July 15, 2005

City begins program to cut red tape for small businesses

By Sheila Sanchez
Staff Writer

San Jose Mayor Ron Gonzales recently un-veiled a new program to help small businesses navigate the city’s development review and permitting process.

Each small business going through the development process will now have a single point of contact at City Hall—an ambassador who can remove the guesswork and reduce the surprises that small businesses can encounter.

The Small Business Ambassador Program is the result of feedback from business owners who have requested that the city simplify its process and reduce the time needed for planning review and permits.

“We hope this will reduce the cost of development and the time it takes for getting permits for our small businesses,” he said. “We’ve heard our businesses say very clearly that ‘time is money,’ and we intend to help them save both.”

Gonzales also announced that the third annual city council study sessions for “Getting Families Back to Work” scheduled in October would focus on improving the city’s development process. The effort will be done with help from a new “Counter to Council” task force of business representatives who will review the process and make recommendations over the next several months.

Bill Baron, chairman of the San Jose/Silicon Valley Chamber of Commerce board of directors, praised the program.

“We haven’t seen the cause and the effect of this program yet,” Baron said, noting that small merchants have felt the need to create the program as many have lost money and experienced painfully long delays in opening their businesses due to the city’s complicated permit process.

An Almaden small business owner last year accused the city’s building division of imposing difficult regulations that delayed the opening of his sandwich shop, costing him thousands of dollars and discouraging him from opening another store in the city.

Vijay Patel, 35, owner of the Quiznos Sub franchise in San Jose, said it took him more than six months to open his restaurant because of building and permit inspection delays and complications.

The interruptions cost Patel about $30,000, finally opening last summer at the Almaden Plaza Shopping Center, 5353 Almaden Expressway. He initially submitted plans to the building division in November of 2003.

Although Patel said he had a diligent contractor trying to carefully follow regulations, city planners, who issue the permits, and city inspectors, who review compliance, found mechanical errors in his building plan that postponed the opening of his restaurant.

Patel was happy to learn about the city’s new program: “It’s a great idea for small business owners. It gives them a single point of contact to handle their permitting issues. I think it’s going to be very successful for the city and for small business owners,” he said.

Dennis Richardson, the new director of the city’s building division, acknowledged that regulations imposed in the permit process are sometimes difficult. He said the city has made a lot of improvements over the years in how the process works, but conceded there’s room for improvement.

“We want small businesses to succeed. We need to hear the concerns, look at the organization and figure out where we’re not providing the level of service that is expected,” said Richardson.

“We’ve had a need for this type of service to be provided to our small businesses in our community,” Baron said. “I’m confident that steps such as these will be beneficial to the business community. In this day and age of bureaucracies at every level of government, programs like these are needed to make it easier for business owners to approach the city to create jobs in our community. It’s a very positive thing.”

The mayor noted that ongoing feedback from the business community has already led to improvements that have made a difference for businesses.

The city’s building division will manage the program with the help from a cross-trained team from the city’s many departments dealing with building, economic development, environmental, finance, fire, planning, public works, and redevelopment agency services.

In August 2003 and 2004, Gonzales invited a wide range of business representatives and community stakeholders to a series of city council study sessions aimed at helping the city develop effective strategies to create jobs, attract and retain businesses, and restore economic opportunity for residents and businesses in the face of the prolonged Silicon Valley recession.

“These are people who want to invest in our community and who want to create jobs and provide services to certain customers and we need to do everything possible to have the welcome mat for clean and legal business and encourage them,” Baron said, who’s also a partner in a small real estate development company.