Comparing Two Cities' Growth Rules Without the Rhetoric

People compare towns constantly. One is said to be building everything, another to be blocking everything, and the comparison is usually made from impressions gathered at the windshield rather than from anything either city has written down.

There is a better way to do it, and it is available to anyone. Cities publish the documents that govern them. Comparing two places honestly is a matter of reading the same handful of things in each and lining them up.

This is a method, not a verdict. It is deliberately not an argument that any city regulates too much or too little. Anthony is a Realtor, not a planner or land use attorney, and any conclusion about a specific parcel belongs with the city that governs it.

Start with the plan, not the skyline

What a town looks like today reflects decisions made over decades, many of them no longer in force. The current rules are a different subject, and the general plan is where they begin.

Read each city's land use element and note what it says about growth: where it directs it, what it protects, and what it says about intensity. The structure of these documents is described in the guide to the general plan.

Then read each housing element, which is the most directly comparable document between California cities because it addresses a common set of required subjects. Its structure is covered in the guide to what a housing element contains. Compliance status is a factual matter and a fair point of comparison.

Line up the standards that actually bind

Zoning designations do not compare across cities. The same district letters mean different things in different towns, so comparing labels tells you nothing.

Compare the standards themselves.

What are the height limits in the districts closest to each downtown, and how is height measured in each.

What are the setback and coverage requirements for a typical single-family district. The vocabulary is in the guide to the envelope rules.

What parking is required for housing and for commercial uses. This one is decisive more often than height, for reasons set out in the guide to parking requirements.

What overlays exist, and how much of the city they cover. Two towns with identical base zoning can behave completely differently if one blankets itself in overlays.

The process signals

Standards describe what is allowed. Process describes how hard it is to get, and process often matters more.

Three questions do most of the work.

HOW MUCH IS BY RIGHT. What share of ordinary development can be approved without a discretionary hearing. A city where common projects are ministerial behaves very differently from one where the same projects need a permit and a hearing, a distinction covered in the guide to entitlements and building permits.

HOW MANY BODIES REVIEW A PROJECT. Some towns route projects through committees, commissions, and a council. Each additional body adds time and uncertainty.

HOW APPEALS WORK. Who may appeal, on what grounds, at what cost, and to whom. Appeal rules are among the most quietly influential provisions in any code, and the general shape is in the guide to appealing a planning decision.

The paper trail that shows behavior

Documents state intentions; records show conduct. Both cities publish the second kind too.

Read a year of planning commission agendas in each. Volume, subject matter, and outcomes are all visible, and the tone of a town's land use conversation comes through quickly.

Read a few staff reports on comparable projects. Staff reports show what a city asks for, what it worries about, and what it treats as settled.

Look at each city's adopted fee schedule and exaction programs, the framework for which is in the guide to impact fees. Fees are a policy statement expressed in numbers.

The confounders

Four things distort every casual comparison.

GEOGRAPHY. A town constrained by mountains, a wilderness boundary, or a county line has less developable land than a town on open ground, regardless of policy. Constraint can look like restriction.

LAND AVAILABILITY. A built-out town and a town with vacant acreage produce different development patterns under identical rules.

AGE OF STOCK. Where housing was largely built in one era, the constraints of that era persist in the streets and lots long after the rules changed.

NON-CITY LAYERS. County services, special districts, school districts, and state law overlay every city and are not the city's doing. School capacity in particular sits with a separate agency, as covered in the guide to school fees and the limits of mitigation.

What the comparison is good for

Two honest uses.

If you are choosing where to buy and you intend to build, remodel, or add a unit, the process differences above will affect you directly, and they are knowable in advance rather than discovered at a counter.

If you are participating in a local debate, comparing documents rather than impressions raises the quality of the argument on whichever side you are on. Both the growth and the preservation cases are stronger when made from the record.

What the comparison is not good for is ranking towns morally. Communities make genuinely different choices about change, and reasonable people land in different places.

Documents and standards change. For anything current, go to each city directly; for Claremont, that is the City of Claremont planning division.

For the broader mechanics, start at the City Development hub and the overview of how Claremont grows. Anthony Grynchal has been licensed in California since November 2009.