University Neighborhood Specific Plan

UNIVERSITY NEIGHBORHOOD SPECIFIC PLAN 08 August 2016 | PUBLIC REVIEW DRAFT - DESIGN GUIDELINES CITY OF PALM DESERT, CALIFORNIA Note: All images reduced in quality to accommodate web sharing. PUBLIC REVIEW DRAFT Appendix A. Design Guidelines The UNSP is intended to reflect the best of recent trends toward Section Page walkable, sustainable neighborhood development, and the best of A.1 Neighborhoods and Housing A-2 the Coachella Valley’s unique architectural heritage and desert land- scapes. And they are intended to provide a comfortable, valuable A.2 Neighborhood Housing Types A-12 setting for a range of diverse housing types that meet the needs of A.3 Neighborhood Center Design A-32 current and future Palm Desert residents. Guidelines These guidelines are intended to strike a balance between clarity A.4 Neighborhood Center A-43 of vision and purpose, and flexibility to meet the market demands Building Types and resident aspirations as the neighborhoods are built in a series of phases, and as they mature and evolve over time. These guidelines A.5 Private Frontage Design A-61 work hand in hand with the development standards in Section 4 to Guidelines assist developers, builders, residents and the City of Palm Desert in A.6 On-site Open Space Guidelines A-77 achieving those goals. A.7 Architectural Guidelines A-93 A.8 Signage A-133 A.9 Sustainability Design Guidelines A-150 CITY OF PALM DESERT UNIVERSITY NEIGHBORHOOD SPECIFIC PLAN | 08.08.16 | A-1 SECTION A.1 | NEIGHBORHOODS AND HOUSING | APPENDIX A: DESIGN GUIDELINES A.1 Neighborhoods and Housing A quintessential early Palm Desert home, characterized by modern architecture, a seamless transition between indoor and outdoor living space, and an expansive yard with a swimming pool to moderate the hot desert climate. 1. Palm Desert Neighborhoods Palm Desert’s first half century of housing development was characterized by the low wide houses on large lots, with strong emphasis on indoor and outdoor spaces that flow together to deliver the mid-Century desert life-style . Most homes were 1-story, many in the mid-Century Modern and Ranch styles of the 1950’s and 60’s, on lots of 8,000 and 10,000 s.f. with very generous yards and swimming pools. Multi-family housing was provided in the form of apartment complexes, organized around courtyards, gardens and pools, and located separately from single family neighborhoods. Recent Development Trends Early apartment complexes were organized around courtyards, gardens, and pools. A number of recent Palm Desert housing developments have followed trends popular in the 1990’s and 2000’s, imported from Orange and Los Angeles Counties, with large 2-story houses built on lots as small as 4,000 s.f. and less, many with small patios rather than back yards, and some with no usable yard space at all. The “Missing Middle” The UNSP provides a unique opportunity for Palm Desert to add to this existing housing stock a range of “missing middle” housing options that deliver the generous Palm Desert indoor-outdoor lifestyle in more compact configurations than the original mid-Century prototype. These include Recent development trends: in southern California have single-family detached houses on lots in the 5,000 to 6,000 tended toward houses “packed-into” small lots, yielding little to no usable private outdoor space. A-2 | 08.08.16 | CITY OF PALM DESERT UNIVERSITY NEIGHBORHOOD SPECIFIC PLAN APPENDIX A: DESIGN GUIDELINES | NEIGHBORHOODS AND HOUSING | SECTION A.1 s.f. range, as well as single-family detached and attached As a neighborhood is the fundamental unit of towns and types on smaller lots, and a range of neighborhood-scale cities alike, the house is the fundamental unit of neighbor- multi-family types on lots of various sizes. hoods. And while houses and housing can take many forms – larger or smaller, detached from other houses or attached Neighborhood Diversity to them – in American neighborhoods the detached Also, as observed in towns throughout California and as single-family house with front, side and rear yards is the demonstrated in innovative neighborhood designs of the essential form, in relation to which other housing types are past decade or two, such a diverse array of housing options understood. can be flexibly intermixed within a single neighborhood if Thus, to achieve a cohesive neighborhood design in which certain basic neighborhood design principles are followed. a variety of different housing types appear harmonious and Such neighborhoods – common throughout the country complementary to one another, it is important that each but not yet present in Palm Desert – can enable young variation possesses some clear “house-like” and “house- people to live within walking distance of their parents, older scale” design characteristics. This introductory section couples to find a home near their children and grandchil- describes those characteristics and design strategies, on dren, and students, graduate students and university faculty which the development standards and design guidelines for to find housing within walking and biking distance of the the UNSP are based. campus and commercial services. Smaller, houses on smaller lots provide a more affordable Individual bungalow cottages arranged around a common housing option to a broader range of potential residents. open space. A podium courtyard building achieves increased density,while A neighborhood-scale courtyard building with 16 units in two maintaining quality private and shared open space. individual buildings sharing a common open space. CITY OF PALM DESERT UNIVERSITY NEIGHBORHOOD SPECIFIC PLAN | 08.08.16 | A-3 SECTION A.1 | NEIGHBORHOODS AND HOUSING | APPENDIX A: DESIGN GUIDELINES The original Palm Desert pattern has been characterized by large, often horizontally massed mid-century modern houses on large lots with generous yards on all sides. 2. Neighborhood Patterns The fundamental American house is characterized by a single, simple mass with a gable or hipped roof, set back from the street with a front yard, separated from its neigh- bors by landscaped side yards, with a private rear yard for family activities. Larger houses on larger lots are generated by adding secondary masses in the form of wings on one or both sides, to the rear, and in some cases in the front, and as independent out-buildings in the rear yard. Garages are almost always located in the wings or outbuildings, rarely in the Primary Mass. A critical strategy in generating a varied but cohesive neighborhood design is to ensure reasonable consistency in the The UNSP offers opportunities for smaller, more intense size and scale of the Primary Masses of all buildings within a housing types, on smaller, more compact lots. street. Buildings with significantly larger or smaller Primary Masses can comfortably share a rear yard fence or alley, but within each street a degree of compatibility in size, scale and character is very important. That scale and character is defined in large measure by: • The (range of) widths of the lots • The width, height and depth of the Primary Mass, in dimension and in relation to the lot width • The range of front setbacks • The design of the frontages (front yards) • The presence or absence of garages near the street • The consistent (or generally consistent) space A mix of architectural styles and building scale / character between buildings on adjacent lots. creates visual diversity in this neighborhood. A-4 | 08.08.16 | CITY OF PALM DESERT UNIVERSITY NEIGHBORHOOD SPECIFIC PLAN APPENDIX A: DESIGN GUIDELINES | NEIGHBORHOODS AND HOUSING | SECTION A.1 As such, a cohesive neighborhood character is generated c. The neighborhood design quality – or in later 20th when some, but not all, of these characteristics are varied Century parlance, “curb appeal” – is improved by along a street or within a section of a neighborhood. locating service functions such as garages and utility An important lesson learned from the work of early 20th equipment as far as practical toward the rear of the lot. Century town planners is that houses and lots of varying sizes can be very successfully mixed within a single neighborhood if a few basic design principles are recognized. a. Buildings of various sizes on lots of various widths can be mixed within a street so long as the size and scale of the Primary Masses and the depth and design character of the front yard are relatively consistent. b. Much larger (or much smaller) buildings can be located nearby – even back to back with one another – so long as they are on a different street, or sometimes even a different block of the same street. A variety of building types -- including this multi-unit courtyard A quadplex, in the form of a larger house, fits nicely, both in building can seamlessly “fit in” to most neighborhood contexts. scale and character, with its smaller single-family neighbor. A duplex with the scale and character of a larger single-family A quadplex (left) and a 6-unit multi-plex (right), both of which house whose garages are accessed through a porte cochere. have the form of larger single-family homes from the street. CITY OF PALM DESERT UNIVERSITY NEIGHBORHOOD SPECIFIC PLAN | 08.08.16 | A-5 SECTION A.1 | NEIGHBORHOODS AND HOUSING | APPENDIX A: DESIGN GUIDELINES The essence of desert-living; indoor rooms that flow seamlessly into outdoor living spaces, with pools, lush landscaping, and beautiful desert landscape backdrops. 3. Indoor/Outdoor Living The placement and configuration of the building(s) on each lot determines the sizes and configurations of the yard spaces. The quality and usefulness of those yard spaces is always an important consideration in designing housing, but in Palm Desert – where the indoor/outdoor desert lifestyle is central to community identity – it is a top-level priority.

Load more