Cotati staff outline transit-oriented rezoning and parking limits as route to regional grant competitiveness

Noah House, the city’s community development director, led a workshop on implementing Transit‑Oriented Community (TOC) policies around the Santero Way SMART station and, where appropriate, citywide. House said the proposals are intended to align Cotati City with ABAG/MTC’s TOC guidance and improve the city’s competitiveness for One Bay Area grant funding.

House summarized staff recommendations, which would: increase allowable residential densities on certain parcels to about 25–35 units per acre; adopt a commercial floor‑area‑ratio range of roughly 1 to 3 for targeted sites; set residential parking maximums at 1.5 spaces per unit and a commercial maximum near one space per 250 square feet; require expanded bicycle parking and introduce unbundled parking (where parking is priced separately from rent); and create two new zoning districts — a Santero Way zoning district with a residential/mixed‑use focus and a TOC zoning district focused on commercial mixed uses along East Cotati Avenue. “We are going to be discussing Cotati’s transit‑oriented community and Santero Way rezoning, in a workshop format; no decisions are being made tonight,” House said at the start of his presentation.

House told the council that some compliance choices are mandated while others come from a menu of options ABAG/MTC offers; staff emphasized the tradeoffs between funding competitiveness and local implementation capacity. House noted Cotati already has some relevant policies in place from prior planning work and said staff plans to “plug” the draft policies into ABAG/MTC’s portal to get early feedback before returning with an ordinance.

Community concerns raised during outreach — and acknowledged again in the workshop — include parking impacts, land‑use mixing (for example retail uses next to residences), maintaining emergency access, preserving local architectural character, and ensuring open space and unit‑type mix. Staff also proposed several technical “code cleanup” changes: reclassifying tattoo/body‑piercing studios as general personal services to make them easier to site, formalizing a retail tobacco definition while continuing to prohibit standalone smoke shops, and adding micro‑distilleries and vintage clothing as distinct land‑use categories.

Council members generally expressed support for staff’s recommended pathway while pressing for clarity on enforcement, compliance scoring and how the city will balance affordability goals against RHNA (state housing need) obligations. Council asked staff to seek ABAG/MTC feedback on scoring and to return with draft ordinance language and any recommended implementation resources. House said staff would also pursue grant opportunities and use an existing city acquisition (120 East Cotati Avenue) and streamlined entitlement provisions as part of the proposed production strategy.

Because the meeting was a workshop, no vote or ordinance was adopted tonight; the council provided direction and requested follow‑up materials and the draft ordinance be returned for formal consideration.