Objective Design Standards

Overview

What a building looks like is often regulated by local government through a set of design standards. The County is updating design standards to guide the design of residential housing clearly and objectively.

Objective design standards (ODS) will help strengthen local control over the design and appearance of future housing developments in applicable areas of the unincorporated county. By making design standards more predictable and easier to understand, the County will also streamline the permitting process for eligible projects to comply with new State laws.

According to state law, ODS are defined as standards that:

Involve no personal or subjective judgment
Are uniformly verifiable by an established and known benchmark

In developing the objective design standards, many factors will be considered including:

State law
Board priorities and direction
Community input and priorities
County values
Regional priorities

Once adopted, the County can evaluate the design of eligible projects in applicable areas of the unincorporated county using ODS. Community input is critical to shaping our communities and feedback collected as part of this process will inform the development of the ODS.

How can you participate in the process?

Ask questions
Review the information on this site
Share the information with others
Participate in the engagement tools on this site
Contribute to conversations at meetings in your community

Please review our FAQs on the right for more information about applicable new State laws and ODS.

Overview

According to state law, ODS are defined as standards that:

Involve no personal or subjective judgment
Are uniformly verifiable by an established and known benchmark

In developing the objective design standards, many factors will be considered including:

State law
Board priorities and direction
Community input and priorities
County values
Regional priorities

How can you participate in the process?

Ask questions
Review the information on this site
Share the information with others
Participate in the engagement tools on this site
Contribute to conversations at meetings in your community

Please review our FAQs on the right for more information about applicable new State laws and ODS.

Ask a Question

Have a question about the Objective Design Standards project? Ask us! We will get back to you as soon as we can.

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Will there be revisions to ensure that more mixed use development and higher density housing are permitted?

SDCitizen asked about 1 year ago

Thank you for your interest in mixed-use development and higher density housing! The Objective Design Standards (ODS) project is one of many actions undertaken by the County in recent years to increase housing production. The ODS project is intended to provide more certainty in permit processing, and to speed up project review time, which in turn should reduce costs to applicants. Objective Design Standards are focused on reducing barriers to getting projects built. The State has determined that Design Review is one of those barriers. Streamlining the design review process has the desired effect of incentivizing the development of mixed-use and higher density housing.