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San Francisco residents press commission to treat banks as "formula retail"; Planning staff points to code ambiguity
Summary
Neighbors and neighborhood groups urged the Planning Commission to apply the city's formula-retail rules to banks so national branches would require conditional-use review, while business representatives and the Planning Department said the code and Board of Appeals historically excluded "financial service" from the list of formula-retail uses.
Dozens of neighborhood residents and merchant groups told the San Francisco Planning Commission on July 28 that banks should be treated as formula retail and therefore require conditional-use (CU) review under the city's Proposition G and planning code. Speakers from Hayes Valley, Haight-Ashbury and other neighborhoods argued that national bank branches displace small businesses and erode street-level character.
"We urge you to put banks within the ban on chain stores so that we will be able to maintain the integrity of our neighborhood," said Russell Pritchard of the Hayes Valley Merchant Association. Tess Welborn…
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