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Committee amends and forwards proposal easing use‑size caps in some commercial districts; Castro excluded by amendment
Summary
Supervisors approved amendments and sent, without recommendation, an ordinance that would remove strict nonresidential use‑size caps in several neighborhood commercial districts and make it easier to subdivide large storefronts; the board president’s amendment excludes the Castro NCD and the committee duplicated and continued the original file.
The Land Use and Transportation Committee on July 28 adopted amendments and voted to transmit, without recommendation, an ordinance that would eliminate certain use‑size caps for nonresidential uses in multiple neighborhood commercial districts and make it easier for large retail spaces to be subdivided into smaller storefronts.
Sponsor Supervisor Mirna Melgar said the measure is intended to give flexibility to evolving retail markets and to allow property owners to subdivide large, vacant storefronts so they can be rented to multiple small businesses. Melgar said the proposal would preserve conditional‑use review where appropriate but remove blanket prohibitions that prevent adaptive reuse.
During discussion, supervisors and planning staff noted the ordinance affects different districts in different ways. District 1 Supervisor Connie Chan and Board President Rafael Mandelmann both raised concerns about cumulative effects when the new rule is layered on top of prior legislation — including the parcel‑delivery exemptions, the city’s flexible retail rules introduced in 2023, and other formula‑retail prioritization policies. Mandelmann circulated an amendment to exclude the Castro Neighborhood Commercial District from the portion of the ordinance that removes use‑size limits. Vice Chair Cheyenne Chen requested a duplicate file to allow further outreach to merchant associations.
Planning Department staff said many NCDs around the city do not have hard caps and that conditional use processes remain in place for uses that are not principally allowed. They also said the portion of the ordinance allowing large, nonconforming uses to subdivide so they come closer to conformity would apply more broadly, though protections remain for uses that are not permitted at all.
Public commenters included letters from the North Beach Business Association and comments from neighborhood business and merchant groups urging district‑specific treatment; some small‑business advocates warned about the risk of better‑capitalized firms displacing legacy merchants. The committee voted to accept Mandelmann’s amendment and to send the ordinance to the board as amended without committee recommendation; the motion passed 3–0. The committee also duplicated the original file for further work and continued it to the call of the chair.
