Transcripts For SFGTV Small Business Commission 71315 20240622

Limited to 60 of Consumer Price index. Consumer price index is the minimum inflation at 60 of the minimum and that is totally ridiculous. Nowhere you can find that. And that is the root cause, and people dont want to move. That is one of the causes. One of the effects. And then you have no housing, and again the rent goes up. So you need to address the root cause of the problem. Thank you. I say no to this legislation. Thank you so much my my name is george. I have been a renter in San Francisco for over 30 years. I have yet to have known an honest landlord. Thank you. If this passes, i recommend that you pass this resolution, because it will help to protect transpeople of color, and the greater transpopulation, because they are frequently the ones who are greatly egregiously targeted for these unlawful evictions. I have sustained i have been able to survive these chronic attempts at eviction over 30 years that i have been here with the help of eviction collaboratives and other agency of that nature. So im all in favor for your passage of the bill. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. My name is josephine and i thank supervisor kim for your compassion for the renters but also please spare some for the landlords to strike a balance. In the landlords are not doing a good job, give them a cure as well. There are nonprofits for the tenants, but none for the landlords. We all do this voluntarily, but not for much longer. To punish the nofault lowfault landlords mom and pop, good operators who love their tenants, just treat them like families will have to sell to speculators if they didnt survive. That will be really bad for the tenants in the building, we all know that. Or well have to keep the unit for a family and further reduce the rental stock, making the renters and new immigrants hard to stay in the city. If our children need the place or when they are done, we have to charge the same rent years down the road as what the current rent is . Its really losing the point. Its hard to believe, but its true the harder it is to get back a rental property, the less likely the property will be available for rent in the future. Vacancy control doesnt work. What if your friend borrows your car and doesnt return it when you need it . You dont lend it to them every ever again. Add roommates without helping with liability or insurance that new renters will have to be punished for what others have done. Market rents go up crazy, its hugy do to chronic unfair legislation. The real solution is to build more so that everyone can thank you very much. I dont see anyone else in line, but i want to give one final call for Public Comment on item 9. Please come up if you want to speak. All right, seeing no more Public Comment, Public Comment is closed at this time [ gavel ] thank you. Supervisor kim. Thank you. I want to ask a question to the City Attorney. And this is on one of the issues that were brought up, some concerns that were raised about our piece on the ordinance regarding illegal units. So if a tenant is residing in an illegal unit, whether to their knowledge or not, and the unit cannot be legalized, can the tenant continue to reside in the unit evictionproof per our legislation . Deputy City Attorney jon givner. The illegal status of the unit not be a basis for the eviction. The Property Owner or landlord could evict the person on other allowable bases, like substantial rehab, if that is one of the possibilities in that case. Okay. So in some cases where the unit cannot be legalized; for example, this ordinance would not prevent an eviction in those cases . Not necessarily. If there is another basis for eviction. Thank you. And i know a concern was raised as well regarding shortterm rentals being an issue in the eviction protection 2. 0 legislation. I do want to thank Supervisor Malia Cohen for bringing this to our attention and we worked with her office to clarify language that additional occupants would be defined as nontransitory and the legislation provisions regarding tenant use of the unit for shortterm rental purposes referenced. Under the existing shortterm rental, will be given a warning for their first violation. Property owners will be able to evict tenants upon the second violation. So were happy to add the language of nontransitory to the provision and reference that the spr legislation to ensure its absolutely clear that adding a roommate being adding a longterm occupant and not a shortterm rental. So i have provided copies to the committee, the amendment is on page 9. And we add a line 4 on lines 7 and 8 for the purposes of the subsection 39 additional october participates shall not include persons with an agreement for less than 30 days and adding the roommate doesnt mean that roommate can be a constantly shifting shortterm rentee. I would like to make a motion to amend. Second. This is for the amendment you just spoke of . I will second that amendment that motion, i mean. Without objection, this amendment this motion passes. [ gavel ] thank you. I know most folks have left, but i want to thank everyone who came out. There was over two hours of public testimony just demonstrating what an important issue this is. And you know, just the many different stories that even i had not heard already, but also the immense fear that exists amongst our tenants. I want to recognize our small Property Owners who came out as well. And i know that we have some folks who need to understand their rights, as well as how the system works . Im also sympathetic to some of the stories that were brought up. We were very careful in drafting this ordinance to really narrowly tailor these issues, these amendments to ensure that they are protecting tenants that deserve to be protected. And ensure that landlords can evict tenants that are bad tenants. That are repeatedly promoting bad behavior in your units. And we also, i think there is a little bit of confusion around vacancy rent control, its only in four specific case, abate, Capital Repair and condo conversion. If you are truly doing for those reasons vacancy rentcontrol should not be an issue because you are not rerenting that unit. So we do d that to protect Property Owners interests because we have a lot of great landlords in San Francisco. What we are seeing particularly with larger landlords and Property Owners what are using these frivolous breach of leases to evict tenants. That is what these protections are here for. So colleagues i would like to ask for your support to move this item forward with recommendation to the full board. Before we go on, there is a couple of remarks that i want to share with everyone. Well, good evening everyone and thank you for being here. I appreciatior dedication and your commitment. Some of are you starting to become regulars in the chamber ad hoc staff members, if you will. I want to compliment the folks that are just involved in this entire process as we deal with the affordability crisis as well as housing in San Francisco. Many people have developed a subjectmatter expertise that is to be recognized and commended. Supervisor kim thank you for bringing us this wonderful gift of how many hours . Two hours of Public Comment . But important dialogue to have nonetheless. And i also to the Committee Members that helped to draft this legislation, thank you for bringing this forward for our consideration. I know it took a long time to get us to where we are today. There are several components of this legislation that i agree with, such as the need to provide notices to tenants in their dominant language. I think its absolutely critical. So when they are receiving information they can understand all of it. But there are also a few pieces of the legislation that i think just need to be clarified. And we addressed one of them today in the amendment, in the legislation on section 4, page 9 relating to the illegal residential occupancy. So while i understand that the issues that many of the tenants are facing when a Property Owner knowingly and illegally subdivides a property into multiple units. And then use that illegal status either intimidate a tenant or even evict them to bring their property into compliance is actually a very real story that i hear very often. But its not only but its not the only challenge that were facing when it comes to illegal units. I will share a little bit of the stories happening in the bay view community. The Code Enforcement team i chair with other city agencis have inspected properties particularly in the Bayview Community where there is one bad actor in particular, that subdivides the homes, the singlefamily homes in a way that makes it completely uninhabitable. And we have seen many singlefamily homes that have been subdivided into sometimes as many as eight different units with horrific conditions. Such as exposed wiring, leaving sewage overflowing garage due to insufficient trash service, as well as illegally installed stoves and heaters. I think its important that we recognize that will are instances where tenants should not remain in illegal units. Also i think there is an important distinction that can be made between illegal units that can be legalized and those that cannot because of life and safety requirements. So im not sure really what the right language is at this point to address this issue . This is something that is important to me that i weally really like to address and wanted to extend a commitment to working with the sponsor on this legislation and the committee to develop a way to address this concern. So what i would like to do is suggest that we continue this item to continue to work on addressing some of the remaining issues. Even if we pass this ordinance you out of committee today, it wouldnt be heard at the full board until after our august recess. And i think that taking some time to work on this issue would personally benefit district 10 residents, but i think it would benefit the entire city overall. I dont know if anyone has other thoughts on this. Supervisor wiener. Thank you, madame chair. Thank you to everyone on both sides who came out today. I also want to thank supervisor kim for stressing that the socalled vacancy control portion of this is limited to just a few types of evictions. When this was first introduced i must have misunderstood because i thought there was a broader vacancy control effort around socalled lowfault evictions but that is not the case. So it is a much more limited set of evictions that would be impacted by that. But to me, the heart of this legislation isnt that. Its about the issues around breaches of the lease, and also subcategory of that around subtenancies or subletting. That to me are the questions that i have. And unfortunately when we have these debates about landlordtenant relations we tend to hear broad statements that all landlords or overwhelming majority of landlords are terrible and dishonest and so forth. And that tenants are generally nar do wells and we know that the overwhelming majority of tenants are just living their lives and are not trying to violate their lease and are just paying their rent and just want to make lives for themselves. We know that there are certainly some landlords, who are just horrible, and i think one was mentioned here today, who we have the dishonor of having largely in my district, a woman by the name of ana cohagy, who is a sociopath and i dont say that elementary. Light lightly. I dont usually make bombastic statements in the board of supervisors, but this is a woman, and there is no other way to describe her and i have worked with alison and other tenants where its hard to envision living your daily life knowing that you have someone whose only goal is to get you out, doing things like dry walling up the laundry room, or other horrendous things to the tenants and i was thrilled when the City Attorneys office have filed the lawsuit and we also know that not every violation is a fraudulent violation and know that there are tenants who cause problems not just for the landlord, but other tenants. And so i just want to be careful that were not broadbrushing everything. So i will support the continuance today. And i just want to outline what my questions are the sections about violations of the lease. One indicates that the violation has to be substantial which i understand is effectively already the law. And if its not, then i think it should be. Although we want to be clear what that means. I dont think we want people to be evicted for really minor violations, leaving their shoes in the hallways or leaving their bikes somewhere. The laundry hanging out of someones home. While understanding while more significant violations when people are doing things that are impacting their neighbors or other tenants or the property; that is a different situation. There is also language and i have been asking everyone who will listen about this and i have not gotten a good answer. On page 9, line 15, i think is the area where it says, when the landlord is endeavoring to require possession qualifying the tenant is committed or permit a nuisance or damage. If you read that literally, it means that if someone is doing damage to the property or tormenting their neighbors, but the notice is not served for another few days or a week, at the time that notice is served they may not be committing the nuisance. So i am in agreement that we shouldnt allow for a nuisance violation for something that is steal, stale, saying a yearago you played your music loud, for a week, but now a its more indicative of intent and you are trying to get tenant out, but that language has to be significantly tighten ed because i think right now, it is if you read it literally its problematic. In terms of subtenancies, i think the current law provides that you can move a Family Member in. You can swap in a subtenant or roommate for a roommate. And im open to discussions about how to address in a targeted way some of the problems were seeing around roommates and subtenancies. Because i agree there are some abuses going on and heard about some of those today with very legitimate roommate or subtenancy a[tkpwraoept ]s agreements and they are being evicted. This effectively eliminates or overrides any provision in the lease that limit the number of tenants in a unit other than what the housing code provides, which is the maximum that is considered, i think, appropriate in terms of health and safety. So the landlord including an existing leases would have no power whatsoever in an agreement that people agree to that say this is the maximum number of people that can live in the unit. Again, im open to taking a look at a more targeted approach to how we deal with roommates and subtenancies. Im open to addressing what were seeing around minor breachs and trying to make sure that premise not being evicted for minor breaches. For right now, i think this language is too broad in these two areas. I will also say, and this is just some of the sadness of human existence, for people who are sociopathic or bound and determined to harass people and violate the law, they are going to do it no matter what the law says. Ana ko hagy is violating the laws in a million different ways and the evictions that she is filing are fraudulent under the current law existing today. So we could amend the law a thousand time and people like that will continue to harass their tenants. So those are just some of the thoughts that i have. I will support the continuance today and i look forward to the conversation over the next over the august recess into september. All right. Supervisor wiener thank you very much. Just a point of order, to the City Attorney, correct me if im wrong, but a motion to continue is that a motion we would have to take first prior to the two motions on the take table; right . . Made clerk. Supervisor kim. You have a motion to amend. Thats has notice been acted on yet . It has been. That is the only motion on the table to continue . No, i made a motion to move this forward with recommendations and supervisor cohen made a motion to continue the item. The motion to continue takes precedence. Yes. My understanding is that precedence of the motion is to take the motion to continue first and then to recommend to the board. Thank you very much for that clarification. All right everyone. So there is a motion i made a motion to continue. Is there a second . Supervisor wiener . Yes. Can we take this unanimously or roll call. Roll call. Roll call vote, please this is to continue to that is item no. 9. To what date . After recess, first Board Meeting after recess is september 8th. I believe we meet on september 7th. Why dont we do the second week of september. September 14th. Yes, please. The 7th day is labor day, i believe. Move it to the 14th of september. On the motion to continue to september 14th, supervisor kim . No. Kim, no. Supervisor wiener. Aye. Wiener aye. And chair cohen . Aye. Aye. Two ayes, one no. Thank you very much, this motion passes [tkpwhra efplt ] [ gavel ] i would like to call items 7 and 8 together. You thank you. Item no. 7 is a resolution receiving and approving the first biannual housing balances report for fiscal year 20142015 and item no. 8 is a hearing to present findings from the inaugural housing report. Thank you. Thank you for calling these together. Supervisor kim is the author of both of these items. Supervisor kim. Thank you. I am going to make a motion to continue items 7 and 8 to the call of the chair. I think given the time, and given the length of the report, it bo would make sense to continue and another report that the Planning Department will be coming out with in september anyway, that is an update on the one that was released in july. So this allow the Planning Department the opportunity to actually merge the two reports together, and actually add a number of data points that the community has asked for since the july report has come ut. So i will make the motion to continue to the call of the chair. Thank you very much well schedule that as soon as possible. Without so there has been a motion made. Without objections that is the word im looking for without objection this motion passes [ gavel ]. Thank you very much. Public comment . That is right. Lets make a motion to rescind the vote. Second. Thank you. Unanimous motion to rescind. Open up for Public Comments on items 7 and 8. Anyone who wishes to speak on items 7 and 8 that were going to continue . Okay. All right, seeing no Public Comment. Okay. Did you want to make your comment formally . My name is george. I recommend continuance in the absence of time. Thank you very much. Is there anyone else who would like to speak on this item . Seeing none, Public Comment is closed at this time [ gavel ] all right. Motion made by supervisor wiener, unanimously accepted by this body. [ gavel ] motion passs to continue. Thank you. To the call of the chair. Is there any other work before this body. There snow further business before the body. Thank you ladies and gentlemen. This committee is adjourned. [ gavel ]27, 2015 and the time is 207. The meeting is being televised thanks to sf gov tv staff. Member of the public please take this opportunity to silence your phone squz other electroning devices. The ringing and use of cell phones pagers and similar sound producing electroning devices are prohibited at this meeting. Public comnlt is limited it 3 minutes per speaker unless otherwise established. Speakers are requested but not required to state their names. Submission of a speaker card [inaudible] please deliver speaker cards to me prior to approaching the lectern. There is a sign in sheet at the front table for those that would like to be assigned to the waiting list. Commissioners stephen adams, here. Commissioner kathleen dooley. Commissioner mark dwight, here. Commissioner william ortiz, here. Commissioner3 4 f1 soft story buildings cannot be built anymore. We found since then about 15 percent of our total pop ulation live in these buildsings subject to the had ordinance so this is a huge safety concern for the city of San Francisco and the update im about to give shows good numbers so excited where that is going. Again, after 1989 the Building Inspection Commission put together the plan for seismic safety. It involved 100 member thofz community and several Small Businesses and looked at earthquakes in a holistic sense so what does it mean for the community in San Francisco . 17 general policy San Francisco should be doing to look at earthquake safety. From then city administrator ed lee put together a safety Implementation Plan which i oversee today. One of the biggest issues is deal wg the soft story buildingsm. The ordinance looks at type 5 or wood frame. [inaudible] buildsings built before 1978 and 2 or more stories over a soft story. This was a data crunch and didvent a existing list of the buildings so had to look at permit records and [inaudible] to get a list of 6700 properties. Septof 2013 we sent properties a notice and the notice said they are subject to screening so it means they have 12 months to fill out a document to figure come f the building should be in our out of the policeman. Program. The completion was the following year and had 95 percent complinets rate and within the 3 months following we bumped it up to 99 percent compliance rate. Huge numbers, very exvited about that. That is 5 thousand buildings that will be retrofitted by 2020. There are about 20 thousand san franciscans who live in these buildsings. When we look at how that effects Small Business it is concern. The majority fall in the 4th tier so they are given the maximum amount of time so fl is a different level of care and work ethic involved so want to give the maximum time to comply with the law. There are about 786 buildings in the process. In addition there are 20s 2 that received final completion and sign off. The first deadline are a few years from now. It is great to see people getting the ball rolling. One of the other charges we had is alonging at financing options. We know one size fits aul wont work for ret row fit so we talked to private banks. The cities developed their own Financing Mechanism too. We went live with the financing in december and have [inaudible] which is impressive considering this is several years out. I also handed out a map. This reflects the work we did with office of economic and Work Force Development and looking at the neighborhoods and overlaying where the buildings appear. There is a important caveat i should point out, the buildings reflected here are the noticed buildings so the information isilateal old so they are not the buildings that have to ret row fit, they received screening forms. So far we see average numbers come through, the average Construction Cost is reported 71 thousand dollars and that is based on about the 600 or so permits issued so far looking at the Construction Cost. The other nice thing is we see creative ways to keep stores in operation during construction. We do this with hospitals. Making sure things like ground floor retail are operating is not as difficult as you may think so we have seen a rate of these being very successful throughout the course of construction and if the construction is happening at a steady schedule we are in and out of there. A contractor starts 30 to 60 days and in and out. Happy to answer questions the commission may have. Commissioner adams i want to say you are doing a great job. I do know a couple landlords that are proactive and starting their construction and know they have a couple buildings done already and they are retail space squz in every instance the retail store was able to stay in place while they were doing the construction. The sit a being more proactive i thought was great and you see more and more as you go into the neighborhoods construction being done especially on the east side. The outreach was fantastic. You really got in front of the land lrds, the banks everybody to put put everybody together so good job. Thank you commissioner. Submissioner i have a question about the propertiesthat is sth total numberhow many of these buildings involve smauz Small Business . It is hard to say because Small Business can fit into several tiers. The vast majority of Small Business are in the 4th tier. Roughly, i dont have the numbers but assume around 1 thousand buildsings are in tier 4 what type of financing are the methods of financing for Small Businesses in the context of ret rofitting . All the financing we look at help the landlord as the Business Owner because they are required to comply working withria in the Small Business there are options for microgrants and thingathizeophorous is doing, but it isnt the businesses responsibility to be complying with the retrofit so the financing is geared towards the construction work the 4th tier has to comply bine 2020 . Correct the business is shut down during the retrofit somebody has to compensate them or they are out of business for a while . Correct and that is base ond the stipulation in the commercial lease and the agreement for the landlord to come in and do work the landlords have been very good work wg the tenants on these, the ones i know of and work with. I do know and cant say the names recollect , but they are in the marina and the landlord gave the tenants break but they are still in business so they are paying rent but not full rent. There are a few landslords that are doing that because they have to do it and dont want to luce the tenant where the business has to shut down can have a ripple evect on the employees, i was thinking what we can do to protect [inaudible] i think we can do more to help the Small Business so dont think we should be done thinging about that solution. When we talk about correction we talk 3060 days. The Small Businesses will fail after a disaster so trying to get them to think in those term squz look at the big picture is where we should focus our efforts and the Small Business community through the president , mr. Dwight so i know i live in the upper hate rr so there is a fair number of properties in the upper hate so a good number have gone dark and my guess it is happening between leases because several new businesses moved in after the work is done, so especially in those instances, it is a great opportunity to insure the Property Owner is making their entry way accessible especially if they are have to lower the floor to make a level entry, so is the city at all tracking what accessibility improvements are being done and made through the seismic retrofit . Are they tracking it and how much of the work is being done and maybe for those businesses that are not moving out, is the Property Owner taking advantage of making the entry way accessible 1234 a couple things, there is a easy data run that can be done if xhrmsh buildsings are doing the soft story work and they would be required to do accessibility as a rule of that. You have to review the plans to figure what the particular interventions were so that level of detail hasnt been looked at yet, but it could. The initial numbers is 71 thousand for the average ret row fit so they are required by chapter 11 b and the Building Code so they are only required to spent 20 percent. There are several over the threshold so they would be required to bring the building into full compliance. Commissioners comments or questions . No. Thank you very much commissioners. Thank you. Brian lets move on. We need to open for Public Comment. Anyone have Public Comment from this item . Seeing none well close item 5 is discussion and possible action on bos 5150732, Building Code mandatory Disability Access improvement administrative fee. This is a ordinance amending the Building Code to require a building with a place of public accommodation to have primary entries or path of travel into the building accessible for persons with disability or to receive from the city equivalent facilitation technical infeasibility or technical hardship establishing a Disability Access compliance unit within the department of building inspection and a fee to offset the cost of disubltd access improvement program. Today we have a presentation by supervisor katy tang good afternoon thank you for hearing this item today. I know this is has been a long time effort we spent many years working on and there are several people here who helped work on it. I would like to thank rugina [inaudible] and kathleen dooley, carla here from the Mayors Office on disability. Knroe there are member thofz mayors counsel here as well as richard halren, i want to give him a lot of credit for thinking about how to approach this from Department Building inspection. Spent many years trying to work on the issue of ada and how we do this work and try to encourage accessibility around the Small Business community. On the one hand trying to make sure we provide access to squaerfbd also trying to make sure it is something that is feasible for the Small Business community and doesnt put them out of business undur ada. We thought oaf various solutions. We started out by giving a free inspection and offering that to businesses and they would post something in the window saying they completed this. We offered one pagers in different languages telling people about the different Resources Available for financing and finally we realized we needed a larger more comprehensive effort from the city to say that look, this is a very important issue and want to make sure our Business Community is trying to provide adequate access for everyone who wants to utilize a service and also provide a way for our businesses and Property Owners to document they made this effort so if there was a lawsuit filed against a Property Owner or business they can show and have proof they made a effort to achuv accessibility improvements. I think the summary that was stated what the ordinance is doing is we put in the Building Code to require existing building with a place of public accommodation either have all primary entries and path of travel accessible or receive a determination from our Access Appeals Commission for equivalent facilitation, technical infeasibility or unreezable hardship so this is something that is new. We also establish a Disability Access complinets unit within dbi that we hope to congregate more people from different departments so businesses and Property Owners are not running t departments at different times trying to figure what they need to do. We are alsoi just want to go over quickly the different tiers we are setting up. It is very good convince you had a presentation about the soft kory retrofit program because what we did is model our legislation off that program and hope to conduct that same level of successful outreach on that. We divide the city buildsings into 4 categories. The first are those that probable have main entrances accessible and met the standards based on the california Building Code 1998. Category 2 and 3, you start getting into those buildings where the primary entrance may have a step or 2 or more. Category 4 are the ones where we are callingthere are all sorts of issues there so you vaprimary entry or entries with more than one step or more than wut element that do not comply with the minimum code requirement so it is the catch all category. Based on the 4 categories the first thing we are asking our Property Owners to do is submit a compliance check list. It ranges from 1230 monthathize Property Owners have to submit the check list t. Is what the seismic soft story was trying to do and survey because we dont have accurate numbers at the moment. Then the next step would be 3 months from when you submitted the compliance check list. That ranges from 1533 months. The last step is 3 months later you obtain the permit. For the third step we do build in an exception for extensionoffs time if the Planning Department or dbi or any other department held up the permit for whatever reason. Most significantly is that we are trying to empower the Access Appeals Commission to issue those determinations so whether there was a technical infeasibility and so forth because right now if a business or Property Owner were trying to make accessibility improvements what do they have to show that they tried . Especially as we talk about potential properties in district 3 where there are historic buildsings and it is difficult to achieve the work, we want a formal something from the city to show someone made a effort. We are not guaranteeing this will be upheld in court but at least it shows we are trying and the city is aware and trying to work what other solutions there may be. That is in a nut shell the parameters of the program that we are hoping for and we really do think it is very Ground Breaking because i thichck it is the first time a city has taken it upon them sevl to have a comprehensive program to make sure building owners are aware of the requirements and allowing the flexibility and the cases especially giver en San Franciscos tow pography and many hig touric buildings to allow for the flexibility. I want to thank everyone who wrapped their heads around the issue how we have a program that we hope will be a benefit to the people who want to access all our brzs and the businesses who want to provide service to everyone in San Francisco. The way that the legislation is written, the responsibility falls on the Property Owner but we are very well aware in the private contraxual relationship between Property Owners and tenants they can discuss on their own the arrangement they have but we wrote it in a way that it falls on the Property Owner. Im happy to answer questions or can bring up Carla Johnson from the Mayors Office of disability for questions commissioner dooley i want to thank you catty katy for all the hard work and time you put into this. It was grailt to work with the different minds and it is really much needed and thank you so much. Thank you and i do want to give a builated thanksgivings to [inaudible] thaums who was part of the initial discussion as well and felt this was a important issue we as a city should be tackling. Any other comments, questions . No. Thank you very much, supervisor. With that ill bring up Carla Johnson from Mayors Office on disability. Good afternoon, it is so good to see you today. I also want to start my comments by thanking supervisor tang and her aid and commissioner dooley and director regina [inaudible] because what was special and unusual about this work group is it was trying to solve a problem from many different perspective chblt the people that par tit paced in the work group included work groups and your commissioner and director and department of building inspectioning, the Planning Department, department of public works, the Mayors Office on disability, bomu and others that came together. I think it is apparent today with the Seismic Safety Program is a good program because the comments you may regina were very good about looking at any work we do is a opportunity to improve accessibility. July we celebrated the 25 anniversary of signing of americans with disability act and in 1990 there was the expectation the work would be done now and yet as we go through the city there are many places that for a variety of reasons have not been able to retrofit their entrances and make their businesses fully accessible to all as a civil right and think the legislation tackles the project in a way to insure we improve the accessibility of the business squz protect our Small Businesses from lawsuits through this very thoughtful program to improve buildings over time and use this new Disability Access compliance unit at the department of building inspection to Work Together in a way we havent had the opportunity to do in the past. I do want to thank supervisor tang and look forward work wg you and here to answer any questions you may have on this as well. Thank you. Thank you. Commissioner questions comments . No. Okay. Any memberoffs the public wish to comment on this item . I is 2 speaker cards, first up denise [inaudible] and chip [inaudible] welcome. Welcome. Good afternoon commissioners. I thank you for the opportunity to be able to speak with you today. My name is denise [inaudible] cochair on the Mayors Disability Council and would like to read in record a letter of support for this Building Code amendment for the legislation of supervisor tang to include chapter 11 d to the Building Code. Dear commissioners the Mayors Disability Council is writing this letter in support of supervisor katy tangs proposed legislation introduced at the board of supervisors meeting on tuesday july 7, 2015. This proposal would expand Access Requirements for Small Businesses and other entities that serve the public requiring that commercial buildings with primary entries and path of travel into any existing buildings be made accessible for people with disabilities. Supervisor tangs important legislation would serve to reduce the number of physical barriers people with disabilities face when accessing Small Businesses. People with disabilities will be able to benefit by receiving the same privileges and services as people without disabilities, which will promote full and equal inclusion. Just as a importantly, this legislation provides much needed support to the Small Business community. The mdc empathized with Business Owners who are concerned about whether they are in compliance with the state or federal Disability Access law. The [inaudible] Disability Access compliance unit will provide multidepartmental guide squns outline requirements for each business Property Owner. Personalized through the use of a check list to assess where the property stands with regards to the ordinance. We understand that there will be cost associate would the implementation of this ordinance, however the ordinance has a mechanism to grant exceptions where they are extreme cases of physical constraint or financial burden on the Property Owner. The Access Appeals Commission will be empowered to review the conditions on a case by case basis and render decisions that document technical infeasibility unreezable hardship and [inaudible] the Mayors Disability Council studied this ordinance and found it to be a fair and balanced approach to solving accessibility issues for Small Business owners and the disability community. As we continue to celebrate the 25 anniversary of ada, let this legislation set a dpmp for the city and county of San Francisco by making business [inaudible] for all. Perfect timing, thank you. The value of reading your presentation, thank you. Next up. Good afternoon, my name is chip [inaudible] the other cochair of San Francisco Mayors Disability Council. Most of my points are contained in a letter read by my colleague. The situation for people with disabilities is there are many barrier tooz the goal of inclusion in american society. We face barriers in employment and education as well as physical access. The legislation is important because it brings our brothers and sisters with disability closer to fuller inclusion in society so i want to urge you to support this legislation and help it move forward. Thank you any other Public Comment . Seeing none Public Comment is closed. Commissioners. Director i just want to make a comment thmpt to extends my appreciation to supervisor tang for developing the legislation and this is Ground Breaking and it is historic and to have the city come together to look at what more we could do to help our Property Owners and Small Businesses and mostly help individuals with disabilities be able to access our goods and services. So, i think the timinghaving patrick [inaudible] and give the presentation to talk about what we are doing with the seismic safety but also to highlight the issuewise the california Building Code that under the seismic safety even though a business may be required to do some accessibility, but as he said, most of the average accessibility cost is 71 thousand dollars which is well under the evaluation thresh hold so additional 20 percent is over 14 dollars and dealing with a entry way especially if you have some sort of step, is going to be much more than 14 thousand dollars if you have to try to deal with lowering it, getting additional structural drawings, possibly going through Historic Preservation so that business may choose to spend that 14 thousand dollars in another area doing accessibility. We still havent accomplished our goal which is one of the first things that you need to dothe levels of priority of accessibility are pact of travel and entry way and most of the businesses dont have to deal with path of travel because that is in the public realm so the entry way is the first place. So, the timing of supervisor tangs legislation is very critical because there is still a good number of Property Owners who havent gone through the seismic retrofitting. While i know athere are businesses who have been able to stay inand conduct business but frafr the majority of the properties on hate rr street they had to go dark so it is really critical that we are engaging with the Property Owners now especially if the business isif that property will go dark to make their entry ways accessible. The only way to get around as i see it and correct me if im wrong richard, but to deal with that 20 percent is to do what we are requiring with the mandate. The timing of these 2 things are really important and while i know there will probably be hick ups, but think it is Ground Breaking and for us to demonstrate not only throughout california but nationally what we are trying to attempt to do is i think extraordinary and important and quite historic. So, just want to extend my appreciation to supervisor tang and to director johnson and richard halren and commissioner dooley and everybody involved to come up with the very smart way of approaching this and also to document situations and cases where it may be technically infeasible or there is a real hardship and that is information we can send to the state or to the federal level as examples of issues or concerns or things to help deal with trying to achieve accessibility. Thank you. Any other comments, questions commissioners . I move that we support katys legislation. Ill second. Roll call . Commissioner adams, yes. Commissioner dooley yes. Commissioner dwight yes. Commissioner ortiz, yes. Commissioner yee, riley, yes. Commissioner tour, sarcson, yes. Commissioner white, yes. Unanimously approve. Thank you supervisor. Thank you. All right. Thank you all for coming out for that. Next up is item number 6 item 6 is prezen taiz and discussion on administrative code chapter 14, San Francisco Health Care Security ordinance 14. 2 j, the department of Public Health plan to maximize enrollment in Health Insurance and include option frz incenting employers to provide quality. Presenting today is Colleen Chawla druckter of policy and planning. I have a presentation also for you if i could get that on the screen would be great. Colleen i think we can switch the mic if it is easier for you. It is on. Sorry, now it is. Is that better . Thank you. So, good afternoon commissioners im Colleen Chawla and Deputy Director of heth dedepartment and here to present the proposal for modernizing the Health Care Security ordinance and certain components chblt the item went to the hement commission for the first of the 2 hearings last tuesday and the heths commission wim hear it next tuesday and are interested in the feedback from the Small Business commission so thank you for had opportunity to be here. San francisco has seen Great Success enrolling people into Health Insurance since the implementation of the affordable heth cair act [inaudible] high cost of living in San Francisco [inaudible] Health Insurance remain for some san franciscans. Our proposal to modernize the city squaupgz create a Employee Wellness fund seems to compp lment the affordal care act. Just a little overview of what i plan to present today. I was told to give a thorough presentation and know you deal with this issue not an regular basis so it includes Health Care Security ordinance. Ill give a overview and why we are proposing it. Talk about the Health Care Security ordinance a little one on one on Health Care Security ordinance. Talk about proposal in more detail and then discuss what benefits we expect to accrue to san franciscans, to employees and employers and the city. I think you have all received or brought a copy of the memo to the helts commission. From a Employer Perspective this provides employers with new options to obtain Health Insurance for low income and part time employees. In addition it provides a opportunities to support Employee Wellness activities. The proposal insures all low and moderate income san franciscan have access to Affordable Health care. The proseal levelerages the City Option Program and in this graphic the gray indicates what exists already under the City Option Program and blue and orange indicate what is new. Existing City Option Program there are medical reimbursement accounts where individuals employers contribute on their behalf. They can use that accounts to reemburse for medical expenses. It also includes healthy San Francisco so employers who contribute on behalf of their employees to eligible individualerize enrolled in healthy San Francisco. The new components are in blue. We are proposing a new account that continues San Franciscos commitment to aca and prioritizes em enrollment for 3 thousand san franciscans. Those that are not eligible for this extension we continue to allow them to maintain their enrollment in healthy San Francisco so nobody goes without Affordable Health care service. In orange is a new Budget Initiative the department of Public Health will implement in 201617 called the Employee Wellness fund and the idea hire is this reemburse employers for eligibility expenditures and ill talk in more detail about that in a moment. Why are we here today with this proposal . San francisco as i said has seen success in the implementation of the Affordable Care acktd. Since 2014 more than 97 thousand san franciscans sl gained helts insurance through med ical or covered california. Our state exceeded federal enrollment rates. It is largely due to seck suss with healthy San Francisco we are so far ahead. Helthsy San Francisco is a coordinateed Health Care Program for uninsured san franciscans and approximately 80 percent of uninsured residence were enrolled in healthy San Francisco and that meant we know who the uninsured were. As a result our rate of uninsured has gone down by 54 percent in the city. And yet affordability challenges remain for some. Wesome remain unable ta to take advantage of affordsability and [inaudible] some others are exempt for hardship or religious reason squz still others are unabling to afford it. The affordsability concerns were highlighted in recent City Health Care initiatives, the 2013 universal helths care counsel which xhrgzer adams and [inaudible] as well as the amendment tooz the Health Care Security ordinance introduced by supervisor campos and passed in 2014. Both of those highlighted the issues of affordability for part time employees, plow wage earners and the Health Care Security ordinance required a plan to come back and address affordsability for helths insurance and that is what is before you today. In that time we did a lot of work. We hired through a grant from the California Health Care Foundation 2 consult ants to review the issue of affordability and address a program. We have 2 focus groups of employees and employers. 40 percent of covered california enrollies already struggled to pay premiums so add the cost of living in San Francisco and it is exas baited. We convened focused groups and among employees the chief concern is cost regardsless of whether they are insured or uninsured is the primary factor. For employers we found employers said they wanted to offer Health Insurance but had a hard time do it. Sometimes Health Insurance plans dont allow you to offer insurance to part time employees and other times it was just cost prohibitive. As i said, we engaged 2 consultant to work on this proposal that is before you. The first one was the Uc Berkeley Labor Center and the reason we chose them is because they created a simulation model that is relied on across california to look at Health Insurance uptake rates and various elements of the aca implementation so they had soft weir we could use. What does affordsability mean, howmany people do we talk about, what does it take to make Health Insurance affordable for them . Health managementish associates worked with the operationalization of the program. They did financial regulatory and operational Feasibility Analysis to help determine once we determine the benefit amount is to give to a person, how do we get that benefit to had person . What is the best way to get it to them so they qu owe can use it . Collectively their research founds there is a high costf living in San Francisco chblt they estimated it at 59 percent higher than the National Cost of average living. Also we found post Affordable Care act insurance trends that relyoon increased cost sharing leave people between 250 to 500 percent are the most vulnerable. [inaudible] paying the highest proportion of income to their Health Insurance. As a result this population is at the highest risk of being uninsured or under insured. The proposal that relies on the city option is the one considered most viable to address this issue. I will deal with a brief Health Care Security ordinance so you understand what it means when i say modernize the city option. The helths care security ordinance as you knerequires employers to make Health Care Expenditures own behalf of employers. Make quarterly expendstures for employees working more than [inaudible] on this chart are the 3 most prevalent ways employers comply. By far most employers provide Health Insurance. About 85 percent comply by providing helths insurance. About 20 percent comply by providing health reinbursement account and another 20 percent using the city option. What we are talking about here is the people who comply by contributing to the sate option so about 44 employers comply with Health Care Security ordinance overall. We are talking about the 20 percent who comply with the sit a option. What does the sit a do . If the person is anif the employee is a uninsured residence of San Francisco we direct them to healthy San Francisco program and they are allowed to get discounted enrollment. If they live outside the city or insured some other way they get a reinbursement account. [inaudible] so it is these 2 elements wree prosing to change in this proposal. Again, here is just a modern ization component of the proposal. The bridge to coverage feature under medical reinbursement is new as is the affordability extension for healthy San Francisco. I should say and didnt say this early on, this proposal makes no changes to the way employers contribute on behalf of employees, they occur on the back ends after a contsbution is made and what we do with the [inaudible] more accessible. So, first the bij to coverage, this is a attempt to do what we heard both employers and employees wanted us to do is make Health Insurance more affordable. So, for San Francisco residence whos employers contribute to the city option and purchase insurance on covered california and income below 500 percent of positivety they have access to bridge to coverage medical reinbursement account. The currents medical reinbursement account is the value of the employers cont bougzism pr part time it can be small and full time it can be large. What we proposal is calculate the value in the reinbursement account based on what the employee needs to make Health Insurance affordable. Assistance for paying premiums and assistference out of pocket cost. The first one is premium assistance and individuals will be able to get help paying 60 percent of the cost with the monthy premium and that correlates with the higher cost of livling in San Francisco so paying 60 percent of cost evens it out for contribution for health care. The cost sharing assist sns component. This is when you go to the doctor you have a percentage of a hospitalization you have to pay for, you have a flat dollar amount every time you use Prescription Drug coverage so the cost sharing assist sns designed to make sure the deduckable in the Health Insurance is never more than 5 percent. If you needed Health Care Services you couldnt afford to get them and for go [inaudible] this avoids the issue of underinsurance and provides that bftd. The other thing it does is leverage the federal benefits that employees are aurmd elg nl for on covered california. You see in the chart the bars from left to right, those are federal Poverty Levels starting at 150 percent all the way to 500 percent. The bars themselves, they represent the total the average cost that a 40 year old san franciscan would have access in Health Insurance on covered california. If they had to pay their full dedectable it would be 7 thousand a year for a 40 year old san franciscan. The blue bar representathize amount the federal government will pay toward Health Care Cost. You can see very low income the federal government subsidizes a lot. In the orange is how much this program will subsidize the cost of Health Insurance so at the low level this Program Subsidizes somewhat but by far the federal government is making most of the subsidize and as the income goes occupy the federal subsidize and the local subsudegoes up and leveled out. This is intented to address the 250500 percent of poverty for now insurance or under insurance. Who are the people that will be helped with the program . There are about 3 thousand. Uc berkeley did the analysis of the numbers expected to benefit from the program. 2016, about 3 thousand. Most are younger than 40 and Health Insurance the cost goes up with age so that 40 year old example is really the average cost that we are looking at. 73 percent are part time and work fewer than 30 hour as week and their employers are not subject to the aca mandates. 85 earn less than 47 thousand a year, that is about 400 percent of federal Poverty Level and 6 aket percent are eligible for subsidize on cover california. The overall cost is support pd by employer contribution tooz the city option on behalf ofome ployees benefiting. All employers contributing on behalf of the 3 thousand people will cover the costf the program both Program Expenses that benefits to the individual. In the first year we anticipate 7 million inb. S will go out. It will cost about a million to administer the program and 8. 8 contributions come in and have [inaudible] that was a medical reimbursement account. The affordsability extension for helthsy San Francisco is the safety net. This makes sure if people are not eligible for reinbursement accounts and people say they cannot afford helths insurance and the employer doesnt contributes to city option they are not without services. We are making 2 change tooz this program. Ill run through this because it has very little to do with whether the employer contributes or not. We increase the upper income limit to 500 percent of the federal Poverty Level to align with affordsability analysis we did and we are saying that even if you are eeligible for covered california that may not be enough to make it affordable for you and if that is true well make sure we can stay in healthy San Francisco. These are the eligibility requirements urm that i just described. What we are doing differently with this change is we are ramping up the enrollment and Education Assistance we provide already. Right now if you enroll in healthy San Francisco well say you can be eligible for helths insurance on covered california and can help you enroll but we want to do more education and say this is how much the federal government will penalize you on your tax return if you dont enroll and this is how much it cost to participate in healthy San Francisco and here is how much it cost for helths insurance. Even after all that calculation and discussion if a person says that is great but i caebt afford it well allow them to enroll so beefing up the education and enrollment assistance. The people eligible for this option are those not eligible for Affordable Care act insurance. Largely the undocumented. We have about 15 thousand enrollees now and this can 12 thousand are undocumented. Also people that are exempt from the federal mandate that dont have to pay the penty well allow them to pay. You dont have to pay a penalty if you are homeless or have a hardship or religious reasons. If the cost is too high you are eligible for mandate exemption and if the employer doesnt offer insurance and still unaffordable we allow you to stay. I should point out here just in the first column it is hard see, the total expenses for helthsy San Francisco Program Providing care to about 15 thousand san franciscans is about 112 million a year. [inaudible] of about 28 million a year. The city general Fund Supplements the cofs the program to the tune of about 83 Million Dollars a year. And then finally the Employee Wellness fund. This is a idea in progress so we would love your feedback on this. What we are proposing is create a separate wellinous fund that works like a reinbursement account that reinburses employers for approved expenditures. It is separate from the Health Care Security ordinance. We presented this idea to the helt commission and had thoughts too so ill share their thoughts with you as well. The goal here is really to look at intervening earlier in a persons helths. The Affordable Care act has a focus on prevention and wellness and Health Promotion and that is what we want to do here. Target the diseases of highest prevalence, Heart Disease is the highest in San Francisco. It might make a impact on Health Status as a city overall so we are looking at that. Research the Rand Corporation had done for the federal department of health and Human Services found that Employee Wellness programs reduce Health Care Cost for employers and increase productivity and reduce absenteeism and address Employee Health issues, specifically related to exercise frequency, smoking behavior and weight control. So, one of the other suggestions that the Health Department had was maybe looking at not reinbursing employers for what they expend for these programs because it may be complicated for employers trying to run a business to also think about wellness expenditures but having the Health Department provide something of value to Employee Wellness. Flutuate clinics or smoking sussation services. Maybe we make those more accessible to business and employees. So, that is the summary and just to recap what we expect the benefits of the proposal would be. Generally Affordable Health care for all low and middle income. This means no one is left without health care and that is good for people and business and the city and everyone. Specifically for san franciscan we make Health Insurance more affordable for about 3 thousand san franciscans and keep healthy San Francisco available for those who caebt afford it and promote Employee Wellness through the wellness fund. For employers we increase access to affordable helt insurance for low wage and part time employees, something the focus Group Participants said they wanted. We also are offering to invest in Employee Wellness for employers in San Francisco. And then for the city overall, the bridge to coverage option is entirely funded through existing mechanisms. The affordability extension we budget frd that to make sure nobody is left behind t. Avoids costly charity care reliance on Free Services at the hospital when we take care out of the emergency room. The Employee Wellness funds provides opportunity to have new partnerships with the business communities to look at the Overall Health of san franciscans. That concludes my presentation and happy to answer any questions . Thank you. Commissioner tour i have to thank you for your presentation. It is a complicated field and you made it quite clear and thank you for the 101 presentation. Thank you this discussion was for the city option only . That is correct, it doesnt increase the contributionit is readjusting the budge squt redirecting your efforts in managing. That is right the Employee Wellness fund is also limit ed to the city option what i didnt say is that we are planning to convene a group to look at what the Employee Wellness fund would look like. We wanted to address the a