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

Montebello Municipal Code Section 17.04.110 designates Title 4 of the Downtown Montebello Specific Plan as the citywide "Downtown Code." Rather than conventional use-based zoning, the Downtown Code is a form-based code that regulates the physical form of development, streets, open spaces, setbacks, building height, ground-floor frontage, and parking within boundaries mapped on Figure D.3. Where the Downtown Code and the rest of the Municipal Code both address the same topic, the Downtown Code controls unless it says otherwise, and pre-Downtown-Code zoning requirements inside the plan area are replaced outright.

The Planning Division administers the code day to day; the Planning Commission and City Council retain authority as they do under the general Zoning Code, and Chapter 17.74's site plan review sets which applications are decided administratively (ministerial, per Table 4.5) versus by public hearing (discretionary, per Table D.5). Applicants may request a Minor Deviation of up to ten percent from any development standard, reviewed first by the Planning and Community Development Director before going to the Planning Commission. All new development in the plan area also goes through an external architectural peer review by an outside architect, urban designer, or planner chosen by the city, with fees set by the review authority.

One notable form standard: buildings in the Downtown Core, Main Street, and Downtown Edge zones may rise one story above the district's maximum base height on up to 30 percent of the footprint, provided an equal footprint area is built one story shorter elsewhere. Entitlements approved before the code's adoption keep their four-year window and must reach 90 percent completion, as determined by the Building Official, or the site reverts to Downtown Code compliance.