Legacy Fillmore Businesses at Risk of Being Pushed Out Could Get New Protections

Updated 11:45 a.m. Tuesday

A new proposal from San Francisco Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin aims to protect longtime small businesses along Fillmore Street from displacement as some say a burgeoning property owner is pushing them out.

Peskin, who is running for mayor, announced the plan on Monday in the historic Upper Fillmore area of Pacific Heights, where a group of mom-and-pop shops say a wealthy local resident has bought or helped purchase several buildings.

“We are here today to highlight a new threat to local small businesses that are part of the fabric of our communities in San Francisco all over this city and to draw a very clear line in the sand,” Peskin said outside the 45-year-old Café La Méditerranée.

The proposed legislation would create a new conditional use authorization, essentially requiring landlords to present their real estate plans and gain approval from the Planning Commission to evict or replace certain businesses in the Upper Fillmore Neighborhood Commercial District. The interim controls would only apply to official legacy businesses, which have been operating for at least 30 years, and neighborhood anchor businesses, which have been around for 15 years.

The legislation wouldn’t completely ban evictions on legacy businesses, but supporters say it would give owners more leverage to stay open or negotiate.

The proposed protections for small businesses come as San Francisco-based venture capitalist Neil Mehta and entrepreneur Cody Allen have together purchased dozens of parcels and buildings in the historic Fillmore corridor, where some shops have been told they won’t be able to renew their leases, the San Francisco Chronicle reports.

“Nearly every empty store that you see, and there are many, are owned by a single investor, a billionaire … He has pressured several small businesses and restaurants to close,” Peskin said.

He blamed the shuttering of small businesses in the area on Mayor London Breed’s efforts to promote development by rezoning parts of the neighborhood while the city’s economy struggled to recover from the pandemic.

“This all happened right after the mayor of San Francisco and her planning director announced plans with no protections to increase the zoning in this neighborhood,” Peskin said.

Owners of Café La Méditerranée are among the neighborhood’s longstanding shopkeepers who are now facing an uncertain future.

“This conversation today is about San Francisco experiencing change, but also wanting to protect the integrity and the soul and spirit of not just our neighborhood but the city at large, and that integrity has been threatened,” Vanick Der Bedrossian, owner of Café La Méditerranée, said on Monday outside his business. “The bottom line is, we want to stay.”

The cafe owner said the investors had promoted their vision to revitalize their neighborhood through a nonprofit called SF Reserve Foundation, which has no website or brick-and-mortar space and could not be verified before publication.

Mehta did not respond to a request for comment from a KQED reporter.

TechCrunch recently reported that Mehta’s vision includes bringing a host of new high-end restaurants and retail stores to the four-block area he has acquired over the last year.

“We don’t really understand what their plans are,” Der Bedrossian said of the organization. “We are not opposed to change. We believe that businesses that no longer serve the neighborhood should be replaced by others that can better serve the neighborhood. We do support change. But not at the expense of family-run legacy businesses.”

The zoning controls will likely be introduced next week at the Board of Supervisors and will head to the Land Use Committee for legislative review.

KQED’s Gilare Zada contributed to this report.