There are 39 Districts within San Francisco in which Formula Retail controls which limit or prohibit formula retail apply, controls “adopted to maintain the unique visual character of the City’s neighborhood commercial districts [NCDs].”
Currently defined as “a type of retail sales activity or retail sales establishment which, along with eleven or more other retail sales establishments located in the United States, maintains two or more of the following features: a standardized array of merchandise, a standardized facade, a standardized decor and color scheme, a uniform apparel, standardized signage, a trademark or a servicemark,” the definition of Formula Retail will be amended to include Financial Services as proposed.
From the Planning Department with respect to reasoning for the amendment:
In addition to having a standardized look and signage, Financial Services typically lack active or visually interesting store fronts. Therefore, having an over concentration of Financial Services in an NCD not only erode the visual uniqueness of that neighborhood, they can also negatively impact street life and vitality.
That being said, “there is a concern that there are very few Financial Service establishments in San Francisco, which would not be categorized as Formula Retail.”
While some local Financial Service operations with fewer than 11 locations exist in San Francisco…most of the banks and even some Credit Unions are nationwide chains with more than 11 locations. While there will be additional limits on the provision of “financial services” under this proposed Ordinance, it should be noted that banking services provided through Limited Financial Services, ATMs, and online banking would still be permitted.
The proposed legislation will effectively prohibit new Financial Services in the Hayes Valley and North Beach commercial districts as both prohibit Formula Retail outright.
∙ Formula Retail Financial Services Amendment [sfplanning.org]
Why?
Are we trying to help all the struggling mom and pop banks and brokerage houses?
These bank storefronts are a blight to most neighborhood shopping areas. They are visually dead and contribute nothing to the street scape. Further, since banks can afford very high rents, they price out businesses that really serve the neighborhoods. Have you ever seen one that benefited the neighborhood?
I think maybe ‘blight’ might be a bit strong of a word, no?
And if these banks aren’t serving the neighborhood, why are they there? Surely the banks ain’t paying these ‘very high rents’ for no reason.
Yeah, the Chase Bank and Wells Fargo sure are hurting Divisadero/NoPa. Not.
Blight? Visually dead?
Would like the bank storefront to look like a flower stall? Perhaps a baby clothing store? Maybe a sushi restaurant?
Are you serious? Tell us why you really “hate” banks. I’d like to know.
Perhaps you are really implying your dislike for the symbol/image of large banks? Guess what? we all rely on banks in some form or another.
Guess what? they are banks, doing what banks do.
Tell us your version of how you would like banks to “benefit” the neighborhood.
Says financial services not just banks.
History of banks I have used in SF.
Haight and Waller once a bank now used clothing store.
Somewhere in financial district. Once a bank now a jamba juice.
Bayview Bank is now a temple to James Nunemacher.
The Pacific Stock exchange. It is a gym now right?
Frankly my dear I think we have too many Chase branches in the lower haight already. Isn’t there one on every block already?
(according the chase locator there are 30 locations for chase in SF)
Who goes to bank branch anymore anyway?
They are just street billboards.
Wouldn’t it be more fun to have more gyms, yoga studios used clothings stores, and alternative health and food emporiums out there?
From coast to coast America live with the same box chains in strip malls.
If SF become an anymore like middle america, they wont visit us anymore.
Not that that is any reaason to become more like middle america…
We could build a mega mall or a giant crystal temple. Or a luxury cruise terminal…If you build it they will come…
Or another world class organic water frontpark that is bigger and better than GGP…
Ian, you wrote: “These bank storefronts are a blight to most neighborhood shopping areas. They are visually dead and contribute nothing to the street scape. Further, since banks can afford very high rents, they price out businesses that really serve the neighborhoods. Have you ever seen one that benefited the neighborhood?”
Why do you think banks can afford high rents? Magic? Its because they make money, and they make money because they provide a service people want to pay for.
Kathleen, you wrote: “Wouldn’t it be more fun to have more gyms, yoga studios used clothings stores, and alternative health and food emporiums out there?”
It would be more “fun” to give the people of SF what they want. And the best way to figure out what the people of SF want is to see where they spend their money! If they want a gym instead of a stock exchange, or a jama juice instead of a BoA, then good for them! Just let the market do its thing and allocate space in the most efficient manner possible. All of this micro-management is insane.
The “bank branches” in some of these neighborhood commercial strips are not banks, they’re office space using retail space. Chase on Divis took up the area of a LARGE laundromat, a cheese store, a chocolate store (and some other store I can’t remember). Meanwhile, Wells Fargo manages to provide many bank services in a tiny corner of various Safeways.
I wouldn’t mind small bank storefronts. If they need a lot of office space, let them rent the second floor for that.
I love how kathleen wants us to live just like her: gyms, yoga studios, bla bla bla.
What a self-entitled bunch of bs.
Guess what? LOTS of people go to a branch bank. The Chase bank on 24th st, in Noe Valley is always busy, and the staff are helpful and friendly. They are real people providing a real service to the neighborhood.
It’s obvious that she/he has never really been to “middle america” whatever that is: her fear of SF becoming more middle America is just fear based and has no facts to prove that fear.
I personally think banks are ugly, but legislation to BAN them is just ludicrous. Chase (I think) opened up on Fillmore and California, and it’s hideous… I do wish something else had gone into the space, but I suppose it’s better than the rotting dry cleaners that was there forever.
My real question though, is who goes into a bank any more? I deposit checks at the ATM, and I pay bills and send transfers online. Why do we need more physical banks? I think I go into BofA once or twice a year, if that. I’m really curious what purpose they serve in an increasingly paperless society.
BobN, I think the laudrymat is still there – i think chase just took over the truffle and cheese shops that no one went to anyway.
The Chase on divis also took over the storefront that stood empty and covered in graffiti for a number of years (after the “formula” battery store was denied a permit for the same space)
I have never seen a city so enamored with preserving empty, blighted, storefronts all in the hope that somehow the flow of time will reverse and suddenly rents, architecture, and basic economic will return to a time when everything everywhere was described as “quaint”.
Sometimes those banks will cause the blight. The landlord figures if they hold out, a bank will come along and take the space for 20 years at an above market rent, so they just keep the rent above market and the building sits empty.
When the city tells the owner that no ban is permitted, the space gets rented out at something closer to the market price, and much more quickly.
However, the merchants in the area always want one bank so they can drop their cash or get cash.
So what happens if neighborhood people need a bank? There are none who will be allowed under this rule so people will simply have to go a lot further to visit one.
ted h I’m pretty sure the laundromat was gone, as in stripped out and empty. It was the space that was for lease. When Chase got interested, the other tenants had to move so Chase would have enough space.
The cheese shop was a mystery to me. Good cheeses, low prices, never a line when I went in.
I’m with futurist here; once again Socketsite commenters are stuck in their mental bubble. Here are a few perfectly valid reasons (all of which I have used fairly recently) to go into a bank branch:
* child pass-book savings account (yes, they still exist — no web/ATM access)
* very large cash withdrawal
* get a money order / certified check
* reset PIN on ATM card
* get rolls of quarters for laundry/parking
* deposit bucket-o-coins collected by children
If anything ought to be regulated, I would vote for the store facade/window displays of Walgreens. Those are universally the most horrid, uninspired pieces of dreck I encounter on a daily basis. Peg-board? Really?
I’m also with futurist! As a small business owner, I have a long established face to face relationship with my local branch that provides services not available on my banking Iphone app or website. Construction projects still require printed cashier’s checks for many contractors.
Kinda torn here. I actually use the WF at 16th & Mission occasionally, and realize a LOT of people do not have the desire or ability to bank online. I even use it occasionally: $100 in quarters does a lot of laundry!
That being said, it does occupy way more space than it needs, and big banks openly admit to gunning for the “low-end” clientele that generates more fees so these large billboards for their services only perpetuate the cycle.
I wonder if “financial services” includes check-cashing loan sharks, er, services?
I can’t see why the city doesn’t solve the problem by:
1. Limiting the frontage of a bank in the retail districts. e.g. no more than 35 feet wide within 60 feet of the street on the first floor.
2. Requiring a minimum distance between bank locations for a given number: like no more than 2 branches can be within 1500 feet of any new branch.
Beyond that, go wild.
SPURS session on collaborative consumption talked about need for multi-uses of spaces. Sharing the built environment coming next.
Enormous single-use wasted space (Sanchez, Divisdero)iand all the more odd in this age of web management.
The model of Wells with Starbucks, dry cleaning, (post office?) — more fitting.
http://uptownalmanac.com/2012/04/chase-bank-open-branch-valencia-st
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/03/nyregion/zoning-proposal-on-upper-west-side-could-reshape-commerce.html?pagewanted=all
UPDATE: Frequently referenced new Chase on Divisadero and Oak now pictured above.
How is it that commercial shopping districts in urban neighborhoods of other larger American cities have a diversity of local owned businesses without the over-management of S.F. urban planners? San Francisco did not write the book on creating good urban shopping districts and should not pretend that it is somehow as unique and apart from “Middle America” as it thinks it is. What is unique about S.F. are the stupid S.F. Planning ideas, from Parklets, to Parkmobiles, to all of the failed attempts to fix Market Street.
I go the bank more often than most. I dont go to gyms and used clothing stores. These are the stores my former bank branches became post the S&L debacle (before internet?) One of my old banks is now the Lembi RE empire HQ. I am a small business owner. I want my bagel toasted in over 1500 sq feet without the city putting the kaibash (SP?) on the cream cheese. And I do adore a paninni and dont think small business owners have to be classified as a full service restaurant for serving coffee and toasted bagels. And I am all for the joy of a panini who doesn’t like a warm, squishy sandwich? People who like cold sandwiches. And I would rather have a cafe, or noet incuabator, or a bunched of coders writing code on the next big thing, on the corner, than another bank branch. I dont think SF is are suffering from a shortage of bank branches. I would be singing a different tune if bank branches were as scarce as gas stations.
And if you would rather have bank branches than small mom and pop indie shops go for it.
Maybe Chase and other banks pays higher rent $/sq ft than the Flo’s Corner Cafe.
+1 the bill, tipster, and Invented.
I grew up in a small midwestern town of 8K, went to college in a town of 75K, and I don’t think any of my local banks at the time had retail space this big. I’m not a NIMBY pining that the space belongs to a mom and pop shop; it just seems a bit wasteful.
I live near two of the Chase branches: one on Mission between 2nd and 1st, with another one right around the corner at Market and 2nd; both are huge and seem relatively empty when I walk by. It seems more like a branding/marketing exercise than one driven by demand.
A good example of retail branches IMO: the WF branch at Spear and Mission (no bigger than a drycleaner insofar as retail space; or the one at 4th and Brannan (combined w/starbucks).
I watched the space at Divis and Oak eagerly for what was to appear there. I was sorely disappointed when I saw that it was just a bank. That could have been something really interesting or exciting.
That said, the proliferation of check cashing companies came in the wake of many banks pulling out of neighborhoods. Some say it was because of the Community Reinvestment Act, which required that banks made a certain number/amount of loans in neighborhoods in which the banks do business. And I think we can all agree that check cashing spots are even more usurious than Chase, Wells, B of A, et al.
I use a branch bank for the almost exclusive purpose of getting rolls of quarters. I agree with all of the above who say that this role can be performed inside a grocery store.
Thanks to those above who agreed, in general, with some of my comments. Much appreciated.
@anonfedup: you make some very good points. Yes, our city is no shining example of good urban planning. The Planners are forced to bow to every kind of interest group imaginable, rather than practice and approve good urban planning practices. Some of the parklets are perhaps ok; however quite a few have become an almost “free” amount of additional table space for their private enterprise.
Market St, largely from VanNess to 5th is still largely an urban disaster, disgustingly ugly, dirty and full of drunks, hookers and druggies. The City still, after decades, does not know how to fix it. Compare our Market ST. to the great Michigan Ave. in Chicago; a brilliant, world class public street. Why can we not achieve this?
Because our city leaders are (mostly) small minded, politically motivated beyond reality, and not skilled enough to think big.
btw: ah…..kathleen: you need to work on your writing style: I had a very hard time getting thru your entire little rant (which made no sense) full of misspelled words, poor grammar clarity, and logic. For a realtor, you could work on those skills. Just a thought.
[Editor’s Note: Attack the argument, not the individual.]
relax, futurist. It’s just a local real estate blog; there will be diverse opinions (esp in SF!). No need to be petty.
Oh, I’m quite relaxed. And yes, I’m fully aware of this being a “local real estate blog”. We all know that, but thanks for reminding me.
And yes, the comments here are quite diverse and mostly valuable. But a lot of us do share the opinion that this city does not do a very good job with urban planning, and neighborhood controls.
We could learn a lot from other large cities.
I am all for small bank branches in the various neighborhoods around the city for the convenience it provides. What I don’t like is that they take the corner locations, and due to their higher-security nature, typically have only one small entry door. A much better use from an urban neighborhood perspective would be a restaurant or cafe to activate the area, but I am not sure that I am for legislating that, but I would be for incentivising.
My fear is that we are going to end up with suburban “intersection” conditions with competing banks on the corners in lieu of gas stations.
maybe we should all get behind dual purposing; i.e. banks during the day and another purpose during the evening.
consider:
Bank of America Day and Night Club
Wells Fargo Bank and Internet Coffee Cafe
Chas(e)ing Boys and Girls Dance Hall (especially the Marina branch)
Sterling Silver Bank and Jewelers
I’ve been in that Chase branch. Great location. I joined a credit union for 6 mos. not because I’m an occupier but I thought I’d save some on the various monthly fee’s (internet banking, Quicken access,etc.) . I went back to a large bank within 4 mos. Credit Union’s are great if you live across the street from one sand you never travel. Try finding a “alliance” bank machine. It’s usually in some random 7-11. Credit Unions serve a purpose but not for someone who travels frequently. If anything there needs to be more Chase branches. The conservationists in SF that try to preserve every street corner and protect it from any establishment with more than 10 locations is a complete joke.
The people against Chase are anti-capitalists (read Marxists). “Occupy 401 Divis” is the slogan of the Facebook group “No Chase Bank on Divisidero Street.”
Bank branches do provide a needful services for residents and merchants that cannot be transacted over the Internet. In small towns, bank branches, like the post office are places where people congregate; they give people a sense of community. When East Palo Alto’s only bank branch closed, the community protested.
And finally, the SF Planning Commission may not have the legal authority to prevent bank branches from opening. When the City tried to regulate ATM fees, the banks had the law overturned in federal court, which caused the City a lot of needless legal expense. That could very well happen again if they try to regulate bank branching.
^ you obviously have no idea what a marxist is… delusional idealogues just love to throw that crap around.
Agreed with tuneinto: coming to the conclusion that people against Chase are all Marxists is a very big (more ginormous) leap and something that’s more par for the course on the WSJ’s comment boards than here.
I also question the argument that bank branches – and um, post offices of all places – are places where “people congregate; they get a sense of community.” Really? I grew up in one of those said “small towns,” (see earlier comment) and we never, ever congregated at the local bank or post office, let alone derived a sense of community from them. Church, yes. The local high school sports team or the local cafe/coffee shop, yes. Bank and post office: good places to do your banking business and buy stamps (and check out the Most Wanted list), but not really a spot where people congregated and got a sense of community.
Now, I am actually curious to where you grew up. 🙂
Perhaps not all people who are against Chase are Marxists, but the group “No Chase Bank on Divisidero Street” which uses “Occupy 401 Divis” as its slogan consciously aligns with the Occupy Movement, which is anarchist and neo-Marxist in its origin;
“The recent movements that have emerged across the world to ‘occupy’ various public
spaces present an immanent critique of the contemporary arrangements of global politics – one that theorists of International Relations (IR) and International Political Economy
(IPE) should reflect on with some urgency.
Emerging from a complex intertext including,
but by no means limited to, anarchist and neo-Marxist frameworks, the movement has
called for a recognition and appraisal of the ‘communism of everyday life’. Resonating
with arguments made in Hardt and Negri’s Commonwealth (2009), as well as David
Graeber’s Debt: The First 5000 Years (2011), the movements appear to wish to draw
attention to a dominant capitalist ontology which denies the highly distributed and social
nature of the way in which real value production takes place today. In this context, they
argue, the burden of debt that the 99% must endure merely to maintain a dignified
standard of living bespeaks the erosion of any semblance of democracy in the allocation
of social wealth.”
Occupy Wall Street as Immanent Critique: Why IR Theory Needs a ‘Mic Check!’ Nicholas J. Kiersey
http://www.criticalglobalisation.com/issue5/157_160_IMMANENT_CRITIQUE_JCGS5.pdf
With regard to your second point, the establishment of a bank branch in a community or neighborhood connotes a thriving level of economic activity; conversely, the discontinuance of a bank branch suggests that the community or neighborhood does not possess a level of economic activity sufficient to support a bank branch. When a branch closes, bank customers who might have shopped in the neighborhood stop coming, and it has a deleterious effect on the local economy. In East Palo Alto last June, community activists fought to keep a bank branch from closing. In San Francisco, community activists fight to keep bank branches from opening.
In very small towns with remote and isolated populations, people who don’t see each other every day have a chance to catch up when they see each other in line at the bank or PO. Perhaps your town, though small, was large enough that it had other places for that activity, but in towns like Tulelake, Dorris and Point Arena, which have had branch closure issues, the loss of a community gathering place was one of the reasons people cited. Incidentally, sfjhawk, I grew up in Oakland, but I am familiar with branch closure issues in small towns through my work.
Well thank God (eh – the Gods of SF Planning Dept) for getting rid of banks. Lets see… Now I will just have to put my money in a fed ex envelop and send it to Utah to make a deposit and use the ATM at the Supermarket paying a $3 fee to do so. Good thing the banks will be gone, because they are ugly. Hey why don’t you get rid of the supermarkets and force us to by out food at little Mom and pop shops?
Oh and thank you for approving the Autozone at the corner of S Van Ness and Cesar Chavez. There was only an O’reilly Auto Parts around the corner on Mission. Now I have a Choice of ugly auto parts stores to keep my junker on the road. Just in time for the re-do of Cesar Chaves too! Think Chase is Ugly? Look at Auto Zone…. Who got the payoff on that one?
Do I sound confused? – I can’t imagine why.
Mikel – ATM’s & traveling is the absolute worst reason to bank with one of the big banks. If you travel a lot you shouldn’t be with one of the big banks but with a bank that will rebate atm fees, something the big banks with large ATM networks won’t do (because they view those ATM’s as revenue generators). I know of several banks (including the one I use) where you can use any ATM (as long as it is not located in a casino) and the bank will never charge a fee to use that ATM and they will rebate you the atm fee charged by the owner of the atm. So you never have to go looking for a certain ATM anywhere you travel, you can just use whichever ATM is closest, including the one in the hotel lobby (unless you are staying in a casino).
Patrick,
Populations of Tulelake, Dorris, and Point Arena, respectively: 1,010, 939, 449 (2010 Census data). I agree that communities of this size may derive their sense of community from different sources than a town of 8,000; but, doesn’t that same logic apply to a city of 100,000 or larger (or, 750,00 in SF’s case)? I have a hard time buying into the notion that people in any neighborhood in “Medium to Large City, USA,” look to the presence of a bank branch as some sort of connotative source of a thriving economy or community. I also highly doubt these neighborhoods would experience a deleterious effect if said branch closed. You cite East Palo Alto as another example of this but just like the demographic of a smaller town, I wonder more about who are the bank’s customers in these areas and the services they provide (no high speed internet access = no online banking services, etc.) that drive their desire to keep a branch open as opposed to a need to congregate for any community purposes.
While I respect your position, it just seems like a tough one to defend for an urban environment (not just SF). It’s like taking Howard Schultz’s main premise behind creating Starbucks in “Pour Your Heart Into It,” except instead of pitching the coffee shop as the “Third Place,” it’s a bank. It doesn’t pass the smell test.
Again, overall, it just seems a bit overdone (see my earlier comment about having two Chase branches within 1.5 block of each other, in soma).
sfjhawk,
Your point about closeness is well taken. EPA, even though it is on the densely populated Peninsula, is rather cut off from the other communities by the Bayshore Freeway, which makes travel to other bank branches inconvenient. Tulelake, Dorris and Pt. Arena are small isolated communities far from other towns with branches. The same does not apply to the Chase Bank, which has offices near the Oak & Divis branch located at Fulton & Masonic and Market & 15th.
There have been attempts to make bank branches places to congregate. Umpqua Bank is a leader in this movement to make branch banking more Starbuckslike: http://www.architectureweek.com/2003/0618/design_3-1.html
And INGBank has opened a branch in San Francisco at 101 Post that doubles as a cafe: http://blog.sfgate.com/esandberg/2011/03/28/would-you-like-some-bank-with-your-coffee/
But in the case of Chase, it seems like they are simply interested in building market share. From American Banker:
“JPMorgan Chase & Co. is planning to open between 25 and 30 branches in Northern California this year as part of its ongoing quest to add market share in the nation’s largest state.
“The branch openings would be on top of the 29 the $2.3 billion-asset banking giant has opened in the San Francisco Bay area in 2011 and the dozens it has opened in California since it entered the state in late 2008 when it took over the failed Washington Mutual Bank. The Oakland Tribune reported Wednesday that the bank is eyeing expansion in counties throughout the Bay Area, where it ranks fourth in deposit share, behind Bank of America Corp., Wells Fargo & Co. and Citigroup Inc.
“‘When we look at our market share and the number of our branches, we definitely see room for expansion,’ Don Bausley, manager of the San Francisco and East Bay markets for JPMorgan Chase, told the Oakland Tribune.”
So, finally I think that while my arguments in favor of bank branches apply generally, they are somewhat weaker when applied to the Oak & Divis branch of Chase.
Where in Kansas are you from sfjhawk? My partner is from Atchison. Rock, chalk, Jayhawk!
“There have been attempts to make bank branches places to congregate.”
I guess we have it pretty easy here in the USA. Countries where bank robberies are more common really don’t like the idea of anyone loitering inside the bank building. Get in (via the guard controlled security “airlock”), do your business, and then get out.
thanks, Patrick. You did jog my memory on some of the unique things banks like ING were doing to combine functionality (interesting concept).
I’m originally from Wellington; just south of Wichita about 15 miles north of the OK border. Not quite as big as Atchison but do remember it. And, yes, Rock Chalk Jayhawk!
I mentioned this above, but it appears to be worth mentioning again, the only reason the Chase is in the Divis location is because neighborhood groups rejected the other proposed retailers who wanted to take over the original space (which would have preserved the cheese shop, etc).
So for everyone who is hating on this Chase, or other locations, it’s worth asking, what else tried to utilize the space but was rejected prior.
My understanding of the ING Cafe thing was that it wasn’t going to be a bank where you could get coffee in adition to doing your banking but instead a coffeeshop, semi-community center (ie meeting rooms available) where you could get info about ING products but not actually do any real banking. Has that changed?
Isn’t this just trawling for re-election dollars?
Politician: I need some moneyfor my next campaign and banks have money.
Politician: I’ll propose to ban new retail banking branches.
Banker: Here’s a “donation” to your campaign let’s just forget all about those proposed restrictions, Ok?
I wonder if the banks would be able to get these rules thrown out in federal court like the ordinance restricting ATM fees?
What has been completely lost in this discussion is the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) which requires banks to serve diverse neighborhoods including Divis/Western Addition corridor. These are Federal requirements. No city land use law trumps Federal banking regulations. The city is likely setting up themselves for a lawsuit.