City Creates Design Pathways for Denser Housing as State Law Limits Local Review

Facing state laws that now permit nearly double the housing density in many neighborhoods while restricting subjective design review, Pasadena has crafted a nearly three-year response: objective standards giving developers a choice between distinct architectural approaches for high density projects.

The City Council votes Monday on zoning amendments creating “Design Type 1” (previously referred to as “Simple Form”) and “Design Type 2” (previously referred to as “Articulated Form”) pathways for residential developments exceeding 48 units per acre. The standards are intended to result in different building typologies and cannot be mixed to create a hybrid set of standards. Changes to California’s density bonus law now allow up to 87 units per acre plus additional bonuses in many areas, according to a Department of Planning and Community Development report presented to the Council.

Senate Bill 330, the 2019 Housing Crisis Act, bars cities from imposing design standards that involve personal judgment on multifamily developments. California Government Code defines “objective” standards as those “involving no personal or subjective judgment by a public official and being 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,” the department report states.

The proposed standards emerged from nine public sessions including a March 2023 walking tour of ten existing developments. The Planning Commission, staff, consultant, and the public evaluated what the report described as “successful and unsuccessful elements such as material quality, private and common open spaces such as balconies and paseos, residential entrance treatments such as stoops, roof forms, and parking entrance design.”

The Planning Commission unanimously recommended approval October 8, adding requirements that street-facing balconies project no more than two feet, feature opaque railings and high-quality materials. The Commission also recommended including a range of permitted colors.

Sustainability provisions would require shade elements—awnings, canopies, overhangs, fins, or covered balconies—on east, west, and south facades to reduce solar heat gain. Buildings using Design Type 2 standards would not be permitted to use fins and/or canopies but would be permitted to incorporate the other listed elements. Alternatively, developers could provide rooftop gardens counting toward open space requirements at 1.5-to-1 ratios. Projects outside Specific Plan areas would be required to provide the same amount of tree canopy in common open space as required by the Central District Specific Plan, at a ratio of one 24-inch box tree per project, or one for every 500 square feet of common open space, whichever is greater. For projects with two or more trees, a minimum of 50 percent shall be shade trees selected from the City’s Protected and Native Species list.

Projects meeting the objective standards would undergo two-step review rather than the current three-step process. Sites exceeding two acres could opt for traditional review instead.

The standards supplement existing zoning rules and design guidelines adopted prior to January 1, 2020.