Council adopts Title 25 objective design and development standards with minor edits to encourage articulated facades

The Santa Barbara City Council introduced and adopted an ordinance Feb. 4 establishing Title 25, the city’s new objective design and development standards (ODDS), and approved related amendments to the Title 30 zoning ordinance. The measures create a measurable, graphic-based set of standards that applicants can use to qualify for a streamlined, ministerial design review process for multiunit residential and mixed-use projects.

City planners said the ODDS project began with a $300,000 grant from the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) and a multi-year public engagement effort. Rosie Dicey of the City of Santa Barbara’s planning staff presented the ordinance framework and said the standards were intended to increase predictability and implement state law that permits streamlined approvals when projects meet objective, measurable standards. Dicey said the city will revisit the program after it has been in use: staff proposed a status review after either 10 projects or two years, whichever comes first.

Opticos Design principal Tony Perez, the project consultant, described the document as form-based standards drawn from an…