being decided at the midway.of 4,000 units being built, but also in that consideration we would be looking at where we were, as far as the alternative transit being part of what was going on on the island. the idea being that we really need to have viable alternative transit systems before we start moving into having the tolls. i don't see that reflected here. i am wondering if that was decided to leave that out or what? >> anybody else for public comment? i will respond to that when we done done. >> hello. my name is carol harvey. i'm an investigative reporter. i've been reporting on treasure island for the last six years.

treasure island, i understand you have an exemption for the residence. on an island that has one access point to toll businesses, or anyone on treasure island is unacceptable. these businesses, vendors, will not go to their businesses if they are having to pay tolls. the businesses have employees who cannot pay tolls. these businesses will not be able to get employees to work for them. the businesses should not have to pay tolls to have people work for them. this whole idea for businesses is simply unworkable, unsustainable, and it needs to be dropped completely in my humble opinion. treasure island as he have a supermarket. they need these businesses. they need them to stay there, and they need them to be

continued there. i urge you not to toll businesses. because one of my research on this, i cannot see any reason why the developer whose idea it was to redevelop the island, can't pay for these tolls? the residents won't even be able to use the infrastructure they are going to build if the toll the residence. they won't be there by the time this new infrastructure is built. thank you very much for hearing me out on this. thank you. >> any other public comment? public comment is now closed. the question raised about what exactly we are proving in terms of action whether it explicitly includes that when there is revisiting that we will look at

the public transportation infrastructure in the services? that is certainly my understanding of the language. i know some things still need to be figured out with the business rules on such. i just want to reiterate that was certainly our understanding and our expectation of what the languages that we will approve. director hyatt? >> yes, rachel hyatt. i want to confirm there are a number of points actually in the development project where we are required to evaluate, or will be required to evaluate the performance of the program. the first is set out in ab-981. that is no later than three years after the commencement of tolling. we are called to evaluate its performance overall including transit service levels. what we are achieving an report that to the california state

legislature as well. i do agree and want to confirm the midpoint evaluation will include evaluation to transit service that is being provided. >> i want to reiterate in this action we are taking today we still need to have a conversation about businesses, employees. we aren't making a decision on those things today. i appreciate the comment about our continued need to focus on that and understand the realities and the challenges, the equity issues that our businesses face. that will be a conversation we are going to have to have here in terms of a decision that is made. with that. can i have a motion on a second to approve item seven? motion by commissioner walton, seconded by commissioner brown.

can we take that same house same call? all right. will you please call the next item. >> item eight, introduction of new items. this is an information item. >> any new items? seeing then. is there any public comment on this? public comment is closed. will you please call the next item? >> item nine, general public comment. >> general public comment? >> good morning again. on november 8, 2018 i sent a letter to supervisor kim on the subject of errors and omissions of the 2016 treasure island mobility management study for the third project and copied the

supervisors and executive director. i pointed out that the study failed to mention that 53% poverty rate of treasure island residents and instead claims only one third of households although income. they use their wrong standard when they should have used hud housing a fort ability numbers based they used the federal poverty level. that's wrong standard. if you used it the right standard that would result in 80% of households being qualified as lower income. the city wrongly claimed that treasure island driver spend more on transportation than average san francisco drivers. claiming $9,000 versus $7,000 a year ignoring the fact that median san francisco households have more than twice as much income. the correct expense numbers are roughly $7,000 a year for treasure island households and $11,000 a year for san francisco households. these are numbers three years ago. this is a 2016 study.

census data show that the population is with a 53% poverty rate. the study did not cover justice for low income and minority communities which requires federal agencies to consider environmental justice in all programs, policies and activities. director chang did answer that question that the environmental justice report will be done. i look forward to seeing it, and reading it when it is available. i hope that is soon. i would just like to correct the record on the flawed study from 2016 as the basis for going forward with this congestion program. we need to go back and correct the record on that study and get the numbers right. you completely misrepresented the characteristics of this community. thank you. >> thank you. any public comment? public comment is closed.

we please call the next item? item ten adjournment. >> the meeting is adjourned. thank you. >> for joining us here today. we all know that our public transportation system in san francisco is important to our

present and it is definitely critical to the future of our city. as our city grows, as our economy grows, as we build more housing, as more people work here, we know that we can't continue to grow in those areas without thinking about improvements to our public transportation system. as someone who grew up in this city, i relied on muni, the 31, the 22 philmore, the 44, you name it, i was on those buses. the 19, i know the routes by heart. but the fact is, you know, we need to do better. we need to make sure that people, especially people who rely on muni to get to work, school, doctors appointments, so many of our seniors who can't

drive and need to pick up their medications and other things, we need to make sure that our public transportation system is reliable for all of our communities, in all parts of san francisco, especially on those communities that have consistently been neglected. it means safer streets for pedestrians and bicyclists and all of its users. we know over the years the city is a lot more congested than it has ever been, but we also know to make it a better city and to reach our climate goals, we have to leave it less congested. we have a lot of work to do and we are doing the work. in june we created a working group with city leaders and staff and industry leaders with the goal of making this better.

i am looking forward to seeing the recommendations coming out. over the past few years we have made some significant investments. we committed to doubling the pace of building more protected bike lanes. we established a quick build program to increase the delivery of low-cost units. and we expanded our focus on traffic safety. thankfully the voters gave us one more tool to improve streets with the passage of proposition v. this will allow us to invest $30 million in light rail vehicles anduses as well as street safety improvements. so the work continues and we will continue to do the work that we can to move these objectives forward as quickly as

possible. these objectives are the responsibility of the san francisco municipal transportation agency. the m.t.a. managing our streets, public transportation, other mobility options like bike shares and e-scooters, and a lot of public infrastructure projects, like the central subway and van neessb.r.t. this is a system that looks at day-to-day operations as well as looking at the future and how we make sure that the challenges that existed now don't continue to exist in the future. this requires a strong vision and strong leadership. so today i'm proud to announce that the s.f. board will be recommending -- the s.f. m.t.a. board will be recommending jeffry tumlin as the next

director of s.f. m.t.a. this is jeffry. you can clap. [ laughter ]. >> mayor breed: jeff is an international transportation expert who brings over 25 years of experience of improving transportation in cities. he was recently the interim director at the oakland department of transportation, where he laid the foundation for the agency's future success with a lens on environmental benefits and equality. i believe jeffry will do the same at s.f. m.t.a. throughout his career, he has been known for bringing a visionary perspective on transportation in cities and helping to implement innovative ideas that are desperately needed. he will be joining the city as a long-time resident of noey valley and will be the first lgbtq director in s.f.'s

history. i look forward to working with jeffry to help us deliver a great transportation system in san francisco, and i want to thank the board, including the president of the board who is here today, malcolm heinikie and gweneth borden, thank you for your leadership and coordinating the interview process and everything that you did, to make sure that we found the best person possible to do the job to make our public transportation and infrastructure and all that we need to do to improve mobility in san francisco in a safe, efficient, and environmentally friendly way to choosing that person who could do just that. ladies and gentlemen, jeffry tumlin. >> good morning. my name is jeff tumlin, and i

have been in the transportation industry for a long time, for 25 years, advising cities and transit agencies how to clarify their values and then use transportation investments to make those values manifest. i like asking questions about what is most important, what does success look like, and more importantly how would we measure whether we were actually successful or not. that's where my technical work comes into play, trying to use tools to be able to measure social equity and environmental outcomes and to align our transportation spending in order to best achieve the public good. i ended up in this industry against my better judgment. i discovered very early in my career and sort of by accident that we in transport have a bigger impact on public health outcomes than the medical industry does. we have a bigger impact on

economic development, than economic development programs do. and more importantly, we are arguably the biggest driver of opportunity. we decide how many jobs people can get to in a reasonable commute time. we determine whether children can get safely to school, which impacts their academic performance. we are fundamental drivers of economic opportunity or destroyers of economic opportunity. we have resources. if we use those resources wisely, we can correct the ways in which my industry has historically destroyed opportunity and wealth for people of color. early in my industry's history, if you wanted to build a highway

project, you got extra points for removing light. light of course being defined as african-american and latino ownership. the city and county of san francisco did not escape that dark period in our industry, and we have a key responsibility to correct for the past and to equalize opportunity for everyone. we can also do what some mobility tech companies want us to do, which is to provide more exquisite convenience for the privilege. i'm committed to doing the former, and using transportation as a tool to make san francisco achieve its potential. that includes addressing problems like the fact that 25 people have died in our streets this year and were on track to injure nearly 3,000. we lose in injuries and

fatalities about 647 people in san francisco. i want to change that. you can see from my social media presence that i've long been an outspoken proponent of changing core practices in my industry and using the power that we have in transportation to reduce climate change, improve quality of life, foster small business success, and advance equity. i've reached the point in my cle career, however, where it's time to stop advising and start doing. i've worked all over the world, and san francisco remains the only city that i felt was my home. san francisco has assembled all of the pieces that we need in order to create dramatic and progressive change.

we've got a visionary m.t.a. board that i cannot wait to work for. we have the most talented agency staff in the industry. we have a tenacious and hard-driving mayor who i know will make a great partner. we also have a progressive board of supervisors ready to ask the tough questions. i am ready to serve all of them. i don't have a 30 or 100-day plan. my first task is to listen carefully to staff. we do have the most incredible assembly of talent of any city in the country. i trust their professional expertise. it is my job first to listen and then secondly, and more importantly, to remove obstacles so that they can do their good and productive work. i do not know all of the answers yet. it's going to take me a while to learn from staff what the best

answers are. i want to close by saying that we have talent, resources and some clarity about what our resources are in san francisco, but there remains a gap between san francisco's potential and its current reality. i am deeply excited to do the hard work to close that gap. we have the tools and all of the resources that we need, unlike really any city in the world. i can't wait to get started, particularly with the help of all of you in this room, the press. with that, i'm happy to take questions. malcolm, did you have words to say? >> absolutely. i know i stand between you and the questions for our new director of transportation. i am the chair of the new m.t.a. board. if i seem excited, it's because i am. we are in the process of hiring

a star for san francisco. we are very excited here today. the first person i want to thank is is the mayor, not just because of her commitment and support, but also i want to thank the mayor for not just her support and partnership in this, but the fact that you challenged us you were the result of a challenge to get a bold leader to take this agency forward. i'm grateful for that challenge. that challenge led us to an international search. we searched far and wide. i want to thank the search committee for the wonderful job that was done to conduct a truly international search that led us to someone in our backyard, a san franciscan to run our agency. what has struck us about jeff

more than his expertise, dedication, and his experience is his passion. you just heard it. he recognizes how transportation affects people's lives, making it better when it goes well and worse when it doesn't. with that, we are very excited. i wish jeff the absolute best. i know he won't need luck because he's a true professional and i'm excited to see him be a star and a partner. in my closing comments, i would like to say this, the last few months have been tumultuous at the agency, but not as much as without a director. the acting director kept the ship steady, was professional, calm, and an absolute pleasure to work with. thank you for your service. with that, i will turn the podium back to the super staff to answer our questions. thank you for the questions.

>> what questions do you have? >> [ indiscernible ]. [♪] >> look at that beautiful jellyfish. the way to speak to students and motivate them to take action, to save the planet, they do, they

care and my job is to speak to them in a way that they can understand that touches their heart and makes them feel powerful with simple actions to take every day. ♪ ♪ >> i was born and raised in the desert of palm springs, california. my dad was the rabbi in the community there. what i got from watching my father on stage talking to the community was learning how to be in the public. and learning how to do public speaking and i remember the first time i got up to give my first school assembly, i felt my dad over my shoulder saying pause for drama, deliver your

words. when i was a kid, i wanted to be a teacher. and then when i got into high school, i decided i wanted to get into advertising and do graphic art and taglines and stuff like that. by the time i was in college, i decided i wanted to be a decorator. but as i did more work, i realized working my way up meant a lot of physical labor. i only had so much energy to work with for the rest of my life and i could use that energy towards making a lot of money, helping someone else make a lot of money or doing something meaningful. i found the nonprofit working to save the rainforest was looking for volunteers. i went, volunteered and my life changed. suddenly everything i was doing had meaning. stuffing envelopes had meaning, faxing out requests had meaning. i eventually moved up to san francisco to work out of the office here, given a lot of

assembly through los angeles county and then came up here and doing assemblies to kids about rainforest. one of my jobs was to teach about recycle, teaching students to reduce, reuse, recycle and compost, i'm teaching them they have the power, and that motivates them. it was satisfying for me to work with for the department of environment to create a message that gets to the heart of the issue. the san francisco department of environment is the only agency that has a full time educational team, we go into the schools to help teach children how to protect nature and the environment. we realized we needed animal mascot to spark excitement with the students. the city during the gold rush days, the phoenix became part of

the city feel and i love the symbolism of the phoenix, about transformation and the message that the theme of the phoenix provides, we all have the power to transform our world for the better. we have to provide teachers with curriculum online, our curriculum is in two different languages and whether it's lesson plans or student fact sheets, teachers can use them and we've had great feedback. we have helped public and private schools in san francisco increase their waste use and students are working hard to sort waste at the end of the lunch and understand the power of reusing, reducing, recycling and composting. >> great job. >> i've been with the department

for 15 years and an environmental educator for more than 23 years and i'm grateful for the work that i get to do, especially on behalf of the city and county of san francisco. i try to use my voice as intentionally as possible to suppo support, i think of my grandmother who had a positive attitude and looked at things positively. try to do that as well in my work and with my words to be an uplifting force for myself and others. think of entering the job force as a treasure hunt. you can only go to your next clue and more will be revealed. follow your instincts, listen to your gut, follow your heart, do what makes you happy and pragmatic and see where it takes you and get to the next place. trust if you want to do good in this world, thattttttttttttttttt

>> good afternoon, everyone. the meeting will come together -- to order. this is november 21st, 2019, special meeting of the budget finance committee. i am chair of the committee. i would like to thank san francisco government tv for broadcasting this meeting. colleagues, can we please have a motion to excuse supervisors catherine stefani and raphael mandel and? we can take that without objection. thank you very much. are there any announcements? >> silence all cell phones and electronic devices.

completed speaker cards and copies of any documents to be included should be submitted to the clerk. there are eight supervisors in the chamber. we are now convened as the special meeting of the board of supervisors. >> call item number one. >> a motion for an election to be held and an ordinance amending the business and tax regulation on persons keeping ground floor commercial spaces and commercial districts and for neighborhood commercial -- [indiscernible] >> thank you very much. supervisor ronen? >> i am happy to make a motion to move this. >> great.

>> thank you, chair fewer, members of the special budget and finance committee. i don't think i have ever been more nervous to talk about something given the amount of work it has taken to get to me. first and foremost, thank you again on behalf of supervisor peskin. his regrets for not being able to be here today. the letter in the legislative file speaks to that. for members of the public, by way of brief background, this was last at the budget and finance committee and we made a number of amendments based on feedback from stakeholders as diverse as the chamber of commerce, to merchant groups, the members of public and commercial brokers who we spoke with. we spoke with supervisors who have expressed concerns. those amendments are geared and making sure this will not be affecting individuals and landlords. we are trying to do the right thing to activate our storefront so in order to do that, we

inserted additional exemptions for vacancy. for instance, if the department of building inspection is continuing to consider a permit application, the property will not be vacant from the time of application to issuance of the permit. and for a year after the issuance of that permit, so you can engage in those actual improvements and improvements to your property. we have proposed a deadline for the city planning department to act on a conditional use authorization. if that conditional use is not decided one way or another within six months, the property would not be assessed in that tax year. we have done other things to accommodate concerns, most recently we amended to provide that if a tenant goes out of business with additional time left on a lease, that they are not going to be punished for the additional remainder of that lease and the tax cannot be assessed for the remainder of that lease. we have amended to provide a two

thirds threshold for amending this at the board of supervisors , provided it is consistent with the intent of the measure, and to the extent that there are outstanding concerns or unexpected anomalies in the way this is implemented down the line. i think that this should provide some comfort that we can amend to improve and make sure this tax provides its function. i want to thank the small business commission. the office of small business director for their wholehearted support of this, which is actually the end result of a lot of work with the department and the commission to accommodate concerns that they had, again to the stakeholder commute -- community, i would also like to thank cosponsors ronen, walton, and haney, and as a final statement, commercial rent control requires an amendment to state law and i truly believe this is the most powerful and effective tool that we have to stabilize rent for existing small businesses.

for perspective small businesses that need more leverage to bring those rents down, and to engage in lease negotiations, and ultimately to try to get these vacancies along our most vibrant commercial corridors built. i am available for questions. >> thank you very much. >> would this be a good time to make a couple of comments from the conversations we had? >> yes, absolutely. >> i had good conversations with the sponsor. i just wanted to put on the record i know that the timeline of everything is condensed because -- for many different reasons, but we don't have time to make any additional amendments now before we would put it on the ballot, but i want to talk about some of the things that i thought were important in terms of the conversation that can be considered either internal legislation because of the timeline that we had to get this on the ballot. one of which is more of a technical thing as we are calculating the tax, the way that the legislation talks about

linear footage along the public right-of-way. i wanted to ensure that we are also not including an ingress or egress that is not related to the business itself. often times our commercial storefronts on public right-of-way his have a walk up to an apartment above the business. it has nothing to do with the business so we want to ensure it is clarified in the legislation that the tax is not being applied to the business for a space that has nothing to do with the business. we will work with the project sponsor on that. secondarily, and this is a lot more important to me as well, is that one year construction period. understand that the allowances that are made in this legislation to discuss the permitting, conditional use, so on and so forth, with the businesses, for instance, in my district often are not always fully capitalized. or always not coming with everything that they have to the

table. and often that means slightly longer construction period, or sometimes disruptions in that construction period that are or not the intent or the fault of the small business itself. and talk through that with the project sponsor for the sponsor of the legislation. there are a few real-world examples in my district where either the business partner, one of the business partners walked away from the field temporarily and they were able to find new capital to finish the project, or simply they were waiting to have the savings enough so they could finally finish the work at hand. and in each scenario took a little longer than a year. my request would be for the sponsor of the legislation to consider an 18 month period for construction. i think that would be more fair. anything beyond that, then i understand it would make sense for the consideration of this to

take place. i probably should have started by saying, in particular in my district, i look at this from two different ways. from the perspective of the people in the neighborhood that are frustrated with the high levels of vacancies, and i think we have one of the highest levels of storefront vacancies in the city, we have worked aggressively to come up with legislation to work with the city, to work with the small business community, to work with landlords, to aggressively change the process by which businesses can open up. we went through a permitting process where many of the businesses, if they are principally permitted, would be allowed to go to over-the-counter permits. i think it would be healthy as part of this conversation with this ballot measure to have that conversation. i know that myself and supervisor tang did that jointly , but there's other parts of the city that also have those barriers. and i'm talking about if you are going for a change of means or

the use, in many cases that have not been permitted prior. and in our district, these were not allowed on ground floor. we change that is part of our process, and now there are two or three arts organizations that have co- located and opened up, which is added to the vibrancy of the commercial corridor, as well as the vacancies. at the same time, some of the businesses that were going in that were occupying spaces that were a different use did not have to go through the cumbersome process of neighborhood notification because we knew in the end it was a principally permitted business. i think it would be helpful to have a parallel conversation on this ballot measure. i think it would be something that the small business community would embrace, and i think it would be a complement, not of any contradiction to this legislation. so i am cautiously supportive of this legislation. i think the intent is to change the balance of power with the negotiations between small businesses and landlords and i think that is a good outcome.

i think it is intended to aggressively deal with our vacancy and i think, as the project -- as the sponsor of the legislation has said, the intent as we won't collect any of this tax, that we will occupy these empty storefronts, and i think that is also very important. i am cautiously optimistic and supportive of this, but i would like to see a few changes that i have asked for incorporated into the legislation, and then also that we have this citywide conversation about streamlining the permitting process for small businesses because i think all of us have heard over and over again from our small merchants and businesses that they want san francisco to be more friendly and more able to open up small businesses in a fast manner. so i think that is important. that does not mean completely remove any neighborhood input, what it does mean, let's have this conversation if we are going to create a tax, we should also talk about creating less

barriers to opening up those businesses. that is it. i just wanted to say those few things and incorporate into the record some of the things that i had talked about with the sponsoring of the legislation that we would like to see incorporated into the discussion , into the final piece of legislation. alternately that would trail this ballot measure. >> thank you very much. supervisor haney? >> thank you, chair fewer. congratulations and thank you to supervisor peskin for your years of work on this legislation and extraordinary leadership in bringing all of the stakeholders together and taking the feedback and amendments. this is obviously something that is critically important to everyone in the city, to all of the districts that we represent. district six has the highest vacancy rate and it has severe impacts on our neighborhoods when we have so many vacancies.

obviously our small businesses are struggling and i feel like every week i hear about a business that is closing or being pushed out because of rent , and the way that we can figure out a whole policy agenda to be able to better support them are critically important. it is also, for district six, it is an issue of public safety when you have corridors we have so many vacant buildings and vacant stores, and you don't have a lot of activity. there are without people walking around her people coming in and out, these are areas where we have a lot of other bad activity that is happening. i hear a lot about areas where we have vacant stories that other suspicious activities are happening there. if we can have more positive things happening, that adds to the quality of life for everyone this is one of the main things we need to do. i appreciate there's more about how we can facilitate speedy approvals and provide a relief from fees. all of that is so important.

and also, in my district and other districts, there's also a lot of feedback about how we can address some of the other challenges that small businesses face relating to homelessness and mental health crisis. all of these things together with this vacancy tax will help to create an environment that is more friendly for not just small businesses, which is very important, were more healthy and vibrant neighborhoods generally. thank you for your leadership. >> thank you very much. supervisor brown? >> thank you. just a couple of points. i definitely agree with supervisor safai that probably the 18 month period is probably more reasonable. i also really want to look at the size of the space because i will take, for example, in my district. they have larger spaces, and

they do not want formula retail, but they also have a moratorium liquor license moratorium, so why restaurants could actually come in, have a liquor license, and probably take those spaces, they are not going to do that. there is no way for them to even get a beer and wine license and restaurants have a hard time making it without be a and wine. when we are looking at having a taxation on certain corridors like that one, we need to look at the details of it. no formula retail, and then no restaurant that could have beer and wine, then what do we do with the larger spaces? i think that is kind of unfair for landlords that if we are restricting them, then how do we work with these landlords to make sure that there are options for them to get people in, and also definitely streamlining. that is really important. there's so many of those spaces

where i've talked to landlords and they want to rent, but when people come in and they find out it might take them two years to open up, they just do not have the financial ability to do that i think those things have to be in conservation as we move forward. thank you. >> thank you very much. supervisor walton? >> thank you, supervisor fewer. i want to make a few comments in terms of what we are attempting to do for small businesses. we definitely understand the issues that exist and how hard it is for small businesses here in san francisco. supervisor fewer and i are currently convening and talking with our small businesses in a working group. one of the conversations is about streamlining the permitting process. i want everyone to know we are listening to our small businesses and we are working towards a solution. it is also very real and some of our corridors. some of it is due to

irresponsible landlords and the decision that they make. if you are working hard to get businesses into your community, if you are working hard to get a broader investment in your community, nothing is worse than businesses and potential businesses looking at blighted communities and seeing empty storefronts and vacancies on some of our commercial corridors so this initiative ordinance works to address that and i just want to thank supervisor peskin for taking the lead on that, and everyone else who cosponsored so this could be on the ballot. >> thank you very much. let's open this up for public comment. would anyone like to speak on this item? >> good afternoon, supervisors. first of all, i want to thank leigh hepner for coming up. he was also at the council

meeting last week. i also appreciate the fact he understood some of the recommendations. there had been amendments made to this legislation. not all these landlords are bad actors. most of them are really good. some of them have only increased their rent annually. but then you have the ones who are really determined to keep their place is empty for years and years and years. something has to be done. how long can we put up with this it doesn't impact all your small businesses in the area. also, there are less people on the streets. it will make it safer. we have to look at the characteristic approach. we need to have a character. why is it only that some can do that and others can't? let's make it apply to every small business that wants to open this city.

a conditional use hearing, up to nine months, if not more than that, plus the cost. it should be must -- much less than that. formula retail, fill's coffee, a local company. born and raised in the city. they want to move into a place, they have to wait just like everybody else. i think we can look at that. once again, i do think this legislation is good, but the time element of the supervisors that they pointed out can be a problem. on the whole, it is really good to see this moving along. thank you for all your hard work >> thank you. next speaker, please.

>> we are a local san francisco-based company that specializes in street retail. i had been attending a number of these meetings. i attended the last small business council meeting where supervisor peskin's aid was testifying what this ordinance is, and the question was asked, county vacancies are there? and supervisor peskin's aid it says he thought it was around 3,500. the small business council head said, i think it is more like a thousand, maybe 500. the reality is, the report i'm providing to you is what commercial real estate brokers used to find property, all the information. it is available on a subscription basis. the reality is, step one, knowing what your vacancy problem is is to know how he vacancies you have. today we have only 148 buildings that are actually vacant, with 323 spaces available in the m.c.

zone. all other vacancies are currently under the permitting conditional use process. if you look at the report that i gave you, you will notice that when a property becomes available, it is a 14 month process before the space gets least. that is clearly falling to the problem of how somebody needs to get a permit to get through the process. it takes time. it is not just formula retail. the reality of formula retail needs to change because 11 stores is no longer a big business. to be a big business, you need hundreds of stores. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> hello. storefronts maybe reducing potential sales -- sales and

subsequent sales tax revenue and the proposed excise tax on empty storefronts might encourage competition in marketing. such properties resulting in the potential increase in business formation and possibly more favorable lease terms and resulting in the collection of the excise tax on property which remains empty. and excise tax may also have the opposite effect, driving up rent while making it harder to market a property if the ordinance amendment were to pass. exempting nonprofits from the excise tax may equip such organizations with a competitive advantage providing that such spaces are least or sold on favorable terms, however, the added pressure to fill the space undermines the justification for the assumed process of the excise tax to begin with. the old bank belonged to a

nonprofit in the field of healthcare, but it has remained sheltered, shattered, and empty as an eyesore in the neighborhood for many years, absolutely littered with graffiti. exempting nonprofits from the excise tax does not sound like an equitable a reasonable idea. it undermines the intention of the ordinance amendment for an indeterminate period. successful business also attracts cereal vandalism. i will stop there. >> thank you very much. next speaker, please. >> good afternoon. i am the president of the entertainment commission but today i'm speaking as a civilian and a business owner in san francisco. i commend supervisor peskin's office and the board for taking a look at how bad actor landlords are affecting the urban life that we have because

empty storefronts to affect their neighbours and small businesses do suffer from that. i am cautiously optimistic that this might be a solution for compelling the bad actors to act however, i am also a little bit nervous about this and i'm happy to leads that it is being proposed with the ability to trail amendments. i'm asking everybody in this body to really try to game out all the way is that this could backfire and affect small business in an adverse way. i think if we do do that, this could be a very solid piece of legislation -- solid tax to pass that would help. the other thing i would ask while i have your ear here is to take a long look at what policies that come from city hall specifically are causing vacancies in our corridors. there's a myriad of ones from the inability to open a youth places due to a -- new places due to permitting process that is frustrating and difficult to

manage, and also from just the overwhelming cost of doing business for small businesses in san francisco as compared to other cities in california. i think, i keep saying this, but they are against us and we are being forced to have less ability to compete with business than ever and i can't say this enough. what is more progressive than supporting small businesses over big businesses? right now it is completely flipped on its head. i'm hoping to meet with each of you coming soon to go over ways that we can address that. thank you very much. >> thank you very much. any other speakers? public comment is closed. colleagues, any comments or questions? i also just want to add that i think this is a positive step, but it is just one piece of it. we -- i agree that that we need to streamline permitting, and also, how to get a helping hand

in getting tenants. this is just a small piece of it i feel like it is not the whole package, but it is a really good direction. i would like to make a motion to send this to the committee report. >> so moved. we will move this to the november 21st board meeting. can we take that without objection? thank you very much. is there any other business before us today? >> this business meeting is adjourned. >> don't go away.

>> good afternoon. we will now be convening as the full board for this november 21 st, 2019 special meeting of the san francisco board of supervisors. i haven't seen my colleagues in this room for such a long time. welcome back. madame clerk, please call the role. [roll call]