information is available at sf dot gov slash shared spaces. >> all right. what an exciting building. where all my department people? supervisor, welcome. >> okay. how are you? >> first of all, thank you all for being here a.m. san francisco mayor breed. and we are here at a building

and a place that has been i would say decades in the making. many of us struggle with the bureaucracy of the city and the frustration around the bureaucracy. i gotta admit a lot to do with the laws created at the board of supervisors including i did not create those complicated laws only lus to get rid of bureaucracy and happy top have supervisor engardio joining us here today because he, too, is someone who care busy making things easier for people to do business with the city and county of san francisco. you know what is frustrating is how hard when you have to do thing in a permit center or apply for things and you go through the process and not only does the city make it too difficult for to you go throughout press they make you pay for it. and part of what i wanted to do with a lot of changes to our structure is to the try to clear

out the bureaucracy, make it easy approximate simple. i remember when i was on the board of supervisors and every year we would honor small businesses. what was interesting is most of those small businesses could not necessary low come and sit in the chamber all day because in many case they were the 1 who is owned the business and ran the business. and part of what we have done in 2020 which i was proud of exit know an initial mall business ordinance are joining us here today; i think ben was a part of the commercial got fame from us this commercial when we introduced and put prospect heart attack on the ballot to stream line the process for small businesses in san francisco. and let me tell you what that means. during the pandemic, so many businesses had to pivot from being one business to another in order to survive. in the past, before prospect h, it could take months.

sometimes up to 2 years and at the same time when you are trying to go from for example, a clothing hop to a cafe or another use. the process it would take to do that while you are still paying rent, still paying water bill, still paying electric and the city all the fees and everything else, you are not generating money and the process is just really set up to see our businesses fail. so when we talk about how we care about mall businesses, what is most important to me is to make sure that we are listening to those same small businesses and impelementing the change to make it easier. now we are seeing extraordinary things happen. pandemic challenged us like never before am many of the businesses specific low with our mall business this is have comellow the doors to make changes to their businesses, they went from waiting months

and sometimes 2 years to change their use to doing it over the counter within a day. because that is how it should be. if you want to change for example, from a clothing shop to a coffee shop and want a change in use and it is permit in the that neighborhood, why do you have to go through a lengthy press to do it? you shouldn't. you should be able to move forward that's number one. you know what i'm talking b. you are like all i want to do is sell plants now the pandemic everybody is a plant parent. so i want to sell plant and coffee and sometimes you could not do that in the same location. and those other things we need to change. we need to get creative. we need to make it easy for people to do business in the san francisco and especially when we talk about how much we support small businesses and on top of that, when we see in many of our

neighborhood/commercial corridors. we see many vacancies. when i was on the board, i go back because of my relationship with small businesses, i remember this one ice cream place that had to wait over 2 years. had to continue to pay rent and the final straw that almost broke the camel's back a 250 thousand dollars bill this will needed to be paid up front to turn on the water. and i thought, this is criminal. for a small business to come up with all this money. mall businesses that don't have investors in some case. this need to hire staff. and what i was proud of last year is when we along with the board of supervisors introduced money in the budget to allow for the first year free. so we are waiving all of the various fees -- for people who want to start their businesses

and bill, who has a great thai restaurant will talk about her experience and being able to benefit from that program. but the point is, we are trying to make the city work efficiently. we know we are not perfect. it has been working a bit inefficient for a time. and i than it has been challenging for a lot of the city workers here because when they are doing is they are following the law this is we introduce this we get paddled. and they are doing the best jobs they can to provide you with as much information to make sure that you get through this process efficiently so you do what you need to do with plans to open your business. deal with housing, or had have you. i want to thank the various city agencies and departments and employees here today from the help desk to many of the folks with the hole crew up there.

many of the people who work for the planning departmentful department of building inspection. from small business commission. the fire department. there are so many layers to this. now we have reproductive services in this building. i don't know but, all the things you want printed and printed right away instead of going to another building you get it here >> went from 5 building guess here and mission street to having a one stop shop in this building. and it is amazing. i'm so happy. i know everything is not perfect. so i strongly suggest that as you go through this process if there are suggestions that anyone wants it make our small businesses here today. feel free. in the meantime know the goal of this center has everything to do with efficiency. and i want to appreciate rodney fong with the sudden fran

chamber of commerce. ma sud with council district merchants. so many small business leaders and folks from every walks of life. people manny on the mt aboard but owns a great cafe. and we got so many people who want to see businesses in san francisco succeed. they have been an important part of providing feedback, making the recommendations and now we are implementing many of the ideas to make sure that business is successful in san francisco. and -- that also includes the director of small business who used to be a supervisor who is also an important part of make happening recommendations to change policies to make it easy. i want to thank katy tang for her work with the mall business commission. [applause]. and i want to say to the assessor recorder joaquin torres don't reassess people and get more money.

in taxes from our small businesses. let them have time to do well for a couple years before you go and ask them for more money. can you commit to that? [laughter] assessor recorder joaquin torres. the point of us here today is to celebrate the success this is we made in order to make adjustments to mech it easier to do small businesses. i also. to take a moment before i introduce our city add administrator carmen chu to just also mention the housing for all plan. because this is a center not just for mall businesses but i center people will come to get permits and the things than i need for so many things if you want a picnic and birthday party, you get this is one stop shop permitting. a festival, this is where you come. it is also the accomplice people come who are building housing

or -- doing some stuff to their homes and all the different things. in san francisco we have a plan housing for all and we are going to push forward a number of changes to make it more efficient to get the plans approved and get housing built firefighter in san francisco. we have a requirement under the state to build 82,000 units of housing in san francisco in the next 8 years. you know what that means if we do this right? that means the city employees who work in this permit center can ford to live in san francisco. [applause] some of the people coming can live in san francisco if we do this right and make it efficiently we cut become on the costs. we create an influx of housing. have 50,000 units already approved in the pipeline and we have to make it easier and

starts with our city bureaucracy, permitting process and everything we need to do to get san francisco on the right path. more how longs built. small businesses open and make people happy when they leave the doors and feel that when they are opening their business and doing anything in san francisco they feel good about how this process works. and this process was not about saying, no to everything. it was getting to yes and ensuring the success of small businesses, housing and everything we do that makes san francisco an amazing city for all of us to enjoy. and with that i want to introduce next up, our city add administrator, carmen chu. [applause]. >> thank you, mayor breed i want to thank everybody who joined us and especially our mir for her vision and her steadfast focus making sure san francisco is headed in the right direction with make sure we support small

businesses and making sure we continue to build the pipeline of house thanksgiving we need. so i want to thank the mayor for her continued commitment. for folks who may not have been the permit cent open in the 2020. many did not know this building opened. we are happy to welcome you to the building for the first time in this way it introduce the work we do here. as we opened update facility we started to roll out more services. in 2021, and in 2022, we provided 50,000 different customers about 150,000 different service throughout permit center here. applause is great. [applause]. a lot of people are coming throughout facility. to step back the vifthz center was a simple one. that was just to say, the process that we have and how people are able to get a

building permit. get different business permits and approvals to open up and dot things they want top do in the city is really hard. people went to 5 different building in the city. whether city hall or 1155 market street or 1650 or 1650 mission. people were going all over to open a business. we have 13 departments. there are now colocated here in the permit center. this one stop shop is the beginning. the idea is simple. bring together all of the different departments and the different processes that are involved in permit nothing one house, one space so you don't have to be thrown around the city to figure out how to get your work done. but not only that, make sure that when people are together we figure out a way to help our departments collaborate. speak better and figure out how we remove all the impedimentses and presses we layered on. the process we have now was not

manage that was done over night. it was done through decades of new processes that got layered upon each other. layers of different lus that got put in decade by decade. we have to look and do the nerdy work of figure outside what was is broken. where bottle necks are and removing those so you get your stores open earlier and homes built and make sure we have a thriving san francisco. i thank the folks that made this possible. but know this this is the first install am of our commitment to make sure or processes are better. with that i want to introduce a champion to the causes supervisor joel engardio. [applause] >> thank you. you know what city hall needs to do to help mall businessesent prix nurse and creators?

role out the red tape and i really messed that up? oh. i had this great line in my head and i messed it up. we need to roll out the red carpet and cut the red tape to help small businesses, artisans and creators in san francisco. you know if you have i good idea you should not come to city hall to have that die by regulation and bureaucracy. we don't know which good idea will save our local economy. we need to roll up that red carpet and cut that red tape so your idea has the run way to sore and a beacon, come to san francisco because we woman it. thank you so much for everything the mayor and carmen chu or add administrator and katy tang is doing, too, to roll out the red carpet for all of our mall

businesses. thank you. [applause]. >> all right. good morning, everyone and thank you for being here. we are so excited partner with the mayor on making over 100 changes to the planning code and thank you to director hill us of planning department and the commission for working with us on this to make it easier for small businesses to open and expand in san francisco and for all of us to fill the commercial vacancies we see in streets. mayor said, you know looking around you see shops that offer things like coffee and plants all in the same space. before that was not allowed we want to expand that to most of the rest of the city. right now half the city allows those flexible uses to work together. and so, we are excited. we did the nerdy work to look at what we heard had was being said by owners when we go on merchant walk and had they want to see

change in the city and how this translated to changes made to the planning code and others. we are excited for this journey ahead. i want to shout out to our incredible office of mall business team who supports so many businesses around 2,000 and 3,000 businesses per year on cases and exploration of you know ways they can expand or open in the city. and so i think they are upstairs morgan and rachael. shout out to the new small business permit specialists. [applause] who just started a year ago and worked on 870 cases since they started a year ago march of 22. amazing and to all the expediters. cover your ears they are here so small businesses don't have to hire more money. we are here to help you get through the process quickly and help you start on your journey faster to open your business. with that, i'd like to also a

upon nouns that we have billie who is the owner of head tai chi who opened up and excited have her join us here and share her journey of opening a small business in san francisco. thank you. [applause] i'm very excited. first i would like to thank you, everyone. i i'm bill from tie thailand i came with a droll to hope a restaurant in san francisco. i never done this before. first day i arrive i have no one i'm here all alone i came to permit center to ask the small business center what i do do if i want to open the restaurant. they give me every answer i need

ton. they gave mow a step i do from 100 step and today i had my restaurant and it is doing very well on financial district in san francisco. [applause] thank you very much. thank you this is a big, big opportunity and it is made my dream come true. all the process starts on december 2022. and i opened my restaurant in january only take a month. the permit. the process what is done in an among. i'm here i have no one help. i'm here to ask permit to get my sign up and everything was done in a day. it was really, really good. i get a one year free program. everything is super easy. which is i -- even i'm so surprised and i get a lot of support from every stop and

pireally appreciate it and i would want to say to everybody who have a dream who want to open their restaurant, mall business or whatever you have in your idea, this is the right moment. this is the time for start and if i am foreigner who came with knowing anyone can do it and i believe everybody can do it as well. thank you very much. [applause]. >> thank you. bill that he is exciting, right this . is had we want to help in our city. we want it to be easy. we want it to be convenient. because here is the thing, bill's success is our city success. fact that she is doing so well with her business means that it can only grow and potentially expand to other businesses. and that means more financial support for the city.

that means more people this she hires to work in her business. we understand the economic impact but we also understand what i feel is the most important thing. it represents the vibrance and he uniqueness and diversity and creditivity of when makes san francisco a special place. that is why we have to make sure that everything that we do involves trying to get to, yes. trying to get on a solution. trying to make people's lives happy and more rewarding and successful. in a challenging place. beautiful amazing complex place like san francisco. i'm happy to be here with all of you here today to celebrate the permit center. to celebrate small businesses and celebrate all the things we plan to do to make things more efficient so we get on a better accomplice in our economic recovery of san francisco and i want to thank all of you for being here our small business

commissioners and various small businesses the w does not stop here. it will continue. as i said, proviedz your input and feedback, we take that seriously it make decisions about what can be done to be successful in san francisco. and i'm very excited about the fact that we also make the jam permit easy for artists to get. if you want a coffee shop that has pleasants for sale and bodes and crystals and wants a guitarist to perform you can do that in one location. we think that -- well, was that happening already. it was not. now it is. and that's when we have been able to do. that is an example of things i love in one place and when the city needs to become for small businesses all over the city. thank you very much for being here. [applause].

[music] >> san francisco is known as yerba buena, good herb after a mint that used to grow here. at this time there were 3 settlements one was mission

delores. one the presidio and one was yerba buena which was urban center. there were 800 people in 1848 it was small. a lot of historic buildings were here including pony express headquarters. wells fargo. hudson bay trading company and famous early settlers one of whom william leaderdorph who lived blocks from here a successful business person. african-american decent and the first million airin california. >> wilwoman was the founders of san francisco. here during the gold rush came in the early 1840s. he spent time stake himself as a merchant seaman and a business person. his father and brother in new orleans. we know him for san francisco's

history. establishing himself here arnold 18 twoochl he did one of many things the first to do in yerba buena. was not california yet and was not fully san francisco yet. >> because he was an american citizen but spoke spanish he was able to during the time when america was taking over california from mexico, there was annexations that happened and conflict emerging and war, of course. he was part of the peek deliberations and am bas doorship to create the state of california a vice council to mexico. mexico granted him citizenship. he loaned the government of san francisco money. to funds some of the war efforts to establish the city itself and the state, of course. he established the first hotel here the person people turned to

often to receive dignitaries or hold large gatherings established the first public school here and helped start the public school system. he piloted the first steam ship on the bay. a big event for san francisco and depict instead state seal the ship was the sitk a. there is a small 4 block long length of street, owned much of that runs essentially where the transamerica building is to it ends at california. i walk today before am a cute side street. at this point t is the center what was all his property. he was the person entrusted to be the city's first treasurer. that is i big deal of itself to have that legacy part of an african-american the city's first banker.

he was not only a forefather of the establishment of san francisco and california as a state but a leader in industry. he had a direct hahn in so many things that we look at in san francisco. part of our dna. you know you don't hear his anymore in the context of those. representation matters. you need to uplift this so people know him but people like him like me. like you. like anyone who looks like him to be, i can do this, too. to have the city's first banker and a street in the middle of financial district. that alone is powerful. [music]

>> want to make an announcement for those here. we will switch the order. items of item 11 and 12. taking valencia street first amented to let you know that. go ahead. secretary. >> good afternoon. we thank you for joining us this meeting is in hybrid format in room 400 and broadcast live on sfgov.org. there was a 7 set of the emergency order that suspended local meeting laws. and though in the required the body include thanksgiving board add sunriseed have time limited