2 supes seek to ease permit process stalling small business
Two San Francisco supervisors want to make it easier for small businesses to set up shop in their districts by cutting down significantly on the time it takes to obtain certain city permits.
At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Supervisors Katy Tang and Ahsha Safai introduced legislation to create a two-year pilot program that would eliminate the requirement for some merchants to conduct what’s called a neighborhood notification process. Neighborhood notifications are ordinarily required in residential districts when a business operator wants to make substantial physical changes to the outside of a building.
But they’re also mandated, for instance, if a merchant wants to convert a former retail shop into a restaurant. Business owners have to prepare the neighborhood notification with the Planning Department, a process that can take up to six months.
The notifications are then mailed to residents and property owners located within 150 feet of the new business, along with neighborhood groups, who have 30 days to decide if they want to challenge the incoming business at the Planning Commission.
“Some may wonder why should we take away neighborhood notifications,” Tang said. “The vast majority of projects ... are almost always approved” anyway, she said. “For our neighborhoods, it could mean the difference between a business locating in our neighborhood or not.”
A variety of businesses, including bars, liquor stores, cannabis retailers, on-site entertainment venues and massage parlors, would still be required to conduct neighborhood notifications.
Eliminating the requirement, Tang and Safai say, will allow small businesses to open faster, potentially shaving off months of downtime in which merchants have to pay rent but can’t bring customers in the door. It could also lessen the time that storefronts stay vacant.
Tang represents District Four, which includes the Sunset and Parkside neighborhoods. Safai represents District 11, encompassing the Excelsior, Mission Terrace and Ingleside. The legislation would also require the approval of the Planning Commission before it could be adopted by the supervisors.
On other issues:
⏩ The board approved an ordinance sponsored by board President London Breed that will shift the authority over conservatorship proceedings from the district attorney’s office to the city attorney’s office. The legislation, Breed said, represents a new way of thinking about how the city grapples with committing someone to psychiatric care against their will and moves the power to handle conservatorship cases to a civil body, rather than a criminal one.
⏩ The board continued a resolution introduced by Supervisor Jane Kim affirming the city’s commitment to preserving Clipper Cove as a public recreational and educational space. The cove, a stretch of calm water between Treasure Island and Yerba Buena Island, is used extensively for sailing instruction and is home to beds of eel grass, an important species for the bay’s ecosystem.
Sailing enthusiasts and environmentalists have raised concerns about a developer’s proposal to build a 313-slip private marina at the cove, which could disrupt sailing there and disturb the eel grass beds.
Kim said she is still committed to moving the resolution forward, “and having the supervisors on record protecting this valuable public asset.” But she requested that the board hold off on voting on the measure until next week because the developer, Treasure Island Enterprises, and those who are concerned about the marina’s impacts had “agreed to sit down to see if they can further compromise ... over the course of the next week.”