plea permitted construction and larger processes would be right but i would prefer them to go there and you get at two problems, which is discouraging smaller housing stock from becoming corporate rental units. the other thing that i would say that i think that benefit of knowing how much -- how many of these units are out there by regulating is that we have an opportunity to look at value capture and also potentially regulating the prices and just really right-sizing this use for the benefits from the city and i love the idea of really looking at neighborhoods of concern and whether the interim control sure should exclude neighborhoods of concern from the uses. there's so much to say. but i think that's it for now.

i'll come back if i have more. thank you. >> commissioner fung. >> question for staff. if the data collection is at the crux of the nexus study, what -- is there a detailed list of the data that is required? i didn't very much in the brief or legislation. >> it has a specific detail hasn't been form ey formulated e would want to know a location. anything perhaps the price approximates, thiprices, thelend between rents that hasn't been nailed down and we should slow any permanent controls down before we get the data. >> one of the important things would be based on current standards is whether it's an affordable unit or not.

because i think any type of legislation, final legislation would be different depending upon how that nexus occurs. last question would be, this interim is up to 24 months. is it required that long? >> it's not required. i think the different interim controls start out the gate at different maximum durations and then for example, i think it would be for 45 days but a lesser control i understand and i want to confer with the city attorney. at each stage it requires the board to come back to renew it for a period. >> commissioner moore. >> thank you to supervisor peskin and thank you to mr. gulu. i was not aware of the extent of i.l.o.s and the use and

detrimental effect it can have, particularly in newer neighborhoods. i thought it was all thriving receipt accidents just occupying units and lucky to live and accommodate what is is a form of accommodation accept that i did not really quite know how negative the effects can be. my fellow commissioners comments resinated strongly with me. particularly commissioner johnson's comment on right sizing the use, including finding appropriate locations where it is acceptable and where it may be highly impacting on vulnerable communities and would you agree with commissioner johnson on her concern of the impact on particularly smaller, older buildings where i think it's impossible an element of creating instability with

unknown people regulating or in and out i myself live in a smaller building and even the frequency of condominiums in this older building are destabilizing to those of us who have lived there for a long time and now as of very recent we're seeing an llc buying with none of us being able to identify who the owner is and who actually lives there. there's an element of uncertainty to use and us user, including the motive of driving up sales prices and speculative kind of way of how activities in the unit are being conducted. we do not have any control over it. it's basically an owner accept he doesn't have a name and i strongly urge that additional study is being paid on these smaller buildings to protect exactly from that element of uncertainty. but first, kind of i'm not sure

how far away we are from doing t. the idea of renter registration came up as one idea for me and i grew up in a country for many of years where registration was normal for a city to control who lives there and where. there's nothing improper of the city knowing what your landlord knows already. you have a better idea who lives where and for what purpose. i am in strong support to support the arts, healthcare and everybody else with i.l.o.s except we need to have a better balance of why they are here and what number and that we're basically taking a speculative element out of it and the hotel industry which is in the end is

detrimental to the hotel industry because it does not require the same taxes and the same kind of benefits that come when you have a fully mature hotel industry. >> commissioner johnson. >> thank you. so, think just for benefit of the public discourse, can you just share for folks who are already operating, what the impacts will be on an active agreement with folks that are in-housing, what the impacts will be and what next steps should this be implemented? >> so i want to differentiate between the two. for better or for worse, referred to the illegally operating corporate rentals and rent-controlled housing, pre 1979.

i mean, they shouldn't have been operate buoperating but for thoy would phase those contracts out. if you have a listing with zeua and you have a contract you would phase that out and after is that point in time would you have to start leasing to permanent residents or a year long lease and after that, the way the rent ordinance works is those leases could then be month to month but yo you have to have that one year initial tendency. for that middle bucket, the way we have been thinking about it, the post 79 existing corporate rentals is they would take this two-year am terrization period for planning and first of all, hopefully they are meeting with our budget and legislative annalist and providing data that

then is filtered through their anonymous, their anonymizing the data and putting it in a way that it can help inform for planning staff and what that process looks like. maybe planning has a wait list or there's recommendations, you know, commissioner melgar, about different areas of interest whether it's geographic clustering or boundaries or whether it's prioritizing or maybe offering preference on the wait list depending on voluntary, we're conferring a benefit on you and we're giving us something like committing to price controls. i mean, you know, we have waivers and all of those types of things so maybe it's something like that. i think we are thinking that that is something that we would like to have the planning commission and planning staff sort of ad administratively comp

over the course of that time and during that time the controller is also with working with consultants like we did with the inclusionary housing code and working with consultants to up come with this study to start to create a vision for what is the need and appropriate, you know, approval process for new commission so when developers come down the lane, that they are honest about what it is they mean about residential units what they're serveing and what kind of impacts you'll be asking about what kind of impacts the city should be prepared over mitigate over those results coming online. does that answer your question. >> thank you for your hard work

and that answer. >> commissioner moore. >> having heard more support than anything else, including expanded ideas that make a move to approve. >> i haven't read this and i haven't. if there was a motion that through the advice of the city attorney's office, because of the substantive changes to the legislation that we're submitted to you late, you would each have to acknowledge that you've read and review the material submitted to you. >> there star?

>> >> i can speak about staff. we see this as an issue and we understand it needs to be regulated but there's -- we don't have the information to fully understand what the universe is and we don't know what criteria we would use to judge a conditional use permit that comes in. there are a lot of unanswered questions so we're sort of rushing this through before we have the information that why we suggested it so it could stop for six months while that information we can gather and see, is 500 right, is 1,000 right, who would be impacted by this and what criteria we would use to approve the conditional use and under what circumstances. >> commissioner melgar. >> i would support a continuance of a week. just to allow us to digest this and think it through and speak with a supervisor and get

everything understood and because they reintroduce the ordinance so your deadline is not january 28th. >> a week maybe not more. >> i can make a motion now. i make a motion that we continue this for a week. >> two? >> two weeks, ok. >> >> i'll just remind you commissioner johnson you are scheduled to be out on the 30th which will bring you down to four commissioners. >> which is why we're doing it in two weeks. >> two weeks is the 30th. next week is the 23rd. >> oh, that's right. one more. >> i feel comfortable.

we're on the same page. >> we're not the same page. >> if it's ok with you to do it on the 30th. ok. >> was there a second. >> i'll second. >> i'm out of it. [laughter] >> i second that. >> thank you, commissioners. on na motion to continue this matter to january 30th. [roll call] >> so moved. that motion passes unanimously 5-0. commissioners that, will place you on item 12 for case 2020-00052pca for the standard environmental conditions of approval planning code and administrative code amendments.

>> vice president moore, commissioners, good afternoon, my name is jacob and planning department staff. i'm here today to introduce a proposal that we have discussed a couple of times here at planning commission. this proposal relates to is essentially to standardize the way in which we apply some of the environmental protection measures that we currently apply to projects through the ceqa process and for the uninitiated in the room f. there are any, it's the california environment

quality act. i'll be getting into the details. it is to achieve the same environmental protection we see do currently through mitigation measures under ceqa and achieve some of those protection measures as standard conditions of approval through action by this commission. the items before you today specifically are inform initiate, consider whether to initiate the ordinance that would come back to you for adoption and to schedule a hearing for adoption for you to then pass that onto the board or to continue it and take action. so, where did this come from? as i mentioned, we have discussed this a couple before and you recall the executive on housing production in 2017 and the planning department prepared a process improvement plan and one of many measures in that plan was a measure that we called at that time to cot a fie effective measures under ceqa and it's what we've been working on and developing in earnest the

past year or so and that's what is now being referred to as the standard environmental conditions of approval program. and the way of background, we're not the first people to make this up. we can't take credit. there is precedent for the concept that are moving mitigation measures under ceqa under the planning code or municipal code. one is the amendment to the public-health code to recall site mitigation plans related to hazardous materials and soil and groundwater that was in 2013 and the clean construction ordinance was related to emissions, construction equipment for public projects and that was 2015 and the dust control ordinance a site mitigation plan is required for projects of a certain size and characteristics and we had the transportation demand management program in 2017 adopted where as part of our move away from the level of

service standard through our transportation analysis under ceqa, we adopted option that's now is living in a separate document on our website that was adopted by this commission that gives options for projects to meet a specific standards of vehicle mile travel emissions standards so a way of achieving a target in a way that is up front that's not necessarily through a transportation study. so there is some precedent. what are the goals of the program. the first and foremost is continued environmental protection to achieve the same or higher level of environmental protection in the project as we do currently and we are implementing ceqa and it's an administrative change in the way we would a supply some of the provisions. secondly, to do this in a way that is shore streamline in the sense that we would be able to complete this analysis and roughly three months shorter on average for projects that would be subject to this and for the standards to have higher level

of consistency and rather than the mitigations being applied, each project individually in a sometimes 100-page or longer document rather for the continues to be present and connist enterally applied to projects where those conditions are applicable, and similar to that, one of the goals is for these requirements to be transparent and known up front at the beginning of the process by applicants and by members of the public and by staff similar to how you can look at what the planning code requirements are before you come in the door rather than waiting to find out what the mitigations will be for the project. how would we actually adopt and initiate our rather establish this program? there's really two parts to this and the first is what we're kind of calling it enabling ordinance and this is what the item is before you today to initiate. this is the ordinance that you would consider initiation. what the ordinance would do is essentially it would create a

new chapter in the administrative code. chapter 31-a. it regulates our implementation of ceqa. this is chapter 31-a which would grant authority to the planning commission to adopt these technical standards conditions of approval documents by environmental topic area. it also amends the planning code to be clear that we have enforceability over those conditions. and of course, that ordinance would, if initiated out of the planning commission and adopted by the planning commission would go to the board of supervisors through the regular process before adoption. separately, presuming the ordinance did enable us to adopt these. the commission would need to adopt each one of these standard conditions air quality, archeology. the commission would adopt the technical document and there's a requirement currently in the ordinance that the planning commission would need to report back to the commission and board of supervisors every five years

not only to in terms of monitoring of how the program has been going and implementation, but to also recommend any changes related to changes in science and best practices and environmental protection. the commission would be able to revise the conditions. what am i talking about? we have hopefully what is helpful. there's a lot on here. i want to look at the top row of this. the way it is now. basically an application comes in. we look at characteristics of the project to determine what information is needed for environmental review and what the level of environmental review will be. if it qualifies for one of many types of ceqa exemptions that exist understate law that is the path that the project will go down. if we determine that there are likely to be significant and unavoidable impacts, we are headed towards an e.i.r. which is the way we address impacts. there's an inbetween area that

projects that may have likely impacts but that can be avoided or lessened through mitigation measures and that's what results in a mitigate negative declaration being the environmental finding for that project and that's the tool to adopt these mitigation measures i'm referring to tha referring . after the mnd is prepared it's part of the action that the commission a proves in order to approve the project and it goes on to building permit review and under construction and we end up with the protections being applied. i want to go to the bottom row here, the way it would be. it's similar with a couple of important changes. we're still doing environmental review. see what applies. we're looking at the characteristics of the project and some projects, as i mention, that because of various ministerial approval programs, granted by the state, may not be technically subject to ceqa review at this time and we would be able to consider those projects using the standard conditions in a way we're not able to do as ceqa mitigation.

we would determine whether the standard condition document, if it were adopted, adopts to the project the same way any section of the planning code would apply and we adopt those standards conditions in the conditions of approval. in your motion that's how they get implemented so the key change is in the middle of the slide where we're not determining the mitigation and this mitigate negative declaration document and we're applying the conditions as standard conditions of approval. and the design of all of this and the goal is we end up with the same level of environmental protection and the same monitoring and enforcement procedures that we have today. so i mentioned these very technical terms of the declaration and exemption and i want to drill down one more level on the next slide about exactly how this looks different for a project that falls in this category of a project where there's impacts that can be mitigate. the way it is now, they get a mitigate negative declaration and it takes us on average 12 months to prepare.

i should note in the second piece, so you get the building permit approved and that is really the key piece there. when you have a mitigate negative deck alreadiation decks appealed with the e.i.r. they're also appealable. seek what exemptions are appealable and m.n.d.s back to the planning commission which has adopted the m.n.d. on the project and again, there's an appeal period for the board of supervisors. this is a san francisco-specific pre vision in chapter 31 and we want to be very clear, as i compare with the way that it would be if standard conditions applied how this might change so we would have a project come in. we would be able to shave about three months off of this timeframe to look at the project and identify the standard conditions that apply and bring that to you for approval as part

of your conditions of approval and the ceqa action that goes with that would be an infill exemption potentially categorical exemption, whatever it may be. if the project has no -- if the only potential impact can be covered by the standard conditions of approval, then we're talking about an exemption. the project may have other issues not covered by the standards conditions. we would still be doing an mmd. there might be some issues covered by the standard conditions and there's still an unavoidable impact and there may be an e.i.r. and it only needs to focus on the remaining items. we still have benefits in terms of what the e.i.r. process looks like there. so, what i want to emphasize here to be up front and transparent is in the case where the project would have had an m.n.d. and the only issues are covered by the standard condition and the only thing it ends up with is a ceqa exemption, that you do have only one appeal period directly to the board of supervisors rather than the two .

so that is one piece of the puzzle. we end up with the same measures as i'll ex emphasize just in a different way. so what kinds of projects are we talking about with these. we really are looking at the projects that typically trigger these mitigate negative declaration. they can vary in size and scale. 1,001 van ness. this is 250 unit senior residential care facility approved and needed a mitigate negative declaration with the excavation of the projects. it's a project that could have gone without the mnd and could have been an exception and moved faster. smaller-scale project on charter oak avenue and it was four units and a three story structure and it there was air and both of those could have been covered so

there's a range and i do want to address the issue of var small scale projects and obviously single-family homes and renovations. thighs projects 99% of the time are qualifying for a categorical exemption unless there's an outstanding issue. there might be a pipeline on that site so projects will fall into the e.i.r. if it's a preservation issue. what the standards conditions give us the ability to take projects that qualify for the standard issues we see and give them a pathway to qualify for the ceqa exemption that is granted understate law and we don't feel there would be an issue with projects at that small scale kicking up into a higher level of environmental review. some of the projects, like a single family home that need an m.n.d. might be able to become

an exemption and others may not depending on what that issue is it. in general, this is going to be mid to larger scale projects for those that are triggering the declarations and this is the applicability and we may apply the standard conditions to any and subject to would be a project under ceqa and it's written in such a way that would include some of these projects. that separate from what is in -- it will determine what the applicable might be. in archeology it might be different. that level of doug detail will n each document. we look at all the same projects to evaluate is that under ceqa analysis or is it not.

so just a couple of examples of the conditions that we have been working on the past year so that are far along and these would come back to you in greater detail. air quality is a big one obviously. the issue is typically that we have control is the construction period and the equipment and engines being used during construction. right now, projects that fall into where there's a higher sensitivity to air pollutants, those projects do need a mitigation measure and it's typically a high-quality level of engine like a tier 4 they have to use the on the site. the mitigation measures would also be the same. the same type of engine just a same engine. would you get there faster. same universe of project and

same protection measure. the mitigation measures that we use and proposed in the standards conditions are designed to eliminate 90% of the diesel exhaust so that is a significant impact. we're not talking about in anyway lessening from the measures themselves. i'll also mention the area of archeological and tribal and cultural resources. we were not the first people to live in these 49 square miles and there's a lot of stuff under the dirt that we dig in and build in and walk on everyday. sometimes the things we find are significant. arc logically significant and culturally significant. in that case, we apply mitigation measures through the mitigate negative declaration that says what the project needs to do in the event that they discover coming if they cover that if we discover that that was actually a resource that was

effected you would have this up front. with a conditionel approval attached to your project that says accidental discovery. if i hit something and then what do i do if we determine it's a resource so i want to be very clear while that would apply to projects generally, there would be no change in terms of the requirement imposed on the except for the small subset of projects for something that is found and that found to be a resource. we look at it as providing a road map or guidance on what you do if you find something so that hopefully it adds clarity and we have a mitigation measures ready to go for if we find a resource there. those are just a couple of examples like i say, we'll have a lot more chance to get into details if this moves forward and also we have our excellent environmental planning staff as well to answer any technical questions that you may have.

this would fall under the current pressures that we apply mitigation measures to projects that go off into the world and we have some waves weather and mitigation measures and the first thing is building permit and review before they are issued as a standard practice and that includes review to make sure everything in the planning code, what have you, are in deed designated as they were meant to be from this commission. we would do the same thing. so we get a final look at the building permit before it's issued to go and start construction. that's the first thing and there's required -- it's to

continue to apply the same or higher level of as we do today under ceqa in a way that provides some greater consistency and certainty for applicants as well as for the general public. to do it in a streamlined fashion and to do it with greater transparency. and i know that's a lot of information there but i want to remind us of what the action items are today for you. one is whether or not to initiate this ordinance which would then come back to you for adoption and also to schedule a date for you to consider adoption when you can decide one way or the other or whatever needs to happen.

i want to mention that we have, as a next step after this hearing, a technical workshop we'll host on february 12th and the purpose of this is to provide a brief overview of what the program is and set up stations around each of the different topic areas, air quality, archeology and talk about what the process is for all of this and really get into those details. we have invited neighborhood organizations and we have a web page up as of yesterday on our website and if you look for standard environmental conditions of approval on sf planning.org you will see information and the air quality and there's a link to rsv and how does does it fit into next steps we're here today the

workshop is on the 12th in the evening in your case packet, staff is recommending an adoption hearing of february 27th so six weeks out for this to come back and you are welcome to name a date for that and we did want it to give ourselves time after we have that back and fourth with folks who engage at the workshop and also i'm sure we'll be hearing based on what we hear there's modifications to the proposal and either to the ordinance or to the conditions themselves or to the timing of when the conditions should be adopted so we have on the bottom of the site i should pace with regard to the adoption hearing if you vote to recommend to to the board of supervisors it goes through the normal process and i this is want to hand over to jonas and to you as well the final signed version of the ordinance which is a dent cal to the ordinance in your packet and

there's formatting and indentation and it's been signed off on so. this will be available and i want to make sure it's for the record that's what you would be initiating. so, coming back to the next steps we need to look at condition documents themselves and that's really entirely up to this commission. we can bring the condition documents to you as an informational at any point in time. we probably need at least a couple more weeks to be prepared for that or after the adoption. we can bring them in one felt swoop as an adoption hearing for you to think about and act on them or to continue them again. or really any combination. so the only thing to point out is that the adoption of the conditions should not occur any time sooner than you've acted on the ordinance itself so it is off to the board from your end and we can work on the standard conditions of approval but not

prior to that time so there's still steps and quite a bit of further conversation that we're anticipated but i'll leave it there for the moment and of course, myself, lisa gibson, the environmental review officer and staff are here for your questions so thank you, very much. >> thank you for the very thorough presentation. >> my pleasure. >> i don't have speaker cards but i'd like to open it up for public comment. anyone else from the public come on up and lineup on the screen side of the room, please. >> good afternoon, corey smith on behalf of the san francisco housing action coalition and in my five years, i can very easily say that this is the piece of legislation that has me more confused than anything else. [laughter] this came to us because one of our land use attorneys the city mentions doing this and you should reach out to lisa at planning because it would be great if they did. i said this is all fantastic and i sent it to our board and all

the attorneys responded going this is awesome and projects will get approved in a more efficient manner and our developers and general contractors went this is awful it will make it more expensive for us to do our part of it and this is last week and there have been ton of conversations back and fourth and i'm excited to forward this video to our board and ask them what the hell i'm supposed to be saying about this because quite frankly i'm not sure. i do agree the goal here that everybody is looking to get to is what we want to achieve. trying to get the process more streamlined and make sure that we're doing everything we can to improve the quality of lie by those impacted by construction. and providing beyond ample time and opportunity for our members to get feedback and i hope to get you something more

substantive. thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> i heard the word open and transparent and so my question is, how is this -- what is the community outreach? so we mentioned one meeting in the age a lot planningin -- we t to the community. i happen to think it has some very positive things but i think the community, i'm glad the developers are well aware of it but i don't think the communities -- i know that our organization has not received the invitation nor has jordan park so two out of two hasn't got it, who is actually aware of this upcoming meeting. i would ask there's a community outreach program so the so it does effect you.

thank you. >> next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. i'm glad mr. frisbee brought up this issue because i'm going to continue with that and nobody in our coalition was contacted so i don't know what community was out reached because we have people from dalores heights improvement club, neighborhood council, from the west side, west of twin peaks, you name it. no one was contacted. anyway, so let me just go through my critique of this and i'm surprised mr. smith and i are on the same page if i understand it correctly. this whole process improvement has become an albatross around the neck since 2017. i know that in the packet i found our late mayor's name, mayor ed lee, who started this

process improvement here we are in 2020 so this is another one of those ceqa things that was probably something mayor lee wanted to change -- that train has left the station. we have had bills such as sb330 that were passed, sb35, these are streamlining bills that have already been interested and passed and they're the law of the land. so why do we need to process improved ceqa. let's not break something that is not broken. secondly, during the budget process, director ron, you mentioned that we're having less permits coming up in 2020. so, less permits, less revenue, and i believe that there was no mention of playoffs at the planning department. this leads me to believe that there's plenty of time, slightly more time for this staff to dough vote tdevote to this.

so the three months of saving, i'm not sure if that is quite accurate. also, i'm glad that he mentioned that these ceqa reviews are mostly for mid and large sized projects that we're trying to do some process improvement and improve time. talking about three months, which i doubt if it's three months given that western going to have as many permits and we'll have more planners that will be devoted to ceqa review. i do believe that it's incumbent on us to take this seriously. these are large projects. take the hub. it was here a couple of months ago, this is a 600-foot building that -- it's 600-foot tall building and the staff admitted that they didn't even take into consideration the impact of the lift and uber and the e.i.r. did not actually take that into

consideration. so, as is, we're not doing, we're doing a streamline job on e.i.r. and ceqa assessment so let's not make it worse. >> thank you, next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. steve, congratulations press koppel and vice president moore and best of luck to you supervisor melgar. commissioner melgar. i'm here to speak in strong support of this initiative. it's a really key part of the mayor's directive to move, in particular housing projects and the ceqa exemptions as opposed to e.i.r. has a negative declaration where you spend nine months writing a document that everyone knows the outcome and extending time and adding an appeal level that is not necessary.

so this is excellent proposal for the staff. the tdm is working well so we're not doing individualized t.i. s. transportation impact studies that are not necessary and the dust control ordinance work great and everyone knows what you need to do during construction and the two exception and construction noise as to impact that are typically individually studied and projects and require measures and kick you out of a ought to be a mnd so i would surgery the staff to add those topic areas to their work to create standard mitigation measures for those

topics. thank you. >> thank you, anyone else for public comment. >> >> good afternoon, again, commissioners, tess wellborn. i urge you to reject this. we've had modifications of ceqa and modifications of traffic analysis and what people, there are poem who benefit from those changes and have benefited from them. there are very few times that there have been serious challenges to the seek what findings and such and the only beneficiaries of a speed up of throw months are these big developers and they have massive impacts on our neighbors, on the construction -- look at the

cranes and how much is going on. we have streamlined ceqa and we have legislation at the state level. let's not tinker further with this until there is some better reason. too much is being given away to big developers and they don't want to be challenged. and when there are advanced give aways from streamlining. >> we don't need it. >> thank you. >> >> when i was watching the senator's sworn in this morning

at the impeachment hearing, i did get the e-mail. so maybe everybody easy male iss waiting at home. thank you for staff to that. with the design to achieve same or higher level of environmental protection, i worry about the small lots, the 25 by 114-foot lots that are getting the deep excavations. i've seen a lot of that in the valley. i don't think that they have the level 4 engine and maybe they need to have that. the whole point of dense fying to save the it's the trend that is coming and certainly if sb-50

passes, and they're going to go up five or six-storeys they have to go down a lot to support that five or six-storeys on the 25 by 114 lots to spread throughout the city everywhere. so just something to think about. thank you. >> thank you, anyone else from the public wish to speak on this item? seeing none. public comment is closed. commissioner diamond. >> i have a couple of questions. first one is for staff. in the staff report you indicated that conditions might be applied even in cases where ceqa isn't currently applicable. and their standards conditions that can be used for ministerial projects. do this -- in those cases you don't currently impose these kinds of conditions so this would -- might this be additional obligations imposed on projects that are not currently subject to these

conditions? >> that's correct. they're recent. so we're talking about projects that as of a couple of years ago would have been subject to ceqa and only as of recent years, have not been and that specifically we're talking about sb35 so it's 100% affordable housing projects but these administer y'all projects are continuing at the state level as well. so that is correct. >> ok. so makes sense to me, especially if sb50 passes and there's additional projects that end up being approved with less ceqa review than they have in the past. with this supply, so we're all single-family houses now. if you're doing an extension into the backyard are those currently almost all projects or mnds? >> that would typically be. >> right. if they're cat x projects at the moment, might be still be imposing these conditions? as now conditions that wouldn't

otherwise have been imposed like archeological? >> i'll defer to the e.r. o. on that one. >> lisa gibson. >> as they come before the commission for approval they would specify the applicable cry ter yacriteria for each measure. the conditions that would be proposed implemented as mitigation measures and that the application criteria would be the same as the threshold essentially that we used for applying them under ceqa. for the example of air quality commission emission we would want that to apply only for the projects that are not the

smaller single-family homes and. it would be not expanding the applicable. one is where again it's just an information sheet that contractors would get to say scheer what you would do in the event that you discover an archeological resource and so in that way, it's our intent that we're really not adding burden to developers to a reply measures where they would not otherwise. the exception is if projects are ministerial either based on previous law or as further carve outs are made, we could use those conditions to apply to those projects as well. >> if i'm understanding correctly the primary thrust here is that, many of the m.n.d. projects at beginning with the conditions are going to be but you need to go through the m.n.d. in order to attach the conditions so you are saying why take all that extra time and

let's attach those conditions at the begining and issue a cat x. correct? >> that's correct. >> i received a letter yesterday from attorney richard drewry which was addressed to the entire commission staff and a couple of the supervisors. i don't think it went to ms. gibson or the city attorney's office and in that letter if i'm reading it correctly he is sighting case law from 2004 and earlier indicating you are not permit today do that and you can't require mitigation measures to mnd and instead adopt the mitigation measure and say you want to issue a cat x. and it feels to me like it would be appropriate for ms. gibson and the city attorney's office to review that and respond to the assertions that were made in that letter. it doesn't mean i wouldn't be willing to initiate today but it

seems when we come back to the next hearing or even at the public hearings, you have time to review that and respond to the cases that he would say. >> absolutely. >> commissioner melgar. >> thank you. so, i support this and i wanted to say thank you to staff. i have the benefits since i was in officer to have a preview and an explanation of all the intricacies of this as you worked on it. perhaps my comfort with it is because, you know, i've been looking at it for a while. you know, this took a lot of work. a very nuance understanding of like how it all works together sequentially to make projects work. i want to say that you always kept the goal in mind and i appreciate it. so, also, i heard her comments and i think that we need to

do -- i hate the word outreach because it seems one-way but it's, we need to work with the community and also with mr. smith to make sure that we get it right. so, the thing that i particularly love about it, which is i think you touched upon, is that standardizes and things that we sometimes do outside of ceqa that we always think, well, if we're -- we should treat everyone the same and it seems like we don't it's people who in terms of community benefits or also mitigation, it's whoever comes in front of us, you know, and squeaks the loudest and i like putting it up front and putting it transparent and everyone knows what to expect and i think this is a good, you know -- it's a good way to enter into that so, i fully support initiating this

and also being cog in st. john's we stilcognisant sopeople appres tweaks that are needed for things we hadn't quite thought about that we hear from people in the community or the developers that we tweak it but i actually think this is going to make a really big difference in our efficiency and also in having people mow what to expect. as a city, i think we'll get morement thank you. >> commissioner moore. >> thank you for spending time on this. at this moment, because it is a rather complex issue, i share commissioner diamond's concerns including those expressed by mrs is coming on very fast. particularly events of the past few weeks want me to take more

time to fully understand. for example, the cases on 2417 green city as well as the case on 1774 or 1776 green street left large amounts of questions where ceqa standards were invoked that did not seem to resinate very well with the department. and it's for that reason that i think i need to have a more certainty that what we are doing is in deed protecting those things that sometimes leave certain decisions and certain positions a department takes somewhat open and leave me feeling uncertain is the best way of saying it. we do not need to rush this. again, all of us want process improvements, shortening time lines, unnecessary volumes and circulating huge documents. we have spent a lot of time on

but i think the devil is in the detail. [please stand by] .

>> ms. gibson. >> thank you, president. i just wanted to respond, if i may, to the concern that was raised about whether a three-month savings is worth the effort and would it benefit medium or larger-sized developers. just to note when our size are working on medium or large-sized project reviews, we're not able to work on projects that are coming before us for smaller developments and we have that permit application review for small projects that comes through in san francisco for small projects that are subject to sequa. we can't be doing other work. for review to have staff more available to process their work.

i just wanted to clarify that i think there were many benefits to this type of approach. i would be prepared to initiate, but won't be able to vote until the specific legal issue that was raised in that letter was addressed. >> commissioner moore. >> two things. one is i would like to see broader outreach to environmental and sequa professionals who are working in tandem with you but don't find themselves in objection to your own work that there is a common understanding of what is to be done. and they are, indeed, saying, yeah, that's a really good idea. the second thing and that's a broader, slightly more somber

thought, is why streamline environmental review at the time when the trump administration seeks to change the types of effects that the agency dissolves in the environmental review. i would like that to stand in the room like a big elephant, because indirectly we will be affected by that. as we are streamlining, the other form will further box us in. i would just like you to think about that. >> we had a feeling that might come up. i think we, as environmental professionals, have been disturbed to see the trends occurring at the federal level, where environmental laws have been weakened and that continues. so i really want to emphasize what we are seeking to do is nothing at all like what the trump administration is doing, eviscerating environmental laws. what we're proposing is to maintain the same level of environmental protection that we

are able to achieve through our existing environmental process and to, in fact, have an ability to ensure that those protections are applied to projects that may not be subject to sequa as the state streamlines down the road to make it easier for projects to get approved. so we would actually be affirming that these protections should apply regardless of whether sequa applies. >> i would entertain a motion to initiate. >> i move to initiate. >> second. >> there's something further, commissioners. there is a motion seconded to initiate the proposed legislation on that motion. [roll call vote].

>> that motion passes unanimously 6-0. >> commissioners, just to wrap-up this discussion. today is jacob bitla's last day with the department. i wanted to acknowledge his work on this and many other measures and many other programs that we have, thank him publicly for his great work and wish him well in his new role in supervisor mandelman's office which he will start next tuesday. jacob, thanks for everything. [ applause ]. >> i just wanted to clarify for the record that the motion included initiation and scheduling a hearing on or after february 27, 2020. >> no more people from the department can leave. [ laughter ]. >> commissioners, that will

place us on item 13 for 2018-003614oth for the office of cannabis presentation. >> good afternoon, president and members of the commission. michael christianson, department staff. today we have an informational presentation for you by the city's office of cannabis on the activities and permit requirements of that office, as well as the overall permitting process for cannabis businesses in the city. adult use cannabis was legalized under state law via proposition 24, passed in 2016. san francisco followed by adopting new zoning and licensing regulations which came into effect in january of 2018. for the first few months, the planning department's work was focused on legalizing operations if their zoning did not permit their uses.

in may of 2018, new sites were opened, but only applicants qualified as equity applicant or incubator. to this day those applications are only open to those groups. applicants first have to get through part one of the city's office of cannabis licensing application and be formally referred to the planning department. the first new site to be referred to the planning department was referred on september 28 of 2018. as of today, a total of 61 sites have been formally referred to the planning department to begin their land use entitlement process. of the 61, 23 are still pending any application submittal to the planning department. 10 or in active review, most of which will be seen by the planning commission in a flurry of hearings. three or withdrawn. the city controller's office recently released a report on

the state of cannabis permitting in the city, which has identified certain issues with our current system permitting for these businesses, chiefly the amount of time for applicants to obtain licensing from start to finish. unfortunately the extended wait time is draining resources for these applicants, forcing them to obtain additional investor funding and diluting the ownership share of these businesses. the planning department has made the applicant process more equal. because site permits were reviewed sequentially, our review is only a small piece of the puzzle. the department works with agency partners in the newly formed oversite committee. with that introduction, i'm going to turn it over to my

colleague. after the informational session, i'm also available for any questions. >> thank you. >> good afternoon, commissioners. my name is marisa rodriguez. i'm the director of the office of cannabis. it's very nice to be here. thank you for having us. president, thank you. i just want to thank you all for all the support to date. it's been a heavy lift even before i got here, and i just want to say thank you for all the support. i want to share a little bit about who i am. we thought this would be a nice opportunity to introduce myself. it's been almost nine months, believe it or not. time has flown and it's been quite busy. i like to call the stress excitement because that's what it is. it's an exciting time. we wanted to shift gears for you today, present a bit of a lively show. so we're going to switch. you're going to get to know a

few of the people in our office. we're an incredibly dedicated team to this subject area. we come from very different backgrounds. there are quite a few attorneys in our office, ph.d.s interested in the war on drugs. we have a lot of different minds, policy so to speak, who are interested in this space. for us, it's a passion and we thank you for listening to us today. with that, i'll get started. we also have some handouts. if you don't mind if we could approach. we can help pass out. several handouts, but they will help with our presentation. just nice resources to fall back on, as we run through some of the other applicants as they come before you. you can always fall back on this information and always feel free to reach out to our office and ask questions any time. here is our roadmap for today.

we're going to be swift. we're going to give you a little bit of our historical perspective. talk about the office of cannabis overview of our process, wheel base happening day in and day out in our office, a little bit about our equity program, the permitting process, permitting snapshot, and then final shots. you have our numbers up-to-date and we're happy to provide you with those on a regular basis. we can provide those through mr. christianson. happy to do that. some other information as well as this slideshow for you to refer to at any time in the future. with that i would like to introduce my colleague jeremy schwartz. >> thank you for your time and service this afternoon. so you'll hear lots of about the equity program, which my colleague will go into more detail, but it's important to contextualize how we got here. what's the thrust of equity and

why do we have it. the war on drugs broadly can be attributed to the nixon administration promulgating the controlled substances act. cannabis is a schedule 1 drug, federally prohibited, although legal for adult use in the state of california, proposition 64 passed by about 74% of san franciscan in november 2016, which consolidated both adult use and medicinal framework as part of the compassionate use act in 1996. so although it's a schedule 1 substance in the last year or so, the f.d.a. has approved a cannabis-derived compound, drug epilelix which treats seizures and other issues. president nixon declared the war on drugs in 1971. the incarceration rate jumped

81% despite similar use rates across race and ethnicity. black and brown people have disproportionately born the impact of the negative consequences associated with the war on drugs. fast forwarding to the establishment of the office of cannabis subsequent to the passage of proposition 64. this office was established via legislation in the summer of 2017. the first director of the office nicole elliot was appointed shortly thereafter and currently serves as senior advisor to governor newsome on cannabis. the staff started with three individuals. we have grown to six. we now have our second director, director marissa rodriguez coming from the san francisco attorney's office. with that, i will turn it back to director rodriguez to give more information about her herself and the office. >> very awkward, but here i am. i wanted to say hello and to introduce myself formally. i come to this work from my

background, which is actually as a prosecutor for the san francisco district attorney's office. i was there for almost ten years. part of my career was spend furthering the war on drugs, so to speak, that was our mandate and at the time that was for public safety and that was how we understood it. fast-forward, my career turned and took a shift into the policy realm, where i was able to do work primarily in prison reform and criminal justice reform. that's where my passion was. i grew up in san francisco. this has been my home and has always been. it's a pleasure to give back in this way and to work in city government. for me to come into this role, which was a very unique opportunity and i remember the conversation with naomi kelly, i said i think you have the wrong person. she had the foresight to say this would be a full circle and i would ensure this process moves swiftly and i had the lens

from a number of different angles. it has been a very rewarding experience. i certainly, like i mentioned earlier, an incredible team was put together. my predecessor did an incredible job. we're hoping to add a few more people and we're hoping to do that again this year in order to further this work and get it done right. i just wanted to share a little bit about myself. here i am, it's full circle, and i feel like restorative justice every day and the equity program being a component of that. that said, many people are interested in understanding the framework of cannabis in san francisco. so we essentially have two spaces where cannabis lives. the department of public health as well as the office of cannabis. if you look at the majority of businesses today, especially retail store fronts out and about where you see them, those are part of the existing industry, medicinal industries that were around and permitted around article 33 of the

department of public health. eventually they will come under my purview. as of now they still exist under the department of public health, although every 120 days -- am i done? just kidding. >> please continue. >> every 120 days we reevaluate their ability to sell adult use product as long as they continue their commitment to our equity program. we're going to talk about what that means. the department of public health definitely oversees our efforts. if we're talking about a consumption effort in a dispensary, that has to be signed off on. the hvac system and the negative pressure. there is pesticides, weight management, weights and measurements. in the office of cannabis, we are completely under article 16 of the police code. any retail business that comes under up post-prop 64 are equity

businesses, all of them. right now, we are still in the first tier of it which is equity. we did have a backlog. we are happy with that report because it echos a lot of the sentiments that our community has been expressing as far as needs to navigate our quite bureaucratic system and needing some support around that as well as the support to our office and to help the community understand that there's actually been a decrease in crime in front of our dispensaries in san francisco, as compared to the rest of the city, in fact. i think that could be attributed to the fact that each city is required to have a robust security system as well as security presence up front and lighting, et cetera. in addition, there's been decrease in youth consumption, which is also an important issue for us and one of our many core functions which i'll get to right now. this is a quick run through of what the office of cannabis, a group of six, is charged with,

which is eight core functions, some of which you would feel could have their own offices to themselves. permitting, both businesses and events. you recall side lands was the first event we permitted. i'll talk a little bit more at the end of my presentation about that. and all businesses. so we are very happy to announce that we have permitted three businesses. we have issued three permits. there's been talk there's no permits issued. no, permits were issued, and we met our goal which was the first permit issued, q4 of 2013, and we have issued our third lately. it's not just that we hand out permits and you're free to go on with your life, no. there is the first phase. they come to see you, they go to d.b.i., get their job cards. they then have to build out these pretty impressive large businesses because they have to compete with one another. they're very different these

days. they take a long time to get built out. they have to actually have that final nail done before they can come back to us for the final phase. i'll go into that in a bit. rule making, we've been before this body with respect to that. enforcement, and that is something you will hear more of, that is my wheelhouse. we will build a more robust enforcement arm because as you can see in the controller's report also speaks to this. because -- in order to in relationize cannabis, policing has to take a step back. when that happens, unfortunately, it leaves space for the unregulated market to become a little bit more robust. so now we're going to have to revision this and figure out how do we push back on the illicit market so that the legal market who has jumped through all the hoops can also thrive. we're going to have to start to

revision that in the coming years. and then community outreach, very important. we get out there and speak to as many community groups as possible, if anyone has any questions about our process. we collaborate with our city partners. we have a great partner in michael christianson in your office. earlier i mentioned thank you, mr. ram, for all of your support as well. it has been an honor to come to the table with all our partners and figure out the best way we can serve our equity applicants. limiting youth exposure and access is important. we work closely with d.p.h. to make sure that happens. and ultimately our oversight community, which is the newest overlay of responsibility and it's awesome because we have a great team of dedicated professionals, both in the labor field as well as in the industry, who bring their experience and insight so we can further our process in a more thoughtful way. with that, i would like to introduce eugene hillsman to

speak on state licensing authorities that help us do the work that we do. >> good afternoon, commissioners, eugene hillsman. currently the state of california has a dual licensing permitting structure. in order to operate a cannabis business in the city of san francisco, you need both a state license and a local permit. these are the three agencies that are required based on the activity type, you interact or engage with a different agency. for laboratories and microbusinesses, it is the bureau of cannabis control and the department of agriculture. and for manufacturing, it's the department of public health. recently the governor announced that these three agencies will be consolidated in an attempt to increase efficiency, and we expect that will happen in the summer of 2021. that new department which would be considered the department of cannabis control will also include a dedicated enforcement

unit. so here you see a list of our prior to processing categories. right now we're only processing equity applicants in addition to this expedited processing category, there are also recipients of fee waivers and the beneficiaries of interagency collaboration. in the second category we have our equity incubators for individuals who have not been impacted by the war on drugs, they can receive a permit by supporting someone who does, by providing them with technical assistance or rent-free space. the third category is for non-existing industry. this includes operators who were shut down because of threat or federal enforcement or for operators who for whatever reason were not zoned properly for their activity, they have a ticket to apply for a cannabis ticket. and then the fourth category we have our existing industry,

which includes medical cannabis dispensaries and temporary permit holders. the fifth category includes individuals and businesses that make community commitments. the last category is for all applicants. so i'll describe about our equity program. currently we have reviewed 300 individuals who can stand in that category. they must meet three of the criteria. the first is below 80,000 income. the second is to have a criminal conviction or ward of the state. the third is for parents of a child or sibling who has been arrested for a cannabis-related crime. the fourth is to have experienced housing insecurity.

the last category is to live below 17% poverty. it is good to note that individuals can go into a map and input their address. we don't expect them to dig through to see if their address is eligible. they're able to be verified. the third category is equity incubators, which i mentioned before. every 120 days, they submit a progress report in which they demonstrate how they're supporting the city's equity applicants. all of that information is available on our website. so if you were interested in learning what an existing dispensary was doing with regard to equity, you could see that on our website.

the last category is for our temporary permittees. we coordinated with san francisco's fire department, the department of building inspection, and the department of public health to conduct 80 live safety inspections. my colleague who was instrumental in doing the process is here to answer any questions that you have. and we're currently contemplating an equity overlay for temporary permit holders. here you can see some of the things that we offer our equity applicants. i mentioned commercial space through equity incubations, reduced fees. recently the city was also the beneficiary of a state grant in which we were going to provide additional support of about $1.3 million to support our equity applicants. here you also see a list of some of the other jurisdictions that currently have equity programs. >> and i also want to go back to our program industry.

if you look, and you all have the slides, the three top criteria that people qualify under to be verified is the sfusd, that they attended a public school in san francisco, their consensus track, ask their income. there is a misconception that everyone has a criminal justice background. that is not the case. those are the three top qualifiers that we have seen anecdotally. yes, there are some that have, but those are the top three. moving on, i wanted to share a little bit about our permitting process. it is a robust permitting process, as you know, but that is an important part of the work we do. we spend a lot of time on the front end to ensure the success of these businesses on the back end. what that means is, one, they have the ability to conduct business in san francisco. essentially part of that is the ability to occupy the space and we do an informal review with the planning department to ensure that individuals can, in

fact, have a business in that location. we also take a lot of time to comb through operational documents, corporate governance documents. we think it's extremely important that our applicants, equity applicants, as well as those individuals they've brought in to invest in their businesses have solid contracts with one another and can move forward. so we really, really do our best to vet these businesses. when they're ready to come to the planning stage, these businesses have been quite vetted. on a number of fronts, we do police background checks. another thing we do to streamline this process is we work with the city department to make sure it's swift. we've also worked with agencies to make sure we're on the same page talking about the applications and making sure that everyone has the information that they need, as well as other things to ensure that the process is smooth. for example, it used to be our applicants had to go through the

m.o.d. process for accessibility. but now we're going to house that with d.b.i., but that's one too many steps. next they come to you for formal referral, land use entitlement process. you know what that looks like. we appreciate all you do to listen to the community, but it is an important part of the process, as the community wants to be heard as they are new businesses and not a lot of people have familiarity with cannabis and understanding that there is an opportunity to be heard and their concerns can be heard is an important part of this process. so the last stage with the o.o.c., once they've secured land use entitlement, that process when they come through, the final end to part 2 of the process with us, we work on their good neighbor with policies, ensure that they are, in fact, working with the community, had meetings, for example, talking about different types of things. for example, they've reached out -- the office of cannabis

requires 300-foot notice to both neighbors and to landlords, where the planning department is 150. we do that requirement that is above and beyond to make sure everyone has an opportunity to be heard and participate. they must notice their district supervisors, hold a minimum of one meeting. i don't think it's actually possible to have one. they can, but some have upwards of five sometimes. they develop their good neighbor policy, meaning they're talking to their neighbors, deciding whether they're going to stay open a certain time, everyone's happy with the consumption lounge, and on and on. is community becoming more comfortable with the idea of a consumption lounge because the community doesn't want people smoking in the parks and this provides an alternative to that. as these businesses are rolling out, communities that in the past have seemed a little more resistant are starting to see

there is not that much activity with dispensaries. sometimes you drive right by them and you don't know that they're there. people have actually reached out after the fact and said, this isn't so bad, just anecdotally. next we'll talk about retail by district. >> so here we have a useful tool for people interested in how our retail is distributed in the city. currently we're in the process of developing a new map with one of my colleagues in the room, rick johnson, to both provide mobile access and to improve the functionality. here individuals who are curious about how retail is distributed can punch in an address and see those locations. those circles include a 600-foot radius so you can see how far they are from existing schools

and applications and medical cannabis dispensaries. here's a chart that includes the information you just saw by supervisorial district. there is also a player on the previous map that allows you to see the boundaries of those districts so you can calculate them, but we just wanted to provide this information for you as a reference. here is a chart in which michael christianson referred to some of these numbers and breaks them down. i'll provide a little bit of context so you can understand specifically what you're looking at. in that first tab you see our equity verification process. so the number of people who submitted applications to be verified, the number of individuals who've actually been verified, and a percentage breakdown of those top categories that director rodriguez mentioned that outline how people are using those criteria in order to pursue additional opportunities in the cannabis space. the second category provides a brief overview of the applications in our system based

on activity type. you also see the incubator applications that we currently have in our system, of which there are 27, and the existing industry which i referred to earlier in the presentation. michael christianson talked a little bit about the land use numbers. and that last category is for our existing industry in which you can see the breakdown for existing activities. >> so you can see here additional dashboards. part of the office's philosophy is to be accessible and transparent. we have office hours monday through friday, 1:00 through 5:00 p.m., no appointment necessary. we're taking efforts to build additional dashboards on our website similar to the storefront retail map, to show not only where projects are throughout the city, but also where they are in the application process. so here we can see the

application's delineated into where they are. again, 61 referred to planning for the land use entitlement process. 15 buildout getting closer to that finish line. so this helps to orient commissioner's staff about how many more applications may be coming your way. having adult use cannabis raises the question where folks are able to consume. so to date there are seven lounge loung loung lounges. there are three permit types for consumption, pre-packages edibles, smokeables, such as flowers, vaporizers, and so on. each retail establishment is required to have this cannabis consumption safety sheet. so certainly there will be folks new to consumption, especially

san francisco being a tourist destination, there is some sensitivity that folks may not have as much experience consuming this product. so this is one mechanism available where if folks are going to consume, we want them to consume responsibly. >> and finally, we have concluded our presentation. this is the last slide. thank you for your attention so far. jeremy touched on tourism, and i think it's an interesting part of this conversation that i would like to touch on a little bit now. san francisco to many is the epicenter of this movement and, in fact, northern california as well is a whole in the collective. we have a great opportunity to be positioned to be a world-class leader in this space, with the idea that we would provide safe product, for people to have access to safe product, and that's what sort of this regulated process is all about. a great opportunity to be the

tourist leader in the space. people come to our many events that we have here in san francisco. this year we'll be rolling out the pilot program for events. last year we did grasslands. it was a success. we didn't have a single call for service, police call, we didn't have one medical transport. people respected our consumption areas, with the exception of a couple of cigarette smokers, but that's for another day. a successful event. we look forward to how that plays up in different events. there are seven events. it's a heavy lift as that took our entire staff off line for three days back to back. it is an important part of our culture in san francisco when we want to be able to offer it as the demand is significant. but to wrap up, the goal here is to provide a world-class

industry in san francisco in any way that we can do that in a safe way, that is our goal. we want to make sure that we do provide opportunities for equity and we do reach parity. right now the industry retail is 40. that is where we are. we are prepared to answer any questions, and i hope we covered the majority that you were interested in learning about today. thank you. >> thank you very much. is there anyone from the public that would like to comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is closed. commissioner moore. >> thank you. this is very enlightening. we have been waiting for this for months and months. there is one particular question that comes back up again and again, and i'm not sure if you at this moment may be able to provide us guidance. we often stumble when it comes to applications that ask for on-site consumption. that is a stumbling block to which we would like to have more

guidance. i'm wondering if you have already kind of vetted that based on new ly established retail locations. we just don't quite know how to have a level-headed attitude about it. >> yes. thank you for asking that, which is why we provided a little bit more background. you know, it is an interesting conversation to have. i think you have to understand the reason you can't smoke a cigarette in a bar in new york city is because of a movement that was established here in san francisco, right, about making sure there are safe spaces for people to work in environments where there is second-hand smoke. what i think is really important about consumption specific to cannabis is that different from cigarette smoke, cannabis consumers have nowhere in public that they can consume. you can't consume outside. you can't consume in your car. if you are renting in san francisco in some homes, you

can't consume there. you can't consume in places where typically you might find others consuming cigarettes. that said, having an environment that is separate and apart from the public that has an hvac system, negative pressure, is regulated through the department of public health does provide a safe space for that to happen. so i'm a proponent of consumption places because i think it does provide the needed resource to individuals who would like to consume, and i think it certainly removes the impact on the community that doesn't want to experience it. i hope that helps. >> let me have one follow-up thought. >> yes. >> we heard an item maybe a couple of weeks ago about a dispensary near market and venice area. we were conversing about their consumption lounge. i spoke with some other

operators down at the fifth and mission locations that they have strict rules and regulations for their consumption lounge, limiting people to half an hour at a time. and then we were kind of wondering, hey, what's in our purview here to oversee certain things like that, because i think the consumption lounge we allowed, there is no restrictions. so people could stay in there for eight to 10 hours at a time or who knows what. we don't need an answer now, but if you had any thoughts on best practices or what we could do or you could do to just help that, end being more like you're saying a world-class industry preventing things from happening, rather than waiting for them to happen. just something to think about. >> to that point, when tourists come here, they also can't smoke in hotels. you don't want them thinking they can smoke somewhere and having some issue. to that point, one of the things

to consider strongly is impact on employees in businesses, right. so if a person wants to smoke all day, all night, that's really a personal decision. i don't think we want to decide that for someone. but as far as employees going to perhaps work in those spaces, maybe requiring a period of time for the air to circulate and that kind of thing is something we should think about. i would be provide to look into that more. i'm excited for the opportunity for more scientific studies to come out. i know ucsf is looking at this, especially around second-hand smoke, but if a person wants to consume, that's up to them. >> thank you. great to meet the full team. >> we have a few hours, but it's office hours. any other questions? >> thank you for that very

helpful and thoughtful presentation. >> thank you. >> at the hearing that was referenced, commissioner fung raised a question about the effectiveness of the hdhc system in multi-tenant buildings. what degree of competence can we as commissioners have if we're approving that type of use and there is on-site consumption, that there isn't going to be smoke filtering into other tenants' spaces in the same building? >> that's a good question. i think we'll have to speak to the department of public health as a fair purview of their expertise. i will say the new rules under article 16 and these separate consumption spaces with hvac requirements are going to be cleaner than probably any separate space that exists. it's negative pressure. it's pretty robust. i think it's probably going to be cleaner than most air, talking about charcoal filters and so on. i'm not the expert, so we will

bring in d.p.h. to speak about that. >> if i could also add, just to speak as to what we're seeing coming in with these. the types of systems that we're seeing to regulate these types of spaces, which generally are fairly small, they can't be more than one-third of the total amount of the space are costing operators hundreds of thousands of dollars. so they are fairly robust and expensive systems. it is a department of public health regulation, so we don't want to overspeak. but generally these spaces have to be fully separated, they have to have negative air flow into the space so if somebody were to open the door, the air flows into the consumption space, not the other way. they have to have a separate hvac system from the rest of the building and the retail space. they have to have a filtration

system where that air is fully filtered out before it is expelled so that what is coming out of the building is basically clean air. we do understand the concern that systems are not infallible, but i do believe that the regulations in article 8 a of the health code are very robust. just to add, the commission does always have the ability to regulate these consumption spaces. we've had a lot of discussion about providing access to cannabis products, particularly for people who live in s.r.o.s or need it for medical purposes. the commission always has the authority to either prohibit consumption from a space for on more specifically, to prohibit type c consumption, which is smoking and vaporizinvaporizing.

>> thank you. i just want to thank the entire team for being here. we are so thrilled to just get to learn more about your day-to-day and look forward to continuing to collaborate with you. i had a question about the permitting process flow and proof to occupy process. can you say more about that. >> yeah. essentially when a person submits their application, early on we will reach out to the planning department, michael christianson, to be exact, to assist us in a determination of whether or not this location is, in fact, viable. there is a 600-foot buffer. is there a school nearby? is there one coming? these types of questions. that's how we make that determination. >> one question that has come up for me is we had a couple of applicants that have come in, they've had a space they were paying for for a year or more.

it's a multi-unit building. in one case the h.o.a. was totally against it. i just -- my concern with equity applicants is thinking about something that you mentioned earlier, which is some of the resources that it takes to not only get through the process but hold onto space and come here. so i just -- i'm not sure about my question, but i guess i would say the more we can be in communication about how we're making sure that equity applicants are in the right spaces and what i fear actually not being taken advantage of as they go through this process is something i would imagine is on your radar by the head shaking of your staff. >> absolutely. and we greatly appreciate hearing that from you. thank you for that comment. we rely on you heavily because sometimes you do see it

blatantly in a presentation before you, when an applicant comes before you, and you start to see that perhaps h.o.a.s are playing games or things along those lines. you sometimes end up being the arbiters of things like that. as regulatory bodies we have to be neutral, and because of that, i also choose not to be present at planning hearings. if you would prefer that i be, i am happy to make that arrangement, but i think it's best that i not be and my staff because this is a different department. i want to be respectful of the process. i appreciate that you're thinking that way and if you want to reach out to our office and ask these questions, we're happy to answer them. >> thank you. i think as applications come forward, i think it's a potential level of education

that could be coordinated i think with planning perhaps, or just thinking about the right type of -- not only the radius and things like that but the -- >> type of building. >> yeah. >> yeah, it's really interesting. there are two areas that equity applicants have requested the most support for, that is technical assistance for providing property or real estate because that's not an easy thing, as well as grant money. what ends up happening is if you don't have the resources, you must rely on investment. sometimes unlikely partnerships aren't such a bad thing because if i have skin in the game and expertise, it's nice to bring you along with me and vice versa. sometimes we have to watch out and partnerships in business are actually interesting. but yes, it is important that we be mindful of all these things that we can think of ways to lean-in as often as possible. we are doing that now which is great. one of the things that cannabis

has come out of nowhere to give us this opportunity as city agencies to be not so much in our silos, but to come together to figure out how to help these applications navigate a very bureaucratic process and perhaps we can make it less bureaucratic as well. so thank you for your support and the suggestion. i'm happy to talk more about that. >> thank you for those comments. commissioner johnson, i had some of the same questions. one other question i had was one other case that we had in front of us once an applicant came in front of us during general public comment a couple times, complaining that they were number two in line and that the folks in number one were like a competitor that was being cited in a very close proximity. we read between the lines that they were kind of holding up the

permit to try to keep them from getting the permit. i'm wondering if you could talk a little bit about that, about sort of the queue and how that works and how that may have unintended consequences. >> with the process, it's first come, first served. there are so many places in san francisco where people can have businesses. certainly a person who's doing a business in a high-traffic, high-touristic area is going to have a better experience than one that's, say, somewhere more obscure. so those highly sought-after locations are popular. whoever gets in first, gets in first. we take them as they come. this way, we prevent any issue with any preferential treatment or any sort of priority. it's first in, first out. sometimes, to commissioner johnson's point, sometimes folks

don't have the resources at every step of the game. sometimes it's a matter of you get your application in, you go through the process, maybe you run out of money, maybe it takes time, but you still have your place in line. if you continue to make a good-faith effort that you are trying to get through this rigorous, it is what it is process, we will support you through that. and until a withdrawal has to happen, you saw that we have three that happens, we have to respect their place in line. >> at what time do you kick them off the line? >> at what point? >> yes. >> so we will be instituting -- would you like to speak about this? this is something very passionate to our permit analyst. we will be instituting more robust measures to get people through in a more swift fashion. it is a challenge because we know that they're dealing with a lot of personal challenges sometimes, but we do want to be

supportive in that way. i will let jeremy speak to what we call our 90-day shop clock. >> thank you so much, ms. rodriguez, you're awesome. thank you. >> thank you. i'd love to come back. >> to expand on how folks will move through the process, in article 16, the office has the authority to levy a 90-day shop clock for folks to come into compliance. there are three buckets, the application, proof to occupy, informal zoning review, the landlord's authorized that activity specifically. the 90-day clock can be administered there. if they don't comply, deny us what we need, we can deny the application. in the second bucket, we also have the authority to levy a 90-day shop clock to take affirmative steps for them to move through the process.

and in the third bucket, the office of cannabis may levy an additional 90-day shot clock to move folks through the process. we've promulgated additional rule making. we understand this is a complicated bureaucratic process, where in certain situations folks may petition for an additional five days to get across that finish line. and then separately, to expand on commissioner johnson's point about safeguards for equity applicants, the office of cannabis has partnered with a bar of san francisco to provide pro bono legal assistance, 10 to 15 hours of pro bono legal assistance separate and apart from assistance, the city partnered with a law firm to provide additional assistance to equity applicants. it will certainly take a multi-pronged approach to get applicants in a place to not only get permitted, but run successful businesses. every day we're rolling out

additional technical assistance to facilitate that process. >> the specific case that i know you've seen is a little different because it's in our court. the planning department historically has always added with all of our notices that we sent for application 90 days to apply. generally most projects take longer than that. we've never had a reason to cancel applications immediately after 90 days. this is something that's new for us, and we do want to balance giving applicants enough time to actually diligently pursue an application, while still being mindful of this impact that they are having on other applicants, which is something that's new for us as well. in certain cases we do have

zoning controls, especially in north beach, that are surprising and interesting to applicants and we're working with them to get their application into compliance. but we do need to also give them due process and time to come into compliance. so it's something we're balancing. >> thank you. again, if you have any more questions, happy to answer them. mind you to schedule one, doing what we can to stay in our lane, but i think we're getting closer to expand more. thank you. >> we're going to take a small ten-minute break. brae

>> good afternoon, commissioners. ken she department staff with information and analysis group. today i'm going to briefly present some background and a few highlights from the 2018 commerce and industry inventory. then we will be available for any questions or comments. the commerce and inventory is an annual report and it compiles information from a variety of internal and external data sources. in addition to compiling a snapshot that we compile every year, this serves as background information for updating into commerce and industry element of our general plan.

2018 was the 18th conservative year of job growth in san francisco, and we now have more than 740,000 jobs in the city. this is not a record -- now the record for san francisco jobs. the city at just under 26,000 jobs in 2018. over the past decade, we have added almost 192,000 jobs. since the great recession, we have had a consistent job growth every year. unemployment continues to fall to 2.3% in the city. as you can see, the city continues to outperform the region, the state, and the nation as a whole. employment has grown across all sectors of the economy. the only exception is the hotel

industry. over the past decade, office jobs increased by 49%, retail increased by 28%, p.d.r. increased by 36%, c.i.e. increased by 39%, and hotel jobs decreased by 9%. the average rate citywide per year is $18,000 in 2018. the average office wage was up 3.7%, while average p.d.r., c.i.e., and retail wages are down. the inventory also tracks building activities. this is measured by permit number and construction value reported. we continue to see a slight increase in permit process in 2018 to about the same level in 2015, which was the highest in

the past decade. in 2018, the construction spanning was going back up after a 42% job in 2017 to about $4.6 billion. and lastly, we had the latest unemployment data for san francisco. as of november 2019, we have an unemployment wage of 1.9%, comparing to 2.3% for 2018. that, commissioners, are the main highlights from this year's report. one is job growth to a record high. the second is growth in employment, but not in all job sectors. the third average wage was up, but down in all other land use categories. that's -- always the report is

available on the department's website and me and michelle will be here if there are any questions that come after public comment. thank you. >> thank you very much. is there any public comment on this item? >> it's interesting that there's no one here except me to talk on this. this is one of the most important documents you will see this year at all. the implications for housing, the implications for people's ability to live here is tied to this. we have rezoned huge swaths of the san francisco landscape. based on what existed in 2008,

that was market octavia and eastern neighborhoods. the workforce in those areas, particularly the mission and south of market has changed dramatically in that period. but we have no mechanism to basically rethink how things are changing. you get a lot of people here every time you have a planning issue on a housing, as you are aware, which is really relevant because there was an important iss issue, about intermediate rentals. but apart from that, the planning department and the zoning administrator, who is not here, has a function. the zoning administrator explicitly in the charter, not the planning director, and in the planning code has responsibility to feedback on

the basis of what is seen in the planning department, what is coming through the planning department. you function more than processing individual permits. you have a responsibility -- i'm not saying you. we have a responsibility. the public has a responsibility. you're part of the public. i'm part of the public. john ram is part of the public. even the city attorney is part of the public. we have responsibility to really think through documents like this. the labor force change is meaningful. when hotel workers can't afford to live in this city, the implications for the transit is significant just in the sense of trans transit. the implications for families and kids is really meaningful.

when the workforce can't afford to live in the city and bring up their kids in the city, people can be there for the kids coming home from work. if the parents don't have any ability except to go home and collapse and get home at 7:00 or 8:00 at night and leave at 5:00 or 6:00 in the morning is not healthy for san francisco, it's not healthy for our residents. at some point i think the planning commission and the planning department and staff need to figure out how to really convey information that's in this report in a manner that people will pay attention. i pay attention to this, but a lot of people don't. thank you. >> thank you, ms. esther. ninl wish to have public comment on this item? seeing none, public comment is

closed. commissioner fung.seeing none, closed. commissioner fung. >> a question for staff. a couple of questions. in your summary, you indicate the total number of jobs that's somewhere in the neighborhood of 740,000. >> yeah. >> in your tables, 2 point something, it indicates the total number of resident workers in the city is somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 something thousand. and out of that it's a lower number of those who actually work. is the 740 number total workers in san francisco, meaning residents plus those who come from outside the city? >> i believe so. the data is reported by e.d.d.,

this job in san francisco. so it's a san francisco business that's hiring the people. yeah, it's in san francisco. >> so roughly then the delta of those who come into the city to work is the delta between the 7 740,000 number and the 500 and something number are those who come into the city to work but are not residents? >> it sounds right, but i will have to check the math and get back to you. >> then the last question would be, your slide on the employment rate was different than what was in this brief that you folks gave to us. it showed the unemployment rate was 1.9 or something like that and here it shows 2.3. >> 1.9 is as of november