The Roseville Planning Commission on Oct. 23 recommended the City Council consider and adopt objective design standards (ODS) for residential infill (file PL25-0450), a unanimous action intended to protect neighborhood streetscapes and ensure livable infill development.

Associate planner Eric Singer said the city relies on its Community Design Guidelines (CDGs) and that most specific-plan areas supplement the CDGs with objective standards. "The older parts of the city that aren't subject to a specific plan, what we call the infill areas, they don't have the additional objective design standards that are found within all of our specific plans," Singer said. He said recent state laws that remove discretionary review for certain housing types mean staff can apply only objective standards in many cases, creating a need for a clear set of objective standards for infill.

Singer provided examples of proposed standards: consolidating multiple driveways so a multiunit development does not consume most of a frontage with driveways and garages; and requiring a variation in a wall plane when a wall covers two-thirds or more of a property length to avoid long, unbroken walls that affect neighbor view sheds and the streetscape.

Staff said the ODS would apply primarily to infill and to multifamily, small-lot and medium-density residential projects and that exhibits to the staff report contain the detailed criteria. Singer said staff had presented the proposal to the FONA board and the North State Building Industry Association and received no outstanding opposition, and that the amendment is exempt from CEQA under section 15061(b)(3).

Commissioners asked whether expired development agreements would be subject to the new ODS and how public notice would be handled; staff replied specific-plan standards continue to apply where they exist and that citywide ordinance amendments rely on newspaper notice and board outreach rather than 300-foot project notices. Commissioner Pryor moved to recommend council adoption and Commissioner Hagler seconded; the commission's recommendation was unanimous.