Pandemic, Permitting, and a Preschool
Gloria called me in the early days of our team signing new projects and clients. As she was shopping around architects she was also shopping around leases trying to find the perfect place for her bi-lingual preschool (Banana Fana) expansion. I was inspired by Gloria’s excitement and her mission for the new preschool.
“We are a play-based supportive Spanish Immersion preschool and focus on school readiness in an organic way which encourages children to learn at their own developmentally appropriate pace. We value trust, safety, communication, diversity, and security. Our educators at Banana Fana Preschool use a Creative Curriculum approach for our classroom. “
Since we were unsure which lease would be signed, our team put together bids and proposals based on different locations. I had a fun moment realizing that when I’m in charge of contracts, I have the ability to give discounts to those who may need or deserve it. That’s when we came up with our “small business discount” which we now happily offer to small businesses we work with (which include a few other restaurants, shops, and even another preschool!).
Gloria found the perfect space in the heart of the mission district and we set off at creating our designs and drawings for the space. We had so much fun working on designs, integrating kiddo furniture, and colorful elements into the space to create an exciting learning space.
Our next step towards creating this new space was much less fun. It was time to deal with permitting in the city of San Francisco. Not only that, but we were in the middle of a pandemic: the permit center had moved offices, and their process for submitting changed monthly. One month you were supposed to drop off plans, then next you would be in person. Some projects were reviewed digitally, while others were completely lost in the shuffle.
Thankfully with lots of persistence, emails, in person visits, phone calls, and a good attitude we were able to push our project through with only minor comments. This was early on in our permitting days, especially with the city of San Francisco. I learned early on that reviewers are not worth fighting as we have the same goals of health, safety, and accessibility for projects. I was shocked then, and still am even as I go to the building department almost weekly, at the amount of architects and designers who choose to bring in anger and frustration to the reviewers. Not to say that I am never frustrated by reviewer comments, but my team addresses project reviews with understanding and respect.
There was a scary moment where we thought our project landed in some sort of bureaucratic purgatory, but thankfully Gloria was able to contact a supervisor who made sure our project would be reviewed in a timeline manner. After some back and forth, and some confusion with the fire department review, we got our project approved!
Construction began right away, and a short time later the doors opened for a second new location for Banana Fana. We are so happy to have helped this project become a reality. While it was our first preschool, we’ve worked on a couple more since, and while we always embrace diversity in project types, we have particular fun with projects like this one!
If you live in or are thinking about a project in San Francisco, we have listed out our “readers digest” explanation of Permitting in San Francisco. If you won’t be building in San Francisco, we wouldn’t recommend learning about the chaos of the building department in one of the cities we call home base.
SF projects have two types of permitting: the first is Over the Counter (OTC) the second is Intake.
OTC are smaller projects, all interiors, and projects that have minor planning implications. Intake is all larger projects, be sure to ask which type your project is! OTC projects are printed out and reviewed in person, this takes extra time at the permitting office, but overall saves time as the average turnaround is 1–2 weeks total, including responding to comments. Our team will take care of forms, and permitting in person, we wouldn’t want to make you go sit and wait to take to reviewers.
Intake projects are highly inefficient. Planning alone takes at least 4 months, if this is your type of project be ready for a long haul of a review. Similar to other areas, once the project is approved, you as owner can pull the job card and pay final fees, or ideally the contractor pulls the job card (that way they take liability for work and safety on site). Only difference is this happens in person at the permit office.
Regardless of what may seem like a painstaking process of permitting in San Francisco, we were more than happy to help with this process, and if you have a project in the area (or beyond) we would love to learn more about it and how we may be able to help you make this a reality.
