About the Ordinance

The Board of Supervisors adopted the Design Review (DR) Ordinance on June 23, 2026.  The Ordinance will be effective outside of the Coastal Zone on July 23, 2026.  In the Coastal Zone, the Ordinance is not effective until the Ordinance is certified by the California Coastal Commission.

The Department prepared an update to the Ordinance to achieve these goals:

  1. Update existing Design Review standards to make them more objective, in response to State Laws preventing the County’s ability to apply design review standards that are not objective to certain projects.   
  2. Simplify the application of required standards by eliminating duplicates and redundancies, and clarifying confusing ones.
  3. Allow for more design flexibility to reflect contemporary styles.

Public Engagement

To collect feedback from the Bayside Design Review Committee (BDRC) and the Coastside Design Review Committee (CDRC) on the draft design standards, the draft standards were made available for review in Summer 2025.  The BDRC reviewed the standards at their September and October 2025 public meetings.  The CDRC reviewed the standards at their August, September, and October 2025 public meetings. 

The Department presented to the Midcoast Community Council on October 22, 2025, and February 11, 2026, with the discussions focused on standards regulating exterior lighting.

County File No.  PLN2025-00232
Contact: For questions or comments about this project, please contact Camille Leung

Public Meetings