After a billionaire bought up several Upper Fillmore buildings and started evicting legacy businesses, Supervisor Aaron Peskin just passed his bill adding protections to keep those businesses in place.
There were understandably questions when a mystery buyer bought up the shuttered Clay Theatre and five other buildings in a three-block span earlier this year, and the Chronicle identified the buyer as billionaire tech investor Neil Mehta (Actually, a web of vaguely named LLCs which Mehta is financing). In short order, Mehta evicted the 46-year-old sushi restaurant Ten-Ichi, and is reportedly refusing to renew the lease for La Mediterranee across the street.
Adding insult to injury, the day that Mehta got an op-ed in the SF Standard saying he just wanted “committed entrepreneurs who will reinvigorate Fillmore Street,” the Examiner reports that the op-ed in question was “published the same day that Steve Amano, owner of the 46-year old family-owned legacy business Sushi Ten-Ichi, was forced to turn in his keys into his new landlord.”
Supervisor Aaron Peskin hoped to put a halt to this with new legislation that would require SF Planning Department authorization for removing a Legacy Business tenant, or demolishing a building with a legacy business tenant. Legacy Businesses are described as being 30 years old or older, and “contribute to the neighborhood's history and/or the identity of a particular neighborhood or community.”
Peskin’s legislation passed the SF Board of Supervisors Tuesday afternoon with a unanimous vote and no discussion. But there was discussion of the bill at Monday’s Land Use and Transportation Committee meeting.
“After seeing Legacy Businesses under threat on Upper Fillmore, where a billionaire bought many properties on two blocks of Upper Fillmore, Legacy Businesses from across the city have reached out asking for more teeth, more protections, from the Legacy Business Program,” Peskin said Monday.
The legislation is not permanent. It’s an 18-month arrangement, and would expire around June 2026. But it provides a buffer as the city prepares to upzone commercial corridors to build more housing, and aspires to avoid the unintended consequence of evicting local businesses in the pursuit of state-mandated housing goals.
La Mediterranee owner Vanick Der Bedrossian hopes the 18-month buffer is enough.
“This legislation, we feel, is essential to level the playing field for small businesses to remain in the city,” Der Bedrossian said Monday. “Landlords, many have good intentions, and work with tenants. This is a situation we’re facing with billionaire landlords who’ve purchased so many blocks of our beloved street, and who are refusing to engage in any discussion whatsoever.”
Peskin is of course running for mayor, and employed his signature parliamentary maneuvers to get this legislation approved before Election Day. But the legislation is not yet law. It has to be approved at a second reading (likely next Tuesday), and could face a veto from Mayor London Breed. If it is not vetoed, the interim 18-month rule requiring city approval to kick out a Legacy Business would become law shortly after Election Day.
Image: Matthew S. via Yelp
