S. F. business permit reform passes
A ballot measure aimed at streamlining San Francisco’s tedious and costly permitting process for small businesses prevailed at the polls Tuesday.
Proposition H kept a commanding lead in the vote Wednesday afternoon , with all precincts reporting and more than 320,000 mailin ballots tallied.
It needed a simple majority to pass.
Prop. H is intended to make it easier for small new businesses like storefronts and restaurants to open and for existing ones to change the type of business they engage in, by reducing the time it takes to get permits. It requires city departments to work in tandem, does away with the need to notify neighbors about many proposals, and mandates completing most permit reviews within 30 days — speeding an agonizingly slow process that often keeps retailers from opening doors despite being on the hook for rent.
“I’m thrilled that our City’s small businesses will finally get the relief from the red tape and costly bureaucracy that makes it so difficult for them to succeed and survive,” Mayor London Breed said in a statement. “San Franciscans wholeheartedly support their local small businesses and they showed that at the ballot box. I want to thank the small business community that worked so hard with me to pass this measure.”
Prop. H also allows retailers, restaurants and bars more flexibility in using outdoor spaces; restaurants to rent space to coworking firms; and retailers to allow popups in vacant stores. In addition, nonprofits will be allowed to operate out of vacant stores.
The measure does not change any laws pertaining to chain stores. All chain stores are required to go through a process that includes neighborhood notifications.
The city’s streets were peppered with empty storefronts long before the pandemic. A Chronicle investigation last year found that ecommerce competition, long waits for permits, high rents, high construction costs and mandatory seismic retrofits contributed to the blight.
The pandemic has vastly worsened the crisis. According to a September Yelp report, approximately 3,000 businesses have closed permanently across the Bay Area since shelter in place health orders — crucial in curbing the spread of the coronavirus — took effect in mid-March.
Supporters of Prop. H include numerous neighborhood merchant groups, the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and the Golden Gate Restaurant Association. Supporters had raised $ 545,900 as of Nov. 2.
Opponents of the measure include some residential neighborhood groups, such as the Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council, and individual residents, though no funds had been raised against it as of the end of October. Doing away with the public notification process before opening businesses is unfair, opponents say, and such changes should happen through the Board of Supervisors instead of the ballot.
Breed and former Supervisor Vallie Brown tried making some of these changes through the Board of Supervisors last year, but only a watereddown version of the legislation passed, leading Breed to go directly to voters this year.
Prop. H could be amended by the Board of Supervisors after three years.