You call in before comment is called, youll be added to the queue. When you are called for Public Comment, please mute the device youre listening to the meeting on. When yothe meeting is limited te minutes per speaker unless otherwise established by the presenting officer of the meeting and when your time is up, youll hear an alarm sound. Speaker are requested but not required to state your names. Please show the small office of business slide. Today we will start with a reminder that the Small Business commission is a public forum to voice your concerns about policies that affect the economic vitalities and Small Businesses in San Francisco. Our services are completely free of charge and before item one is called, i would like to thank Media Services and sf gov tv and a special thanks to jim smith for moderating or Public Comment line. Item 1, call to order and role call. role call . Mr. President , you have a quorum. Wait withi, you didnt call. [ laughter ] please call item number 2, board of supervisors number 200785 and the existing Building Code, mandatory earthquake retrofit and ordinance amend beg Building Code to the completion of work for tier 4, woodframe buildings to september 15th, 2021. Discussion and actual item, the presenter is tom temrano and legislative aid, mandelman and john martin for the department of building inspection and he will be available to answer questions. Great, welcome, tom, and good to see you again. Welcome, john, and thank you for making yourselves available to present. You have the floor. Thank you so much for having us. Hello, commissioners. Its going to be way you to speak about supervisor mandelmans ordinance. This is to september 15, 2021. 2021. Pair. Sounded like somebody was doing seismic retrofitting. Thats good. So this legislation will allow additional time for Property Owners to complete re retrofit construction on a timeline reduces disruption to our beleaguered and struggling Small Businesses. The re retrofit programme was established in 2013 to establish the resilience of the housing stock. Tier 4 buildings, the final tier to be completed have groundfloor commercial space with residential units above and the current deadline for completion of work on these buildings is september 15th, 2020. And the 1,014 tier4 properties in 2013 are estimated to hold approximately 2,028 businesses. Of these properties, 415 or 41 still need to complete their retrofit work and prior to covid19, Small Businesses in district 8 reached out to our office concerned about a city mandated closure of three to six months to force them to permanently close and a 2020 study looked at 180 tierfour commercial spaces in districts 1, 2 and 5 that were retrofitted prior to the end of 2015. There was a turnover through the course of the retrofit work and now as businesses have begun to reopen, many are asked to shut down yet again to aside the retrofit work as they are trying to establish manyneeded sales and many businesses cannot and will not come back from a second closure. We agree that seismic retrofit work and essential and urgent but the reality is that businesses is Property Owners alike have asked for and need more time. But extending the deadline to september 15, 2021, we are allowing additional time for this work to be completed in the hope that such work can be completed at a time that is least disruptive and costly for the business. Some businesses that are still shut, that time could be now and work could proceed over the next few months. For others, that mean work could occur at a later date. Commissioners, this legislation likely seems familiar to you because in may, the Small Business commission submitted recommendations to the task force. Thank you for the recommendation dance to help Small Businesses help rebuild and recover during and after the pandemic and this is a fun commission, welldone. And one of your recommendations was to extend the tier 4 deadline. So i would like to thank you, commissioners, for your leadership in pushing this important proposal forward and i would like to acknowledge all of the work that the office of Small Business and, in particulato move thisconversati. Thank you. I would also like to thank john murray of the building inspection who is here today to answer any questions for all that he and his office have done in bringing this legislation to you today and, again, commissioners, youre pretty familiar with this since it came out of your recommendations, but im here to answer my questions you might have, as is john from dbi. Thank you, tom, and certainly this is welcomed news. Speaking for myself. Commissioners, do we have any questions . And ill just remind the commissioners that we are reserving discussion until after Public Comment so this portion is just any questions. Are there any questions . Somebody can jump in and correct me if im wrong. With that, well go to Public Comment. Any Public Comment on the line. Nobody has queued up. Actually, i do have one question, commissioner. Go ahead. I love the speed with which youre moving this commission, its great. The one thing i heard from Small Business owners when we went out there and talked to people about, you know, this particular issue of softstory retrofit was, oftentimes, the Building Owner and notified from the city that a softstory retrofit is required, but theres no requirement from the city that the Property Owner alert the tenant at a certain time with a certain amount of, you know, advanced notice. There was some tenants that we spoke to who were told, you know, kind of at the last minute this a softstory retrofit was coming and some were notified a retrofit would come at some point in the next year, leaving them in a state of kind of constant worry. Im thinking specifically of the burnell cutlery, where a softstory retrofit was held over their head for a long time and Small Businesses like the stone pot on 18th and deloris which is told it would have to go through a softstory retrofit with less than 30days notice. Is there any requirement that they let their tenants know in a certain amount of time that a retrofit was coming. That is not a part of this legislation for expediency sake, because the deadline is coming so quickly, our biggest priority was moving the deadline to allow for an extension of time for that negotiation to happen and certainly, the message we have been putting out publically and will continue to put out and have spoken to the Apartments Association and other stakeholders about is that this extension is intended specifically so that Property Owners will communicate with their commercial tenants thats least disruptive and in terms the managing, w messaging, we ht out to our stakeholder groups but there is not a requirement of noticing in this particular piece of legislation. Ok, and then the second question is, how is the city noticing Property Owners that a softstory retrofit is required . Is it through snailmail, email, how are we communicating to these Property Owners . We send them mail notice and we do not email. We generally do things through snail mail when its a large group of Property Owners, just because we dont necessarily have emails for Property Owners. We have to go threw the data generally. And so thats interesting, so the assessor doesnt collect anything beyond the smallmail address. Snailmail address . I can doublecheck that, but i dont believe thats the case. It seems to be up in the air whether well have a Postal Service in the next year and it might be good thinking to start thinking of other means that we can communicate to Property Owners that are more safe and foolproof. You know, speaking of somebody thats a Property Owner, our business owns property in multiple states and i can just tell you that snail mail is not great as a modification mechanism. After the time, commissioner, i get the mail for everyone on my block street sometimes and i dont think should be the only way to communicate. I often get the other tenants mail and more often than not, they get mine. Ive been dealing with this softstory retrofit and dbi publishes a list on its website, or they did awhile ago, that listed every building, commercial and residential that needed this. Thats true, yes. Certainly, theres a Public Outreach aspect to this, but in terms of the direct notification of building own thats we know are subject to this, that would be understandable. We, of course, have email mailing lists, newsletters and all that good stuff, but in terms of the actual specific interaction or notification to affected Property Owners, it would go through snail mail. Do we know there are other touch points between the city and other Property Owners, like the unified licensed portal or the Treasurers Office that are communicating to Property Owners through means other than snail mail that we could kind of jump on . Do we get a regular email from the city on taxes owed or Something Like that . I do not know that. Based on this, we have legislation in front of us right now that is about extending the deadline. Reading between the lines and, tom, you can correct me if im wrong, theres a tight schedule here and, you know, i guess, commissioner yukeidio, i would say the question before is are your questions geared towards wanting to make an amendment to the legislation and i would want to have an understanding. No, i fully support this legislation. My questions are tr trying to te advantage of the bbi and the esteemed officer of the supervisors in front of us and that we utilize this opportunity now but i fully support this leg. Legislation. I fully support what youre trying to do and i will amplify and suggest to tom that he take back to supervisor mandelman that may be wellreceived. One might be all tenants receive notice with respect to any planned obviously, were now pushing this off for awhile so its not an youre emergency. But when we opened softstory retrofit again especially coming into a recovery and so many people will be hanging on by a thread, lets make sure that when the softstory retrofits do happen, web dont pull defeat from the jobs of victory by well, you get my point there. And then, the second thing would be, i think, the city and this is something that ive advocated for in other inconvenient knewsvenuesand mann some form or another, but our communication with Small Businesses needs to be modernized. Snail mail is not cutting it and in this day and age, we have text and we have Elizabeth May and both of those, particularly for something as soft softstory retrofit, i think texting would be appropriate. But if people dont want to opt into that basically, people should be able to choose the modality that best works for them. If its snail mail, sobeit, but we should empower all city agencies to communicate and we should think about, maybe, is there a macro approach to communication with Small Business, you know. In software we have apis so when we switch from one payment processer to another, we dont have to reinvent the entire Software Stack from top to bottom. We have inputs and outputs and, perhaps, city agencies could be inputs and outputs dealing with Small Business so that communication can happen in a streamline fashion. Do very t we have to doublechen Public Comment again. We do not. And through the president , may i just make one comment . Is that absence of the communication structure that you are talking about, my understanding, and john, you can correct me, that once this legislation passes, dbi will be notifying the remaining properties, the 415 that are still subject to complete their softstory. And, perhaps, this could be something that is explored with the Supervisors Office and dbi is sending out a joint message through that letter about, at least doing the right thing and doing early notification. I do know from our experience here at osb, is when our number was a part of the department and Building Inspections males for, Property Owners did read their notifications and we did receive a good number of calls. And so, it is one that Property Owners do Pay Attention to notifications that do come from dbi. Sounds like Property Owners to me. [ laughter ] excellent comments, director. And thank you, commissioners for your comments and feedback. I think thats helpful. Do we have a motion . I would like to make a motion to officially support the legislation presented before us today, to delay the completion of softstory retrofit. Ill second. Great. role call . Motions passes 70. Item 3, board of stoop discovers 200760, the emergency ordinance, temporary waiver of Business Registration for Small Businesses due to covid19 pandemic. Is supervisor mar able to join . Eel bhell unable to join, bt ill be here. Thank you to tom and john from the previous item. We appreciate you coming and presents. So thank you. And we know this is one less stressor between opening and being shut. Small businesses are suffering and we are choosing to eliminate one of those barriers and invest in Small Business community and the workers they employ and encourage them to keep going despite challenges. Supervisor mar and our team is proud to be working with the Small Businesses. indiscernible . The sf chamber of commerce, the sf Council District merchants and president l absoluteaguana,thank you for bro the able. As we open our economy safely, this emergency legislation is just one we have to invest in our Small Businesses and to help them follow low through. Thank you. Commissioners, any questions . Go ahead, william. Commissioner ortizcartagena, please. I have a quick question, what if the Small Business does not open . indiscernible . I didnt quite get the question, but it is ret toe rete and the office will refund that particular Small Business, if that is the question. You got it. That was the question, thank you. Deteriorategreat, commission. Thank you, this is great legislation and thank you president laguana and everybody involved. This is a team effort on everybodys behalf and this is something thats really, really needed right now in this town. Thats it. Thank you. Commissioner dooley. Hi, i wanted to thank you for this also. Ive been dealing with hair salons and theyve received absolutely no relief in any way and theyre pretty upset about it. And so thank you for that. And i also wanted to ask, does this apply toe to new businesses that are opening this year or is this only for people t who were open only during the coronavirus . It was last fiscal year, so january to june 30th. Thank you. Great, any other commissioner questions . Commissioner ye connectiokutiel. Thank you to daisy and supervisor mars office. Its important and necessary and i think it says a lot about San Francisco that in the middle of what will be one of the toughest budget crisis of our financial history, the city is taking the bold step to provide relief to Small Businesses, who doing what the city is asking them to do dutifully and responsibly and arguably are also losing their livelihoods and facing closure. Over 400 restaurants have publically its been publically known that 400 400 restaurants are publically closed in the bay area and this will only continue and this legislation is a deteriorate stegreat steptowards providing. I know the commission and the office, how San Francisco can beesesbethe easiest place to doo reenergize or Business Community. We have a community now as we look at fees and registrations, permitting and the College Degree that it takes to actually navigate the process to open up a Small Business in sanfrancisco and im looking forward to this being a jumpoff point and working with your office to make it happen. Thank you, commissioner yekut irk el anyekutiel. I think this is an entirely attainable goal with how many smart and wonderful people work here. We should be able to manage that. Daisy, issue have a clutch questiona couple ofquestions fo. But any commissioner questions before i continue . So obviously, i know a bit of the backstory and ive been working with your office to try to move this legislation forward and i guess some of my questions are going to be directed at, i guess addressing some of the concerns that we know are out there, mainly that the c