La Habra, CA Zoning Overlays & Bonuses: Downtown Design Guide (2026)

Chapter 18.44 establishes the SP-1 La Habra Boulevard Specific Plan zone, and Section 18.44.060 sets the design guidelines that implement its Early California Spanish Style theme. Subsection A requires street-facing building finishes to be smooth, semi-smooth, or light sand exterior plaster, or brick masonry designed to look like plastered masonry, with the planning commission reviewing any other proposed texture. Buildings must incorporate at least three accent treatments from a listed menu, arcades or colonnades, arches, brick, ceramic tile, clay pipe vents, cloth awnings, plaster banding, stone, rough-sawn heavy timber, or wrought iron.

Color schemes must use earth tones as a base, with bolder accent colors requiring planning commission approval for anything outside that palette. At least twenty percent of the street-facing façade must be glazing, aluminum storefronts must be painted or anodized (no bare aluminum), and mirrored or reflective window film is prohibited outright. Subsection B governs roofs: all roof tile must be clay or concrete barrel or 's' tile with a minimum seventy percent terra cotta color mixture, unglazed for a nonreflective finish, while plastic, metal, wood shake, and asphalt tiles are banned.

Mansard roofs cannot exceed a five-to-twelve slope, and main roof surfaces need a pitch between three-to-twelve and five-to-twelve, except arcades and colonnades, which get a two-to-twelve minimum. Solar panels must sit flush with the roof slope and stay screened from view, and rooftop mechanical equipment must be architecturally screened behind parapets or enclosures. Enforcement runs through the three-step design review process in Section 18.44.050(F): planning department staff review minor changes at the counter without a fee, the design review board (which doubles as the planning commission) reviews front landscaping, exterior color and freestanding sign changes, and the full planning commission must approve any new development or remodeling exceeding twenty-five percent of the building's floor area before a building permit issues.