Objective Design Standards for Multifamily Housing
Background - What are Objective Design Standards?
Objective design standards for multifamily housing set clear expectations for how new housing should look, feel, and function, and avoid inconsistent requirements during project review. Objective standards promote fairness and equity by making sure that all parties know what to expect, which helps streamline the review process.
After a series of community engagement events in 2021 Santa Cruz adopted a set of objective design standards on November 15, 2022. The current standards can be found in the Santa Cruz Municipal Code. The original project page is located here.
The adopted standards cover topics like the design of ground floors, walking paths, parking, landscaping, open space, the shapes of roofs and facades, building materials, and lighting for all new buildings outside the Downtown that include multifamily housing. Maximum heights and widths of buildings are set for each individual zone district in a different section of the code and are not proposed to change with these updates.
2025 Updates to the standards - process
Because the standards went into effect recently, no buildings subject to these standards have been completed yet, but many proposals have been submitted using the new standards, and these proposed projects have generated a number of questions and shown the need for some clarifications. When the objective standards were first adopted in 2022, staff identified the need for ongoing updates and maintenance over time as staff, developers, decision makers and the public work with the design standards and new issues arise. This is the first update to these standards.
Goals for this update – big picture
- Refine the standards – follow the original community input and guidance
- Add flexibility to requirements to make sure multifamily housing is not too expensive to build, especially for affordable housing
- Reduce certain requirements while maintaining options for a variety of architectural forms
- Encourage some new types of high-quality design
- Adjust requirements for ground floor retail in an effort to reduce vacancies
- Address various details to speed up application and project review and make them more consistent
Proposed Changes – summary
1. Building shape and materials requirements
- Differentiate requirements about building shape between shorter and taller buildings
- Add an option to allow flat building faces if they include deep window insets and high-quality, highly textured materials – like old brick warehouses or historic mission-style architecture
- Break up longer, taller buildings with a more pronounced inset or notch
- Reduce some requirements to use multiple materials
- Add a step-back option for roof forms to encourage reducing bulk at tops of buildings
2. Ground floor design and activities
- Create flexibility for 100% affordable projects
- Adjust some permit processes to support businesses and reduce vacancies
- Define where trash / electrical / mechanical rooms can go
- Clarify the way to calculate commercial/active frontage size requirements
3. Clarifying details
- Redefine when new pathways are required
- Adjust how to calculate the size of landscaping requirements
- Define new terms
Proposed Changes – details
Reminder - "all buildings" below refers to all newly constructed multifamily housing buildings outside of downtown.
1. Building shape and materials
Definition of terms used below:
- Change in plane – an interruption in the vertical face of a building where the face changes depth. See illustration below showing two changes in plane circled in green.
- Public frontage – the side(s) of the building facing the public street.
- Mixed use building – has a mix of uses (i.e. stores / commercial on the ground floor, apartments on top)
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All buildings have to have a change in plane and at least one unique roof form for every 30’ of building face.
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Buildings three stories or less: One change in plane and roof form for every 30’ of building face
Buildings more than three stories: One change and plane and roof form for every 50’ of building face
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When buildings reach the first 30’ in length, they have to have two changes in plane.
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When buildings reach the first 30’ or 50’ increment (depending on size) they have to have one change in plane.
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The depth of the change in plane varies depending on how wide the change is; there are three options for meeting this standard
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Buildings three stories or less: All changes in plane are at least 2' deep and 6' apart from each other
Buildings more than three stories: All changes in plane are at least 4' deep and 6' apart from each other
There are no options, these minimums are the required standard.
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Sometimes a change in plane also requires an accompanying change in material
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Buildings that are mixed use and/or three stories in height or greater have to visually differentiate the ground floor with a design element
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Only mixed-use buildings have to visually differentiate the ground floor
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No single material may make up more than eighty-five percent of any building face. Buildings must incorporate two or more of the accepted materials on each face.
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Buildings three stories or less: Changes in plane are required on the public street frontages only.
Buildings more than three stories: Changes in plane are required on all building faces 50’ or longer
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On all buildings, changes in plane continue through the ground floor on the public street frontage but are not required to continue through the ground floor on the other building faces.
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One of the options for changes in plane is through a larger “notch” cut out from the building.
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Buildings with a public street frontage of 100’ or more are required to incorporate a notch at least 6’ deep and 12’ wide above the ground floor, which counts as two of the required changes in plane
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All changes in plane and notches must be open to the sky with allowances for eaves. Balconies are allowed in these spaces as long as the railing is 75% transparent / see through
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For buildings three stories in height or less, an upper-story step-back of at least four feet in depth and thirty feet in length can fulfill one of the roof form requirements. For buildings more than three stories in height, an upper-story step-back of at least four feet depth and fifty feet in length can fulfill one of the roof form requirements.
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Buildings three stories or less: Windows above the ground floor must be inset at least 2”
Buildings four stories or more: Windows above the ground floor must be inset at least 3”
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Buildings three stories or less: no change
Buildings more than three stories: Windows above the ground floor must be inset at least 4”
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A building more than three stories in height may waive the change in plane requirement if the window inset depth is at least 6" for all windows above the ground floor and if the facade material is either tile, brick, concrete, stone (engineered or natural), or a living wall (as defined). The intent is to create a highly textured surface. If the project frontage is one hundred feet or more in length it must still include the required notch.
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2. Ground floor design and activities
Definition of terms used below:
- Active uses / active frontage - building uses on the ground floor that are pedestrian oriented and activate the public realm
- Principally permitted - building uses that are allowed in a zone district without any staff review or public meeting
- Use permit / special permit - building uses that require staff review and/or a public hearing and may have conditions placed on them
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All buildings have a minimum ground floor height of fifteen feet. The ground floor frontage has to be 75% transparent between a height of two feet and twelve feet (measured from sidewalk grade)
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Buildings where more than 50% of the units are market rate: no change
Buildings where 50% or more of the units are below market rate: Minimum ground floor height of twelve feet. The ground floor frontage has to be 75% transparent between a height of two feet and ten feet (measured from sidewalk grade)
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Some zone districts require 100% “active uses” for the spaces on the ground floor main frontage; others require 50% active uses. Each zone district has a custom list of uses that qualify as “active”
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Adding more types of uses to the allowed active uses lists in the Community Commercial and Mixed Use zones, and making those uses principally permitted.
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Uses for active frontage shall be built to a minimum depth of at least twenty-five feet, applied as an average depth of the total depth of all the active frontage spaces along the predominant building face
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Calculate by dividing the gross square footage of the active frontage space by the length of the predominant building face. The result must be 25 or greater.
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Mechanical rooms and trash rooms are never allowed on the public frontage.
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If applicants can show that they have no other option (i.e. no alley or parking area access to place a trash room or transformer room elsewhere on the ground floor), then mechanical rooms and trash rooms are allowed on public frontages.
For buildings with double frontage lots with the same size sidewalk on both sides, mechanical rooms and trash rooms are allowed on the public frontage facing the street with lower traffic volumes.
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In all Mixed Use and Commercial zone districts, the ground floor along any public frontage requires a certain percentage of active uses.
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Update to “public street frontage” (i.e. not alleys, paths)
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3. Clarify and fix details
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Regardless of the street frontage length of the project proposed within, if the property abuts a public street, alley, path, paseo, trail, or other public connection on a side or rear property line, it must incorporate a connection between the parcel street frontage and that existing public connection.
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Only required if the project has a street frontage over 100’ in length and if there’s not an existing public connection between the street and the other street, alley, path, paseo etc. within 300’ of the project frontage.
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Where outdoor dining is an allowed use, the area allotted to outdoor dining does not count towards the percentage of required active use along the frontage.
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In certain zones, all public frontages shall incorporate twelve square feet of planted area for each thirty linear feet of building frontage counted by rounding up to the next increment of planted area.
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All public frontages shall incorporate 0.4 square feet of planted area for each linear foot of building frontage, with a minimum of twelve square feet.
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Not all zone districts have an open space requirement (e.g. industrial zones), but state law now allows housing in those zones
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In any district without an underlying zone district open space standard, at least forty square feet of private open space and at least twenty square feet of common open space shall be provided per dwelling unit.
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Walls or portions of walls that are unfenestrated (without windows, balconies, or glass doors) that extend from grade up to the roofline are limited to a maximum horizontal width of fifteen feet.
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With the exception of elevator towers
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Building Materials section Goal: To ensure that building materials are high-quality, durable, convey a sense of permanence, and reflect the existing character of buildings in the urban environment.
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To ensure that buildings look like a series of volumes, giving them a sense of depth and substantiality, and that materials are high-quality, durable, convey a sense of permanence, and reflect the existing character of buildings in the urban environment.
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At building corners, except for living walls, all materials shall wrap around the corner to a depth of at least four inches. This includes corners of insets, reveals, or changes in plane that are four inches or greater in depth, as with a balcony, ground floor entry, or change in plane.
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At building corners, except for living walls, soffits, and insets for balconies, all materials shall wrap around the corner to a depth of at least four inches. This includes outside corners of changes in plane that are four inches or greater in depth, as well as outside corners of bay windows.
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Definition: “Private open space” means outdoor area either at ground level or on a balcony which is appurtenant to a dwelling unit and designed for the exclusive use of the occupants of that dwelling unit.
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Update review procedures “Private open space” means outdoor area either at ground level or on a balcony, including patios, decks, or other privately-accessed outdoor space, which is appurtenant to a dwelling unit and designed for the exclusive use of the occupants of that dwelling unit.
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Mixed-use or residential development not within the R-L, R-M, or R-H zone districts with 51 dwelling units or more and varying from at least one and no more than five standards of Section 24.12.185 is referred to a public meeting at the Zoning Administrator, and is appealable to Planning Commission and City Council, in that order
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"Dripline” The outermost circumference of the tree's canopy, from which water drips onto the ground.
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24.12.280 DESIGN REQUIREMENTS.
9. Landscaping and Screening.
b. Standards for Multifamily, Over Five Units, Commercial and Industrial Developments. Every parking facility shall include a minimum of ten percent of area devoted to parking in permanent landscaping.
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b. Standards for Multifamily, Over Five Units, Commercial and Industrial Developments. Except for Multifamily Housing projects subject to the design standards in Section 24.12.185, every parking facility shall include a minimum of ten percent of area devoted to parking in permanent landscaping.
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