>> we're going to do great work together. >> thank you. >> all right. sfgov tv, we are ready to start the meeting. this is a regular meeting of the small business commission held on april 12th, 2021. the meeting is being called to order at 4:32 p.m. the small business commission thanks media services and sfgov tv for televising the meeting which can be viewed on sfgov tv 2 or live streamed at sfgovtv.org. excuse me.

i'm trying to be clever and i am not -- okay. so members of the public can call in using the number (415) 655-0001 for public comment. use the access code 187 665 5033. press pound and then pound again and you will be added to the public comment line. when connected, you will hear meeting discussions, but you will be muted and in the listening mode only. when your item of interest comes up, dial star 3 to be added to the speakers line. if you dial star 3 before public comment is called, you'll be added to the queue. when you're called for public

comment, please mute the device that you are listening to the meeting on and when it is your time to speak, you'll be prompted to do so. best practices are to call from a quiet location and speak clearly and slowly and, again, turn down the device you're listening to the meeting on. public comment during the meeting is limited to 3 minutes per speaker unless otherwise established by the presiding officer of the meeting. an alarm will sound once the time has finished. speakers are requested but not required to state their name. sfgov tv, please show the office of small business slide. >> today we will begin with a reminder that the small business public forum policies that affect the economic vitality of small businesses in san francisco. the office of small business is the best place to get answers about doing business in san francisco during the local

emergency. if you need assistance with small business matters particularly at this time, you can find us online or via telephone and, as always, our services are free of charge. before item number one is called, i'd like to start by thanking media services and sfgov tv for coordinating the live stream. please call item number one. >> director: item number one call to order and roll call. [roll call] mr. president, you have quorum.

>> president laguana: wonderful. commissioners at the request for item number two, we are exchanging items number two and number three. they'll be taken out of order. we're going to hear item number three first. can you please call item number three. >> director: item number 3 is the presentation on the san francisco music and entertainment venue recovery fund. this is a report on the status of the implementation of the san francisco music and entertainment recovery fund. this is a discussion item and the presenter is richard kurylo of the legacy business program. and, richard, i have to pass the ball to you. and there you go. >> thank you. awesome. >> president laguana: thank you, rick for presenting. it's been really fun working with you on this and your advocacy of all our

entertainment businesses has been noted and appreciated. i know the office has been working very hard. this turned out to be a much bigger job than i certainly expected or anticipated. you probably knew all along it was going to be this big. i had no idea. so looking forward to getting a briefing. >> thank you, president laguana and vice president zouzounis and city staff guests. i'm richard carillo and i have a presentation for you on the san francisco entertainment venue recovery fund. are you able to see that? >> uh-huh. >> great. let's see if it works. okay. here we go. >> president laguana: yep. you're good. >> perfect. so the intent of i called venue fund is to provide grants to music and entertainment venues

negatively impacted by covid-19. sponsored by supervisor haney and five other supervisors and established by ordinance number 2221 which took effect march 5th this year, 2021. being funded by a $3 million allocation from the general appropriation fund. on april 6th, 2021. the office of small business and the legislation is to administer the venue fund and adoptables for distribution of grants in consultation with the controller's office. o.e.w.d. and the entertainment commission. office of small business can consult with the city agencies as well as business organizations representing the interests of that news. we decided to take hold of that engagement with independent venue lines and sf venue

coalition and all the departments that were mentioned in the first bullet points. actions to date. we've created a website on o.s.b.'s website. i have some information there. we created draft rules currently being reviewed by the city attorney's office. we created a grant web page and our grant application form. we began by accepting donations by check to the forum. all of that is on o.s.b.'s web page. and we've investigated payment methods to eligible venues, grantees may need to get established as city suppliers which are then also called vendors and we're currently working on that and there's a

lot more here that we've done but this is just a few bullet points. so just to go over the legislation, eligible venues that meet all of the following criteria. the principle number one to provide live and entertainment programming. define performance and audience. sound and lighting systems, and marketing of specific performers by name. communications on social media. let's see here. sorry. my computer's frozen. number two, held a place of entertainment permit february 25th, 2020. and 3, committed to funding to provide live entertainment programming. and four, not owned by any company whose shares are

publicly traded on the stock exchange. and number five, the business owner must declare penalty of perjury. unsecured property taxes by liability or insurance or utility costs. b, businesses struggling to pay these expenses due to covid-nineteen and, three, the business maintains a lease and will continue for a live venue. based on that, the required documents are going to include floor plans, photographs, and audience bases, photographs documents showing sound and lighting equipment. one month of marketing materials defined as 16 days of the month. or open to the public if it's not open 16 day ace month. and box office ticketing, performance, other documents demonstrating commitment to maintaining the venue as live entertainment programming.

furthermore, we have priorities. o.s.b. shall give priority that meet two or more of the following criteria funding. that reach eligible venues. number one, imminent danger of closing and the documentation to that. legacy business maximum occupancy is less than a 1,000 patrons and number five, has some historical importance to and again, they can submit documentation for that. so what we came up with as a group is that we're going to pay all eligible venues at least for the first round, but all eligible venues and then process those by priority. so, in this first round, we'll pay eligible venues the same amount in each round of the grant. that may change.

we might do something different in the second round, but for now, it's looking like the first round it's going to be something like this and additional rounds as well. we may conduct possible second and third rounds. we will process the application in order of priority for the five main categories. out of five additional criteria, they'd be priority one and four of five, three of five and two of five. and priority five would be an eligible venue. target timeline, so april 19th, we are going to be announcing that we're going to be going live on the 21st. the application will be live and we'll have that on sfgov website and we'll also have links to it from o.s.b.'s website on the entertainment

commission and that's the date the $3 million funds are expected to be transferred into the account. in may and june, so the application will close after two weeks on the 5th of may. we expect to be processing applications the day after it goes live on april 22nd all the way through june, probably early june and then we put in the application that we'll inform applicants of that application status and grant award by the 26th. hopefully. we have to review all the applicants and figure out how much they're going to get. hopefully we'll be able to do that in three weeks. right now, it's just me. i'm putting this out there. any time i talk about this. ideally, three review assistance at 25 hours each. someone to start on the 26th of

april going through may twenty-sixth and two assistants each working 25 hours from may 6th to may 26th. that's what i'm putting out there in the world and hopefully someone responds. >> president laguana: can i just ask a quick question about that since we're on this slide. >> yep. >> president laguana: so is this like a one-time temp job that somebody would apply with the city or like a job that's somebody already employed by the city would apply to pick up? >> i would say volunteer by a city employee. >> president laguana: volunteer by a city employee. >> yeah. so hopefully someone out there owes me some favors, but i have to put my thinking cap on who that might be. >> president laguana: or we have to promise them future favors. >> that's true too.

and just since we're on this slide, you know, on the program manager for the legacy business program and we're going to have to take about two to three months off in reviewing any new legacy business program applications so we can take care of this grant so you should be seeing another application on june 4th. still to be determined we're still trying to figure out if grantees need to be established and that's going to be a bit of an effort to get them set up by the suppliers. there's been streamlining on the part of the city to make that not as difficult and i have a lot of experience setting up legacy grantees of

suppliers we still are trying to get online donations where give to sf can mark them specifically for the fund and then we'll have to do some fundraising so we can put money to the $3 million we're getting from the city. there is a phase two to the grant in the legislation. after january 31st, the venue fund will support the relocation and re-opening of eligible venues rent increases and we have not determined the rules for phase two yet. those are to be determined. any questions. >> president laguana: commissioners, do we have any questions? >> commissioner: yeah. how can we help you get some assistance? is there a memo that you're

circulating and can share with us and are there parameters of who we can have to be an assistant on the review process? >> i did create a one-page document to demonstrate what we think the grant review process would look like and i can share that with anybody. that's fine. and, as i mentioned to president laguana, it would be a city employee that we're looking for. so, yeah, if you know of anyone, that would be helpful. >> president laguana: rick, i'm happy to blast this on twitter. i don't have much of a "gram" presence or tikto. k so i can try to get the word out to the city families.

ordinarily you wouldn't think a volunteer position would be 25, hours would be that appealing. maybe that makes it a little easier for somebody wanting to get involved and engaged. yeah. if any of you have networks with city employees as well. i think that's our pitch. this is how we help keep our music venues and entertainment venues into a post-pandemic recovery. so all hands on deck. >> that'd be great. >> commissioner: is there also an opportunity to help with like the fundraising efforts to build more funds into this? or is that -- >> so what we're going to do is we're going to as soon as we can which is hopefully the 21st, we're going to get the

grant out and hopefully the grants come back. as much money so we'll do at least one, maybe two more rounds of grants based on how much funding comes in. so, yeah, that will definitely be a fundraising push not only from our office, but also from the venues themselves that we've been working with to do fundraising and get more funding in. right now, people can donate by checking we have received a couple of donations at this point. once we have that online. >> commissioner: will it be

corporate donations? >> i believe so. >> commissioner: because if you can do that with these venues, right now the beer and alcohol companies. >> president laguana: great point. i'm making a note of that. >> commissioner: and i have a network with them. so if you can get me something, richard, on that, i can put it out to at least some big beer distributors i know because if these places survive, that's business for them. >> yep. once we have that, we'll let everyone know for sure. right. thank you very much. >> president laguana: yeah. super helpful. commissioner adams can you make a point of that and remind me in two weeks. and if rick hasn't yet by that point, i will connect you to

the venue coalition folks to see if there's any connections that they haven't already made. but i think that would be wonderful and makes perfect sense to me. okay. any other comment. is anyone on the line for public comment? james, do we have anybody on the line for public comment? >> we have two people listening, but nobody's raised their hand for public comment. >> president laguana: great. and, commissioner adams, a small business advocate, long

and amending the transportation code to prohibit parking in a zone on any street, alley, or

portion of a street or alley that's subject to a posted parking prohibited except for the purpose of loading or unloading passengers or freight making findings of consistency with the general plan and the eight priorities of the policy planning code section 101.1. this is a discussion item before you, commissioners, and we do have presenters robin abad and if we're able to get monica in she is assisting the presentation and answering questions manslaughter and, with that, robin let me give you your hosting privileges. >> thank you director dick endrizzi. thank you for having me back. >> president laguana: robin, i

just wanted to say i think you're becoming the alec baldwin of small business commission as the most frequent host or most frequent guest. this has got to be in the past year your nineth or tenth visit. sorry. i just had to interject with that. >> it's good to be back, president laguana. the small business commission feels like a kind of home for the program. your advocacy and, you know, sort of attentiveness to the program has been a huge part of keeping us on track and a huge success for the program. so we're grateful for everything constructive that the commission has done. constructive criticism. all the rest of it has definitely been a benefit to the program. it's good to be back home. so, yes, i think i'm joined or

hopefully will be joined by deputy program manager monica manipulateawich. part of what we will be talking about today is just thinking about the curb industry long-term for san francisco and how that works better for all users, small businesses, our disabled community, and our elderly youth. and everyone else. so we'll go ahead and share my screen. i've prepared some materials. commissioners, can you see? you should see a slide show. >> president laguana: yes. >> thank you, commissioner dooley, for that nodding. just a quick context. it's set to transform even more as we move to a codified

program. we'll talk about the policy goals and legislative action associated with transitioning this from like a temporary emergency program to something that is more of a long lasting opportunity for san francisco neighborhoods and then, of course, time for question and discussion at the end. where do shared spaces take place, just to recap. in the curb side lane and sidewalk. curb side. sometimes entire streets are closed for a few days a week. usually on weekends to provide greater area for circulation and even larger area for folks to gather and then on open parts of parcels for various different types of primarily commercial activities. so whether that's contactless pickups or groceries or prescriptions. some outdoor retailing and some

inventive applications of this program for that type of use during covid, of course, making sure there's physically distanced that can happen outside our grocery stores and pharmacies. outdoor entertainment. very pertinent to the last agenda item that you just heard o.e.w.d. and outdoor dining. so this is also just a bit of background. the small business commission, really the dyer economic impact that covid-19 has brought not only in our own local small business community, but in small businesses across the country. according to this study, last year in the latter part of last year ranked third in the nation so this is the trend. this is the environment that

this program was created to respond to and we know that the economic impacts of that fall-are going to reverberate for years to come. this program will move with that and calibrate to that in order to equal economic recovery especially for our locally owned businesses. it's been a very dynamic last year and will continue to be an extremely dynamic next few months even through the end of this year. these are just some major milestones that small business commission does light up on this timeline and you can see that the program has been operating in and out of different risk levels. tier red, tier orange, tier yellow. we were under the state's regional shelter-in-place associated with i.c.u. capacities.

so very dynamic environment and i think there's hope that this environment is stabilizing. despite that dynamic year that we've had the growth in shared spaces has been steady and the interest from small businesses in san francisco has remained, you know, very high. and so even you can see here during the winter when no one was allowed to operate, least of all restaurants, there was still a steady influx of applications for folks getting ready to leverage shared spaces with outdoor activities were allowed to resume again. our deputy and thanks director dick endrizzi.

so as the number of applications has grown, so have a number of active permits. to date, since the program launched in july of 2020, we have received over 3,000 applications and across those many different typologies. there is a pretty healthy mix of small businesses in different parts of our public realm and public rights in a way. i think that this slide might be slightly outdated. i think we have just music permits at the present time. but here's a great example some activation during small

business week. so, you know, the benefits, the real financial benefits of shared spaces are still under study. we don't yet have information from the latter or the last order of calendar year '20. so we're not able to extend this analysis on that slide for the first six months of the program. you know, trends are really good. we are seeing those who do have shared spaces are able to bring more employees back. they are able to earn more to support their families and then also contribute to the city's overall tax base which we're trying to stabilize. that we have out to shared

space applicants. both current shared spaces operators as well as perspective ones. we found that, you know, at least half of these small businesses are women-owned enterprises and 33% are immigrant owned and over a third of them identify as minority owned in some way. and so we know that based on the feedback, that had it not been for shared spaces, some folks would not have been able to operate at all on the various levels of public health directives. and the specktor of clothing forever has been worrisome for many of us for some of these instances that are legacy businesses have been serving their neighborhoods and communities for decades. this is a way to avoid

permanent closure. most folks didn't think of san francisco as a thriving outdoor culture, but it's something that we've experimented with. we found there's a fair degree of interest in appetite. so even as indoor capacity has opened and closed, you know, in various stages over the last year, we've seen that there's still this, you know, this belief that folks would want to take on this extra risk and make this extra investment in the public realm. moving on to just the policy goals and what the legislation needs to achieve.

these are the nine big goals. there are many details which public works, the sfmta, the office of small business, the entertainment commission, the office of economic workforce development that we've been working on together to implement each and every one of these goals in the program. we're not going to go into every single one today. we could probably have three to four hearings on that. but i will focus on a few of them. one is equity inclusion. we're talking about how we're phasing in the program as those economic conditions hopefully improve and change. a little bit on arts and culture and then also how we're handling balancing curb side over time. we've certainly seen some extremes during the height of the pandemic. there's the extra material addressing the rest of the

policy issues if commissioners or members of the public want to have questions about other components. we know that covid-19 has devastated many communities and some communities have been harder hit because they were already, you know, subject to historical, structural injustices. so those neighborhoods, those demographics have been hit even harder from covid. so we don't want to deepen those inequities with this new version of the program and other mechanisms in order to. we also know as economic recovery is going to be a long process. it's going to happen in stages. everyone's not going to get

right back into their jobs overnight and so the new code requirements and expectations around permitting fees and the like are going to phase in over time. one thing is that it does fix any issues that you might have so these are things like like ensuring your site is acceptable. ensuring and other emergency access requirements around design. this is doing things like, you know, ensuring that you have appropriate clearance from an intersection to allow for visibility of motorists and cyclists and pedestrians in and around that intersection. so that's a really, that's something to emphasize here.

we want to give everyone as much time as possible in this case more than seven months away, eight months away to start thinking about how some of these issues can be addressed at the site in order to be issued a codified permit. another really important thing that this legislation currently does is that it defers fee collection until 2022. so, eventually, you know, the city will levy a permit fee for i'd say a park lift just we had done prekoefdz. we'll take a look at some of those numbers in a moment. though those might be assessed in the new year, they won't be collected until the end of the fiscal year.

it's also important to note and we just heard an agenda item about venue recovery that the legislation knowledges that performing artists and artists, arts and culture folks are very much part of our economy and has a role to play in economic and social and psychological recovery that we're all going to be embarking on here. a lot of the provisions for the music permit which were created during covid shared spaces will be carried forward. we're also going to allow for among a short-term temporary basis arts culture and entertainment activities to become a primary use rather than just accessory to some other commercial activity like

dining or retail. so we also know that as our economy picks back up, stores and restaurants re-open. there are more people moving about in our city of hopefully. transit service that was suspended during covid will revise. this means the function of our streets and the demands on our streets will continue to evolve and increase. so this also looks like rebalancing the ways that curbed or have been used over covid. so we have for example, during the emergency transit stops where a bus light has been suspended or on occasion in yellow zones that would have served otherwise really busy merchants in the block that have maybe shut down. so we are going to be looking at kind of a long term process

of making sure that yellow zones are reinstated, that transit stops that are needed are accessible and, you know, unimpeded so that folks can get from transit stops to public transit vehicles, of course. monica can speak more to this, but we also will be looking at making sure that loading zones for disabled folks and short-term parking and metered parking is reintroduced. as conditions change. we also want to make sure we want to encourage more sharing and turn over for these shared spaces sites, these park sites. there have been some wonderful examples during covid.

neighboring businesses cooperating. sharing a shared space with like a bar restaurant that pet retailers there during the day sort of resiprocated that we want to continue encouraging. should also mention that of course our transit remains first and foremost. and we need to ensure that whatever we're doing in the street, park lites or otherwise

are keeping the environment safe and accessible also for walking. so, another key provision that the legislation does a conversation that's been going on for many years even before covid about public access to these facilities. as you know, for the before shared spaces, the covid version of the program, san francisco had a very successful park lit program. we're in our tenth or eleventh year now. the way of using the curb side for another use. we want to keep the best of both those programs under this new program moving forward.

so what does this look like? well, we have precovid like in the outer avenues. where the main program or intention is not commercial activity. and, sort of on the other end of this new spectrum that we have, you have this primary purpose is for commercial activity. one and three are fixed. these are in the curb side lane that are there 24/7 for the whole duration of the permit year and maybe even successive permit renewal years. the middle typology is also a kind of commercial activity, but it's comprised of materials and it's comprised of furnishings that are movable. it allows for a lot of flexibility. it's more flexible for the

owner. if you don't want to invest in the big fancy parklet. maybe you really want to pop in on the mornings, weekends or afternoons. this is also great from a curb management and transportation management. that curb can be turned over to other much needed uses. so, again, loading zone. short term or parking. other needs and demands. so here's some examples of some elegant, simple yet elegant examples of how that movable parklet have looked during covid. what they can continue to look like into the future. all right. so public access is something i

alluded to a couple of slides ago and i think i have maybe like four more slides. >> president laguana: the floor is yours. take as much time as you need to. >> excuse me. my allergies are killing me today. here, you see the spectrum where piers of parklet types what expectations are around youth and access. to tier one, that's our precovid type. this might be a youth group in the neighborhood or the boys and girls club or, you know, a community benefit district or another entity wanting to just really take that space in order to create a publicly accessible open space facility. again, at the other end of the spectrum, you have a commercial parklet.

and you have the immovable. in tiers two and three, the implication that while you're having your brunch service or your wine and pizza service, somewhere in the vicinity of your site over for the public general use. walking your child from bus to home in the afternoon and you pass a number of these shared spaces at 3:00 in the afternoon. there's still some opportunity for you to take a seat. enjoy the vibrancy of your neighborhood. we really want all of these parklets to continue make and we want to avoid a condition where you have a whole bunch of shipping containers that are closed at all hours except for when a restaurant might not be open in the evenings.

we've seen a lot of success demonstrated success over the last ten years of our city. we know this can work something that i know folks have also been very intense are what future fees. these are fees that would not be collected until the start of the next fiscal year giving everyone about 18, 20 months grace from now. for getting your first. of course, it's the first annual permitting fee that would, you know, get larger depending on how many parking spaces you are planning to take. most shared spaces are about two. some are just one, some are a

little bigger. we just want to calibrate the seat to the amount of space you're taking up. every year after for a renewal, it's just a flat rate per space. >> president laguana: a quick question about the slide, if i may. under the commercial parklet for the first annual fee. is that $6,000 is that correct? >> as of today, yes. and for reference, commissioners, the precovid parklet hovered around $5,000, $6,000 for that first annual fee. that included things charging for meter removal. we're actually eliminating a lot of that kind of added extraneous cost including

repainting a curb color. moving a pike rack. so we can get a little bit more into that. precovid is about what the liability would have been for a publicly successful parklet. >> commissioner: can i also -- what the entertainment fee for the public parklet mean? >> yeah. thanks commissioner huie. if you want to pursue live entertainment onto any site. it would be a parklet, it could be a closed parking lot like the lilac lot or one of the roadway closures like onnendaga or london or excelsior. the entertainment commission regulates that and that's a

separate and different permanent fee. >> commissioner huie: would that just be accessible to the parklet sponsor or is it like anyone in the community can say, i want to start playing my violin in the parklet? >> this fee is aimed at the sponsor. but you bring up a good question, commissioner huie, about sort of things that might be could be considered as risk activity. so i don't have an answer for that right now. >> commissioner huie: okay. >> any other questions on this schedule? commissioner ortiz-cartagena. >> commissioner

ortiz-cartagena: how did you guys come up with this? i'm going to wait for more comments after your presentation. but who like really decides this? how did you quantify this math? >> that's a great question, commissioner. there are a bunch of different ways that we looked at these fees. we looked at the former parklet fees. we also looked at methodology that public works uses to for sidewalk tables and chairs. so there is a calculus there that's used as a per square footage calculation. that was part of what went into the analysis for this. but mostly, it was based on what the averages were for pre-covid parklet fees and wanting to acknowledge that we create a spectrum or set of tiers. because that one-size-fits-all

doesn't fit all applications. so that was made. >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena: when you divide the square footage, i'm assuming you're selling by 20 per stall? >> about that. >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena: [inaudible] square feet. >> i believe so. yeah. >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena: i'll come back. i'm going to revisit this after your presentation in open comments. thank you. >> thank you, commissioner. some other things about these, you know, we want to keep things really simple so we, public works will be the agency collecting fees and renewal fees will be handled through the unified license fee. that was some very specific feedback that we got from small business stakeholders so

everything appears on that one bill. i think that's it. the only thing i would add is that we are calibrating or we're setting the permit approval review and approval timetable to align with the provisions of proposition 8, so that is thirty days. before it was about three days for sidewalks and for curb side and private property shared spaces and about ten days for closures. all of that now moving forward. it's going to be 30 days so that if you are a merchant or if you are a community benefit district or a merchant association seeking a permit, it feels the same as if you were pursuing a permit for a tenant improvement or some other small business permit in our permit tool box. so i think that was it in terms of the content that i had

programmed. i don't know if you want to go into comment on that. >> president laguana: sure. commissioner dooley. you're on mute, commissioner dooley. >> commissioner dooley: hi. i have a few questions about some of the considerations for deciding on shared spaces being permanent or not. you know, i base a lot of them on my neighborhood and i just want to bring up because i think some of them are universal and i was wondering how some of these things would proceed. first is the consideration of a if a neighborhood has narrow or single-lane streets or sub standards with sidewalks which is something we see in north

beach and just ability access because 14 of the 18 parking spaces are now shared spaces. it just means that the people that are going to be walking down that street, they have to enter or exit the side of the street from the end of each street because there's no longer any space to cross the street except for at the end, so i was wondering about that for in terms of disability. i know a lot of people are, for example, our block is almost the whole west side of the street is entirely taken up by shared spaces and bars. people are having to deal with which should be anywhere.

waiters coming back and forth across the sidewalk, that type of thing that can create kind of an impairment especially if it becomes as it is in this neighborhood in that it becomes a long, dark corridor that people have to access and go past open businesses that, you know, are very busy. so that becomes a problem. i'm wondering if you're considering a percentage of per street of shared spaces for the permanent program, robin? >> yes, thank you, commissioner dooley, you raise a lot of good points. i'll let my colleague monica from mta address the last

point. sort of the curb side analysis that we will do at the implementing sort of in phases with the roll-out of shared spaces and before i do that, director dick endrizzi. i can't figure out how to stop sharing my screen and get back to. -- here we go. is this how we do it? monica, do you want to take commissioner dooley's question about use of curb side? >> you bet. yeah. can you guys hear me okay? >> yes. >> sorry i wasn't on first thing. but good to see you so we have a lot of work ahead of us.

so to your question about a percentage. it's not necessarily a percentage per se at the outright. but there will be as we go corridor and block by block and assess the loading curb needs for bus zones or parking, for accessible parking and shared spaces within sort of the agency's curb management strategy and if you're not aware. the curb strategy in practice like robin was explaining earlier means effectively we'll be going corridor by corridor, block by block to get a sense of what's on the ground and assess curb management needs so we can be making decisions and that commercial district.

so does that answer your question about how that process looks. >> well. for an example on a block in north beach, i personally am opening two businesses that are 100% obscured because they are every inch except for where we are is a shared space. so it means that people driving by cannot see their retail businesses, the dry cleaners. so that's just why i'm asking if there would be a lot of consideration that not everyone is a restaurant or a bar and they need their visibility also. >> totally. and, if i may, i'm glad you asked that question. i realize you described that and i was probably unclear. one thing that it does, our agency strategy is it has a hierarchy of uses depending on different land uses and

neighborhood and it has a hierarchy for example for access for movement and access for people and goods and like it goes down. i think and saying this is your neighborhood commercial district before we passenger loading and commercial loading. it's a priority above in that hierarchy. is there appropriate loading first if that makes sense. i think those considerations in practice work out that way because we're able to sort of take that about the obscuring of other retail and services. >> president laguana: commissioners. i apologize. i didn't mean to cut you off.

commissioner dooley, i have information that's relevant to your question. would it be appropriate? >> yes. absolutely. >> president laguana: okay. i actually had a conversation with supervisor melgar specifically about this specific topic of so the shared space. but nonetheless. there's concern about being but at least on the phone with me

she told me that she was looking including raising the height that a sign could be allowed to put so currently right now there's a very specific height for signs are allowed to be so she expressed some interest in changing the planning codes so that retail shops could have signs a bit higher. wouldn't necessarily be shot by the shared space. i think the larger point i think is, you know it's

detailed specific policy that can address what's happening in a particular neighborhood and can still make the policy applicable citywide without it being 16,000 pages. some of this has to be deferred down to the local level, but the top level concern that you're raving here doesn't have a shared space i can just tell you that through all my conversations with shared spaces, that's very much a concern and that people are talking about it including the chair of the land use committee and i'm confident it's a

solvable problem deferred some of the decision making to downstream at mta and upstream at the planning level. i apologize for the long answer but i spoke to supervisor melgar for probably about a half hour on just this very topic alone. >> commissioner: thank you. >> president laguana: and i guess i should say, monica or robin, if anything i said there was inaccurate or didn't reflect what your understanding, by all means feel free to correct me. >> not at all. urban design impacts are part

of our set of consideration. there's all the very technical dimension of ensuring that the curb as this finite resources given that everything it can be and should be doing. it's important as a pedestrian, as a perspective patron of a business, so, you know, i mentioned the kind of example, the shipping containers just being lined up across that. so i think we should continue to see refinements to design parameters that we're going to get a high quality shoe scape and it doesn't mean it has to be a fancy street scape. i see some urban design principle can be further elaborated in our guidelines to make sure we're getting a lot of consistency but a lot of that experience and really important urban design stuff is addressed. >> president laguana: yeah.

and i think there's still a lot of discovery right now. we're still figuring out what works and doesn't work. it's going to take some time to work through both the opportunities and the issues that arise. so, commissioner dooley, did you have more questions? >> commissioner dooley: i have a few things. i just bring this all up because currently some of the blocks in my neighborhood have become so congested with people and the shared spaces that no one will walk on the sidewalks anymore because they feel like they're intruding on private space and so that just has to be thought about. one last question, in terms of people applying for the permanent shared spaces, is there going to be consideration of people who have consistently violated that the current shared spaces which i certainly

have knowledge that that has happened. are they still going to be right up there in terms of applying for a permanent spaces when theirs have become such a public nuisance? >> thank you for pointing that out, commissioner dooley. everyone needs to be in compliance in order to qualify for a permit. so that's compliance in the sense of physical design and the way that your site has been con figured, but it also is in compliance with operations so if there has been consistent noises or consistent distancing and face wearing mask compliance issues, those all go into our set of considerations about, you know, how we permit with a permit codified -- a permit who we issue that to.

there's a place for investigation. it's not the official record. but it is a consideration certainly. i mean, we want everyone to continue being good actors, being good neighbors and so that's part of it. yeah. >> thank you. >> thank you, commissioner dooley. >> president laguana: commissioner ortiz-cartagena. >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena: thank you, president laguana. robin, can you go back to the schedule slide if that's possible. >> are you able to see the chart?

>> president laguana: we are. thank you. >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena: obviously i'm concerned regarding the schedule. it definitely becomes a very big barrier for the number 3, that comes out to $42.86 i have colleagues here on this commission and that's high. smaller retailers where they turn around on the table tops or the retailers. so i'm really concerned about that and i really have difficulty believing that the mayor office

>> commissioner ortiz-cartagena: i bet you they're making a ton of money. and at the high-end restaurant in the marina, that's not equitable. >> justin, i don't have the meter numbers at the top of my head. i'll just add on to what robin was saying. we didn't assess many different pricing models, but if you charge market rate, if you have

dynamic by neighborhood and what do those different pricing schemes look like and ultimately in the decision making process weighing the trade-off of like paying what you could if you sort of value market rate. that's one example versus not making it a barrier to entry. the fees are on the scale closer to making sure that it is not a barrier to entry while still taking into account how high it could go like if you were taking into account metering recoveries. so it's complicated where you fall on the spectrum and they ultimately, robin, the mayor's office, but the proposal here is what landed at this compromise. >> i mean, if you do square footage, it's like $7 a square

foot. $42.86. i'm just, you know, i want to go on record with you. i'm not trying to [inaudible] you guys. just know it's not equitable. i'll tell you straight up. >> yeah. i hear you, commissioner. and the feedback is appreciated. that will definitely be taking it back. >> president laguana: yeah. you know, i think the small business commission would not be doing its job if we were not advocating for all our small businesses and advocating for these to be as low as we can possibly make them. so, you know, i'll add my voice to william -- sorry commissioner ortiz-cartagena and say that certainly i hope we can fund a way to get these lower so that more businesses can participate.

i'll also point out that this is a not necessarily the answer and the solution, but at least it's something that there is a shared spaces equity grant program, commissioner ortiz-cartagena, that has $2.3 million in it which they've been taking applications and there will be i believe money distributed from that fund to help with some of the stuff, but i also say as well that if we want these fees to be lower, that's part of the conversation that we need to have with our friends at the board of supervisors because they're the ones that ultimately will be voting on this. so that's who i think we need to be directing most of our commentary at because ultimately, it's going to be

their final call. commissioner huie. >> commissioner huie: i just wanted to also i guess third that same sentiment from commissioner ortiz-cartagena. i feel like even if we're taking out the component of neighborhood or racial equity, whatever it is, i think in general, that's just way high and i just don't understand the thinking behind this being a recovery project to be able to support small businesses to now being a money generating revenue project for the city. like, i think it's too soon to consider this initiative as now how do we recover meter -- like i feel like that should not even be part of the equation right now. we have small businesses that

have been shut down and forced to close and not have any revenue for a year and now we are already speaking about a 6,$000 annual fee and 3,$000 going forward i think is hurtful and it's appalling after the amount of work that i personally have been going through with trying to get voices heard through the survey. i think hearing the amount of pain that people have been going through and seeing how quickly we're thinking about how to generate city revenue off a recovery initiative seems a little tone deaf at best. and, again, not directed towards you or anyone, just publicly stating, i thought

your presentation was actually very clear and helped me really gather some ideas around that and that was not my anticipated comment prior to, so i have another one later but i can share that later. thank you. >> president laguana: you know, now would be the right time to share that. >> commissioner huie: okay. well, the other piece that i was going to ask about is i think throughout this program, we've heard a lot of concerns and questions regarding like responsibility of what happens to the space overnight. i think there's overall businesses are concerned with safety, crime, cleanliness, all these other kind of issues that are impacting some of their existing shared spaces and i was just curious as to whether that is part of the

conversation. >> yeah. thank you for bringing that up, commissioner huie, and we're diverging somewhat from the way that parklets have been regulated for the better part of the last 10 years in that moving forward, the requirement for public accessibility to the sites whether you're a tier one parklet or a tier three parklet is focused on daytime, daylight hours. so this does give the option. not everyone has to take it. some may feel compelled. others in other neighborhoods given the dynamics in their neighborhood right now might want to give this. for example, implement measures to discourage access overnight. so, you know, the original thrust and values of the parklet program was, you know, open at all times to everyone

and i think with the scale that we've seen with this experiment, we know we'd have to kind of adjust the way that folks are able to manage these to ensure that they remain safe and free of hazards and the like. so i think that's a key nuance, but i think it's going to make an important difference for these being viable and some parts of the city. >>. >> commissioner huie: i think some businesses saw some pushback as they were securing their shared spaces overnight. i feel like if the shared space is then considered kind of like a privately owned entity, then i feel like there needs to be some kind of like public messaging around the program because i think there were some neighborhoods where there was a

lot of pushback like that, you know, like the businesses weren't welcoming, you know, people who were unhomed and needed shelter and, you know, that's not i feel like that puts people in a very difficult situation that somehow i think we need to kind of address what, you know, what happens more publicly, like have a more shared vision of what this means for everybody and some residents also feel like public spaces should be accessible to all residents, right. and so now we're kind of changing that narrative and i think beyond just messaging to business owners of the details of how to do things, i think we need to have more of an

understanding as to how we use the city that we love and what this kind of means for neighborhoods. so that would be my encouragement is to have more public messaging towards everybody so we all can really enjoy it and understand what everybody's roles are. thank you. >> thank you. much appreciated. maybe just wanted to offer one clarification to the commission about the fees. they are not a revenue generator by any means nor do they at all begin to offset, for example, parking meters that are occupied. they really are a fraction of the cost that it takes for the city to administer and to deliver the program safely and

so, the fee structure that we've shown is mostly to reflect the kind of equity values around more commercial intensive fee around commercialization versus fully public. so that's mostly what the fee schedule is attempting to do is trying to incentivize accessibility as you were just speaking to. i hear the feedback about the numbers themselves and you know, this is now on the floor at the board of supervisors. is going to be taking place.

and in this scenario or this piece, you know, to just be as transparent as possible with all of it, because i've noticed that equity is tied so closely to transparency when we're talking about equity understanding is such key and i think that would help when you're coming upon this balancing act and to be antibiotic to share some of their thinking behind it and to be clear about that is helpful. i think that's when people who's getting what and why am i not getting what i needed and things like that. i think if people had a more

the other piece too is with um, actually -- i'm just going to leave it there because i'm going to work on that for a second. but i would say that so far, oh, i was going to say about the grant. this is what i was going to say. you know, if the shared spaces grant, the other thing i'm finding and a lot of what i'm speaking on is based on the research that we've been doing as a commissioner or as a small business commission. so it may seem out of sorts, but grants are hard for people to navigate, you know, a set price that's lower is a lot

easier for someone to obtain than a grant. grant adds time, it adds confusion, it adds competition. it adds elements into the process that, again, sometimes work against equity. and that's something that we're seeing over and over again as why did i not get this grant. why did somebody else get this grant. equity grants are based on things that feel very much out of your control. it adds again to this competitive process that moves away from the collaboration and healing. i just kind of caution again leaning on a grant or something of that type of process in lieu of like or in place of a lower cost of entry.

[please stand by]

want to go on record as well. my biggest concern, of course, are the business owners, who are already under so much stress. and just echoing what i've already heard. i can't imagine some of the businesses that actually have these shared spaces with even the concept of -- you said it so beautifully, commissioner, about the pressure of even trying to rely on a grant to, you know, fund to be potentially make-or-break of you trying to stay open. let alone, all of the other pressures that we are having to deal with. and, again, i know this is isn't directed at you all, but i just

emotionally -- i can't imagine the impact this would make on these business owners, to think about another burden to have to bear in such a, you know, situation that we're in right now. i can't even imagine it. but i think, my question -- i know -- is this the first time? because this is the first time i've heard of this. when did this come to be? is this something that is now introduced for the very first time, these fees were going to be applied in the way that they are now? i mean, as far as the pricing is concerned and the discussion that these were going to be, you know -- that it's even on the table? i'm sorry, i can't find the ways to form the question. >> are you asking if -- sorry,

to help you, are you asking if this when the price became publicly available? >> commissioner dickerson: thank you, yes. >> thank you, commissioner dickerson. so, there was a version of the -- when the legislation was first introduced on march 16th, i believe it was, about a month ago now, the first time fees were in there. there was another version of the legislation that was just introduced last week that had additions to it, maybe having to do with ceqa, environmental quality act, we had to make sure that the legislation was addressing certain issues, but in there, there was an addition for the recurring renewal fees. when it originally introduced on march 16th, the legislation had

a blank place holder for renewal fees. so that's where, commissioner had asked about the methodology we looked at. we looked at sidewalk tables and chairs, square footage calculation, and that was what drove the numbers we see today. you know, publicly, the -- all of the fees, first-time, as well as renewal fee, haven't been circulated -- the first time they were circulated was when legislation -- substitute legislation was introduced. i believe it was last week in the mayor's office on the 6th. so they are fairly new. and this is the dialogue, now there is numbers, this is where the public discourse and dialogue begins. we're getting the reactions that the small business commission is having tonight to the numbers is

really important for us to know. and as we move through our information hearing, that other city commissions, that is all feedback that is part of the deliberation about what the final form of this legislation will take. >> thank you. commissioner dickerson, i didn't mean to cut you off. >> commissioner dickerson: you didn't cut me off. i appreciate it, president. >> president laguana: so, seeing no other questions, i'll just add a couple comments and observations of my own. one, i think we know that most of our small businesses have very low profit margins.

you know, 1-2%, maybe 5%. just walk you through the math on this, right? if, you know, we charge, say, $6,000 for something and their profit margins are 2%, then just to break even on that $6,000, they need to make $300,000 in revenue just to get to where they were in a place where it was actually a profitable enterprise. we know from our forth coming commission survey, that many of our restaurants have been struggling to hit numbers like that on such a small number of space. we also know from talking to the restaurant community, there is a ceiling on what you can hope to make in a shared space.

the industry, i think, refers to it as turnover, i forget the exact term, tops turnover, you know, it's basically how many people can you seat within a limited space in a night? and a space like a shared space, if we're talking about a fine dining establishment, maybe you'll be able to get two sets of diners over the course of an entire night. one of the challenges that we have when contemplating city-wide policy is that it's easy to think about this in terms of dining, but then you have to-go sort of food. people grabbing chinese food, or a burrito. you have coffee shops, bakeries and all these different kinds of shared spaces. and the equation on the amount of people that need to go through to make it economically

viable can change dramatically from business type to business type. and it is, i think, a fundamental challenge for policymakers when they're trying to figure out how much to charge for this. this is my observation. we've arranged the city in such a way, that one time this made sense. we created an enterprise department. that's a department that has to make their money back from the fees and revenues that they charge. if created, that works fine when, you know, systems are static and not changing, you know, incentivizes departments to move quickly, but we're in unchartered territory here. and, really, our fundamental

priority, our public policy goal here, is to help our small businesses recover and to get them back up off their feet. or on to their feet. and this is now intention, creating an imbalance between these department goals, which is they have to make a certain amount of revenue in order to sustain their staff and budgets. and then over here, we have this community that desperately needs help to recover. and i think what we're looking at right now, and i don't want to put words in anybody's mouth and i wasn't necessarily in the room on these meetings and i don't have particularly special knowledge, but what i think we're looking at now, if i'm a department head, you know, the parking meter revenue in some

cases was substantial. and the costs that are incurred by these inspections are very real. you know, some of the elements of getting this off the ground from a department-head perspective is intimidating, so they're naturally trying to be protective of their departments and employees. but this is now intention with our public policy. and our public policy goals, which is we want to help our small businesses recover. and when i think about the fact that, what commissioner ortiz said, this is inequity, if we have something that works for a business in the marina, might not necessarily work for, you know, a little taco shop on 24th. you know, in a tiny space.

and so, i don't know that it's possible to get a perfect answer, but certainly i think we need to work harder on getting these fees lower. i think all our -- like, i personally feel that directionally, our departments need to get clear on what our overall public policy goal is here. and it's not to support the departments through small business revenue. that's not the public policy goal. the reason we charge for parking spaces in the first place is so that people won't park their cars all day, so they'll get more people coming to the businesses. that's why we charge the meters. we don't charge the meters to feed the m.t.a. budget. we charge the meters to support the small business economy so that more and more people will come and visit and rotate.

so we've kind of lost sight, you know, even just thinking about trying to recover parking meter revenue. the whole point of parking-meter revenue was to support small businesses. that's why there is not parking-meter revenue in residential neighborhoods. if it was just about getting revenue from parking spaces, we'd have meters in every parking spot in the city and we'd maximize our revenue. so, i think, right now, what we need to do is really focus on our top public policy goal which is restoring our small businesses to a place of health and getting them back on their feet. and maybe even making them stronger than they were before. my god, what would the harm in that be? we'd have more entry-level jobs. we'd have more jobs for, you know, folks without college educations like myself.

for folks that are undocumented workers and people that have struggled to just find that first step in the ladder to success. this is what we're trying to protect. and this is what we're trying to advocate. and that is, frankly, not going to be possible if these fees are so high that only a business that makes $600,000 or a million dollars a year per parking spot can make it financially viable. so part of the equation of these fees is the financial viability for the underlying business. and that has to be front and center because that's why we're doing the whole damn thing to begin with. so, i hope that our various policymakers were make an effort here to hear what the commission

has said tonight. this isn't an action item. we don't have a vote planned or scheduled. but i think we've all spoken pretty loud and clear here that, in order for this program to work, it's got to be workable for small business. that's the point of it. we should get that part right. we should be really careful to get that part right. robin, i'll let you have the final word before public comment. >> thank you, president. yeah, no, i mean, this is what commission hearings are for. this is what, you know, the public process is all about. putting an idea out there, developing the best idea possible, getting it out there and talking about it as a community and as a city. so, you know, i hear all of the comments. i know i'm not the only one who is listening and paying

attention and look forward to, you know, the public discourse as they continue forward and as we shape this thing into its final form. so i don't know if there are any public comments or questions, but i'm available. my colleague monica had to leave of the sfmta. if there is anything we can't answer, we can bring it back to the sfmta and get that back to you. >> president laguana: wonderful. james, do we have public commenters on the line? >> yes, we have two people in queue and four people listening. i'll unmute the first one. >> president laguana: commissioner dickerson, did you want to post your slide on directions on how to call in? okay. and, james, if you could please

allow the commenters to start commenting, that would be great. >> good afternoon, commissioners, and thank you for allowing me to speak. i'm terry and one of the owners of cliff's variety store on castro street. in considering legislation for shared spaces i think it's important that the legislation take a balanced look at a commercial corridor. there must be loading zones available for safety of employees and in order to receive the goods. there must be enough parking to make an area sustainable for all the businesses in an area. although we'd like to be a transit-first city, the reality is muni is desperately broken and was broken before the pandemic and we can't make plans on the hope that it will some day work. as a retail business, my customers need to be able to

park. they will only make small purchases if they're unable to park. we're handing off our businesses to amazon, big box stores with parking lots. the parking must be necessary and continue the vitality on the streets. when i walk my business area, at least half the current parkettes in the castro are unneeded and underutilized. neither are utilized except by anyone with the unhoused. it has been boarded up for more than four months. oz berger has pigeon spikes on the spaces and more people. in general, i'm in favor of shared spaces continuing, but it is necessary that a holistic

approach to a community be considered. additionally, there are certain items having read the legislation as proposed, that concerns me. one is the department that approves these spaces must be responsive to serious concerns in a timely manner. as of right now, it only addresses the person putting in the request for the parkette. cleanliness on page 31, require that the parklets be cleaned up, but does nothing to address the day situation. if you walk down the street at 8:00, 9:00 in the morning, it's disgusting and it hurts businesses. only places of concern have to do with the public bench requirement at every private parklet. the requirement that is requiring public benches means the businesses are going to have the unhoused setting up there

all day long, hurting every business in the community with no ability to move them along. additionally, an area that i haven't heard anything about, is when there is major construction planned for an area, this should be looked at how many additional parking spots are being taken from that community in order to create vibrancy for the whole community. thank you very much for letting me speak. >> thank you. next caller, please. >> hi. my name is queena. i have a few concerns regarding the shared space legislation. like some of the commissioners, this legislation lacks transparency. there is little to no public outreach put into the legislation. i heard of instance where the department contacted a nonprofit

and asked them how they liked the shared space program, instead of the businesses themselves. no public outreach to the neighbors is being done. our streets are considered public spaces and it feels like the city is selling our public spaces. there are bikes everywhere. how can we ensure there is pedestrian safety along with shared spaces? another issue that a lot of commissioners are mentioning is that the permit fee isn't equitable. i really doubt that a struggling small business can shell out $5,000 for application fee. something else that is very important is that we need to ensure that there are dedicated

staff in each department working to make this program a success. we all know that different city departments have difficult times coordinating projects. one day m.t.a. will pave the street and the next day, d.p.w. will issue a permit to dig it up for pipes. how can we ensure that these departments work together? although there is a committee listed in the legislation, we need to really make sure there are staff hours dedicated to this program to make sure that it runs smoothly. i am in no way against this legislation. my main concern is that this legislation is moving too fast without community input. i think the -- would rather see a well thought out legislation rather than something slapped together in a month just so it can pass. thank you for your time. >> thank you. james, is there any more public commenters on the line?

>> that was our last speaker. >> president laguana: okay. seeing no other public commenters, public comment is closed. quick question that came up for me while listening to private -- or public comment. private comment [laughter]. robin, on the fee deferment, they're assessed in june of 2021, but collection is deferred for one year, right? so, what happens in 2022? do they get two bills at once? is that how that works? >> only if you're renewing. so, if you applied for a shared spaces codified permit in the fiscal year '22, then you would -- >> 21, you mean? >> no, 22. >> president laguana: oh, i see.

>> it might be helpful, commissioner, should i show the slide again? >> president laguana: that might help, thank you. >> let me see if i can do that. i don't know if i can share my -- thank you. thank you, director. here we go. s -- right, so, you would be -- you would receive a permit, a fee invoice, at the end of the fiscal year '22. yeah, and if you get renewed for a permit in the next year, then that would be a new permit. that would be a renewal fee, right? just as we have with all other permits for any other kind of business permit in the city.

>> president laguana: if i'm -- parklet operator -- an existing parklet operator and i arrive july 1, 2021, i guess the fees would be the initial application fee. let's say i had two parklets, it would be the initial application fee plus the additional parklet fee, so it would be $7500 for a commercial parklet? is that right? >> yeah, let's say sharky's wine and pizza is in operation under a free shared spaces permit right now. you want to continue operating for the next few years. so, yeah. you would apply for a -- not a permit-permit, but a proper permit. a nonemergency permit. through december 31. and that --

>> president laguana: and that permit starts june 30, 2022? is that when the permit starts? >> no, the permit -- thank you for the clarification. the permit would be effective january 1, 2021. >> president laguana: okay. 2022, you mean? >> sorry, exactly. >> president laguana: okay. so, not to be confusing about this, but if i applied for my permit july 1, $7500 would be the fee, i would pay that june 30, 2022? >> yeah, correct. you have until the end of the fiscal year. >> president laguana: and then at the end of -- is the permit renewal always at the end of the fiscal year, or is it at the end of december? >> permit renewals are -- they will be annual based on when you are issued. this first big batch we're trying to get everyone on a

calendar-year cycle. start the new year fresh with one. >> president laguana: in this situation, i pay $7500 in june of 22 for the permit i got in july 2021. and then in january, 2023, i would pay $6,000 for the renewal, is that correct? >> if sharky's pizza and wine had two parking spaces. >> president laguana: okay. okay, great. and just on a side note, my grandfather had a little pizza joint in florida and i worked there for a while. so you weren't that far off [laughter]. commissioner dooley? >> commissioner dooley: i just wanted to piggyback on what some of the commissioner was asking about, some clarification for myself. so when does the current shared

spaces permits, do they have an expiration date? or are they ongoing until a certain marker, like the yellow zone? can you give me a little detail how to fit in how long the permits are for the current shared space? >> yes. the temporary emergency permits, for lack of a better, more elegant term is what we'll all what everybody currently has in hand. most of them, the vast majority of them term out at the end of june, 2021. and the expectation is to give everyone time to get adjusted to the new requirements, the new safety requirements, that those will be extended yet again another six months to the end of the calendar year. so currently expiring june 30th, and the thinking is they will be

extended through december. >> commissioner dooley: okay, great thank you. >> president laguana: one last question for you, robin. one of the callers spoke about spaces that were neglected or apparently not in use. have we considered what, you know, if somebody allows a shared space to fall into disrepair, that's not really any different than allowing your building to become covered with graffiti or any other form of physical neglect that's harmful to our commercial corridors. can you walk us through how the -- we'll be dealing with that going forward? you know, can you lose your permit mid-year and somebody require you to remove the shared space? >> yes. that is one potential consequence. so, the new ordinance provision,

they're kind of the bottom arrow in the current slide we're looking at. those new ordinance provisions have things like, you know, keep our site well maintained, keep gutters clear, keep it free of litter and debris. and so, there are also what are generally refused to as good-neighbor provisions, right? ensure that you are keeping your noise down, that you're not carrying on past 10 p.m. there are all these requirements we're now codifying. repeated infractions can lead to revocation of your permit. we don't really have that tool or that ability right now in the emergency version of the program. and i think -- regrettably, that's why we might see a lot of

the less desirable conditions than desirable conditions we see now. [please stand by] [please stand by] >> president laguana: i think in most cases it's not a concern. but it's good to hear, i think it's actually really important information for people to understand that we don't have the tools in our chest now to

actively enforce these provisions the way we will. after this law passes to make it more conducive so that's not the kind of thing that you would expect to be a consequence of making it permanent. just to say shared spaces means status quo continues in perpetuity, but there's actually a lot of behind the scenes changes. i apologize, commissioner. go ahead. >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena: there's just something that stuck out that caught my attention. i saw something on the slide and you said something, president laguana. i understood that is there a

potential of the new covid requirements that businesses are going to have to tear down their parklets to comply? >> i certainly hope not, commissioner ortiz-cartagena. i think, you know, the guidelines that we had for shared spaces and the temporary emergency version of the program, all of those guidelines in the requirements whether that's ada, those are all guidelines that we've had for the better part of the past 10 years and not too much is changing about them. there are some newer design requirements that have to do with making sure that fire department another emergency responder personnel can get to the sidewalk and get to buildings with ladders quickly so folks might be familiar with the 3' gap, there needs to be a

3' barrier opening. i don't think you're going to have to -- my hope is nobody's going to have totary anything down. but you're going to have to make sure if you have a roof that spans 20', there's a passage way. so you might have to be cutting a slot in your roof or something or you might have to reconfigure our depth surfacing. i don't anticipate or hope that anybody will have to tear anything down. >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena: what about the lift? although those are easy fixes, the lift from the curb to where it ends. but that'd be structural where you'd have to tear down the

parklet. obviously but it's easier to modify. >> right. i think in some cases and i don't have the sense of magnitude, things might have to move around a little bit. you might have to move one parking space up next year or create a little more visibility. we do have to make sure any structure is clear of any 6' rail. we have manu ginobiliy trains that from the outer edge of that rail that's in the pavement, in the ground, there's a 6' clear area and that's because there's a

dynamic. because they impede visibility at the intersections, for example. in terms of the width, the current requirement is and as far as i can tell, most shared spaces out there comply with this is that any structure has to be 1' clear from an active bicycle lane or active travel lane, so we're sorting out some of the images and some of the diagrams and the graphics that we circulate to make that clear. >> commissioner ortiz-cartagena: okay i just want when you're going back you're sure of the unintended consequences. i know the process in the state and there was changes and is impact especially again for

people of color. so i want to make sure. i don't want to hear that if parklets don't comply because, again, in my neighborhood, this would be catastrophic and people would not rebuild. it would be a better. i just want to be very poignant, you have to see it through the lens of my community. >> president laguana: appreciated. so i think that wraps it up for this segment. robin, thank you, again, for presenting. there's a lot here. there's a lot of work. i know you're going to be doing this road show quite a bit with all the various commissions and boards and what have you. so thank you for the detailed explanation and all your work

and thank monica as well and we look forward to next time and i hope our comments and observations will be helpful and useful in your work going forward >> thank you, president laguana. thank you commissioners. appreciate it. >> president laguana: okay. next item, please. >> director: item number four, board of supervisors file number 210287. this is amending the planning code for temporary closure of a liquor stores on polk street neighborhood commercial district. this is amending the planning code to provide the temporary closures of liquor stores in the polk street neighborhood commercial district as a result of a major capital improvement project is not an abandonment use and that relocation of such use to another location on the

polk street nvmentd krvmentd dvmentd does not require conditional use permit. commissioners, i'm going to be -- the legislative sponsor is supervisor peskin and his staff was not able to be here tonight but i did think that this was legislation that was important to bring to you. it is just -- it is another item of legislation where we are streamline is meeting the streamlining goals and assisting our small businesses. so a couple important unique factors to know is that liquor stores in the polk street neighborhood commercial districts require a conditional use if they are to open in that commercial district. and that also the city does have in its planning code that

should be used. if the use is abandoned meaning let's say with this development project, this liquor store had to close down and it took more than 18 months for that development project to get completed and finished and the liquor store wanted to move back in then by the planning code that use would deem abandoned and the liquor store would require to obtain a conditional use to re-open back in its location. so what supervisor peskin is attempting to do is to, one, state that the temporary closures is allowed for up to three years before use is considered abandoned so that would give adequate time hopefully for the development

project to get completed. and so therefore, if a liquor store that is located in a site that is going through development that if wanted to move back, it would be able to move back into its privilege location without having to go through original conditional use. would be able to move back because use is not considered abandoned. and it also is providing for the liquor store should it want to temporarily relocate, or relocate within three years it then has the ability to do so without going through the conditional use. so i think, you know, we have seen and experienced from our end assisting businesses where

through the soft story retro fit businesses have been displaced. for many of you commissioners, you were here when supervisor tang created the home sf project to incentivize infield development in our neighborhood commercial districts and so i don't know if whether this is a home sf project but this sounds like it is a development project within a neighborhood commercial project so it is minimizing the difficulties that liquor stores will have to experience should they be originally located in a place that's undergoing development. so i just wanted to bring that to your attention. it's agendize as a possible

item. if you have any particular questions that i can't answer. so, with that, i'll take any questions. >> president laguana: commissioners, do we have any questions? >> it just seems like straight up legislation to me. >> president laguana: that's my reaction as well. this is like ordinary good old city government. let's just gut 'er done. vice president zouzounis. >> vice president zouzounis: thank you. i wanted to know why supervisor peskin hasn't already considered taking this into the planning code at large considering he's made over so

maybe there's some feedback that we need to understand why we have to keep having one off exemptions for individual businesses that require that whole regulatory licenses that require c.u.s. but i'm with a separate recommendation that the board of supervisors considers, you know the land use policy city wide. >> president laguana: i agree. that's a solid suggestion. commissioners, any comment to that. >> director: we could have some discussion, but we do need to make sure there's public comment. >> president laguana: i'm aware. that's why i was polling for

reaction and then see if anybody else had anything to say. okay. i don't see anybody else having anything else to say. is there any public comment? >> nobody's currently in the queue for public comment. >> president laguana: seeing none. public comment is closed. vice president zouzounis, would you like to make a motion? >> vice president zouzounis: sure. i'll make a motion to approve the legislation as it is with an additional recommendation to apply this land use policy citywide for regulatory licenses that require c.u.s and need to relocate for issues beyond them. >> commissioner: i will second that. i like it. >> director: all right. we have a motion by vice

president zouzounis as stated seconded by commissioner adams. i will take a roll call. [roll call] that motion passes 7-0. >> president laguana: all right. next item, please. >> director: next item is item number 5. pregsz. small business commission racial equity special committee. this is an update on the racial equity action plan section 7

boards and board. and vice president zouzounis is also the racial equity special committee chair. >> president laguana: wonderful. >> vice president zouzounis: thank you, director. i am really excited about the committee. i think that the in terms of the tools that we use to look at legislation through an equity lens we'll be looking at before the next meeting which is scheduled on the 22nd of this month. so as director dick endrizzi

mentioned, we convened and full of the mandate outlined by the -- off the racial equity and all the goals that we need to accomplish as a committee and as an office and as a commission and we outlined kind of what are going to be our immediate action but other commission adopted in terms of their how they're going to incorporate the goals of the racial equity plan so we're going