Attract businesses and venues that are family friendly.
Our office has a strong desire to activate vacant retail spaces, increase the number of neighborhood-serving businesses in our district, increase job opportunities, and support local businesses seeking to establish or expand in the Sunset District.
Pop-Up Shops
Our office has been collaborating with OEWD to create a program over the last year. In recent months, both our office and OEWD have been working with two organizations: Pop-Up Shop-Up and Assembly. Both organizations are focused on creating pop-up retail in underutilized spaces.
We will be working with a property owner on Taraval Street to partner with Pop-Up Shop-Up and Assembly to create a pop-up retail market. A pop-up market is a temporary retail establishment that provides small businesses an opportunity to sell their products without opening a brick and mortar store.
There are many benefits for new businesses to participate in a temporary market. First, it can be more affordable, especially if several new businesses partner to occupy the same space. It is a short-term commitment, usually only open for a fixed period of time. Pop-ups also draw attention and can bring new customers to an area who may have not visited before.
We are currently in the process of identifying a space to open the pop-up market and will be announcing to the community as soon as our plans are solidified.
Business Permitting Process
In addition to the Pop-Up Shop Up, our office is working to help streamline business permitting processes to make it easier for small businesses to navigate the City’s requirements and resources. Our office has successfully advocated for a client service manager to be hired through the Office of Economic & Workforce Development to assist entrepreneurs looking to start restaurants with the permitting process across departments. Often times, it can be challenging to get permits processed by several department and it’s time-consuming. This position is a pilot to see whether having a designated staff assigned to facilitate the permitting process for business owners can help make the process smoother.
Additionally, our office held a public hearing in July 2015 with city departments that interact with small businesses in order to better understand and identify challenges in the permitting process for restaurants. Challenges and solutions identified at the hearing will help us improve the permitting process for all industries. We requested at the hearing that all relevant city departments, such as Planning Department, Department of Building Inspection, Department of Public Health, and Fire Department, conduct an internal assessment of their internal processes and report back to the Board of Supervisors by January 31, 2016 their findings. Once we receive the information, we will continue our work in further improving the City’s business permitting process.
Online Business Portal
Our office has also been a vocal advocate of the Office of Small Business’ effort to create an online business portal to streamline and simplify business interactions with the City. We supported the Mayor’s funding of the second phase of the business portal, which includes exploring ways to create online application forms and submission functions.
Find out more:
Explore San Francisco’s Small Business Portal:
http://businessportal.sfgov.org/
Commercial Vacancies
Supervisor Tang sponsored a Commercial Vacancy Ordinance in July 2014 with the intention of helping the City capture more accurate data regarding vacant commercial storefronts citywide. The legislation requires property owners to comply with the original requirements of the Vacant or Abandoned Building Ordinance, such as maintaining secure and clean premises. In addition to those requirements, the property owner would need to register their commercial storefront with Department of Building Inspection within 30 days. Within 270 days, property owners would be required to either rent their storefront or pay a fee for including their storefront in the Registry of Vacant or Abandoned Commercial Storefronts.
Property owners would be given an exemption from the fee for demonstrating a good faith effort to rent, lease or sell their commercial storefront; or for obtaining permits to bring their commercial storefront into compliance with existing laws. The legislation also asks property owners to provide their contact information (including phone number), square footage of the space, and the prior use of the space. The additional required information will better assist those looking to start a business in a new space.
By creating a registry for vacant commercial storefronts, we hope property owners will have additional incentive and resources to find suitable commercial tenants. Additionally, data gathered through this process will allow DBI to provide the necessary property owner information for Office of Economic and Workforce Development (OEWD) to include in their online database of vacant storefronts called Storefront SF. This information will allow OEWD to provide vital information to prospective tenants and to help property owners who may be having difficulties renting out their spaces.
Find out more:
Storefront SF: http://www.oewd.org/index.aspx?page=86