Belmont home remodel rules back: City breaks down controversial amendments, design guidelines proceed

The commission unanimously approved recommending the council update Belmont’s single-family design review guidelines, which are used to evaluate a project’s conformance with city rules. The new guidelines are meant to provide more objective criteria both a property owner and the Planning Commission can refer to when considering a remodel or construction of a new home.

The remaining portions of the ordinances concerning parking requirements, in-law units, maximum home sizes and rules regarding removal as well as replanting of trees, will be reviewed during subsequent meetings.

Having city officials agree to break down the range of amendments into smaller “buckets” that will be reviewed at separate meetings, is small victory for the group Ask Belmont Citizens. ABC circulated two referendum petitions and gathered enough signatures to force the council to repeal the changes it approved last year. Two of the group’s main concerns were that residents felt they didn’t have enough opportunity to provide input and that the numerous changes were clumped together and often reviewed at one time.

In response, the city conducted two public outreach forums, the first of which was attended by more than 70 members of the community, and has since decided to host separate council meetings on the individual topics, according to a staff report.

Tuesday’s meeting was the first time since the ordinances were repealed that the Planning Commission had another opportunity to publicly review the changes. But former planning commissioner Kristin Mercer, a member of ABC, said she’s worried residents’ input isn’t being incorporated.

Community Development Director Carlos de Melo said the city has heeded the request of many residents and is proceeding by starting with items that had the most consensus.

“We’re bringing the amendments back in manageable pieces,” de Melo said. “The approach we’re using is ‘let’s tackle the things that appeared to garner the biggest support for change.’”

The single-family design guidelines propose three tiers of review ranging from smaller remodels that could be approved by staff to new homes or second-story additions that must be reviewed by the Planning Commission.

Vice Mayor Charles Stone, who worked with Mayor Eric Reed on developing the original ordinances beginning in 2013, said he’s pleased by the increased participation and hopeful the new guidelines will better serve the community.

“I think this is an important step toward developing more certainty in our rules and making sure that they aren’t more restrictive than they need to be,” Stone said. “We are, for the first time, going to have some design review guidelines which help people know what kinds of aesthetics are appropriate for Belmont. … It gives our commissioners as well as the applicant more of an idea of what exactly community project aesthetics should be.”

Mercer said she remains concerned the public doesn’t have opportunities to have a two-way dialogue with city officials and that the commission didn’t have “the facts they needed to make reasonable opinions.”

Mercer said she’s supportive of the tiered-review system but that ensuring neighbors have adequate notice of projects that might affect them is key. She also expressed concerns that neither the commission nor the public had hard data such as how many properties might be affected by the proposal to increase maximum home sizes.

“Ask Belmont Citizens committee and all of their members are not at all happy,” Mercer said, adding ABC members are concerned that the commission “ignored public input.”

Stone and de Melo noted many residents have in turn expressed support for the amendments throughout the years-long process.

The council must approve the amendments before any changes go into effect. There’s a tentative schedule whereby the Parks and Recreation as well as Planning commissions will each review the rules related to trees in February. The Planning Commission is then scheduled to review secondary dwelling units in early March, parking and general regulations in mid-March and finally floor area cap or maximum home sizes in April. The council follows with its own review shortly after each meeting spanning February through June, according to a staff report.

Stone said he hopes members of the public continue to stay involved, become more educated on the issues and help to shape the future of Belmont.

“I’m thrilled that we’ve had additional community input and that it’s validated a lot of the effort the council put in last year to make it easier for folks in Belmont to remodel their homes and improve our housing stock,” Stone said. “I think what we’re going to end up with is going to be better than what we had before and definitely more reflective of a broader community consensus.”

Visit belmont.gov/city-hall/community-development/zoning-text-amendments for more information or to provide comments.

samantha@smdailyjournal.com

(650) 344-5200 ext. 106