January 2026 Open House Boards

I strongly oppose zoning changes that would allow significantly taller and denser development in Palm Springs.
Palm Springs has a globally recognized identity built on human-scale neighborhoods, strong architectural design, and the preservation of its mid-century modern heritage. This character is not only cultural—it is a core economic asset that supports tourism, local businesses, and property values.
Allowing four- and five-story buildings, particularly along key corridors such as Tahquitz Canyon Way, South Palm Canyon Drive, or Sunrise Way, risks fundamentally altering the visual landscape of the city. Building height and massing directly affect neighborhood compatibility, view corridors, and the relationship between architecture and the surrounding desert environment. Protecting views of the San Jacinto Mountains and maintaining a human-scale streetscape should remain central planning priorities.
Palm Springs’ built environment is also a major driver of tourism and cultural recognition. Events such as Modernism Week demonstrate how strongly the city’s architectural identity contributes to its economic vitality. Planning decisions should reinforce that identity rather than risk eroding it.
Housing affordability is an important issue, but increasing allowable height and density alone does not guarantee affordability. Construction costs, regulatory complexity, and market conditions play significant roles and should be addressed without sacrificing the city’s defining character.
Future development should prioritize architectural quality, context-sensitive design, and appropriate height transitions near residential neighborhoods. Protecting Palm Springs’ architectural heritage, view corridors, and human-scale character will ensure the city remains distinctive and economically resilient for the long term.

Multi-use housing, such as in San Francisco Bay area where I used to live, is one way to increase retail, along with housing, but cutting parking spaces will burden people with cars and most couples have two cars, so garages must be implemented as well and height increases have to be approved since we can't go wider, we must go taller.

The City should only allow developers who are willing to build affordable apartments, condos, homes, etc. as opposed to high-end developments, such as Latitude 61. Also, mixed-used retail/apartments, such as is located in certain spots along Palm Canyon should be re-implemented into the General and Specific Plans.

I acknowledge the need for growth and affordable housing. There is plenty of space for building further out while preserving the iconic views of the mountains, the unique character of the city and large swaths of natural habitat. Money talks and I fully expect the council to cave to the almighty dollar. Prove me wrong, please.

please do not go up with housing ---how about down----basement units---palm springs is about nature seeing it all around---thankyou---victoria

Increased housing is a great objective, however it should not be at the expense of the integrity of the current city. I would also like to see a full environmental assessment of the proposed increase of population. This would need to include water use, sewage capacity, increase trash collection/disposal and affect to current wildlife. There is a point that it may have a better plan to cap population increase. Also, there are a number of large tracts of land that are unused for housing (golf courses, etc) that should be first use plan, versus changing established neighborhoods.

Multi-use development should be applauded. Height requirements should be re-evaluated. To keep the Palm Springs environment that is expected by both residents and vacationers, 5/6 stories is too high and will impact the integrity of the city. Additionally, it needs to be mandated that appropriate amounts of parking (underground or above) are associated with each building. The city streets are not built to accommodate a large number of new vehicles.

This statement is not correct as a matter of law and is intended to constrain public outreach.

The presenter conceded at the outreach session that there is no factual basis for the information on this slide. Sad you have to resort to making things up.

I think we all see now that this has been a complete sham of a process designed to mislead the public through erroneous statements of law to direct us to the high density proposal that City staff wants.

Only the two lots that touch Tahquitz Canyon Way abut a commercial corridor, The others do not and if the zoning proceed on the other lots it is a violation of the General Plan.

This diagram is a total sham and designed to mislead the pubic as it does not encompass the full area proposed to be rezoned for 5 stories.

Apparently the message was not received that we do not want density concentrated adjacent to single family neighborhoods.

I've been through "public engagement" planning sessions in other cities and found them to be totally bogus. The reports on these sessions that are presented to the various city councils do not represent what citizens want, partly because the moderators "steer" the discussion in the directions they want it to go in, and partly because things citizens say that do not conform to the city council's "vision" are left out of the report. The purpose of these sessions is not to give citizens a voice, but rather to keep them at arm's length from the decision makers. And they've been very effective at doing that. I've been following public comment at Palm Springs city council meetings for years, and residents are disengaged, with an average of only 5 to 10 public comments at each meeting, and very few viewers watching the meetings on YouTube (and it's quite telling that people are not allowed to comment on YouTube about those meetings!). Lack of citizen engagement is a recipe for destroying a city. Where was the outrage when the city council lost $700,000 in taxpayer money that it had given to a fraudulent "non-profit" with zero vetting, monitoring and oversight? There was hardly any. The fact that we have so many second-home owners who live somewhere else is all the more reason for year-round residents to get involved and start holding their public officials to account. That means talking to them directly, not going to phony "public engagement" meetings that will have zero effect on what the city decides in the end.

The claim that Palm Springs housing costs have risen by 84% since 2019 is not credible. They have only risen by about a third. If a house price has risen by more than that, it has been due to a major renovation or remodel. The City of Palm Springs has added upward pressure to prices by allowing people (mostly non-residents) to transform single family homes into Air BnB "investments" and shared ownership homes. The whole "smart growth-new urbanism" fad that the city is now embracing has not delivered affordable housing in other cities. Quite the opposite. Almost all the new in-fill housing along transit lines has been expensive luxury housing, and none of it has been family-size housing. You're basically telling people not to have families if they want to have housing. The state of California is forcing communities to add housing without any regard for the impact on needed resources such as fresh water, people's backyard privacy, views, reasonable traffic, available free parking, clean air, landscaping, and needed infrastructure. The city's roads are in bad condition, especially along Ramon Rd where you can't see anything at night. Residents are being told to tear out their lawns and use less water, which would suggest that we should add less population, not more. Multiple story housing is contrary to the midcentury modern character that drew people to Palm Springs. The city's neglect of basic infrastructure in favor of vanity projects and funding of sometimes fraudulent "non-profits" (without requiring accountability for how taxpayer money is spent) is a disgrace. The leaders of Palm Springs clearly do not care about the majority of its existing residents and small business owners but only care about favoring certain groups. The whole idea of getting people out of cars to walk and bike everywhere is absurd, given the 7 months of boiling hot weather we have every year. And it should be noted that city employees enjoy incomes at least three times as high as the incomes of average residents which is another major reason for our neglected infrastructure. It would be one thing if the city were grudgingly complying with the state's development demands. But no, it's embracing them and probably wants to go even further. In conclusion, every member of the city council needs to be removed from office before they completely destroy Palm Springs.

There are multiple empty buildings in Smoke Tree Shopping Center. Those would be great locations for CX-A buildings. In fact, the Palm Canyon/111 corridor is well suited for such buildings. The other locations seem reasonable as well. CX-A is a good format due to the low-height yet higher density. More buildings such as the Rowan Hotel would be poor for Palm Springs as a mountain view should be enjoyed by all.

I applaud mixed use development, but I wonder why it goes to 5 floors. Why not top off at 4 floors, keep things a little lower?

Increasing population density in a tight small area like Palm Springs with poor underdeveloped infrastructure, (roads), is a clear recipe for traffic congestion and it would impact the performance of all businesses, hotels and restaurants as the town becomes less appealing by the sheer nature of allowing a small town like Palm Springs to be overdeveloped into another suburb of Los Angeles with parking meters and parking structures to compensate for large amount of people with cars. Many jobs will be loss due to greedy developers and city council members who try to act as crusaders for the working class. The solution to assisting the working class lies clearly in a more robust transportation, (an elevated train or underground train), that would allow individuals to move` rapidly from cities when they are mostly currently living like Desert Hot Springs, Thousand Palms, Indio and Coachella. Allowing those communities also to thrive will create more jobs all over the valley not just overwhelm the city of Palm Springs.

Utilize smaller footprint for building use smaller rooms avoid garages, less landscaping

This is totally unsubstantiated. Much of this land is, in actuality, developable and in fact the city recently approved major developments in this area that caused widespread outrage. The assertion that only a small part of the City is developable for housing is factually unsupportable and merely inappropriate advocacy designed to skew the public input and encourage density in our historic neighborhoods. This is another instance where the constituents int his town are being lead to the answer that the Planning Department desires based on their political beliefs. This will form the basis of a legal challenge in the future of the City proceeds with the 5 story zoning in the Sunrise Park neighborhoods.

It may be true that 1% or so of the city is slated for the density gains. But the 1% is a misnomer since so much of the city is not buildable. I believe that using this statistic undercuts the veracity of the overall case (that I support) for more density in smart locations along developed commercial corridors while leaving the vast majority of residential neighborhoods intact and unchanged. .