Half Moon Bay planning commission reviews draft objective design standards for multifamily and mixed‑use housing

At its Oct. 14 meeting, the Half Moon Bay Planning Commission received a staff update on draft objective design standards that would apply to multifamily and mixed‑use housing in parts of the city and establish review procedures for qualifying ministerial projects under recent state law.

City planner Ocoee said the standards are intended to supply “a set of definable standards that can be used to regulate development” and pointed to SB 423 — which extended provisions of SB 35 into the coastal zone on Jan. 1, 2025 — as a key driver. Under current rules cited by staff, qualifying projects must meet an affordability threshold (10% in Half Moon Bay) and other eligibility criteria to use a streamlined ministerial approval path; objective design standards may still be applied to those ministerial approvals.

Commissioners and staff discussed three linked tasks: drafting the standards themselves (likely codified by reference in Chapter 14.37), identifying necessary zoning/code edits (Title 18 and the local coastal development chapter 18.20) and creating a multifamily/mixed‑use overlay to which the standards would apply. Ocoee said the overlay shown in the staff packet would cover most mixed‑use and multifamily zones outside of the Coastal Commission’s appeals…