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Page 3 of 6 <br />City of Redwood City 1017 Middlefield Road, Redwood City, CA. 94063 Tel: 650-780-7000 www.redwoodcity.org <br />On December 2, staff sent official courtesy notices to all businesses with improvements in the right-of- <br />way whose parklets or sidewalk cafes are not yet approved with notice of the City’s intent to enforce the <br />Program. In the letter, businesses were told that enforcement would begin in January 2025 and instructed <br />them to resubmit plans or remove their furniture. Five businesses received Notices of Violation in <br />February 2025. One of the five has since removed furniture. <br />Proposed Updates to the Outdoor Business Activity Program Guidelines <br />The intent behind creating a new singular program was to have a collective restart of the outdoor dining <br />initiatives Providing Guidelines and templates was intended to provide a cohesive look and feel for the <br />Outdoor Business Activity Program and to give business owners a permanent way forward. <br />However, there have been unforeseen challenges in implementing the Program and staff recommend <br />updating Program Guidelines based on the following factors: <br />1. Business owners and architects had trouble understanding the full scope of standards and <br />requirements because some processes were not well-defined or easy to find within the Guidelines. <br />2. Feedback from architects and business owners convinced staff that some of the requirements were <br />too onerous or expensive to retrofit. <br />3. The internal process for approving parklets evolved once the Community Development and <br />Engineering & Transportation Departments assumed responsibility for the approval process. <br />Table 2 summarizes the main proposed changes to the Program Guidelines: <br />Table 2: Main Changes to the Program Guidelines <br />Before Impact Proposed Change Guideline Status <br />Required separate <br />application for building <br />permit for parklets; <br />parklet plans were <br />evaluated differently <br />than sidewalk cafe plans. <br />Checklists included in the <br />Guidelines were out of <br />date. <br />Business owners might <br />get comments that <br />contradicted each other <br />during the sidewalk cafe <br />and building permit <br />approval process, causing <br />expensive changes to <br />plans and frustration <br />Streamlined internal process: <br />All applications come in <br />under “Building Permit <br />Applications” and all are <br />evaluated by Planning, <br />Engineering, Building and <br />Fire against the Guidelines <br />and the California Building <br />Standards Code. At the end, <br />both a building permit and <br />an encroachment permit are <br />issued for all applications. <br /> <br />Process and checklists <br />are administrative and <br />were removed from <br />the Guidelines so that <br />they may evolve as <br />needed. <br />No possibility to deviate <br />from the Guidelines <br />when evaluating Fixed <br />Improvements which <br />existed prior to March <br />13, 2020 <br />Business owners had <br />concerns about the <br />possibility of having to <br />deconstruct and <br />reconstruct previously <br />Added a way for non- <br />conforming parklets <br />constructed before March <br />13, 2020 to apply for an <br />exception from Guideline <br />requirements provided that <br />Included in Guidelines <br />as Section 6 <br />6.E. - Page 3 of 76 <br />98