The R-4 general multi-family residential zone is intended to provide areas for a wide variety of medium-density residential development. Housing types include attached townhouses, condominiums, and apartment buildings. This zone also provides for public and quasi-public uses, and similar and compatible uses that may be appropriate in a medium density residential environment. The maximum residential density for the R-4 district is twenty-eight dwelling units per gross acre. This zone implements the multi-family residential (MFR) general plan land use designation.

The following specific regulations and the general rules set forth in sections 17.04.060 through 17.04.070 and chapter 17.50 of this Code shall apply in all R-4 districts. It is intended that this district classification be applied in areas where group dwellings and apartments are the logical and desirable uses.

(Ord. No. 713, § 1(Att. A), 6-10-2025)

In R-4 districts, the following uses are permitted:

A.

Townhouses, condominiums, and apartments;

B.

Parks, playgrounds, public and private schools, churches and religious institutions, libraries, day care centers and public buildings;

C.

Private garages, or parking lots uncovered and screened by suitable walls or planting, when operated by or in conjunction with a permitted use;

D.

Incidental and accessory buildings and uses on the same lot with and necessary for the operation of any permitted use;

E.

Advertising signs pertaining directly to a permitted nonresidential use on the property, and not to exceed one sign of a maximum area of six square feet for any such use, or as specified in the use permit;

F.

Group residential dwellings;

G.

Single-room occupancy units;

H.

Transitional and supportive housing, subject to the provisions of chapter 17.69;

I.

Low barrier navigation centers;

J.

Accessory dwelling units, subject to the provisions of chapter 17.64;

K.

Residential care facility, small (six or fewer persons) licensed, or small or large unlicensed, subject to the provisions of chapter 17.68.

(Ord. No. 713, § 1(Att. A), 6-10-2025)

A.

All housing element inventory sites identified in Table VI.4 (Vacant Sites Inventory) of the City's 2024—2029 Housing Element or by the Department of General Services Housing and Local Land Development Opportunities Map shall comply with state law. In particular:

1.

Any sites rezoned after the start of the planning period, proposed to be developed at a minimum density of twenty dwelling units per acre, and providing at least twenty percent of the total units in the development as affordable to lower-income households are eligible for by-right approval as defined in Government Code Section 65583.2(h) and (i).

2.

Any sites being used to accommodate the current lower-income RHNA that are nonvacant and were identified in the previous planning period or vacant and identified in two or more previous consecutive planning periods, providing appropriate densities and providing at least twenty percent of the total units in the development as affordable to lower-income households shall be permitted by-right consistent with Government Code Section 65583.2(i).

(Ord. No. 713, § 1(Att. A), 6-10-2025)

In R-4 districts, the following uses are conditionally permitted:

A.

Hotels, motels, hospitals, rest homes, sanitariums, mortuaries, and professional offices for doctors, dentists, architects, engineers, accountants, artists, authors, attorneys, real estate and insurance offices, medical and dental clinics, and other uses which in the opinion of the planning commission, are similar to the foregoing; and clubs, lodges and fraternities, except those operated as a business or for profit; and

B.

Residential care facility, large (seven or more persons) licensed, subject to the provisions of chapter 17.68.

(Ord. No. 713, § 1(Att. A), 6-10-2025)

In R-4 districts, the development standard requirements can be found in Table 1. The following standards shall also apply:

A.

Side yards shall not be less than six feet for each side yard. Three feet shall be added to each required side yard for each story above the first story of any building. The side yard on the street side of each corner lot shall not be less than ten feet. A twenty-foot minimum side yard shall be required where a two-story residential structure will be located on a lot which abuts the rear yard of a single-family lot;

B.

Rear yard shall not be less than ten feet. An additional five feet shall be added to the required rear yard for each story over the first story of any building;

C.

Section 8.17 distances between main buildings on same lot, ten feet;

1.

Attached dwellings in a single row "side-to-side" series facing a side lot line; side yards to the rear of buildings, eight feet; side yards in front of buildings, fourteen feet;

2.

Attached dwellings in a row "side-to-side" series facing a central court; side yards to the rear of buildings, eight feet; width of central court, twenty-four feet. Distance between buildings, ten feet; and

3.

The rear yard on a lot on which a dwelling group is constructed may be reduced to not less than twelve feet. No building in a group dwelling development shall have a rear thereof abutting upon a street;

D.

Loading areas, as specified in conditional use permit.

(Ord. No. 713, § 1(Att. A), 6-10-2025)