Warren, MI Zoning Overlays & Bonuses: Downtown Design Guide (2026)

Under Warren City Code Appendix A (Zoning Ordinance) Section 21B.28, the Urban Design Manual and Streetscape Design Guidelines are not optional suggestions: the Downtown Development Authority reviews them, the planning commission formally adopts them, and the planning commission applies them during every site plan review and approval for property in the Downtown Center. The manual is updated periodically, and any proposed change must go back through planning commission review and city council approval by resolution before it takes effect.

The standards that flow from this framework are detailed and numeric. Section 21B.29 requires exterior walls visible from any right-of-way to be finished in a durable hard surface, brick, glass, stone, ceramic, pre-cast panels, or textured masonry or concrete siding, and bans plain concrete or cinder block unless burnished, fluted or sculpturally textured, along with residential-grade siding, wood and asphalt siding on exterior walls. Section 21B.30 sets a floor area ratio of 1.0 to 5.0 in the City Square and Urban Neighborhoods (0.5 to 3.0 in the Gateway Neighborhood), a minimum two-story, 24-foot building height along rights-of-way, and caps floor plates above the fifth level at 10,000 square feet. Section 21B.31 requires at least 60 percent ground-floor facade transparency in the City Square and Urban Neighborhoods (40 percent in Gateway) and bans blank walls longer than 16 feet (12 feet in Gateway). Section 21B.33's build-to-zone rules require City Square buildings to sit within 5 feet of the right-of-way along at least 90 percent of primary frontage. Compliance is checked through the site plan review process administered by the planning commission before any Downtown Center permit is issued.