San Diego approved a wide-ranging package of zoning changes Monday that ease approvals for wireless antenna farms, loosen rules for Old Town sidewalk cafes and roll back an incentive for building small apartments.
The 134-item package, which the City Council approved unanimously, also softens development rules for downtown and bans storage facilities on parts of El Cajon Boulevard and University Avenue.
Other changes include banning cannabis outlets from using leaf images in their signage, allowing more child care businesses in Miramar and clarifying that property owners may have to honor wider setbacks to help fight wildfires.
The package also eases approvals for emergency shelters, allows medical clinics in more places and allows for-sale housing — no longer just rental units — under the Complete Communities developer incentive.
The changes are part of the city’s annual land development code update, a monthslong process that has taken longer than usual this time around — roughly 18 months.
Three controversial proposals were removed before Monday’s council vote: requiring some hotels and apartment complexes to upgrade pool heaters, new restrictions on shrubs and requiring softer transitions from high-rise housing to low-rise housing and open space.
Many other proposals have been tweaked, amended, expanded or shrunk based on feedback from the public, developers, the business community and other local leaders.
One key change would keep a fee waiver Complete Communities developers get when they build units that are smaller than 500 square feet. Previously the plan was to eliminate it.
The waiver of the fees, which cover new infrastructure and services like libraries, will still be available if developers also include some three-bedroom units in their projects. Before the change, the small-apartment incentive has cost the city about $11 million per year in developer fees.
“Many of the changes in front of us today seem small but can actually make a really significant difference,” Councilmember Stephen Whitburn said of the package.
Another key change is sharply raising many zoning-related city fines and penalties for the first time in many years, even decades. Those include fines for violations of the city’s municipal code and abandoned property penalties.
The package would also sharply increase fines to appeal decisions by the Planning Commission or City Council, but appeals from people in low-income neighborhoods would get a 50% discount.
San Diego is the only city in the region that updates its zoning code annually with one large batch of policy changes. Other cities make such changes one at a time.
Critics have pointed out that adjusting significant regulations in such a large batch can shield the changes from the level of scrutiny they might receive if they were debated individually.
City officials say comprehensively updating the zoning code each year allows them to quickly make small modifications that streamline regulations and adjust policies that may have had unintended consequences.
They say it would be a bureaucratic nightmare to have each proposal go to the Planning Commission, the City Council’s Land Use and Housing Committee and then the full City Council for final approval.
The development and business communities hailed the package Monday.
“We’re especially supportive of the items that promote housing throughout our city, that help revitalize downtown, that speed up processes for things like outdoor dining establishments and wireless communications facilities and that really promote small business growth,” said Evan Strawn of the San Diego Regional Chamber of Commerce.
Aimee Faucett, chief executive of the Building Industry Association, thanked city planning staff for working closely with developers on the changes.
“Thank you to staff for working with industry to identify policies that needed more vetting,” she said.
The looser rules for wireless antenna farms, which allow final approvals without the usual Planning Commission hearing if no appeal is filed, have generally been embraced by the telecommunications industry.
But Mindy Hartstein of T-Mobile said she was concerned the city has more restrictive rules than the Federal Communications Commission for design of small-cell antenna facilities.
Thirty-one of the 134 code changes apply only to downtown, including looser rules for farmers markets and new developer incentives for projects that have rooftop gardens or are located along C Street.
Also in downtown only, the package includes allowing developers to build large projects if they preserve mature trees instead of eliminating them. A 2025 city analysis found the tree canopy downtown had shrunk more than in any other neighborhood in recent years.
Councilmember Stephen Whitburn praised the downtown changes.
“These updates move us toward a downtown that is greener, more attainable, more dynamic and more complete and one that honors our character, supports our residents and strengthens the economic and cultural heart of this city,” he said.
But Gary Hewitt, chair of the Downtown Community Planning Council, complained about a new downtown policy in the package that waives noise rules during special events.
Councilmember Sean Elo-Rivera, whose district includes much of El Cajon Boulevard and University Avenue, praised the ban on new storage facilities on many parts of those two streets.
“We need homes and small businesses in my district and our communities, we don’t need more spaces for folks from other neighborhoods to store their stuff,” he said. “District 9, City Heights and other parts of the city are not the storage centers for wealthier parts of the city.”
The package also includes a proposal to soften rules in Old Town for sidewalk cafes and “streeteries” — outdoor dining in parts of the street that were previously used as parking spaces.
On the fines, violations of the municipal code or the state building code would now cost $10,000 — up from previous amounts that ranged from $250 and $1,000. These fines haven’t been updated since 2006.
Fines would also rise for abandoned property penalties. The maximum cap per calendar year would rise from $5,000 per property to $100,000 per property.
On appeals, the cost for Planning Commission appeals would rise from $1,000 to $1,140, and the cost for City Council appeals would rise from $1,000 to $2,380.
The package was approved 7-0 by the council, with Councilmembers Henry Foster and Marni von Wilpert absent.