Purpose/Intent

The City of La Cañada Flintridge is preparing new rules and standards for design and development of multifamily residential and mixed use buildings within the R-3 Multifamily Zone , Mixed Use Zone and the Downtown Village Specific Plan. This effort is in response to State legislation requiring local jurisdictions to adopt objective standards and to implement them in the streamlined review of qualifying housing projects.

Objective design standards are a powerful tool that allow communities to respond to State housing laws that are reducing local control of development. They provide an opportunity to ensure that the appearance of new development is compatible with the City’s vision.

Objective Design Standards provide applicants and developers with a clear understanding of the City’s expectations for mixed-use and multi-family residential project design. Objective design standards are written as requirements, rather than guidelines; therefore, all mixed-use and multi-family residential projects applying under Housing Accountability Act (HAA) protections will be required to comply with each standard. Objective design standards regulate site and structure design only. Projects must also comply with all applicable building permit requirements, Zoning Code requirements and development standards, such as height, setbacks, floor area ratio, etc of the underlying zone or specific plan.

The purpose of developing objective design standards is to:

• Comply with recent State housing legislation
• Implement streamlined and ministerial review processes for qualifying projects
• Ensure that qualifying projects align with the City’s expectations and vision to maintain and support the character of the City of LCF
• Provide a set of clear criteria to guide development
• Establish an objective framework by which a qualifying project will be evaluated

Proposed Objective Design Standards (PDF)

What are Objective Standards?

State law defines objective standards as those that “involve no personal or subjective judgement 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 and public official prior to submittal.” (California Government Code, §65913.4).

Design standards are “objective” if they can be measured, verified, and known by everyone before a project is submitted. In contrast, subjective design guidelines often need interpretation and personal judgment. Reviews based on subjective guidelines can take longer and be less predictable, which is why the State is prohibiting their use for qualifying projects.

Example of an objective design standard: “Front setback shall be at least 5 feet.” Compliance with this objective standard can be answered by a simple “yes” or “no”.

Example of a subjective design guideline: “Front yard setback should match the character of the neighborhood.” Compliance with this subjective guideline requires judgment about what “character” means Standards proposed to be addressed within the Objective Design Standards include:

• Building placement and orientation
• Building form and massing
• Architecture and articulation
• Building materials and colors
• Mechanical equipment
• Parking
• Lighting
• Site landscaping

What are Objective Standards?

State law defines objective standards as those that “involve no personal or subjective judgement 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 and public official prior to submittal.” (California Government Code, §65913.4).

Design standards are “objective” if they can be measured, verified, and known by everyone before a project is submitted. In contrast, subjective design guidelines often need interpretation and personal judgment. Reviews based on subjective guidelines can take longer and be less predictable, which is why the State is prohibiting their use for qualifying projects.

Example of an objective design standard: “Front setback shall be at least 5 feet.” Compliance with this objective standard can be answered by a simple “yes” or “no”.

Example of a subjective design guideline: “Front yard setback should match the character of the neighborhood.” Compliance with this subjective guideline requires judgment about what “character” means Standards proposed to be addressed within the Objective Design Standards include:

• Building placement and orientation
• Building form and massing
• Architecture and articulation
• Building materials and colors
• Mechanical equipment
• Parking
• Lighting
• Site landscaping

State Legislative Requirements

In response to California’s housing crisis, several state laws have been enacted to strengthen the State’s Housing Accountability Act including Senate Bill (SB) 35, SB 330, and SB 9, as well as Assembly Bill (AB) 2011 and SB 6 for mixed use projects, with the intent of stimulating and streamlining housing production. These bills are intended to make it significantly more difficult for communities to deny or reduce the density of projects that include housing units that meet objective General Plan and zoning requirements.

In order to respond to recent legislation, the City is focused on creating robust objective design standards to ensure that projects achieve high quality building and site design. The proposed approach will ensure that the City has a creative, economically feasible, and sustainable strategy toward new development.

Source: Department of Housing and Community Development Housing Accountability Act Technical Assistance Advisory (Government Code Section 65589.5) dated September 15, 2020

A “housing development project” means a use consisting of residential units only, mixed use developments consisting of residential and non-residential uses with at least two-thirds of the square footage designated for residential use, or transitional or supportive housing. A “housing development project”, which may include mixed-use or multifamily residential projects, must comply with the City’s adopted Objective Design Standards. To ensure a high level of design throughout the community, the City is intending to enforce these objective design standards on all future multifamily and mixed-use projects.

A single family home can be a “housing development project” for purpose of Government Code sections 65905.5 (limiting the number of hearings allowed for any “housing development project”), 65940 (requiring that public agency provide list of information required for complete housing development project application), 65941.1 (preliminary application requirements), 65943 (Permit Streamlining Act provision requiring completeness determination within 30 days), 65950 (Permit Streamlining Act provision required decision within certain period from completion of CEQA review), and 66300 (prohibition on enforcing new subjective standards on housing projects).

A single-family home is NOT a “housing development project” under the HAA. Only projects with two or more residences are “housing development projects” for purposes of the HAA (Government Code section 65589.5), which prohibits cities and counties from denying or making infeasible “housing development projects” that comply with objective development standards, unless specific findings are made.

However, a new single-family home with an Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) is subject to the HAA as the project contains two housing units. The City is prohibited from denying or making infeasible “housing development projects” that comply with objective development standards, unless specific findings are made.

Process of Review for Development Projects

There are many variations as to the process for review of housing and mixed use projects, depending on whether the project is subject to the HAA or not, and whether the project is submitted with an affordability component that meets the requirements for streamlined review. There are two main processes via which projects may be reviewed, ministerial or discretionary.

Where and How does the Architectural Styles Design Manual Fit In?

The Objective Design Standards provide standards that address the general form or new structures, but this does not necessarily mean that all proposed new buildings will be compatible with or “fit” with the overall community aesthetic. The Architectural Style Design Manual would accompany the Objective Design Standards and are designed to ensure the architectural style of new buildings would blend harmoniously with existing development.

The Architectural Style Design Manual was developed based on the styles identified within Single-Family Residential Design Guidelines (2006). While ten architectural styles are included within the identified for single-family projects, it was decided that not all styles may translate well to larger scale development associated with multifamily or mixed use developments. Therefore, only six styles were included in the Architectural Style Design Manual, which include the following:

Proposed Architectural Styles Design Manual (PDF)

Process for Review and Adoption of Objective Design Standards & Architectural Styles

During the preparation of the Housing Element, it was identified that the design standards contained within the various chapters of the Zoning Code, within the Downtown Village Specific Plan and the Foothill Boulevard Master Plan did not always meet the criteria of Objective Design Standards.

The City Council made a commitment to the community that public review and feedback on the Objective Design Standards would occur. To ensure that sufficient opportunity for feedback is provided on this topic, the following process for review and adoption of objective design standards will occur:

1. Design Commission review and comment
2. Planning Commission review and adoption of a recommendation to the City Council
3. City Council review and approval