Transcripts For SFGTV Government Access Programming 20180207

Our iphones and you kind of lose users in the city and have a cup of coffee im corey a typical day increase no typical day. And just the first time being on the talent show and getting a huge applause and i never expected it is is r is a great experience im an executive chief here at kathy serve over one hundred meals a day for the camp mather folks. People love our meals and the idea they can pick up a meal and dont worry about shopping or doing dishes and enjoy and have a great time at camp mather grasping grab on. I like camp mather it is a lot of freedom and kids run around its great. They have all the things i dont have to do the kids get to do what they want to do and we basically focus on them thats our only job. I like camp mather because i can ride my bike. I love camp mather. The children are up here playing around and riding their booiths bicycles thats a great place to see what the word is like outside of the city. We are now back in open session in government and Audit Oversight Committee for february 7, 2017. Thank you, mr. Clerk. Deputy city attorney. The committee voted 20 to forward items 6 through 14 to the full board with positive recommendations. Thank you. Can we take that motion and also take a motion to not disclose the proceedings from closed session and we can do that without opposition. Mr. Clerk, are there any items before this committee . Meeting is adjourned. Working for the city and county of San Francisco will immerse you in a vibrate and dynamic city on sfroert of the art and social change weve been on the edge after all were at the meeting of land and sea worldclass style it is the burn of blew jeans where the rock holds court over the harbor the citys Information Technology xoflz work on the rulers project for free wifi and developing projects and insuring patient state of at San Francisco General Hospital our it professionals make guilty or innocent available and support the house Senate Regional wearout system your our employees joy excessive salaries but working for the city and county of San Francisco give us employees the unities to contribute their ideas and energy and commitment to shape the citys future but for considering a career with the city and county of San Francisco [music] i came in with her impression of what i thought it was good what i knew about auditing with the irs spears i actually knew nothing about auditing in my mind it was purely financial. With people that audited the pain no one wants to deal with it now i see a lot of time explaining auditing is not just about taxes. Oftentimes most students believe that auditing is only financial whereas when they come into a Government Environment we do much more than financial audits. We do operational audits that were looking at the operations of the department for economy and efficiency and effectiveness. When i hire an intern some of the things that i am looking for first of all is is this individual agile and flexible because i am our environment is so fastpaced and where are switching from project to project depending on whats going on in the government at any given time. Primarily i didnt with audits on utilities management across city departments. Citywide this ods management audit was also been assisting with Housing Authority Audit Program the homelessness audit the it functions [inaudible] were starting any water on the department of Public Housing environment allows i also assist with the [inaudible] program. Then additionally i really enjoyed having staff who have some Critical Thinking skills. Because i believe the basis of auditing is not do you know how to audit, but to have Critical Thinking skills [inaudible] [inaudible] even though ive only been here for short time our quick indepth analysis and Research Analytical skills theres a lot of taking enlargement of information a compacting it a very concise report because weve a big focus on [inaudible] if youre transmitting this information to the audience you need him to be able to understand it. So i work with the Sparrow Program primarily. Broadway stan abused [inaudible] they prepare me for fulltime employment because i knew i could not to challenge myself in order to be an auditor. At the [inaudible] we are a content feedback and communication and they pointed out areas where i need to grow. One of the things i like about working at [inaudible] is that they actually give you quite a bit of autonomy i feel like kevin sage trusted me. The environment really [inaudible] to everyone feeling super collaborative and wanting to get to know one another. Which i think at the end of the date is a better Work Environment and gives you a better workflow. I believe that a really is a great experience because it provides an opportunity to have a better understanding of how government works. I think what ive learned so far is that every audit is unique everyday. Different learning opportunities. The recordation we make in on its i can honestly go home at the end of the day and zack and treated [inaudible] in a better way. Even of not familiar with what auditing is you should deftly find out. Its been really really awesome he was it turns out theres a whole world of auditing that i cannot open file oriented performance and [inaudible] and thats an exciting. Audit is a lot broader than i ever knew before. About two years ago now i had my first child. And i thought when i come back, you know, im going to get back in the swing of things and ill find a spot. And it wasnt really that way when i got back to work. Thats what really got me to think about the challenges that new mothers face when they come back to work. When it comes to innovative ideas and policies, San Francisco is known to pave the way, fighting for social justice or advocating for the environment, our city serves as the example and leader many times over. And this year, it leads the nation again, but for a new reason. Being the most supportive city of nursing mothers in the work place. I was inspired to work on legislation to help moms return to work, one of my legislative aids had a baby while working in the office and when she returned we had luckily just converted a bathroom at city hall into a lactation room. She was pumping a couple times a day and had it not been for the room around the hallway, i dont know if she could have continued to provide breast milk for her baby. Not all returning mothers have the same access, even though theres existing state laws on the issues. These moms usually work in low paying jobs and returning to work sooner and they dont feel wellsupported at work. We started out by having legislation to mandate that all city offices and departments have accommodations for mothers to return to work and lactate. But this year we passed legislation for private companies to have lactation policies for all new moms returning to work. With the newcome accommodations, moms should have those to return back to work. What are legislation . We wanted to make it applicable to all, we created a set of standards that can be achievable by everyone. Do you have a few minutes today to give us a quick tour. I would love to. Lets go. This is such an inviting space. What makes this a lactation room . As legislation requires it has the minimum standards, a seat, a surface to place your breast on, a clean space that doesnt have toxic chemicals or storage or anything like that. And we have electricity, we have plenty of outlets for pumps, for fridge. The things that make it a little extra, the fridge is in the room. And the sink is in the room. Our legislation does require a fridge and sink nearby but its all right in here. You can wash your pump and put your milk away and you dont have to put it in a fridge that you share with coworkers. The new standards will be applied to all businesses and places of employment in San Francisco. But are they achievable for the smaller employers in the city . I think Small Businesses rightfully have some concerns about providing lactation accommodations for employees, however we left a lot of leeway in the legislation to account for Small Businesses that may have small footprints. For example, we dont mandate that you have a lactation room, but rather lactation space. In city hall we have a lactation pod here open to the public. So the more we can change, especially in government offices, the more we can support women. I think for the work place to really offer support and encouragement for pumping and Breast Feeding mothers is necessary. What is most important about the legislation is that number one, we require that an employer have a lactation policy in place and then have a conversation with a new hire as well as an employee who requests parental leave. Otherwise a lot of times moms dont feel comfortable asking their boss for lactation accommodations. Really its hard to go back to the office after you have become a mom, youre leaving your heart outside of your body. When you can provide your child food from your body and know youre connecting with them in that way, i know it means a lot to a mommy motionlely and physically to be able to do that. And businesses and employers can just provide a space. If they dont have a room, they can provide a small space that is private and free from intrusion to help moms pump and that will attract moms to working in San Francisco. If you want more information visit sfdph. Org breastfeedingatwork. [gavel] all right. Welcome to our Land Use Committee meeting on monday, february 5, 2018. Im katie tang, the chair of the committee. And were joined by new vice chair supervisor jane kim. Welcome. Welcome back. And, of course, returning member ahsha safai. Our clerk is victor young. And thank you to s. F. Gov tv. Any announcements . Yes. Please make sure to silence all cell phones and electronic devices. Completed speaker cards and any documents to be included as part of the file should be submitted to the clerk. I would like to note that we currently have a quorum of the board constituting a quorum. I forgot to mention, were joined by fewer, yee, stefani as well. Im going to ask you to call item three out of order because we need to make some amendments. Item three, please. Item number tlaoe. Ordinance amending the planning doed accomplish the gear rimasonic special use district in the area generally bounded by the geary boulevard to the south, masonic avenue to the east and assessors parcel block numbers 1071, lots numbers 1 and to the north and west. Thank you. Supervisor stefani, the new sponsor of this item. Thank you, chair tang. Colleagues, thank you for hearing this item today. Im thrilled to put the final touches on this project that has taken over two years to get to this stage. I was ah aids when this first came to district two and it is great to see how far this project has come. This s. U. D. Allows it to go from 21 ewe it in units to 91 units while remaining the same size. It goes from three to 22, that is more affordable units than the total number of units in the original project. These are homes for 95 families to join the neighbourhood along the transit corridor. Thank you to the neighbours, Laurel Heights and antavista neighbours for being so great. We want to thank them for supporting such a dense project in a neighbourhood that hasnt seen any new housing, which i know is challenging for many neighbourhoods. So, thank you to those neighbourhood organisations. This project is a uniquely dense project that is labour and neighboursupported. It took a lot of work and i think the Broad Coalition of people who did work on this. Im very happy to be carrying this across the finish line here today. I do have a couple of amendments in response to the Planning Commission recommendation and ive handed those amendments out to my colleagues. First, the inclusionary rate goes from 18 to 23 . And that is broken down as follows 10 at 55 of a. M. I. 5 at 80 of a. M. I. 4 at 110 of a. M. I. And 5 at 120 of a. M. I. And then of course the appropriate a. M. I. Bands will apply. The second recommendation is around the car share spaces. The Commission Recommended four of the spaces be reserved for car share. So on the advice of the city attorney, we have increased the findings regarding car share to require four of the 16 Parking Spaces in this project to be reserved for car share use. And those are all the amendments . Yes. Ok. Great. Thank you. Do we want a motion to move those amendments . Yes. Id like to make a motion to accept those amendments. All right. And supervisor safair, did you want to speak on the item as well . No, supervisor stefani summed it up wonderfully. Any questions or xhenzes, any staff . Rention nope. Well go to Public Comment on this item three and i have three cards richard, michael and colleen. And if anyone else would like to speak on item three, please come on up. Thank you. I just wanted to summarize the Planning Commissions actions from a couple of months ago. On november 30, 2017, the Planning Commission, after hearing and closing Public Comments approved the proposed ordinance with modifications, recommended by planning staff. The modifications to the ordinance increased the required onsite Affordable Housing provision from 18 to 23 for rentals at the a. M. I. Levels prescribed by section 415 of the planning code. This recommendation was made on the basis that the proposed s. U. D. Confers density increases that are commons rat with the level of increase contemplated in the home s. F. Bram and, therefore, an increased onsite affordable rate within the su. D. Is appropriate. Staff wants to thank mayor ferrell for amending the ordinance to include the commissions recommendations. At the same hearing, the Planning Commission granted conditional use authorization to demolish the onestorey building and construct a mixed use building containing 95 residential dwelling units above approximately 1700 square feet of ground floor commercial space, 16 off street Parking Spaces and 120s bicycle Parking Spaces. The commission added a condition of at least four of the Parking Spaces are dedicated for car share use. This concludes my friendsing and im available for my questions. Thank you very much. Any further questions . Ok. Nope. Seeing none, then well go back to Public Comment, actually. So, please come on up. Youll each have two minutes to speak on this item. Good afternoon, supervisors. Im Richard Frisbee with the Laurel Heights improvement association. It has take and lot of work as the supervisor pointed out but we have something that i think works for all three parties and id like to thank everyone for the work thats gone into it. Its not been receive but it has been useful and what came out of it is something we all think will benefit the neighbourhood. Thank you. Thank you. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon, supervisors. My name is michael coholland. Im a 40year resident and Property Owner on wood street, just a block away from the project. Id like to echo my friend dick frisbees comments that the neighbourhood of which im a part of and also part of the Laurel Heights improvement association, is in support of this project. Id like to extend my welcome to supervisor stefani for coming back to district two. Were glad to have you. And i also noticed on the way in that the actual developers are there in the back and i said this at the planning hearing commission. I wanted to thank them for being so transparent and upfront with the neighbourhood. I think this is a key thing for this commission and the board and the Planning Department to Pay Attention to in the future. Because there is a lot of projects coming online that things work. They work when the developmenter is up front, transparent, communicative to the neighbourhood and we all get to have a conversation. So it has been a while. Really appreciate everyones efforts. Also chris mei is back here. I believe i got your name right. I think he is a staff person who has done an exceptional job at working hard to get the neighbourhood and the developer to get this project done. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. Good afternoon. My name is colleen ryan and i live on emmerson street adjacent to the project. And i echo dick and michaels comments. Were pleased that the developer worked with us. We were concerned that the height would be overshadowing our properties. We thank you again for that. And christopher may definitely worked hard and called us back promptly. So, were in support of the promise and we appreciate the fact that things are working. We do understand that the city needs housing. It should be noted that cities should be proud of the fact that you took a 12,000 foot lot, zoned for 21 units and are creating 95 units. That is impressive. Our one concern is the concern of all my neighbours on emmerson is the fact that where gearymasonic funnel into, there is a small Little Corner and there can be a lot of traffic where trader joes is and we know that the developers trying to work out a plan. Were going to wait to see if the traffic is going to be ok getting home each day. Our kids take the bus. We walk and bike through there. And so traffic is really a problem in that corner. So, were really hoping that that part works out. But we are pleased at housing coming and were supportive of that. I walk in the neighborhood a ton. I have a dog and we never got a notice for this or saw one on any type of pole. Which we did a few months ago. And while we dont have a problem with this because we have an excellent negotiator for us, there was no notice. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. South carolina good afternoon, supervisors. Danny campbell with the sheet Metal Workers local 104 and my colleagues alex lanceberg and with electrical workers local six, john corso, local 38 plumber and pipefitters. Very excited about this profnlt its going to deliver lowincome, moderateincome and market rate housing to our citys housing supply. We worked very closely with former supervisor mark ferrells office. I want to thank him and his staff. Planning and not to mention the project sponsor. This project gives Community Benefits and Career Pathways for residents throughs our state aproved apprenticeship programmes. So, we look forward to your support for this su. D. Thank you. Thank you very much. Next speaker, please. And anyone else who would like to speak on this project. Good afternoon. Todd david on behalf of the San Francisco action housing coalition. Very excited to support this project. I really want to give kudos to the neighbourhood for embracing density and more housing for families in San Francisco. I hope it is a model that can be repeated many places on the west side of San Francisco because we certainly need more housing. As far as the traffic concerns, i know this starts to be an impetus for us to start thinking about maybe some subways to the west side or some rapid transit. But we certainly need to be making sure that we can move people around in San Francisco without having them get in their cars. Thank you. Were excited to support it. Any other members of the public who wish to speak on item three . Ok. Seeing none, Public Comment is closed. Supervisor stefani, any other remarks . No. Ok. At this time, we had a motion to amend per what supervisor stefani said earlier. Can we get a motion on the item as amended. Motion to move forward with positive recommendation. And well do that without objection. Im sorry. Im sorry. Deputy city attorney. Oh, to continue the item. Ok. Because it has amendments. Ill make a motion to ill amend my motion and make that a motion to continue. For one week. Ok. Great. Well is that ok . Deputy attorney. As amended. The motion you should make a motion to adopt the amendment and then continue the item one week. Yes. So, colleagues i heard a motion to amend. There was a second. So were going to amend it and then were going to we had a motion to continue for one week. All right. Thank you. Now mr. Clerk, items one and two together. Item number one, hearing on the efficacy of the citys vai cantsabandoned property or did nation and strategies for preventing vacant storefronts. Item number two, hearing on the findings of the 2017 retail study conducted by the office of economic and Workforce Development that reviews the state of the Retail Industry nationally and locally and provides an overview of challenges and opportunities for San Franciscos neighbourhoods and retail commercial districts. Thank you very much. I want to thank sponsor to the hearing supervisors fewer, ronan, yee, guest for the district two office. I dont know if supervisor stefani is taking over, but certainly although my name is not on, this its something that is a topic that ive been very interested in as well. I want to thank my colleagues for bringing this to our attention. We are going hear from many, many departments that are working hard day in and day out on this issue. The office of economic and Workforce Development, our department of building inspection, we will hear from our budget and legislative Analyst Office on the report and also we have planning staff as well and i forget if i mentioned d. B. I. , but department of building inspection. So, with that said, i know that there is a lot of work that we all do in our representive supervisors offices in conjunction our other city departments in trying to both recruit and detain businesses in our commercial corridors and i know that each of our corridors have their own sets of challenges or attractiveness. But especially when you throw into the mix the changing face of retail and that there is so much ecommerce going on right now. I know that its a conversation we all need to have as a city family in terms of whether we to reconsider how it is that we zone our city and commercial neighbourhoods. How it is that we deal with our vai cants and abandoned properties and so forth. So, with that said, id like to kick it over to supervisor fewer, the lead sponsor on the first hearing. Thank you, chair tang. Long before i ran for this office, vacant commercial storefronts had been a concern for residents and merchants of the rich monday district. In my district as well as across the city, storefronts left vacant for not only months but years can have a terrible impact on a neighbourhood. Long time antistorefronts contribute to blight as well as issues of safety and cleanliness. They wear down the pride that neighbours have in their neighbourhood. And empty commercial storefronts on the market may contribute to rising commercial rents. I want to thank in advance all the departments that will be presenting on this issue today and i understand that there are steps that have been taken, including legislations in 2014 from supervisor tang. I am really looking forward to todays presentations and the discussion about next steps because while there are many reasons that contribute to vacant commercial storefronts, what is clear to me is that we arent doing enough as a city to prevent themment. As i know well hear today our current mechanisms for track empty commercial store fronts and buildings are not capturing the true scope of the problem and enforcement seems to be nonexistent. For instance tb. L. A. Report states that the currently reported commercial vacancies none are located in the richmond district. And let me tell you i beg to differ. Just ask a neighbour who lives near balboa and 6th avenue. I hope this hearing serve toes eliminate the current status of our systems addressing commercial vacancies and some of the action steps we can take to minimize such vacancies and the negative impacts on our neighbourhoods. Our goal as a city should be to support vibrant corridors with store fronts that meet the needs of our neighbourhoods. I believe supervisor yee also has comments on this. Thank you. Supervisor ye, e . Thank you, chair tang. I ask the budget and legislative Analyst Office to prepare a report on commercial vacancies because like every other supervisor in the city, im concerned with the vitality of our commercial corridors. While we have many vacant businesses throughout our neighbourhoods, it is obvious when you stroll down our streets that some blocks have a chronic issue with storefront vacancy and can lead to blight and make our neighbourhoods feel run down and neglected. Though we passed building regulations in 2009 and again in 2014, we have not been seeing the kind of improvement that we had hoped for. This hearing is designed to provide us with information of our Current Situation as well as recommendations on how we can improve enforcements of our current laws and ideas for dealing with this issue using new approaches. I it is not like San Francisco is alone on this issue. There are other jurisdictions that have taken different approaches to improve vacancy issues. They can be addressed through zoning and high rents and the rise of an ecommerce are challenging traditional retailers in San Francisco and elsewhere. Places like seattle has been taking it on for a few years now and id like to say that i appreciate the discussion well have at the end of this where there is some policy options that will be presented and many they have been work on this already, but the board of supervisors can request that, for instance, the Planning Department and Planning Commission to consider a report back on possible zoning and planning code changes. So, id like to say that ive been work on the issue that might change some of the zoning to benefit some of these vacant commercial propertis that were seeing. Were seeing that there is certain areas where they build these commercial spaces and it has been sitting empty, brandnew for two to three, sometimes four years. And so one of the things that im doing is working with the Planning Department and oewd to come up with one idea with helping solve some of these issues. And im hoping to present that some time this month. Thank you, supervisor yee. If there are no further comments, then we were going to have the budget and legislative analyst provide their report findings first. Good afternoon, chair tang. Members of the committee and supervisors. Excuse me. Fred russo from the budget and legislative office. And we prepared a policy analysis report for supervisor yee, preventing and filling commercial vacancies that was issued last months and ill provide a summary of it for you today. So, to start commercial vacancies, causes and effects, theres normal turnover, of course, which happens to all kinds of businesses and spaces are vacated and put on the market and occupied again. But there are other causes for commercial vacancies, including owners lack of information about tools and ways of finding new tenants, speculation to obtain higher rents or sales prices in the future. Sometimes buildings just stay vacant waiting for a tenant who will pay a higher rent. Neighbourhood conditions sometimes make property unattractive to a new tenant. Perhaps the owner is trying to lease it out. But as having difficultty atracting someone. City regular leighs and zoning can be a factor. Disputes among owners. Sometimes there are families, for example, that own businesses or a group of Business People and they dont agree on the approach to the property or what the rent should be. Or, you know, how to market it. So, sometimes they sit empty while there are just internal disputes like that. In addition, and it was mentioned in the earlier comments, the world of retail, of course, has changed dramatically in recent years. So another factor is the lack of demand. Some of the commercial space cannot be filled because a lot of retailers are curtailing their businesses or turning back entirely. And so the effect of all of this is prolonged particularly for prolonged vacancy and abandonments, not those normal Business Cycle types can be bliegts. Loss of Community Serving Small Businesses and weaker neighbourhood economies. To address that, there are a couple of things the city has done. One is that has adopted two ordinances to deal with vai cants and abandoned buildings and vacant and abandoned commercial storefronts. They are embedded in the Building Code and theyre similar in structure in that they require owners of vacant or abandoned buildings. That can be residential or commercial to register with the department of building inspection and they have to pay an annual fee of 711 as long as the buildings are vacants. Then the commercial storefront ordinance, which was adopted in 2014 added, besides full buildings, just individual storefronts and it is a similar structure in that owners are to report to the department of building inspection and pay a 711 annual fee. One difference in that case is the fee is not due informal nine months after the registration to allow the owners time to market or repair the property. There are fines attached to lack of compliance with this. And they can vary based on the amount of time that has transpired. One thing that is important to point out about these ordinances is they exclude buildings and commercial storefronts that are currently under permit for repairs or are being actively marketed so they would not be required to register, but those that are empty and dont fit under those conditions are required to register and pay the annual fee. In addition to those ordinances, there are a number of programmes and services, administered largely by the office of economic and Workforce Development. Theyre aimed at preventing commercial vacancies or assisting tenants and owners and filling commercial vacancies. The programmes are listed here and aoen they are speaking later. We can probably give you more details on all of those. But we have description of the programme in our report. We started with this analysis in trying to determine how many buildings and commercial storefronts are vai cants or abandoned. A number we thought would be relatively easy to get. But it was not in a number of reports and measures made by both city agencies and, of course, private sector real estate companies. But none of them capture the totality of all commercial buildings and storefronts and their vacancy rates. We can get certainly a lot of information about downtown commercial properties and their van can si rates and we can get commercial spaces throughout the city that are not receiving mail. The office of economic and Workforce Development does just commercial storefronts. But for 24 commercial corridors only. So, it is still not the citywide rate. On this chart, you can see some of the rates that are reported and tracked. Oewd reported 5 as a whole for the 24 quarters they track. 8. 2 by the city controller for commercial vacancies downtown in 2016. And the u. S. Postal service, as i mentioned, which reports all commercial addresses that are not receiving mail for 90 or more days had a rate of 7. 4 . And there are about 45,000 commercial sites or addresss in San Francisco. So, that gives you some perspective on that. In terms of the abandoned, vacant commercial property ordinances, the two i mentioned, so those are administered by the department of building inspection and by the ordinances they maintain registris to keep track of how many buildings have reported, that theyre vacant and paid their fee. And you see on this chart the numbers from 2013 to 2016, the commercial storefront ordinance was not in place in the first two years, which is why that was blank. You can see for the last two years, and focusing just on the commercial, the commercial buildings were three in 2015 and 28 in 2016. As for storefronts, 38 were on the registry in 2015 and 25 in 2016. Comparing this to some of the other numbers that we obtained by commercial vacancy, we concluded that there is low compliance with the two ordinances. The numbers are low. Certainly low relative to all commercial vacancis that are reported. But in addition, they have been geographically concentrated. So, for example, in 2016, 16 of the 28 excuse me, 25 commercial storefronts reported were on polk streets and haight streets alone in. 2015, 23 of the 33 were on street streets. So we know just from casual observation that there are properties on other streets that are vai cants or abandoned and this is not capturing the full inventory. There were none reported in 2016 in china town, castro t richmond district, the Central Mission or the financial district. And we did review a study done by hood line and they did a inventory in the Castro District in march 2017 and found 53 vai cants commercial storefronts. These could include some that werent required to register by the ordinance, but it is an indication of the volume of vacancies and commercial properties and some of which we assume are probably qualifying as vai cants or abandoned. This map is a representation of the commercial properties reported by the u. S. Postal service for the Fourth Quarter of 2016. And we included it because it shows the distribution of vacancies and the rates. And you can see the darker the colour, the higher the rate of commercial vacancies. Again, not all of these would be subject to the ordinance and required to register. But it does tell you that they are located in neighbourhoods throughout city and we assume wherever there are blocks of commercial properties, there is going to be some in the subset, which is what qualifies as vacants or abandoned by the ordinances. In addition to a low number of properties that are on the registry with the department of building inspection, because they pay fees, we collected information on the fees that have been paid in the last four years and thats presented in this chart. It has not been a very high amount, particularly for the commercial buildings or the commercial store front as you can see, under 5,000 for both of them in 2016. And the numbers that paid are also lower than the numbers that were on the registry. Seven commercial buildings and five commercial storefronts. That can represent different things. One is the owner may not have been in communication with the department of building inspection because in many cases, the the vacant property is reported not by the owner, but by neighbours. Neighbours will call in and inform d. B. I. That there is a space thats vacant. So, sometimes it gets on the registry without the owners involvement. And in other cases they simply, you know, have not made the payment yet. In addition, another measure for the vai cants and abandoned commercial Property Programme is abatements and closures of cases and you can see here looking at the last four years also that its a small number of cases that get abated and closed. And abated means that the that all the violations, because some of these properties have besides the problem of being vacant, they may have other Building Code or planning Code Violations that are being addressed at the same time. If the owner hasnt resolved that, the case isnt abated. And sometimes the scattered showers abated but the final payments havent been made and the payments closed can. There is a low rate of compliance on these cases. Or closure, i should say. Excuse me. In terms of the limitations, and we worked with d. B. I. To address some of the causes of why the ordinances dont seem to be enforced to tex to the extent that they should be and in many cases, you know, as mentioned, we think the owners are not registering. The department does not have a proactive programme or approach to identify the buildings and contact the owners to ensure that they register their properties and pay their annual fees. So, as mentioned, the most Common Source of information about the properties is neighbours complaining rather than the owners selfreporting. Which is the requirement in the ordinance. In addition to neighbours registering complaints, City Employees will sometimes observe the abandoned or vacant property and report it. These can be d. B. I. Employees or others who observe it when they are working in the field and report the information to d. B. I. Another factor is d. B. I. Does not monitor the vacancies after they are reported and added to the registries. So, there arent updates in terms of the status of the properties once they have been added to the registry. The low fee collection has the added effect, of course, of not making Resources Available to expand or enhance the programmes. So, while we believe d. B. I. Could extend some more proactive efforts to reach out to owners or identify other properties, that does take resources, but there is a source of resources, which is the fees. So, this sort of circular problem here in the programme needs to be enhanced and that will generate the fees which will enable the programme to be enhanced. And finally, the registris are not posted online. So there are limitations in terms of the property aware that they are registered and whether the property they are aware of is on the registry or not. D. By. Has stated that the reason nar is they dont want to make the Information Available for security purposes because a vai cants, abandoned building can be attractive to people to get into it for illegal purposes. As supervisor yee mentioned, were not alone in having a problem with commercial vacancies. We did review some other cities and what their vacancy rates are and this is not just dealing with abandoned and commercial, but commercial vacancies as a whole. New york, there was a report from last martha recorded a 5 to 20 vacancy rate in various retail corridors throughout city. What was interesting there is some of the higher rent districts are having higher vacancy rates and what theyre finding is this problem with the Retail Industry right now in general which is there arent enough highend tenants that want to occupy brick and mortar space any longer. So, everyone is waiting for the big tenants, but theyre cutting back. Chicago had a rate ranging from 3 30i8 to 14. 3 throughout the metro area. And it was 10 overall. They did cite rising costs, higher rents as being a hardship on a lot of the businesss who are subject to the same industry changes. Previously mentioned. And then the 24s commercial corridors tracked by oewd here in San Francisco just for comparison range from 1. 3 to 16. 9 with west portals, retail area being the lowest and visitation valley, lee land street, i believe it was, being the highsest at 16. 9 . We also reviewed some of the approaches being used in other cities. In chicago, theres sort of a twopronged approach. One is Economic Development and funding for particularly neighbourhoods that have had a hard time filling vacant, commercial spaces. It is called the neighbourhood opportunity fund. They collect money from Downtown Developers who, in exchange, get density bonuses and some of those funds are used to provide capital to businesses in hardhit neighbourhoods. The retail thrives zones is another programme and that involves reduced property taxes for certain businesses that meet hardship criteria. And competitive grants to enable them to repair and improve their properties to enable them to be october pieed again. But on ten forcement side, chicago also has a more stringent registration and Fee Programme than we see here. There they require fees to be paid every since months on vai cants or abandoned property. Here were on a oneyear cycle. And here the vacancies are higher if its not reported by the Property Owner. If it comes in from a complaints from neighbours as we see happens here frequently with d. B. I. , then the fee is higher for the building owner. And if theyre cited for repeat Building Code violations, the fee is also higher in chicago. Washington, d. C. Has a similar approach where there is higher fees charged for propertis that are vacant or blighted. They tack a surtax on to the property tax which is not something that the San Francisco can touch because of state law limitations. It is just pointing out that some cities are using an approach of disincentives for leaving properties vai cants or who are abandoned. And dallas, the city of dallas and state of michigan have both adopted acquisition programmes or land bank where is they acquire and hold properties through the foreclosure process and if they have been vacants or abandoned and take posession of them and turn them over for uses that fulfill their Economic Development objectives. Finally, seattle. And i think supervisor yee, you mentioned that and that is an interesting carefuls and this is probably dealing with the broader issue of commercial vacancies, but like San Francisco, they have had a lot of requirements in their planning and zoning codes to particularly for multistory residential buildings to have retail uses on the ground floor. And we have, of course, those requirements in San Francisco as well. They are removing many of those requirements or making them more flexible so that other uses can go in, including housing on the ground floor, child care on the ground floor and other use. And i think it is an acknowledgment of the process of the fact that building owners can not fill all the Available Space in these residential towers. And i know just around city hall here, you see it in many of the New Buildings being built, there is space reserved for retail on the ground floor and it is empty and has been sitting empty for months and months, if not longer. This issue has come up several times here in San Francisco. The Planning Commission did consider, for example, a proposal to allow retail space in a building in union square to be converted to office. It was ultimately denied but the proposal was made and considered. There was a decision made by the Planning Commission and approved by the board of supervisors last july to expand the definition of neighbourhood commercial districts and make it easier to open child care without conditional use permits. And that includes using what has previously been ground floor retail space for that purpose. And the Planning Department, central soma plan and implementation strategy includes proposals to require smaller ground floor, retail spaces in central soma and that would allow for a mix of retail uses and types. Right now theres certain size requirements that may be inappropriate now that there is that the Retail Market is changing sophomore and different types of businesses and different types of spaces are needed to fulfill the changing requirements of the industry. So we included a number of policy options in our report. Here they are. The board of supervisors could enhance funding for existing Small Business programmes. Again, the oewd programmes. We did, as i mentioned, look at owl of them. We couldnt put them all together to determine which ones in particular have resulted in occupying a previously vacant or commercial space. But we know that is the objective of a lot of their programmes. So we think combined with some additional performance metrics, thats something that the board could consider for additional funding if the programmes are proving effective. Another is for the board to consider requesting the Planning Department and the Planning Commission to consider and report back on possible zoning and planning code changes. To allow for more flexible uses of commercial spaces. Another is to suggest to d. B. I. That they apply t their outreach on commercial storefront ordinances so owners are more aware of the requirements and that they could also help reduce barriers for the public and City Employees to report on vai cants and abandoned commercial properties. The ordinances could be the existing ordinance could be amended by the board of supervisors to raise fees and penalties. Similar to what i was pointing out in both chicago and washington, d. C. Where there are variable fees and if owners arent registering or keeping their property vai cants for prolonged periods of time, higher fees could be attached. Right now it is a flat fee for all properties, regard less of the kfnlts another is that the city require in combination with d. B. I. To access the information thats compiled by the u. S. Postal service. I mentioned that they do compile that information, but it is a rich source of information that could finally give the city a citywide database on commercial properties. That would be extremely useful in monitoring the situation and how its changing over time. And finally, that the board could request a d. B. I. Make the vacant building and commercial store front registries publicly available. That would help get the public more involved in reporting and monitoring Vacant Commercial Properties in their neighbourhoods. So that is the summary of the report. Christina is also here and were avai