Mayor Gavin Newsom is looking to make San Francisco greener and the Board of Supervisors president wants to protect small businesses from what he and others at City Hall see as the unlawful real estate practices of the Academy of Art University.
Peskin used the supervisors meeting Tuesday to introduce legislation extending for two years a moratorium on permit changes at San Francisco's Flower Mart, which is being acquired by the academy.
About 30 tenants at the Flower Mart received eviction notices in late December. Peskin's moratorium would prevent changes in permits for allowed uses of the Flower Mart property. The university wants to build studio space.
To the Academy of Art, if you are listening, it is not too late to abandon this wrongheaded deal and save your reputation in San Francisco," Peskin said.
Peskin's proposal followed a hearing Monday where a city planning official testified that the academy has been running afoul of city planning rules on dozens of properties it has purchased in recent years. The academy has been accused of, among other things, snapping up residential properties and illegally emptying them of tenants to make room for student housing.
A representative for the university could not be reached Tuesday evening. In an earlier written statement, academy President Elisa Stephens said the school's leaders "deeply regret the anxiety the notices caused these business owners and we pledge to work with the current owners of the Flower Mart to assure these businesses that we are prepared to work with them in the future."
Also Tuesday, Newsom introduced legislation that, if passed, would require local businesses to replace outdated fluorescent lightbulbs with more environmentally friendly versions known as T-8 lightbulbs.
The legislation would change the city's building code to require commercial buildings to install the more efficient lights by the end of 2008. The T-8 lightbulbs, city officials said, are 40 percent more energy efficient than the 850,000 standard fluorescent lightbulbs currently being used by businesses.
As an incentive, the city Department of the Environment will use $4 million in grant money to help local businesses with the cost of purchasing and installing the new bulbs.
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