After 35 years, Palm Springs zoning code overhaul gets underway at first community meeting

The year the Palm Springs Zoning Code was last comprehensively updated was also the year Sonny Bono was inaugurated as mayor. A few years earlier, a massive Spring Break riot tore through downtown. The year was 1988. 

Now, 35 years later, the city has decided it’s time to refresh the document detailing what is allowed to be built, where, and how.

The process began on Thursday night at Demuth Community Center, with an early community meeting to gather resident input on the zoning code.

Residents may not know the first thing about zoning or the difference between R1 and R2 in the zoning code, but they do know what they want the future of Palm Springs to look like, and organizers were ready to listen during the meeting.

The goal of the meeting was for those working on the project to inform residents about the zoning code and hear residents’ priorities about things like what type of housing should be built or how important design standards should be.

More than 50 residents crowded into the multipurpose room at the community center. Organizers from the city’s planning department said they were surprised at the turnout.

“It’s great to have so many people here when we’re so early in the planning for the project,” said the palm Springs Planning Director Christopher Hadwin. 

Emerging from the one-on-one conversations between project leaders and residents were common themes often heard in city meetings, like the desire for open space versus the need for more housing.

By 2029, according to the city’s housing element, Palm Springs will need 2,557 new housing units.

What residents think

David Hyams of Palm Springs said he was wrestling with that question. He appreciates the need for open space but also sees the need for more housing, “There’s no easy solution.”

Raymond Mueller offered a unique perspective. He’s new in town and just arrived last week from San Jose. While examining one of the city maps, he gestured toward some of the large swaths of what appeared to be open land. Realizing they were golf courses, some defunct, he wondered aloud why they weren’t being developed. 

Mueller said a golf course on the east side of the Bay Area has been defunct for 10 years.

“It’s been a cow pasture, and all they’re doing is fighting over it,” he said, echoing a familiar debate in Palm Springs that’s played out over the former Bel Air Greens and Mesquite Country Club courses.

Only recently, Mueller said, did they finally break ground to build some much-needed housing. “It doesn’t matter if you have open spaces if you have no one to use them,” he offered. 

Design standards are another aspect that affects the cost and availability of housing. Project leaders noted that preserving the city’s unique mid-century modern charm is one of the community’s priorities.

Rogelio Huerta, one of the project consultants, explained that Palm Springs has fewer design guidelines than one might think.

In practice, commissioners and staff have a lot of individual leeway in interpreting the standards, leading to costly delays for developers.

One way a new zoning code could be tweaked is to provide a more objective range of acceptable design standards. That way, new plans would be evaluated on a concrete scale, and designers and developers would have a better expectation of the city’s desires, cutting down on administrative time.

The station related to climate resiliency was one of the most popular stations in the room, judging by the volume of colorful Post-It Notes affixed to its boards. Residents shared their fears of worsening climate change making the city unlivable in the future. 

It may not seem evident at first, but the zoning code is one of the most direct ways the city can impact climate change. The zoning code could reduce or eliminate parking minimums to lessen the amount of asphalt that leads to the urban heat island effect.

Different zoning could also allow workplaces and commercial zones to be closer or adjacent to residential zones, reducing vehicle miles traveled and greenhouse gas emissions.

One of the attendees said he came to the meeting concerned about the 739,00 square-foot fulfillment center planned for northern Palm Springs. He worried it would set a precedent for future mega-developments in the area and could impact the climate. To get that building approved, the City Council changed zoning rules to allow for its construction. 

Input needed

One key part of the project is garnering community input from all parts of the city, not just highly civically active residents. To reach other communities, the team plans to connect with community leaders to organically spread the word to different organizations throughout the city.

A challenge in gathering feedback for a project like this is to balance the concerns of existing residents with considerations for future residents who could one day move to the area. The hypothetical future residents would benefit from more housing, but they can’t advocate for themselves.

Another key goal for the planners is to continue spreading the word about the zoning code and educating people on the topic throughout the process. 

As the process continues, they promised there will be plenty of time for feedback in the coming months.

Next, the city’s current zoning code will be audited sometime this fall. Analysts will poke holes in the existing code to find out what works and what doesn’t. Then, those working on the project will start making suggestions for updating the zoning code.

“That’s when we’ll have even more time for public input,” Hadwin said. “There will be more to discuss with tangible ideas to point to and consider.”

If all goes according to plan, the draft zoning plan should be completed sometime in early 2025 and ready for approval by City Council members. 

Mueller knows firsthand how out of control housing prices can get, coming from one of the most expensive regions in the country. He noted that a city like Palm Springs, whose economy is driven by the tourism industry, needs that housing to support a growing workforce. 

“Any community that wants to grow, wants to survive, has got to start planning for it,” he said.

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More information: Check out the brief presentation materials here, and go to the city’s website here to learn more.

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