North Beach’s supervisor Danny Sauter is pushing legislation allowing storefronts to merge in that neighborhood, supposedly to fight vacancies. Business owners wonder what he’s talking about, pointing out one of the city’s lowest vacancy rates.
San Francisco has been struggling with retail vacancies since before the pandemic hit, particularly in Union Square and the Van Ness Corridor. One solution SF City Hall is trying to use to address this is the lifting of the formula retail ban in certain parts of town, notably that very Van Ness Corridor.
Separately, in District 3, which is home to the Van Ness Corridor plus North Beach, Polk Gulch, and Nob Hill, the Chronicle reports that the district’s supervisor Danny Sauter is proposing to allow small storefronts to merge into one storefront, in legislation that will go before the SF Board of Supervisors on Tuesday. Though ironically, a large percentage of North Beach business owners are against it.
“District 3’s reputation as the hardest district in San Francisco to start or run a small business is not something I think anyone should be proud of, and I believe our legislation will go a long way towards changing that,” Sauter said Monday at an SF Board of Supervisors Land Use and Transportation Committee. “This legislation will help fill empty storefronts, allow small businesses to grow, and bring reform to complex, confusing, and inequitable planning codes across District 3 neighborhoods.”
That is an excellent array of buzzwords and catchphrases. But some North Beach residents and business owners wonder what Sauter is talking about.
“North Beach is not a struggling corridor,” Telegraph Hill Dwellers Association president Nick Ferris said at the same meeting. “Our commercial vacancy rate is 6%, among the very lowest in the city.”
“These policies that have created that stability are the very policies that this legislation would undo,” Ferris added. “North Beach already has the highest concentration of restaurants and bars per capita in the city.”
Though Sauter’s legislation does not only cover North Beach, but also Nob Hill, Jackson Square, and Polk Street.
Sauter claims there are small businesses that wish they could expand, but currently cannot because the neighborhood would not allow storefronts to merge. Business owners are concerned that the smaller storefronts could be replaced by bigger retailers, driving out locally owned small businesses.
Sauter did add one amendment that would prohibit healthcare service businesses from opening on ground floors, to address a concern that those types of businesses would displace ground-floor retail.
We will know soon enough whether Sauter’s legislation will pass. It will be heard for a full vote at today’s 2 pm SF Board of Supervisors meeting.
Image: California San Francisco, North Beach (Getty Images)