DEVELOPMENT STANDARDS AND GUIDELINES

The Specific Plan uses a combination of development standards and guidelines to establish the baseline for the desired quality of future development that the City seeks to achieve. Standards are a set of mandatory rules that new development is required to follow. They shape the overall urban form by regulating lot coverage, building placement, size, height, and massing through objective and measurable rules. (Per State law, an objective standard is one that involves no personal or subjective judgment by a public official and is verifiable by reference to criteria known to both the applicant and the reviewer). Guidelines are not mandatory rules but are encouraged to achieve elements of good design that are not measurable or easily defined, but are essential to creating the overall character, aesthetics and experience of a place.

The standards and guidelines are intended to:

• Encourage redevelopment of vacant and underutilized parcels to accommodate future growth; encourage economic development and achieve state mandated Regional Housing Needs Allocation (RHNA) goals.

• Ensure compatibility with existing development

• Encourage transformation of El Camino Real Corridor from an auto-dominated corridor to a humane, pedestrian-friendly street with safe and easy connections to the downtown and to the intermodal station

• Achieve design of architecturally interesting and appropriately scaled buildings to produce high-quality living and working environments that contribute to creating vibrant and active urban districts.

• Create high-quality public spaces and streetscape for safe and attractive pedestrian experience to support a thriving social life.

• Build community recognition by creating a unique experience for residents and visitors through welldesigned buildings, public spaces, events, programs and multi-modal mobility choices.

• Provide staff a set of objective criteria to evaluate projects during the design review and approval process, and to provide of design tools they can share with applicants that will help achieve the quality of development desired by the Millbrae community.

These standards and guidelines will complement other regulatory tools such as Millbrae’s General Plan 2040, Municipal Zoning Code, city-wide Objective Development Standards for Multi-family Residential, and the Active Transportation Plan for mobility improvements. Additionally, prevailing state laws and regulations will be applicable to future development in the Plan Area.

This section addresses the following standards and guidelines numbered as DSG-x:

• DSG-1 Development Intensity, Density and Height

• DSG-2 Building Setbacks

• DSG-3 Massing and Modulation

• DSG-4 Active Frontage

• DSG-5 Off-Street Vehicular Parking

• DSG-6 Loading Access

• DSG-7 Public Realm Design

• DSG-8 Open Space in Private Realm

• DSG-9 Public Art

Development Standards are numbered as DS-x.x and Guidelines numbered as G-x.x