Tehachapi Adopts Groundbreaking Hybrid Zoning Code
At their October 6 meeting the City Council of the Town of Tehachapi unanimously adoped a groundbreaking citywide hybrid development code, prepared by the team of Lisa Wise Consulting, Tony Perez Associates and Sargent Town Planning. The new code is the culmination of a decade-long effort, with contributions by Sargent Town Planning, Moule & Polyzoides, Lisa Wise Consulting, Opticos Design’s Tony Perez and others.
In 2005 the city hired David Sargent of Sargent Town Planning in 2005 to help them understand why new development wasn't meeting the communities expectations for a "small mountain town." Through policy and regulatory analysis and a charrette-based community visioning process, it became clear that Tehachapi General Plan and zoning standards was generating the very results that they didn’t want and the Sargent team prepared a vision plan, interim form-based design guideliines, and recommendations to update their general plan and zoning.
In 2007, when Sargent and Perez were working for Moule & Polyzoides, that firm was hired to prepare a new form-based general plan based on the new vision plan. They led that general plan consultant team and the new general plan was adopted in late 2012. In 2013 the City retained the team of Lisa Wise Consulting, Sargent Town Planning, and Tony Perez Associates to completely overhaul the zoning ordinance, integrating form-based development standard and street type standards for areas of growth and change, with conventional zoning for other parts of town.