meeting on september 11th, 2023. the mission's being called to order at 4:30 p.m. this meeting is being held in person in city hall, room 400 408 and broadcast live on sf gov tv and available to view online or listen to by. calling (415)!a655-0001. the small business commission thinks media services and has a govtv for televising the meeting which can be viewed on nsf.gov tv two or live streamed at sf govtv. org. we welcome the public's participation during public comment periods. there will be an opportunity for general public comment at the end of the meeting and there will be an opportunity to comment on each discussion or action item on the agenda for each item. the commission will take public comment first from people attending the meeting in person ann, and then from people

attending the meeting remotely. members of the public who will be calling in the numbers (415)!a655-0001. the access code . is 26649273601, followed by password 7221. press pound and then pound again to be added to the line. when connected, you will be muted and in listening mode only when your item of interest comes up. dial star three to be added to the speaker line if you dial star three before public comment is called, you'll be added to the queue when it's your time to speak, you'll be prompted to do so. public comment during the meeting is limited to three minutes per speaker. an alarm will sound once the time has finished. speakers are requested but not required to state their names. sf govtv. please show the office of small business slide.

oh today we will begin with a reminder that the small business commission is the official public forum to voice your opinions and concerns about policies that affect the economic vitality of small businesses. in san francisco. so before item one is called, i'd like to start by thanking media services and sf govtv for coordinating this virtual hearing and helping to run the meeting. please call item number one. item one roll call. commissioner carter is absent. commissioner dickerson present commissioner gregory is absent. commissioner herbert is absent. president huey here. commissioner ortiz cartagena here and vice president susanna's present. mr. president, you have a quorum. thank you. the san francisco small business commission and office of small business staff acknowledges that we are on the unceded ancestral homeland of the ramaytush ohlone, who are the original inhabitants of the san francisco peninsula, as indigenous stewards of this land

and in accordance with their traditions as the ramaytush ohlone have never ceded lost nor forgotten their response abilities as the caretakers of this place, as well as for all peoples who reside in their traditional territory as guests , we recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. we wish to pay our respects by acknowledging the ancestor elders, elders and relatives of the ramaytush ohlone communities and by affirming their sovereign rights as first peoples. please call item number two. item two board of supervisors file 230861. police code fees, applications and conditions for certain entertainment permits. this is a discussion and action item the commission will discuss and possibly take action on an ordinance amending the police code to one waive initial license and filing fees through june 30th, 2025 for certain entertainment permits for current or former holders of just add music permits to waive initial license and filing fees

for entertainment permits for applicants who are newly eligible to apply those permits for those permits due to the planning. recent planning code amendments and other amendments . uh, presenting today we have ben vanhouten business development manager, nightlife and entertainment sector with the office of economic and workforce development, and maggie wayland, executive director with the entertainment commission. welcome thank you so much. good evening, commissioners. good evening. director tang my name is maggie wyland and i'm the director of the entertainment commission. i'm very pleased to be here this evening with all of you with this piece of legislation that our office has been working very closely with the office of economic and workforce development on this is an initiative that certainly aligns with both my commission's work and your commission's work. we're also really looking forward to the timing of this, because this is happening ing at the same time as a piece of legislation that the office of small business is working on

that will also be supporting small businesses in permit streamlining mining. so essentially my office has worked very closely with the city administrator for as well as our local entertainment and nightlife industry. me and my commissioners on this work and really we set up a summit where we host all of our stakeholders within our community and we take feedback from all of them about what we as a city can be doing better for them in supporting them, especially during post-pandemic times in follow up to that, we always do an annual survey where we ask folks the status of their business. anything that we can be doing better. and at this point there's a lot of concern from our businesses that we regulate around staying afloat. so anything that we can do to further improve police code and make the permitting process easier for our folks, we're trying to do that. so this piece

of legislation was really born out of that. the feedback that we've received from everybody and we're just really looking forward to this. hopefully sailing through all of the different commission and board processes. i want to hand over the mic to ben van houten and i will be back up shortly to tell you more. great. thanks, maggie. good evening, commissioners. ben van horn from the office of economic and workforce development. i'm going to walk through a couple of slides with a number of the different elements in this legislation. there are a whole bunch of different reforms that are a part of this. this proposed ordinance. first off, we are proposing part of the legislation would enable the waiving of certain entertainment fees, first and foremost, the ability to waive application and license fees associated with the transition for businesses from the pandemic. just add music permit, which allowed outdoor entertainment and amplified sound during the pandemic. that

was a free permit. but as the that permit sunsets, along with the sunsetting of the pandemic, shared spaces program, businesses that want to continue offering outdoor entertainment amplified sound will need to either apply for a brick and mortar entertainment permit for the first time or amend an existing permit in order to include that outdoor area that they never contemplated having entertainment or amplified sound . this ordinance would enable waiving of the application fees for those new permits or amended permits and for people getting a permit for the first time. those new permits. it would also waive their initial license fees. a second set of fee waivers enabled by the legislation would be around businesses that are newly able to apply for entertainment permits due to changes in zoning. so there are parts of the city where nighttime entertainment has been historically be prohibited. most recently, there was great legislation in the south of market along folsom street that

supervisor dorsey led that enables businesses, including the stud now and certainly others as well, to establish new entertainment operations on folsom street. this legislation would enable those businesses, especially businesses that have been operating along those corridors and haven't been able to apply for an entertainment permit. they don't apply. they don't qualify for first year free because they've been around for a few years. but this is new business activity they want to do, thanks to the zoning changes, we want to waive those permit application and initial license fees to again, help them expand their offerings and hire more local performers for finally on on this slide. and this legislation would ensure all the entertainment commission to issue limited live performance permits to a slightly broader geography. we want to remove. there's language in code that limited live performance permits can include outdoor outdoor areas that are surrounded by enclosed buildings. we want to take out, surrounded by enclosed buildings to ensure the broadest possible

set of outdoor areas can get limited. live performance permits. again, acts activity that is live performance, live entertainment ancillary to some other business activity. we're proposing to streamline a number of referrals and hearing requirements that are currently part of different entertainment commission processes under current practice, the entertainment commission refers their place of entertainment permit applications to the department of building inspection. we want to carve out a narrow exemption where a business has been in operation with an entertainment permit within the past year by by narrowing. when those referrals happen, we would save businesses time and money to pick up existing venues and under new ownership. so again, reducing those barriers there. similarly for the fixed place amplified outdoor amplified sound permit, that permit has under code been required to be referred to the department of public health. we want to remove that referral as

well. again, just finding ways to save time, save money businesses would otherwise have to pay for these referrals to these departments. so just finding ways to streamline the process finally, for or additionally for a business looking for a billiard parlor permit currently those permits are required to go to entertainment commission hearing . we've talked with staff and the determinations that that's that's not necessary to have every billiard parlor go to a commission hearing. instead we want to remove that mandatory hearing requirement. if there are if there is a history of incidents at a business, it can be made to go to commission hearing. but but removing that mandatory hearing again saves time for businesses looking to install pool tables. and then finally, there is some some outdated and unnecessary tree operating standards around arcades that date back several decades. we want to clean that out of the code and i'll hand it back over to maggie. thank you. he's a very tall man. yeah all

right. so on this next slide, these are the final improvements that we want to let you know about. so one is removing the requirement that permit applicants provide detailed criminal history information. and i want to let you all just know that collecting this information at the entertainment commission doesn't really make sense anymore. it's unnecessary . we we're trying to modernize our practice forces, the police department already is able to conduct background checks when necessary on applicants ice. and this actually protects applicants privacy much more than we would be able to as a civilian agency. so we're very supportive of removing this from our application process and it aligns with what the city has been doing, which is moving away from collecting criminal history information as a more general practice. so beyond that, we're also removing outdated language around masked ball permits. this is another example of something

that was in police code. many decades ago. i can't even give you an example of a masked ball that we wouldn't be able to permit with one of our one time event permits. so that's why we're getting rid of that option. we've been kind of downsizing on our permit options slowly over the past several years and making sure that folks can apply with one that makes sense. we're also going to be requiring potentially certain applicants of our accessory use limited live performance permit to submit a security plan as a part of their application in and this came up this past year. there was a business in the mission who is a bookstore and we want to support what they're doing. but they were hosting events with several, several people, probably 100, where there capacity was at 50. they were spilling out into the street and a violent incident occurred. so we wanted to make sure that from the get go we can ensure that we're collecting

information about a security plan and then making sure that that business complies with that security plan, whereas if we weren't able to do that before and then finally, we're establish doing that permit applications refiled after a year of inactivity by the applicant must be a accompanied with a new application fee. and i don't want anyone to think that's burdensome on a lot of folks. it's very rare that that would happen. but we need to ensure that for cost recovery purposes, as we go into a next fiscal year, we need to account for the work that our staff does. so that should be it should let ben and i know if you have any questions. thank you so much. um, yeah. does anybody have any questions up here? oh one other thing i do want to add that wasn't addressed actually in second to last slide around removing requirements for department of building inspection and public health is

that we have reached out to both of those departments and they're on board with these reforms. yeah. uh oh. commissioner ortiz, cartagena. i just want to say thank you both for the presentation and when you were showing us the post slide, you know, when the deferrals to other department, not only the fee, but the time. um, yeah, you know, the time is, is just crazy and you're paying lease and all that. so just want to commend comments and stuff and sometimes in san francisco that's rare. so thank you. yeah maggie thank you so much and ben thank you very much for going through so much. i'm sure you you went through a lot of code to find these little nooks and crannies. yeah. um, i guess one question i have is, is this like, do you feel like this kind of got most everything that would kind of, like, be an impediment? or do you feel like there might be like a second

phase or other opportunities for there to be some streamlining ahead? there's always opportunities because i think a huge part of what ben and i do is technical assistance with our small businesses. and so any time we're hearing of a snag or folks are running into issues, we may then need a look back at code and figure out what we can prioritize reforming at this time. there is one piece that ben and i are potentially going to try to add in. it's not relative to small business. we weren't planning on bringing it up tonight because it's not drafted yet. but i will just mention to you all that it's around schools. schools have been coming to us trying to figure out if they need permits for us on an ongoing basis and we want to exempt them from having to get brick and mortar permits and only have them come to us for one time. event permit applications for things like entertainment activations and carnivals and things where they might actually be doing something outside of school activities rather than permitting them for, say, a

football game or recess. we don't want to have our hands in that. and so that's the only other reform that i can think of at this time that's not included that we hope to include in this piece of legislation. that's super helpful. i'm glad you shared that with us, because, i mean, even though we're all, you know, small business owners, we are also all resident and community members. so i think having a more streamlined process for everybody is great. um, commissioner or vice president, business. um, thank you so much. thank you. director and ben for coming to us. we always love to hear from you and collaborate between our commissions and offices. um, yeah, i guess my question is, is kind of for us, since this is something that came out of a commission and an office that deals with business constituents and is now policy and code change and for our our purposes as as a small business commission who we've had

similar, you know, duplicative code where it lives in police code and public health code. and, you know, streamlining has always been something we've we've been hoping to try to push beyond, um, you know, our intake and making to policy. so can you maybe give us like a play by play of how it came from you know, you know, hearing from your, your constituents to your commission discussion discussing it to a code change, because that would be so interesting for us to know. sure. yeah. i would say just over the past several years, we have been wanting to do reform. um, and during the pandemic we had to prioritize pandemic response. and i know i was presenting to you all at that point around how we shifted gears and we're doing community education and response work in the small business community where we're educating folks about having to be closed or if they could remain open within what parameters from the health perspective of within the health order. so we didn't have a whole

lot of time to work around policy. fauci and since we've come back from the pandemic, we've really been hearing a little bit of a cry for help from our community. and that has been borne out of us hosting these annual summits where we invite and bring all of our community together and hear from them. and so it's through that kind of feedback process, as well as our annual survey that we've been getting, that kind of idea work going on. and then also within the commission itself, we have an executive committee that meets offline and discusses some of our priorities . and we also have a committee that's focused on policy reform . and so a couple of our commissioners have been really interested in some of these specific reforms. and they also do just come up organically at our commission meetings. yeah, yeah. and just to add, you know, as maggie had mentioned at the beginning, that this legislation should not be viewed in a silo, that the work that that that the

office of small business is leading on the permit streamlining zoning reform legislation has a lot of great and important nightlife and entertainment focus. so there is there is definitely a complementary collaborative, inter-departmental approach here and really appreciate all the work of director tang and the team to move that forward as well. thank you, commissioner. commissioner ortiz, gardenia, director, you triggered like a question with the school district stuff because i do a lot of work outside of my small business hat, so if the district, if a school is throwing an actual event, do they have to technically come get a permit? yes. if they were to be hosting entertainment activity on the property, that could potentially be a nuisance, right? or garner sound complaints. and so some example is are like saint philip's hosts an annual carnival type event where they're doing entertainment and amplified sound. they always come and get

a one time event permit from us. what i don't want to be doing is regulating saint ignatius for their football games. got it? yeah. okay so that answers the question. somebody has to get a permit then and thank you and your team also take the time. i work a lot with ben and one of the few agencies that actually helps and understands business. so we appreciate y'all a lot. we love you guys. well, thank you very much. we still have to take public comment. is there any public comment? oh, go ahead. any public comment in the room? um, on the on the line there is none on the line. great hearing. no further callers. public comment is closed and would someone like to make a motion? this is an action item and the motion would be to support the i'll make a motion to support

all second motion to recommend this legislation with support by commissioner dickerson. so seconded by commissioner ortiz, cartagena commissioner carter is absent. commissioner dickerson yes. yes. commissioner gregory is absent. commissioner harbor is absent. president huey yes. commissioner ortiz. cartagena yes. and vice president sousanis yes. motion passes. thank you so much. thank you. um, next item, please. item three presentation on housing element rezoning. this is a discussion item. um, the commission will learn about the housing element zoning program, which is part of the housing for all initiative and aims to expand housing affordable and availability by allowing for increased density throughout the city, especially along transit and commercial corridors. this presentation will focus on potential impacts to small businesses and discuss outreach opportunities to engage merchants throughout the

planning process. process presenting today we have lisa chen and joshua sawicki with the san francisco planning department. their slides. uh, no, i think i'm good. okay okay. good evening, commissioners. i'm lisa chen, a principal planner with the planning department. and i'll be providing an informational overview of expanding housing choice, which was noted is our city's plan to add housing throughout san francisco neighborhoods to make sure that we're addressing our affordable housing crisis. so i am joined by my colleagues. i believe josh witzke is on the line. he couldn't be here in person because he's sick right now. and then we also have annie yellen from our office, who's our public relations manager, who's been supporting our outreach events. and we're really excited to be here tonight to hear your thoughts on how we can support small businesses even as we grow our neighborhoods with housing. so today i'll be providing some context on why this work is needed and what we're working towards, followed by an overview

of the project and finally a summary of our outreach efforts and opportunities to get involved and. um, and this should be no news to this commission, but this work is really stemming from our affordable housing crisis, which really impacts all of us, even those of us who are fortunate enough to live in stable housing . so these are real quotes that we received during various community planning efforts reflecting the types of people who are especially vulnerable when there's a lack of adequate and affordable housing. we've used stock images to protect people's identities, but the comments are real. so we've heard from seniors who are worried about housing costs and whether or not they can make it up their stairs as they get older. families who can't find enough space as they grow. so people with disabilities who have difficulties finding appropriate housing as well as the services that they need, young adults who are finding it nearly impossible to stay and build their lives and careers here. middle income residents who are leaving the city in ever

greater numbers and relatedly, local workers, teachers, bus drivers, retail and restaurant workers, nonprofit employees and others who help run the city and who deserve the chance to live here as well. in san francisco. and statewide housing costs have skyrocketed in recent decades, since we have not built enough housing to meet our needs. in san francisco, specifically, home prices have doubled in the past decade and tripled over the past 20 years. in order to slow and reverse this trend, we need to add more housing across the state, but particularly multi unit homes like apartments, townhomes and accessory dwelling units, which all tend to be more affordable than single family homes. so, for example, the current median price of a condo in a multi unit building is about one third less than the price of a single family home. and just to bring this down to a neighborhood level, here's an example from the outer sunset.

so in the sunset, 40% of renters are rent burdened, which means they pay more than one third of their income on housing costs. and this means that they could be just one life event away from housing instability due to losing a job, a health crisis or other reasons. the sunset also has a scarcity of affordable housing. the neighborhood has only 45 subsidized affordable housing units and over 4000 people who've submitted applications, which is more than 90 people per unit. and while these trends are pronounced in san francisco, the housing crisis is felt across the state . so last year, in response, lawmakers adopted the california statewide housing plan, which requires cities to add 2.5 million new housing units in the next decade, including 1 million units affordable to lower income residents. of this amount, san francisco's share is 82,000 units. and of course, the city does not build housing itself. so we are responsible for making space for this new housing by

changing our zoning rules to allow more housing to be built and by removing process constraints to get housing built faster and more cheaply. so in response to the state mandate, san francisco unanimously adopted our housing element early this year following a three year outreach process and some of you may have been involved in that process. so the housing element is our state mandated plan for protecting tenants, preserving affordable housing and producing new housing to meet our needs. the housing element is a comprehensive plan with over 350 actions that the city will work on over the next decade. many of these actions are clustered into these four areas, which are also outlined in the mayor's executive directive on housing for all in addition to the rezoning, we are also focused on identifying affordable housing funding and strategies through collaboration with private, nonprofit and philanthropic partners, activating community priorities, which is about collaborating with equity

communities and housing production and process improvements, which will simplify the way we approve housing to reduce costs. the mayor and board are actively working on various pieces of legislation to address these areas that are being heard at the board and the planning commission over the next month. today, of course, we're delving deeper into the rezoning program, which is expanding housing choice, as i think many people are surprised to learn that until the middle of the 20th century, it was possible to build a greater diversity of housing types throughout the city, including apartment buildings like this one. next to the painted ladies. over the last 20th century or over the 20th century, lawmakers started changing zoning rules to exclude these housing types, often due to overt racial and economic discrimination. this trend culminated in 1978, when many neighborhoods were down zoned to allow only single family homes and lower density buildings, making new apartment buildings illegal in much of the city.

more recently, zoning rules have been changed in the southeastern neighborhoods, closer to downtown, resulting in new housing being built as shown in the map on the left. in contrast, the map on the right shows housing opportunity areas, which are designated by the state as areas that have good access to economic opportunities , good schools and low level of pollution. in over the past two decades, only 10% of new market rate housing and a similar amount of affordable housing have been built in these housing opportunity areas. even though they comprise more than half of the city's land under state law, we are now required to make a paradigm shift. the state is requiring us to actively work to undo these patterns of segregation, and our project will do this by planning for more than 36, 32,000 or 36,000 homes in these neighborhoods as most of this new housing will be in the range of 65 to 85ft tall, which is roughly 6 to 8 stories. these changes are focused along transit routes, neighborhood

commercial streets and other key sites that are shown in orange on this map. because as these areas show, the most promise to result in new housing actually being produced in the areas surrounding these streets, people will be able to build four plexes and six plexes under current laws under the mayor's housing for all plan, the planning department is committed to developing a final zoning proposal for by january of next year for consideration and adoption by policymakers soon after. i just want to note that we will continue to see plenty of homes built outside of these areas, even though this project is really focused on these rezoned areas. as i already mentioned, our zoning rules in the southern and eastern parts of the city were already changed to allow mid-rise and high rise housing, and we still expect tens of thousands of additional homes to be built in these areas . so this project is really trying to make sure that we can build housing in more areas and specifically in these areas that traditionally excluded new housing. and you may be

wondering what would happen if we fail to adopt the rezoning. so for the first time, cities and counties are subject to strict enforcement measures by the state. if we don't act in good faith to implement the housing element, this means that san francisco could face numerous penalties, such as losing access to critical state funding, making us subject to state to fines and litigation, and also potentially losing control over local control over permitting, which means that the state could step in and approve any housing projects that meet basic safety standards. so now transitioning to the maps, you may have seen some of these maps. if you were participating in any of our outreach this summer. so over the summer, the planning department released two zoning concept maps that showed slightly different ways that we can add housing to meet our housing needs and state requirements. so even though we're sure you're going to see two maps, we also just want to emphasize that we're not just making a choice between map one and map two. they're really meant to elicit feedback and

show different trade offs that we will. and so we will be taking feedback and incorporating that in a draft map later this fall. so zoning concept one is shown here with proposed heights shown in orange and red. so it spreads new housing more widely across the neighborhoods. so the heights are slightly lower than in zoning map two. so in dark blue there is a buffer or a band that's surrounding those orange and red corridors and in these areas we're basically keeping the same height limits which are usually 40ft tall in most neighborhoods. but we're changing the rules that it basically currently limit the number of units that you can have on those sites in the areas , other areas shown in lighter blue parcels would be eligible to build four plexes and six plexes zoning concept two shown here is focus on the same major streets but has slightly higher heights. so for example, some corridors that are 65ft in the other map are 85ft. here and

because the growth is concentrated on the streets, there is no buffer in the surrounding neighborhoods. and just to make this feel a little bit more real, we like to show images of mid-rise housing from throughout san francisco, including examples of old and new architecture. and i think you'll find that in many of these neighborhoods, people may not even notice that there are some taller buildings that are already part of our neighborhood fabric. and just in terms of the changes that we expect to see, we know that many people, and particularly many businesses in these neighborhoods, may be anxious to see change in their community. small businesses, as we've already heard, are already facing so many pressures right now dealing with escalating costs. employer retention and the tumultuous changes wrought by the pandemic. so we really do want to emphasize that this rezoning is meant to result in incremental changes to

neighborhoods. housing construction will be scattered on hundreds of sites throughout san francisco over many years. so this is fundamentally different from larger scale infrastructure projects that may disrupt commercial corridors for months or years at a time, further adding new housing can bring many benefits to communities and small businesses. hayes valley, shown here is one example of that. so adding more housing and specifically diverse and affordable housing can help stabilize communities. it can create economic benefits by generating more foot traffic and demand for local businesses. and it can expand our tax base building housing in san francisco also offers many environmental and climate businesses benefits, especially compared to building on the far fringes of the bay area in the suburbs. housing built here will be more energy and water efficient and will allow people to commute shorter distances and use more sustainable modes of travel like walking and taking transit. even so, we fully recognize that small businesses will be impacted by housing

construction. and so we also want to make sure that we are doing everything we can both to stabilize and enhance our local economy. so some policy ideas include zoning incentives so that new buildings include spaces for desired uses, like small businesses, cultural uses and community services. we're also thinking about creating requirements and resources to support businesses that need to be relocate covid or that are otherwise impacted by housing construction. we also want to make sure that we're connecting with developers of new buildings so that we can connect them with businesses and services that can enhance these neighborhoods, which could include working with existing organizations like the cultural districts. so we would really love to hear more of your thoughts on how these changes may impact businesses and other ideas. you have to support them during this transition in switching gears, we wanted to close with an overview of our community engagement opportunities. so this slide shows our outreach timeline. we're planning two phases of

community engagement this summer and fall before our policy adoption process starts next winter is our outreach includes both in-person and online events such as open houses, webinars, surveys and focus groups. to date, we've had a diverse range of events, so our open houses have been the most widely attended, reaching about 200 community members. our team also conducted a series of field visits earlier in the year, walking along the corridors and meeting with supervisors, offices and nonprofits. we've also had about a dozen community conversations, which are one on one presentations with community groups. and finally, we've been excited to partner with macd and self-help for the elderly on community education workshops meant to provide capacity, capacity building and information about housing for d four and d one residents as that process will ultimately include 40 workshops, of which 30 have been completed. so here are some images from the recent open houses. on june 22nd at the lgbt center in july 11th at golden gate park, we really wanted to

make sure the events were accessible, so we provided childcare and food. we translated our materials and we had live interpreters in cantonese, spanish and russian. we also worked with nonprofit partners and supervisors offices to publicize the events and all of the content from these open houses is on our website and we just wanted to pull some themes from the feedback so far. so notably, there was a strong recognition of our affordable housing needs and a desire to protect vulnerable tenants and businesses and not surprisingly, when it comes to the actual zoning changes, there was a mixed receptivity. so some attendees wanted to add more housing, including in different areas and at higher heights. others really expressed concern about changing the low density character of the neighborhood. and then we heard, you know, a range of responses in between. finally, we also received feedback that reinforced our need to improve our housing approval process and comments about infrastructure and services as we add new housing

for. finally, we also heard about the existing community and cultural assets in these neighborhoods that people cherish and want to see enhanced . and so throughout the rest of phase one, we're continuing to solicit feedback on the two zoning maps. so we have an online survey right now that's live through october 1st and a webinar this thursday, both of which are linked in the presentation in phase two later this fall, we will be releasing another draft zoning scenario informed by community feedback and we'll have other events, including additional open houses, in november. here's some other ways to get involved. so notably for this group, we are planning focus groups that are co facilitated with community based organizations that are meant to get feedback from harder to reach groups. so this will include two focus groups specifically targeting small business owners in english and chinese. so we would love your recommendations on how we could recruit small businesses as well as potential partners to co facilitate these groups. we'll

also have other ways for existing groups to engage. so in october we'll be hosting office hours where people can meet with us one on one to discuss the rezoning, as well as more community conversations where we'll come to existing meetings and provide a presentation. so all of this again is on our website. you can also email us at the email address listed here and sign up online for our email list for updates. so just in closing, we know it's difficult to see changes happen in our neighborhoods that we know and love, but we also know that the city has reinvented itself. time and again in response to crisis . so this project really does represent a generational investment in making our city more equitable and accessible to everyone. and so we really want to work with our small business community to make this happen and welcome more people to our neighborhoods with that. thank you so much. and we're looking forward to your questions and feedback. thank you very much for the presentation. it's it had a lot of good visuals in it to help us take, um, consider

this as, um, commissioners. any comments? commissioner ortiz cartagena thank you both for the presentation of your time. i also serve on the equity council for planning, so i know the, the hard work and the, the real outreach that the intentional outreach in community for this. and i know, i know there is this is very, very delicate and you can't make everybody happy. but i guess, you know, that's kind of what compromise is in a city. i have a couple questions regarding pertaining to small business is what are you envision for like an impact budget like for displaced businesses or whatever may occur? have have we discussed that at all? yeah, that's an excellent question. so as you can imagine, with a plan of this magnitude, we are working through a lot of the technical details. so specifically on relocation and kind of just

mitigating impacts more broadly for the relocation aspect, we're actually looking to the state law as a as a precedent. so you may have heard of a piece of recent legislation called ab 2011, which is basically another statewide zoning change that is meant to allow more housing on commercial corridors. so as part of that state legislature session, there is a relocation requirement for businesses that are being displaced and the property owner or the developer is meant to pay a certain amount of kind of relocation fund to the to that business, depending on how long they've been there and their tenure. so we're looking to that as an example and hoping we can model something different. so it wouldn't be a specific budget amount, but it would be on basically on the developer was sheet to, to basically include that in their project plan if you can also because it's not necessarily just like a fiscal amount but on this on this relocate option you have to like

understand especially culturally competent businesses and corridors. they might not just come back. so i know it's tricky, right? and but i just want like, if we're all cognizant of that can be an issue, especially around our cultural districts and also a free one that doesn't cost anything. intra department communication. it sucks, right? so like that is something we could control and we've always had issues. sfmta department of public works like they operate in silos and they have no, you know, i don't know. i don't want to get into it right now, but you know what i'm saying right. and i think that's something that we're empowered. yeah, absolutely. and if i could just comment on that. you know, we have been working very closely with the small business commission, with so that they're aware of this as well. and just something that we heard, you know, is that in some cases we already have programs and services that can support these businesses. but sometimes small businesses don't get in touch with the city because they just haven't heard about the programs or they only get in touch when

it's too late. and, you know, the businesses are ready to close already ready to close. so definitely communication is an issue and also, you i also wanted to mention that we're looking into support for in addition to relocation to mitigate the impacts of construction. so i know that supervisor melgar has asked for the city to look into creating some sort of construction interruption fund or something like that that could potentially support businesses even if they're not being directly displaced. yes, that's that's that's perfect. that's those are the things. and lastly, um, we're here to assist with outreach. you know, cbos, i would love for you guys to come present maybe at the latino task force. we have a small business, um, division. so that, that will knock out all the cbos in the latino cultural district and the mission greater outer mission. but, um, thank you. and i know it's delicate. i know i've done work around ab 2011 and it's a real sensitive topic, but it's a

problem we have to address as a city. so i appreciate your time and efforts. thank you. oh one last thing. one last thing. just curious. adus. so i know that the four and six right corners, i understand the concept, but if i build a adu, i could build a four plex. that's just more of a yeah. yeah. i mean, so i'm not the expert on this part of our zoning code, but there's basically different pathways now. so there and the legislation is changing constantly. i think actually the family friendly sud was passed its second read at the board this week or last week. so yeah it you know, it kind of started incrementally where at first we were able to build adus and then the state eventually allowed that for us to start building fourplexes and then now the city has taken it even further by allowing even more housing to be built. and we actually will be looking at through our program, particularly in those buffer areas in the map, whether some of these sites may support even

more housing, you know, kind of in the 5 to 9 unit project range, but that we need to do more analysis on that. yeah vice president zunes, thank you, president huey, thank you so much for this presentation. um and you know, understanding how much the intersections of small business and housing are important question on the focus groups and is the department going to be putting out rfps for conveners? is that what you meant? okay. so seeking partners. yeah and actually that work has already started. so we have you know, especially through some of our work already on d one and d four, we've kind of so we did put out kind of a call to nonprofits and we actually have started recruiting specific nonprofits to meet different demographics. so, you know, we have a group that's focused on on families, a group

that's focused on youth. et cetera. but there are some gaps in there. and definitely small businesses is one of those gaps . that's it's good to know because most of the time small businesses are asked to do this work and even their associations without without it being a formalized relation township and stipend. yes. so this is definitely something that i think we should. however we can help get it on the radar of merchant organizations that are, you know, able to partner with the city in a vendor way to look out for this type of opportune city. so thank you for putting that on our radar. um what will the rfp be called just so we can kind of like look for it? so it's not actually just to use the technical word, it's not like it's not actually an rfp. it's so what it is, is we have a community engagement contractor who is basically working directly with nonprofit fits. and so we end up signing an mou with those nonprofits to co

facilitate these groups and both the nonprofit that's helping to co facilitate the focus group and then all the attendees are compensated. okay. very, very cool. so the community engagement contractor is who kind of is the point of contact for this if a if an organization thinks they would be a good partner? yeah, well, they can actually also just get in touch with our team and we can coordinate with our contractor as well. that's very cool. okay um, and yeah, thank you for asking those questions, commissioner, about mitigation funds, because we've seen how important it is to make sure when you build housing, there's , there's businesses still there to support it. i had a question also on on are there special zoning requirements for different types of housing like nonprofit housing or. yeah

something like that. yeah yeah, absolutely. so, you know, i think the way that we see this a lot play out a lot of times is just in the processes that our projects have to go through. so in recent years, there's been more efforts to basically streamline the approval process for 100% affordable housing. and so part of this project is trying to kind of expand some of those process improvements to all housing because we do have a housing affordability crisis. um, and then in terms of like the specific design of the housing, you know, the, the housing projects themselves, they do adhere to current code, but then it also depends on if they're using any state programs. there's different programs that can allow things basically like a bonus program for providing affordable housing . so there may be, you know, ways there may be more

flexibility through things like waivers and concessions. as you know, if a project needs to be designed in a certain way to support that affordable housing thing. okay um, and kind of paired with that question, is there state land or, you know, state partners that are hands on with with this with you all? that's a great question. yeah. the you know, i think something that we really through this housing element we you know what it revealed is that we really do need to work closely with the state and especially to identify additional resources to build affordable housing. so we do work closely with the state. they they certified our housing element. we worked with them as we were developing the housing element and all of the policies. and we are hoping to work with them more closely during implementation. but i think some of it really does require advocacy. you know, like we need more funding for affordable housing at the state level, for example. so it's kind of there's

the relationship is, you know, we're working with them. they also are enforcing this and our state, our city, and they're going to be monitoring how well we're doing at meeting these targets. they're just not giving up any any parcels, huh? when it comes to actually to state land? that's a good question. you know, i don't know that we've specifically analyzed any state parcels in these areas. we have been documenting city parcels, but i don't know offhand of any state parcels. okay. so city parcels and private, like that's all going to be part of this rezoning. okay. and this question might be a little out of the topic of this agenda, so feel free to refer me to somebody else to answer this, but you know, as we're talking in the equity lens and, you know, we have the reparations commission right next door going on right now. and i know housing for certain demographic communities that maybe don't already have like a housing kind

of authority or like cdc or dc that serve specific demographics. like are there any new kind of pseudo public housing authorities or nonprofit housing that are geared towards the large demographic of our homelessness population, whether that be like youth or, you know, other, you know, demographics that need to have a specific and intentional plan for housing. is are there any like partners like that that are new coming on with this or. yeah, just an observation. over my past many years working at the planning department, it seems like there is kind of just new innovations in the housing field all the time. so for example, you know, for many years there was this discussion about how we need a regional entity to really tackle our housing needs and in recent years we actually created that regional entity called the bay area housing. i don't remember the exact acronym, but that's basically they're starting to raise money at a regional level for housing. so i think we have

and we will continue to see all sorts of innovations. i think at this neighborhood level that is a really great question because , you know, we're hoping to see a lot more affordable housing built in these same west side communities that haven't built affordable housing. and so there's questions of who will be building that housing because the city doesn't actually build affordable housing. currently we work with nonprofit partners. so i think there's definitely an opportunity for expansion into these neighborhoods. okay. yeah. and i think just i'm getting at kind of the question of we have a small number of nonprofit developers in the city and they they seem to be getting the majority of, of contracts with with city and stuff. and there's some stalemates in that existing relationship and the existing projects and you know, like nonprofit housing authorities and really, you know, they're they're buying up land. they're producing. but the housing is

not changing, you know, so i guess i'm trying to get at like, is the city. yeah. like encouraging new to new partners in the development realm to kind of help us speed up that process is really what i was trying to understand. yeah. point well taken. i would also mention there was a parallel process, so if you recall when i was talking about the housing element and talking about the mayor's housing for all plan, there was a slide with kind of four buckets that were working on. so there is one area of work that's specifically around affordable housing production and financing and so this the city has convened what's called a affordable housing leadership council, where it's bringing together all of these partners. so the housing producers, the funders, the philanthropic partners, the market rate partners to really tackle this question of how are we actually going to get this housing built? what's what are the resources we needed? what sort of innovations

or policy changes do we need to get the housing built? and so they've been meeting in earnest for the last several months and at the same time that we're going to be finishing our zoning proposal in january, they're also going to be issuing some of their findings. oh, that's so interesting. we'd love to keep up with you on that. so thanks for following my line of questioning. appreciate it. yeah, that's that's interesting. i mean, following up with that, like, i wonder how i don't know. you know, i, i think right now we are focused so much on the affordable housing and creating more housing in general. obviously this is what your presentation is about. but like is there opportunity to kind of think also more holistically about like where child care and like other types of like life supportive, kind of like service is, are, are going to have room like in these communities his

like in terms of like building the housing but also within like building a community around that absolutely i thank you for bringing this question up. it's something that we have really wanted to explore more deeply. so yeah, kind of traditionally when we do these rezoning plans , often we have a lot more time and they are much more kind of geographic based, like in a single neighborhood, right? or a set of neighborhoods with this rezoning, it is such a broad scale. so we are trying to do what we can to kind of look at the neighborhoods more holistically. but i think what what your comment speaks to is, you know, we really do want to hear from people about, you know, in their neighborhoods, what are some of the needs that they see. so not just small businesses, but, you know, some of these other community serving uses. and then when we hear that feedback, we can try to account for it to the best we can through the rezoning by, you know, providing incentives where we can or at least connecting with other agencies who can kind

of make those connections when new buildings come online. yeah. and i also just notice that we're leveraging other work that's happened so specifically in the sunset, there was this planning process called sunset forward that did a deep needs assessment of different community needs, including not just housing, but also community services like education and health care. et cetera. so, you know, we're not totally starting from scratch in all of our neighborhoods, but, you know, it is kind of an ongoing desire that we have to kind of hear what people's priorities are. yeah. i mean, i feel like it's important to kind of like it's almost like you have to build it all. i mean, you definitely have to build everything all at one time. but it's just it once things get a little bit out of balance, it's kind of like when we start to feel, um, you know, problems, i guess. like when there isn't enough childcare or when there isn't enough education, you know, educational

environments available. so i had a couple of questions. how how will this work in terms of like , i think some of the challenges that i've noticed small businesses are having right now are with with properties being owned by many, many people in like a single family or you know, different different ownership structures that make it very difficult for changes and things like that to be made . um, and then and then sometimes like, you know, sales of properties that to like large development groups just because that's what the whole family now has decided they're going to do. so there are all these different kind of like changes that ultimately affect the small businesses and the residents who live in these buildings. how do we prevent or is it a worthwhile

, i guess, kind of effort to prevent a lot of the housing and the buildings stock that we have currently that's owned by smaller property owners and perhaps local property owners from selling their properties outright to large development companies that are no longer that are not connected to our communities. because i feel like a lot of the small businesses that i see surviving are because they have this close relationship with the landlord who actually cares a lot about what happens to their building, what happens in their community . and they actually, you know, some of the best relationship apps are really not profit driven. they're really because they want san francisco to be san francisco. so like i guess my concern is that that given the change in property tax and estate tax kind of laws and

things like that, you know, we're a city that's threatened by by by a lot of people, not being able to afford to build or sustain housing here, not necessarily because of the initial cost of housing, but the cost to maintain housing and to pay for property taxes and things like that. so opening up the zoning and opening up the ability to build, how do those two things work together to be able to preserve what we have in san francisco? um, yeah, it's, it's challenging. it's a bit of a catch 22 because we need new housing, but we also in san francisco, we don't have a lot of vacant land. there's not a lot of places. i mean there are bigger sites like stonestown and elsewhere where we're planning for many housing units. but in the areas that we're talking about today, you know, it maybe is smaller parcels that may or may not already have of existing uses on them. um, so yeah, i think just something we do want

to emphasize is that we don't think that this change will happen overnight. it really will be incremental. and in some of these situations where maybe the ownership structure is a little bit more complex, maybe those properties are less likely to turn over because it's hard to get ten family members to agree to sell. you know, it's so it will be a little uneven, right. and it's going to be over many years that these changes are happening. um, so, so yeah, i think the way that we kind of get to some of your concerns, however, is that we really think about what protections do we need in place and what are the mitigations that we need to protect either small businesses or residents. right? we already have pretty strong kind of tenant protections on the books . that doesn't mean that they're we can't work on enforcement and other ways of improving those processes. but those laws are there. and i think we need to think similarly for the small businesses that are there. how can we really protect them and help them, you know, if they need if we need to figure out how they transition into a new site or, you know, get located

in in a new site in the existing neighborhood or nearby neighborhood, how can we help them? i mean, oddly enough, i think i'm kind of asking for protections or support for small property owners or like, you know, local property owners who actually are small business owners themselves, too. right. so i think like looking at it not so much just just about like being able to support the small businesses that are maybe on the ground floor or or within the structure, but the entity that owns it i think is actually important to have that distinct, you know, distinct between a large development company versus a smaller, you know, a smaller mom and pop who owns maybe 2 or 3 buildings in the city. that's very different. right. and i think, um, you know, i think best case scenario is that,

yeah, it moves slowly. maybe that change moves slowly. like i was walking through the outer sunset yesterday just trying to get some exercise and i think i knew that this meeting was going to be coming up and, and knowing that you know, the city is going to change and like i'm i'm okay with that. i know we're all going to change. and so, you know, i'm just going to plug real quick that everybody should go out to the outer sunset and to the richmond and to all these places that are amazing communities right now and just spend time out there and enjoy it. you know, because the city is going to change. i mean, but i do worry that with like the polarization of our economy right now, there are going to be many people who are going to take advantage of this opportunity to be able to build up. and i don't know if it's necessarily going to be as slow as we kind of like think it will be because there are some people with a lot of resources right

now. and then there are some people who really do not. and so i think my concern is that we can't just keep looking at like , okay, well, we have the like all the things that you named, like the tenants who were fighting for the small businesses that were fighting for. we have to kind of look at that middle layer of people who are intentionally here, who own properties here and who care still about the preservation of san francisco culture. so you know, i yeah, yeah. i think that that would be one of my concerns. and then secondly, i know one of our commissioners is not here tonight, but thinking about how with this increase in construction that's bound to happen, you know, hopefully be prioritizing, using san francisco resources and being able to be, you know, knowing that these things are going to be happening. like how do we

build the infrastructure so that when things don't get held up in building, right, like things don't get held up in the permitting process, things don't get held up in all these other places as as zoning starts to open up and then and then also that we prioritize san francisco businesses and san francisco families. absolutely just in comment in response to your comment again about the small property owners, i did also want to highlight that it's part of the housing element, that we are also looking at ways of supporting kind of those smaller housing types. so, you know, at the other commissioners have noted, you know, the sites where we can build duplexes and now four and six plexes, you know, we're going to be looking at ways of supporting kind of we call them middle housing types. so they're not like the large project. they're not the single family home projects, but they're kind of the missing middle. and so i think there's definitely room for innovation, whether it's, you know, new companies who are coming in

where that's kind of their project type or, you know, landowners who are maybe interested in, you know, doing something with their property. so, you know, i think it's definitely unexplored territory right now. nice. um um, does anybody else have any questions? while i look through my notes? yes. um, i think those are pretty much my, my, my questions ones. i'm hoping that you know, you're you're more than welcome to come back and talk to us some more as you go through this process. and like my other commissioners have said already, i think we're happy to share our you know, share this presentation as well as like sharing the fact that you're looking for opinions and outreach right now. so thank you so much for coming in today. thank you. yeah oh, actually, you know what? we need to take public comment. is there any public comment in this room?

anybody? no, there's no public comment on the line either. all right. seeing no public comment, public comment is closed. thank you so much, lisa. next item, please. item for approval of draft meeting minutes. this is a discussion and action item the commission will discuss and possibly take action to approve the june 26, 2023, draft meeting minutes. i meant to say august. there are my apologies. um. yeah commissioners, any comment comments on the minutes? yes. vice president. i was absent, but i read them. do i vote on it? okay. okay no questions. open up for public comment. any public comment? there is none. no public comment. public comment is closed. commission dinner. anybody want to make a motion to approve the draft meeting minutes? i'll make motion to approve of the draft

meeting minutes and a second. motion by commissioner dickerson , seconded by commissioner ortiz. cartagena commissioner carter is absent. commissioner dickerson yes, commissioner gregory is absent. commissioner herbert is absent. president huey. yes. commissioner ortiz. cartagena. yes and vice president ziziunas yes. motion passes. thank you. next item. item five, general public comment. this is a discussion item allowing members of the public to comment generally on matters that are within the small business commission is jurisdiction, but not on today's calendar and suggests new agenda items for the commission's future discussion. any members of the public who would like to make comment on items not on the agenda today, i see we have one. i'm sorry, i'm a little out of breath. i just ran all the way upstairs high commissioners richard carillo with the office

of small business. i just wanted to come here today, say hello. but also i wanted to invite you to the next heritage happy hour, which is an event that the office of small business has been doing since february of this year. we partnered with heritage and we pick a different legacy business, usually a bar and we meet there and just it's the second thursday of every month from 5 to 7 p.m. and it's a lot of fun. it's just really casual and we try to give business to the different businesses. and so this month's is this thursday, september 14th, from 5 to 7 p.m. at the buena vista cafe, located at 2765 hyde street, right at where the cable car turnaround is in fisherman's wharf. so maybe we'll see you there. you can always go to. sf.gov/legacy business and we have a little section that says heritage happy hour. if you ever want to see

the event that's coming up. so hopefully we'll see you at maybe this thursday's event or maybe some future event. and looking forward to having you there. thank you. thank you. thank you so much, rick. any other public comment? there is no other public comment on the phone. seeing no public comment, public comment is closed. next item, please. item six director's report. this is a discussion item. all right. good evening, commissioners. so a couple of updates for you all tonight. as you know, we have been working on legislation regarding removal of barriers for small businesses to get through the permitting process by making over 100 changes to the planning code. and that is also related to the first item that you heard today at commission. so that legislation made it through the planning commission on last thursday, so that was good. next step is it will go to the board

of supervisors, land use committee, but we do want to be responsive to some of the comments that came out from that commission. so we're going to work on those first before calendaring the item at land use committee. secondly, i know that you are all a resource in your own communities to small business owners and i wanted to just flag a couple of things regarding some of the cities. grant programs available to small businesses. one is sf shines as a reminder that helps provide died through food support for our design services. so for example, graphic design or architectural design for plans that are required for permit applications as well as the construction program. and wanted to just flag that that program applications will be due at the end of september. so september 29th and on pause for just a little bit of time because it's a program that is very oversubscribed. and so

there are a lot of people who are on the waiting list right now. and but this program will return. so just wanted to make you aware that there is a pause and i think the program will come back even better. so, again , get those applications in by september 29th, the second one is regarding the business training grant and that program also in high demand and definitely more applications than there is funding available so that application process alds or all the applications deadlines, it was actually due i think last week. so that has closed. and so will be hard at work reviewing all of the applications for that large. lastly, last at our last meeting, you all got a presentation from the controller's office and our chief economist, ted egan had highlighted that there are some work that their office is

engaging in, along with the treasurer tax collector's office and other stakeholders regarding business tax reform and this is incredibly important that the small business community gets involved in this discussion. a lot of times people come to the city, to our office asking for grants and other resources because, you know, for a variety of reasons, whether it's a need for cash flow, it's or other business challenges. but i think that this is really a structural way that we can look holistically in our city around how we help support the small business community in general for a long period of time. and so although it may not be in the form of a grant payment, but there is a potential to maybe restructure how business taxes are in san francisco. so and so there was a stakeholder engagement process that's occurring between september and december. they had a kickoff meeting last week. um, i want to

make sure that the small business community is represented. and so i will maybe when we're having some discussions, i'd love to know who would like to be involved from this commission without having any quorum issues because we can't all of you there. so so carrie and i will reach out and just make sure that we understand who can serve as a representative from the commission and then we also want to for sure engage people outside of this commission who are from the small business community. so i look forward to speaking with you more about that. and with that, i'm happy to answer any questions. but those are all of my updates. um, i have a question real quick. some of these grants that are over subscribed, like do you do those applicants have the opportunity for their application to kind of stay like, go dormant and then come

back and like roll into the next thing and they don't have to apply again? um, it really depends on the program. it's going to be highly unlikely though, because, for example, with the business training grant, it's most likely that this particular program, which was designed for a particular other set of business owners that need more support and business training, probably not going to come back in this exact shape and size and form. so in other words, even if we were to keep applications on file, they may not meet the eligibility requirements. the application forms will look different. so most likely no. even for program like sf shines that i mentioned . and you know, again, eligibility criteria might change. it might be more expansive, it might, you know, who knows what it will be right . and so unfortunate. lee the answer is most likely no. is there any way to kind of like make like a uniform, not all the grant specifics, but like

certain uniform kind of things, like obviously name business, you know, address like those kind of things, like, um, like like some sort of like ten questions that are uniform that people need or whatever. and then that way on the small business end, like, i could save those things for me. and i know that every time i start a grant like this is going to be the uniform thing. and then i'm going to have to provide these extra pieces. but at least i can start somewhere. like i have a foundation loan to start versus like every time i have to like dig up and fill in, you know, certain things because then we can share that with our community and say like, look, you should just have these these things ready. once there's a grant, you can at least like get these things done. and then the rest of it might differ depending on the grant. but yeah, it's a great question and i think in the last year or so we've really in partnership with wd digital services, really try to improve the application process. so actually there are a

lot of questions that are asked the same. we literally copy and paste. we need your name, your phone number, your email, your business account number, your your probably your gross annual revenue. so there are actually standard questions that are copied and pasted. but we do need you to, unfortunately, to input them each time because again, each program has a different set. it might be a different team reviewing, it might be different eligibility criteria. so the other questions will be different and it might not be populated into the same workbook where all the applicant information's are tracked. however, what we do try to do is anytime there's a launch of a grant program is to make sure that there's a page step by step page that tells you ahead of time what it is that you need. so before you even begin filling out the application, it'll say, please get ready the following information and that you would know before you even start typing your application. you

should have these things ready. but yes, actually, most of the time we're asking a lot of the same, probably ten questions up front and you know, i wish there was kind of like i think you're thinking about college applications, like you submit one application, it goes to different places, as i hope this commission knows, that it prior to the pandemic, dubbed osb, was not turning out grants like this in this manner. this is a relatively new era where a lot of funding has gone into support small businesses as a result of the pandemic. but it it was not traditionally this way. and so we also want to make sure that as we are trying to infuse money into small businesses, that they're really geared with specific goals in mind. and it's not just just to give out money, it's it really needs to serve a purpose. and we want to make it valuable for you, right, for the small business community and those who need it and make sure

that it's not just a temporary solution for you. we want to make sure we're addressing any foundational challenges that businesses have. and sometimes that's not in the form of grants. unfortunately i know that's not what business owners always want to hear, but it could be that we need to provide advisement. we need to make sure you have a business plan in place, that you have an accountant and some of those matters. again we're giving or providing resources that are free of charge. but there are of value. but i know it doesn't feel great when it's not, you know, 5000, $50,000 in your pocket. it. oh sorry, commissioner ortiz cartagena. i just want to add director specifically to the business training grant. that was a real good tool at the cbo. i found it , um, we did a ton of them and it was a business plan. it was a real thorough like i know the

people, you know, the colleagues. you see sometimes that are here. they use them for other things now, like right at and we've had some businesses when they went through the process, we figured out they're they shouldn't be in business, but we did it proactively as opposed to typically reactively . so that was huge too, right? the numbers never penciled out and they're like, i just rather stay at my job and that's a win too. so downloadable. yeah, we have it. we have it. yeah but like the way you're talking, like that universe looks a little help. small businesses, that's a little bit more friendlier than a typical business plan, you know? so it's like kind of getting business owners to know themselves and being realistic. it doesn't have to be so intimidating with the math. like a pro forma. but, you know, how much are you going to pay on lease? how much are you going to pay on salary? and then

we what you said on the narrative doesn't match what you put in the numbers because if you plan on hiring ten people while you only have 500 and payroll like so, it helps for future stuff. so it's always like it's been a win. it's i know it's a new product and i just on the ground it's really good pass the money. um, is it appropriate for me to ask about the vacant vibrant program? i'm sure our office doesn't directly manage that program, but i'm happy to field any questions. and if i don't know the answer, i can check in with my colleagues at wd. oh, sure. um i was just curious during public comment on this item, if someone is in the audience and wants to speak to vacant environment, they certainly can. i'm just curious. i know that the number of applications is greatly exceeded the expectation and the supply of what was available. what are the future

opportunities for vacant to vibrant to your understanding? i my understanding is that there should be future phases of the program. um, and so they haven't even officially started this current cohort, but there will be future ones. and again, i'm sure that whoever is in the audience and wants to speak to it can come up during public comment. okay thank you so much. there is quite a lot of interest in that program. so thank you. um. oh, commissioner or vice president, business. thank you, director. um, with the business . i read the presentation from our from ted and i mean, i saw the different allusions to them needing to reform some stuff, but are there any specific things like that you, you think that business tax reform is going to include or are we having to wait to. oh, we don't know yet. and this is where i

would love for all of you to be involved in it or i mean, i wish the whole without violating quorum rules, um, for some of you to participate in those discussions is very initial. so we want to hear your ideas. yeah. okay got it. um and then is there any updates on, on i saw that like the public bank got past a certain requirement or something, so maybe not substantial enough for us. i'm not sure other than the update that this commission received. i haven't followed after that. okay. i saw some kind of announcement. i was just wondering like we'll probably find out once they get going on this next phase. but i just wanted to check, um, i think that i think that was all i had. thank you. all right. any public comment. i have a pub here.

yeah, i have a public comment. um, my name is simon bertran. i'm the executive director of sf new deal. we run vacant, vibrant in partnership with wd. and as you heard, we had 875 applications opens as of the closing. we've kept the window open and we're now up to over a thousand. i think. so the 17 grants that we're able to give out to have this first cohort out go to the financial district, there is a lot of energy and excitement from small business owners, from artists, from cultural groups to come downtown to be part of the revitalization of downtown. the first cohort is running for three months through the end of december. we're going to have two more cohorts in 2024, and then we're also working to bring in private resources in addition to the city's investment in vacant, vibrant to be able to

expand both downtown and actually to other neighborhoods in san francisco because we see a lot of interest from other neighborhoods, including some of the people on this panel advocating for on the commission , advocating for bringing. pop ups to vacant storefronts throughout the city. and we're going to see if we can bring private resources to make that happen. thank you. can i make a comment to his public comment? so thank you very much, simon i'm wondering, um, you know, there i feel like to have over a thousand amazing ideas is like such a fantastic place to be, you know, and like so much of that speaks to san francisco and how innovative our residents and our culture is here at. and i'm wondering if there's a way that people who are interested in sharing ideas like and

matchmaking, you know, like people who are who maybe have spaces in other places or, or or almost like i wouldn't expect that everybody would want to share their fantastic ideas to the public necessarily at this stage. but if there was like an opportunity to do further matchmaking that didn't require a lot of your resources besides perhaps connections and donuts or whatever it is, you know, like that would be fantastic. so great. um i think that's see, is there any public comment to the director's report besides any more public. there's none. okay, great. uh, seeing no public comment or no more public comment, public comment is closed. thank you so much. um, next item, please. item seven, commissioner. discussion. a new business. this is a discussion item. all right, commissioner ortiz, cartagena. i have three

things. one, just for the record, i know the department of public health hasn't still issue food there. mobile food or street vendor for food permit. but i just want to like put it again on record because i know in my community they've been asking. so that's one, two, i want to give a shout out to the klecha team. they did a lot of business training grants and they're off today because of that. so that's why they're not here in attendance. but i want to give them a shout out. they generated a ton of revenue for our small businesses and just a lot of hard work. so i just want to appreciate them here. and our event last friday, we had banda on 24th street, la plaza. we have lowriders. it was off the hook. we had like a free concert on the plazas. it was clean. so activate motion does work for four hours. people were happy, it was clean and it was safe. you had children, elders and everybody just dancing. so thank

you. that's it. any other commissioner reports? um, this past saturday, i, um. i was able to go to the autumn moon festival out on clement street, and that was, um, something that's grown to be like a huge. it's a huge, family friendly kind of like festival out there now. so and i think coming up there will be more. um, the season in chinatown and, and i don't know if there's any other other ones coming up but i think there's lots of activations. so i encourage everybody to go out and enjoy san francisco as much . i mean, we talk about how much we love it. i think we need to physically go out and actually love the city and enjoy being with one another. so i love that we're we have so many events.

um, commissioner or vice president setsuna's, thank you. yeah. well, while you all were naming events, i thought i would too, for sure. so there's some cool events that are happening monthly now in the tenderloin. part of i love tenderloin activation. so there was one last month and the, the merchant group that i'm part of, we participated by hosting a produce pop up in front of one of the corner stores and gave away free, free produce that we bought from the retailers. so it's our way of trying to activate the hulk, you know, ecosystem. um, and there's going to be another i love tenderloin day in october and, and i think maybe so i think it's every

other month. um let me find the dates. okay. yeah. so the new dates are going to be december first and october 27th. so october 27th and then december first for more. i love tenderloin days. um, and then then there was one more that i had. but oh yeah, there's, there's a couple small business galas coming up. there's the sfc dma gala on, on the 27th of this month, and then there's a small business ball on november 18th. so if you want to get dressed up , shout out. hosting the business, the small business ball. yo soy ceviche is one of the like vendors. it's just it's it seems like a very organic small business. um community like activation. i think maybe they got a grant to do it or

something. oh, that's pretty cool. oh, really? not from the city, but it seemed like they might have like, fundraised somehow to do, to, to do it. i, i don't think it's city sponsored. no, no. it's just, um, another event for small businesses. um. oh, one more thing. i was going to share. um, maybe rick would be interested in hearing this is i recently got to work with one of our legacy small businesses. so cut fruit collective, which is like a nonprofit out in the east bay, but they've done activations here. they have this program called the prosperity project, and they match up like a graphic designer to do like a t shirt design or a tote bag design or whatever it is for like a legacy business api legacy business. and so i got to choose, you know, chinatown kite shop for this. and albert, who owns the

kite shop, is amazing. he's he's a second generation. his father owned it. and he started running it after his retirement. and he we got him the t shirt. so we finally got to an approved design. and then we did a whole photo shoot with andrea lowe, who did the photos for this book called chinatown. pretty which is kind of like, you know, the i don't know, this contemporary, like look at at how chinese elders dress. it's a fashion it's a fashion book. and it's like the coolest thing to see that. i mean, chinatown elders are kind of like your original, like, hipsters, you know? so um, so it was just a wonderful intergenerational kind of like project. and so we just did some video and some different things with him and those t shirts will be sold and all the profits will go back to chinatown kite shop. so we'll be doing that again

with two more legacy businesses and, and yeah, so i would love to encourage, you know, again, anybody who wants to help support businesses is to actively reach out and see if anybody needs help with a website, with a logo, with even i noticed some groups were power washing windows out in chinatown as well. so actually just going out and seeing if people need help with things has been a fantastic artistic way to be engaged within your community. so um, i probably have a lot more, but that's all i'm going to that's all i'm going to give tonight. any public comment? there's none. okay. no public comment. public comment is closed. so next item. item eight, adjournment sf tv. please show the office of small business slide. we will end with

the reminder that the small business commission is the official public forum to voice your opinions and concerns about policies that affect the economic vitality of small businesses in san francisco. if you need assistance with small business matters, continue to reach out to the office of small business. meeting is adjourned.

adjourned. >> shop & dine in the 49 promotes local businesses and challenges residents to do their shop & dine in the 49 with within the 49 square miles of san francisco by supporting local services within the neighborhood we help san francisco remain unique successful and vibrant so where will you shop & dine in the 49 my name is jim woods i'm the founder of woods beer company and the proprietor of woods copy k open 2 henry adams what makes us unique is that we're reintegrated brooeg the beer and serving that cross the table people are sitting next to the xurpz drinking alongside we're having a lot of ingredient that get there's a lot to do the district of retail shop having that really close connection with the consumer allows us to

do exciting things we decided to come to treasure island because we saw it as an amazing opportunity can't be beat the views and real estate that great county starting to develop on treasure island like minded business owners with last week products and want to get on the ground floor a no-brainer for us when you you, you buying local goods made locally our supporting small business those are not created an, an sprinkle scale with all the machines and one person procreating them people are making them by hand as a result more interesting and can't get that of minor or anywhere else and san francisco a hot bed for local manufacturing in support that is what keeps your city vibrant we'll make a compelling place to live and visit i think that local business is the lifeblood

of san francisco and a vibrant community >> all right. good morning, everyone welcome to the september 12 meeting of san francisco county transportation authority board. i'm supervisor mandelman i'm chair. vice chair is melgar. i want to thank sfgovtv. that is who i'm thanking and our clerk is elijia seaneders. >> commissioner chan. >> present. >> commissioner dorsey. >> present. om