Title
Objective Design Review Standards for One- and Two-Family Dwellings. Public hearing to consider Objective Design Review Standards for development allowed under Senate Bill 9. Adoption of the Objective Standards is exempt from CEQA pursuant to CEQA Guidelines Sections 15061(b)(3), the common sense exception that CEQA applies only to projects that have the potential for causing a significant effect on the environment, and Section 15183, projects consistent with a community plan, general plan or zoning
Body
To: Honorable President and Members of the Planning Board
BACKGROUND
A growing number of State laws limit local jurisdictions' review of housing projects to conformity with objective standards rather than subjective design guidelines. The latest of these laws, Senate Bill 9 (SB 9), goes into effect on January 1, 2022. It requires local jurisdictions to grant ministerial, by-right approval of duplexes in single-family residential zones. While SB 9 mandates that two units be permitted per lot, it allows local jurisdictions to apply objective design standards. Staff strongly recommends adopting objective design standards prior to SB 9's effective date of January 1, 2022 so that staff will be able to apply such design standards to any proposed housing developments under SB 9.
The Planning Board (Board) adopted a set of Objective Design Review Standards (Objective Standards) for multifamily and mixed-use developments in 2020 and a revised set in February 2021. Some of the adopted standards for multi-family dwellings would also work for one- and two-family dwellings that could be developed under SB 9, while others are less suitable.
State law defines objective standards as those that involve no personal or subjective judgment and can be uniformly verified by reference to external and uniform benchmark criteria. They must be measurable and have clear criteria that are determined in advance so that staff and applicants can communicate about a project's c...
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