Paid Parklet Permit System Hits Application Deadline, Most SF Businesses Intend To Keep Their Parklets

The free ride is over for San Francisco parklets, but now that businesses must pay $2,000 a year for each parking space their parklet occupies, nearly 80% of current parklet owners

are still opting to keep them.Early last year I was chatting with a San Francisco bar owner, and I complimented him on the sweet parklets his venue had put up. I asked if he would

keep them. Without missing a beat, he said, “I’ll keep them there until the city starts making me pay for them.”We are now to where the city is making you pay for them. As

the Chronicle noted in their 2023 public spaces preview, “San Francisco was an early adapter, waiving permitting rules to allow businesses to turn parking spaces into parklets

where customers could drink and dine in naturally ventilated settings.” But that waiving of permits ended when the permanent “shared spaces” legislation kicked in, and

businesses now need a paid permit for parklets.Per the SFMTA, the application deadline was January 15, and “once approved, [permits] will go into effect on April 1, 2023. And the

Chronicle reports that most SF businesses are keeping them. “As of midday Tuesday, the city received 702 parklet applications for the new legislated Shared Spaces program,”

according to the Chronicle. “Of these applications, 592 are renewals from the previous pandemic parklet program, while the rest are new applications from businesses that do not

already have a parklet.”That report also notes that there were 760 applications in the previous phase. So if 592 parklet permit holders were renewing, that means just under 80%

of parklet permit holders are retaining their parklets now that their permits cost money.Parklets can now only occupy a maximum of two parking spaces, and the permits come at a

cost. Per the Chronicle, “Going forward, businesses looking for a commercial parklet annual license will have to pay $2,000 per parking space occupied. One-time permits for fixed

commercial parklets for the first parking space cost $3,000, and $1,500 for the second space. Businesses with fewer than $2 million in gross receipts receive a half-fee

waiver.”For some businesses with large parklets, complying with the two-parking-space rule is far more expensive than the permit. Consider North Beach’s Red Window, which has

six parklet spaces, and now must remove four. Owner Elmer Mejicanos tells the Chronicle, “We're, roughly, going to spend about $20,000 just taking down the remainder of the

parklets, except for the two that we’re allowed, and even those are going to be changed.” And at Lazy Bear in the Mission, recurring graffiti and vandalism forced them to just