Progress report on design guidelines for multifamily housing

In plain English

City planning staff are giving the Council a progress update on a project to write voluntary design guidelines for larger apartment and mixed-use buildings in Santa Cruz. Since March 2026 staff have held a roundtable with architects and builders, a July 23 community meeting hosted by a Planning Commission special meeting, and an August online survey that drew 753 responses; a draft guidelines document is now being written. A yes vote simply accepts the informational report and gives staff feedback — it does not adopt any guidelines or change any rules. Staff plan to take a draft to the Architectural Review Committee in late 2026 or early 2027, hold focus groups with groups that were underrepresented in the survey, and then return to the Planning Commission and Council.

The guidelines would be non-binding advice that developers, architects and residents could use at the earliest stage of designing new apartment and mixed-use projects downtown and along Mission Street, Ocean Street, Soquel Avenue and Water Street, and in the places where those buildings meet existing residential blocks.

Key facts

The guidelines would be voluntary and non-binding; they would supplement the City's Objective Design Standards for Multifamily Housing, adopted November 15, 2022.
The August 2026 community survey received 753 responses — 752 in English and one in Spanish.
Survey respondents ranked the top design priorities as (a) gradual neighborhood transitions, (b) where buildings and sidewalks meet, and (c) neighborhood compatibility and character.
Survey respondents skewed toward homeowners: 567 of 730 (77%) owned their homes and 546 of 735 (74%) lived in single-family homes, while U.S. census data shows only 48.4% of city housing units are owner-occupied.
No budget adjustment is requested; staff may hire an urban design consultant later, with cost 'still to be determined' and paid from the Community Development Department's existing budget.

Reasons to support

Because the state Density Bonus Law (Government Code §§65915-65918) lets most new multifamily projects in the city deviate from the City's binding objective standards through waivers and concessions, voluntary guidelines are a way to communicate community design values that other California jurisdictions have also adopted.
Design professionals said good design must be built in at the start; guidelines available at project inception would tell developers what the community values and support conversations between developers and neighbors, rather than 'Band-Aid solutions' added late in design review.
The process has drawn broad input — a design professional roundtable, a downtown walking tour, a Planning Commission special meeting with poster-board voting, and 753 survey responses — and staff propose focus groups with renters, high school and UC Santa Cruz students, young families and Hispanic residents to fill gaps in who was heard.

Reasons to oppose or change it

Written comments at the July 23 meeting argued the guidelines skip the issues people care most about — building height, setbacks, stepbacks and on-site parking — and that 'color and materials cannot make up for' those.
Design professionals said the City's existing neighborhood-transition standard (stepping a building down next to homes) is economically infeasible on the shallow lots along Mission, Ocean, Soquel and Water, yet gradual transitions ranked as the community's number one priority — a direct conflict the draft must resolve.
Several commenters opposed the suggested incentive of ministerial (non-discretionary) review for complying projects, writing 'big no on ministerial approval' and that giving up public hearings and elected-official oversight in exchange for 'a wishlist of artistic ideas' is an unacceptable tradeoff; others questioned whether developers would follow guidelines at all if they are voluntary.

Official wording

FP26-0005: Design Guidelines and Priorities for Multifamily Housing – Report on Project Progress and Current Next Steps (CD) LOCATION: Citywide Accept an informational report and provide feedback related to the City’s progress on design guidelines and priorities for multifamily housing.

Official agenda

Summary written by claude-opus-5 from the agenda and the Staff report (agenda packet, pages 524-553). It can contain mistakes. The official documents govern.