Statewide housing legislation passed in 2017 (SB 35) allows developers of multi-family residential projects to benefit from a streamlined, ministerial review process provided the developer meets certain criteria, including the provision of 50% affordable housing and payment of prevailing wages, among other requirements. Under the law, the City’s decision on the project must occur within 60 days for projects with 150 or fewer units and 90 days for projects with more than 150 housing units. The decision must also be based on a review of the project’s compliance with “objective zoning standards” and “objective design review standards.” “Objective zoning standards” simply refers to development regulations in the zoning ordinance such as density, building height, building setbacks, lot coverage, open space, etc. Meanwhile “objective design review standards,” as defined under state law, mean standards that involve “no personal or subjective judgment by a public official and are uniformly verifiable by reference to an external and uniform benchmark or criterion available and knowable by both the development applicant or proponent and the public official prior to submittal.”
California Government Code Section 65913.4(c) further stipulates that cities may require such projects to undergo a design review process. However, that process must be “objective” and “strictly focused” on assessing compliance with objective standards that are adopted and published by ordinance or resolution prior to application submittal.
In response to state law, staff has compiled a comprehensive list of objective design review standards(PDF, 248KB) from existing City-adopted sources that meet the description of an objective design review standard in state law. The standards would become an addendum to the Citywide Design Review Manual (2013) and be used as a checklist for design review for any future development project that invokes ministerial review procedures under the SB 35.
The September 23, 2019 Planning Board staff report is available via link in the meeting agenda.
Source documents used to compile the current set of the objective standards include:
Public Works Department