games. local high schools sacred heart and mission high school used the field for home games. the rivalry football games are sometimes played here. today it is a huge free standing element, similar to the original featuring tall pink columns at the entrance. the field is surrounded by the track and used by high school and college football and soccer. it is open for public use as well.on february 25, 2020, the r declared a local state of the r emergency related to covid-19, and on may 29, 2020, the mayor's office authorized all commissions to reconvene

remotely. this will be our 20 remote hearing. remote hearings require everyone's attention, and, most of all, your patience. if you are not speaking, please mute your microphone. sfgovtv is streaming and airing this event live. once the building inspection commission hearing concludes, sfgovtv will then begin broadcasting our hearing live. comments or opportunities to speak during the public comment period are available by calling 415-655-0001 and entering access code 187-181-1395. when you hear the item that you want to comment on, press star,

three to enter the queue. when your allotted time is reached, i will announce that your time is up and take the next person queued to speak. best practices are to call from a quiet location, speak slowly and clearly, and state your name. i'd like to take roll at this time. [roll call] >> clerk: thank you, commissioners. first on your agenda is general public comment. at this time, members of the public may address the

commission for up to three minutes. members of the public, this is your opportunity to comment on items not on the agenda. seeing no members of the public wishing to offer public comment, public comment is closed. we are now on item 2, department matters. >> thank you, commissioners. i'd like to remind you that the public conference is open. it's going to occur virtually again june 8 from june 10. this is a great way to get your training underway, basically,

your preservation that we track through the office of his torque preservation. -- historic preservation. that's all i have, commission. thank you. >> clerk: thank you, commissioners. i do have a member of the public wishing to speak. i will ask if it's appropriate at this time. member of the public, you have been unmuted. which item did you wish to speak to? >> hi, there. i wanted to speak in general public comment, but i couldn't get in in time. >> clerk: chair, should we open public comment up to let this comment back in? >> yes. >> thank you. my name is bridget maily.

this is one of seven carnegie branch libraries in san francisco. the building has not been landmarked. i'm requesting today, during your commission comments and questions, you ask for a status update to this designation. the report was completed by me on a pro bono basis, was thorough and complete, and i've heard nothing contrary from department staff. the report followed the layout of the six previous reports. one thing that i regret not including was the detail of the reading room. the six previous reports noted

the spatial volume of the reading room was a [inaudible] this adjacent project will result in a permanent change to the interior aesthetics of the main reading room by blocking light to the south facing windows. i'm asking that when you finally receive the library designation report, that you update the language of the character defining features of the main reading room, not just for this library, but for all carnegie libraries, to read, the spatial reading room and the natural light afforded by the generous windows at the room perimeters. let's amend the carnegie reports so that future projects will not have the same detrimental future impacts. let's not let the same thing

happen to the other carnegie libraries. thank you. >> clerk: thank you. okay. members of the public, last call for general public comment. seeing no additional requests to speak, general public comment is closed, and we can resume our agenda. >> i had a question for rich about the agenda. >> clerk: sure. >> rich, i looked at the agenda for each day, and i noticed there are a lot of important cabinets on the first day. will anybody from the planning department be presented? >> yeah. from what i understand, alison who is our lead from archaeo as well as ceqa is presenting on a mitigation webinar. we're actually just starting to get polled about what everyone else is doing since everyone

else tends to do a little bit of their whole thing, but we'll gather up any of the issues that the staff are leading and follow along. >> yeah. i just wanted to know definitely if our staff would be participating. thank you. >> clerk: okay. if there are no further questions for department staff, we can move onto item 2, department matters or announcements. >> i have no matters or announcements at this time. >> clerk: item 3, consideration of adoption of draft minutes for april 7, 2021. members of the public, this is your time to address minutes. we have no attendees, so public comment is closed.

[inaudible] >> clerk: thank you, commissioners. i heard two motions and no seconds. >> second. >> clerk: thank you. on that motion to adopt the minutes -- [roll call] >> clerk: thank you, commissioners. that motion passes unanimously 7-0, placing us on item 4, commissioner comments and questions. >> so i -- during public comment, we heard that somebody is interested in inquiring about the status of the golden

gate valley branch library, so if we could have somebody from the staff provide us with a status report at our next commission meeting, that would be great. >> sure, we're happy to do that at the next meeting. >> thank you. >> clerk: commissioner pearlman is requesting to speak. >> yes, thank you. i was going to ask the same thing, so i was just going to ask that. thank you. >> clerk: very good. if there are no additional comments from members of the commission, we can move onto your regular calendar for item 2021-002933-pca to simplify restrictions on small businesses. this is a planning code amendment. staff, are you prepared to make your presentation?

>> yes. laurel [inaudible] from the mayor's office will do an introduction, and then, i will do the presentation. >> thank you, sheela, and thank you, commissioners, for having us here today. this is the mayor's building recovery act [inaudible] she asked planning staff and the office of economic and workforce development to come together to explore ways to further cut bureaucracy to cut red tape and [inaudible] and to provide protections and opportunities for entertainment establishments in san francisco. this large piece of legislation aims to achieve all three goals and specifically for the part

that catches your purview, it will explore ways that businesses and historic spaces can get open more expeditiously. i'll leave it to sheela to explain the details. >> thank you, laurel, and i'm going to share -- ta-da. did that work? >> clerk: we can see it, but you might want to make it full screen. >> i can do that. all right. is that look good? >> clerk: great. >> all right. good afternoon, commissioners. i am sheela nickolopoulos, planning department staff. as laurel said, there are three parts of this small business recovery act. one is to cut through bureaucracy by cutting through

prop h and other elements by opening a neighborhood business. second, by implementing flexibility to support short-term recovery and the long-term viability of our neighborhood businesses. this will also support our shared spaces goals, and finally protections and opportunities for businesses our arts. performance and art spaces were some of the first businesses to close at the start of the pandemic and will likely be some of the last to reopen. so i just want to give you some context of some of the precovid challenges that businesses were experiencing before the pandemic hit. so in the past year, with the option of on-line shopping, consumers want to buy locally what they can't buy on-line,

and there were costs for retail establishments, including start-up costs and on going costs, particularly in an area with high cost of living, and we had several city reports that go into detail about these challenges, including the 2008 oewd state of the retail sector, and we had a 2009 study on m.c.s. to highlight some of the changes that we've seen in this past decade, one retail sector has grown much more than any other, and that's dining. this uses data from the north american classification industry. the top four lines of the chart are blue is restaurants. the green is apparel, the dark green is groceries, and the other is personal care. restaurants were especially hit hard in the 2008 recession and

again in this last year, during the pandemic. and then we -- i want to talk about some of our covid aspects that we've seen, as well. in the dramatic way, it's affecting how we work, shop, and socialize, as well. downtown areas are relatively quiet right now. we are also seeing renewed interest in the 15-minute neighborhood. as workers stay home and

transit is limited, it's underscoring the need of meeting daily needs more home. to go into more about the covid impacts for neighborhood patrons, neighborhoods vulnerable to the economic aspects of the pandemic are likely neighborhood based. neighborhoods where they've seen dramatic changes in their patron base are more hit by the impact. some neighborhoods have seen dramatic move out rates. per change of move out data from usps, there's been a 600% increase of move-out rates from chinatown and nob hill. in san francisco overall, we've seen a rise in retail vacancy

rates. on-line sales have increased as more people shop at home. there is an uncertainty about pent-up demand. some speculate that consumers are eager to return to old habits, while others are positive that new shopping factors will remain. there's more than a year's worth of opening and closing have been extremely difficult. their doors were shut from march to november, closed again in december, and still operating at limited capacity. we've had more than 100 restaurants in san francisco close, and there's been a 45% decrease in small business openings per chamber of commerce, from the development department, san francisco and san mateo have lost 120,000 jobs, mostly in hospitality,

but also in food service and drinking. we've had fee deferrals for business season tax registration. the shared spaces has gone from less than 100 to more than 2,000 businesses operating these spaces. there's been an eviction

moratorium, and there's been more than $11 million to support workers who have had covid and faced financial hardships. last summer, the -- following the shelter in place orders and anticipating severe economic impacts of the pandemic, the mayor created the pandemic tax ordinance to identify tangible steps towards financial recovery. one was to focus on redesigning the permit process, extending and supporting the shared spaces program, rethinking the rules that reflect temporary arts, culture and hospitality and entertainment and catalyzing neighborhoods recovery through the arts. in the fall, voters -- 61% of voters approved prop h.

i'm sure you're familiar with this, so just to highlight some of the key points, there's a 30-day permit for permitting commercial uses, and restaurants, limited restaurants, and other uses were principally permitted citywide, which really changed the landscape. now to give you some background, i will dive into the specifics. it's a dense piece of legislation, so i'll move through these one by one. this will expand the prop h guarantees. under prop h, the 30-day processing applied to all ground floor retail in neighborhood commercial zoning, and this will expand the process into all districts, including mixed-use and downtown; including planning, d.b.i., p.u.c., and public works.

this ordinance would expand the benefits to more businesses. the 30-day permitting for processing permits benefits the city by reducing the staff time on principally permitted uses. secondly, to make this 30 days possible, we are removing the 311 notification requirement for mixed use and commercial zoning. this is already in place for neighborhood commercial zoning, and would be expanded. this will help us implement the 30-day. lastly, we're going to make bars, night time entertainment, medical cannabis dispensaries, nonretail service, and chain

retail [inaudible] that 11 but they are still a local enterprise. so dealing with category of further cutting bureaucracy, one is the elimination of the abandonment clause. under the current regulation, if a bar with conditional authorization were to close and the space sits vacant for three years, an incoming bar will have to repeat that process. currently, a restaurant, limited restaurant, or retail applying for a conditional use authorization is required to provide a calculation for other

businesses within 300 feet of their area. the difference between a limited restaurant and a restaurant per planning code definitions might not be clear to an applicant who's collecting the data. so the linear feet calculations don't always represent how one may experience the streetscape, so it may not be a meaningful measurement. an important note to this is that under prop h, restaurants and limited restaurants are principlely permitted in almost all n.c.s for at least the next three years, so this will be in the 23 zoning districts that require n.c.s for bars and all of the n.c.s where formula retail requires a c.u. and then, the last piece on here is that the small business recovery act will reduce the time -- well, actually, so this

one -- i want to move forward. so this one, i'd like to kick over to rich to talk through this proposed -- there's actually a proposed modification, and we had included a recommendation in the memo, and upon further review by staff, we'd like to alter that modification. and rich, do you want to talk through the specifics of what this means and why? >> sorry. sorry. i'm having trouble with my video [inaudible]. yeah, i'm happy to chat about what this means. so when we were first chatting with the mayor's office, we wanted to reduce the minor permit to alter from 20 days to 10 days. in reviewing the timeline for these uses, we recognize that even having some noticing on a

30-day policy is challenging. that is an admin certificate of appropriateness or minor permit to alter. still has to follow all of the rules that are in article 10 or 11. it just means the staff are conducting an administrative review of the project basically, so right now, we're currently working under a delegation that was adopted in 2019 for basically identifying the scopes of work that qualify for admin review versus full review by the historic preservation commission. since we've had the admin and minor process, and since 2012, we've had a little over 1,000 admin and minor permits to alter. of those 1,000, we've only received three requests for hearing, which is basically when a member of the public asks and challenges a staff

definition of the staff review and requests the full h.p.c. to decide if a full certificate of appropriateness is required or not. >> thank you, and we can certainly circle back to questions about that following the rest of the presentation. so continuing on in our category of enhancing flexibility. so first, prop h permitted outdoor areas in n.c.t.s with specific limitations, they had to be on the ground floor, waiting between 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 p.m., operating not in association with a bar use and where associated with i arestaurant or limited restaurant, the outdoor activity area had to include seating, not standing areas for patrons. this ordinance would principally permit rooftop uses with those same provisions

where they're applicable. any rooftop operations during this would be subject to all health, safety, and egress requirements. secondly, this will allow restaurants, not just limited restaurants, to host catering businesses. this will give businesses and entrepreneurs more opportunity to share space and operating costs. this change will offer another path towards recovery. submitting a.d.u.s in the rear of commercial space as allowed for regular dwelling units. so the -- this ordinance will allow a.d.u.s constructed in the rear commercial space a minimum 25 feet depth is maintained facing the commercial street front. it allows an a.d.u. to take space on the ground floor. in most cases, where the commercial space is flush with

the sidewalk, this means that residential space can take over any amount of ground floor except the front 25 feet which has to be occupied with an active use. as a.d.u.s must be an accessory to residential, it would apply only to commercial and not residential. we will also delete the unique definitions -- so this simplification reduces the overall number of separate retail definitions and is intended to decrease the need

for change of use permits, particularly for permits that are so similar, like instructal gyms and services. on the ground floor, this change will not trigger any changes to the permitting of cad boarding gym or instructional service, but it will make trade shop more specific in 1 and c. lastly, we get to our category of supporting arts and culture. so the first one is the -- this actually would permit temporary entertainment resources in outdoor areas, including temporary structures for a maximum of two years. this would provide artists and performers for recovery opportunities. this will create a new planning code section to add a j.a.m.

permit to continue with added flexibility. this was implemented under the emergency declaration, and this program will allow it to continue. there's a proposal for a new c.u. to remove night time entertainment uses for two years. the c.u. for removal provides a stopgap measure during recovery and is supported by the venue coalition. the small business recovery act will also remain planning code requirements to impose certain predetermined conditions in order to impose a c.u. for each project. the planning commission and entertainment commissions would still have the ability to impose any requirement they see fit. in addition, there's a few police code amendments that are also built into this that i'll just highlight quickly.

[inaudible] without an entertainment permit. the second is to remove a restriction on one-time permits where they're currently limited to 12 days in a 12-month period, we're going to remove that restriction and move a limited live performance from 10:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. to give asummary to the equity impact, it's to reduce the need for capital and open impacts. we recognize that simply removing these barriers does not lead to -- does not directly lead to equitable out comes, so we see all of this supported by all of the other support programs to support

those who need it, whether it be individual businesses or neighborhoods and communities. for a.d.u.s, we hope this might be able to produce more affordable housing time that is embedded within neighborhood amenities, and i just want to note there's no prohibition against modifying anything against future desires so we can continue to be responsive to neighborhoods' needs. i do want to note we received letters of support from the san francisco chamber of kmergs, the yerba buena community benefit district, the hayes c.b.d., the castro c.b.d., and the mission c.b.d. thank you. >> clerk: thank you, sheela. that concludes staff presentation. we should open this up for public comment.

members of the public that would like -- if you would like to speak to this matter, please press star then three to be added to the queue. okay. we have one member of the public in the attendee list, but i guess they don't want to speak to this matter, so public comment is closed, and the matter is now before you. and so this is a planning code amendment for your recommendation to the planning commission. we'll then approve and move it to the board of supervisors if it continues that path. >> commissioner pearlman, did you -- >> yes, thank you. am i correct in understanding there is only one item in this entire package that relates to the historic preservation commission? is that correct?

>> that is correct. so we gave you the whole show so you could get the full picture. >> well, thank you. i do appreciate that. i do have a question about that one item. i wonder, did you entertain eliminating [inaudible] for the administrative of the acoa and the mpta. it says we're at a level of less than .3 of 1%. if it's administrative, why do you need any appeal period? i assume that's probably a ceqa thing. it just seems like eliminating that entirely would not be a huge change in the status quo.

>> fully removing the requirement is probably not feasible. we are able to modify it, and i think the current code currently outlines the process for administrative review toest to just ensure that property owners are taking the review of their landmarks according to, you know, the rules that the city has basically developed. so we still will kind of conduct the review of those proposals and sign off on them. we will just avoid the notice process in terms of processing the applications now. >> maybe i didn't understand. i was talking about the appeal.

not that we should eliminate them, but the appeal -- if i'm understanding properly, there's still a ten-day appeal period for an issued acoa or mpcj. this to rich? >> yeah, that's correct. so with any appeal process, there's still a ten-day appeal period. so because it's a discretionary action from the department, basically, it's something that is appealable unless, you know, instituted by statute. so i might defer to the city attorney for additional questions on this, but that's my understanding. >> i'll just chime in. this is liz watty, director of planning. should somebody want to appeal the admin for the minor, it's the same appeal body as the permit itself, so the idea is

any member of the public can appeal any building permit, so if someone would want to appeal that individual or the minor, it would likely run concurrently with the appeals period with the building permit itself, so we're hoping, again, to pinch out any redundancy or notification time that we don't feel is bringing any value to the end product. >> thank you. >> i had a question -- actually, two questions. so let's -- let's say just, for example, there is that legacy business that -- there's a legacy business -- sorry. i'm in my office with the dogs -- and they needed to take a break for a year or two years. are you saying through this new -- or through this revised

amendment, they would be able to open again without going through any of the processes this that they would have to do previously? >> regardless of if it's a legacy or any type of business, if they had shut their doors but they remained in a building, they wouldn't have to go through any sort of process. >> my next question is having access to this information for people who are not native english speakers. will this be available in various languages?

>> yes. >> if a person who is maybe not comfortable speaking english has questions to go through this new process, are there humans available for that person to have a consultation with? >> yes. >> thank you. >> are there any further questions? yes, commissioner nagaswaran.

>> hi. i've read through some of these parts of this program. are some of them a two-year period and other parts permanent? can you please explain? >> what parts are permanent versus what would be temporary? so all -- everything will be permanent except for a few things. in addition, the other one, the two-year one is the limited live performance piece, and that would be limited to two years, as well.

>> thank you. also, how do people find out about these programs? do they go to the city website or how do they find out what it provides? >> the prop h, like, the 30-day program. the city has done quite a bit to advertise that and reach out to associations, for sure, and then, oewd targets specific communities and populations, and they have strong ties with the neighborhood planning groups that can help disseminate changes, as well. >> [inaudible] are saying oh, hey, you're eligible for this. go provide through this way so you can access the 30-daytime

line. so i think d.b.i., d.p.h., they're helping us get the word out to their constituents, as well. >> are there any other comments or questions from the commission? >> president matsuda, i'd like to [inaudible]. >> me, too. >> [inaudible]. >> hi, thanks. the commissioner in me wants to comment on this, a whole lot of things are positive. something that i was happy to hear about was since the prop h location processing [inaudible] that was implemented in january, 75% [inaudible] and 42% are women-owned businesses, and that is -- especially in the retail sector, these changes support our racial and

social equity goals, and so i hope that our social equity team will recommend further updates to further these goals next year. further, i want to acknowledge that a lot of this falls on staff, both the mayor's staff and the planning staff to develop those code changes, and i know how hard it can be. but i just want to say that we as commissioners get it in that as planning staff have had to adopt to covid related changes, including working from home, and i was so impressed and kind of blown away by the volume and breadth of work changes you brought to us at the last hearing. i thank you for your flexibility and hard workup to now and also in the future because these were all really

important goals for us as a city to recover. >> thank you very much. >> commissioner foley? >> you know, for someone who actually operates multiple businesses and works with a bull of small businesses and nonprofits, i think all of this work that you're doing is super great. i think trying to cleanup these things and trying to get these businesses open up in a reasonable time i think kind of helps the fabric of our neighborhoods and our community but also allows the planning staff to do work that's more interesting. i just want to say thank you for all this hard work, and i really appreciate it. >> thank you. any other commissioners that would like to make comments or questions? commissioner so, please use the chat if you would like to make some comments? >> hi. thank you, president matsuda. i'd just like to say a few

words about the [inaudible] between the planning staff and oewd. i'm all for streamlining these processes and cutting down the red tape that we can possibly do to make sure that our small businesses and community minority women-owned businesses can get their feet back on track. it is very important, and i'm really happy that we are progressing to this point where we have a really untilable robust staff to review projects, and we have track records in the past ten years that we prove we can do it, and we are now ready to make things happen faster, and we can allocate to other sources to more needed projects and with the limited resources that we have. so i would like to motion to approve this recommendation --

is it motion to approve, right, or is it discussion only? >> clerk: the recommendation is motion for approval. >> i so want to motion that. >> second. >> second. >> i think -- do we need, since the modification that was outlined in the resolution is slightly different from what we have brought to you today, so i just want to make sure that we're approving that -- the modification that we had discussed to --

>> i'm sorry, commissioner foley. did you have additional comments that you wanted to make? >> no, i'm done. >> clerk: okay. very good. if there's nothing further, there's been a motion that's been seconded to approve the modification made by board members and staff. on that motion -- [roll call] >> clerk: so moved, commissioners. that motion passes unanimously, 7-0, and concludes your ever-so-brief agenda today. thank you for joining us, and

apologies for interrupting your afternoon. >> thank you so much for joining us.

>> good afternoon this is the meeting of the san francisco port commission. tuesday april 27, 2021. item number one is roll call. [roll call]

commissioner woo ho having audio problems. item number two is approval of minutes for the april 13, 2021 port commission meeting. >> i so move. >> second. >> we have a motion and a second. >> president brandon: roll call vote please. [roll call vote]

can you hear me commissioner woo ho? we might have to come back to her for that. >> president brandon: motion passes. minutes of the april 13, 2021 meeting are adopted. >> item number 3 is pledge of allegiance. [pledge of allegiance] item number 4 is announcements. please be advised that a member of the public has up to three minutes to make comments on each

agenda item. please note that during the public comment period the moderator will instruct the dial-in participant to use the touch tone phone. audio prompts will signal to dial-in participants when their audio is enabled for commenting. please note if you're watching this meeting streaming on sfgov tv, there's a short broadcasting delay. when the item you want to comment on is announced, dial 415-655-0001. enter access code 187 466 7366-pound. please mute the volume on your division or computer. when public item is announced, dial star 3 and listen for an audio prompt to signal when it's your turn to comment. please mute your microphones and

turn off your cameras when you're not presenting. that brings to you item number five, public comment on items not listed on the agenda. >> president brandon: thank you. we'll open the phone lines to take public comment of items not listed on the agenda. members of the public who are joining us on the phone. there will be an operator to provide instructions now. >> clerk: thank you. at this time, we will open the queue for anyone on the phone who would like to make public comment on items not listed. on the agenda. please dial star 3 if you wish to make public comment. the system will let you know when your line is open. others will wait on mute until their line is open. comments will be limited to three minutes per person. the queue is now open. please dial star 3 if you wish to make public comment.

president brandon, at this time there are no callers on the line wishing to make public comment. >> president brandon: thank you. public comment is closed. next item please. >> executive director's report. >> good afternoon president brandon, vice president adams commissioners, members of the public i'm elaine forbes executive director of port of san francisco. we're aware of the derek chauvin outcome. the guilty verdict held chauvin accountable. the national reckoning for racial and social justice that

mr. floyd murder inspired