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City releases public review draft of comprehensive zoning ordinance update; study session opened for feedback
Summary
The Milpitas Planning Department presented a public review draft of a comprehensive zoning‑ordinance update at a March 4 study session, outlining a restructured Title 13, consolidated land‑use categories, modest parking reductions and new design standards for single‑family homes.
Milpitas — Planning staff and consultants presented the public review draft of a comprehensive update to the city’s zoning ordinance at a March 4 study session, and the council received public comment and preliminary feedback.
Planning Director Jay Lee and consultant representatives said the update is a reorganization and modernization of the city’s zoning code. The draft relocates zoning rules into a new Title 13, consolidates and modernizes land‑use definitions, adds clearer tables and graphics, proposes a moderate reduction in vehicle parking minimums in some zones, and expands bicycle and Transportation Demand Management (TDM) standards for larger projects.
Consultant Jen Murillo (Lisa Wise Consulting) told the council the update aims to make the code more user friendly, ensure consistency with the General Plan and climate action objectives, and reduce permitting levels in specific cases by enabling some approvals at a staff level rather than requiring planning‑commission review. Planner staff said they also added objective design standards for newly constructed single‑family homes (for example, limits on blank wall area and requirements for visible, weather‑protected entries) to reduce back‑and‑forth during review.
The draft does not change zoning already adopted through the separate Housing Opportunity Districts project; Planning staff said that project remains a separate track and any housing opportunity district zones approved later will be incorporated into the zoning ordinance afterward.
Public comment at the study session included praise for the effort and requests that staff preserve hillside protections and coordinate with the county where county‑owned hillside land borders city hillsides. Several speakers asked how parking minimums will affect families with more than one vehicle and whether developers will be required to provide additional spaces; staff replied the tables show minimums only and developers may provide more parking if desired, and that other state laws and programs may allow additional reductions in specific circumstances.
Staff said the public review draft was published in December and the public comment period remains open through March 7. After public feedback and revisions, staff plans formal hearings before the Planning Commission and City Council with adoption targeted for summer 2025.
