zoneoptics
Redwood City, California · General provision

Article 15

General CommercialAll Redwood City districts0

Dimensional standards

lot requirementsSTREETFront 5 ftRear 15 ftSide 15 ftMin width 50 ftMIN LOT AREA5,000 sq ftMIN FRONTAGE35 ftMAX HEIGHT75 ftMAX LOT COVERAGE60%MAX FAR10
Plan view of the district’s stated lot requirements. Solid line: the property line. Dashed: the setback lines the ordinance imposes; a building must stay inside the tinted envelope. Drawn from the figures extracted below — illustrative, not a survey.

Lot

Minimum lot areaMinimum lot areaThe smallest parcel on which the district allows anything to be built.
5,000 sq ftsq ftSquare feet. An acre is 43,560 sq ft; a typical suburban lot is 7,000–10,000.
Minimum lot widthLot widthHow wide a lot must be, usually measured at the front setback line.
50 ft
Minimum frontageFrontageThe length of a lot line that touches a public street.
35 ft

SetbacksSetbackThe distance a building must be held back from a lot line.

FrontSetbackThe distance a building must be held back from a lot line.
5 ft
RearSetbackThe distance a building must be held back from a lot line.
15 ft
SideSetbackThe distance a building must be held back from a lot line.
15 ft

Height & bulk

Maximum heightMaximum heightThe tallest a building may be, given in feet, in storeys, or both — whichever binds first.
75 ft
Maximum floor area ratioFloor area ratio (FAR)Total floor area divided by lot area — an FAR of 2.0 permits 20,000 sq ft of floor on a 10,000 sq ft lot.
10
Maximum lot coverageLot coverageThe share of a lot that buildings may cover, as a percentage.
60%

Housing

Single-familySingle-family dwellingOne dwelling unit on its own lot, usually detached from its neighbours.
prohibitedProhibitedNot allowed in the district at all, short of rezoning or a variance.
Two-family
prohibitedProhibitedNot allowed in the district at all, short of rezoning or a variance.
Three-family
prohibitedProhibitedNot allowed in the district at all, short of rezoning or a variance.
Four-plus family
prohibitedProhibitedNot allowed in the district at all, short of rezoning or a variance.

Uses

Permitted by right13

  • New car, boat, or trailer sales, rental and repair
  • Parking lots and garages
  • Sales or service establishments and sales of new merchandise and equipment
  • Hotels and motels
  • Administrative, business or professional offices with a gross floor area of less than ten thousand (10,000) square feet
  • Medical offices, or medical clinics with a gross floor area of less than two thousand five hundred (2,500) square feet
  • Commercial passenger terminal facilities, including bus or train terminals and ambulance services
  • Garden nurseries
  • Schools and studios for arts, trades, and professions not including industrial machinery or processes
  • Family child care homes, within residential structures, in accordance with the provisions of Section 39.3
  • Financial services with a gross floor area of less than five thousand (5,000) square feet
  • Child care centers of up to sixty (60) children
  • Nursing homes

Conditional / special use17

  • Public or quasi-public uses
  • Animal hospitals, veterinary clinics, and completely enclosed, soundproofed kennels
  • Commercial recreation facilities, including, but not limited to, swimming pools, bowling alleys, skating rinks, golf-driving ranges, and dance halls
  • Bars, restaurants, catering establishments, and drive-through eating establishments, including the sale of alcoholic beverages
  • Lumber yards, building material sales yards, and public utility service and corporation yards. Concrete or asphalt batch or mixing plants are not permitted in the CG District
  • Funeral homes and mortuaries
  • Warehouses and storage buildings
  • Bookstores
  • Sales of used merchandise, including cars, boats, and trailers
  • Operation of amusement games at a place of business that operates five (5) or more of such games, the operation of which is the primary source of revenue for such business
  • Parking lots and garages, as defined in Article 2
  • Administrative, business or professional offices with a gross floor area of ten thousand (10,000) square feet or more
  • Any permitted or conditionally permitted use when conducted primarily outside a building
  • Any other use not otherwise listed in this Section, which is determined by the Zoning Administrator, after a public hearing, to be a similar and/or compatible use to any conditionally permitted uses in this Section, and is consistent with the purpose and intent of this Article
  • Child care centers of more than sixty (60) children
  • Financial services with a gross floor area of five thousand (5,000) square feet or more
  • Medical offices or medical clinics with a gross floor area of two thousand five hundred (2,500) square feet or more

Accessory2

  • Accessory uses and structures customarily appurtenant to a permitted use
  • Child care centers if the facilities are in conjunction with adjoining businesses and primarily serve the employees of such businesses

Prohibited1

Extracted standards

11 individual requirements pulled out of this section’s prose, each with the sentence it came from.

Other

From the ordinance

CG General Commercial District: permitted uses, conditional uses, height, lot area, lot width, lot coverage, yards, FAR, pervious area.
Article 15

Use details

{
  "dropped_conditions": {
    "conditional_uses": [
      "Automobile service stations, cabinet shops, electrical, plumbing, or heating shops, sheet metal shops, upholstery shops, bakeries, creameries, bottling plants, laundries, and cleaning and dyeing establishments, so long as any activities or operations connected therewith which are normally capable of creating noise, odor, glare, or dust are located wholly within a completely enclosed building or room having no exterior entrance within fifty (50) feet of any street or adjacent property unless such entrance is completely shielded by part of the building from such street or adjacent property"
    ]
  }
}