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

020(A) folds Westminster's separately adopted Design Guidelines Manual directly into the zoning code for the Mixed-Use (MU) district, which covers the city's Downtown, Civic Center, Corridor, Little Saigon, and Northwest District sub-areas. 1 requires that development within the MU zone be designed in accordance with the applicable Westminster Design Guidelines Manual, making manual compliance a mandatory finding rather than a suggestion. 2 then routes projects to the correct chapter of the manual: a project inside the Civic Center or Little Saigon overlays follows the Civic Center Area Design Guidelines or Little Saigon Area Design Guidelines specifically, while any other mixed-use project defaults to the Commercial Design Guidelines for its overall site and building design, including ground-floor nonresidential components, with the Residential Design Guidelines layered on for any residential component.

260 shall prevail, so the Manual supplements but cannot override the Code's own building design and articulation standards, such as the required roofline articulation every 50 feet and the massing-relief rules for buildings four stories and taller found later in the same chapter. Because the Manual is not included in any article of this Title, applicants must obtain it separately from the City's website or the Community Development Division office before submitting design review plans, and staff checks compliance with it as part of the Development Review process required for MU projects.