Today. Im available if you have questions. Supervisor fewer any questions or comments . Supervisor peskin could you remind us of your name . Katy sherping. Supervisor fewer you mentioned many of the permits being streamlined. Which ones are you streamlining . The legislation that was signed last week did a number of things. I may not have them all off the top of my head. It reduced some of the duplicate inspections that would happen. If you did a buildout and apply for an entertainment, you would have to do that again. So that goes away. There are other areas where we updated our health code for example to be more in line with state health code around when restrooms are required to be accessible for patrons. This expands opportunities for businesses to, for example, have like a small coffee cart or Something Like that without having to provide a restroom for their customers. There were a number of other pieces of this legislation. The piece that was talked about most in the commission had to do with the buffer zone and honing in our zoning so its most applicable in the neighborhoods where it was originally intended. Supervisor fewer we heard from the Restaurant Industry about the money that is associated with all of this permitting process. So with open to sf, how much can an entrepreneur look to save going through this streamlining process . The open in sf program doesnt change fees for any of the businesses. If that is your question, what it does is help guide them through the process, so the way that i most see people be able to save time with the program is two pieces. One is i really try to make sure were engaging with Restaurant Owners before they sign their lease, as was mentioned, you can adapt to a lot if youre negotiated that into your youve negotiated that into your lease, but if youre not expecting it, and you already pay rent, its challenging. So its being proactive with people so they know what is going to be expected of them. And another piece, if you know about all of the permits required of you in advance, you can set them up and do certain things at the same time and have the process work in the right sequence and save time. Supervisor fewer so helping them get organized and navigate. Yeah. Supervisor fewer are you doing an evaluation process after you help the clients to see how we can make it better . Thats a good question. Its something were working on. Oewd in general has been working on getting feedback from businesses and were hearing about the program. And then weve considered launching a survey with these businesses to hear back from them after the process, how it worked for them and what could have been done better. Supervisor fewer how much what is the budget for open in sf . Its really just one fte. Supervisor fewer i actually think since this is sort of a new initiative, the collection of data on this and also the feedback from the Restaurant Industry would be really helpful. Is this something we want to expand on . Is this something they find helpful . Is this something we want to put more funding to, to reach more people . I think the survey and the feedback from the people in the industry is probably the most important aspect i think. When we come back to reevaluate what were doing, are we doing enough, could we do better . If you could give us an update, that would be great. Great. Supervisor haney thank you, supervisor fewer. It seems that in some ways that particular program around open in sf was created to give businesses, restaurants, a Central Point of contact to help them understand the different departments that they have to navigate and that sort of thing. Is that how you understand it . There are obviously a lot of departments who will be coming and that restaurants would have to navigate through. Would oewd view you as the right place to start to understand the various steps . And then if thats the case, are you saying that there is only one fte that is responsible for this . There is only one fte that is responsible for this. In terms of the right place to start, i think, yes, ideally, its the right place to start so they have the information as they move forward across all departments. Sometimes it works a little bit out of order, which is okay, lets say someone is interested in a space and so they go down to the Planning Department, to the Public Information counter to ask about that space. They might get referred from there directly to this program to then come and get more of an overview before they move onto other departments. So it can work in multiple directions, but ideally, it works best if they find us first and get that sort of overarching picture of the process. Supervisor haney obviously, its called open in sf, so a lot of this is folks who want to open a new restaurant. What about keeping restaurants open in sf . If is a business is having a set of challenges, maybe the rent is going way up, or other sorts of permitting issues, would they come to you to then help them navigate how to deal with the challenges or other types of Logistical Support that you could provide . Yeah, absolutely. A number of businesses sort of in their attempt to grow, adapt to changing markets and interest, want to, for example, add a permit, maybe expand their space, maybe move from a limited restaurant to a restaurant with beer and wine, which all require permits. So i help them navigate through that process. Supervisor haney so youre the right first point and then you can do the other . Okay. Got it. Thank you. Supervisor fewer thank you very much. Next we have stephen clock from department of building and inspection. And i think that were going to cover the overthecounter expedite the service. Is that right . Yes. Okay. Good afternoon. Im a senior building inspector with the department of building inspection. Im involved in the planning review services where we review permit applications for projects. Today, im going over the restaurant permitting process. To give you a little bit of background about the department, typically in a oneyear period we do 70,000 Building Permit application reviews. Out of that, in prior years, weve done approximately 900 Building Permit applications for restaurants, bars and cafes. These permits consist of all types of applications for the restaurants, including alterations, new restaurants and minor alterations. During the timeline, its 44 days for processing of a permit application. This consists of a wide range of application and also includes all other Agency Reviews within that time period. General review of the permitting process would be applicant comes and files for a Building Permit application. We conduct the permit application review. Where we issue comments for outstanding items and then work with the applicants on working on approval. After that, we send the permit for permit issuance. Once its issued, theyre approved for construction, they can go through the construction, conduct their construction inspections and once everything is complete, the project completion, they get their certificate of final completion and can open their business. Restaurant permit process. So typically once a project is approved by the Planning Department it comes to our position for review. There are two routes for the process. One, overthecounter. And the second is through intake process. About 90 of the applications we review go through an overthecounter process. This process within the department usually takes 2day review and approval process. The intake process is typically similar, however, that time usually takes a little longer than the overthecounter process. The difference is, intake application, the drawings and application are dropped off and submitted to the department and go through a sequential interdepartmental routing process which can take time take longer time than overthecounter review process. We have a general review of a flow chart of overthecounter review process. As you can see, application typically starts with dbi and finishes with dbi. Throughout the process, these projects do require some other agencies review and this is where theyre intertwined within the application process. Such as some projects that require Health Department review would be sent to be reviewed within the process. And some projects for larger restaurants may require fire Department Review and so forth. Some of the causes for the extra time needed for a very view, there is ongoing issues for a project and there is time needed for the applicant to respond to the comments and revise the drawings to comply with matters. Other things that can create additional lead time, its upon approval of an application. Sometimes the applicant is still working on finding a contractor and do not get their permits issued until they have selected someone. So sometimes other things that would be sequential review process, where in an intake situation, other departments may not see the application until previous departments complete their review of those applications. Am some of the improvements we have made to help streamline the permits, we contact permit applications about our overthecounter review process. For a permit such as restaurants needing conditional use, upon approval planning, they arrive through dbi. This is through the intake process. Once we receive the projects, we contact them and inform them about the overthecounter process, where they can come in, walk the permit through the over the counter tt area and then drastically streamline and cut down the review time needed for the applications. Other things we have done, we have created an information sheet which is available on our website for new restaurants and alterations to restaurants. In this information sheet, we have developed guidelines to inform applicants of they should expect. Some of the major code requirements they need to account for. And other things to help them with the permitting process. We have also continued to broaden our reach to other departments to also incorporate them within the overthecounter review process. So initially only Building Department would conduct overthecounter for the building, construction and mechanical reviews and other divisions may not. Since they have worked with us to broaden and jump on board with the overthecounter review process, that has helped to streamline the restaurant permitting process as well. Thats all i have for you today. Supervisor fewer okay. Colleagues . Any comments, questions . I dont have a question relative to dbis chart, but i do have to say from real life experience, both relative to the opening of new facilities as well as in one case where there was a fire in north beach and actually, this board of supervisors passed special legislation to not allow another liquor store to relocate a half block away. It took longer to get that through various departments, actually im not looking at planning, that was remarkably cooperative and im not looking at dbi, no offense, mr. Spitz, im looking at the department of public works, where i had to send my staff down get an encroachment permit. Its like we need somebody who walks these people through the various steps. I understand why all these laws exist. Im delighted we live in a society where people dont burn to death in their buildings because we require sprinklers and we verify that people arent cheating. I realize that different neighborhoods have different desir desires, so we prohibit mortuaries and gas stations in certain neighborhoods, but there is always one other thing at the end of the chain. So this board in record time passed legislation to allow this particular business to locate a half block away. And we did it in less time than it took this owner to get to the bureaucracy, mostly because unknown to us, they were hung at the department of public works over an encroachment permit i didnt even think was necessary. I just want to say, if oewd wants to be a help, its like track these cases, have them have the Central Point of contact that when we run into some kind of bureaucratic thing, none of this is, like, arbitrarily capricious, but where they can unstick it. This is not to dbi. This is to mr. Van houten. I dont think its going to streamline for anybody if they cant get past the next department in line. I wanted to get that off my chest. Supervisor fewer you said there were 44 days from the time of permit filing to issuance. The average time was 44 days. That includes the Planning Department . Yes, it does. Includes the Planning Department as well as all other Agency Reviews. Supervisor fewer okay. I just dont understand why im hearing from people who have recently opened a cafe, restaurant, saying that it took them a year to do this. Why would be that if youre telling me on average its 44 days . Because a lot of them is overthecounter. For the people who come in and out in hour, that compensates for the folks who are there for nine months. Supervisor fewer thank you, supervisor. Yeah, because i believe a majority of them do the overthecounter, which can take just a few days, a week or two. And then there are cases where there could be applications that take 9 months to a year. Through our statistical review, it came out as an average, 44 days. Supervisor fewer because this is what im hearing. Im hearing theyre paying rent on these places while still going through the permitting process, so it gets super expensive and that is dragged out around this permit and that permit. And the wait time and more and more. So i think that i quite frankly, when im looking at the chart, im thinking, oh my god, all the red tape we have to go through sort of. So hearing back about the ov overthecounter process . We have had positive feedback because it drastically cuts down the time they need to get the permit. Some of the remarks that are not positive is because they may not be familiar with the process, so sometimes they need to come through a couple of days to complete the permit application. And other things like the wait time. The process is kind of managed by the applicant. They themselves are responsible to take it to the different departments for their review. Like within dbi we have a couple of subreview, so we have architectural, structural, mechanical, where you could wait in three our four lines just for our department. I think some of that, there is a lead time or wait time for each section within our department for review, so sometimes, you know, that can take a little bit more time to complete the over the counter tt review process. But other than that, it has been a positive. And the feedback that has drastically cut down the time needed to obtain a permit from previous history. Supervisor fewer thank you very much. Any other comments . Seeing none, thank you very much. Now we have mr. Aaron star from planning. And this is how planning is supporting permit streamlining. Good afternoon, supervisors. Im the manager of legislative affairs for the Planning Department. Im going to go over the restaurant approval streamlining efficients that the department has efforts that the department has done to date. Were going to start back in 2011, when we did the restaurant definition rationalization. Weve been working on this for a while. To do this, we did something unusual, we created an outreach video using new technology, where you type in the dialogue you want, put it into the computer and these two bots talk it out. It was very popular for about six months or a year, but then the video became famous in planning circles. It received 30,000 views and got press, but what the ordinance did or actually what the video showed was that dialogue between the planner and a Small Business applicant. It showed the absurdity of our current regulations and why they needed to change. It was effective. If you want to watch it, its under four minutes. Just google hello, city planner and it will come up. There were 13 different definitions for drinking and eating uses in the planning code and it was reduced to three. It was based on alcohol consumption. A bar owning alcohol. And a limited restaurant, no alcohol. We were able do this because the city had adopted controls which made the different layers of restaurant definitions unnecessary. So we had definitions that said, if you serve in disposable cups, youre this kind of restaurant. If you order at the counter, youre this kind of restaurant. We simplified that to three basic things. For those in controls, we left the fullservice restaurant the same, but permitted limited restaurants without alcohol, through most of the city and obtained existing prohibition on neighboring retail and commercial districts through that. So recently we developed our cb3 process, which is community, processing program. For qualifying businesses, it requires conditional use authorize, hearing date in 90 days, placement on the consent calendar. No guarantee they stay on consent, but most of them do. Businesses that qualify for this are not formula retail. The proposal is not seeking to operate outside of the hours of what is permitted. The proposal doesnt include a consolidation of store fronts. There is no alcohol sale except beer or wine, so they would be able to do that. And its only for a change of use. If youre trying to expand the building, you dont qualify fort program. Some other internal improvements weve done. Something that safes time for a lot of applicants, not just restaurant, we do inhouse notification labels. Before you had to contract with the third party to develop the labels and add that to your application. We have the technology to press a button, generates the list on demand and that is no longer a cost for applicants to do that. It saves time so you dont have to give us new labels if six or nine months pass after the application. We have a Small Business liaison. They work directly with the office of Small Business. We have a Small Projects team that takes the cb3p application and other applications and focuses on giving those getting those through the process as quickly as we can. We have a find my zoning tool. Which im going to try to show you if the computer will cooperate. This is on our website. To find your zoning its not you would just type in an address. And it takes you to the Property Information page. If you go to