, we want to just say what the brother was just sharing about this is native san francisco. we are about supporting the equity program. we're from all different parts of san francisco. we have different nationalities and also, we have over 300 years of community service or 300 years of serving the community. i run an organization here in san francisco called united players, a violence prevention organization that was serving the city and county of san francisco for the last 24 years. you see, we have gentleman and women who have been incarcerated for many years. my brother right here did 45

years straight. he is backout. we have brothers who have came off and did over 30 years. but we're here to support this project and we hope that you guys take this request seriously because we are the equity people that they're referring to. we got the champ right here of san francisco. from where the mayor's at. we got hunters point in the house. we have the excelshare. i lived down a block and we weral effects on the war on drugs. our families, our children, our parents and so we encourage you guys to support this proposal that you guys have in front of you because we're here and we know that cannabis is actually helping out health wise and it also can help out the community for us to go ahead and get some equity for our community and our people. thank you for your time. >> thank you. >> any other speakers? seeing none. public comment is closed.

do we have any commissioner comments? >> commissioner. >> i want to thank everybody that came out. a lot of familiar faces. i too was part of that human rights commission think-tank. not to take credit but i put that out there the cb3p. thank you for campaigning for the industry. i know that uphill challenge. i know a lot of people think it's a money grab. thank you for all those local people keeping san francisco real and keeping the culture real and our industry ours. thank you for coming out. >> any other commissioner comments? >> i just want to say thank you for coming out today and speaking. the cb3p program is exactly what this program was intended for and you know, you guys are the

natives. i know what that is like. a lot of you were here early on and dennis perone would be very proud of you. helping a lot of sick individuals. i'm from the castro and i got to tell you, i know a lot of people whose lives were extended because of people like you. and you guys should be the ones benefiting the most from the legalization of recreational cannabis in california. you are right, we're seeing the big people come in, they're getting their spaces and they can afford to wait. but the equity applicants, i'm a firm believer you guys should be at the front of the line so i'm in motion to support equity applicants being part of the cb3p program. >> do we have a motion? >> i i hav do we have a motion.

>> commissioners, i want to make sure we might want to say the equity program because can you explain, there might be tie inns for equity incubators. >> thinking about the concept, keep in mind that incubators are incubators that they are pairing with a verified applicant and supporting them for no less than three years. having them move together through the process is beneficial to tractor-trailer equity applicant as well. it allows for their financial assistance or the location at which they could potentially be incubated to move at the same time. when we approach this, we think of it as sort of equity program participants. >> ok. >> so i move to include equity participants in the cb3p program. >> i second. >> second. >> so we have a motion by

commissioner ortiz-cartagena and second by commissioner zouzounis. >> adams. >> yes. >> corvi. >> yes. >> dooley has recused. >> dwight. >> yes. >> ortiz-cartagena. >> yes. >> riley. >> yes. >> commissioner zouzounis. >> yes. >> motion passes 6-0. with one recused. [applause] >> thank you all for coming out and never get off that soap box. seriously. you have to stay on that soap box and speak out. because if you don't, the other side will come out and right now we're at a war with the people in washington so stand on that soap box and keep screaming to the top of your lungs. >> next item, please. >> item 4. presentation on the gary bus rapid transit brt and i will

provement project. more than 54,000 people a day rely on the 38 gerry bus service to get where they need to do. but uneven wait times, over prouded buses and inconsistent travel times are a daily reality. these issues persist with more rush hour service and red bus only lanes. the project led by the san francisco county transportation authority and san francisco municipal transportation agency will address these issues making transit as quick and convenient and a more vibrant gerry corridor. the presenter is liz bryson, project manager. >> welcome. >> thank you. good afternoon commissioners. my name is liz bryson, i'm the project manager for the geary rapid. i will give you an update on this project because it does --

it's a major transit and safety project that does pass through a corridor that serves a lot of small businesses. it's also going to be entering construction in the near future so it seems like something that would be of interest to the group to hear about. to set a contest it was already read into the record but the geary corridor is a very busy transit corridor for san francisco. the local and rapid buses carry about 54,000 riders each day and it's not just people going from the richmond to downtown to go to work, the line is used all times of day both directions people going ever where making all kinds of trips, shopping trips, work trips, et cetera. >> isn't it a busy bus line in the bay area? >> yes, so, really like just this line is about the same rider ship as cal train. it's a busy bus route in the

country. there's probably a few lines in say new york city and l.a. that may be comparable. we have two key goals that we're trying to achieve with this project. the first is to improve the speed and reliability of the buses. and the image on the top -- it was pretty common on the quarter today it's what we call bunches and gaps and it can be like one bus just missing the green light and maybe there's an extra big load of passengers to pick up and one bus finds schedule and the next one catches up and the next thing you have a big gap in service and people who are wait forgerofor the bus are waiting r and the bus is crowded because it's behind schedule and it's a cascading impact of delay. what we're trying to accomplish through the project, it may not look like the image on the

bottom but giving it the type of priority infrastructure it's able to stay evenly spaced. san francisco has a policy to eliminate all traffic commissions by 2024. one of the big focuses is looking at the streets where the majority of the collisions occur and geary is one of those streets. you are eight times more likely to be hit than an average city street. and so it's the first phase of improvements of what has been called the geary brt project for a lonfora long time. it's connected tie larger project that would bring changes from west of stanyan to 34th

avenue. so this gives an indication of some of the key features can the project. the number one is a dedicated bus lane on the side of the streets and we already have in the eastern part of the corridor and we would be extending them west to stanyan street. these lanes go next to the parking lane and are for buses and taxis and then regular private vehicles will enter the lanes to access parallel parking, enter driveways or make right turns. the number two points at a bus bulb. this is where you extend the sidewalk at a bus stop and it gives more room for people waiting an opportunity to put more amenities in the bus stops and then it means when the bus is stopping it doesn't pull out of traffic and pull back in, which saves a little time and it's also more pleasant if you are on the bus because you are not jerking back and fourth.

number three, illustrates a pedestrian bulb. this is where you extend the sidewalk right at the intersection. it accomplishes a few different things. one is that it means that the distance across the street when you are walking is shorter. it also means that people driving, when they're making turns, they are more likely to slow down, which makes it safer. and then finally, people are more visible to drivers. this is one of the most effective tools we have in our toolbox to address pedestrian safety and collisions. number four is illustrating medium. and the number five is pointing at a traffic signal. we'll be upgrading the traffic signals in the geary corridor, inconcludessing ouinincluding ty system that a louse buses to request e extensions of green lights. we will be retiming the signals

in the corridor for an optimal progression. this gives an illustration of one example of the safety and accessibility aspects. this is on geary on buchanan. you have the saint francis square co-operative and the ymca. this is a location where a lot of people want to cross the street but there's no opportunity to do so right now. this illustrates a traffic signal and crosswalk that is proposed as part of the project that would give a new place to cross the street. you can see an illustration of gives an example of what the bus-only lanes look like on other side of the street in a location that doesn't have them. beyond the transportation work associated with this, the other so he iassociated with.

so as the transportation improvements include repaving of the road way. definitely the pavement at this point is rough and everyone will be happy for a smoother ride. the sfpuc has water and sewer work associated with the project. this includes geary between masonic to market street and there's a fiber objec fiber optt which allows for high-speed internet and something we use for our traffic signals. so, i do want to talk about some of the outreach focused on the business community. we do have a geary community advisory committee that meets every two months and give staff advice and input on the project. we do have members on the geary

cac that represent different business interest with the project corridor. we did a door-to-door loading survey to understand each of the adjacent businesses loading needs. commercial loading, passenger loading can be a lifeline need so we wanted to make sure as we put in these improvements, we're not doing anything to hurt the access needs. we also had a variety of meetings with adjacent businesses. if there was something proposed close to their property, for example, meeting with a business that's right next to where a bus bulb or pedestrian bulb would be going in. i made a road show to present to any stake holder groups that will have me and this shows a list of some of the ones that i have visited in the last year. if you have any other suggestions of people i should ggo talk to i'm happy to share the project.

i mentioned the loading survey already. i wanted to expand on that a little bit more. the bottom right gives an example of one of the m.p. staff getting a business owner to fill out the survey and ask for general questions about where do you do your loading and what type of day and what kind of vehicles? that information was analyzed by our staff and we were able to make some changes to our project to accommodate loading needs. this shows some of the data from the survey and it gives you a sense of the different business types along the geary corridor. this is businesses between market and stanyan street. so in terms of businesses there's quite a few in the union square part of the corridor and the tenderloin, maybe not as intense business through masa on i can so you can see the most common business types as well as

where the majority of businesses did their loading with half having a loading in front of their business as it was. so in general, as we've approached the design for the projects, we've applied some criteria to prioritize curb space. our first priority is to make sure we maintain the blue zones for americans with disabilities act compliance and then our second priority is if there's any location of passenger loading zone needs to move we make sure it can move in a location where it's still going to accommodate business needs and finally, as much as possible, we strive to maintain on-street parking although some of the projects proposals require removal of on-street parking. so here are just a couple of the examples of how we've refined our designs based on business input. the first example is this is

showing a location where we currently have a bus in the middle of the street, a bus stop in the middle of the street. kind of unusual to have a bus mid bop. we like them in the intersection corner. we're looking at moving that bus stop up to tailor street but after analyzing our load survey results, there was a liquor store that does commercial loading up front and it was a tenable for that business to have its loading continue while being a bus stop. we decided to drop that propos proposal. >> this is between fill more and webster. this is where the fill more under pass is and there's not as much room and we wanted to put in this bus-only lane. we were able to workout with the adjacent businesses is we're going to cut into the sidewalk so that there's room for a

commercial and passenger loading in the top left of the image where you can see the sidewalk cut in and the yellow and the white curb there. in terms of where we are in the process, it's been around for a long time and it was a year ago the sfcta board approved the project and we've done a lot of outreach this summer and leading up to a final approval we're expecting at the sfmta board next month. we would be moving into construction and so we're expecting for construction to last two and a half years beginning this fall through the early part of 2021. in general, even though the durrization two and a half years it doesn't mean there will be disruptions along that stretch the entire time. disruption would probably be on the order of between a few weeks and a few months depending on how much work is happening in any given location.

these are some of the notification efforts that we will take to make sure people are aware and anyone in close proximity of the construction would be receiving mail notice 30 days before construction begins. we also do weekly updates on a look ahead of what construction expected in the upcoming two weeks and we also have a dedicated e-mail line and hotline that will be active throughout the entire duration of the construction and that people can reach out to us at any time if there's an issue that needs resolution. there will be signage in the corridor as well embassador to help inform people about changes especially to bus stops. we are working to work within the new construction mitigation framework that the city put together and these are some of the examples of things we're plan to go do for the project and posters that encourage

people to do business in the corridor and signage to direct people to businesses where construction might be happening. having specific open for business banners. a corridor-specific marketing campaign which in particular, if you have any feedback on we need to defining what that looks like and we would be happy to have input that ya'll have and finally we have a dedicated public information officer. actually we have a two-person team. sophia is part of our team. that concludes my presentation. happy to hear hear your questions and comments. >> i want today ask about the mitigation. a lot of the businesses on geary are very small, family businesses. is there any plans -- i mean they're not going to be able to afford to take a huge hit and gun out of bit but i just wonder are there going to be funds available to help some of the

people in this corridor get through this two and a half years? >> through the measures i showed on the side do as much to encourage customers to still patronize the businesses. the other thing i would note is the scape of this project is different than some other scales of projects in the city. if you were to compare it to vaness, it's a big construction project because they're rebuilding the street. we're not doing that with geary it's just a lane on the side of the street. it's not as extensive of disruption. >> are you going to be requiring that the people working on the construction not park their vehicles all daylong in the commercial blocks? we see that so much once again where they just take over the

whole area with their equipment, you know, their personal vehicles and it's very damaging. >> that's a great question. so, there will be specifications in each of the construction contracts than include a lot of provisions about what contractors are and are not allowed to do. one is they're supposed to park off site but i don't want to get the details wrong. i could get back to you with a more definitive answer for you if you like. >> commissioner dwight. >> i'm curious in our outreach, i imagine you spoken with the geary street merchants association. what's your -- what is your rip with that organization? >> so, the project i'm talking about today is for the segment of geary between market. it's west of stanyan street

where there's been a lot of conversations with the merchants about the project. in general, there's not that same concern with this phase of the work which is what i'm working on and leading right now. >> it's all part of the same project, is it not? >> well there are two phases of the project. this phase is moving forward right now and the other phase is just in its preliminary design stage right now. >> all right. commissioner riley. >> yes, on the notification, your 30-day mail notice, i've been to some of the merchants association meetings and one of the most photographic issue noty were sent to the landlord not the business owner them self. they're not aware of the construction going on. how will you address that? >> so we typically send the mailer to the physical address within the corridor.

and you are saying that sometimes the person, who should actually know isn't at that physical address? >> i was told the notice was sent to the owner of the property rather than the business own. so i don't know exactly what happened. they didn't get it. >> what i can tell you is we do a radius within close proximity of the corridor . we rely who is physically at the property to share the information. >> we do send it to the address, not so much of the property owner or the business owner and they also mention that some of the signs we posted on the lamp pole and they were simply stapled to the tree and when it's raining or windy they get blown away and so how do you take care of that? >> the signage is definitely a

hot topic and one where we do it we learn something for land a way to do it better but in general, we don't affix signs to trees. we monitor them regularly in case they get graffiti on them and we do try to print them on a weather protective material or eliminate them so they're not quickly destroyed. >> thank you. >> commission ortiz-cartagena. >> some of the things i'm just going to repeat some of my co commissioners have said to be redundant. so there's several merchant groups effected by this project. which the union square which is larger and not probably in our purview but then there is a small business association from jones to van hess that they migt not have a merchant group and you have a dead zone from van

ess to fill more and it might be fillmore to park studio. they may be more involved and russian, there's chinese, cantonese, and then after the west there's a smarter business corridor to the end of the project so i see some of the merchant associations you have presented to you s there more? is there a more concerted effort to approach all these individual merchant associations? >> we did do the loading survey and went door-to-door to each business f there are other to reach out i would do so. our typical notifications go out in five languages, english, spanish, chinese, vietnamese and russian. >> just for a recommendation, because i've been part of

several projects, so it's a lot easier for me, the cultural lens is latino and spanish. you encompass multi-cultural, multi-merchants capacity so i would definitely recommend not necessarily like a couple of my commissioners said not going to the person at the store, because they might be an employee and they mighting concerned about their loading but to the owner so they can support this and mitigate this. what is the percentage of the mitigation of the over all project to small businesses? >> i don't know the answer to that. >> ok. >> just, again, i'm going to repeat just redundancy. over communicate. we would like to know the all over budget from last mitigation to the small businesses in the project. in the mission it's about 3% in some of the projects that that could be good to communicate to some of the small businesses

what the set aside is for loss mitigation. thank you. >> any other commissioner questions? we're going to open up it to public comment. are there any members of the public who would like to make a comment on item number four. >> seeing none. public comment is closed. this is say discussion item so our last -- anybody else have anything else. i just want to -- i want to echo what everybody said with commissioner ortiz-cartagena over communicate with the business owners. there will be an ombudsmen or a manager there so if someone has someone to call if there's a problem where someone can't access a business or delivery or something. >> the phone number i put up on the slide. if will be up there again.

that number will be active throughout construction. any time there's work happening out of business hours, someone will pick up and be able to quickly work to resolve any issues. >> ok. and then i know i see it on van ice where you have signs that come out and solicit the business, you will do that on gary as well. >> any other questions. >> no, and commissioners, what i'll do is i'll forward over your comments to ensure follow-up. >> thank you for the work. appreciate the reach out to the small business community. thank you. >> next item, please. >> item 5. directors report. update and report on the office of small business. and the small business department program and and legislative matters, announcements from the mayor and

regarding small business activities. discussion item. >> commissioners, so, i am going to just as a matter of procedure, just continue because we get the weekly report in terms of the number of checklist that's have been submitted and or information that's been submitted to the department of building inspection with the accessible business interest in terms of what's been filed. again, you know, just right now, we have exemptions in category ones which is the first deadli deadline. it makes sense that we see more numbers in those top two catagories. and for the legacy business, so the july 10th, at the last meeting, i reported we would

finalize the selection of the logo for the legacy business program. we've narrowed it down. at the next meeting, we will definitely then make the final selection and also start having discussion around colors for the logo and the program. to date, we have six businesses that have applied for the business assistance grant and again, that grant application period is open until september 30th for all businesses on the legacy legacy business registry. in late august, early september, they will print staff recommendations to you for approval for how a recommendation on allocation of funding into the two grant programs. starting this fiscal year and moving forward, we will now need to do specific allocations into

each grant program and be working specifically with those allocations. for the first two years, we knew that we had enough funding to fund a request so this year we will be needing to ensure that, especially with the rent stablation grant, there are the ability to have the property owner continue to reapply for the grant for those that have leases. we'll present our budget recommendation on this in terms of how we allocate the million dollars that have been applied towards that grant program. and then, i've highlighted a couple pieces of legislation that had been referred to the commission and that is planning codes establishing the indian

bay sin special use district and the development agreement. i'm not so sure that i spoke to president adams about this but as to whether the commission would want to take a fiscal action on the entire thing. i think the informational briefing might be interesting for the commission to have as this in addition other areas of the city where we are creating brand new neighborhoods and so i did speak with the sponsor -- or the project manager in oewd and she is interested in really coming before the becaus commisn because she has questions. obviously, the purview is the business side of what is being developed. so i mean, actually i shouldn't actually limit it to that. since housing is a big issue for

small businesses for their employees, that can be another item that can be discussed. i talked to anne and i think we're looking at the last meeting in august, the 23rd, i believe it is. or the 27th. and then supervisor, i hope at next meeting to have supervisor safai separation compliance and then the follow-up for this three pieces of legislation that you heard back in june. they all were heard at land use, two of them there were changes and one with the catering, supervisor safai took both the commission's recommendation and the planning commission's recommendation to apply it city wide.