Lafayette design review commission forms two-member working group for objective design standards, drops planned citywide questionnaire

The Design Review Commission on July 28 voted to form a two‑member working group to develop objective design standards tied to the city’s housing element and to eliminate a planned citywide questionnaire, relying instead on working‑group drafts, prior survey data and public meetings.

Staff planner Stephanie Cervantes said the working group will include two DRC members, staff and the project consultant, Lisa Weiss Consulting, and is expected to meet two or three times beginning in August with monthly or biweekly follow‑ups as needed. Cervantes said the public open house originally scheduled for October may move to November.

The commission’s vote adopted staff recommendations to delay a broad questionnaire after feedback from a June joint study session with the City Council and Planning Commission. “We received feedback that the project team should work with DRC first before we reach out to the community with any potential options,” Cervantes said. She also said budget and staffing constraints counseled against launching a new questionnaire; staff offered to pull results from the housing element outreach (staff estimated that survey work was done around 2022) to inform the working group.

Resident Elliot Hudson, who identified himself as having long experience in Lafayette preservation efforts, urged the commission to produce measurable, legally defensible standards and warned that many example standards provided by staff were not sufficiently objective. “You’re going to have to write things about how much of a sidewall can be windows, how much can be stucco, what building materials can you have,” Hudson said, adding that the work should begin with a limited set of clearly describable building types.

Mayor Susan Candel, speaking during public comment, endorsed practical, fast work rather than perfection and encouraged the commissioners to consider outside examples and objective templates that have passed legal review.

Commissioner John Gray volunteered to serve on the working group; commissioners agreed staff should contact absent members Glenn Farbourn and Rich (surname not specified in the record) to gauge their interest. The commission then voted to nominate Glenn Farbourn to the working group should he be willing and to adopt staff’s recommendation to eliminate the planned community questionnaire and instead use prior survey results and forthcoming working‑group drafts. The motion passed on a voice vote.

Cervantes said the working group’s drafts will be presented to the full DRC at a publicly noticed meeting and then to a publicly noticed community open house. She said the project remains targeted for completion by early next year, subject to available budget and the working group’s schedule.

The DRC emphasized that the working group must be limited to two commission members to comply with the Brown Act. Commissioners also flagged timing and resource constraints as the leading implementation risks for producing legally defensible, objective standards in the proposed timeframe.

Next steps identified in the meeting: staff will contact absent commissioners to confirm availability, pull prior housing‑element questionnaire data for the working group, and schedule the initial working‑group meetings in August.