California's recent housing legislation has fundamentally changed how local governments regulate residential development. In response, I have prepared Objective Design Standards, zoning ordinance amendments, and supporting graphics for multiple Northern California jurisdictions, codifying subjective design guidelines as objective development standards that have been adopted by local agencies and approved by the California Department of Housing and Community Development (HCD) to implement state housing law.
Although every project is driven by the same legislative framework, the design response is never the same. Each community presents its own physical character, planning objectives, political priorities, and regulatory challenges, requiring unique standards that respond to local conditions.
In Atherton, the challenge was introducing the Town's first multifamily zoning districts while preserving its established residential character. The standards emphasize building massing, articulation, and site design to create buildings that read as large houses rather than conventional apartment buildings, while requiring porches, stoops, and front entrances that engage the public realm. The Town's subsequent implementation of SB 79 presented a different challenge altogether: developing a regulatory framework for transit-oriented development at densities of up to 120 dwelling units per acre under an accelerated schedule before the law took effect on July 1, 2026.
Rohnert Park required a different response. Following recent wildfire disasters, resilience became a defining project objective. The Objective Design Standards incorporate voluntary home-hardening recommendations from California's Wildland-Urban Interface Code through requirements for defensible space, ember-resistant vents, fire-resistant exterior materials and assemblies, and other design measures that improve wildfire resilience while maintaining high-quality residential design.
The illustrations featured throughout this page are drawn from the following documents and reflect the range of urban design, regulatory, and graphic solutions developed in response to each jurisdiction's objectives.
Projects include:
• City of Rohnert Park - Objective Design Standards
• Town of Atherton - SB 79 Ordinance Objective Design Standards
• Town of Atherton - RM-10 and RM-20/40 Zoning Amendments and Development Standards
• Town of Woodside - Multifamily Objective Design Standards and Zoning Code Update
• Town of Los Gatos - Objective Design Standards
• City of Petaluma - Objective Design Standards Ordinance
• Santa Clara County - Stanford Community Design Guidelines
