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Walnut Creek planning panel recommends zoning changes to expand residential care facilities and reduce parking
Summary
The Walnut Creek Planning Commission on Oct. 9 voted 7-0 to recommend that the City Council adopt an ordinance amending Title 10, Chapter 2 of the municipal code to increase flexibility for residential care facilities, align parking standards, and make minor code cleanups, including updates to accessory dwelling unit rules to match state law.
The Walnut Creek Planning Commission on Oct. 9 recommended that the City Council adopt zoning code changes intended to make it easier to site residential care facilities for seniors and other vulnerable populations and to reduce parking burdens on those developments.
Crystal DeCastro, principal planner in the Community Development Department, told the commission that “state law requires cities to address barriers to housing development for vulnerable populations, including persons with disabilities, the unhoused, extremely low income households, seniors, and the local critical workforce.” She described the package as an implementation step for the city’s housing element program and said staff recommends the commission find the amendments exempt from CEQA and forward the ordinance to the City Council.
The ordinance recommended by the commission would: update definitions to distinguish small residential care homes (RCH) from larger residential care facilities (RCF); allow RCFs where RCHs are allowed; apply the same parking standards to RCFs in residential…
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