Westminster City Council
SUBJECT
Title
Strategic Plan Goal #2: Implement and Support Effective Land-Use Policies that Encourage Quality Development.
Strategic Plan Objective: Identify Ways to Modify the City’s Code to be More Efficient and Improve Development.
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From: Christine Cordon, City Manager
Requested by: Administration
Prepared by: Richard Rojas, Community Development Director
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RECOMMENDED ACTION
Recommendation
Receive and file.
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BACKGROUND
On April 28, 2025, the City Council held a strategic planning workshop to develop the City’s second three-year strategic plan and identify priorities for the City. These include:
• Goal #1 - Achieve Financial Stability
• Goal #2 - Implement and Support Effective Land-Use Policies that Encourage Quality Development
• Goal #3 - Attract, Develop, and Retain Well-Qualified Staff Members
• Goal #4 - Improve Customer Service Delivery to the Community
• Goal #5 - Enhance Quality of Life and Beautification Throughout the City
The new goals stem from the first set of goals adopted in 2022, which included:
• Goal #1 - Achieve Financial Stability
• Goal #2 - Develop and Implement Specific Plans for Little Saigon, the Downtown District, and the West Side
• Goal #3 - Attract, Develop, and Retain Well-Qualified Staff Members
• Goal #4 - Improve Customer Service Delivery to the Community
The April 28, 2025 strategic planning workshop was an opportunity for the City Council to discuss the previous three-year strategic plan goals and objectives, reflect on lessons learned, and consider new priorities, concerns, and needs in establishing a new set of goals and objectives. The new three-year strategic plan includes previous goals that are being continued due to ongoing implementation of objectives, as well as new opportunities that have presented themselves since the previous planning period.
A follow-up strategic planning workshop was held on October 6, 2025 to evaluate the City's progress in achieving goals through the strategic plan.
The strategic plan goals support the City’s mission, which is:
“The City of Westminster is committed to providing the highest quality of service, ensuring that Westminster is a desirable place to live, work, play and do business.”
One of the objectives under Strategic Plan Goal #2 - Implement and Support Effective Land-Use Policies that Encourage Quality Development is to identify ways to modify the City’s code to be more efficient and improve development.
Over the past year, the Planning Division staff have initiated a comprehensive zoning code modernization effort designed to improve regulatory clarity, streamline development review, increase housing opportunities, and better align the City's regulations with current development practices and State law.
The Zoning Code amendments represent a targeted effort to modernize the City's development regulations, improve administrative efficiency, reduce unnecessary regulatory barriers, and provide greater clarity and predictability for property owners, residents, businesses, and the development community. The adopted and proposed updates address several areas of the Zoning Code that have become increasingly important as development practices, market conditions, and State requirements have evolved.
Collectively, the amendments are intended to create a more efficient and user-friendly regulatory framework while maintaining appropriate standards to protect community character, public health and safety, and neighborhood compatibility.
The completed amendments addressed the following areas:
1. Density Bonus Ordinance
2. Accessory Dwelling Units
3. Billboard Ordinance
4. Mixed-Use Zoning
The proposed amendments (in progress) address the following areas:
1. General Modernization and Clarification Update
2. Sign Code Update
Density Bonus Ordinance
The Density Bonus Ordinance modernized the City's regulations to provide a clear and efficient framework for implementing State density bonus requirements and processing qualifying residential development projects. Density Bonus Law is an important tool for encouraging the production of affordable and mixed-income housing. A clearly structured local ordinance can improve the City's ability to process qualifying projects while ensuring that applicants, staff, decision-makers, and the public have a consistent understanding of applicable incentives, concessions, waivers, and development standards.
Development and Administrative Benefits:
• Improves consistency between the City's regulations and applicable State law.
• Provides greater certainty to applicants regarding available density bonus incentives.
• Clarifies the process for requesting concessions, incentives, and development standard waivers.
• Reduces unnecessary staff review time and applicant revisions.
• Establishes clearer expectations for project applicants and decision-makers.
• Facilitates the development of additional housing, including affordable housing.
• Reduces the potential for conflicting interpretations of State and local requirements.
Accessory Dwelling Units
The Accessory Dwelling Unit (ADU) amendments updated the City's regulations to provide a clearer and more efficient framework for the development of ADUs and ensure that local regulations remain consistent with evolving State requirements. ADUs represent an important opportunity to increase housing supply within existing residential neighborhoods without requiring large-scale redevelopment. Clear and straightforward regulations make the ADU process easier for property owners while allowing City staff to process applications efficiently.
Development and Administrative Benefits:
• Creates a more straightforward and user-friendly ADU approval process.
• Facilitates additional housing opportunities on existing residential properties.
• Reduces unnecessary regulatory barriers to ADU development.
• Improves consistency with State ADU requirements.
• Provides clearer standards for applicants, property owners, and staff.
• Reduces processing time and unnecessary application revisions.
• Allows staff resources to be focused on more complex development applications.
• Supports incremental housing production without requiring major neighborhood redevelopment.
Billboard Ordinance
The Billboard Ordinance modernized regulations governing billboards and other large-format advertising structures while establishing clearer standards for their location, design, maintenance, and operation. Updating the City's billboard regulations allowed the City to establish a more consistent regulatory framework that appropriately balances economic and advertising interests with community aesthetics, traffic safety, and visual quality. Clearer standards reduce uncertainty for property owners and applicants seeking to modify, relocate, remove, or otherwise address existing billboard structures.
Development and Administrative Benefits:
• Establish clearer and more predictable billboard regulations.
• Reduces ambiguity in the review of billboard-related proposals.
• Provides consistent standards for location, size, design, and operation.
• Improves the City's ability to address existing and nonconforming billboard structures.
• Supports better visual management of major commercial corridors.
• Reduce staff time associated with case-by-case interpretation of outdated provisions.
• Creates greater certainty for property owners and businesses.
Mixed-Use Zoning
The Mixed-Use Zoning amendments modernized the City's regulatory framework for projects that combine residential, commercial, office, retail, and other compatible uses within the same development or district. Mixed-use development can support more efficient land utilization, increase housing opportunities, promote pedestrian-oriented environments, and create opportunities for reinvestment in underutilized commercial properties. However, overly restrictive or unclear zoning regulations can make mixed-use projects difficult to design and process.
The approved amendments clarify permitted uses, development standards, site design requirements, and the relationship between residential and nonresidential uses. The amendments provide greater flexibility for developers to respond to market conditions while maintaining appropriate standards for compatibility, parking, access, landscaping, and building design.
Development and Administrative Benefits:
• Provides greater flexibility in the development of underutilized commercial properties.
• Expands opportunities for housing in appropriate mixed-use locations.
• Encourages reinvestment and redevelopment of aging commercial areas.
• Creates opportunities for pedestrian-oriented development.
• Provides clearer development standards and reduces uncertainty during project design.
• Allows developers to respond more effectively to changing market conditions.
• Encourages a broader mix of housing and commercial opportunities.
• Creates a more predictable and efficient development review process.
General Modernization and Clarification Update
The proposed General Modernization and Clarification Update would ensure compliance with State housing laws and improve consistency and usability of development standards. Key updates address Emergency Shelters, Child Care Facilities, Electric Vehicle charging Stations, establishing a master land use table, and various technical corrections to improve clarity, eliminate inconsistencies, and correct outdated provisions.
Development and Administrative Benefits:
• Aligns City regulations with current State housing laws.
• Improves consistency and usability of the Zoning Code.
• Clarifies standards for emergency shelters, childcare, and electric vehicle charging.
• Reduces ambiguity, inconsistencies, and outdated provisions.
• Streamlines staff review and application processing.
• Provides greater certainty for applicants, property owners, and staff.
Sign Code Update
The proposed Sign Code update would modernize the City's regulations governing permanent and temporary signs and improve the clarity and consistency of the City's sign permitting process. Existing sign regulations can create unnecessary complexity when standards are outdated, overly prescriptive, or difficult to interpret. The proposed amendments would establish clearer standards for sign types, size, location, design, illumination, and permitting requirements, allowing applicants and staff to more readily determine whether a proposed sign complies with the Zoning Code.
The updated regulations would also provide greater flexibility for businesses to effectively identify their establishments while maintaining appropriate aesthetic and neighborhood compatibility standards.
Development and Administrative Benefits:
• Provides clearer and more predictable sign regulations.
• Reduces staff time spent interpreting ambiguous or outdated provisions.
• Establishes more consistent standards for similar properties and businesses.
• Streamlines sign permitting and reduces unnecessary back-and-forth with applicants.
• Provides businesses with greater flexibility to effectively identify their establishments.
• Modernizes regulations to reflect contemporary sign technologies and design practices.
• Maintains appropriate standards to protect community aesthetics and visual quality.
Next Steps
The General Modernization and Clarification Update is 70 percent complete. Currently, staff are finalizing the administrative draft in preparation for review by internal city departments. Once internal review is complete and fully revised, a final draft will be made available for public review. The target completion is December 2026.
The Sign Code Update is 20 percent complete. Currently, staff are preparing the first draft of the ordinance. The target completion is February 2027.
FISCAL IMPACT
The ongoing Zoning Code amendments have been fully funded in the budget.
LEGAL REVIEW
The City Attorney’s Office has reviewed as to form.
CONCLUSION
The Zoning Code amendments are intended to establish a more modern, efficient, predictable, and development-friendly regulatory framework. The amendments do not eliminate the City's ability to appropriately regulate development; rather, they seek to ensure that regulations are clear, purposeful, and appropriately scaled to the City's planning objectives. Overall, the amendments represent an important step toward a more streamlined and responsive development review system that protects community character while allowing appropriate development and reinvestment to occur more efficiently. The General Modernization and Clarification Update is fully funded and estimated to be completed by December 2026. The ongoing Sign Code update is fully funded and estimated to be completed by February 2027.
ATTACHMENTS
None
REVIEWED BY
Erin Backs, Finance Director
City Attorney’s Office
Christine Cordon, City Manager