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The San Ramon Planning Commission is set to continue discussions on the city’s objective design standards at its next regular meeting and begin public hearings on a new fitness center proposed for the northern part of the city near the Danville border.
Commissioners are set to review a draft update of the city’s objective design and development standards (ODDS) that they directed staff to prepare earlier this year following the approval of a new housing element as part of the general plan update process for the current cycle.
With new state laws prohibiting local municipalities from using anything but their ODDS guidelines for consideration in the review and approval of new housing developments, the update for the current cycle is all the more important, and has been a topic of discussion at numerous commission and City Council meetings.
After finalizing and approving the full General Plan 2040 at the end of December, the Planning Commission provided direction to staff and consultants in February and April to guide the draft ODDS update, which was reviewed by the city’s Architectural Review Board on Aug. 7.
“The ARB was generally supportive of the specific standards, however, they felt that there needed to be a much stronger statement of the purpose and what qualities these standards are intended to promote (i.e. aesthetics, livability, placemaking, pedestrian realm, active streetscapes, etc.),” Senior Planner Cindy Yee wrote in a staff report prepared for the upcoming meeting.
The ARB’s feedback included a request for additional graphics to illustrate the points of the draft ODDS, as well as a recommendation for additional guidance on the relation between specific standards in the document and the context of individual project sites, “given that all options might not be appropriate in all locations,” according to Yee’s staff report.
“For example, a residential stoop design or tot lots may not be the best fit adjacent to a high volume/capacity road frontage, while other higher density mixed use characteristics may not be the best fit for transitional zones adjacent to lower density residential neighborhoods,” Yee wrote.
Another emphasis in the ARB’s feedback was adaptability and flexibility for buildings and their surrounding areas to evolve alongside the needs and desires of residents.
“This adaptability can include ground floor units design for both commercial and residential options, the consolidation of landscape areas, adaptable parking areas and multipurpose amenity spaces,” Yee wrote. “There was an acknowledgement of the specific needs associated with dog ownership and to provide spaces to address those needs so as not to conflict with the overall experience of the project design.”
As it stands, the city has adopted ODDS in the 2020 San Ramon Village Specific Plan, but not citywide in its general plan, giving city officials little in the way of enforceable guidelines in reviewing and approving new housing and mixed-use developments following the adoption of recent state housing laws.
“While the City has many design guidelines that promote best practices, many of the current standards are subjective or optional, and therefore unenforceable under State law,” Yee wrote. “The standards in the ODDS will work as a baseline, creating Citywide standards that apply to all multi-family and mixed-use residential projects.”
Adopting a citywide policy on ODDS would offer a basis for city officials to enforce their feedback on new developments, as well as allowing applicants a way of knowing what standards their proposed projects would be held to and to adapt accordingly.
“In other words, objective standards allow applicants to know the requirements that will apply to a proposed project so that they can design a project that meets those standards,” Yee wrote. “These objective development standards can therefore make decision outcomes more predictable for all stakeholders, including decision makers, City staff, applicants, and members of the public.”
Following the upcoming discussion, city staff and consultants are set to incorporate feedback from the commission into a final draft set for review at a later date.
The San Ramon Planning Commission is set to meet at 6 p.m. on Tuesday (Aug. 20). The agenda is available here.
In other business, commissioners are set to begin discussing a proposed new fitness center for 2600 Hooper Drive, with the applicant having submitted a development plan amendment application to convert eight existing parking spaces on the property into an outdoor workout facility, as well as a minor exception application that would allow for a reduction in parking.
“While City staff is supportive of the proposed indoor Fitness/Health Facility land use, City staff does have concerns with the proposed outdoor workout area because with the addition of the outdoor workout area, parking reduction necessity, and increased site impacts (i.e. noise, visual, etc.) from outdoor operations including impeding on the existing trash enclosure access/operation,” Planning Specialist Lucas Haase wrote in a staff report for the upcoming meeting. “Due to this, the scale of proposed development and necessary exceptions call into question if the existing site is appropriate for the revised business profile.”
The site is currently home to the personal training and group fitness business Amir Athletics.
