Money. Lee, thank you for bringing such an easy topic. I appreciate your patience. Of course, we went to the longer issue. I did have a couple issues for you on timelines which seems to be a stumbling block for a lot of folks. No matter what time how much time you choose to complete a processor somebody says what about this or that . I dont know if this is plausible. One thought i had was that you could tie the various c. U. Resolution process, permitting process to the after age completion time for those permits and so this would allow for the Planning Department to get backed up and average turnaround time is now 14 months instead of 12 so if you said average turnaround time plus, you know, three or six months, whatever additional time you wanted to allot for those cases. It is a bell curve. The average is not reflective of the entirety. If you go to the right you should capture 95 . Everything except the true edge cases, and that would be a timeline determination that was dynamic and responsive to whatever external was happening. If we had an earthquake or Something Like that, obviously, the average turnaround time should increase substantially because of the backlog. That time would be baked into the legislation. I dont know how you determine the average turnaround time. Maybe the Planning Department can easily i mean it seems like the data easy to obtain. That was one idea i had that may be abused. I think the other question that i had was my understanding is the d. B. I. Recently administrators vacancies. Are you considering having them define the vacancies within d. B. I. . Is that a better fit . You mean determine the start and end date of the vacancy. In other words who is tracking this . Who is ultimately charged with determining what is and what isnt . Who is enforcing it . Yeah, i mean the short answer is d. B. I. , and i think in the wake of the dustup last year about the vacant storefront registry created in 2009 and the amendments made this year, those amendments this year were designed to make d. B. I. A more proactive inspector of the commercial corridors. Of course, they can still field input from members of the publ public. Once you are on the vacancy registry you are inspected at regular intervals. This is something that d. B. I. Feels competent to add more on the basis of the new tools that we gave them. It is that we got the buy in for making this a Better Process earlier this year. This is, in effect, keyed up by the vacancy improvements we made in 2019. We hope that is going to facilitate a smooth implementation of this tax. Do you have an estimate how many vacancies there are . The number quoted in the budget varied widely. It predates amendments made earlier this year, whereas the United StatesPostal Service estimated nearly 3500 commercial vacancies in San Francisco. That is not only ground floor, not limited to neighborhood commercial districts. There can be multiple d. B. I. S in the single location. I think it was 3300 properties and 3500 businesses so or 3500 individual spaces. There was a distinction in the budget and analysts report. That is all to say that 3500 number was in wild disagreement with the seven properties that were assessed a fee pursuant to the d. B. I. Registry. How many are on the list . 25 or 26. I can go back to the map. If they were all as bad as north beach that would be 750 vacancies. I dispute the vacancy of north beach anything less than stellar. We are the focus of the issues around the city, i actually think that the Community Members like the commissioner have been going to Great Lengths to improve on that. 38 is a big number. Which is not accurate any more. We have rented out. Let me ask you. So 38 is a big number, and north beach is better now. If there were 35 or 40 in each of those ncds we are talking about less than 1,000 storefronts, not 30,000 because of the Postal Service estimate, and not 100. It is not thousands. It is hundreds, approaching a thousand. About a thousand. Because, you want to know what revenue how much fees if it is 711, you know, that would generate a halfmillion dollars per year, barely enough to hire a couple people. To go find them and to make sure they pay their fees. Just putting it in perspective. I want to follow up. 1,000 per foot will certainly generate a lot more than that, right . I was still talking, sorry. Commissioners, thank you, lee, for addressing this issue in our city. If you could walk us through a little bit the logistics why it is an excess tax which requires ballot as opposed within the confines of the existing department, that would be helpful. You guys identified back before april before the amendments were in the code for d. B. I. That they were having an issue tracking vacancies. So my question is, yes, who is going to be staffing this directly . If it is in coordination with these departments, is it actually going to be increasing their capacity to do this work or adding another layer of bureaucracy to tracking store fronts just because it will be outside of the department, in essence, as it is a tax. Is it because if it was amended as a code to d. B. I. Or change to the departments operation would you not be able to use it as a fund . Is that part of that . Can you just breakdown for me who is going to staff it . Is it going to affect the current processes by being outside of it and give me a sense of that. As i understand it, the verification of vacancies and the tracking of vacancies is on the ground will be a fund of d. B. I. s existing work to build up the vacant storefront registry, then the administration of the tax, actual application to be through the treasures tax collectors office. As we created there there was a lot of back and forth that ultimately focused on making this as as as simple as possibo implementation is easy. They want it easy and i believe that representatives from both departments would stand up to say, yes, they can do this. As to why we are going to the ballot, that is because the existing fee for registering with the vacant storefronts registry is capped by Cost Recovery at 711 per year. Cost recovery is basic. Let me put it this way. There was a conversation a year ago when we were talking about the vacant storefronts how many inspections can we layer on a vacant storefront to have more costs to recover . We didnt change the Cost Recovery free from what it was in 2009, but in any event 711 is what we are capped at per year and the overwhelming consensus is that is not enough to change the behavior of the longterm vacancy bad actor Property Owners. That is what we are really trying to do. To that end, i want to be clear there are some taxes that are revenue generating. Sales tax generates revenue we use. This is a different type of tax we would be happy to never assess. In a Perfect World we dont assess this tax because there are no storefront vacancies. To the extent there are, they are all short term vacancies that dont trigger application of the tax. We have to go to the ballot because of state constitutional law. I just wanted to point out about the timeline. If your type of business you want to come in with is not one of the easy, you know, retail things, the timelines can be much longer. I myself am trying to open a business in north beach, and the planner has sat on our permit already for more than six months and has never given us an indication that she will have time to look at it so i would remember certainly for the c. U. Resolution process a longer period of time. It just can drag on for many years. I appreciate that, and i will add that there are discrete examples. Say you are trying to open up a cannabis business in San Francisco. We have not figured out how to issue those in an effective manner because we are deliberate. I wont speak for the office of cannabis but i believe there are benefits to a slower rollout to make sure the Equity Program has integrity. That is not lost on me. That is taking longer than six months. I think part of th of this is internally. It would be the suggested amendment we are working on which would require that c. U. Resolution applications in these discrete zones be processed by the Planning Commission within six months, be brought to hearing before the Planning Commission in six months. That is a reasonable ask and i am grateful aaron star is not behind me to refute that, but it is a conversation that i think needs to happen. Otherwise, it is a citycreated delay penalizing a private party and that is not in the spirit of fairness. You are a Property Owner, you go i hear the cannabis is ledge geledgeget mat. It goes to the full six months, there is a big uproar, sorry, we are not going to give you that. Then the cannabis person says i dont want to be unwelcome in the neighborhood, i am out. Where am i. I have gone through six months by using my c. U c. U. Resolution. There is another business that requires it and i am looking at the one year vacancy to see if those go to full term then the day at day 366 i am going to pay probably if i have a 25foot storefront, which is not very large. 25,000 for just having watched two unsuccessful ceu processes. Whether you are. They are appeals processes where i am going. There is not right now. There could be and we have discussed it. I will make a global statement at the end of what i am about to say to talk about how to adjust this down the road, but lets say that you are bumping against 182 days store front vacancy and you have not invoked exemptions. You get an overthecounter application to repair a window silfor the one year exception. In that time period, i suggest you pursue the c. U. Resolution before the one year of the construction exception, at the end of which you have another six months. That is not to say during that one year construction exception you are prohibited from pursuing the process. If we get our trailing amendment in here that would have to be processed within six months. There is again a provocation. The city can do this more quickly. At the same time as we are creating the hammer, we are telling the city you need to be possessing permits for ground floor commercial spaces in the commercial corridors like it is an urgent matter. We agree these are all urgent. It is incumbent upon the city to process them effectively. We want to be sure this is not punitive. Who is responsible for initiating the process the accident or Property Owner . Generally the business own in. I am the Property Owner, i dont have control. Business owner says six months. Get on it, okay . I am going to take my time. I have my six months. Then i get turned down. The Property Owner bears the brunt. They have to pay the penalty, not the Business Owner. The Business Owner is controlling the c. U. Resolution process, right . This is the analysis of this. The lessee is jointly responsible. Who ends that is subject to negotiation. Whether the city unduly contributed to the delay and issues s a refund they can refud back to the business and Property Owners. Is that the motion of sharing or amendment. Jointly and severally liable is part of it as is the potential for a refund to a business that overpaid or paid in error or wrongfully assessed. I have to pay a lawyer to file a lawsuit against someone who fairs the process. I am looking at paying 25,000. Or you could lease the ground for commercial storefront soace. Space. The only people at my door are cannabis, massage, restaurant, bar, Convenience Store to sell alcohol, name a whole bunch of businesses with severe restrictions. Sorry, where is my Clothing Store . They dont do that any more. Where is the traditional retail which has been supplanted by amazon and the web . It is not easy out there. I am not defending the scofflaws. I am saying there are reasonable scenarios where it takes a long time, a lot more than you say it could be protracted to two and a half years. People are up against a wall. Holy crap, it is six months. It happens in Small Business and many of the Property Owners are qualified as Small Business operators. They are not sophisticated and paying a staff of people to manage vacancies. It is a poor person who inherited a piece of property. I have to keep this rented. It is not easy to keep an apartment rented sometimes, let alone a storefront. Some kind of accommodation for you to know you get these situations where i have tried. I have had my two, three, four c. U. Resolutions have fallen through. It was accepted then my Business Owner took a year and a half to build out the restaurant. By the way, the inspectors said the flow hood wasnt adequate. This happened with the bacon company. They were blowing smoke out the roof and all of the neighbors argued about it and they got kicked out of the space. So many things can happen in this process. It is not a single permit, it is a multitudes especially if it is complicated like a restaurant. Those all could take three, six months to get through, especially with remediation work. I think, you know, we have to be ushsetting some very hard deadlines and going we will work it out. There is no provision to work it out. There is no appeals process currently in the legislation. These are hard numbers. Where it will come we are going to get in a situation where now we have a new class of Property Owners at your door, at your supervisors door saying, dude, you are killing me. I am trying to rent my space. Everything is conspiring against me to get over these six month william oefeleihurdle. None of us are arguing the intent. We all want the spaces rented or be in the process of being rented. I think it is difficult, especially now. This is not, you know, there is not a long line of people waiting to rent these places with the traditional businesses we would love to see there, but at these rates, frankly, the ability to hire anybody. I dont have a retail store. I cant hire anybody to run it. The people in my factory own their homes, lived in San Francisco for 20 years. It is the only way they can stay in San Francisco and work for me. If you are here, you can stay. If you are trying to get in here, you cannot be looking for a minimum wage job. Most of these retailtype scenarios that people like to recommendnis about are minimum wage jobs done by the owneroperator. Most of the boutiques, the owner is behind the desk seven days each week. When they are exhausted, they stop, retire, there is no one to take over. Then you have a person who owns the property going mark finally gave up on his business. Now what do i do . Who will i rent to . There are no more of those people waiting in the wings. Well maybe i will find a cannabis business or some new retail business, your hat business. I am just saying, you know, i think these timeframes are really going to be problematic. I dont know how to negotiate that without the supervisor feeling like he is gutting his legislation or making it ineffective and i know it is the hammer. You want to hammer down some of these nails. I have a thought, which is about any tax that we pass at the ballot. We can amends the ordinance in order to do things that would soften the tax. We cannot expand the tax, we cant increase the tax or application of the tax. In the wake of something not working, there is a safety lever. The voters authorized us to 100. We can bring it down to 75, eliminate it altogether. We can sunset for a district that is experiencing a crisis for two years. We can do things like that in the wake of it. I hate to jump to that. It is helpful to know we have that safety valve. This is the previous question. Why not use the current legislative framework. Cost recovery is not effective. I get going to the ballot to give yourself a better hammer. Can you change those timeframes legislatively . To lengthen them, yes. You cant raise the cap without going back to the voters, but you can lower the cap and extend the timeframe. This gives us maximum authority. We will probably say that can only begin by twothirds vote of the board of supervisors. We would like a compelling reason to pull this back. Most things of the board pass unanimously when it is a really good idea. The last thing well maybe not last thing depending on questions. I want to characterize this one other way, which is that in as much as some of the reasons for vacancies identified by the budget and legislative analyst were speculation to obtain higher rents or higher sale prices in the future, absentee landlords waiting for a particular type of tenant. That gets me. We did this whole retail revitalization project in union square where there was a lot of people promoting death of retail. It is a certain kind of retail. They are talking about death of brands that are so far out side of my purchase power or any of our purchase power where nobody is really shopping there. You can walk in with 40,000 to spend on the watch to get something. This is really about giving small Business Owners would be small Business Owners, small retailers more leverage. It is an opportunity to say, hey, that rent you are offering, look, that might be market rate for a use that exists in one place, but that is not market rate for what i am trying to do here. It gives them more negotiation in that lease dynamic to say i have a use i would like to do in here. You are bumping up against 25,000 vacancy tax, why dont i take that off your hands and lease it. I am a new clothing retailer. I can afford this represent and you can avoid that tax. Then we have a different dynamic and differently tail landscape at least in these discrete commercial transit districts. That is Something Interesting to watch and might bring back some of the retail that is lost. Commissioner duly, i know your work, it was possible that restaurant at the corner of broadway and columbus was a more lucr