1 COUNCILMEMBERS
Carlyn S. Obringer, Mayor
Laura M. Nakamura, Vice Mayor
Dominic D. Aliano
Pablo Benavente
Laura M. Hoffmeister
Civic Center
1950 Parkside Drive
Concord, CA 94519
www.cityofconcord.org
Regular Meeting of the
Concord City Council
Tuesday
September 23, 2025
6:30 p.m. - Open Session Council Chamber
1950 Parkside Drive
and/or various
telephonic/electronic
locations
*IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT PUBLIC COMMENTS AND MEETING PARTICIPATION* Members of the public are invited to attend and participate at: Council Chamber, 1950 Parkside Drive, Concord, CA.
Unless a Councilmember is participating in the meeting remotely pursuant to AB 2449, remote public comment will not be accepted. Public comment may be provided in- person or via email, as set forth below. Members of the public desiring to provide comments as a part of the meeting are encouraged to either submit written comments by 3:00 p.m. prior to the meeting or to attend the meeting in person.
HOW TO PARTICIPATE
The public is invited to participate in the City Council meeting using any of the following methods:
1. IN PERSON:
a.Members of the public can provide in-person comments in the Council Chamber.
Members of the public are encouraged, but not required, to fill out a speaker card. The Council Chamber will have seating available for members of the public to attend in person up to full seating capacity.
2 2. REMOTE: Remote public comment will not be accepted, except when a Councilmember participates remotely pursuant to AB 2449. At the time of the posting of this agenda, none of the Councilmembers have notified the City Clerk’s Office that they intend to participate remotely pursuant to AB 2449, and therefore no remote public comment will be accepted at the meeting. If, after publication of this agenda and before the meeting begins, any councilmember determines that they will need to participate remotely due to just cause or emergency circumstances under AB 2449, their remote participation will be announced at the outset of the meeting in connection with the Roll Call item. If a Councilmember participates in the meeting remotely pursuant to AB 2449, the public may participate and provide public comment remotely, as follows:
a. Zoom:
https://cityofconcord.zoom.us/j/89687326926?pwd=K1580kornkMaR869KKK1o52pXfv- YA.PFDtUVHFvFIHQS-v or Zoom Webinar ID: 896 8732 6926 and Passcode: 875933 b.Zoom Phone Numbers. Dial Toll Free: (669) 900-6833 or (346) 348-7799 or (253) 215- 8782.
c.If a Councilmember is participating remotely during the meeting, each period for public comment will be announced, and participants may use the “Raise Hand” feature on Zoom to request to speak. If calling in via Zoom use *9 to raise and lower your hand.
The meeting host will call on you, by name, and promote you to panelist in the webinar so you can be seen via your camera. Please enable your microphone when it is your turn to speak. In order to ensure the orderly administration of the meeting using this method, providing your name is encouraged, but is not required. (If you need instructions on how to use this feature, please contact the City Clerk by 3:00 p.m. of the meeting date at [email protected]).
3. EMAIL:
a.Public comments can also be submitted via email to [email protected]. Please note that emailed comments will not be read aloud by staff. Any public comments received up until 3:00 p.m. of the meeting date will be:
1. distributed to the Council before the meeting,
2. posted online for public inspection at
https://stream.ci.concord.ca.us/OnBaseAgendaOnline/Meetings/Search, and
3. inserted into the meeting record.
b.As emails containing public meeting comments are part of the official record, note that personal contact information may be published if it is included with your email.
4. TO WATCH OR LISTEN ONLY:
a.Watch on TV on Comcast Channel 28, Astound/Wave Channels 29 and 1026, and AT&T U-verse Channel 99
b.Watch the TV broadcast through the City’s website by following THIS LINK c.Watch Live Streaming of the meeting by following THIS LINK d.Join the Zoom webinar by following THIS LINK
3 5. INTERPRETATION OR WRITTEN TRANSLATION:
OPEN SESSION
1. OPENING
Roll Call – Announcements/Consideration and Approval of Requests by Councilmembers to Participate Remote Pursuant to AB 2449.
Pledge of Allegiance – Vice Mayor Nakamura
2. PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD
This is a 15-minute Public Comment Period for items within the City Council’s subject matter jurisdiction that are not on this agenda. Each speaker will be limited to approximately three minutes.
State law prohibits the City Council from acting at this meeting on any matter raised during the Public Comment Period. Please see “How to Submit Public Comments” above
3. CITY COUNCIL CONSENT CALENDAR
The public is entitled to address the City Council on items appearing on the Consent Calendar before or during the City Council’s consideration of the Consent Calendar. Adoption of the Consent Calendar may be made by one motion of the City Council, provided that any Councilmember, individual or organization may request removal of an item from the Consent Calendar for separate consideration.
If a request for removal of an item from the Consent Calendar has been received, the Mayor may defer action on the particular item and place the same on the regular agenda for consideration in any order s/he deems appropriate. Please see “How to Submit Public Comments” above. a. Considering – approval of minutes of the September 9, 2025, Special and Regular Meetings. Recommended by the City Clerk.
b. Considering – adoption of Ordinance No. 25-7 entitled, "An Ordinance Amending Concord Municipal Code Title 10 (Traffic and Vehicles), Chapter
10.20 (Operation of Vehicles), Article IV (Special Speed Zones), Section
1. To access interpretation or written translation during the meeting, please scan the QR Code or click this link:
Para accesar a la traducción durante la reunion, por favor escanee el Código QR o haga clic en el enlace:
https://attend.wordly.ai/join/SYMQ-8840
2. Choose Language and Click Attend
Seleccione su lenguaje y haga clic en asistir
3. Use a headset on your phone for audio or read the transcript on your device.
Use sus auriculares para escuchar el audio o leer la transcipción en el dispositivo.
4 10.20.080 (Speed Limits Established) Approving Speed Limit Changes in Accordance with the Findings of Engineering and Traffic Surveys on Various Streets throughout the City of Concord." Ordinance No. 25-7 was introduced on August 26, 2025, by reading of the title only and waiving further reading.
Recommended by the City Clerk.
c. Considering – adoption of a Resolution accepting the Fiscal Year 2024/25 Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER) and authorizing the City Manager or designee to submit, on behalf of the City of Concord, the CAPER, consistent with the program rules which govern the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program as required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Recommended by the Director of Community Development.
CEQA: Not a project/exempt per CEQA Guidelines Sections 15060(c), 15061(b), 15273, 15378, and/or Public Resources Code Section 21065.
4. CITY COUNCIL CONSIDERATION ITEM
The public is entitled to address the City Council on items appearing on the agenda before or during the City Council’s consideration of that item. Each speaker will be limited to approximately three minutes. Please see “How to Submit Public Comments” above. a. Considering – receiving a two-year update on the implementation of Concord Municipal Code Title 18 (Development Code), Chapter 18.152 (Objective Design Standards or ODS), and providing direction to staff on whether all new single-family dwelling developments should be included in the ODS update project or just small lot developments. Report by Frank Abejo, Principal Planner
CEQA: Not a “project” and/or exempt under Public Resources Code Section 21065, California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines Sections 15060(c)(2), 15378 and/or 15061(b)(3).
5. CORRESPONDENCE
Correspondence received at the City Council meeting will be listed here on the Annotated Agenda. a. Correspondence Received at the Meeting from Gail Van Tassell b. Correspondence Received at the Meeting from Linda Meneken c. Correspondence Received at the Meeting from Councilmember Hoffmeister
6. REPORTS AND ANNOUNCEMENTS
Closed Session Announcements
City Manager or Staff Reports
5 Council Reports
7. ADJOURNMENT
Next Meeting: Special Meeting
Date: 9/30/2025 5:30 PM
NOTICE TO THE PUBLIC
There is a 90-day limit for the filing of a challenge in the Superior Court to certain City administrative decisions and orders which require a hearing by law, the receipt of evidence, and the exercise of discretion. The 90-day limit begins on the date the decision is final (Code of Civil Procedure §1094.6). Further, if you challenge an action taken by the City Council in court, you may be limited by California law to raising only those issues you or someone else raised in the hearing or in a written correspondence delivered to the City Council prior to or at the hearing.
In accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act and California Law, it is the policy of the City of Concord to offer its public programs, services and meetings in a manner that is readily accessible to everyone, including those with disabilities. If you are disabled and require a copy of a public hearing notice, or an agenda and/or agenda packet in an appropriate alternative format; or if you require other accommodation, please contact the ADA Coordinator Tianjun Cao at (925) 671-3243 or [email protected], at least 24 hours in advance of the meeting. Advance notification within this guideline will enable the City to make reasonable arrangements to ensure accessibility.
SPECIAL MEETING OF THE
CONCORD CITY COUNCIL
CITY COUNCIL CONFERENCE ROOM
1950 PARKSIDE DRIVE, WING A
CONCORD, CALIFORNIA
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2025
The Concord City Council met in a special meeting in the City Council Conference Room, located at 1950 Parkside Drive, Wing A, Concord, California at 6:00 p.m. on Tuesday, September 9, 2025, with Mayor Obringer presiding and all Councilmembers present. Minutes follow in abbreviated form per Resolution 3361 and Council Minutes of September 26, 1966.
No public comment was received.
The meeting was recessed and immediately reconvened in a closed session on CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNSEL — ANTICIPATED LITIGATION Significant exposure to litigation pursuant to Government Code Section 54956.9(d)(2): One potential case and CONFERENCE WITH LEGAL COUNSEL – ANTICIPATED LITIGATION Initiation of litigation pursuant to Government Code Section 54956.9(d)(4): Nine potential cases.
ADJOURNMENT
By order of the Mayor, the meeting was adjourned on September 9, 2025, at 6:21 p.m.
CARLYN S. OBRINGER
MAYOR
MONIQUE ROBINSON
DEPUTY CITY CLERK
3.a3.a
REGULAR MEETING OF THE
CONCORD CITY COUNCIL
CITY COUNCIL CHAMBER
1950 PARKSIDE DRIVE
CONCORD, CALIFORNIA AND VARIOUS
TELEPHONIC/ELECTRONIC LOCATIONS
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2025
The Concord City Council met in a regular meeting in the Council Chamber, located at 1950 Parkside Drive and via various telephonic/electronic locations at 6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, September 9, 2025, with Mayor Obringer presiding. The pledge of allegiance was led by Councilmember Hoffmeister.
Minutes follow in abbreviated form per Resolution 3361 and Council Minutes of September 26, 1966.
ROLL CALL
COUNCILMEMBERS PRESENT: Dominic Aliano, Pablo Benavente, Laura Hoffmeister, Laura Nakamura, Carlyn Obringer
STAFF PRESENT: Valerie Barone, City Manager; Susanne Brown, City Attorney; Justin Ezell, Assistant City Manager; Monique Robinson, Deputy City Clerk; Greg Taylor, Director of Information Technology; Mindy Gentry, Director of Community Development; Mark
Bustillos, Chief of Police; James Nakayama, Police Captain; Carlton Thompson, City Engineer; Bruce Davis, Senior Civil Engineer; Colleen Awad, Community Relations Manager;
Deyuanne Lei, Associate Civil Engineer; Tianjun Cao, Associate Civil Engineer
MEMBERS OF THE PUBLIC
WHO ADDRESSED THE COUNCIL: Annette Hurst, Concord; Karry Lynn Crummett, GROW; Dawn Dubsky; Bret Bechtold, Concord; Leah Crosby, Pleasant Hill Seventh-day Adventist Church; Adam Ling, Mount Diablo Unified School District; Medaja Elias, Mount Diablo Unified School District; Natalie, Concord
PUBLIC COMMENT PERIOD
No public comment was received.
PRESENTATIONS
PROCLAMATION – Childhood Cancer Awareness Month – September 2025
No public comment was received.
CITY COUNCIL CONSENT CALENDAR
No public comment was received.
APPROVE MINUTES – August 26, 2025, Regular Meeting
A motion was made by Benavente and seconded by Nakamura to approve the minutes of the August 26, 2025, Regular meeting. The motion passed by unanimous vote of the Council.
City Council Minutes September 9, 2025
2 APPROVE TASK ORDER NO. 1 – Sewer Maintenance Project No. 1 (Project No. 2733) Matheson Road, Armand Drive, Bon Homme Way, Montgomery Avenue, Iron Horse Trail, and Regency Drive - Freyer & Laureta
A motion was made by Benavente and seconded by Nakamura to approve Task Order No. 1 with Freyer & Laureta in the not-to-exceed amount of $280,800 to provide civil engineering design services for Sewer Maintenance Project No. 1 (Project No. 2733), which is located on Matheson Road, Armand Drive, Bon Homme Way, Montgomery Avenue, Iron Horse Trail, and Regency Drive; and authorize the City Manager to execute the task order in a form acceptable to the City Attorney. The motion passed by unanimous vote of the Council.
REJECT ALL BIDS – Residential Pavement Maintenance No. 1 Project (Project No. 2741) A motion was made by Benavente and seconded by Nakamura to reject all bids submitted for the Residential Pavement Maintenance No. 1 Project, Colony Park neighborhood near Bancroft Road and Hookston Road (Project No. 2741); and direct staff to re-advertise the project for bids. The motion passed by unanimous vote of the Council.
CITY COUNCIL CONSIDERATION ITEM
ADOPT RESOLUTION NO. 25-41 – Mobile Resource Unit
Justin Ezell, Assistant City Manager, presented the staff report.
Public comment provided by:
Annette Hurst, Concord
Karry Lynn Crummett, GROW
Dawn Dubsky
Bret Bechtold, Concord
Leah Crosby, Pleasant Hill Seventh-day Adventist Church Adam Ling, Mount Diablo Unified School District
Medaja Elias, Mount Diablo Unified School District
Natalie, Concord
A motion was made by Aliano and seconded by Benavente to adopt Resolution No. 25-41 entitled, “A Resolution Authorizing Disbursement of $1,638,896 of Funding and Authorizing the City Manager to Execute a Grant Agreement with Caminar in a Form Acceptable to the City Attorney”, and direct staff to incorporate “for use primarily in the City of Concord” into the agreement language. The motion passed by unanimous vote of the Council.
CORRESPONDENCE
a. Agenda Item No. 5.a – Benched Correspondence
b. Agenda Item No. 5.a – Concord Mobile Dignity Center Proposal PowerPoint Presentation
City Council Minutes September 9, 2025
3 COUNCIL REPORTS
The Mayor extended the AFFH Ad Hoc Committee’s scope and term for the purpose of making recommendations to Council on the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing Program of the 2023-31 Housing Element; the Committee will continue to exist until final recommendations are made to the full Council or March 31, 2026, whichever is sooner.
Councilmembers shared information on events and activities in which they had participated since the last meeting and commented on items of interest.
ADJOURNMENT
By order of the Mayor, the meeting was adjourned on September 9, 2025, at 8:38 p.m.
CARLYN S. OBRINGER
MAYOR
MONIQUE ROBINSON
DEPUTY CITY CLERK
Ord. No. 25-7 1
ORDINANCE NO. 25-7
AN ORDINANCE AMENDING CONCORD MUNICIPAL CODE TITLE
10 (TRAFFIC AND VEHICLES), CHAPTER 10.20 (OPERATION OF
VEHICLES), ARTICLE IV (SPECIAL SPEED ZONES), SECTION
10.20.080 (SPEED LIMITS ESTABLISHED) APPROVING SPEED
LIMIT CHANGES IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE FINDINGS OF
ENGINEERING AND TRAFFIC SURVEYS ON VARIOUS STREETS
THROUGHOUT THE CITY OF CONCORD
WHEREAS, California Vehicle Code (CVC) Section 22352 establishes prima facie speed limits for streets; and
WHEREAS, CVC Section 22357 provides that whenever a local authority determines upon the basis of an engineering and traffic survey that a speed greater than 25 miles per hour would facilitate the orderly movement of vehicular traffic and would be reasonable and safe upon any street other than a state highway otherwise subject to prima facie limit of 25 miles per hour, the local authority may by ordinance determine and declare a speed limit of 30, 35, 40, 45, 50, 55, or 60 miles per hour or a maximum speed limit of 65 miles per hour, whichever is found most appropriate to facilitate the orderly movement of traffic and is reasonable and safe; and WHEREAS, pursuant to the 1999 revision to Section 40802 of the California Vehicle Code by the California Legislature, the City cannot use radar to enforce speed limits unless justified by an engineering and traffic survey conducted in accordance with CVC Section 627 and the California Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD); and
WHEREAS, the City prepared an engineering and traffic survey (E&TS) for each designated City street from April 30, 2024, through May 22, 2025, and the proposed speed limit for each street as established by the City’s 2025 Engineering and Traffic Surveys.
NOW, THEREFORE, THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF CONCORD DOES ORDAIN AS FOLLOWS:
Section 1. The proposed Municipal Code amendments are exempt from CEQA pursuant to Public Resources Code 21065 and CEQA Guidelines Section 15060(c)(2), 15060(c)(3), and/or 15378 in that they do not constitute a “project” as defined by CEQA since they do not have the potential to result in either a direct physical change to the environment or a reasonably foreseeable indirect
3.b3.b
Ord. No. 25-7 2
physical change to the environment. If the Ordinance did constitute a “project” under CEQA, the Ordinance falls within the “common sense” exemption set forth in 14 Cal. Code Regs. Section 15061(b)(3), excluding projects where “it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility that the activity in question may have a significant effect on the environment…” Therefore, the proposed Municipal Code amendments do not warrant further environmental review. This determination reflects the City’s independent judgement and analysis.
Section 2. The City Council, on the basis of the foregoing, and engineering and traffic surveys, has determined that the speeds permitted by state law for various streets within Concord is different than those necessary for safe operation thereon, under the conditions found to exist on such streets, and it is hereby declared that the prima facie speed limit shall be as herein set forth on those streets or parts of streets within the City hereinafter designated when signs giving notice thereof have been erected upon those streets.
Section 3. Title 10 (Traffic and Vehicles), Chapter 10.20 (Operation of Vehicles), Article IV (Special Speed Zones), Section 10.20.080 (Speed Limits Establish) is hereby amended as follows:
The City Council, on the basis of engineering and traffic surveys, has determined that the speeds permitted by state law, as applicable to the following streets, are different than those necessary for safe operation thereon, under the conditions found to exist on such streets, and it is hereby declared that the prima facie speed limit shall be as herein set forth on those streets or parts of streets within the city hereinafter designated when signs giving notice thereof have been erected upon those streets.
(1) Fifty-five miles per hour.
Willow Pass Road from State Highway 4 to a point 2,000 feet north of Lynwood Drive. (2) Fifty miles per hour.
Kirker Pass Road from City Limit to Myrtle Drive.
(3) Forty-five miles per hour.
Arnold Industrial Way from Port Chicago Highway to East Bay Municipal Utility District (EBMUD) Aquaduct Right-of-Way (ROW).
Bailey Road from a point 2,500 feet northeast of Myrtle Drive to the City Limit.
Ord. No. 25-7 3
Crystyl Ranch Drive from Ygnacio Valley Road to Hiddencrest Court.
Kirker Pass Road from Myrtle Drive to Clayton Road.
Willow Pass Road from Lynwood Drive to a point 2,000 feet north of Lynwood Drive.
Ygnacio Valley Road from the west City Limit to Ayers Road.
Ygnacio Valley Road from Ayers Road to Clayton Road.
(4) Forty miles per hour.
Avila Road from Willow Pass Road to the east City Limits.
Clayton Road from Farm Bureau Road to Ygnacio Valley Road.
Concord Avenue from Market Street to the west City Limits.
Marsh Drive from Solano Way to the City Limits.
Port Chicago Highway from Olivera Road to Panoramic Drive.
Port Chicago Highway from Panoramic Drive to City Limits.
Treat Boulevard from San Miguel Road to Clayton Road.
Treat Boulevard from Oak Grove Road to San Miguel Road.
Treat Boulevard from the west City Limits to Oak Grove Road. (5) Thirty-five miles per hour.
Arnold Industrial Way from EBMUD Aquaduct ROW to the City Limit.
Bailey Road from Concord Boulevard to 2,500 feet northeast of Myrtle Drive.
Bailey Road from Clayton Road to Concord Boulevard.
Bancroft Road from Mayhew Way to Hookston Road.
Bates Avenue from Nelson Avenue to Port Chicago Highway.
Clayton Road from Market Street to Galindo Street.
Clayton Road from Oakland Avenue to Farm Bureau Road.
Concord Boulevard from Clayton Road to Galindo Street.
Concord Boulevard from Port Chicago Highway to Landana Drive.
Concord Boulevard from Landana Drive to Ayers Road.
Concord Boulevard from Ayers Road to Kirker Pass Road.
Concord Boulevard from Kirker Pass Road to City Limit.
Ord. No. 25-7 4
Cowell Road from Babel Lane to Treat Boulevard.
Cowell Road from Treat Boulevard to Ygnacio Valley Road.
David Avenue from Oak Grove Road to Bancroft Road.
Detroit Avenue from Monument Boulevard to Whitman Road.
Diamond Boulevard from Concord Avenue to Willow Pass Road.
Market Street from Concord Avenue to Meadow Lane.
Minert Road from Oak Grove Road to City Limit.
Monument Boulevard from Cowell Road to the southwest City Limits.
Nelson Avenue from Laura Alice Way to Bates Avenue.
Oak Grove Road from Monument Boulevard to Junction Drive.
Oak Grove Road from Junction Drive to City Limit.
Olivera Road from Willow Pass Road to Hamilton Avenue.
Pine Hollow Road from Alberta Way to the east City Limits.
Port Chicago Highway from Almond Avenue to Olivera Road.
Rolling Woods Way from Pine Hollow Road to northernmost boundary of the Crystyl Ranch development.
San Miguel Road from Systron Drive to Homewood Drive.
Solano Way from Arnold Industrial Way to Hilltop Road.
Turtle Creek Road from Treat Boulevard to Swallow Tail Road.
Turtle Creek Road from Swallow Tail Road to Ayers Road.
Whitman Road from Oak Grove Road to Detroit Avenue.
Willow Pass Road from Contra Costa Boulevard to Market Street.
Willow Pass Road from Market Street to Galindo Street.
Willow Pass Road from Parkside Drive to Lynwood Drive.
(6) Thirty miles per hour.
Arnold Industrial Place from Solano Way to its eastern termination.
Ayers Road from Clayton Road to Concord Boulevard.
Ayers Road from Ygnacio Valley Road to Clayton Road.
Ord. No. 25-7 5
Babel Lane from Clayton Road to Cowell Road.
Burnett Avenue from Highway 680 Northbound On/Off Ramp to John Glenn Drive.
Clayton Road from Galindo Street to Oakland Avenue.
Commerce Avenue from Concord Avenue to its southern termination.
Concord Avenue from Market Street to Salvio Street.
Concord Boulevard from Port Chicago Highway to Galindo Street.
Cowell Road from Monument Boulevard to Babel Lane.
Denkinger Road from Clayton Road to Concord Boulevard.
East Street from High School Avenue to Pacheco Street.
Farm Bureau Road from Willow Pass Road to Clayton Road.
Galaxy Way from its western termination to Meridian Park Boulevard.
Galindo Street from Monument Boulevard to Salvio Street.
Grant Street from High School Avenue to Solano Way.
John Glenn Drive/Galaxy Way from Concord Avenue to Meridian Park Boulevard.
Laura Alice Way from Arnold Industrial Way to Nelson Avenue.
Meadow Lane from Market Street to Monument Boulevard.
Meridian Park Boulevard from Concord Avenue to Willow Way.
Myrtle Drive from Ayers Road to Kirker Pass Road.
North Larwin Drive for its entire length.
Olivera Road from Solano Way to Hillsborough Drive.
Peralta Road from Olivera Road to Arnold Industrial Way.
Port Chicago Highway from Clayton Road to Almond Avenue.
Solano Way from Hilltop Road to Grant Street.
South Larwin Drive for its entire length.
Via De Mercados from Concord Avenue to Galaxy Way.
Willow Pass Road from Galindo Street to Parkside Drive. (7) Twenty-five miles per hour.
All other roadways within the City unless otherwise posted.
Ord. No. 25-7 6
Alberta Way from Clayton Road to Ygnacio Valley Road.
Detroit Avenue from Clayton Road to Monument Boulevard.
East Street from Pacheco Street to Clayton Road.
Galaxy Way from Commerce Avenue to Via De Mercados.
Mohr Lane from Monument Boulevard to David Avenue.
Oakland Avenue from Clayton Road to Mt Diablo Street.
Olivera Road from Hillsborough Drive to Hamilton Avenue.
Salvio Street from Port Chicago Highway to Olivera Road.
San Miguel Road from Treat Boulevard to Homewood Drive.
West Street from Clayton Road to Concord Boulevard
Section 4. This Ordinance No. 25-7 shall become effective thirty (30) days following its passage and adoption. In the event a summary of said Ordinance is published in lieu of the entire Ordinance, a certified copy of the full text of this Ordinance shall be posted in the office of the City Clerk at least five (5) days prior to its adoption and within fifteen (15) days after its adoption, including the vote of the Councilmembers. Additionally, a summary prepared by the City Attorney’s Office shall be published once at least five (5) days prior to the date of adoption of this Ordinance and once within fifteen (15) days after its passage and adoption, including the vote of the Councilmembers, in the East Bay Times, a newspaper of general circulation in the City of Concord.
Carlyn S. Obringer
Mayor
ATTEST:
Joelle Fockler, MMC
City Clerk
(Seal)
Ord. No. 25-7 7
Ordinance No. 25-7 was duly and regularly introduced at a regular meeting of the City Council of the City of Concord held on August 26, 2025, and was thereafter duly and regularly passed and adopted at a regular meeting of the City Council of the City of Concord on September 23, 2025, by the following vote:
AYES:
NOES:
ABSTAIN:
ABSENT:
I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing is a true and correct copy of an ordinance duly and regularly introduced, passed, and adopted by the City Council of the City of Concord, California.
Joelle Fockler, MMC
City Clerk
From: Barone, Valerie <[email protected]> Sent: Thursday, September 4, 2025 11:12 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: RE: Strongly opposed to lowering speed limits in Concord Dear Mr. Gold,
Thank you for your recent e-mail to Council on the speed limit ordinance. Your e-mail and this response have been received by all Councilmembers. As this item will be on the September 23rd Council meeting agenda for adoption, these e-mails will also be placed into the public record for this item.
On behalf of the Council, I want to thank you for taking the time to share your concerns.
The Council values feedback from residents.
I know the Councilmembers have also observed an increase in illegal driving behavior since the pandemic. This is such a phenomenon around the nation that it gets written up in magazines and newspapers, see the article from the New York Times that I’ve attached to this e-mail. It is for this reason, amongst others, that the City recently increased its motor unit to six dedicated enforcement officers.
The adoption of an updated ordinance on speeds for City roadways is required by state law.
Under the California Vehicle Code, cities are required to conduct Engineering and Traffic Surveys every seven years to establish enforceable speed limits. Without these updated surveys, our Police Department cannot legally use radar or lidar to enforce speed limits. In other words, these studies are necessary to give traffic officers the tools to address unsafe speeding.
I, and the City team, agree that reckless driving, distracted driving, and stop sign violations are serious safety issues. These types of traffic violations, as well as driving under the influence, are also enforced by the City’s traffic officers.
As you mention, enforcement alone does not resolve all roadway safety concerns. That is why the City continues to invest in a range of pavement maintenance and rehabilitation programs, traffic-calming projects, and pedestrian safety improvements. Clayton Road, which you raised in your e-mail, is currently being in the early stages of a repaving project. This project starts at Babel Lane and extends to the City’s limits. Median and concrete work is currently occurring and repaving work will begin in October. There are also other major roadways being addressed over the next few years. If you want to learn Agenda Item No. 3.b
Benched Correspondence
September 23, 2025
more about the City’s investments into roadways you can review the information on this City webpages or read the story from the last City newsletter (flip to page 7) on roadway investment.
Additional information you might find useful related to roadway investment by the City are outlined below:
• The City of Concord owns and maintains approximately 310 centerline miles of City streets, and like many agencies in the Bay Area, the City is struggling to maintain our current road network with limited funds. Fortunately, with the voters passage of Measure V , the City has additional funds to help fix our roads—although not enough to address them all.
• To stretch the City’s tax dollars for paving, the City utilizes a Pavement Management Program (PMP) as an asset management tool for cataloging of condition assessments, maintenance activities and project pavement deterioration, and repair cost of the City’s street inventory. The program is designed to make recommendations on how to cost-effectively use available resources to maintain the City’s streets, so you as a taxpayer are receiving the most “bang for your buck, ” so to speak.
• The City’s roadway investments are determined using a Critical Point Management approach. Critical Point Management recognizes that pavements require different types of treatments at different times along their life cycle. The intent is to select and schedule the pavement’s needed treatment before the pavement deteriorates to a point where the next, more aggressive and costly treatment is required. The City employes this approach when selecting streets for pavement maintenance to ensure that the limited funds the City has is used on streets that benefit the greatest and maximizes longevity.
• The City is currently developing its next two-year Capital Investment Plan for Council review and approval prior to the end of this fiscal year (i.e., June 2026). If you want to be placed on an interested parties e-mail list to receive direct e-mail notice of public meetings on the Plan, please send a note to Bruce Davis, his e-mail is [email protected]. • The City also addresses potholes, usually with our own City workers. The easiest way to report potholes is to do so through the Concord Connect app on your smartphone, you can download it from your phone’s app store. Here is more information on it. You can also report by calling the general Public
Works phone line at 925/671-3448 or e-mailing
[email protected].
• And, last, I’m excited to share that the Council, with the most recent General Fund Budget approval this past June, authorized transitioning to an internal patch paving team, which will double, if not triple, the amount of patch paving done each year in residential neighborhoods. Due to long equipment purchase lead teams, this team won’t be operational until July 2026, but we anticipate the community will see the results of the change soon thereafter.
I hope you find the information in this e-mail useful.
Again, thank you for sharing your observations and ideas with the Council and staff team.
Valerie
Valerie Barone, City Manager (she/her/hers)
City of Concord | Website: www.cityofconcord.org
( (925) 671-3150 | * [email protected]
1950 Parkside Drive, MS/01, Concord, CA 94519
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From: Noah G <[email protected]>
Sent: Wednesday, September 3, 2025 1:35 PM
To: Concord City Council Email <[email protected]> Subject: Strongly opposed to lowering speed limits in Concord
Mayor Obringer & Members of the City Council,
I have lived in Concord for over 20 years. In the past 5 years, the safety of our roadways has precipitously declined. There are widespread violations of traffic laws, such as failing to stop at stop signs, running traffic lights, illegal turns & maneuvers, and distracted driving.
And many of our critical thoroughfares, including Clayton road, are literally falling apart. My residential street may not survive another winter.
The proposal to reduce speed limits currently before the council addresses none of the real problems that our roadways have. It invents a new problem, which it then claims to solve.
This is absurd. Our traffic officers should be ticketing reckless drivers, like the one that nearly ran me down on my bicycle two years ago when they failed to stop at a stop sign, not looking for a resident unknowingly driving 5mph over a newly reduced speed limit.
The new limits proposed also fly in the face of common sense. Many of the roads targeted, such as Minert, already have an appropriate speed limit for their type and typical traffic.
Further snarling Concord's already problematic traffic is the last thing we need in our city.
I urge the council to reject this misguided proposal, and focus on fixing real problems that matter to our residents.
- Noah Gold
Why Are American Drivers So Deadly?
After decades of declining fatality rates, dangerous driving has surged again.
In the summer of 1999, a few years after graduating from medical school, Deborah Kuhls moved from New York to Maryland, where she had been accepted as a surgical fellow at the R Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore. Founded by a pioneer in emergency medicine, Shock Trauma is one of the busiest critical-care facilities in the country — in an average year, doctors there see approximately 8,000 patients, many of them close to death.
Kuhls considered herself to be up for the challenge. At 31, she was substantially older than the typical resident — she had been a banker before she was a doctor — and steelier too, capable of operating with preternatural calm in even the most frenetic of circumstances. But her first few months at Shock Trauma tested her resolve. The center sees a particularly high proportion of the region’s car- and motorcycle- crash victims, and not everyone can be saved. On bad days, it could seem as if as many patients were being revived as were being shipped down to the basement morgue.
At a residency at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, Kuhls had been taught how to handle what’s known in the trade as penetrative trauma — stabbings, impalements, gunshots. Now she underwent an education in blunt-force injuries, which are often considerably harder to diagnose: A gunshot wound is its own clear evidence, in the form of a ragged perforation, of where the surgeon must focus his or her attention. But a body battered in a car crash tends to yield fewer clues — the damage can be invisible to the untrained eye.
“If you’re going very fast, and then suddenly you’re not, the floppy parts of your body — your intestines, your kidney, your liver — will keep going,” Kuhls told me. “That’s just plain physics.” She went on: “And our brain is floating in our skull, surrounded by fluid. But what if the skull bounces around or the car roof
caves in and connects with the driver’s head? It might not look like it, but that person is probably bleeding to death internally. You don’t have much time to save them.” At Shock Trauma, Kuhls worked alongside a surgeon named Carl Soderstrom, who was an unusually committed chronicler of data. When evaluating patients, he made it a point to collect information on everything from the size and scope of their wounds to the number of intoxicants percolating in their systems. “It was inspiring, because it added another dimension to the work we were doing,” Kuhls says. “Like, here’s a way to quantify the immense consequences of crashes. Here’s how we can demonstrate the toll of an issue that had become extremely real to me.” It was one thing, Kuhls believed, to talk about a rollover wreck that broke a 13-year-old girl’s neck. It was another to be able to prove that dozens more children were being injured in similar crashes every year.
In 2000, Kuhls accepted a dual-track job as director of the trauma I.C.U. and assistant professor of surgery at the University of Nevada School of Medicine, in Las Vegas, and took her interest in data with her. Initially, she had to scrap for the funding to conduct some of her earliest surveys, including a study on the low usage of car seats in the local Hispanic community.
Reliance on publicly available information, like the year-end traffic injury and death report published by the state, would get her only so far, Kuhls discovered. The Department of Transportation typically provided few details on each crash or what might have caused it. “I got good at cold calling people and asking for whatever information they had,” Kuhls told me. Few turned her down. Friendly staff members at trauma centers around Nevada gave her injury data; law-enforcement agencies sent her traffic-stop reports.
Gradually, a picture came into focus. Outside the tangle of streets that surround the Strip, many roads in the city are flat and fast and conducive to speeding, which remains a reliable predictor of the severity of injury. On slower roads, blown stop signs and red lights contributed to many of the serious wrecks, as did the proximity of pedestrians. But Kuhls could also see what was working: When the city laced a series of footbridges over Las Vegas Boulevard, pedestrian deaths subsided. The addition of a stoplight could prevent a stretch of previously uninterrupted road from becoming a drag strip.
In aggregate, from 2010 to 2019, the number of serious injuries and deaths in Nevada subsided and then flatlined, more or less in line with national trends. Multiple airbags were standard on nearly every new vehicle, regardless of price, and backup cameras and lane-departure and blind-spot sensors were cheaper to produce. The improved technology meant that drivers not only had more peripheral awareness; they were more likely to survive crashes that might have killed the occupant of an older vehicle. “It all made sense to me — all the things that were supposed to be working were working,” Kuhls remembers. “But then things stopped making sense. Everything changed, radically, like someone had flipped a switch.”
In 2020, as Covid-19 rattled through the state, law enforcement and E.M.T. workers began reporting a large increase in road-related injuries, despite the lockdowns and the relative emptiness of the streets; in 2021, the state recorded 385 fatalities, a 15-year high. The following year was hardly much better, with 382 fatal crashes and a 114 percent increase in the number of cyclists killed on the road. (For public- messaging reasons, vehicular wrecks are almost never referred to by experts as “accidents,” wording that implies no culpability on the part of the participants.) The cause was easy enough to identify: Data parsed by Kuhls and her colleagues showed that drivers were speeding more, on highways and on surface streets, and plowing through intersections with an alarming frequency. Conversely, seatbelt use was down, resulting in thousands of injuries to unrestrained drivers and passengers. After a decade of steady decline, intoxicated-driving arrests had rebounded to near historic highs.
“Drivers were frustrated,” says Kuhls, now a professor of surgery at the Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at U.N.L.V. and chief of trauma at an affiliated public hospital. “My own theory is that whatever personal conflicts they had were exacerbated because they’d been sheltering in place during Covid. So they’d get on the road having self-medicated with drugs or alcohol, or they’d just be incredibly reckless.” In the fall of 2022, Kuhls attended the annual meeting of the Governors Highway Safety Association, in Louisville, Ky. In conversations with other researchers, she learned that the same behavioral patterns she had observed back in Nevada were playing out in nearly every state in the country, often at record- shattering scale. From 2020 to 2021, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has since calculated, the number of crashes in the United States soared 16 percent, to more than six million, or roughly 16,500 wrecks a day. The fatality figures were somehow even worse: In 2021, 42,939 Americans died in car crashes, the highest toll in a decade and a half. Of those deaths, a sizable portion involved intoxicated or unrestrained drivers or vehicles traveling well in excess of local speed limits.
To Kuhls, it felt as if all the deadly habits that were on such flagrant display during the early months of the pandemic had become normalized. “We’ve all gotten stuck,” Kohls told me. “That’s true here; it’s true nationally. And it’s a scary thing to comprehend.” Examine a chart of year-over-year car fatalities in the United States, and you’ll encounter two significant spikes — three, counting the one we are living through today. The first arrived in the earliest decades of the 20th century, as cities were overrun by hordes of untrained drivers; the second hit at the midcentury mark, with the creation of the freeway system and the introduction of powerful new vehicles like the Ford Mustang. In 1966 alone, the traffic death toll hit 50,894, more than the number of American troops killed in combat during the entire Vietnam War.
As early as the 1950s, doctors, activists and journalists had tried to raise concerns about the rising violence on American roads. Among them was Fletcher Woodward, a mild-mannered physician who toured the country ceaselessly, carting along a movie that depicted, in nausea-inducing detail, the effect car crashes had on an unprotected human body. (“When the automobile death rate ranks next to our main killers ... it is indeed time to answer Cain’s query and say: ‘Yes. I am my brother’s keeper,’” Woodward warned in 1957.) Few people paid much attention. It was the “golden age” of the Detroit auto industry and the heyday of American car culture — the era of drive-in movie theaters and drive- through restaurants. By 1958, 79 million cars had been registered in the United States, up from 40 million in 1950. “Popular acceptance and a ‘hands-off’ attitude by governments — state, local and federal — prevailed,” Michael Lemov, the former chief counsel of the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House of Representatives, later wrote.
The tipping point came in part with a pair of best-selling books: “Unsafe at Any Speed,” by the crusading young lawyer Ralph Nader, and “Safety Last,” a deftly reported exposé by Jeffrey O’Connell and Arthur Myers, which concluded that executives in the auto industry, collectively, “simply don’t feel there’s any money in safety.”
In the summer of 1966, after weeks of hearings, Congress passed the bill known today as the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act, effectively shifting the responsibility for protecting drivers onto manufacturers, who were previously allowed to decide how much — and what type of — safety equipment was included in their cars. (A related bill also mandated the creation of the National Highway Safety Bureau, the predecessor to the modern National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.) In coming years, all vehicles made in the United States would have to adhere to stringent federal standards, governing everything from the strength of a car’s roof and doors to the integrity of its ignition and fuel systems. Seatbelt laws followed, as did the introduction of airbags. From a peak in 1972, the number of annual roadway deaths nationwide slowly declined before bottoming out in 2011, when
32,479 Americans died in car wrecks, the lowest count in more than six decades. “One of my favorite ways to start presentations is to show this video from the Insurance Institute of Highway Safety, with a 1959 car and a 2009 car,” says Lee Vinsel, a professor at Virginia Tech and an expert on the history of automotive regulation. “In the video, they crash the two cars into each other, head on. And the upshot is that the passenger in the new car might come out with a broken leg, but the passenger in the older car is dead. You can literally see how far we’ve come — how much things shifted.” And yet some victories prove more enduring than others. In 1966, at least, politicians were faced with an issue that could be comprehensively addressed by legislation: Vehicles were death traps because manufacturers had little incentive to make them otherwise. Our current predicament is considerably more complex. New cars are stronger and less prone to spontaneously exploding, but they’re also taller and heavier — pickup trucks have added an average of 1,300 pounds of curb weight since 1990, while the average full-size S.U.V. now weighs around 5,000 pounds, at least a thousand pounds more than the midcentury sedan. (Angie Schmitt, a transportation writer and planner, has called this the “truckification of the family car.”) In 1967, Chevrolet made headlines with its sleek new Corvette Stingray, which leaped to 60 miles per hour in 4.7 seconds; in 2023, dozens of midmarket sports cars and sedans can match or beat that time, and the Tesla Model S Plaid, with its stock “drag strip” mode, trounces it by a full 2.6 seconds.
The relationship between car size and injury rates is still being studied, but early research on the American appetite for horizon-blotting machinery points in precisely the direction you’d expect: The bigger the vehicle, the less visibility it affords, and the more destruction it can wreak. In a report published in November, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, a nonprofit, concluded that S.U.V.s or vans with a hood height greater than 40 inches — standard-issue specs for an American truck in 2023 — are 45 percent more likely to kill pedestrians than smaller cars.
Forty-three percent of our 4.2 million miles of road, meanwhile, are in poor or mediocre condition, according to the American Society of Civil Engineers. And they’re unlikely to be repaired soon, given the $786 billion construction backlog.
Above all, though, the problem seems to be us — the American public, the American driver. “It’s not an exaggeration to say behavior on the road today is the worst I’ve ever seen,” Capt. Michael Brown, a state police district commander in Michigan, told me. “It’s not just the volume. It’s the variety. There’s impaired driving, which constituted 40 percent of our fatalities last year. There are people going twice the legal limit on surface streets. There’s road rage,” Brown went on. “There’s impatience — right before we started talking, I got an email from a woman who was driving along in traffic and saw some guy fly by her off the roadway, on the shoulder, at 80, 90 miles an hour.” Brown stressed it was rare to receive such a message: “It’s got so bad, so extremely typical,” he said, “that people aren’t going to alert us unless it’s super egregious.”
In 2020 and 2021, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration has calculated, approximately a quarter of all fatal wrecks in the United States involved vehicles traveling above the posted speed limit; a significant percentage of the dead, whether passenger or driver, were not wearing seatbelts. In line with the trends documented by Kuhls in Nevada — and observed firsthand by Brown in Michigan — national intoxicated-driving rates have surged to the extent that one in every 10 arrests is now linked to a suspected D.U.I. And aggressive driving, defined by AAA as “tailgating, erratic lane changing or illegal passing,” factors into 56 percent of crashes resulting in a fatality. (Distressingly, this statistic does not cover the tens of thousands of people injured, often critically, by aggressive drivers, or the 550 people shot annually after or during road-rage incidents — or the growing number of pedestrians and cyclists deliberately targeted by incensed motorists.)
Take the bad behavior and add the perils of distraction by smartphone — responsible, by one conservative estimate, for about 3,500 deaths annually — and you’re left with what Emily Schweninger, a senior policy adviser at the U.S. Department of Transportation, described to me as a “genuine public- health crisis” on the level of cancer, suicide and heart disease.
Perhaps you have sensed the growing dangers of the American road in the frequency of wrecks you spot on your daily commute. Perhaps you have felt it in the blood-pressure-raising presence of the truck that veers across three lanes of traffic and attaches itself to your rear bumper, chortling like a lunatic bull. And perhaps you have wondered, like Deborah Kuhls, if some cosmic switch has been flipped. But if so, how was it flipped — and why?
One clue lies in a sweeping annual survey commissioned by the American Psychological Association to explore what the authors call “the psychological impacts of a collective trauma” from the pandemic, “global conflicts, racism and racial injustice, inflation and climate-related disasters.” According to the report, titled “Stress in America,” just 34 percent of American adults have confidence in the direction the country is going, while a third of respondents said they had too much anxiety in their lives to think about the future at all. Nearly a half wished they had someone — anyone — who could help them manage a daily barrage of stressors.
“All those emotions, they have to go somewhere,” says Ryan Martin, a psychologist at the University of Wisconsin and a specialist in the science of anger. More often than not, Martin contends, we find that outlet in a car. “If I was to set out to create a situation that would make the most people act badly and angrily, I couldn’t come up with anything better than driving,” he says. “Every element that provokes an anger response is there. There’s your mood when you entered the car in a rush. There’s provocation — something that happens to you, like being cut off. And relatedly, there’s how you interpret the provocation based on your mood.”
Complicating matters, Martin argues, are what he calls the “unwritten rules of the road,” which tend to be subjective in nature and usually at cross-purposes with the actual statutory laws. “The other day,” Martin told me, “someone was tailgating me because I was only driving 45 in a zone marked for 40 miles per hour. That’s their decision about how fast I should be going. It’s not written down anywhere. But in their mind, they’re participating in all sorts of inflammatory labeling: I’m a fool, I’m an idiot, because I’m not adhering to their personal rules.”
Martin theorizes that drivers will often adjust the scale of their response based on the offending vehicle or the appearance of the person inside. A minivan may get a pass for cutting us off, “but let’s say it’s a big truck, and you’re progressive,” Martin went on. “You might think, ‘I bet that person’s conservative.’ You may or may not be right, but it’s what you’ll use for your appraisal of the situation.” In our worst moments, we can stop thinking of other drivers as people at all.
In the summer of 2022, Amanda Stephens, a senior researcher at the Accident Research Center at Monash University in Australia, was the lead author of a paper called “Self-Reported Changes in Aggressive Driving Within the Past Five Years and During Covid-19.” Most drivers, Stephens notes, were encountering more hostility on the roads than they did before the pandemic. Nearly 80 percent of respondents to her survey reported an uptick in “shouting, cursing or making rude gestures,” and nearly 35 percent reported a surge in incidents in which one driver attempts to cause “actual damage” to another vehicle. This matches the few unscientific studies conducted in the United States, like a 2020 survey from the insurance-comparison website the Zebra, in which 82 percent of people reported engaging in road rage or aggressive driving. (Five percent reported bumping or ramming another vehicle on purpose.)
Surveys in the mold of Stephens’s paper are useful but inherently limited: Rare is the human being willing to be transparent with a stranger about personal foibles, especially if the foible in question could have caused his or her incarceration or the death of another person. (Stephens pointed out to me that while the respondents to her survey were happy to talk about the aggression of other drivers, a smaller portion were willing to admit fault themselves.)
Possibly the most illuminating single piece of research I’ve encountered was conducted on the campus of the American University of Beirut by a team of faculty researchers. Titled “Measuring Aggressive Driving Behavior Using a Driving Simulator,” the project placed volunteers inside a contraption known as a DriveSafety DS-600c — a converted Ford Focus fitted out with digital displays. The volunteers then “drove” the Focus through a series of three pixelated scenarios, using the gas and brake pedals and the steering wheel to control their progress. (Think of the driving games you see at arcades, and you’ll be on the right track.) Only later were the volunteers informed that each scenario had been designed to arouse their ire and test how they would react to road-related stress.
The opening simulation placed drivers behind a school bus stopped on a two-lane road; to get around the bus, participants were forced to negotiate gaps in oncoming traffic, at intervals “intended to trigger the subject’s anger and impatience, and possibly instigate aggressive driving behavior.” Another scenario involved a left-hand turn across a busy intersection. For every few seconds that the driver failed to make the turn, a car would crawl up behind the driver and commence honking. The longer the wait, the more cars, the more cacophony. And yet the turn was a hard one — the windows of opportunity were short.
You either gave in to the pressure of the cars behind you and behaved recklessly, or you waited. Few participants waited very long. “Frustrating events in the driving environment may instigate drivers to drive aggressively even if they may be nonaggressive by nature,” the study’s authors concluded.
Crucially, the researchers go a step further: Not all reactions are made equal, they note, because not all people are made equal. Something called “trait aggressiveness” plays an important role in our driving — the more stress and anxiety and fear and anger we experience in everyday life, the more badly we will act when behind the wheel. Hence the cautiousness exhibited by the participants who said they had low or moderate amounts of stress in their lives, and the willingness of their baseline angry and anxious counterparts to risk their own safety.
The problem today, in the United States, may be that we’re all baseline angry and anxious — and we’re all in a car, all the time. Or what feels like it, anyway. Outside the few fully walkable cities or the ones with reliable public transportation, most communities require a car to traverse. And traverse slowly:
Traffic is up across the country, as is the duration of our average one-way commutes, which recently topped 27 minutes, the longest in our history.
When Heather Padilla, a professor at the University of Georgia and the director of the school’s Traffic Safety Research and Evaluation Group, decided to start a pilot study of driving habits in rural parts of her state, she discovered that a vast majority of respondents drove everywhere they went (work, the supermarket) and drove there fast. “Relative to other risky behaviors, there was a more accepting attitude toward speeding and more reports of frequent engagement with it,” Padilla told me. Residents felt as if they knew the roads well and were comfortable on them. “It wasn’t uncommon,” she added, “for people to say they sometimes looked down and realized they were going much faster than they’d thought.”
If you have the stomach for it, possibly the clearest window into the changing mind-set of the American driver can be found online, on message boards like Reddit, where posters are free to unburden themselves anonymously — or, more commonly, to vent about others. The most persistent theme may be the story of the instigated turned instigator: a mild-mannered driver forced into action by the conduct of his or her peers. In a Reddit post from October, a driver recounts the experience of being prevented from merging into traffic by another vehicle. “I am not proud of it,” the poster recalls. “I got angry.” A cycle of retaliation followed; at one point, the action spilled into the breakdown lane. “I flipped her off as she did to me,” the poster writes, noting that he came close to clipping her. As he drove off, he realized he “became the [expletive] as well.”
Other Reddit threads are devoted to electronic distraction, a behavior that organizations like the N.H.T.S.A. have recently tried to curb with a multimillion-dollar wave of public-awareness campaigns. In 2007, Washington became the first state to ban texting while driving; as of late 2023, 49 states have adopted similar laws, and 34 states allow the police to pull over drivers for using a hand-held phone behind the wheel. Whether the legislation will prove efficacious in the long term is yet to be determined.
For the time being, the trends are stubbornly ascendant: More than 32,000 Americans were killed in wrecks caused by distracted driving between 2012 and 2021, with a roughly 11 percent increase in the number of deaths from 2020 to 2021.
“You don’t even need to physically see them texting — you can tell most of the time by them not keeping a constant speed and veering lane to lane,” one Redditor recently observed. “Almost every time I see someone driving like that, I think, This idiot is playing with their phone, and most of the time I’m right. It’s almost like watching a drunk go down the road.” Although the poster may not have realized it, the connection is provably true: Studies show that distracted driving increases crash risk as surely as vodka. And the disorientation seems to be enduring.
Last year, a team of scientists led by David Strayer of the University of Utah had a group of volunteers climb into a driving simulator and perform a battery of multitasks — check the phone, turn to talk to a passenger. Predictably, their ability to concentrate on driving declined considerably as the tasks were
performed. But for many participants, the inability to focus continued for up to 30 seconds after a task was complete. The research is ominous for the obvious reasons, and the less obvious: In calculating which wrecks are attributable to texting while driving, the N.H.T.S.A. focuses on messages sent immediately proximate to a collision. Strayer’s research seems to suggest that the window should be widened — and that more crashes may be a result of distracted driving than current data indicates.
Under increased government pressure, the auto industry has rolled out technology that can nudge us away from using our phones — multiple car manufacturers, for example, have placed sensors on some of its cars that are capable of detecting when a driver’s eyes wander from the road and of issuing a warning via a dash display. But such features are overridable and are available mostly as expensive add-ons to already expensive vehicles.
Brian Moody, executive editor of the website Autotrader, told me he expected more manufacturers to adopt automated safety technology in the coming years, “at lower prices and across more types of vehicles.” However, he went on: “These are businesses we’re talking about, and they’re in business to make money. They don’t want to be sued, and I’m not so cynical to think they don’t care about deaths — they care. But at the risk of being crass, cost is a consideration.” A young driver in the market for a $40,000 vehicle can find one with a suite of so-called nanny features, or one with a massive engine and asphalt-stripping torque, but probably not one with both. And young drivers, as has long been the case, tend to account for a lot of the exceedingly dangerous behavior on American roads. In 2012, 4,283 drivers ages 15 to 20 were involved in fatal crashes. In 2021, the last year for which there is data, it was 5,565. As is the case with other demographic groups, more teenagers are speeding: Of all driver age brackets, young males are the most likely to be traveling above the posted speed limit at the time of a fatal crash.
The purest expression of the teenage-speeding phenomenon is the rise in illegal street racing. “I think of it as a plant, or a weed, that hasn’t been taken care of, and during the pandemic, the thing just grew wild,” says Lili Trujillo Puckett, who founded Street Racing Kills in 2014, after Puckett’s 16-year-old daughter was killed during a street-racing event. Puckett now works with courts in California, Florida and Texas on intervention programs for offenders. “When you meet with these guys, they tend to tell you the same thing,” she says. “Yes, they know it’s dangerous. They know they can get hurt and that they can hurt others. But they love the adrenaline rush, they love the excitement, and they have that quality of an immature mind: They say, ‘It’s not going to happen to me.’” National data on crashes resulting from street racing is hard to find, but officials in California, Florida and Texas, where the phenomenon is endemic, have reported significant increases in the number of complaints — in 2021, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department received 1,380 calls from residents about local races, up 60 percent from the previous year. Amanda Granit, a spokeswoman for the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office in Florida, told me that most of the racers the county’s deputies have apprehended were young and male. But not all of them, she clarified: “We have also arrested female drivers, including a mom in a minivan, for doing doughnuts in the roadway.” In September, the Department of Transportation posted early-2023 data showing that 21 states had recorded climbing rates of fatal crashes compared with the same period in 2022; 29 had experienced modest improvement. “I can’t claim that we have it all figured out because it could change,” says Col.
Matt Langer, head of the State Patrol in Minnesota, where officials recorded a 11 percent year-over-year drop in fatalities. But that drop, Langer says, represents several dozen people alive now who would have been dead a year ago. “And what has made that possible is a focus on the behaviors that are killing people. So speed, seatbelts, impairment and distraction. For us, a full 85 percent of our enforcement work last year was on those four things.”
In 2022, Langer says, his officers spent more time monitoring fast roads and busy intersections and dedicated more enforcement resources to heavy-traffic days like the start of the state’s fishing season, which has been described as a “high holy day for Minnesotans.” “Anything that increases the certainty of getting caught is going to make a dramatic difference,” he told me. “If I know I’m going to die from lung cancer, I’m less likely to smoke those cigarettes. It’s the same thing here.” Langer is not wrong about the efficacy of stronger enforcement. A country like France is proof. In 2003, the French government began installing a network of speed cameras on its roads and ratcheted up fines.
As a result, rates of speeding steadily dropped in the first decade of implementation, as did the number of severe injuries and fatalities. And many provinces in Canada more or less revoke the license of impaired drivers, often impounding the driver’s vehicle for good measure. Years ago, my wife and I took a trip to Australia and rented a car to drive from Melbourne to Sydney. I remember flying down the undulating highway, marveling at the tortoise-like pace of the cars around us. Then I got home, opened my email and discovered a $400 ticket passed on to me by the rental-car company. Attached was a picture of me behind the wheel, oblivious to the reality that the other drivers had already internalized:
The highway was studded with speed cameras.
“I think there’s a day coming where we’re going to have to embrace technology more than we have now,” Langer said of the United States, “because the safety benefits are there. The reduced roadside interactions, the flow of traffic, all of it gets better, including the road becoming safer.” The issue, he went on, is that many Americans are “pretty averse to that type of technology right now.” On the left, automated enforcement tends to be condemned for disproportionately affecting communities of color and trapping residents in debilitating cycles of court debt; on the right, critics are apt to bristle at any scheme that could be construed as trespassing on a person’s civil liberties.
Deborah Kuhls told me she remembers asking about data from speed cameras that had been installed in Las Vegas. “I got a response saying that Nevada had passed legislation forbidding the use of the cameras in that way,” she said. Kuhls, having lived in Nevada for decades, recognized the politics behind the decision. “A lot of people, a lot of politicians, consider us to be a frontier state, with all the liberty that implies,” she said.
As of 2023, 18 states and the District of Columbia have legalized speed cameras, and 22 states and D.C. have legalized red-light cameras. But eight states have taken measures to outlaw both. In a representative example, in 2013, two St. Louis drivers contested red-light-camera-related citations, claiming that someone else was behind the wheel of their vehicles at the time of the infractions. Their challenge reached the Missouri Supreme Court, which ruled those citations unconstitutional, because they shifted the burden of proving the identity of the driver onto the drivers themselves. For years, nearly every speed and red-light camera in Missouri would be turned off.
Last January, Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg delivered a keynote address at the annual conference of American mayors in Washington. The topic was car wrecks. “Somehow, this issue gets dramatically less attention than many of the other transportation issues we face,” Buttigieg began. “Many of you, for example, are rightly focused on confronting the scourge of gun violence. I want to remind you that the loss of life in traffic crashes in our communities is almost identical in its proportions.”
Not long after his appearance at the mayors’ conference, Buttigieg announced the first recipients of the Safe Streets and Roads for All grant program, which will, over the next five years, issue more than $5 billion to cities and municipalities with documented road-safety issues. When we spoke recently at his office near the Navy Yard, Buttigieg gestured across the street at a construction site. “A good systems design has to account for people making mistakes and prevent those mistakes from being lethal,” he
said. “That’s how anything from the way that guy’s tied off on that construction project to the guardrails you have in our aviation system. Of course, behavior matters,” he added, “but you need to surround the work we’re trying to do on behavior with design things that either compensate for behavior or, just as importantly, nudge that behavior in the right direction. Because sometimes being beaten over the head by an ad campaign will have less of an effect on your willingness to drive a safe speed than narrowing the lane by a foot so that it just doesn’t feel like the road itself is inviting you to hit the gas.” Of the $5 billion earmarked for the grant program, about $1.7 billion has already been distributed; the grantee list comprises metropolitan areas (Detroit, Queens) and small rural municipalities, like Fayette County, Iowa, where 60 percent of recent road fatalities and serious injuries have been linked to “lane- departure crashes” — trucks and cars shooting off the road at egregious speeds. Fayette County officials will use the grant to widen the shoulder on miles of highway and add rumble strips to alert drivers when they’ve reached the periphery of the asphalt.
Engineering 101: The scope of the solution should match the scope of the issue. Rumble strips represent a major step forward for the folks in Fayette, but they would be insufficient for drivers in Hillsborough County, Fla., a municipality that has one of the highest annual traffic-fatality rates of all large American counties — 67.6 deaths per 100,000 residents. Because pedestrian and cyclist deaths there have also outstripped the national average, a significant portion of the $21.5 million awarded to Hillsborough will go to the creation of protected sidewalks and bike lanes. The remainder will be routed to what’s known
as “speed management”: more stoplights, more speed bumps. If you’re in a rush, you may explosively curse the sudden appearance of a roundabout, but you’ll almost certainly slow down anyway.
Calm the traffic, choke the traffic, divert the traffic — or enact a “road diet,” which is exactly what it sounds like. Louisville has pledged to use its own $21 million in federal money to reduce the number of traffic lanes on 12 busy thoroughfares around the city and “reallocate space for refuge islands, bicycle lanes, on-street parking and transit stops,” a model that has been proved to have an ameliorative effect on fatalities in the United States and abroad.
“I remember as mayor of South Bend traveling with a delegation that was looking at good pedestrian and cyclist infrastructure around Europe,” Buttigieg told me. “And the most striking thing to me was really the story of how each city got there. If you look at pictures of, let’s say, Copenhagen in the ’70s, you realize very quickly that today’s bicycle culture there is not the result of some immutable Nordic affinity for bicycles,” he continued. “It’s the result of decisions that they made over the years. Because if you look at those older pictures, you see a place that is as unfriendly to bicycles as many American neighborhoods would be today.”
Buttigieg has cause to be optimistic that those decisions could be replicated here: In contrast to, say, stricter gun laws, road-safety initiatives are less likely to be seen by politicians and their constituents as a partisan issue.
But changing a culture takes time. In 2015, Mayor Muriel Bowser of Washington backed a Vision Zero plan to eliminate traffic deaths in the city by 2024, largely via better pedestrian and cyclist access and the type of road dieting Louisville has proposed. Six years later, in 2021, the capital recorded 40 roadway deaths, a 14-year high. A subsequent report by the D.C. Auditor found that implementation of the plan had been delayed and mismanaged, and it criticized a lack of leadership and follow-through at the city level.
And even in cities held up as exemplars of the Vision Zero model, patience can be required: New York, which has committed more than a billion dollars to building safer streets, recently recorded the fewest pedestrian fatalities in more than a century. But cyclist deaths simultaneously surged to some of the highest levels in decades. In general, as with many types of civic improvement, things can get worse before they get better; cities, and the commuters living in them, have to learn to adapt to a new pattern of life. “The prevailing understanding seems to be that when you introduce more people on bikes and on foot, you have more risk of collision,” Buttigieg said, recalling the evolution of a city like Copenhagen. “But then, over time ... motorists become more aware. The infrastructure and support get built, and the streets get safer.” He paused. “I guess what I’m saying is that I don’t think there’s some cosmic reason, as with gun violence, why Americans should be doomed to worse outcomes than Europeans. But we do have to act.”
Every year for the past decade and a half, the AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety has published something called the Traffic Safety Culture Index — a kind of State of the Union of American roads. I had thought the 2022 edition was bleak (the headline from AAA’s news release: “Going in Reverse: Dangerous Driving Behaviors Rise”), but the 2023 report was equally grim. Of the 2,500 licensed drivers who responded to the AAA survey, 22 percent admitted to switching lanes at high speeds or tailgating, 25 percent admitted to running a red light, 40 percent admitted to holding an active phone while driving and 50 percent admitted to exceeding posted speed limits by 15 miles per hour or more — all within the last calendar month.
Worse, a sizable number of respondents said they knew that people important to them would somewhat or completely disapprove of much of the behavior. They did it anyway, despite the risk of opprobrium and despite the fact that, as the AAA dryly noted in an accompanying news release, “a motorist’s need
for speed consistently fails to deliver shorter travel times. It would take driving 100 miles at 80 m.p.h. instead of 75 m.p.h. to shave just five minutes off a trip.” This last point is worth dwelling on, not only because it feels logical, but because this logic can feel rapidly irrelevant once we are behind the wheel. Driving is like this. To paraphrase Ryan Martin, the psychologist and anger specialist, it is the ultimate evoker of base emotions. We may be zipping down the highway, trapped in our own steel bubbles, but we’re influenced by the behavior of the residents of the bubbles next to ours.
“Imagine a time when someone has been aggressive to you,” says Amanda Stephens, the Monash researcher. “How does that make you feel?” She continues: “Most often people will brush it off and say don’t worry about it, or I’m not going to get involved, but if you’re running late or have a stressful meeting to attend, and someone is rude to you then, you might react with aggression or anger directed at them, or at the next driver who does something. That next driver might also react in some way, perhaps becoming anxious and changing their driving.” Bad behavior tends to be contagious: The more of it we come in regular contact with, the more likely we are to drive badly ourselves — and the more likely we are to accept bad driving as the status quo.
Not long ago, I had an Uber take me from my home in Atlanta to the other side of town. The driver, a young woman, wove relentlessly in and out of the late-morning traffic; at one point, confronted by a UPS truck signaling for a left turn, she steered two wheels of her Kia onto the curb. When I politely suggested I would have been OK waiting for the truck’s turn to be complete, she looked back at me in genuine confusion. “What do you mean?” she asked, both eyebrows raised. That was just how she drove. It was just how everyone drove.
By Matthew Shaer
Published Jan. 10, 2024, Updated Jan. 16, 2024
NY Times
From: Davis, Bruce
Sent: Wednesday, September 3, 2025 3:32 PM
To: Jenny Terry <[email protected]>
Cc: Elias, Aaron <[email protected]>
Subject: RE: Concord City Council Approves Speed Reductions on 20 Streets to Improve Safety Good afternoon Ms. Terry,
Thank you for reaching out with your concerns. Your original comments and this response will be shared with all of City Council.
The City recently completed a speed limit study using a combination of in-house resources and contracted data collection services. State law requires that all speed zones within the City be re- evaluated every seven years to ensure compliance with the California Vehicle Code and to maintain enforceability. As part of this city-wide study, the speed limits on Bailey Road were reviewed to improve safety and provide consistency with adjacent jurisdictions:
• 35 MPH Zone: The current section from Concord Boulevard to Myrtle Drive will remain 35 MPH.
• 45 MPH Zone: The current section East of Myrtle Drive to the City limits will remain 45 MPH. • The location of the speed limit change will move East about ½ mile to improve safety.
Your comment about the pavement condition is timely, as we are just starting construction next week to completely repave Bailey Rd from Myrtle Drive to the City limits, and minor patch paving in Pittsburg’s jurisdiction using their funding contribution. This paving project is part of the “Street Maintenance No. 1” project, which Council approved in 2024 during our last 2-year capital budget cycle. This project includes four other streets in Concord besides Bailey Rd, and represents an investment of over $2 million in our local roadways. Construction has been thought out carefully to minimize disruption to this important connection. We will avoid work during the day, and instead have nighttime closure of Bailey road in place for two weeks, from 9/8 – 9/19.
If you are interested to see other completed and upcoming projects, I encourage you visit our interactive map at the following location:
https://concordgis.ci.concord.ca.us/CIPViewer/
Thanks,
Bruce Davis, PE, CFM
Senior Civil Engineer – Capital Improvement Program
Community Development Department
925.671.3470 | [email protected]
1950 Parkside Drive, MS/40, Concord, CA 94519
Capital Improvement Program
From: Jenny Terry <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2025 4:52 PM
To: News & Announcements <[email protected]>; City Clerk <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: Concord City Council Approves Speed Reductions on 20 Streets to Improve Safety
Dear Concord City Council:
This is almost laughable. How much money did the council spend on this study, while ignoring the GIANT safety issue of not paving Bailey Road? I've been wanting to ask what the city council spent on the bicycle lane project throughout Concord. I'm sure there are cyclists that use these green and white painted areas now and then. But I have yet to see one. I'm sure it's coincidence.
But every single day, thousands of Concord residents risk their lives driving over the very dangerous pits of Bailey Road.
The people of Concord are thinking your priorities are a little confused.
Sincerely.
On Thu, Aug 28, 2025, 3:27 PM News & Announcements <[email protected]> wrote:
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August 28, 2025
Concord City Council Approves Speed Reductions on 20 Streets to Improve Safety
Concord, Calif. (August 27, 2025) – On Tuesday, August 26, the Concord City Council voted unanimously for an ordinance to lower speed limits on 20 city streets to improve safety.
The decision follows a comprehensive citywide Engineering and Traffic Survey conducted by the City’s Transportation Division. The study evaluated speeds, collision data, and roadway conditions to ensure that posted limits reflect actual traffic patterns—and remain legally enforceable.
“Speed limits must be both safe and enforceable, ” said Mayor Carlyn Obringer. “This update ensures that our posted limits reflect real-world conditions while prioritizing the safety of pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers alike. ”
The Concord Police Department will support enforcement of the new limits with an expanded traffic team, which now has six officers.
Under California law, cities may adjust speed limits if supported by a traffic study. Typically, limits are set using the ‘85th percentile rule’—the speed at or below which 85% of drivers travel, rounded to the nearest 5 miles per hour (mph). Additional factors, such as schools, senior centers, or other bike and pedestrian generating activity centers, can also be considered in speed reductions.
The ordinance requires a second reading for final adoption. Once approved, the new speed limits will take effect once new signage is installed at least 30 days thereafter.
The following street segments will see speed reductions of 5 mph or more:
• Alberta Way from Clayton Road to Ygnacio Valley Road (35 mph to 25 mph) • Ayers Road from Ygnacio Valley Road to Clayton Road (35 mph to 30 mph) • Babel Lane from Clayton Road to Cowell Road (35 mph to 30 mph) • Burnett Avenue from Highway 680 Northbound on/off ramp to John Glenn Drive (35 mph to 30 mph)
• Clayton Road from Galindo Street to Oakland Avenue (35 mph to 30 mph) • Concord Avenue from Market Street to Salvio Street (35 mph to 30 mph) • Cowell Road from Monument Boulevard to Babel Lane (35 mph to 30 mph) • David Avenue from Oak Grove Road to Bancroft Road (40 mph to 35 mph) • Galaxy Way from Commerce Avenue to Via De Mercados (30 mph to 25 mph) • Galindo Street from Monument Boulevard to Salvio Street (35 mph to 30 mph) • Grant Street from High School Avenue to Solano Way (35 mph to 30 mph)
• Kirker Pass Road from City Limit to Myrtle Drive (55 mph to 50 mph) • Laura Alice Way from Arnold Industrial Way to Nelson Avenue (35 mph to 30 mph) • Marsh Drive from Solano Way to City Limit (45 mph to 40 mph) • Meadow Lane from Market Street to Monument Boulevard (35 mph to 30 mph) • Minert Road from Oak Grove Road to City Limit (40 mph to 35 mph) • Oak Grove Road from Junction Drive to City Limit (40 mph to 35 mph) • Oakland Avenue from Clayton Road to Mt Diablo Street (30 mph to 25 mph) • Port Chicago Highway from Panoramic Drive to City Limit (45 mph to 40 mph) • West Street from Clayton Road to Concord Boulevard (30 mph to 25 mph) Based on the Engineering and Traffic Survey data, the following street segments will see speed limit increases to maintain enforceability. Although the Councilmembers were reluctant to raise the limits, they recognized that without doing so, speeding citations could not be upheld under California law.
• Rolling Woods Way from Pine Hollow Road to the northernmost boundary of the Crystyl Ranch development (30 mph to 35 mph)
• Turtle Creek Road from Treat Boulevard to Fallbrook Road (30 mph to 35 mph) • Crystyl Ranch Drive from Ygnacio Valley Road to Hiddencrest Court (35 mph to 45 mph)
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Jenny Terry
Staff Report
Date: September 23, 2025
To: City Council
From: Valerie J. Barone, City Manager
Reviewed by: Mindy Gentry, Director of Community Development Prepared by: Brenda Kain, Interim Community Services Manager [email protected]
(925) 603-5838
Subject: Considering adoption of a Resolution accepting the Fiscal Year 2024/25 Consolidated Annual Performance and
Evaluation Report (CAPER) and authorizing the City Manager or designee to submit, on behalf of the City of Concord, the CAPER, consistent with the program rules which govern the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program as
required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban
Development (HUD).
CEQA: Not a project/exempt per CEQA Guidelines Sections 15060(c), 15061(b), 15273, 15378, and/or Public Resources Code Section 21065.
Report in Brief
The Draft Fiscal Year (FY) 2024/25 Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER) is being provided to the City Council for review and approval. The CAPER is required annually by the federal government from those jurisdictions that receive Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funding and documents how well the City of Concord (City) has done in meeting its goals for helping low- and moderate- income residents of Concord with the federal funding distributed under the CDBG program.
3.c3.c3.c
City Council Agenda Report
Agenda Item No. 3.c
September 23, 2025
Recommended Action
Adopt a Resolution (Attachment 1) accepting the Fiscal Year 2024/25 Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER) (Exhibit A) and authorize the City Manager or designee to submit, on behalf of the City of Concord, the CAPER, consistent with the program rules which govern the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program as required by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).
Background
The Housing and Community Development Act of 1974 requires that all CDBG Program entitlement jurisdictions submit three documents: the five-year Consolidated Plan, the annual Action Plan, and the CAPER.
The Consolidated Plan encompasses all of Contra Costa County (County) and is a joint document produced by all members of the Contra Costa Consortium (Contra Costa Urban County, plus the cities of Antioch, Concord, Pittsburg, and Walnut Creek). It details how CDBG funds will be expended over a five-year period to meet the priority housing and community development needs of the City and County. The current plan covers the years 2020/25.
The Action Plan details how the City will allocate CDBG funds to local agencies to provide a variety of public services programs, housing, capital improvement, and other projects that improve the quality of life for Concord’s most at-risk residents.
The CAPER is a report card that documents how well the City has met its goals for helping low- to moderate-income residents of Concord with federal funding distributed under the CDBG program. The overall goal of the program is to develop viable urban communities by providing decent housing, a suitable living environment, and expanding economic opportunities for those residents most at risk. The CAPER provides the City and interested stakeholders with an opportunity to evaluate the progress Concord has made in carrying out priorities and objectives contained in the City's five-year Consolidated Plan and annual Action Plan.
Analysis
The City identified several high priorities for FY 2024/25 and made excellent progress in meeting the objectives and goals submitted in the FY 2020/25 Consolidated Plan.
CDBG-funded Public Service projects provided a wide range of social services and assistance to more than 21,000 residents and households. Exhibit A to Attachment 1 is the full CAPER report.
A variety of local agencies provided services including emergency shelter for victims of domestic violence, fair housing and tenant/landlord activities, services for abused and neglected children, food and case management assistance for seniors and other special needs populations, rental assistance to prevent homelessness, food for low-income
City Council Agenda Report
Agenda Item No. 3.c
September 23, 2025
families, and services to assist homeless individuals. Concord continues to focus on outcome-based performance measurements to ensure that needed services are delivered and that the results can be quantified.
A special effort has been made in the FY 2020/25 Consolidated Plan to help preserve affordable housing and maintain Concord’s older housing stock. Through the Housing Rehabilitation Loan and Grant Program the City provides emergency repair grants up to $25,000 and loans up to $75,000 to income-qualified homeowners. The City was able to provide 12 grants and one loan to low-income homeowners for emergency repairs and correction of Health and Safety Code issues, including roof repair, electrical and plumbing upgrades, and accessibility improvements. Ten of these homeowners were elderly and six were households where at least one member had a disability.
The City provided funds for economic development, with the goal of reducing the number of persons with incomes below the poverty level, expanding economic opportunities for low-income residents, and increasing the viability of neighborhood commercial areas. Monument Impact received CDBG funds for the Business Support program, which assists low-income owners of existing and emerging businesses in achieving self-sufficiency by securing a business license. Sixteen (16) low-income business owners received assistance and secured a license.
Opportunity Junction received CDBG and CCBF funds for the Healthcare Career Pathway program. This program trains low-income job seekers to enter the healthcare field as Certified Nursing Assistants and secures job placement through contracts with local skilled nursing facilities. Seventeen (17) individuals received training to enter the healthcare field.
For FY 2024/25, Concord supported youth programs by providing CDBG funds to Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) to support services to foster children and Community Violence Solutions (CVS) for Child Sexual Assault Intervention. The City also provided CCBF to CASA for the Children’s Therapy Project, to We Care Services for the expansion of mental health services for children, and to Concord’s Recreation Services Department to provide scholarships for summer youth programs. These programs provided critical support services to 230 at-risk youth.
CDBG infrastructure funds were provided for the construction of 29 curb ramps as part of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Transition Plan, providing increased mobility and accessibility to elderly and disabled residents.
Financial Impact
The City allocated $1,232,242 in grant funding from Community Development Block Grant (CDBG), Cannabis Community Benefit Funds (CCBF), Revolving Loan Funds (RLF), and Program Income in the form of interest earned on loans repaid to the CDBG account. There were no General Fund monies allocated.
City Council Agenda Report
Agenda Item No. 3.c
September 23, 2025
Environmental Determination
Pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) of 1970, Public Resources Code Section 21000, et. seq., as amended and implementing State CEQA Guidelines, Title 14, Chapter 3 of the California Code of Regulations (collectively “CEQA”), the acceptance of the FY 2024/25 CAPER does not constitute a “project” within the meaning of Public Resources Code Section 21065, 14 Cal Code Regs. Sections 15060(c), 15273, 15378, as it has no potential for resulting in a direct or reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment. Even if the award of the acceptance of the CAPER did constitute a project under CEQA, it falls within the “common sense” exemption set forth in 14 Cal. Code Regs. Section 15061(b)(3), excluding projects where “it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility that the activity in question may have a significant effect on the environment.” Accordingly, no further environmental review is necessary. This determination reflects the City’s independent judgement and analysis.
Public Contact
The City Council Agenda was posted.
Attachment
1. Resolution accepting the Fiscal Year 2024/25 Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER)
Exhibit A: FY 2024/25 CAPER
1 Res. No. 24-XX
Attachment 1
BEFORE THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF CONCORD
COUNTY OF CONTRA COSTA, STATE OF CALIFORNIA
A Resolution Accepting the Fiscal Year 2024/25
Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation
Report (CAPER) and Authorizing the City Manager
or Designee to Submit, on Behalf of the City of
Concord, the CAPER, Consistent with the Program
Rules which Govern the Community Development
Block Grant (CDBG) Program as required by the
U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development
(HUD) Resolution No. 25-XX
/
WHEREAS, the City of Concord has been designated by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) as a community entitled to receive, by allocation, Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) funds to help develop viable urban communities through providing decent housing, a suitable living environment, and economic opportunity for lower income residents; and
WHEREAS, as a condition of funding, HUD requires recipient jurisdictions to prepare a one year Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER) as a subsidiary document to the Consolidated Plan, to report on how well the City has met its goals for helping low- to moderate- income residents of Concord with federal funding distributed under the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) program; and
WHEREAS, the City of Concord allocated funds in the amount of $1,232,243 for Fiscal Year (FY) 2024/25; and
WHEREAS, the City of Concord, consistent with HUD’s program rules on eligibility, allocated all CDBG funds to a number of programs, activities and projects in support of HUD’s National Objectives to primarily benefit low- and moderate-income persons, or serve to arrest or minimize the effects of slums or blight, or provide for urgent needs. //
//
//
2 Res. No. 24-XX
NOW, THEREFORE, THE CITY COUNCIL OF THE CITY OF CONCORD DOES RESOLVE AS FOLLOWS:
Section 1. Pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) of 1970, Public Resources Code Section 21000, et. seq., as amended and implementing State CEQA Guidelines, Title 14, Chapter 3 of the California Code of Regulations (collectively “CEQA”), the acceptance of the FY 2024/25 CAPER does not constitute a “project” within the meaning of Public Resources Code Section 21065, 14 Cal Code Regs. Sections 15060(c), 15273, 15378, as it has no potential for resulting in a direct or reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment. Even if the award of the acceptance of the CAPER did constitute a project under CEQA, it falls within the “common sense” exemption set forth in 14 Cal. Code Regs. Section 15061(b)(3), excluding projects where “it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility that the activity in question may have a significant effect on the environment.” Accordingly, no further environmental review is necessary. This determination reflects the City’s independent judgement and analysis.
Section 2. That the City hereby determines that it is appropriate to submit its FY 2024/25 one- year Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER) to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), detailing the City’s progress in serving Concord’s low to moderate income residents, in accordance with the priorities outlined in the 2020/25 Contra Costa HOME Consortium Consolidated Plan and in support of HUD’s national objectives.
Section 3. This resolution shall become effective immediately upon its passage and adoption. //
//
//
//
//
//
//
//
3 Res. No. 24-XX
PASSED AND ADOPTED by the City Council of the City of Concord on September 23, 2025, by the following vote:
AYES: Councilmembers -
NOES: Councilmembers -
ABSTAIN: Councilmembers -
ABSENT: Councilmembers -
I HEREBY CERTIFY that the foregoing Resolution No. 25-XX was duly and regularly adopted at a regular joint meeting of the City Council of the City of Concord on September 23, 2025.
APPROVED AS TO FORM:
Joelle Fockler, MMC
City Clerk
Susanne Meyer Brown
City Attorney
Attachment: Exhibit A: City of Concord FY 2024/25 CAPER
Exhibit A
1 City of Concord Draft FY 2024/25 Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Report (CAPER) CR-05 - Goals and Outcomes
Progress the jurisdiction has made in carrying out its strategic plan and its action plan. 91.520(a) The City has completed the fifth year of the 2020/25 Consolidated Plan period and has met or exceeded every priority goal/objective. CDBG- funded projects provided a wide range of social services and assistance to more than 21,000 residents and households. Funds were provided to 15 programs that provide safety-net services to the City’s most vulnerable residents including the homeless, mentally and physically disabled, seniors, victims of domestic violence, and other special needs populations. Concord continues to focus on outcome-based performance measurements as a means to ensure that needed services are delivered and that the results can be easily quantified.
Funding for the City’s ADA Transition Plan provided curb and sidewalk improvements that removed barriers that restrict mobility and accessibility of elderly or disabled persons. The City installed 29 curb ramps, providing mobility impaired residents and visitors new and safer access to local services and businesses.
The City’s Housing Rehabilitation Loan and Grant Program provided one loan and twelve grants to low-income homeowners for needed repairs and improvements. Ten of the homeowners were elderly, six were disabled and all were low- to extremely-low income. Needed repairs included roof replacement, plumbing repairs, sewer replacement, water heaters and accessibility features.
The City provided funding for Economic Development programs. Low-income existing and emerging small businesses were assisted with business plan development, financial planning and applying for business licenses, allowing them to achieve self-sufficiency by starting or growing a micro-enterprise. The City also funded a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) training program to help participants earn certification and build a foundation for a sustainable career in healthcare services. The program combines technical training with life skills, case management, career skills, job placement, and long-term follow-up. These programs will help to provide jobs to low-income residents in the City now and in the future.
Comparison of the proposed versus actual outcomes for each outcome measure submitted with the consolidated plan and
Exhibit A
2 explain, if applicable, why progress was not made toward meeting goals and objectives. 91.520(g) Categories, priority levels, funding sources and amounts, outcomes/objectives, goal outcome indicators, units of measure, targets, actual outcomes/outputs, and percentage completed for each of the grantee’s program year goals.
Goal Category Source /
Amount
Indicator Unit of
Measure
Expected
Strategic
Plan -
2020/2025
Actual –
Strategic
Plan-
2020/2025
Percent
Complete
Expected
Program
Year-
2024/25
Actual –
Program
Year –
2024/25
Percent
Complete
AH-1 Existing
Housing Stock
Affordable
Housing
CDBG:
$435,417/
Revolving
Loan
Fund:
$100,000
Homeowner
Housing
Rehabilitated
Household
Housing
Unit
125 76 60.80% 15 13 86.66%
CD-1 General Public
Services
Non-Housing
Community
Development
CDBG:
$47,925/
Admin:
$2,075
CCBF:
$15,000
Public service
activities other
than
Low/Moderate
Income Housing
Benefit
Persons
Assisted 45000 61,509 136.68% 9100 9989 109.76%
CD-2 Non-Homeless
Special Needs
Population
Non-Homeless
Special Needs
CDBG:
$61,250
Public service
activities other
than
Low/Moderate
Income Housing
Benefit
Persons
Assisted 7500 9635 128.46% 1563 2256 126.93%
Exhibit A
3 CD-3 Youth
CDBG:
$21,250
CCBF:
$65,000
Public service
activities other
than
Low/Moderate
Income Housing
Benefit
Persons
Assisted 4500 7217 160.37 69 81 117.39%
CD-4 Fair Housing
Non-Housing
Community
Development
CDBG
Admin:
$10,000
Public service
activities other
than
Low/Moderate
Income Housing
Benefit
Persons
Assisted 125 427 341.60% 25 28 112.00%
CD-5 Economic
Development
Non-Housing
Community
Development
CDBG:
$20,000
CCBF:
$25,000
Jobs
created/retained Jobs 20 50 250.00% 8 8 100.00%
CD-5 Economic
Development
Non-Housing
Community
Development
CDBG:
$20,000
CCBF:
$45,000
Businesses
assisted
Businesses
Assisted 50 101 202.00% 18 16 133.33%
CD-6
Infrastructure/Public
Facilities
Non-Housing
Community
Development
CDBG:
$300,000
Public Facility or
Infrastructure
Activities other
than
Low/Moderate
Income Housing
Benefit
Persons
Assisted 40000 40000 100.00% 8000 8000 100.00%
Exhibit A
4 125CD-7
Administration Administration
CDBG:
$203,900
CCBF:
$33,730
Other Other 1 1 100.00% 1 1 100.00%
H-1 Emergency
Shelter and
Homeless Related
Svcs
Homeless CDBG:
$12,500
Public service
activities other
than
Low/Moderate
Income Housing
Benefit
Persons
Assisted 780 6469 829.35% 40 1352 338.00%
H-1 Emergency
Shelter and
Homeless Related
Svcs
Homeless CDBG:
$10,000
Homeless
Person
Overnight
Shelter
Persons
Assisted 50 92 184.00% 21 12 57.14%
Table 1 - Accomplishments – Program Year & Strategic Plan to Date Assess how the jurisdiction’s use of funds, particularly CDBG, addresses the priorities and specific objectives identified in the plan, giving special attention to the highest priority activities identified.
The City identified a number of high priorities for FY 2024/25 and made excellent progress in meeting the objectives and goals submitted in the FY 2020/25 Consolidated Plan. Special effort has been made to help preserve affordable housing and maintain Concord’s older housing stock, which is predominately owned by the elderly. Through the Housing Rehabilitation Loan and Grant Program the City provides emergency repair grants to $25,000 and loans to $75,000 to income-qualified homeowners.
The City’s older homes are often owned by elderly residents who purchased their homes many years ago. These residents are typically on fixed incomes and may not have the means to perform regular maintenance and repairs or to qualify for traditional home repair loans. In recent years the cost of construction has increased due to the rising cost of supplies as well as supply chain delays. This has had an impact on the
Exhibit A
5 number of residents who can be assisted as the cost of each individual project has increased. The number of loans and grants available is limited by the amount of funds
available nd the needs of the City’s older housing stock. The City was able to provide one loan and twelve grants to low- income residents, including ten seniors and six disabled persons.
Concord provided CDBG funds for Economic Development with the goal of reducing the number of persons with incomes below the poverty level, expanding economic opportunities for low-income residents, and increasing the viability of neighborhood commercial areas. Opportunity Junction and Monument Impact, both local nonprofits, received CDBG funds to provide training and job placement for Certified Nurs ing Assistants and to assist the low-income owners of existing and emerging small businesses. The City also provided $60,000 in Cannabis Community Benefit Funds (CCBF) to three local organizations to support microenterprise development.
Concord supported local youth programs by allocating CDBG funds to Child Advocates of Contra Costa County, which provides support to foster youth, and to Community Violence Solutions, providing child sexual assault intervention. In addition, the City provided $65,000 in local CCBF funds to programs that provided youth drug use prevention and education efforts, drug treatment and mental health programs.
Funding was provided to the Contra Costa CORE homeless outreach team to support unhoused residents and quickly move them into services and housing. The Winter Nights Family Shelter also received CDBG funds to house families through the coldest months and to provide support services that lead to self-sufficiency. Winter Nights set a goal of serving 21 unhoused households but due to the need for shelter and lack of turnover were only able to house 12 Concord households for 2024/25.
Exhibit A
6 CR-10 - Racial and Ethnic composition of families assisted Describe the families assisted (including the racial and ethnic status of families assisted).
91.520(a)
CDBG
White 9,129
Black or African American 1,802
Asian 1,679
American Indian or American Native 164
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander 114
Other Multi-Racial 8,867
Total 21,755
Hispanic 7,179
Table 2 – Table of assistance to racial and ethnic populations by source of funds Narrative
HUD reporting requirements for race and ethnicity include additional categories not reflected in HUD’s chart above. City CDBG funds also provided services to residents self-identifying as American Indian/White, Asian/White, Black/White, and American Indian/Black, included under Other Multi-Racial.
Please see exhibit A-1 for additional income and race/ethnicity information.
Exhibit A
7 CR-15 - Resources and Investments 91.520(a)
Identify the resources made available
Source of Funds Source Resources Made
Available
Amount Expended
During Program Year
CDBG public - federal 1,232,242 1,183,513
Other public - local 150,000 150,000
Table 3 - Resources Made Available
Narrative
Identify the geographic distribution and location of investments Target Area Planned Percentage of
Allocation
Actual Percentage of
Allocation
Narrative Description
City of Concord 100 100% Citywide
Table 4 – Identify the geographic distribution and location of investments Narrative
In addition to CDBG funds, the City allocated $150,000 in Cannabis Community Benefit Funds (CCBF) to support local programs that address youth drug use prevention, youth drug use education efforts, drug treatment and/or mental health programs, workforce development, and supervised diversion from criminal justice system avoiding recidivism.
Exhibit A
8 Leveraging
Explain how federal funds leveraged additional resources (private, state and local funds), including a description of how matching requirements were satisfied, as well as how any publicly owned land or property located within the jurisdiction that were used to address the needs identified in the plan.
During FY 2024/25, CDBG and CCDF funds leveraged over $26 million from local resources and agency matching funds to accomplish the housing and non-housing objectives identified in Concord’s Consolidated Plan. These funds are often coupled with local funds, allowing projects to compete for additional funding provided by tax credits, bonds, and state financing programs.
An investment by the City makes projects more competitive in various funding competitions.
Although all sources and types of funds are more limited due to the current economic climate and the demise of statewide redevelopment tax-increment funds, the City will continue to search for additional sources of funding from local, state, federal, and private sources. To help leverage resources, the City requires a 20% match for all projects with the exception of Fair Housing and the Homeowners Rehabilitation Loan and Grant Program. Matching funds for these projects typically include other federal or state funds, or private funds from foundations and donations. Please see Exhibit A-2 for leveraging information by project.
Exhibit A
9 CR-20 - Affordable Housing 91.520(b)
Evaluation of the jurisdiction's progress in providing affordable housing, including the number and types of families served, the number of extremely low-income, low-income, moderate-income, and middle-income persons served.
One-Year Goal Actual
Number of homeless households to be
provided affordable housing units
0 0
Number of non-homeless households
to be provided affordable housing
units
0 0
Number of special-needs households
to be provided affordable housing
units
0 0
Total 0 0
Table 5 – Number of Households
One-Year Goal Actual
Number of households supported
through rental assistance
0 0
Number of households supported
through the production of new units
0 0
Number of households supported
through the rehab of existing units
0 0
Number of households supported
through the acquisition of existing
units
0 0
Total 0 0
Table 6 – Number of Households Supported
Discuss the difference between goals and outcomes and problems encountered in meeting these goals.
The City made significant progress in meeting the goals and objectives contained in the 2020/25 Consolidated Plan and the 2024/25 Action Plan. Problems in meeting those goals are primarily
Exhibit A
10 the result of the limited funding available and the increased costs of materials and labor in today’s market.
The City allocated $535,417 in CDBG and Revolving Loan Funds to be used for housing rehabilitation grants and loans. As discussed previously, the City provided twelve grants and one loan to low-income households for the repair of health and safety issues in their homes.
The number of homeowners that can be assisted is limited by the amount of funds available. In addition, the number of contractors willing to bid on these small projects on a reimbursement basis is very limited, making it difficult to move projects along in a timely manner.
Concord has a long history of supporting the construction and conservation of affordable housing, In June, 2018, Concord allocated $5.5 million in City Affordable Housing Funds to Resources for Community Development (RCD), a nonprofit housing developer, for the new construction of 44 units. In May, 2019, City Council allocated an additional $2.3 million for a total of $7.8 million to allow RCD to acquire an adjacent property and increase the size of the project to 62 units. The project was completed in Spring, 2025, and is fully occupied.
In addition, Concord is currently in the process of developing a Specific Plan for the 2,327-acre Inland Area of the Concord Naval Weapons Station, which was created by the Navy in the 1940s during World War II. The Inland Area of the base was deactivated in 1997 and declared surplus property by the Navy in 2007. A Reuse Plan was adopted by the City for the area in 2010. An Area Plan was then adopted by the City for the area in 2012. The development of the area represents a significant opportunity for the City. The Specific Plan will create more specific zoning for the site and improve the quality of life for residents of Concord and the region through creation of new jobs, a variety of housing types, significant open space, preservation of natural resources, active parks, pedestrian and bike trails and community facilities. The project is expected to be home to 28,000 residents in 12,272 new residential units over a 30-year period, 25 percent of which will be affordable housing. East Bay Regional Park District is currently in the process of implementing a land use plan for the management of 2,537 acres of adjacent parkland area.
Discuss how these outcomes will impact future annual action plans.
In FY 2024/25, Concord allocated CDBG funds for the Housing Rehabilitation Loan and Grant program. Due to the rising cost of construction and repairs it is difficult to adequately meet the needs of the City’s aging housing stock however, the City will continue to provide CDBG funds to address the needs of primarily elderly homeowners.
As the Naval Weapons Station Reuse Plan is developed the resulting affordable housing units will be included in future action plans. The development will provide a variety of services for homeless and low-income individuals and families, including emergency shelter and housing, and will be reported in future action plans.
Include the number of extremely low-income, low-income, and moderate-income persons served by each activity where information on income by family size is required to determine the eligibility of the activity.
Exhibit A
11 Number of Households Served CDBG Actual HOME Actual Extremely Low-income 4 0
Low-income 4 0
Moderate-income 5 0
Total 13 0
Table 7 – Number of Households Served
Narrative Information
Along with the greater Bay Area, Concord has faced with rapid increases in the cost of rental housing without a corresponding increase in wages for low-income earners. The City will continue to support the preservation of affordable housing by funding needed home repairs for low income homeowners, providing funds for financial assistance to help prevent homelessness or to quickly rehouse the homeless, and by supporting economic development to promote self-sufficiency. Special needs groups such as elderly/frail elderly, persons with disabilities, persons who suffer from alcohol and other drug addictions, persons who are victims of domestic violence and persons living with HIV/AIDS are at an especially high risk of homelessness. Due to their special needs and/or circumstances, they may have difficulty accessing affordable housing and face obstacles created by lack of income. The City of Concord will continue to provide CDBG and local funds to programs that improve the quality of life for residents with special needs.
Exhibit A
12 CR-25 - Homeless and Other Special Needs 91.220(d, e); 91.320(d, e); 91.520(c) Evaluate the jurisdiction’s progress in meeting its specific objectives for reducing and ending homelessness through:
Reaching out to homeless persons (especially unsheltered persons) and assessing their individual needs
The Contra Costa Continuum of Care uses a number of strategies to reach out to unsheltered persons experiencing homelessness and assess their individual needs, including direct outreach and marketing, the use of phone-based services including the 211 line, marketing in other languages (e.g., Spanish), making physical and virtual locations accessible to those with disabilities, and collaborating with local law enforcement.
All persons experiencing homelessness who are interested in housing receive a VI-SPDAT (Vulnerability Index – Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool) assessment, the common assessment tool being used by the Contra Costa Coordinated Entry System to prioritize those with the highest levels of chronicity and acuity for available housing resources and services. Persons are also referred to CARE (Coordinated Assessment Resource) Centers to access services for basic needs, case management, housing navigation, and health care.
All persons experiencing homelessness who are interested in housing receive a VI-SPDAT (Vulnerability Index – Service Prioritization Decision Assistance Tool) assessment, the common assessment tool being used by the Contra Costa Coordinated Entry System to prioritize those with the highest levels of chronicity and acuity for available housing resources and services. Persons are also referred to CARE (Coordinated Assessment Resource) Centers to access services for basic needs, case management, housing navigation, and health care.
Outreach Services: As a part of the Contra Costa Coordinated Entry System, CORE (Coordinated Outreach, Referral and Engagement) Teams serve as an entry point into the homeless system of care, providing both day and evening outreach resources and services to encampments and service sites.
Concord provides CDBG, CPHHCD, Permanent Local Housing Allocation (PLHA) and other local funds to provide dedicated homeless outreach services in the City 40 hours per week. The outreach teams seek out individuals on the street and in encampments and provide clients with housing navigation, access to food and shelter, and to integrated health, mental health and substance use services. In January 2022, the City added a Care Coordinator to the CORE team to provide one-on-one case management support to better meet the needs of unhoused residents.
Exhibit A
13 Health Care for the Homeless: In addition to providing direct medical care, testing and immunization services, the County-
funded Health Care for the Homeless Program uses its mobile healthcare van for outreach. The bilingual Healthcare for the Homeless Team assesses client’s needs, provides social support, and links clients to appropriate services and programs.
Addressing the emergency shelter and transitional housing needs of homeless persons Crisis services, including emergency shelter and transitional housing, are a critical component of the Contra Costa Coordinated Entry System. For individuals and families experiencing a housing crisis that cannot be diverted, CORE Teams and CARE Centers make referrals to over 1,000 emergency shelter and transitional housing beds throughout Contra Costa County, including the newly opened Next Step program (January 20205) located in Concord. In keeping with a Housing First approach, the goal of Contra Costa’s crisis response system is to provide immediate and easy access to safe and decent shelter beds, when available, to the most vulnerable unsheltered people, including those that are chronically homeless, with the housing-focused goal of re-housing people as quickly as possible. Contra Costa CoC has established system-level performance measures for emergency shelter, including reducing the average length of stay increasing exits to permanent housing and increasing non-returns to homelessness.
Under HUD's 2024 CoC Program NOFO, the County CoC obtained an award $22,336,034, the majority of which supports funding for rental assistance based programs like rapid rehousing and permanent supportive housing for the most vulnerable, including seniors, chronically homeless individuals, and for survivors of domestic violence..
The City’s Community Services Manager participates in the Council on Homelessness advisory meetings facilitated by Contra Costa County Continuum of Care and has served on CoC subcommittees focused on performance measurement and homeless awareness initiatives within the broader community.
Helping low-income individuals and families avoid becoming homeless, especially extremely low-income individuals and families and those who are: likely to become homeless after being discharged from publicly funded institutions and systems of care (such as health care facilities, mental health facilities, foster care and other youth facilities, and corrections programs and institutions); and, receiving assistance from public or private agencies that address housing, health, social services, employment, education, or youth needs The Contra Costa CoC has implemented a triage tool used by 211 and other crisis service entry points into our system to identify individuals at risk of homelessness and connect them to prevention, intervention services, and diversion services.
Exhibit A
14 The CoC worked to create standardized program models and developed two models based on Rapid Resolution: Prevention/Diversion and Rapid Exit. Prevention/Diversion programs focus on supporting households at risk of homelessness and Rapid Exit programs focus on households currently experiencing homelessness with an identified housing solution. Supports provided to both groups are similar, but services are tailored based on the differing needs of households at risk of homelessness and those currently experiencing homelessness. These updated program models were approved by the CoC advisory board, the Council on Homelessness, in June 2022 and were implemented for the first time in FY2022/23.The CoC expanded prevention services through local and state funding prog rams and saw a
111% increase in households served over five years (2020 – 2024).
There is significant cross system collaboration including with hospitals and clinics, Department of Probation, law enforcement, and the Office of the Public Defender. H3 and other CoC partner agencies work closely with those systems, agencies and the County Employment and Human Services Department to ensure affordable housing and social services are available to individuals who are at risk of discharge into homelessness or unstable housing.
The CoC continues to work with Contra Costa Public Housing Authorities (PHA) and local affordable housing developers to maximize the inventory of affordable housing units to which formerly homeless clients can eventually transition. The Special Assistant to the Executive Director of the Housing Authority of Contra Costa County (HACCC) serves on the Contra Costa CoC advisory board in the Public Housing Authority Representative seat. In the past year, the CoC has partnered closely with the PHA to lease up the 41 Housing Stability Vouchers which were awarded in parallel to the CoC’s Supplemental NOFO award. Additionally, the CoC works closely with HACCC and Child Welfare to maximize access to Foster Youth to Independence vouchers for transition aged youth existing the child welfare system.
In cooperation with the local VA, Contra Costa's CoC has worked to increase its capacity to house and serve homeless veterans, including the distribution of HUD-VASH vouchers and rental assistance for permanent housing units provided to homeless veterans and their families under the Supportive Services for Veteran Families (SSVF) program.
Helping homeless persons (especially chronically homeless individuals and families, families with children, veterans and their families, and unaccompanied youth) make the transition to permanent housing and independent living, including shortening the period of time that individuals and families experience homelessness, facilitating access for homeless individuals and families to affordable housing units, and preventing individuals and families who were recently homeless from becoming homeless again
Access to Affordable Housing: The City has a long history of working with non-profit housing developers and encouraging the inclusion of units affordable to households with extremely-low incomes and those
Exhibit A
15 with special needs. Concord is currently developing a Reuse Plan for the 5,028 acre Inland Area of the Concord Naval Weapons Station, which was created by the Navy in the 1940s during World War II. The project is expected include 12,000 new residential units, 25 percent of which will be affordable housing.
In February, 2018, Concord released a Notice of Funding Availability (NOFA) for $14 million in affordable housing funds to be used toward further actualizing Concord’s opportunities for quality affordable housing. The City accepted a proposal from Resources for Community Development (RCD) for the new construction of 62 affordable units. Rick Judd Commons opened for tenancy in March, 2025, and all units are occupied.
Concord used Permanent Local Housing Allocation (PLHA) funding made available by the State’s Housing and Community Services department to support a Rapid Rehousing Program for families experiencing homelessness in Concord. This program has provided housing navigation, case management and up to 12 months of rental assistance to help 32 households achieve housing stability.
In 2023, the City of Concord began developing a Homeless Strategic Plan that identified gaps in services to the most vulnerable extremely low income population who are either homeless, unstably housed or at risk of homelessness. The plan proposed seven core strategies and in October, 2024, the City awarded $5 million in one-time non-recurring funds to six local organizations. These organizations offer a combination of temporary housing and comprehensive support services to help individuals transition out of homelessness. Additionally, they deliver field-based services to people in their current sheltering locations, addressing essential needs such as medical care, substance abuse treatment, food and hygiene, and workforce development. The ultimate goal of implementing the strategies is to support individuals with successfully exiting homelessness and achieving permanent housing.
The City continues to work with the Contra Costa Public Housing Authority (PHA) and local affordable housing developers to maximize the inventory of affordable housing units to which formerly homeless clients can eventually transition.
Exhibit A
16 CR-30 - Public Housing 91.220(h); 91.320(j)
Actions taken to address the needs of public housing
There are no Public Housing Units in the City of Concord. The Housing Authority of Contra Costa County (HACCC) assists Concord residents through the Section 8 Existing Housing Program. Section 8 Certificates/Vouchers allow very low-income (below 50% of area median income) families to pay no more than 30% of their income on housing. The HACCC contracts with rental housing property owners to pay the difference between what tenants can afford and fair market rents.
Actions taken to encourage public housing residents to become more involved in management and participate in homeownership
The City of Concord provides funds for the Below Market Rate and First Time Homebuyer programs, which specifically target low-income residents, including those who are exiting public housing assistance programs. These programs are widely marketed through various support services and programs throughout the City.
Actions taken to provide assistance to troubled PHAs
Concord residents are assisted through the Housing Authority of Contra Costa County (HACCC) with Section 8 certificates and vouchers. This program is well run and has provided excellent service and support to low-income City residents.
Exhibit A
17 CR-35 - Other Actions 91.220(j)-(k); 91.320(i)-(j)
Actions taken to remove or ameliorate the negative effects of public policies that serve as barriers to affordable housing such as land use controls, tax policies affecting land, zoning ordinances, building codes, fees and charges, growth limitations, and policies affecting the
return on residential investment. 91.220 (j); 91.320 (i) The Housing Element Update adopted by the Concord City Council on August 22, 2023, included Policy
1.3, which promoted the development of housing that provides ownership opportunities that are affordable to extremely low-, very low, low- and moderate-income households. In late 2024 and early 2025, the City extended approvals for three (3) affordable homeownership opportunities that included two (2) low-income and one (1) moderate-income below-market rate homeownership units.
Policy 1.4 encouraged accessory dwelling units in new and existing residential developments and the development of duplex condominiums, where duplexes are consistent with the General Plan. In January 2025, the City launched a rebate program that provides up to $15,000 to property owners who apply to build an accessory dwelling unit (ADU) on their property, especially for those owners who choose to deed restrict their ADU for low-income residents. The funds were provided through a $277,226 grant to the City of Concord by the California Housing Finance Agency to incentivize housing production, including low-income housing.
Policy 1.7 promoted a diversity of housing types, including efforts to increase rental options and homeownership opportunities for households at all income levels. In 2019, the City allocated a total of $7.8 million to Resources for Community Development for the construction of a 62 unit (61 of which would be income-restricted) affordable housing development located in Concord Downtown area. The building received its Certificate of Occupancy and achieved full occupancy in early 2025.
Policy 2.1 supported the conservation and rehabilitation of the existing housing stock (including mobile homes) through a balanced program of code enforcement and property improvements, when and where appropriate. The City provided 12 rehabilitation grants and one rehabilitation loan for low- income homeowners.
Policy 2.4 ensured that any development, redevelopment, or economic pressures in Concord do not lead to the displacement of existing residents. In April 2024 and then again in April 2025, the City Council amended the Residential Tenant Protection Program to increase “just cause” eviction protections, expand the City’s rent registry, and establish a rent stabilization program. The Program set the annual maximum allowable rent increase below that of State, and also requires minimum lease terms and a greater relocation assistance payment than what is offered by the State.
Policy 3.7 facilitated the development of emergency shelters, transitional and supportive housing, and
Exhibit A
18 long-term affordable housing to reduce the risk of homelessness in the City of Concord. Concord has developed and initiated the implementation of a Strategic Plan to address homelessness. On February 6, 2024, the City Council adopted the Homeless Strategic Plan. In November 2024, the City granted $5 million in funding to community organizations which offer a combination of temporary housing and comprehensive support services to help individuals transition out of homelessness. These services include rapid rehousing, scattered site interim housing, and permanent motel supportive housing.
Actions taken to address obstacles to meeting underserved needs. 91.220(k); 91.320(j) The primary concentration of minority and low-income population in Concord is in the Monument Corridor, a triangular area between Highway 242 and Monument Blvd., up to Concord Avenue. This area lies within census tracts 3361, 3362, and 3280. It has been identified by the Concord City Council and targeted by the United Way of the Bay Area, the Hospital Council (John Muir/Mt. Diablo Community Health Fund), Contra Costa County Health and Human Services and other organizations as an area of substantial need for community resources. The City continues to provide for these at-risk residents by allocating funding to local community groups that provide food, health services and family support programs.
In March 2023, Concord City Council allocated American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds to a number of local organizations to provide additional support to at risk residents. Funds were provided for food programs, mental and physical health needs, youth services, career advancement and the arts. Funds were also provided for a pilot guaranteed income program that provides $500/month to extremely low and low income households.
Concord continues to support programs that benefit the underserved populations and those residents most at-risk, providing funding for programs across the city through the CDBG program, the Concord/Pleasant Hill Health Care District, Permanent Local Housing Allocation and Cannabis Community Benefit Funds.
Actions taken to reduce lead-based paint hazards. 91.220(k); 91.320(j) Many homes built before 1980 are at risk of containing lead-based paint, and more than half of all homes in Concord were built prior to this time. In 2000, the City developed a Lead Based Paint (LBP) Management Plan to ensure compliance with federal regulations. It established a LBP Grant Program for lower income homeowners to address abatement and risk assessment issues in housing rehabilitation projects and to help offset the cost of LBP analysis, testing and abatement by lower income homeowners.
Lead-based paint management and abatement has been incorporated into the City of Concord’s Home Rehabilitation Loan and Grant Program. Lead-based paint abatement grants up to $22,500 are provided to low-income homeowners (households earning at or below 80% of the Area Median Income [AMI]).
Exhibit A
19 The City requires that recipients of homeowner rehabilitation funds sign HUD’s Notification for Lead Based Paint and that any abatement required be included in the home’s repairs.
Actions taken to reduce the number of poverty-level families. 91.220(k); 91.320(j) Reducing the number of persons living below the poverty level within the City of Concord requires a comprehensive approach to poverty that includes: access to housing of choice unimpeded by discrimination; availability of affordable housing; job opportunities that require limited educational background and/or work experience as well as jobs that offer opportunities for growth and advancement and a living wage; opportunities for people with disabilities to move freely, live independently, and become or remain financially independent to the best of their abilities; access to health care for individuals, families, and children; safety nets for those balancing precariously on the economic edge, including seniors, single-parent families, minimum-wage earners, and others; and provision of life’s basic requirements, such as food, shelter, and clothing, for those without these necessities. In FY 2024/25, Concord provided funds to further programs that meet these needs, allowing low-income individuals and households to rise out of poverty.
The City Council, Community Services Commission, and City staff embrace a holistic approach to addressing these issues as they meet to plan each year’s funding allocations. Guided by community input shared in Public Hearings and in community-wide surveys, needs are heard, priorities are determined, and funds are allocated. General economic conditions and increased costs of rent, health care and food are resulting in greater numbers of people in need of even the most basic services, such as food pantry and hot lunches. The number of low-income families financially impacted by the COVID crisis put a further strain on the ability of the City and community service providers to meet the needs of residsents and those impacts are still felt.
Actions taken to develop institutional structure. 91.220(k); 91.320(j) The City of Concord works within an institutional structure, which includes private industry, nonprofit organizations, and public institutions, to carry out its housing and community development plan.
The Contra Costa County HOME Consortium is comprised of the County Conservation and Development Department’s staff and the cities of Antioch, Concord, Pittsburg, and Walnut Creek. The City of Concord is an active member of the Consortium, and works with it to streamline CDBG processes for non-profit recipients. The Consortium meets monthly to share information and work on ways to overcome gaps between our respective institutional structures and enhance coordination of funding and service delivery throughout the County. Working together to support mutual projects has developed the Consortium members into a close, supportive team who have a much better understanding of each other’s challenges and needs.
Exhibit A
20 Consortium members utilize a single grant application used by all jurisdictions; a single monitoring form with joint monitoring of agencies and shared results with other members; a joint grant process and joint meetings for all applicants and recipients of funding; quarterly or greater Consortium meetings; and increased technical assistance to nonprofits through individual meetings and workshops. Consortium members have continually streamlined processes to benefit agencies and to reduce our administrative costs, effectively channeling additional funds to our communities.
The City has embraced a style of governance known as Community Oriented Government (COG). COG is based on a philosophy that recognizes the interdependence and shared responsibility of the City government and the community in making Concord a city of the highest quality, continually enhancing the safety, environment, quality of life, and economic vitality of our city. It is a method of governance that encourages partnerships to identify community issues, determine resources, and apply innovative strategies designed to create and sustain healthy, vital neighborhoods. The five building blocks that are key to Community Oriented Government are partnerships, empowerment, problem solving, accountability, and customer orientation. The COG approach is founded on collaboration, both internally and externally, and responsiveness to internal and external consumer needs. This approach helps to reduce gaps inherent in institutional structures such as city government by increasing communication, developing partnerships, and enhancing coordination.
Actions taken to enhance coordination between public and private housing and social service agencies. 91.220(k); 91.320(j)
There are no Public Housing Units in the City of Concord. The Contra Costa Housing Authority assists Concord residents through the Section 8 Housing Program. Section 8 Certificates/Vouchers allow very low-income (below 50% of area median income) families to pay no more than 30% of their income on housing. The Contra Costa Housing Authority contracts with rental housing property owners to pay the difference between what tenants can afford and fair market rents.
The City allocates CDBG funds to ECHO Housing to provide Fair Housing services to local residents to help them acquire and maintain their housing. ECHO also receives City funds to provide Tenant/Landlord Counseling and Tenant Legal Services to help low-income tenants maintain their housing.
Identify actions taken to overcome the effects of any impediments identified in the jurisdictions analysis of impediments to fair housing choice. 91.520(a) City staff, along with staff from the other Contra Costa CDBG entitlement jurisdictions (Antioch, Pittsburg, Walnut Creek and the Urban County), worked together to prepare the Contra Costa Consortium Analysis of Impediments to Fair Housing Choice (AI). An update of the AI was completed and
Exhibit A
21 approved by each Contra Costa CDBG entitlement jurisdiction in 2019 for the Consolidated Plan Period 2020/25.
Recommendation #1: Increase Public Awareness of Fair Housing Rights – Concord continues to provide CDBG support to agencies to provide Fair Housing consulting services. Fair housing service providers and their partner agencies continue to expand outreach to the community regarding fair housing rights. housing trainings and outreach at various non-profit agencies throughout the County.
Recommendation #2: Improve Financial Assistance for Housing – Concord and the Consortium continue to collaborate to expand affordable housing in communities where such opportunities are limited. The City and the Consortium allocate resources to encourage and facilitate the development of affordable housing throughout the entire Consortium, resulting in the development of new affordable housing.
Concord contracts with Bay Area Affordable Homeownership Alliance (BAAHA) to assist qualified low- and moderate-income individuals with the purchase of their first home. FTHB loan funds are to assist with down payment and/or closing costs.
Recommendation #3: Review Home Purchase Loan Denial Figures with Local Lenders – The Consortium has incorporated in the CDBG contracts with their respective Fair Housing consulting agencies a review and monitoring of HMDA data in regard to loan denial rates among racial/ethnic minorities.
Recommendation #4: Increase Access to Special Needs Housing – The City has instructed its Fair Housing services provider to incorporate education and information to tenant, owners, and agents of rental properties about the necessity to provide equal access to housing to special needs populations.
Recommendation #5: Review Municipalities Planning Code and Offer Incentives - This recommendation is a long-term goal and the City has begun developing steps to implement this recommendation through the Densitiy Bonus Ordinance, the Inclusionary Housing Ordinance and the Accessory dweling Odinance.
City staff, along with staff from the other Contra Costa CDBG entitlement jurisdictions (Antioch, Pittsburg, Walnut Creek and the Urban County), and the Public Housing Authorities of Contra Costa County, Pittsburg, and Richmond worked together to prepare the Contra Costa Consortium Analysis of Impediments/Assessment to Fair Housing Choice (AI/AFH). The AI/AFH was completed for the period from July 1, 2020 to June 30, 2025 to coincide with the Consortium’s Consolidated Plan.
Exhibit A
22 CR-40 - Monitoring 91.220 and 91.230
Describe the standards and procedures used to monitor activities carried out in furtherance of the plan and used to ensure long-term compliance with requirements of the programs involved, including minority business outreach and the comprehensive planning requirements
Concord CDBG staff closely monitors and reviews agency activities during the program year. This process begins with a detailed contract which outlines performance objectives and reporting requirements.
Quarterly reports are thoroughly reviewed to ensure that agencies are on track to achieve their performance outcomes, and that they are serving eligible clients that represent Concord’s diversity.
Quarterly Sources and Uses reports are compared to budgets to verify the need for CDBG funding and ensure that fundraising goals are on track. Quarterly Requests for Reimbursement are carefully reviewed to ensure compliance with applicable OMB circulars and HUD regulations. CDBG staff is in close communication with agency leadership and program staff throughout the year. Finally, staff ensures ongoing compliance by monitoring various CDBG Subrecipients annually and sharing monitoring results of mutually-funded programs with Consortium members.
The City of Concord is knowledgeable of and complies with CDBG program and comprehensive planning requirements. Community Services Division activities are based on a HUD-approved Consolidated Plan spanning the years from 2020/25, including priorities for funding and meeting goals and objectives established in that document.
Fostering, producing, and maintaining housing that is affordable to a wide spectrum of Concord residents has been a commitment by the City of Concord for decades. Annual Action Plans and Consolidated Annual Performance and Evaluation Reports (CAPER) are thorough, timely, and have been accepted by HUD. NEPA Environmental Reviews procedures are followed for every funded activity.
Monitoring of sub-recipients is conducted on a regular schedule using standards and procedures that are shared by other members of the Consortium.
Citizen Participation Plan 91.105(d); 91.115(d)
Describe the efforts to provide citizens with reasonable notice and an opportunity to comment on performance reports.
The Community Services Commission, the citizen’s advisory body that makes CDBG funding recommendations to the City Council, meets regularly in properly noticed public meetings. The public is
Exhibit A
23 invited to attend and may address the Commission during public comment. The City adheres to public noticing requirements and is available to receive public comment and inquiries on a regular basis.
CR-45 - CDBG 91.520(c)
Specify the nature of, and reasons for, any changes in the jurisdiction’s program objectives and indications of how the jurisdiction would change its programs as a result of its experiences.
No changes were made to Concord’s program objectives during 2024/25. The Action Plan was developed with the input of the community and targeted those most in need. The local agencies that received funding have made excellent progress in meeting the needs of the City’s residents and helping to create an environment that is safe, healthy, and promotes self-sufficiency.
Does this Jurisdiction have any open Brownfields Economic Development Initiative (BEDI) grants?
No
[BEDI grantees] Describe accomplishments and program outcomes during the last year.
Exhibit A
24 CR-58 – Section 3
Identify the number of individuals assisted and the types of assistance provided
Total Labor Hours CDBG HOME ESG HOPWA HTF
Total Number of Activities 1 0 0 0 0
Total Labor Hours 856
Total Section 3 Worker Hours 0
Total Targeted Section 3 Worker Hours 0
Table 8 – Total Labor Hours
Qualitative Efforts - Number of Activities by Program CDBG HOME ESG HOPWA HTF Outreach efforts to generate job applicants who are Public Housing Targeted Workers
Outreach efforts to generate job applicants who are Other Funding Targeted Workers.
Direct, on-the job training (including apprenticeships).
Indirect training such as arranging for, contracting for, or paying tuition for, off-site training.
Technical assistance to help Section 3 workers compete for jobs (e.g., resume assistance, coaching).
Outreach efforts to identify and secure bids from Section 3 business concerns.
Technical assistance to help Section 3 business concerns understand and bid on contracts.
Division of contracts into smaller jobs to facilitate participation by Section 3 business concerns.
Provided or connected residents with assistance in seeking employment including: drafting resumes,preparing for interviews, finding job opportunities, connecting residents to job placement services.
Held one or more job fairs.
Provided or connected residents with supportive services that can provide direct services or referrals.
Provided or connected residents with supportive services that provide one or more of the following: work readiness health screenings, interview clothing, uniforms, test fees, transportation.
Assisted residents with finding child care.
Assisted residents to apply for, or attend community college or a four year educational institution.
Assisted residents to apply for, or attend vocational/technical training.
Assisted residents to obtain financial literacy training and/or coaching.
Bonding assistance, guaranties, or other efforts to support viable bids from Section 3 business concerns.
Provided or connected residents with training on computer use or online technologies.
Exhibit A
25 Promoting the use of a business registry designed to create opportunities for disadvantaged and small businesses.
Outreach, engagement, or referrals with the state one-stop system, as designed in Section 121(e)(2) of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.
Other.
Table 9 – Qualitative Efforts - Number of Activities by Program Narrative
Funds were allocated to Concord’s Engineering Department to secure a contract to install ADA curb ramps at various locations throughout the City. The project was advertised through the standard City advertising process. The Contractor, at a minimum, was required to notify applicable minority-owned and women
-owned business firms located in Concord of bid
opportunities for the Project. Contractors were encouraged to use MBE/WBE and Section 3 businesses in the performance of work and, to the greatest extent possible, to provide opportunities for training and employment to lower-income residents of the project area. The contractor awarded the contract has an established crew and there were no new hires as a result of the project.
Agency/Program Inc <30% Inc <50% Inc <80% White Black Asian AmInd/Ala
sk Hawaiian
Other
Multi-
Racial
Total
Served Total-Hisp
Child Advocates of C-Serving All Foster Children 26 14 6 3 2 1 26 13 Community Violence S-CIC Child Sexual Assault Inte 55 19 1 2 1 32 55 29 Contra Costa County -CORE Countywide (WC Nights 1,352 632 271 27 57 16 349 1,352 211 Contra Costa Crisis -Crisis / 211 Contra Costa 2,864 685 227 21 3 8 1,920 2,864 164 Contra Costa Family -Family Justice Navigation Prog 1,412 204 75 78 4 8 1,043 1,412 864 Contra Costa Senior -Legal Services for Seniors 16 11 3 2 16 ECHO Housing-Fair Housing Services 5 20 3 27 1 28 21
ECHO Housing-Tenant/Landlord Counseling and Dis 26 16 45 63 13 3 1 7 87 15 Empowered Aging-Ombudsman Services of Contra C 192 123 12 6 51 192 14 Food Bank of Contra -Collaborative Food Distribution 416 268 15 82 5 4 42 416 40 Meals on Wheels Diab-Meals on Wheels (MOW) Mea 232 163 14 30 6 19 232 24 Meals on Wheels Diab-Senior Nutrition - CC Cafes 391 198 12 92 8 11 70 391 56 Monument Crisis Cent-Critical Safety Net Resources 6,416 193 13 914 138 941 10 45 4,574 6,622 3,310 Monument Impact-Emerging Business Support Progr 11 4 1 3 13 16 13 Opportunity Junction-Healthcare Career Pathway 6 2 4 2 2 8 3 STAND! For Families -Rollie Mullen Center Emergen 13 1 12 13 7 Winter Nights Family-Winter Nights Family Shelter, In 12 3 6 3 12 2 City of Concord ADA Curb Ramps 8,000 5,792 1,008 384 72 16 728 8,000 2,392 Habitat for Humanity Home Rehab program 4 4 5 9 2 1 1 13 1 Total 11,193 10,495 67 9,129 1,802 1,679 164 114 8,867 21,755 7,179 Concord Community Development Block Grant FY 2024/25
Income and Race/Ethnicity Information
Exhibit A-1
Agency Program FY 2024/25
Funding CDBG/CCDF
Leverage Leveraging Amount
Per CDBG Dollar
CC Behavioral Health Services
Homeless Program CORE Outreach Team $12,500 $177,081 $14.17 Contra Costa Crisis Center Crisis / 211 Contra Costa $12,500 $2,853,846 $228.31 Contra Costa Family Justice
Center
Family Justice Navigation $10,000 $7,101,783 $710.18
Contra Costa Senior Legal
Services
Legal Services for Seniors $11,250 $1,099,737 $97.75
Court Appointed Special
Advocates (CASA)
Children At Risk $11,250 $1,675,836 $148.96
ECHO Housing Fair Housing Services $10,000
ECHO Housing Tenant/Landlord Services $10,000 $147,151
Empowered Aging (formerly
Ombudsman Services of Contra Costa)
Ombudsman Services
$10,000 $3,451,403 $345.14
Food Bank of Contra Costa
and Solano
Collaborative Food
Distribution $12,500 $2,001,906 $160.15
Winter Nights Shelter Winter Nights Shelter $10,000 $649,735 $64.97 Meals On Wheels and Senior
Outreach Services
Senior Nutrition - CC Cafes $10,000 $315,828 $31.58
Meals On Wheels and Senior
Outreach Services
Meals on Wheels (MOW) $10,000 $1,802,000 $180.20
Monument Crisis Center
Critical Safety Net Resources for
Families and Individuals $15,000 $2,809,682 $187.31
STAND! For Families Free of
Violence
Rollie Mullen Center - Emergency
Shelter $10,000 $554,616 $55.46
Monument Impact Business Support Program $20,000 $ 80,432 $ 4.02 Opportunity Junction Healthcare Career Pathway $20,000 $ 1,238,476 $ 61.92 City of Concord ADA Curb Cuts $300,000 $ 90,405 $ 0.30
City of Concord Community &
Economic Development
Housing Rehabilitation and
Grant Program
$375,417
$ 26,049,917.00
$ 29.93
FY 2024/25 CAPER Leveraging Chart Exhibit A-2
Public Services
Fair Housing. No leverage required.
Economic Development
Infrastructure/Public Facilities
Housing
Housing Rehab. No leverage required.
Total Dollars Leveraged
Average Leverage Per CDBG Dollar
Staff Report
Date: September 23, 2025
To: City Council
From: Valerie J. Barone, City Manager
Reviewed by: Mindy Gentry, Director of Community Development Aaron Sage, AICP, Planning Manager
Prepared by: Frank Abejo, Principal Planner
[email protected]
(925) 671-3128
Subject: Receiving a two-year update on the implementation of Concord Municipal Code Title 18 (Development Code), Chapter
18.152 (Objective Design Standards or ODS), and providing direction to staff on whether all new single-family dwelling developments should be included in the ODS update project or just small lot developments.
CEQA: Not a “project” and/or exempt under Public Resources Code Section 21065, California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines Sections 15060(c)(2), 15378 and/or
15061(b)(3).
Report in Brief
On September 12, 2023, the City Council (Council) adopted Objective Design Standards (ODS), including the 2023 City of Concord Objective Design Standards (Attachment 1), for housing development projects where state law prohibits the application of subjective design standards or requires a ministerial (i.e., non- discretionary) approval process. When adopting the ODS, the Council directed staff to provide a one- and two-year update on the implementation of the ODS. On September 10, 2024, staff provided the Council with a one-year update, and the Council directed staff to prepare amendments to the ODS to include small lot development projects. This report provides a two-year update.
4.a4.a4.a
City Council Agenda Report
Agenda Item No. 4.a
September 23, 2025
On January 1, 2025, California Senate Bill (SB) 450 became effective, which prohibits local governments from applying any design standards or review procedures to one- and two-unit housing projects subject to SB 91 that do not apply uniformly to other residential development within the same zoning district. The City’s current ODS contain various standards for SB 9 projects that do not apply uniformly to single-family residential development in the same districts. Therefore, the City’s ODS for SB 9 projects are now unenforceable. Staff requests Council direction on whether to include developing standards for all single-family dwelling developments as part of the upcoming ODS update project that was initially intended to address small lot development projects only. Developing standards for all new single-family dwelling developments would allow the City the ability to apply those standards to projects subject to SB 9.
Recommended Action
Receive a two-year update on the implementation of Concord Municipal Code Title 18 (Development Code), Chapter 18.152 (Objective Design Standards or ODS), and providing direction on whether to include individual single-family dwellings in the upcoming ODS update project or just small lot development projects.
Background
Over the past several years, the state has enacted various laws which allow local governments to apply only “objective” design and development standards to qualifying housing development projects. These laws primarily applied to multifamily residential projects, mixed-use with at least two-thirds of the overall building square footage dedicated to residential, emergency shelters, single-room occupancies, group housing, and new units constructed under SB 9. On September 12, 2023, to ensure compliance with these laws, the Council adopted Ordinance No. 23-6 entitled, “An Ordinance Amending the City of Concord’s Development Code (Title 18) by Adding Chapter 18.152 - Objective Design Standards (2023-2031 Housing Element Objective 15.3) (PL23101 – DC).”
On January 1, 2025, California Senate Bill (SB) 450 became effective, which prohibits local governments from applying any design standards or review procedures to one- and two-unit housing projects subject to SB 9 that do not apply uniformly to other residential development within the same zoning district. The City’s current ODS contain various standards for SB 9 projects that do not apply uniformly to single-family residential development in the same districts. Therefore, the City’s ODS for SB 9 projects are now unenforceable.
1 SB 9 (Government Code Sections 65852.21 and 66411.7) became effective on January 1, 2022, and requires ministerial approval of a housing development with up to two primary units in a single-family zone, the subdivision of a parcel in a single-family zone into two parcels, or both. SB 9 facilitates the creation of up to four housing units on a lot typically used for one single-family home.
City Council Agenda Report
Agenda Item No. 4.a
September 23, 2025
The ODS continue to apply to all new residential and mixed-use development projects where state law allows only objective standards or where state law or the City’s code requires a ministerial approval process. In addition to legal compliance, the purpose of the ODS is to help ensure high quality, economically feasible, and sustainable design for new housing projects. Developers who do not want to comply with the City’s ODS may still request a subjective review process.
When adopting Chapter 18.152, Council requested a one- and two-year update by staff on the implementation of the ODS. On September 10, 2024, staff provided Council with a one-year update, where the following ODS topics were discussed:
• Implementation actions, successes and challenges;
• Current market conditions affecting housing development; • Streamlining results;
• Unintended consequences;
• Case studies of ODS-reviewed projects; and
• Other projects not covered by the ODS but which should be (i.e., “identified gaps”).
Based on the expansion of laws limiting a jurisdiction’s ability to only apply objective standards, staff identified and recommended small lot residential developments2 for inclusion in the ODS as a major housing development type currently not addressed. The Council concurred and established an ad hoc committee to develop ODS standards for this project type, with Mayor Obringer (Vice Mayor at the time of appointment) and Council member Hoffmeister appointed to serve on the committee until the Council’s adoption of the small lot standards.
Analysis
The following two-year update includes a summary of the one-year update for comparison and tracking progress.
1. Implementation
One-year Update Summary. Staff completed the following items to implement the ODS:
• Design and Site Review application incorporating this streamlined process;
2 A small lot residential development consists of single-family attached or detached units on lots less than 6,000 square feet. These projects may be approved through a Use Permit to allow smaller lot sizes than would otherwise be allowed in the applicable zoning district.
City Council Agenda Report
Agenda Item No. 4.a
September 23, 2025
• Objective Design Standards Supplemental Checklist;
• Frequently Asked Questions;
• Process flowchart showing the ODS design review process versus the traditional design review process; and
• A dedicated Objective Design Standards webpage to provide guidance on application submittal and intake, the City’s design standards, and permitting requirements.
Due to the limited use of the ODS, staff only made minor corrections and modifications related to formatting, spelling and grammar, and corrections to state law references. No substantive modifications to Chapter 18.152 or the ODS that require review by the Design Review Board, Planning Commission, or Council were made.
Two-Year Update. Staff has identified the following additional items to further improve ODS implementation:
• The supplemental checklist is a single document that combines the various checklists for different ODS areas and project types (i.e., projects located in general neighborhoods, Downtown, Downtown Corridors, North Todos Santos, Eichler, and Canterbury Village areas, and special case infill projects). Staff would like to make the checklists more user-friendly by providing them individually rather than combining them into a single large document. Additionally, the checklist for SB 9 projects will be removed since the ODS standards for these projects can no longer be enforced due to SB 450.
• The supplemental checklist provides links to external maps to help applicants determine whether their project is located in an area subject to ODS. However, these maps do not show parcels, which can make it difficult to determine whether properties are subject to the ODS if they are located on the fringes of the areas subject to the ODS. Staff will create larger scale maps with parcel lines to make it easier for residents and developers to self-determine if they are in such an area. • Staff will be creating a survey to obtain feedback from applicants on their experience working with the ODS.
• Staff in the Community Development Department will receive formal training on ODS implementation.
Staff expects completing the checklist updates and maps by the end of this calendar year. The survey and staff training are expected to be completed by the first quarter of 2026.
City Council Agenda Report
Agenda Item No. 4.a
September 23, 2025
2. Current Market
One-year Update Summary. Housing development was stymied by increased interest rates and the broader economy over the last couple of years. The effective federal funds rate (EFFR)3 increased significantly, substantially affecting mortgage and financing rates, and the housing market at large. This economic reality was reflected in the City’s permit activity for new residential structures.
After Fiscal Year (FY) 2021-2022, building permits issued for new residential structures declined by approximately 60 percent, with most of these permits being for accessory dwelling units (ADUs).4
Two-year Update. Key economic conditions affecting the housing market have not improved. The one-year update reported an EFFR of 5.33 percent as of July 2023 with 30-year fixed mortgage rates hovering around seven percent. The EFFR remained steady through September 2024, followed by three decreases through December 2024 to its current rate of 4.33 percent. Rates for 30-year fixed mortgages ranged between 6.60 – 7.04 percent during these EFFR decreases.5
The persistence of inflation and recent import tariffs, particularly on building materials, has worked against the EFFR and mortgage rate decreases.
According to an April 2025 survey prepared for the National Association of Housing Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index, builders estimate a typical cost increase of $10,900 per home because of tariffs. Additionally, the uncertainty around U.S. trade policy has made it challenging for the building industry to adjust to tariffs. The construction industry also continues to face labor shortages leading to increased costs for housing production due to higher labor costs.
Table 1 shows that building permit activity has been steady for the past three fiscal years with permits for new residential construction comprised largely of ADUs.
3 The interest rate at which depository institutions (banks and credit unions) lend reserve balances to other depository institutions overnight, on an uncollateralized basis. 4 Accessory dwelling units made up 72 percent of permits for new residential construction in FY 22-23 and 90 percent in FY 23-24.
5 As of September 12, 2025, the 30-year fixed mortgage rate is 6.35 percent, the lowest rate in nearly a year. The rate decrease is attributed to an expectation that the Federal Reserve will start cutting the EFFR rate.
City Council Agenda Report
Agenda Item No. 4.a
September 23, 2025
Table 1. Building Permits, FY 2022-23 to FY 2024-2025
Building Permits FY 2022-2023 FY 2023-2024 FY 2024-2025 Total 96 96 106
New Residential (ADU) A. 93 (67) 96 (86) 104 (78)
New Commercial 3 0 2
A. The figures in parenthesis are included in the overall, i.e., 67 of the 93 units were ADUs in FY 22-23.
3. Streamlining
One-year Update Summary. Due to the limited number of projects reviewed under the ODS (two), staff was unable to evaluate the effectiveness of ODS in streamlining the approval process.
Two-year Update. The City has not processed any projects subject to ODS since the one-year update.
4. Successes and Challenges – Perception of Standards
One-Year Update Summary. Applicants with no development experience, which was usually the case for SB 9 applicants, perceived the ODS to be somewhat cumbersome. Additionally, staff was learning how to apply a lengthy new set of standards.
Two-Year Update. The lack of projects reviewed under ODS has made it challenging for staff to evaluate the effectiveness of the ODS and become more familiar with the new standards. This is unlikely to change under current housing market conditions. However, staff will be creating a survey to obtain critical feedback from applicants on their experience working with the ODS.
5. Unintended Consequences
One-Year Update Summary. Applicants for SB 9 projects viewed the ODS as cumbersome and difficult to comply with because they seemed more appropriate for a small home or small duplex. Applicants for ODS projects generally found it difficult to distinguish between staff comments related to development standards versus ODS standards. Generally, applicants have viewed the ODS as more cumbersome up front, but providing time savings in the long run due to the greater certainty of compliance as opposed to traditional subjective standards.
Two-Year Update. Staff has not identified additional unintended consequences due to the lack of projects that were reviewed under the ODS.
6. Case Studies
One-Year Update Summary. Case studies of two SB 9 duplex projects were provided. Staff found the ODS was successful in providing guidance to applicants on compatible duplex designs and addressing unusual design issues.
City Council Agenda Report
Agenda Item No. 4.a
September 23, 2025
Two-Year Update. No projects were reviewed under ODS since the one-year update.
7. Identified Gaps
One-Year Update Summary. The ODS do not apply to subdivisions (neither small lot developments nor traditional subdivisions) or existing structures to be used for emergency shelters, supportive housing, and low barrier navigation centers.
Based on the limited number of large vacant parcels, costs, and staff capacity, the Council determined it was not necessary to address traditional subdivisions in the ODS because traditional major subdivisions are a relatively uncommon project type when compared with the prevalence of small lot subdivisions. It was also anticipated that the private market, given the price point, would naturally support high-quality and aesthetically pleasing designs for these types of projects.
In August 2024, the Council adopted an ordinance amending the Development Code to include operational and objective development standards for emergency shelters, supportive housing, and low barrier navigation centers. The Council decided not to address the rehabilitation or repurposing of existing buildings for these project types in the ODS at the time due to limited staff capacity.6 Two-Year Update. Adding small lot development projects to the ODS remains a top priority but has been delayed due to the retirement of the planner managing the ODS update. Next steps for this effort are discussed below.
As noted above, SB 450 prohibited local governments from imposing standards on SB 9 projects “that do not apply uniformly to development within the underlying zone.”7 Because the City’s ODS standards for SB 9 projects do not apply to single-family dwellings, those standards are currently unenforceable.
The City does not have general ODS standards for single-family dwellings.8 At a minimum, the City should remove the SB 9 standards from the ODS to avoid any confusion by the public. If the Council desires to continue applying ODS standards to SB 9 projects, staff recommends that it direct staff to include the development of ODS standards that would apply both to SB 9 projects and non- SB 9 newly constructed single-family development as part of the work program that will be addressing ODS standards for small lot developments. 6 The ODS contains objective design standards related to outdoor gathering spaces for emergency shelters, single- room occupancies (SROs), and group homes but not for building or landscape design. 7 Government Code Section 65852.21(b)(3).
8 The ODS includes standards for new single-family homes located in the North Todos Santos, Eichler, and Canterbury Village neighborhoods; however, these cannot be applied to SB 9 projects.
City Council Agenda Report
Agenda Item No. 4.a
September 23, 2025
This effort will have to address various complex issues, including:
• Applying new design standards to a broad class of relatively minor projects (single-family homes) that are currently exempt from such standards, without causing undue burden to applicants and property owners.
• Developing “uniformly applicable” design standards that are suitable for single-family homes, duplexes, traditional residential subdivisions, and small lot developments.
• Establishing the appropriate degree of review for determining conformance with the ODS.
If the Council directs staff to develop ODS standards for single-family dwelling development projects, staff will include this item in the ODS update work program that is anticipated to be presented to the Council for approval later this year or in early 2026, with a request that the Council both re-establish and expand the scope of the ODS Ad Hoc Committee. Along with this work program, staff will request the Council’s approval of a consultant contract for all ODS update work and, if necessary, a budget amendment to fund the contract. Staff will then begin working with the consultant and the ODS Ad Hoc Committee to implement the Council’s direction, and return to the Council for consideration of the expanded ODS document and any related code amendments. A proposed timeline for the project will be presented as part of the work program.
If the Council chooses not to develop ODS standards for single-family homes, then SB 9 projects and traditional subdivisions (both minor and major subdivisions) for single-family homes would be subject to the minimal existing objective standards contained in the Development Code and Community Design Guidelines, except for non-SB 9 projects located in special neighborhoods covered by the ODS (i.e. Eichler, Canterberry Village). Existing objective standards are generally limited to building setbacks, height, and lot coverage, and do not address building architecture or landscape design. Staff has also identified a gap where minor subdivisions are neither exempt nor subjected to the ODS. However, the Development Code currently exempts single-family homes as part of a major subdivision from the ODS and as a clean-up item, proposed amendments would make clear that minor subdivisions are also exempt from the ODS.
Financial Impact
It is difficult to determine the financial impact at this stage as the full scope of the effort has not been determined. Staff will provide an expected cost when presenting the ODS update work program.
City Council Agenda Report
Agenda Item No. 4.a
September 23, 2025
Environmental Determination
Pursuant to the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) of 1970, Public Resources Code Section 21000, et. seq., as amended and implementing State CEQA Guidelines, Title 14, Chapter 3 of the California Code of Regulations (collectively “CEQA”), the recommended action is not a “project” within the meaning of Public Resources Code Section 21065, 14 Cal Code Regs. Section 15060(c)(2) or 15378 because it involves no final action and therefore has no potential for resulting in either a direct physical change in the environment, or a reasonably foreseeable indirect physical change in the environment. Even if the recommended action were deemed a project under CEQA, it would fall within the “common sense” exemption set forth in 14 Cal. Code Regs. Section 15061(b)(3), excluding projects where “it can be seen with certainty that there is no possibility that the activity in question may have a significant effect on the environment…” Therefore, the recommended action does not warrant further environmental review.
This determination reflects the City’s independent judgement and analysis.
Public Contact
The City Council Agenda was posted. The interested parties list was also notified.
Attachments
1. 2023 City of Concord Objective Design Standards
2023 City of Concord
Objective Design
Standards
Multiple Family
Residential Objective
Design Standards (Final)
September 6, 2023,
modified Aug. 2, 2024
Attachment 1
Project Team
City Staff
Mindy Gentry, Planning Manager
Joan Ryan, Principal Planner
MIG
Mukul Malhotra, Principal and Director of Urban Design
Laura Stetson, Principal
Christine Scott Thomson, Director of Sustainability /Urban Planning & Design Saul Vasquez, Planner & Urban Designer
Ellie Gertler, Planner
Shikha Merchant, Urban Designer
Acknowledgements
City Council
Laura Hoffmeister, Mayor
Edi E. Birsan, Vice Mayor
Dominic Aliano, Councilmember
Laura Nakamura, Councilmember
Carlyn Obringer, Councilmember
Planning Commission
Jason Laub, Chair
Aeysha Corio, Vice Chair
Ajit Kaushal, Member
Craig Mizutani,
Member
Raymond Barbour, Member
Design Review Board
Kirk Shelby, Chair
Jill Finn, Vice Chair
Ronald Leone, Public Member
Jack Moore, Design Professional
Raymond Barbour, Planning Commission Representative
Housing and Economic Development
Edi E. Birsan, Chair
Carlyn S. Obringer, Member
ii ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards Page 11 of 115
Table of Contents ▪ iii
Table of Contents
Chapter 01
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 A. Purpose, Intent, and Applicability 2
B. R e l a ti o n s h i p t o O t h e r S t a n d a r d s a n d R e q u i r e m e n t s 3 C. Implementation 3
Chapter 02
Citywide Objective Design Standards . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 A. Site Plan 6
1. Site Planning and Orientation
2. Parking
B. Architectural/Building Design 10
1. Massing and Articulation 10
2. Roof Treatments 11
3. Windows and Doors 12
4. Garage Doors 12
5. Balconies 12
6. Architectural Detailing 13
7. Materials 14
8. Colors 15
C. Landscape Design 16
1. Landscaping 16
2. Street Trees 17
3. Plant and Non-plant Materials 18
4. Water Conservation 18
D. Detailing 19
1. Public Art 19
2. Loading, Service and Refuse Areas 19
3. EV Charging Stations 20
4. Utility and Mechanical Equipment 20
5. Lighting 21
6. Emergency Access, Addresses, and Mailboxes 22
7. Signage 22
8. Fencing and Retaining Walls 23
Chapter 03
Downtown Standands . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25 A. Site Plan 28
1. Site Planning and Orientation 28
2. Parking 29
B. Architectural and Building Design 30
1. Massing and Articulation 30
2. Roof Treatments 32
3. Ground-Floor Retail/Commercial Use within Mixed Use Buildings 33
4. Architectural Style for Inner and Outer Core only 35
5. Windows and Doors 39
6. Balconies 39
7. Materials 40
8. Color 41
C. Landscape Design 42
1. Landscape 42
2. Urban Landscape Improvements 42
D. Detailing 42
1. Architectural and Building Enhancements 42
2. Patio Enclosure (Fencing) 43
3. Loading, Service and Refuse Areas 43
4. Emergency Access, Addresses, and Mailboxes 43
5. Utility and Mechanical Equipment 43
6. Signage 43
7. Fencing and Retaining Walls 43
Chapter 04
Corridor Standards .................. . . . . . . . . . .. . . . . . . . . . .45 A. Site Plan 48
1. Site Planning and Orientation 48
2. Parking 48
B. Architectural/Building Design 49
1. Massing and Articulation 49
6 7
42
iv ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
2. Roof Treatments 50
3. Windows and Doors 50
4. Balconies 50
5. Materials 50
6. Color 50
C. Landscape Design 51
1. Public Right-of-Way Landscaping 51
D. Detailing 51
1. Loading, Service, and Refuse Areas 51
2. Patio Enclosure (Fencing) 51
3. Emergency Access, Addresses, and Mailboxes 51
4. Utility and Mechanical Equipment 51
5. Lighting 51
6. Fencing and Retaining Walls 51
Chapter 05
Neighborhood Standards ............ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53 56 56
57 58
58 59
59 59
59 59
59 66
66 A. Site Plan
1. Site Planning and Orientation
2. Parking
B. Architectural/Building Design
1. Massing and Articulation
2. Roof Treatment
3. Windows and Doors
4. Detailing
5. Balconies
6. Materials
7. Color
8. Special Neighborhood Architectural Design Treatments
9. Gov
ernment Code Sections 65852.21 and 66411.7 (S B 9)
C. Landscape Design
1. Treatment of Setbacks
2. Types of Plant Materials 66
D. Detailing 67
1. Loading, Service, and Refuse Areas 67
2. Emergency Access, Addresses, and Mailboxes 67
3. Utility and Mechanical Equipment 67
4. Lighting 67
5. Fencing 67
Chapter 06
Special Case Standards (Infill, with Sensitive Transitions, Emergency Shelters) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .69 A. Site Plan 70
1. Neighborhood Context 70
2. Site Planning and Orientation 70
3. Parking 70
B. Architectural/Building Design 71
1. Massing and Articulation 71
2. Roof Treatment 71
3. Windows and Doors 71
4. Color 71
C. Landscape Design 72
D. Emergency Shelters, SROs, and Group Homes 72
E. Detailing 73
1. Loading, Service, and Refuse Areas 73
2. Utility and Mechanical Equipment 73
3. Lighting 73
4. Fencing and Retaining Walls 73
Appendix ......................... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 A. Definitions 76
B. Abbreviations 77
C. References 78
D. Area Maps 78
E. Image Credits 83
51 60
65
Table of Contents ▪ v
List of Figures
Figure 1. Downtown development with projections, common entry and direct pedestrian access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Figure 2. Corridor development with projections, common entry and direct pedestrian access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6 Figure 3. Neighborhood townhome development with projections, common entry and direct pedestrian access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Figure 4. Common open spaces accessible to all residents and connected by site- wide pedestrian circulation system . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 Figure 5. Vehicular parking and access . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Figure 6. Pedestrian access from parking garage to sidewalk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8 Figure 7. Bicycle locker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Figure 8.Indoor bicycle room . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9 Figure 9. Downtown development ....................................... 10 Figure 10. Corridor development ........................................ 10 Figure 11. Neighborhood townhome development ......................... 10 Figure 12. Roof with articulated saddles .................................. 11 Figure 13. Roof materials and color consistent with material palette . . . . . . . . . . . 11 Figure 14. Window, door articulation for porch and balcony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12 Figure 15. Architectural detailing for Downtown buildings ................... 13 Figure 16. Architectural detailing with canopies, balconies, color change, and material change for Downtown buildings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13 Figure 17. Multiple colors on buildings of Corridor and Neighborhood development that include earth tone colors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15 Figure 18. Multiple colors on Downtown buildings that are consistent with color palette .............................................................. 15 Figure 19. Trees 50’ apart in parking lots . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Figure 20. Parking lots with trees and bioswales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Figure 21. Street trees in planter strips ................................... 17 Figure 22. Street trees in narrow planter areas meeting minimum soil volume standards by using structured soil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17 Figure 23. California native planting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Figure 24. Raised curb separations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18 Figure 25. Metal art element ........................................... 19 Figure 26. Venetian plaster ............................................. 19 Figure 27. EV Charging Station .......................................... 20 Figure 28. Wall mounted or patio mounted mechanical equipment screen . . . . . . 20 Figure 29. Sconce exterior fixture light respecting the architectural style of building 21 Figure 30. Bollard lights along pedestrian paths ............................ 21 Figure 31. Illuminated building identification visible from public street ......... 22 Figure 32. Ground Signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22 Figure 33. Fences consistent with architectural design and material palette . . . . . 23 Figure 34.Typical Downtown multi-family type building . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26 Figure 35. Downtown Map ............................................. 27 Figure 36. Multi family residential with individual entrances to ground floor units 28 Figure 37. Residential entries provided at grade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 Figure 38. Active uses along street in front of structured parking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Figure 39. Parking signage for underground and podium structures . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 Figure 40. Parking warning detail for podium parking ....................... 29 Figure 41. Pedestrian access ............................................ 30 Figure 42. Break in the wall plane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 30 Figure 43. Building wall variety . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31 Figure 44. Cornice projections on various floors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
vi ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
Figure 45. Minimum two (2) roof forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Figure 46. Green roof . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32 Figure 47. Ground floor commercial use within mixed-use buildings ........... 33 Figure 48. Ground floor appearing taller than 16’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33 Figure 49. Ground floor commercial made visually distinct through use of different color and material .................................................... 34 Figure 50. Ground floor commercial articulated with belt course, recessed doors and awnings ......................................................... 34 Figure 51. Spanish Colonial Revival - Primary Style .......................... 35 Figure 52. Mediterranean revival - primary style . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 Figure 53. Mediterranean revival styled building ........................... 36 Figure 54. Arts and Crafts - Secondary Style ............................... 37 Figure 55. Italianate - Secondary Style .................................... 38 Figure 56. Inner core window recessed with metal frames ................... 39 Figure 58. Outer core windows on upper floors with large spans and minimal recessed frames ...................................................... 39 Figure 57. Inner core window recessed with gridded iron work ............... 39 Figure 59. Exterior Building Wall Material Transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40 Figure 60. Stucco material less than 60% of building exterior ................. 40 Figure 61. New material or color every 20’ ................................ 40 Figure 62. Exterior walls with minimum 3 earth tone color palette . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41 Figure 63. Landscaping with pervious surfaces and pavers ................... 42 Figure 64. Landscape vertical elements ................................... 42 Figure 65. Raised patio with maximum three (3) foot tall wooden enclosure .... 43 Figure 66. Patios with a locking gate at grade level enclosed with metal railing, concrete wall and landscaping area. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43 Figure 67: Typical Corridor multi-family building type ....................... 46 Figure 68: Corridors map .............................................. 47 Figure 69: Vehicular surface parking, access and location standard for Corridor Development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 Figure 70: Sloping carports separated by landscaping ....................... 48 Figure 71: Massing and articulation ...................................... 49 Figure 72: Balconies, openings, and elements for breaking mass of the building 49 Figure 73: Roof texture consistent with architectural materials palette ......... 50 Figure 74: Primary entrances along ground floor with porch minimum four (4) feet deep and more than sixty-four (64) square feet in size . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50 Figure 75: Trees in front yard along sidewalk . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 Figure 76: Fencing with change in height and material ...................... 51 Figure 77: Typical neighborhood townhome multi-family building type ........ 54 Figure 78: Aerial view of existing neighborhood ............................ 55 Figure 79: Existing housing typology in neighborhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55 Figure 80: Primary entrance with porches, projections over doorway with change in material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 Figure 81: Garage entrance 16’ wide ..................................... 57 Figure 82: Example massing ............................................ 58 Figure 83: Building bulk/ Relief and Rhythm ............................... 58 Figure 84: Changing roof profiles with multiple roof forms ................... 59 Figure 85: Exterior wall with three colors including trim ..................... 59 Figure 86: North Todos Santos neighborhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60 Figure 87: Housing typology in North Todos Santos neighborhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Figure 88: Housing typology in North Todos Santos neighborhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 List of Figures
Table of Contents ▪ vii
Figure 89: Housing typology in North Todos Santos neighborhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Figure 90: Housing typology in North Todos Santos neighborhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61 Figure 91: Eichler neighborhoods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62 Figure 92: Homes in Eichler neighborhood ................................ 63 Figure 94: Homes in Eichler neighborhood ................................ 63 Figure 93: Homes in Eichler neighborhood ................................ 63 Figure 95: Homes in Eichler neighborhood ................................ 63 Figure 96: Canterbury Village neighborhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64 Figure 97: Housing typology in Canterbury Village neighborhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Figure 98: Housing typology in Canterbury Village neighborhood . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 Figure 99: Landscaped front and exterior side yards ........................ 66 Figure 100: Landscaped front yards ...................................... 66 Figure 101: Fencing and change in plane and material . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67 Figure 102: Roof pitch similar to adjoining residential structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70 Figure 103: Front entry highlighted with stoop ............................ 70 Figure 104: Building walls with adequate window detail ..................... 71 Figure 105: Exterior building walls with minimum two colors including trim .... 71 Figure 106: Landscape outdoor screening along 10’ side setbacks . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 Figure 107: Common outdoor gathering space at group housing with benches, tables, and chairs ..................................................... 72 Figure 108: Ground mounted mechanical equipment screen ................. 73 List of Figures List of Tables
Table 1: Building Wall Massing and Articulation Dimensions Table . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14 Table 2: Soil Volume . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
viii ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
Concord Objective Design Standards ▪ 1
01 Introduction
A. Purpose, Intent, and Applicability ... . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 B. Relationship to Other Standards and Requirements. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 C. Implementation .................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3
2 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
A. Purpose, Intent, and
Applicability
a. The objective design standards draw from and
complement existing context-based design
guidelines criteria set forth in land policy
documents adopted by the City, which include
the City of Concord Citywide Design Guidelines,
Downtown Concord Design Guidelines, North
Todos Santos Design Guidelines, Downtown
Corridors Plan, and the Downtown Concord
Specific Plan.
b. These objective design standards are intended to
maintain high-quality site planning and building
architecture for residential and mixed-use
residential projects with a goal of integrating
new residential development into the existing
community fabric. The standards are prepared
to facilitate development in a manner that
conforms to past community design priorities.
The purpose of the objective design standards
is to reduce barriers to housing development
by accelerating housing production through
the clear communication of design objectives
and streamlined review for qualifying housing
projects.
c. The provisions of this chapter shall apply to
all new qualifying residential and mixed-use
development projects, where state law limits
the City of Concord’s enforcement of design
standards to objective standards or where
state law or the City Code require a ministerial
01. Introduction
The following objective design standards apply to
all new residential projects throughout the City
of Concord, with the exception of those projects
described in Concord Development Code (CDC)
Section 18.152.040. These projects include multi-
family, emergency shelters, single-room occupancies,
group housing, and mixed-use residential
developments with at least two-thirds of the overall
building square footage dedicated as residential.
These objective design standards address a variety
of building forms, including high-rise, mid-rise and
mixed-use buildings, row houses, townhouses,
duplex, triplex, and four-plex units, as well as certain single-family homes.
The design standards distinguish between projects
in Downtown Concord (the urban core of the
community), Corridors (along a set of major arterials), Neighborhood (along residential streets), and Special
Case (infill, sensitive transition projects, emergency
shelters for unhoused persons) projects.*
approval process. Qualifying projects include
those referenced in the following:
i. Government Code Section 65913.4 (Senate
Bill (SB) 35),
ii. Government Code Sections 65589.5 and
65941.1 (SB 330),
iii. Government Code Sections 66411.7 and
65852.21 (SB 9),
iv. Government Code Section 65912.100 (AB
2011),
v. Government Code Section 65913.4 (SB 6),
and
vi. Any future State legislation or City
regulations that require ministerial approval
for residential or mixed-use projects.
d. This City of Concord Municipal Code Chapter
18.152 and associated documents do not
apply to non-qualifying single-family homes,
non-qualifying multi-family properties, historic
properties, commercial-only projects, and any
other non-residential developments.
Chapter 01 Citywide Objective Design Standards ▪ 3
B. Relationship to Other
Standards and Requirements
a. All projects are required to comply with all
regulations and provisions in the Concord
Municipal Code.
b. The provisions in this document are intended to
supersede other design guidelines, except where
noted in CDC Chapter 18.152.
C. Implementation
a. Application checklists. The Planning Division shall
prepare and maintain the appropriate checklist of
requirements for submittal and review of
qualifying housing projects.
b. The Community Development Director, or his/her
designee, shall be the final reviewer and decision
maker for compliance with the objective design
standards. Staff is authorized to update the 2023
City of Concord Objective Design Standards by
including additional illustrations that improve the
usability of the document, to the extent such
additions are in strict compliance with the 2023
City of Concord Objective Design Standards, as
adopted by Ordinance No. 23-6.
c. Appeals and other post decision procedures can
be found in CDC Section 18.152.060.
* Graphics utilized in the following pages are to
illustrate the specific component identified and may
not necessarily capture all standards of the document
within the graphic. Graphics shall not be construed to
represent standards that are not specifically identified in the graphic. Photos are illustrative for conceptual
purposes, the text shall prevail.
4 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
Concord Objective Design Standards ▪ 5
02 Citywide Objective Design
Standards
A. Site Plan ........................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6 B. Architectural/Building Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .10 C. Landscape Design ................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .16 D. Detailing ........................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .19
6 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
A. Site Plan
1. Site Planning and Orientation
a. A building adjacent to a street shall be oriented
parallel to the street frontage for at least fifty
(50) percent of the exterior building wall. The
front entry and any associated features shall be
oriented to the primary street and be set back
pursuant to the CDC for the applicable zoning
district. (Figure 1), (Figure 2), (Figure 3)
b. Allowed projections of steps, stoops, porches,
patios, and terraces into the required building
02. Citywide Objective
Design Standards
These overarching standards apply to residential and
mixed-use residential building types that are subject
to the objective design standards. These standards
are the foundation to facilitate the highest level of
design quality while allowing flexibility in the design of residential development. All proposed residential
buildings shall reflect high-quality, four-sided
architecture by presenting a balance in the use of
colors, materials, articulation, massing, and building
detailing as described throughout the standards in
the sections below.
Standards within the geographic specific areas
that follow this Citywide section (i.e., Downtown,
Corridors, Neighborhoods, Special Case) shall prevail
if in conflict with the Citywide Objective Design
Standards in this section.
General standards for this section include site
planning and orientation, architectural and building
design, landscape design, and building detailing.
setback are specified pursuant to CDC Section
18.150.140.
c. A common entry lobby shall face the street for
residential buildings that have a shared common
entry to multiple units.
d. Direct pedestrian access shall be provided to
connect any adjacent sidewalk and the primary
building entry. In the case of multiple individual
ground floor residential entries, direct pedestrian
access shall be provided for each building entry.
Figure 1. Downtown development with projections, common entry and direct pedestrian access
Figure 2. Corridor development with projections, common entry and direct pedestrian access
c
c
dd
d
b
b
Chapter 02 Citywide Objective Design Standards ▪ 7
For mixed-use projects, commercial uses on
corner properties shall include direct pedestrian
access only from the front, or corner side
property line.
e. Common open spaces shall be accessible to
residents from all buildings and connected by a
site-wide pedestrian circulation system. (Figure
4)
f. To enhance privacy, windows on facing buildings
shall not directly align with one another on site
Figure 3. Neighborhood townhome development with
projections, common entry and direct pedestrian access
Figure 4. Common open spaces accessible to all residents and connected by site-wide pedestrian circulation system if located opposite each other within a courtyard
and less than 40 feet distance between them.
Exceptions are allowed where the windows
are opaque, clerestory, or otherwise treated to
obscure views.
g. If an identified bicycle route is adjacent to
a proposed project, improvements shall be
provided in conformance with the City’s Bicycle,
Pedestrian, and Safe Routes to Transit Plan.1
Pedestrian and vehicular circulation shall not
cross a bicycle route unless visibility triangles
are maintained and speed bump and/or warning
light provided.
h. The following off-site generators of pedestrian
movements shall be identified and shown to
connect via a sidewalk or other pedestrian
priority way to the pedestrian circulation system:
i. Open spaces, including paseos
ii. Schools – public or private
iii. Shopping centers
iv. Bus stops
i. Projects shall demonstrate potential energy
generation capacity consistent with the
state wide building standard code through a
recognized assessment method or calculation
tool of either the Title 24 Section 140.10
equation, the total of all available Solar Access
Roof Area (SARA) multiplied by 14W / ft2,
the Solar Assessment Tool or the PVWatts®
Calculator, and/or passive use of sunlight though
analysis or calculation of either a daylight
analysis per room, or window area by floor area
per room.
c
d
b
1 Bicycle route as identified by the City of Concord’s Bicycle, Pedestrian, and Safe Routes to Transit Plan
8 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
• Landscaped berms
• Solid wall
• Solid fencing
• Shrub materials (boxwood hedge or
similar dense shrub)
• Trellis with landscape material
vi. Grade-level parking spaces located under
residential buildings shall not be visible
from the public right-of-way and shall be
eighty (80) percent screened with one of the
following (including openings to allow for air
flow):
• Building walls
• Landscaped berms
• Shrubs, grasses and/or vines
vii. On structured parking buildings, reflective
colors and finishes are prohibited on
exterior and interior walls. For interior walls,
reflective colors and finishes are allowable
to provide markings for safety or as required
by law.
viii. The exterior walls of structured parking
facilities shall be finished in a light-
absorbing, light relfective value (LRV) of 60%
or below or non-reflective color.
2. Parking
a. Vehicular Parking
i. Where surface parking is provided due
to the presence of seismic or geologic
(including hydrogeologic) conditions that
prohibit subsurface parking, surface parking
areas shall be located at the rear of the
building and accessed from the rear of the
property. (Figure 5)
ii. Pedestrian access to a parking garage or
surface parking lot, open space walking
trail, and/or pedestrian way to BART shall be
provided to connect to the sidewalk along
the public street. (Figure 6)
iii. Surface parking lots over twenty-five
thousand (25,000) square feet in area are
prohibited. Parking lot design shall instead
consist of smaller scattered lots rather than
one large lot. Up to fifty (50) percent of
required parking spaces may be provided in
a single location.
iv. On-site guest parking, if required, shall be
included within the parking area provided
for residents, be adjacent to the primary or
main building entry, and labeled as guest
parking.
v. Screening that is a minimum of thirty (30)
inches tall shall be provided for surface
parking lots adjacent to required front or
corner side setback areas using one of the
following approaches:
Figure 5. Vehicular parking and access
Figure 6. Pedestrian access from parking garage to sidewalk StreetParking in Rear
Chapter 02 Citywide Objective Design Standards ▪ 9
Figure 7. Bicycle locker
Figure 8.Indoor bicycle room
b. Bicycle Parking
i. Short-term bicycle parking shall be provided
consistent with CDC Section 18.160.120(A),
shall consist of racks that support the cycle
frame at two points and allow for the bicycle
frame and one wheel to be locked to the
rack with a U-lock, shall be covered by a
permanent solid-roofed weather protection
structure, and shall be incorporated within
operating surveillance camera coverage area
of the building, if provided.
ii. Long-term bicycle parking facilities (Class
I) shall consist of bicycle lockers or bicycle
rooms with key access for use by residents
and adhere to the standards below.
• Long-term bicycle parking facilities shall
be located on the ground floor and shall
not be located externally between the
building and the street.
• Multi-family residential and mixed-use
buildings shall provide one (1) long-term
bicycle parking space for every four
(4) dwelling units. Developments such
as townhomes that include individual
garages for each unit shall not be
required to provide long-term bicycle
parking.
• Bicycle locker minimum requirements:
a. Dimensions of forty-two (42)
inches wide, seventy-five (75) inches
deep, and fifty-four (54) inches high.
b. Must withstand a load of at least two
hundred (200) pounds per square foot.
c. Opened door must withstand at least
a five hundred (500)-pound vertical load.
(Figure 7)
iii. Bicycle rooms shall have a minimum ceiling
height of seven (7) feet. (Figure 8)
• Bicycle rooms shall contain racks that
support bicycle frame at two (2) points
and allow for bicycle frame and one
wheel to be locked to the rack with a
U-lock.
• Long-term bicycle parking spaces shall be
served by an aisle with a minimum width
of six (6) feet.
• A space of at least two (2) feet shall
be provided to allow for maneuvering
between the aisle and long-term bicycle
parking spaces.
iv. Each horizontal long-term bicycle parking
space shall be a minimum of seven (7) feet
in length, two (2) feet in width, four-and
one-half (4-½) feet in height. Each vertical
long-term bicycle parking space shall be a
minimum of three-and one-half (3-½) feet in
length, two (2) feet in width, and seven (7)
feet in height.
10 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
B. Architectural/Building Design
1. Massing and Articulation
a. All building masses for residential buildings
greater than forty (40) feet in length shall have a
wall depth change of a minimum of twenty-four
(24) inches.
b. All building masses greater than twenty (20)
feet in length shall provide a minimum of three
(3) of the following features for articulation:
(Figure 9), (Figure 10), (Figure 11)
i. Balconies
ii. Bay windows, recessed windows, and/or
projecting windows
iii. Canopies or trellises above doors and
windows
iv. Color and/or material change
v. Roof height change
vi. Window detail, of either lintels, sills, trims,
or wall plane change, a minimum of six (6)
inches in depth
c. Bay windows and projecting building elements
shall project at least twenty-four (24) inches but
no more than thirty-six (36) inches.
d. Transitional standards shall be implemented,
Figure 9. Downtown development Figure 10. Corridor development Figure 11. Neighborhood townhome development v
i
i
ii
ii
iv
vi
vi
ii
iii
v
Illustrations showing balconies, bay windows, canopies, material/color change and roof height changes for various development types:
consistent with CDC Section 18.150.180, with
respect to setbacks, step backs, screening, and
landscaping to provide a transition between
abutting properties.
e. Pedestrian access to a new or existing bus
stop shall be incorporated into the pedestrian
circulation plan for the site, if applicable.
iv
Chapter 02 Citywide Objective Design Standards ▪ 11
2. Roof Treatments
a. Roof-mounted mechanical units, such as HVAC,
shall be screened from view on all sides using at
least one of the following approaches:
i. Increased roof slope
ii. Use of a parapet
iii. Screening using a material selected from the
building palette
b. Photovoltaic panels, if used, shall be integrated
into the design using a minimum of one (1) of
the following approaches, but in no event shall
any of the approaches conflict with the intent of
the implementation of statewide standards
(Government Code Section 65850.5a) to achieve
timely and cost-effective installation of solar
energy systems:
i. Same slope as the primary roof form
ii. Same size and shape as solar tiles for roof or
walls
iii. Screening so that angle for production can
be optimized
iv. A low level of contrast in color between the
solar panel and roofing material, up to ten
(10) percent difference between the two2
c. On flat roofs solar panels should be mounted to
be not seen from the public street.
d. Roof profiles (for high slope roofs, the eave, and
for low slope and flat roofs, the top) shall be
vertically articulated along all street frontages
using at least one (1) type of the following
architectural elements and/or elements that are
integral to the selected architectural style:
i. Articulated saddles (Figure 12)
ii. Gables
iii. Hip and valleys
iv. Dormers
v. Shed
vi. Eave overhang of a minimum of eighteen
(18) inches with exposed rafters or roof
brackets. (Figure 13)
vii. Roof parapets
e. Roof styles that include lower-sloped roofs (such
as 2:12) or below with deeper overhangs of
between two (2) and three (3) feet can be used.
f. Flat roofs shall include a minimum of one (1) of
the following details:
i. Roof cornice
ii. Parapet
iii. Changes in height
g. Gutters, downspouts, and other features used to
collect precipitation runoff from the roof, such as
rain barrels, cisterns, or pipes, shall be integrated
into roofing design using a minimum of two (2)
of the following three approaches:
i. Same colors
ii. Same material
iii. Same style
h. For buildings over forty (40) feet tall, downspouts
shall be incorporated in the interior design of the
wall and not be allowed on the exterior of the
building.
i. Roof materials and colors shall be included as a
part of the color and material palette to ensure
consistency with the building palette.
Figure 12. Roof with articulated saddles
Figure 13. Roof materials and color consistent with material palette
2Use Encycolorpedia.com or similar websites as a resource to identify the color and material palette that meets the standard
12 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
Figure 14. Window, door articulation for porch and balcony
3. Windows and Doors
a. Window detail shall be provided using
a minimum of three (3) of the following
approaches: (Figure 14)
i. Window frame and/or trim
ii. Window sill and/or lintel
iii. Awnings
iv. Shutters
v. Shade structures (fins, louvers, trellis)
vi. Recessed windows
b. Front door entry detail shall be provided using a
minimum of two (2) of the following approaches:
i. Door frame and/or trim
ii. Projected area, minimum of (3) three feet in
depth
iii. Recessed area, minimum of (3) three feet in
depth
iv. A covered porch
v. Decorative entry trellis
c. Weather protection shall be provided at
individual residential unit entries and primary
entrances to commercial uses (in mixed-
use projects) in the form of a projection at a
minimum depth of thirty-six (36) inches, such as
an overhang, canopy, awning, or porch roof.
4. Garage Doors
a. Garage doors from individual residential units on
the ground floor shall include sufficient detailing
for aesthetics, consistent with the architectural
style of the building, using at least of one (1) of
the following approaches:
i. Windows including faux, patterned, or real
ii. Door handles
iii. Decorative metal hinges
iv. Decorative panel design for example Classic,
Carriage House, Contemporary, Ranch Style,
Craftsman style.
5. Balconies
a. Balconies shall include the same materials as
building, with either wrought iron or simulated
materials, wood, metal or other opaque design,
up to sixty (60) percent transparency. No glass or
plexiglass shall be used.
b. Balconies shall have a minimum depth of forty-
eight (48) inches.
Chapter 02 Citywide Objective Design Standards ▪ 13
Figure 15. Architectural detailing for Downtown buildings Figure 16. Architectural detailing with canopies, balconies, color change, and material change for Downtown buildings
6. Architectural Detailing
a. Along any exterior building walls, material
transitions shall only occur on the inside corner
of plane change or, when material changes need
to happen in the same plane, trims, cornices,
or other architectural elements shall be used to
create a corner for material transition.
b. Walls visible from the public right-of-way shall
include building details using the following
approaches. A minimum four (4) approaches for
downtown and three (3) approaches for all other
residential development shall be used as follows:
(Figure 15), (Figure 16)
i. Balconies
ii. Bay windows
iii. Canopies or trellis above doors and windows
iv. Change in color or material
v. Roof height change
vi. Window detail of either projecting lintels,
sills, trims, and moldings
vii. Recessed elements
c. Walls of a building not visible from the public
right-of-way shall include building detail using one (1) of the following approaches:
i. Window detail, including shutters, trim, sills,
mullions, and/or lintels; or
ii. Ornamentation, including corbels, cornices,
mouldings and/or design detail of the vents
in all locations.
14 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
Building Material Notes Type
Wood, layer Siding, engineered Permitted
Wood, finish Finished layer Permitted
Wood, laminated* Mass Timber Permitted
Fiber-reinforced cement Siding and panels Permitted
Stone Masonry Permitted
Brick Masonry Permitted
Cast Stone Masonry Permitted
Stucco Finished layer Permitted
EIFS Exterior Insulation Finishing System Permitted
Clay tiles Finished layer Permitted
Metal Downtown outer core window or door frames, copper gutters, and downspouts Permitted
Canvas Awnings only Permitted
Glass Transparent, spandrel ground-floor only Permitted Vinyl siding Not Allowed
Plywood, T1-11 Not Allowed
Roofing Material Notes Type
Composition Asphalt or similar1 Permitted
Tile Clay, Concrete, Slate, or similar1 Permitted
Standing Seam Metal Not Allowed
Fencing Material Notes Type
Concrete, finished* CO2e capture Permitted
Wood fencing Cedar, Redwood, Teak, Trex Permitted
Metal fencing Wrought iron, Tubular steel Permitted
Masonry fencing Brick, Stone, Stucco Permitted
Vinyl fencing Fence panels and vinyl picket fence Permitted Barbed wire, razor, concertina,
electrified fences Prohibited pursuant to CDC Section 18.150.040(E) Not Allowed Chain link Prohibited pursuant to CDC Section 18.150.040(E) Not Allowed Table.1: Building, roofing and fencing materials
*Green building material
7. Materials
a. The following table describes those materials
that are permitted for use for exterior building
walls, roofs, and fencing, as well as those
specifically not allowed for use: (see Table 1)
b. Fifty (50) percent of the building shall be
constructed with sustainable building materials.
Materials that are considered sustainable will
have at least one (1) of the following properties:
i. Certified as Zero or low Volatile Organic
Compounds (VOC) per CalGreen (cite other
local green building guidance or resources:
Resources for developers/designers: Whole
Building Design Guide: https://www.wbdg.
org/; BuildingGreen Product Database:
https://www.buildinggreen.com/product-
guidance)
ii. Qualify as rapidly renewable in that they can
be harvested within 10 years
iii. Show to be salvaged from the existing site,
unless unsafe for human contact
iv. Produced within the region of Concord or
greater Nine-County Bay Area
v. Include a recycled content of eighty (80)
percent or above
1Where Table 1 indicates similar , the City staff will maintain a list of acceptable materials Only for fencing, see below.
Chapter 02 Citywide Objective Design Standards ▪ 15
8. Colors
a. A color palette shall be required for all structures and shall be submitted to the City including
paint manufacturer/brand, name and number
for each paint color used within the project. The
hexadecimal color code or RGB color number(s)
shall be provided for each.3
b. On all exterior building walls, buildings shall
utilize a minimum of three (3) colors, inclusive of
trim. (Figure 17), (Figure 18)
c. On any exterior building wall greater than one
hundred (100) feet in length, buildings shall
utilize a minimum of four (4) colors, inclusive of
trim.
d. Changes in color due to a change in building
material are not considered an additional color
unless the material covers twenty-five (25)
percent or more of the building.
e. Color palette for a building(s) shall include
at least one (1) earth tone color as a primary
building color.
f. Neon or fluorescent colors are prohibited.
g. Roofing materials shall be within the grey, brown,
or terra cotta family of colors. These areas not
visible from the public right of way, including flat
roofs, may be white or light color to reduce heat
island effect.
Figure 17. Multiple colors on buildings of Corridor and Neighborhood development that include earth tone colors Figure 18. Multiple colors on Downtown buildings that are consistent with color palette 3Encycolorpedia.com or similar websites may be utilized as a tool to assist with color selection
16 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
C. Landscape Design
1. Landscaping
a. The landscape design for all required landscape
areas, consistent with CDC Section 18.165.040(A)
shall use low maintenance landscape materials
including drought-tolerant plants consistent with
CDC Section 18.165.070(C)7 and CDC Chapter
18.170.
b. Trees shall be planted in all surface parking areas
at a minimum rate of one tree every (50) feet
apart for each five (5) full or six (6) compact
parking spaces. (Figure 19)
c. Shrub plantings, used as screening for parking
areas, shall be provided at a minimum height
of thirty (30) inches at plant maturity to block
headlight glare to seventy (70) percent light
transmission and shall be planted at the head of
parking stalls.
d. The two (2)-foot overhang of a parking space
shall be covered with a groundcover or low-
growing material.
e. Shrubs, groundcover, and trees planted next to
pavement shall include a low-volume irrigation
system.
f. Drought-tolerant plants with a minimum of two
(2) of the following characteristics shall be used:
i. Windbreak
ii. Accent
iii. Erosion control
iv. Flowering
g. Landscape that retains water on site shall be
included. Project shall include two (2) of the
following elements:
i. A bioswale, vegetated stormwater facilities,
or other infiltration planters. (Figure 20)
ii. Vegetated planters
iii. Shrubs and trees
iv. Underground rainwater collection systems
of either a rain barrel, water storage or
rainwater harvesting tank
h. Pool areas shall incorporate a minimum of
twenty (20) percent shaded areas relative to the
combined size of the pool and deck area during
the period 12pm - 4pm in addition to standard
landscape requirements; see CDC Chapter
18.165 Landscaping.
i. Parking spaces adjacent to a landscaped finger
shall have a minimum eighteen (18) inch wide
curb to allow for stepping out of a vehicle.
Figure 19. Trees 50’ apart in parking lots
Figure 20. Parking lots with trees and bioswales
Chapter 02 Citywide Objective Design Standards ▪ 17
2. Street Trees
a. Street trees are required for every development
and shall be planted at a maximum distance
of thirty (30) feet on-center along the street
frontage. The minimum tree size shall be a
twenty -four (24) inch box tree. Street tree
species in the vicinity of the project site shall
be considered when planting new street trees.
Location of street planting shall be as follows:
(Figure 21)
i. Where a planting strip exists, adjacent to
the curb, street trees shall be planted at a
minimum distance of two (2) feet from the
face of curb
ii. Where a planting strip exists, and is wider
than four (4) feet, the street trees shall
be planted along the center line of that
landscape strip. (Figure 22)
iii. Where the street frontage includes no
landscape strip, street trees shall be planted
a minimum of four (4) feet from the curb
face unless the public right-of-way allows
greater distance, in which case five (5) feet
Figure 21. Street trees in planter strips
Figure 22. Street trees in narrow planter areas meeting minimum soil volume standards by using structural soil
Tree Size Soil Volume (Ft3)
15’ Gallon 300
24’ Inch Box 600
36’ Inch Box 1,000
Table.2: Soil Volume
shall be utilized
iv. In all situations, sufficient soil base, as
outlined in Table 2 below, organic mulch,
root barriers, and tree grates flush with the
sidewalk surface shall be incorporated for
street trees
v. Where a planting strip of less than two (2)
feet wide exists trees shall not be planted.
b. The minimum soil volume shall be provided for
street trees according to Table 2. This can be
achieved by using visible planting soil or hidden
elements (structural soil, silva cells):
c. Street trees that drop pods or the other fruit
shall be prohibited along the public right of way.
18 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
Figure 23. California native planting
Figure 24. Raised curb separations
3. Plant and Non-plant Materials
a. California native plants shall be incorporated into
the overall design of the landscape, consistent
with the provisions in CDC Chapter 18.170. The
following plants shall be acceptable, as well as
other drought-tolerant plants found within the
most current edition of the Sunset Western
Garden Book for Zone 9b or any plants identified
by the Contra Costa Water District’s Water Wise
Program (updates to list will reflect changes to
climate, temperature or other factors related to
the health of native plants): (Figure 23)
i. Blue sage (Salvia guaranitica)
ii. Blue wildryes (Elymus glaucus)
iii. Bearberry (Arctostaphylos uva-ursi)
iv. Carmel creeper (Ceanothus griseus
horizontali)
v. Climbing penstemon (Keckiella cordifolia)
vi. June grass (Koeleria macrantha)
vii. California fescue (Festuca californica)
viii. Bush anemone (Carpenteria californica)
b. All planting beds shall be mulched with an
organic material to help retard the growth of
weeds and maintain the moisture content of soil.
Layers of mulch shall be two (2) to four (4) inches
thick on the soil surface.
c. Root bound plants or plants which show effects
of insect or disease infestation are prohibited.
d. Raised curbs of six (6) inches shall be used to
separate all planters from streets, parking and
loading areas.(Figure 24)
4. Water Conservation
a. Greywater shall be planned for a portion of
outdoor watering. When recycled water is
anticipated to be available for buildings fifty
thousand (50,000) square feet and larger,
connectivity to a municipal purple pipe system
shall be provided, when available within public
right-of-way or proximate to the rear of the site.
Chapter 02 Citywide Objective Design Standards ▪ 19
Figure 25. Metal art element
Figure 26. Venetian plaster
D. Detailing
1. Wall Detailing
a. Blank, flat walls (inclusive of expansion joints)
with a minimum dimension of forty (40) feet in
any direction shall be treated with at least of one
of the following three decorative treatments:
i. Patterned stencil
ii. Metal art element (Figure 25)
iii. Venetian Plaster (Figure 26)
iv. Mosaics (allowable materials: glass, tile,
stone)
2. Loading, Service and Refuse Areas
a. Loading and service areas shall not be visible
from a public right-of-way and shall be located
behind the building or within the rear of the
parking garage. For residential units with
individual ground floor entries, trash enclosures
shall be located in a side or rear yard or internal
to the project, not visible from the public right-
of-way. Individual trash containers for use by a
single unit shall be stored as follows:
i. Incorporated within garage areas while still
maintaining minimum garage dimensions,
ii. Within a cabinet enclosure designed within
the footprint of the home with exterior
access, or
iii. Within a side yard of the home behind a
minimum six (6)-foot-tall masonary wall or
fence.
b. Loading and service that cannot be placed
behind the building and out of view from
the public right-of-way shall be screened
per screening requirements in CDC Section
18.165.060(D)1.
c. Access to loading and service areas shall be
incorporated into the circulation plan for the
site and shall be separated from pedestrian
circulation.
d. In all areas other than the Downtown, trash
enclosures shall be located a minimum of twenty
(20) feet away from an abutting single-family
residential district or any public right-of-way or
access easement, consistent with CDC Section
18.150.150.
e. Trash enclosures are prohibited in any front
yard, street side yard, parking space, required
landscaped area, or open space areas.
f. Trash enclosures shall be designed to utilize the
same materials and colors as the buildings they
serve and designed consistent with CDC Section
18.150.150.
g. Trash enclosures shall be designed and
constructed to accommodate the collection of
recyclable materials to the extent required by the
responsible collection contractor.
h. Outdoor trash enclosure areas shall be buffered
from adjacent parking with a minimum five (5)
foot-wide landscape strip.
20 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
3. EV Charging Stations
a. EV charging stations and associated parking
spaces shall be located within required on-site
parking areas. When charging stations are within
parking garages, they shall be provided on all
floors, where practicable, with chargers being
installed on a minimum of two floors (Figure 27)
b. EV charging spaces shall be consolidated to one
(1) location within the parking lot; for lots with
more than one hundred (100) parking spaces, EV
charging spaces shall be consolidated in no more
than two (2) locations.
c. EV chargers shall not provide signage or
advertisement visible from the public right-of-
way beyond what is necessary to provide the
user with instructions for use of the charging
station.
4. Utility and Mechanical Equipment
a. All utility and mechanical equipment, including
roof-top mounted equipment, shall be screened
from the public right-of-way utilizing the color
and materials palette for the building pursuant to
CDC Section 18.150.180.
b. Mechanical equipment shall not be visible when
measured at six (6) feet above the grade of
the horizontal surface of the sidewalk on the
opposite side of adjacent streets.
c. Utility and mechanical equipment shall not be
located within any required active open space
area.
d. Ground-mounted mechanical, electrical, and
utility equipment shall be concealed within
buildings, placed in subsurface vaults, or
screened by a framed welded wire (no chain link
fence), or louvered trellis system, depending on
location within setbacks, consistent with CDC
Section 18.150.080(C)3.
e. Ground-mounted residential solar energy
systems shall be encouraged and shall be located
to be out of view of the public right-of-way,
but in no event shall any of the approaches
conflict with the intent of the implementation of
statewide standards (Government Code Section
65850.5a) to achieve timely and cost-effective
installation of solar energy systems. Such systems
shall be:
i. Placed behind a primary structure
ii. Placed in a side yard and screened by non-
plant materials
f. Electrical transformers shall be designed using
either of the following approaches and consistent
with CMC Section 18.150.080(C)3:
i. Placed underground
ii. Screened by non-plant materials
iii. Located at least five (5) feet from the public
right-of-way and screened with non-plant
materials such as welded wire trellis system
or similar view-obscuring screen and
plantings
g. Utility and mechanical equipment, including
meters, shall be screened from view using a
material in the architectural design materials
Figure 27. EV Charging Station
Figure 28. Wall mounted or patio mounted mechanical
equipment screen
Chapter 02 Citywide Objective Design Standards ▪ 21
palette of the project or other method consistent
with CMC Section 18.150.080. Screening method
shall include gated outdoor rooms or screening
behind wing walls treated as an integral part of
the elevations.
h. Mechanical equipment shall be located a
minimum of fifteen (15) feet from occupiable
rooftop areas and screened from view.
i. Exposed vents, gutters, downspouts, flashings,
and electrical conduits shall be painted the same
color as the adjacent surface; if using copper
gutters or downspouts they shall be treated as a
design element.
j. Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning units
located on exterior walls or patios of multi-family
projects shall be screened from view by screen
walls, decorative railings, or screens, consistent
with those colors and materials utilized within
the architectural design palette. (Figure 28)
k. Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning units
located on balconies shall be prohibited.
l. For site development improvement plans for
engineering and/or building permit approval,
the size and location of all utility and mechanical
equipment shall be displayed and screened
pursuant to CDC Section 18.150.080 and these
standards on building elevations and the site
plan.
m. Utility service lines shall be placed underground.
Exposed conduit on building exteriors shall be
prohibited.
5. Lighting
a. Roof-mounted lights are prohibited, unless on a
green roof or occupied roof, where downlighting
shall be used.
b. Sconce exterior fixtures shall be the same style
(e.g., Colonial, Spanish Revival, Arts & Crafts,
Ranch) as the building’s exterior design and
located at front and rear doorways. (Figure 29)
c. Maximum height of pole-mounted fixtures shall
not exceed sixteen (16) feet.
d. Light fixtures shall be integrated in at least one of the following uses:
i. Bollard lights along pedestrian walks (Figure
30)
ii. Pole-mounted lights for parking areas
iii. Internally illuminated or up lighting for
ground signs
iv. Building mounted or spotlights for accents,
with full cut-off feature, consistent with CDC
Section 18.150.110.
e. Exposed lamps or tubes visible from any public
right-of-way shall be prohibited.
f. Lighting within parking garages shall avoid
external views of exposed fluorescent light tubes.
g. Surface parking lot lighting levels shall be limited to the range of 0.5-to-1.5-foot candles to provide
for public safety, in conformance with CDC
Section 18.160.110.(D). Within this range, areas
of higher or lower levels of illumination shall be
indicated on project plans.
Figure 29. Sconce exterior fixture light respecting the architectural style of building
Figure 30. Bollard lights along pedestrian paths
22 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
6. Emergency Access, Addresses, and
Mailboxes
a. To accommodate emergency vehicular access,
double access routes for emergency vehicles,
where physically possible, shall be provided using
parking aisles and access drives.
b. New buildings shall be provided with approved
illuminated address identification, consistent
with Central Contra Costa County Fire Protection
District requirements. Illuminated address
markers shall be posted in a location on the
building that is visible from the public street
(Figure 31) or the street fronting the property
and within a maximum of fifty (50) feet from
the primary building entry or alternatively
twenty (20) feet from the individual unit entry.
Numbering and lettering shall be a minimum
of four (4) inches high with a minimum stroke
width of one-half inch and have a seventy (70)
percent contrast4 with the background color.
Where required by the City of Concord Police
Department or the Contra Costa County Fire
Protection District, address identification shall
be provided in additional locations to facilitate
emergency response, consistent with the State
building code.
c. Mailboxes shall be placed either at an on-site
location adjacent to front yard open space for
ground-floor units that have direct pedestrian
access from the street or incorporated into a
common area for all remaining upper floor unit
residents.
7. Signage
a. External raceways on wall mounted signs shall be
prohibited.
b. Cabinet signs, including those that are wall
mounted on buildings or ground signs, shall be
prohibited.
c. Ground signs shall incorporate at least two
materials from the architectural design materials
palette of the project. (Figure 32)
Figure 31. Illuminated building identification visible from public street
Figure 32. Ground Signs
470% Contrast shall be determined by California Building Code 2022 Section 11B-705.1.1.3.1
Chapter 02 Citywide Objective Design Standards ▪ 23
Figure 33. Fences consistent with architectural design and material palette
8. Fencing and Retaining Walls
a. Perimeter fences internal to lots are required
and shall be a minimum of six (6) feet in height. A
wood fence, shall be provided along the exterior
property lines or fences in conformance with
CDC Section 18.150.180, as applicable. A seven
(7)-foot tall fence may be constructed with the
top one (1) foot panel consisting of a lattice
panel style design.
b. Fences or walls attached to buildings and visible
from any public right-of-way or open space
shall be of a color, material, and detail within
the architectural design materials palette of the
building to which they are attached and shall be
included with fence or wall specifications in the
landscape plan. (Figure 33)
c. If a noise study is required, masonary walls or
fences shall be constructed as recommended
utilizing the materials list in Table 1: Building,
roofing, and fencing materials.
d. The allowed and prohibited fencing materials are
shown in Table 1: Building, roofing, and fencing
materials.
e. The following materials are allowed for retaining
walls:
i. Stone or brick
ii. Wood
iii. Decorative masonry or interlocking concrete
blocks
Concord Objective Design Standards ▪ 25
03 Downtown Standards
A. Site Plan ........................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28 B. Architectural/Building Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .30 C. Landscape Design ................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 D. Detailing ........................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
26 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
Figure 34.Typical Downtown multi-family type building
Multi -family residential around
multi level parking garage
Adjoining multi -family
residential development
Adjoining multi -family
residential development
Front yards serving
ground floor units
Ground floor commercial
Sidewalk
Sidewalk
Street
Street
Chapter 03 Downtown Standards ▪ 27
Figure 35. Downtown Map
03. Downtown
Standards
The heart of Concord’s downtown is Todos Santos
Plaza, which retains the City’s original name of Todos
Santos and is distinguished by its authenticity and
historic assets. These characteristics are preserved
and strengthened by the strategic infill of new high-
quality development that links the past to a vibrant
future. Todos Santos Plaza is located within walking
distance of the Concord BART Station, cultural
amenities, shopping, and dining opportunities.
These objective design standards strengthen these
relationships and draw from a comprehensive vision
initiated over many decades and confirmed in the
Downtown Specific Plan and more specifically
described within the Todos Santos Design Guidelines,
now called the Downtown Concord Design
Guidelines.5
The following objective design standards specific
to Downtown are largely guided by the Downtown
Concord Design Guidelines document, which
promotes specific architectural styles (Spanish
Colonial Revival, Mediterranean Revival, Arts and
Crafts, and Italianate6) in the “Inner Core” area of the downtown, whereas the “Outer Core,” is intended to
be reflective of these architecture styles, but allowing flexibility in design, while still promoting high-quality architecture. Standards for this section focus on the
urban core of the Downtown area where specified
(Inner and Outer Core), but also apply to the broader
downtown boundary. (Figure 34), (Figure 35)
5The Downtown Concord Design guidelines were approved in February 2017 and amended in October 2019 and August 2020. 6As defined in “A Field Guide to American Houses: the Definitive Guide to Identifying and Understanding America’s Domestic Architecture” by Virginia Savage McAlester . • Inner and Outer Core: For those
sites within the Inner and Outer Core
boundaries of the Downtown, Sections B.
4 and B.5 within this Chapter shall apply.
• Remainder of Downtown: For those
sites outside of the Inner and Outer
Core boundaries of the Downtown, but
still within the Downtown boundary, the
Downtown standards shall apply.
General standards for this section include site
planning and orientation, architectural and building
design, landscape design, and building detailing.
28 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
Figure 36. Multi family residential with individual entrances to ground floor units Figure 37. Residential entries provided at grade
A. Site Plan
1. Site Planning and Orientation
a. In the event of any conflicts with these objective
design standards and the setback requirements
in CDC Section 18.45.030, Table: 18.45.030, the
Downtown standards within this document shall
prevail. If a multi-family building has individual
residential entrances at the ground floor on a
street, buildings shall be set back a minimum of
ten (10) feet from the property line to allow for
front yards, porches, and stoops. (Figure 36)
b. If a building has retail space at the ground floor
on a street, the building shall be setback a
minimum of two (2) feet and a maximum of five
(5) feet from the property line.
c. Residential entries for ground floor units with
access from the street, shall be provided secure
access at grade, to promote accessibility and
pedestrian activity at the street level. These
may be in addition to a common entry or lobby
location via a hallway. (Figure 37)
d. Buildings that are not adjacent to a street shall
have units with front entries that are oriented
to interior common areas, such as paseos,
courtyards, and usable open space areas,
consistent with CDC Section 18.150.100(G).
e. Direct pedestrian access shall be provided to
connect the sidewalk to rear parking areas,
secondary retail entries, mid-block courtyard
space, and/or paseo.
Property Line
a
cc
Chapter 03 Downtown Standards ▪ 29
2. Parking
a. Vehicular Parking
i. Active uses and storefronts shall be located
along street frontages, between group
parking areas and the pedestrian walkway.
(Figure 38)
ii. Parking located such that it is fronting onto a
pedestrian route along Grant Street and Oak
Street to the BART station is prohibited.
iii. Driveways for parking entries shall be
consolidated for both multi-unit residential
and mixed-use developments. In shared
garage conditions, secure access for
residential parking shall be provided via a
parking and traffic control barrier arm or
gate with electronic or similar controls for
separation from commercial uses.
iv. Parking warning signs shall be located
to alert pedestrians on sidewalks for
all underground and podium parking
structures. (Figure 39), (Figure 40)
b. Bicycle Parking
i. Multi-family residential and mixed-use
buildings shall provide one (1) long-term
bicycle parking space for every two (2)
dwelling units. Developments such as
townhomes that include individual garages
for each unit shall not be required to provide
long-term bicycle parking.
ii. The Citywide standards for additional details
regarding bicycle parking requirements shall
apply.
Figure 38. Active uses along street in front of structured parking
Figure 39. Parking signage for underground and podium
structures
Figure 40. Parking warning detail for podium parking
30 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
B. Architectural and Building
Design
1. Massing and Articulation
a. After two hundred (200) feet of continuous
building length, a mid-block courtyard space of
a minimum area of three hundred (300) square
feet shall be used to relieve the building mass
and add variation. (Figure 41)
b. All building walls shall be broken up using a
change in the wall plane that is a minimum of
twenty four (24) inches in depth. A break in the
wall plane, shall be required at a minimum of
every forty (40) feet horizontally along building
walls. (Figure 42)
c. Citywide Standard B(1)c for Transitional
standards to abutting properties shall apply.
d. Buildings with a base, middle, and top shall be
articulated with a minimum of two (2) repetitions
of the following:
i. Arches
ii. Columns
iii. Pilasters
iv. Contrasting materials
v. Protruding elements of either cornices or
wall trims
vi. Lintel
vii. Belt course
Figure 42. Break in the wall plane
40 ft. 40 ft.
40 ft.
Figure 41. Pedestrian access
Courtyard
Pedestrian Access to
Courtyard
200 ft. 200 ft.
Chapter 03 Downtown Standards ▪ 31
Figure 43. Building wall variety
Figure 44. Cornice projections on various floors
e. The massing of building walls shall be broken
up using a minimum of at least four (4) of the
following design strategies: (Figure 43)
i. Balconies
ii. Above the second floor, changes in wall
plane of a minimum of twenty-four (24)
inches (either inset or protruding) from the
ground floor wall plane
iii. Window openings and entrances that are
recessed or projecting a minimum of six (6)
inches
iv. Wall trims, projections, and reveals along
different levels of wall surfaces a minimum
of four (4) inches
v. Use of at least two (2) of each distinct
materials and colors along wall surfaces
vi. Vertical pilasters that reflect internal building
structure and/or are integral to the selected
architectural style
f. Cornices, bases, and tops of columns, arches,
and other similar building details shall project
at least two (2) inches on the first floor and a
minimum of six (6) inches on upper floors, or
as suggested in the following architectural style
section 4. (Figure 44)
iv
i
ii
f
iii
f
32 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
2. Roof Treatments
a. A minimum of two (2) roof forms and designs
shall be incorporated into a building along a
street block to create visual interest at the top of
the building. (Figure 45)
b. Roof profiles shall provide a minimum three (3)
foot change in roof height after a maximum of
eighty (80) feet in length of continuous exterior
building wall.
c. All rooftops for market rate residential housing
projects including those with up to twenty (20)
percent affordable component) of at least one
hundred (100) units shall incorporate at least
twenty (20) percent of the roof as a green roof of
either extensive or intensive type.
d. A roof proposed at a location where it will be
viewed by occupants of adjacent taller buildings
shall be treated as a “roofscape.” The design
shall include a green roof with all two (2) of the
following approaches: (Figure 46)
i. Color and texture of the hardscape elements
to be same as the architectural design
materials palette
ii. Plantings in the landscape design palette
Figure 45. Minimum two (2) roof forms
Figure 46. Green roof
e. Flat roofs behind a parapet with no visibility from
the public right-of-way or adjacent roof tops may
include a thermoplastic membrane or other flat-
roofing material such as an asphalt-based (built-
up roofing system, modified bitumen system)
commercial roofing system.
Chapter 03 Downtown Standards ▪ 33
Figure 48. Ground floor appearing taller than 16’
3. Ground-Floor Retail/Commercial Use
within Mixed Use Buildings
a. Ground-floor commercial spaces shall appear
taller than a typical residential floor and shall
appear to be at least sixteen (16) feet in height,
measured from the floor to the floor plate of the
story above. (Figure 48)
b. The ground floor shall be expressed through
use of any one (1) of the following different, low
maintenance material of the following type:
i. Stone
ii. Cast Stone
iii. Brick
iv. Board formed concrete
v. Tiles and glass
vi. Use of a second material shall be allowed
with at least 15% of the surface area.
c. Ground-floor entrances for commercial uses on
the first floor of a mixed-use building shall be
level with the elevation of the adjacent sidewalk.
For entries that are level with the sidewalk,
Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) compliant
entries, such as ramps, shall directly connect
to the sidewalk of the street and use the same
colors and/or materials as the building and open
space development. Sloping street adjacencies
shall have appropriate ramps for accessibility.
d. All retail tenants on the ground floor facing
the street shall have a direct pedestrian entry
connection to the sidewalk along the street so
that multiple entries at the ground floor face
onto the primary street. (Figure 47)
e. Where a commercial tenant occupies a space
over twenty thousand (20,000) gross square feet,
additional articulation at the ground floor of the
commercial space shall occur at a minimum of
every forty (40) feet using at least two (2) of the
following approaches:
i. Changes in wall plane of a minimum of
Figure 47. Ground floor commercial use within mixed-use buildings Retail Space at Ground Floor
Property Line
b
c
d
a
34 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
twenty-four (24) inches (either inset or
protruding)
ii. Window openings that are recessed or
protruding a minimum of six (6) inches
iii. Wall trims, projections, and reveals along
different levels of wall surfaces a minimum
of four (4) inches
iv. Use of at least two (2) distinct materials and
colors along wall surfaces
f. Ground-floor commercial uses shall be visually
distinct but complimentary from the rest of the
exterior building wall using at least three (3) of
the following approaches: (Figure 49)
i. Change in materials, such as stone and
stucco
ii. Contrast in color with a minimum of forty
(40) percent differentiation, based on RGB
percentage7.
iii. Canopies and awnings
iv. Arcade with a covered roof supporting a row
of arches
v. Trellis feature on building
vi. Detailing at storefront (tile accents, wrought
iron, etc.)
g. Building walls that face a street shall include
human-scaled detailing using at least two (2) of
the following approaches: (Figure 50)
i. Reveals, for example an edge or space where
a plane changes
ii. Belt courses, for example a change in
orientation in masonry
iii. Cornices
iv. Expression of structural or architectural bays
v. Recessed windows or doors
vi. Material or materials module changes
vii. Color and/or texture differences
viii. Mullions of a minimum of four (4) inches
ix. Porticos
h. To minimize solar heat gain on west or southwest
facing exterior building wall, projects will
use at least one (1) of the following shading
approaches:
i. Arcades
ii. Trellises
iii. Awnings, fixed, or movable
iv. Vertical and horizontal projection, such as a
cantilever or balconies
i. A wide architectural band articulated through
color or materials in the first floor of at least
four (4) feet in height shall be integrated into the
front wall of the commercial space.
j. The street level shall include signage using a
minimum of two (2) sign types:
i. Edge signage
ii. Awning signage
iii. Blade signage
iv. Wall signage
v. Window signage and/or display
Figure 49. Ground floor commercial made visually distinct through use of different color and material
Figure 50. Ground floor commercial articulated with belt course, recessed doors and awnings
7Encycolorpedia.com can be utilized as a resource to identify a constrasting color that meets the standard
Chapter 03 Downtown Standards ▪ 35
Figure 51. Spanish Colonial Revival - Primary Style
4. Architectural Style for Inner and Outer
Core only
a. The Downtown Concord Design Guidelines
formed the basis of this section and should be
referenced for additional objective standards
and details regarding the vision for Downtown.
The Inner and Outer Core are focused on
Todos Santos Plaza and the blocks immediately
surrounding the plaza, the Concord BART station,
and surrounding areas to the north and west of
the station.
b. For the purpose of defining architectural styles
as set forth in this Section, the reference guide
shall be the most currently published version of
“A Field Guide to American Houses: the Definitive
Guide to Identifying and Understanding America’s
Domestic Architecture” by Virginia Savage
McAlester.
c. Inner Core
i. Two primary styles, Spanish Colonial
Revival and Mediterranean Revival, and
two secondary styles, Arts and Crafts and
Italianate, shall be acceptable for use within
the Inner Core area, as shown in Figures
51 through 55, consistent with Inner Core
Design Typology.
ii. Use of the Spanish Colonial Revival
architectural styles shall include a minimum
of six (6) of the following elements:
(Figure 51)
• Stucco or plaster walls
• Terracotta tile roofs or simulated material
• Low-sloped roofs below and including
• Curvilinear gables
• Window or faux window openings limited
to twenty-five (25) percent of an exterior
building wall area
• Deep recessed openings a minimum of
twelve (12) inches deep
• Outdoors terraces
• Vernacular Spanish Colonial decorative
ironwork or simulated material
3:12
36 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
iii. Use of the Mediterranean Revival
architectural styles shall include a minimum
of seven (7) of the elements below, as
outlined in the Inner Core Design Typology:
(Figure 52), (Figure 53)
• Stucco or plaster walls
• Terracotta tile hipped roofs
• Low-sloped roofs below and including
• Curvilinear gables or tower element,
round or square
• Arched or straight windows with
ironwork or simulated material
• Arched wing wall
• Decorative tile
• Ornate low relief carvings, arches, and
columns
• Vernacular Mediterranean chimneys and
vents
• Balconies open or roofed with wood or
iron railings or simulated materials
Figure 52. Mediterranean Revival - Primary Style
Figure 53. Mediterranean revival styled building
3:12
Chapter 03 Downtown Standards ▪ 37
iv. Arts and Crafts (Craftsman) is a secondary
architectural style, the use of which shall
include a minimum of six (6) of the elements
below: (Figure 54)
• Use of stucco, wood cladding, lap siding,
stone
• Low pitched roof of no more than 1:12
• Wide eave overhang of a minimum of
twelve (12) inches
• Symmetrical and asymmetrical exterior
building wall elements
• Inclusion of exposed structural member
and wood joinery
• Tapered columns with stone base
• Projecting bays set within the larger
gable form with a different siding
material
• Triangular knee brace on the gable roof
• Semi-enclosed balconies under a roof at
corner(s)
• Overhanging eaves of a minimum of
twenty -four (24) inches
Figure 54. Arts and Crafts - Secondary Style
38 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
v. Italianate is a secondary architectural style,
which can also be used in the Inner Core and
the use of which shall include a minimum of
six (6) of the elements below: (Figure 55)
• Use of stone, stucco, or brick cladding
• Hipped roof
• Overhanging eaves of a minimum of
twenty -four (24) inches with exposed
rafters
• Prominent entry with a minimum depth
of twenty-four (24) inches
• Full-length French doors and Palladian
archways
• Recessed upper or lower porches
• Boxed balconies framed in wood
• Arrange windows symmetrically
• Arches at the base
d. Outer Core
i. The Outer Core of the Downtown Design
Guidelines are intended to have architecture
compatible with the Inner Core while
maintaining design flexibility. For each
project, one (1) architectural style from
the Inner Core shall be selected and shall
incorporate at least fifty (50) percent design
features, indicated in Section 4 (c) between
ii - v.
Figure 55. Italianate - Secondary Style
Chapter 03 Downtown Standards ▪ 39
Figure 56. Inner core window recessed with metal frames Figure 58. Outer core windows on upper floors with large spans and minimal recessed frames Figure 57. Inner core window recessed with gridded iron work
5. Windows and Doors
a. Architectural projections over entries shall be
the same materials and colors as the building’s
architectural design palette.
b. The Citywide standards for additional details for
projects not within the Inner or Outer Core shall
apply.
c. Window detailing shall include at least two (2)
of the following design approaches for inner and
outer core windows:
i. Inner Core Windows (Figure 56)
• Recess of a minimum depth of twelve
(12) inches to contrast with the wall
surface
• Use gridded ironwork or simulated
material (Figure 57)
• Use metal frame of a minimum depth of
two (2) inches around windows or lintel
ii. Outer Core Windows
• On upper floors, recess of a maximum
depth of six (6) inches
• On upper floors, use large spans of
window wall a minimum forty (40)
percent of the wall area
• Use of frameless or minimally framed
windows (Figure 58)
6. Balconies
The Citywide Standard in Chapter 2 shall apply.
40 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
7. Materials
a. Along any exterior building walls, material
transitions shall only occur on the inside corner
of plane change or, when material changes need
to happen in the same plane, trims, cornices,
or other architectural elements shall be used to
create a corner for material transition. (Figure
59)
b. For buildings taller than two (2) stories, the use
of stucco shall not exceed beyond sixty (60)
percent of any exterior building wall that faces a
street or common open space. (Figure 60)
c. For buildings taller than three (3) stories, a new
material, texture, or color shall be introduced a
maximum of every twenty (20) feet of exterior
building wall length. (Figure 61)
d. At least two (2) materials shall be used on any
exterior building wall, in addition to glazing and
railings. Any one material must comprise at least
twenty (20) percent of any exterior building wall,
excluding windows and railings.
e. Buildings with false facades or false fronts,
exclusive of parapets used to shield rooftop
equipment and create the appearance of a
higher sixteen (16)-foot commercial front
requirement, are prohibited.
Figure 59. Exterior Building Wall Material Transitions
a
a
Figure 60. Stucco material less than 60% of building exterior Figure 61. New material or color every 20’
Chapter 03 Downtown Standards ▪ 41
8. Color
a. An earth-tone (see definitions) color palette shall
be required for all structures and the color
palette shall be submitted to the City including
paint manufacturer/brand, name and number
for each paint color used within the project. The
hexadecimal color code or RGB color number(s)
shall be provided for each. Encycolorpedia.com
or similar websites may be utilized as a tool to
assist with color selection.
b. On all exterior building walls, buildings shall
utilize a minimum of three (3) colors, including
trim. (Figure 62)
c. Contrast in two of the colors shall be a minimum
of twenty-five (25) percent differentiation
lighter or darker, based on RGB color model
percentages.8
d. On any exterior building wall greater than one
hundred (100) feet, buildings shall utilize a
minimum of four (4) colors, inclusive of trim.
Changes in materials reflected on more than
twenty (20) percent of the exterior building wall
may be included as one (1) of the four (4) colors.
e. Changes in color due to a change in building
materials (consisting of less than twenty (20)
Figure 62. Exterior walls with minimum of three (3) earth tone color palette percent of an exterior building wall are not
considered an additional color.
f. Any individual exterior building wall greater than
eighty (80) percent glass or highly reflective
materials is prohibited except on the ground
floor for commercial spaces.
8Encycolorpedia.com or similar websites (“color variations”) may be utilized as a resource to determine percentages for color variations and Myperfectcolor.com as a resource for wall paint selection for a variety of paint manufacturers, as appropriate.
42 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
2. Urban Landscape Improvements
a. When public improvements are necessary, the
provisions of the the Downtown Concord Specific
Plan and the Downtown Concord Corridors Plan
shall apply for additional standards and details,
including landscaping plants/pervious materials,
lighting, street furniture, and streetscape
requirements.
b. Where public realm improvements are required,
plans shall include a mix of pervious and
impervious materials using at least one (1) of the
following pervious surfacing materials:
i. Pavers
ii. Stones
iii. Decomposed granite
iv. Pervious concrete
c. To create continuous landscaped areas,
landscaping on private lots or along the street
edge and within open spaces shall be required to
use a minimum of two (2) of the following:
i. Plants along the back of the sidewalk
ii. Street trees with a minimum size of 24-inch
box
iii. Landscape buffer along the street curb
D. Detailing
1. Architectural and Building
Enhancements
a. Entry pathways to primary entrances of more
than one unit shall be treated with a minimum of
two (2) of the following approaches:
i. Arched ironwork/simulated material at entry
ii. Landscape vertical elements (Figure 64)
iii. Decorative pavers
iv. Decorative lighting
b. Functional elements shall include design motifs,
present in the building design, for a minimum of
three (3) of the following:
i. Railings
ii. Access gates
iii. Doors to utility rooms
iv. Fire escape doors
v. Parking garage doors or window openings
vi. Tuck-under garage entrances
vii. Mechanical and electrical rooms
C. Landscape Design
1. Landscape
a. The Citywide standards Section (C)1 for
additional landscaping and Section (C)2 for Street
Tree standards shall apply.
b. Developments shall incorporate at least three (3)
out of the following landscaping approaches:
i. Potted plants in commercial grade pots
ii. Hanging baskets under a roof overhang
iii. Landscaped public space
iv. Green walls
v. Planter boxes as a streetscape element in
the private parcel
vi. Bio treatment measures, such as a swales
vii. Trellis vines with pergola
c. Pavers and concrete alternatives, of either
decorative or permeable type, shall be required
for a minimum of ten (10) percent of the hard
surface of the project. (Figure 63)
Figure 63. Landscaping with pervious surfaces and pavers Figure 64. Landscape vertical elements
Chapter 03 Downtown Standards ▪ 43
2. Patio Enclosure (Fencing)
a. Patios within two (2) feet of grade level shall be
enclosed with a maximum three (3)-foot tall,
semi-translucent (or filtered) enclosure made of
metal, wood and/or other material consistent
with the building material palette. (Figure 65)
b. Patios at grade level, directly facing the public
right of way, shall be enclosed with a minimum
five (5)-foot tall, solid metal, wood, and/or similar
material consistent with the building material
palette, with a locking gate for access to public
right-of-way, if a pathway connection is provided.
(Figure 66)
c. Patios facing an inner courtyard, behind a
project fence or wall, that are not located along
a public right of way, shall have greater flexibility
for enclosure with a minimum 42-inch tall
semi-translucent enclosure made of material
consistent with the building material palette
3. Loading, Service, and Refuse Areas
a. Loading areas for the commercial uses of mixed-
use development shall be located in alleys or on
secondary streets.
b. Trash enclosures shall not be located in any front
yard, street side yard, parking space, required
landscaped area, or open space areas for multi-
unit residential buildings.
c. Trash enclosures shall be located a minimum of
fifteen (15) feet away from an abutting single-
family residential district or any public right-of-
way or private roadway easement.
4. Emergency Access, Addresses, and
Mailboxes
a. In mixed-use developments, separate secure
mailbox and package delivery/pick-up areas shall
be provided for the residential and commercial
components of a project.
b. The Citywide standards in Chapter 2 shall apply.
5. Utility and Mechanical Equipment
The Citywide standards in Chapter 2 shall apply.
6. Signage
The Citywide standards in Chapter 2 shall apply.
7. Fencing and Retaining Walls
The Citywide standards in Chapter 2 shall apply.
Figure 65. Raised patio with maximum three (3) foot tall wooden enclosure
Figure 66. Patios with a locking gate at grade level enclosed with metal railing, concrete wall, and landscaping area.
Figure 67. A five (5) foot tall solid metal, wood, and/or similar material shall be used for patios at grade level.
Concord Objective Design Standards ▪ 45
04 Corridor Standards
A. Site Plan ........................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48 B. Architectural/Building Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49 C. Landscape Design ................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51 D. Detailing ........................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
46 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
Figure 67: Typical Corridor multi-family building type
Parking in Rear
Adjoining Single Family
Residential
Adjoining Multi Family
Residential
Common
Driveway
Front Yard with Trees
for Ground Floor Units
Primary Entrance to
Ground Floor Units
Street
Transitional
Standards
Chapter 04 Corridor Standards ▪ 47
Figure 68: Corridors map
04. Corridor
Standards
Corridor standards focus on multifamily housing
and mixed-use projects, generally medium to high
density, situated along the arterial streets and higher volume corridors within the City, inclusive of Clayton Road, Willow Pass Road, Treat Boulevard, Monument
Boulevard, and other major roadways. These
standards apply to projects located in the following
areas:
• Sites adjacent to or having direct primary
access to one of the specified Corridors
in (Figure 68), via an easement, private
roadway or driveway and located in the RM,
RH, PD, CO, NC, and CMX zoning districts.
• All commercial zoning districts that do not
allow for housing within the CDC but are
allowed to be developed with housing due
to the requirements of state laws.
Project sites located within the Downtown boundary,
shall reference and abide by the Downtown
standards. Those projects, consistent with at least
one of the bullets listed above, outside of the
Downtown boundary, shall be subject to the Corridor
Standards within this section.
Projects adjacent to street corridors with lots that
may have indirect access to the Corridors but still
have primary access from residential streets shall
utilize the Neighborhood Standards chapter . Those
sites within any single-family residential zoning
district or a single-family residential use shall be
considered under the Neighborhood standards.
General standards for this section include site
planning and orientation, architectural and building
design, landscape design, and building detailing.
These shall apply in addition to the Citywide
standards in Chapter Two.
48 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
A. Site Plan
1. Site Planning and Orientation
a. Common driveways shall be used along the
specified Corridors.
2. Parking
a. Vehicular Parking (including carports)
i. Parking shall be located to the rear of
the site. If topographic or other physical
constraints dictate that the parking be
located in the front, screening shall be
provided per screening requirements in CDC
Section 18.165.060(D)1. (Figure 69)
ii. Flat carport roofs are prohibited.
iii. Pre-manufactured carports are prohibited.
iv. Carports shall utilize materials consistent
with Table 1 in Citywide Section B(7)A and
colors within the building’s color palette and
shall be finished with a protective coating.
v. Where carports face a public street or are
visible to the public from the right-of-way,
screening shall be required per the screening
requirement and/or landforms shall be used
either by depressing the carport or creating
berms. (Figure 70)
vi. Uninterrupted carports of more than six
(6) full-size parking spaces are prohibited.
Carports shall be separated by a landscape
element that is at least four (4) feet wide.
b. Bicycle Parking
i. The Citywide standards in Chapter 2 shall
apply.
Figure 69: Vehicular surface parking, access and location standard for Corridor Development Figure 70: Sloping carports separated by landscaping
Street
Parking in
Rear
Common
Driveway
Chapter 04 Corridor Standards ▪ 49
Figure 71: Massing and articulation
Figure 72: Balconies, openings, and elements for breaking the mass of the building B. Architectural/Building Design
1. Massing and Articulation
a. After two hundred (200) feet of continuous
building length, a minimum twenty (20)-foot-
wide mid-block open space, paseo, or courtyard
space of minimum area three hundred (300)
square feet shall be provided to relieve the
building mass and add variation.
b. All building walls shall be broken up using a
change in the wall plane. A break in the wall
plane, created by a change in depth, shall be
required at a minimum of every forty (40) feet
horizontally along a building wall. (Figure 71)
c. The massing of building walls shall be broken up
using a combination of at least four (4) of the
following approaches: (Figure 72)
i. Balconies
ii. Window openings and entrances recessed
or protruding a minimum of six (6) inches in
depth
iii. Wall trims, projections, and reveals along
different levels of wall surfaces, for a
minimum of four (4) inches in depth
iv. Use of at least two (2) distinct materials and
two distinct colors along a wall surface
v. Vertical pilasters that reflect internal building
structure and/or are integral to the selected
architectural style.
d. See Citywide standard B(1)d for Transitional
standards to abutting properties.
Street
i
iii
ii
iv
40’
50 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
2. Roof Treatments
a. Roofs proposed for a location where it will be
viewed by occupants of adjacent taller buildings
shall be treated as a “roofscape.” The design shall
include all three (3) of the following approaches:
i. Color in the architectural design materials
palette
ii. Plantings in the landscape design palette
iii. Texture shall be same as a material in the
architectural design materials palette.
(Figure 73)
b. See Downtown Standards for Roof treatments in
Section B(2).
3. Windows and Doors
a. Primary entrances for ground floor units along
streets shall include a porch (recessed or
projecting) with a minimum size of sixty-four (64)
square feet and minimum depth of four (4) feet.
(Figure 74).
b. The Citywide standards in Chapter 2, Section
B(3) shall apply for additional window and door
standards.
4. Balconies
The Citywide standards in Chapter 2 shall apply.
5. Materials
The Citywide standards in Chapter 2 shall apply.
6. Color
The Citywide standards in Chapter 2 shall apply.
Figure 73: Roof texture consistent with architectural materials palette Figure 74: Primary entrances along ground floor with porch minimum four (4) feet deep and more than sixty-four (64) square feet in size
Chapter 04 Corridor Standards ▪ 51
C. Landscape Design
1. Public Right-of-Way Landscaping
a. All projects with ground floor units facing the
public right-of-way shall have a landscape design
that includes a row of trees in the front setback
that is a minimum of four (4) feet away from the
back of the sidewalk, in addition to the row of
trees required in the planting strip between the
curb and the sidewalk for a total of two (2) rows
of trees, in conformance with the required street
tree planting specified in the Street Tree Master
Plan.
b. All projects with a fence or wall facing the
Corridors identified in (Figure 68) shall provide a
back of sidewalk minimum of a five (5) foot wide
landscaped planting strip.
c. The overall frontage planting design shall include
a row of trees planted a maximum of every thirty
(30) feet. (Figure 75)
d. The Citywide standards in Chapter 2, Section
C(1) for additional landscaping and Section C(2)
for Street Tree standards shall apply.
D. Detailing
1. Loading, Service, and Refuse Areas
The Citywide standards in Chapter 2 shall apply.
2. Patio Enclosure (fencing)
The Downtown Standards in Chapter 3 shall apply.
3. Emergency Access, Addresses, and
Mailboxes
a. In mixed-use developments, separate secure
mailbox and package delivery/pick-up areas shall
be provided for the residential and commercial
components of a project.
b. The Citywide standards in Chapter 2 shall apply.
4. Utility and Mechanical Equipment
The Citywide standards in Chapter 2 shall apply.
5. Lighting
Lamps and light fixtures under carports and/or other
partially open parking areas shall be designed to
prevent glare. All lamps in these areas shall have
lenses to diffuse light.
6. Fencing and Retaining Walls
a. Walls or fences ninety (90) feet or longer that
back-up to Corridors identified in (Figure 68),
shall incorporate at least two (2) of the following:
i. A minimum change in plane of one (1) foot
every thirty (30) feet, along public ROW .
ii. A minimum change of one half (0.5) foot in
height
iii. A change to a material or substantial change
in material texture every sixty (60) feet
consistent with the building material palette
(example stone columns). (Figure 76)
iv. A change to a color every sixty (60) feet
consistent with the building material palette.
Figure 75: Trees in front yard along sidewalk
Figure 76: Fencing with change in height and material
52 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
Concord Objective Design Standards ▪ 53
05 Neighborhood Standards
A. Site Plan ........................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56 B. Architectural/Building Design. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58 C. Landscape Design ................. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66 D. Detailing ........................ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
54 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
Figure 77: Typical neighborhood townhome multi-family building type Adjoining Single Family
Residential
Adjoining Single Family
Residential
Patio
Patio
Street
Transitional
Standards
Chapter 05 Neighborhood Standards ▪ 55
05. Neighborhood
Standards
Neighborhood standards focus on residential
subdivisions within low and medium density
neighborhoods, with the intent of retaining a
cohesive high-quality architectural design for these
areas. This includes, but is not limited to, traditional neighborhoods such as Bishop Estates, Cambridge
Park, Carriage Square, Clayton Valley, Colony Park,
the Crossings, Crystal Ranch, Dana Estates, East Sun
Terrace, Ellis Lake, Holbrook Heights, Lime Ridge,
Meadow Homes, Montecito, the Monument, North
Concord, Pine Hollow, Solano/Estates, and Sun
Terrace. These standards apply to projects located in
the following areas:
• Sites within Rural Residential (RR), Resi-
dential Single-Family (RS), and Residential
Low Density (RL) zoning districts which
may or may not be adjacent “to, or have
direct access to, the Corridors”.
• Planned Development (PD) zoning
districts adjacent to but without direct
access to the Corridors.
• Projects designed with lots that are ad-
jacent to the Corridors but with indirect
primary access from residential streets.
• Residential Medium Density (RM) and
Commercial Mixed Use (CMX) zoning
districts not along an identified Corridor .
• Projects submitted under Government
Code Sections 66452.6 and 65852.21,
including urban lot splits and two (2)-unit
projects with up to four (4) units per
original lot.
This section also includes those neighborhoods with
recognizable architectural style (See Neighborhood
standards Section B(7) and incorporates specific
standards to retain those styles to maintain
neighborhood cohesiveness. These neighborhoods
include the North Todos Santos district, the
three Eichler neighborhoods, and the Canterbury
neighborhood south of Clayton Road.
For projects
in these areas, see Section B(8) in this chapter in
addition to the other sections.
General standards for this section include site
planning and orientation, architectural and building
design, landscape design, and building detailing.
Figure 78: Aerial view of existing neighborhood
Figure 79: Existing housing typology in neighborhood
56 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
A. Site Plan
1. Site Planning and Orientation
a. Buildings shall be kept parallel to the street
frontage. Where an irregular lot exists, a
minimum of twenty (20) feet of a building on fifty
(50) percent of the frontage (whichever is less)
that includes the front entry shall be parallel to
the street frontage.
b. Corner side yard and side-yard setback areas and
buildings elevations shall be treated with the
same level of design emphasis as front-yard
setback and front building elevation to ensure
similar quality, where visible from public ROW.
c. Air conditioning units shall not be located within
required private open space areas. Air
conditioning units shall not be located within six
(6) feet of a front entry door or fronting along
streets or along a structure’s front exterior
building wall.
d. When abutting an open space, ridgeline, or other
visual resources specified in the General Plan,
views to and from public common areas shall be
maintained using a minimum of two (2) of the
following approaches:
i. Place shared outdoor space such that
seventy (70) percent of the outdoor area has
a view of the visual resource
ii. Provide balconies such that fifty (50) percent
of units have a view to the visual resource
iii. Place forty (40) percent of the windows in a
manner that provides a view of the visual
resource.
Figure 80: Primary entrance with porches, projections over doorway with change in material e. Primary entrances shall be identifiable through a
minimum of two (2) of the following approaches:
(Figure 80)
i. Visual relief shall be created through a
projection over the doorway, such as a porch,
awning, canopy, or portico with a roof eave of
a minimum of eighteen (18) inches in depth,
to create shade and cast shadow.
ii. Recessed entry that is a minimum of thirty-six
(36) inches in depth from face of wall
iii. Double doors that are a minimum of sixty
(60) inches (thirty [30] inches per door).
iv. Change in materials a minimum of ten (10)
percent on the unit facade, such as more
glass or a brick or stone entry, see Fig. 80.
f. Each ground floor fronting the street dwelling
unit shall include a patio or porch and this
feature shall be a minimum forty-eight (48)
square feet in area, with a minimum dimension
of four (4) feet in at least one direction.
g. Building pads that are artificially exaggerated five (5) percent more than the ground floor floorplate
are prohibited.
h. All projects shall provide separate vehicular and
pedestrian circulation systems.
i
iv
iv
Chapter 05 Neighborhood Standards ▪ 57
Figure 81: Garage entrance 16’ wide
2. Parking
a. Vehicular Parking
i. Parking areas and building entrances shall be
a maximum of fifty (50) feet apart
b. Carport Parking
i. Parking abutting an adjacent residential use
shall be screened in conformance with CDC
Section 18.150.180 and shall include a tree
screen or minimum six (6)-foot-tall shrub
screen.
ii. Carports shall be made using materials
consistent with Table 1 in Citywide Section
B(7)A and colors within the building’s
color palette and shall be finished with a
protective coating.
iii. Carport roofs that are flat are prohibited.
iv. Pre-manufactured carports are prohibited.
v. Where carports face a public street or are
visible to the public from the right-of-way,
screening shall be required per the screening
requirement and/or landforms shall be used
either by depressing the carport or creating
berms.
vi. Garage and carport placement shall
comprise no more than forty (40) percent
of the front exterior building wall of the unit
and be articulated by at least two (2) feet
of differentiation along the exterior building
wall.
vii. Garage entrance shall be set back to
match the minimum setback for the site
or minimum of twenty (20) feet from
the property line, whichever is less. The
maximum garage door size shall be sixteen
(16) feet wide by eight (8) feet tall or nine (9)
feet wide by eight (8) feet tall for single car
garages. (Figure 81)
viii. If garbage/recycling containers will be stored
in the garage, additional space of three
(3) feet by five (5) feet or as approved by
the franchise trash and recycling provider
beyond the minimum garage dimensions as
identified in CDC Section 18.160.080(A) shall
be required to accommodate the containers.
ix. Uninterrupted carports of more than six
full-size parking spaces are prohibited and
carports shall be separated by a landscape
finger .
c. Bicycle Parking
i. Multi-family projects bicycle parking shall
adhere to Citywide standards in Chapter 2.
58 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
B. Architectural/Building Design
1. Massing and Articulation
a. All individual residential units shall appear as
separate buildings by using at least two (2) of the
following approaches: (Figure 82)
i. Minimum of three (3) feet between
adjoining unit entries
ii. Changes in the depth of the wall plane of a
minimum of twenty-four (24) inches
iii. Changes in color from colors within the
palette of the project
iv. Changes in material from the materials
within the palette of the project
v. Changes in entry element of either porch,
patio, or entry doorway projection
b. Architectural projections from building walls that
emphasize windows shall project a minimum of
twelve (12) inches. (Figure 83)
c. See Citywide standard B(1)d for Transitional
standards to abutting properties.
For projects located within in the North Todos Santos
district, Eichler and Canterbury neighborhoods, or
for those submitted pursuant to Government Code
sections 66452.6 and 65852.21, see Section B(8) and
Section B(9).
Figure 83: Building bulk/ Relief and Rhythm
Figure 82: Example massing
b
viii
Chapter 05 Neighborhood Standards ▪ 59
2. Roof Treatment
a. Roof forms for each individual unit shall be
vertically articulated along the street frontage
by at least one (1) of the following architectural
elements:
i. Roof profile varying in height a minimum of
three (3) feet
ii. Clerestory windows
iii. Roof form that varies in height a minimum of
four (4) feet
iv. A variety of at least two (2) roof forms
b. Roofs in a location that will be viewed by
occupants of a taller building shall include one
(1) of the following approaches: (Figure 84)
i. Roof material shall be more than one color
ii. Planting for a minimum of ten (10) percent
of the roof area
iii. More than one texture material
c. Roof decks are prohibited.
3. Color
On all exterior building walls, buildings shall utilize a minimum of two (2) colors, inclusive of trim. Changes
in color due to a change in building material are not
considered an additional color. (Figure 85)
4. Window and Door
The Citywide standards in Chapter 2 shall apply.
Figure 84: Changing roof profiles with multiple roof forms Figure 85: Exterior wall with three colors including trim
5. Detailing
The Citywide standards in Chapter 2 shall apply.
6. Balconies
The Citywide standards in Chapter 2 shall apply.
7. Materials
The Citywide standards in Chapter 2 shall apply.
60 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
8. Special neighborhood architectural
design treatments
The neighborhood areas identified in this section
have specific architectural design standards which
shall apply to vacant lots, projects submitted under
Government Code Sections 65852.21 or 66411.7, or
redeveloped properties only (Maps adapted from City
generated maps included in appendix).
a. North Todos Santos neighborhood is located
immediately north of the Downtown core (the
nine blocks surrounding Todos Santos Plaza) and
is the location of many of the City’s historical
homes dating between 1880-1930, which include
a range of architectural styles including Italianate,
Queen Anne, Craftsman, Bungalow, and Mission,
which were mostly applied to houses at a modest
scale. The North Todos Santos Design Guidelines
can be referenced for additional standards and
the vision of the neighborhood. The goal of the
guidelines is to ensure that new development
will fit into the neighborhood in a cohesive style
without overwhelming the older buildings, while
providing an architectural design reflective of
the earlier styles noted above. Projects within
this district shall incorporate the following design
standards:
i. Meet minimum architectural design
standards discussed in Chapter 3.
ii. Wall lengths greater than thirty (30)
feet shall be interrupted by projections,
indentations, or changes of direction in the
wall plane.
Figure 86: North Todos Santos neighborhood
Chapter 05 Neighborhood Standards ▪ 61
iii. Mansard, shed, and flat roofs are prohibited.
iv. Windows facing the street shall include
expressed sills, lentils, or other trim.
Historical elements such as bay windows
and/or French doors shall be used.
v. Entry elements, such as porches and/
or doors with projecting roofs, shall be
designed as a single floor building element
with a minimum ceiling height of ten (10)
feet.
vi. Garage doors shall have the same elements
of the architectural style of the residence
expressed in either the panel design, color,
materials and/or widow selection style.
vii. At least three (3) of the following details
shall be incorporated into the design
including:
• Moldings
• Brackets
• Projecting rafters of at least two (2) feet
• Bay windows
• French doors
viii. Parking areas visible from the street shall be
screened with shrubbery of at least thirty
(30) inches in height to minimize the view of
parked cars and pavement from the public
right-of-way.
Figure 87: Housing typology in North Todos Santos
neighborhood
Figure 89: Housing typology in North Todos Santos
neighborhood
Figure 88: Housing typology in North Todos Santos
neighborhood
Figure 90: Housing typology in North Todos Santos
neighborhood
City of Concord, California
page 17
Map of Todos Santos, 1874, by Luis Castro
Salvio Pacheco Adobe, built 1840s Fernando Pacheco Adobe, built 1856 Bolla Home, built 1924, Bungalow style Alves Home, built 1906, Colonial style City of Concord, California
page 17
Map of Todos Santos, 1874, by Luis Castro
Salvio Pacheco Adobe, built 1840s Fernando Pacheco Adobe, built 1856 Bolla Home, built 1924, Bungalow style Alves Home, built 1906, Colonial style City of Concord, California
page 17
Map of Todos Santos, 1874, by Luis Castro
Salvio Pacheco Adobe, built 1840s Fernando Pacheco Adobe, built 1856 Bolla Home, built 1924, Bungalow style Alves Home, built 1906, Colonial stylePage 78 of 115 62 ▪ Concord Objective Design Standards
b. Eichler neighborhoods include three (3) mid-
century neighborhoods (including the Rancho
del Diablo subdivision) north and south of
Clayton Road, and east of Cowell Park. The
neighborhoods include homes designed by
the architect/builder Joseph Eichler primarily
in the 1960s-1970s. The design intent was to
provide modern (now referenced as mid-century
modern), affordable homes, with key features
including large panels of glass, post and beam
construction, mahogany paneling, open floor
plans, some incorporating atriums, with the
intent of promoting a feeling of a seamless
connection to the outdoors, concrete slab
floors often with radiant floor heating, open air
courtyards and exposed ceiling beams. Projects
within these neighborhoods shall incorporate the
following design standards:
i. Exposed beams supporting (flat or sloping)
roof fronting the street and projects to cast
shadows on the exterior building wall below.
ii. Wall length greater than 40 feet shall be
interrupted by projections, indentations, or
changes of direction in the building plane.
iii. Flat or low-sloped gable roofs with a pitch
of up to 3:12 shall be utilized but may be
combined with roof pitch accents of up to
12:12 with open glazed gable ends.
iv. Roof beams shall be utilized that penetrate
the exterior walls to support a broad roof
overhang of at least three (3) feet.
Figure 91: Eichler neighborhoods