Community Benefit Districts

Community Benefit Districts (CBDs) are partnerships between the City and local communities. They are non-profit organizations that strive to improve the overall quality of life in specific commercial districts and mixed-use neighborhoods. CBDs are created when local property owners within a specified area vote to levy a special assessment on themselves to fund neighborhood improvements and ongoing maintenance of the public realm (graffiti removal, tree pruning, sidewalk gardens etc.).

For the LIZ Program*, CBDs play important partnership roles in the site selection and permitting process. The City takes on the first step in forming a partnership with a CBD by pre-approving LIZ sites in the Site Selection Process.

Currently, San Francisco has 16 CBDs, five of which are active on Market Street between Octavia and the Embarcadero, making them eligible to participate in the Living Innovation Zone Program. These include: The Central Market CBD, the Civic Center CBD, Tenderloin CBD, Union Square Business Improvement District, and the Yerba Buena CBD.

CBDs are generally organized around an Advisory Board and several subcommittees. Committees may include an Executive Committee charged with man- aging organizational policy and governance, a Streetscape Committee charged with supporting a lively and well maintained public realm in the district, and a Finance Committee charged with managing the organization’s budget.

To learn more about CBDs in San Francisco, visit the Office of Economic and Workforce Development’s website below.

San Francisco Community Benefit Districts

*The LIZ program is pleased to announce that it has merged with Groundplay. Best practices found in this document are still applicable to Groundplay projects.