General FAQs

Cupertino’s Planning Division supports thousands within an active community of residents, property owners, contractors, sign makers, brokers, architects, designers, public agencies and many more. To help you get what you need as seamlessly as possible, please consider these options:

• Email your question to planning@cupertino.gov (save a trip, save time). This mailbox is monitored daily by our team and allows you to be directed to the right person and/or department.
• Call 408.777.3308. If you get voicemail during regular business hours, it’s only because the planner-on-duty at that time is assisting other community members. Be sure to leave your name, a call back number and, your question in brief, clearly, in the event you get to voicemail. Emailing: planning@cupertino.gov, as an alternative is encouraged.
• Check www.cupertino.gov for resources such as, public records, meeting agendas, Muni Code and major project updates.
• Sign up for e-notification and select the topics that interest you most:  http://www.cupertino.org/visitors/enotification-signup.
• Make an appointment. (Avoid walk-ins and a second trip!) This allows your planner to prepare information for you. You are also assured your planner is available rather than in a meeting, out in the field, or assisting another person within the Cupertino community. 
• Contact your project planner (firstname+lastinitial@cupertino.gov) and stay in touch about expected milestones. All applications are assigned to a single project manager who will help you from preliminary concept phase through to signing off on occupancy (finalizing your building permit).  Work with the same person throughout the process for an efficient response. In the event of any staffing changes, you will be assigned a new project manager to guide you through the process.
• Check Agency Counter, a neat tool to look up information on building and planning projects. These include projects currently under review, under construction, or completed; or, if you simply want to know if your neighbor down the street has a permit for “that.”
• Use Cupertino 311, Cupertino's own tool for the community to report concerns about unpermitted work, a pothole, a listing street tree, a branch blocking the sidewalk, a trip hazard on a sidewalk or simply anything! Use the Cupertino 311 app (iOS or Android) or visit www.cupertino.org/cupertino311 to let the City know from wherever you are, except if you’re driving! (But please, do let us know when you get there.) 

The lot area is the area of the parcel, and can be measured or verified by a surveyor. Some of this area may need to be excluded from the calculations, such as:

• Street right-of-way
• Natural waterway, river, creek or stream, or flood control or drainage easement
• The portion of a flag lot connecting to the street
• Right of way easements

Home-based businesses are permitted in some zones of the city. The business proposed to be conducted may not change the residential nature of the property or the neighborhood. For example, while a small or large family day care use, where the care provider resides and provides child care services as an ancillary business, may be allowed, a commercial day care use, where the business is the sole purpose of the property, may not occur. Your home-based business may not render your garage ineffective for use as a garage.

Please see Chapter 19.120: Home Occupations for details or contact the Community Development Department at 408.777.3308 for information.

Yes. Cupertino is a paperless City for application materials. Please refer to the Electronic Plan Submittal Instructions(PDF, 269KB).

The Builder’s Remedy is a provision of the Housing Accountability Act (HAA) dating back to the 1990s which disallows jurisdictions from denying certain housing projects that do not meet its zoning or land use development standards if the jurisdiction doesn’t have a certified housing element. To be eligible as a Builder’s Remedy project, a proposed housing development must have at least 20 percent of its total units available to lower-income households or all its units available for moderate-income households.

The Association of Bay Area Governments (ABAG) has made a technical memo available on this subject online here: The Builder's Remedy and Housing Elements.

The City Council had requested an informational memo on the Scofield SB330 Preliminary Application about a potential Builder's Remedy project with 23 units (5 affordable units) on a single family residential lot at 20739 Scofield Drive. This informational memo is available online here: Scofield SB330 Prelim Info Memo(PDF, 5MB) .