Why Danville's Next Parklet Won't Be on Hartz Avenue

The Town Council takes up the outdoor-dining ordinance for a second reading on October 20. If it's adopted, downtown Danville won't get any new parklets on Hartz Avenue, Prospect Avenue, or the busiest stretch of Railroad. The five parklets operating now would stay. Hartz Avenue would get no new ones after them.

That's the part of Ordinance No. 2026-04 that changes the downtown map the most, and it's only half the ordinance. The other half covers restaurants that seat diners outdoors on their own property. Their expanded pandemic-era allowance ends January 2, 2027, and any of those patios that run past a set size would then owe a parking fee.

Twelve spaces, five restaurants, and a cap that is already full

The October 6, 2026 staff report limits parklets in the Downtown Business District to a combined 12 on-street parking spaces. That's "the number currently occupied by parklets serving five restaurants." The cap equals current use exactly. On the day the ordinance takes effect, no spaces would be left over.

According to the Town's August 2026 study session, as reported by Contra Costa News, those five restaurants are:

• Bungalow on Rose Thai Restaurant, 254 Rose Ave.
• Cocina Hermanas, now Rancho Cantina, 501 Hartz Ave.
• Danville Brewing, 200 Railroad Ave.
• Danville Harvest, 500 Hartz Ave.
• Pete's Brass Rail, 201 Hartz Ave.

Any restaurant that wants a parklet joins an interest list. If an existing parklet is removed, the freed spaces go to restaurants on that list "in the order received," as long as they meet the eligibility rules. One eligibility rule narrows the field right away. A restaurant qualifies only if it cannot fit on-site outdoor seating equal to at least 50 percent of its gross interior floor area. If a restaurant has the room on its own lot, it doesn't qualify.

The curb space isn't free. In August, staff proposed a lease charge of 25 percent of the downtown interior lease rate, on the reasoning that outdoor seating gets used less consistently than indoor space. At $51 per square foot a year, one 176-square-foot parking space comes to $2,244 annually. Staff described that as generally consistent with fees it surveyed around the Bay Area.

The street rule that turns today's parklets into fixtures

The draft ordinance lists the streets where parklets "shall not be permitted":

• Hartz Avenue
• East or West Prospect Avenue
• Railroad Avenue between Danville Boulevard and Linda Mesa
• Front Street south of Diablo Road
• San Ramon Valley Boulevard

Three of the five current parklet restaurants have Hartz Avenue addresses. The ordinance keeps them anyway, in one sentence:

Restaurants with Town approved parklets at the time of the adoption of this Ordinance shall be considered legal non-conforming.

"Legal non-conforming" means the existing parklets can stay even though they wouldn't be approved under the new rules. Put that next to the street ban and you get downtown's most important outdoor-dining fact. Whatever parklet seating exists on those streets today is the most there will ever be, unless the rules change again. The Town's records list business addresses, not which curb each parklet sits on, so this post doesn't map them. The rule itself is clear, though. A new parklet would have to go on a street off the restricted list.

There's also a way to lose one. A parklet that sits unused for three or more consecutive months between March and November can be removed, which voids its land use permit. Bringing it back would take a new permit. For a grandfathered parklet on Hartz, a new permit isn't possible under the street ban. A removal there would be permanent. The attached design standards describe the inactivity window as March through October, so the two documents disagree by a month. Under either version, the coldest months don't count against a restaurant.

Existing parklets would still have to meet the updated design standards, including the rules for furnishings and equipment. New parklets would need a custom design and Design Review Board review.

The patios on private property are the ones with a deadline

The ordinance has a second half, and it affects more restaurants. Since the pandemic, a separate set of rules has let restaurants expand outdoor seating on their own property. Those rules won't be extended. They expire January 2, 2027.

The Town identified eight downtown restaurants operating under those expanded provisions. Here are all thirteen named restaurants, sorted by type of seating.

After January 2, outdoor seating larger than 25 percent of a restaurant's gross interior floor area, or larger than any area a prior approval allowed, is subject to the Town's off-site parking in-lieu fee. A restaurant could go as high as 100 percent of its interior area where the site allows, but only after paying that fee. The Town's documents don't say how many of the eight are over that threshold. The August proposal gave owners who are over it two choices: shrink the seating area or pay. It also required the fee to be paid in full at approval, with no installments.

The Town softened the math. For seating above the threshold, the parking requirement would be one space per 200 square feet instead of the existing one per 100. The August study memo described that as a 50 percent fee reduction. The fee itself is set each year in the Town's Master Fee Schedule. For scale, an October 2024 staff memo estimated it at $18,033 for every 100 square feet of additional outdoor seating. That 2024 figure hasn't been confirmed for 2026.

Patio design rules change too. On-site seating areas need a custom design. Any new structure or change to a building's façade requires a Development Plan application approved by the Design Review Board.

The two halves of the ordinance work as one system. A parklet becomes permanent precisely because the restaurant lacks room on its own lot. A patio on private land, meanwhile, now carries a parking cost once it grows past a quarter of the dining room.

How the five got here

The parklet program started in response to COVID-19, and the council extended it twice before this ordinance reached it. The push to make it permanent came from the restaurants. In October 2024, the owners of Harvest, Cocina Hermanas, Danville Brewing, Pete's Brass Rail, Bungalow on Rose and Primo's asked the Town for a "semi-permanent parklet program," Danville San Ramon reported. Their joint letter said all five parklets operating then complied with the Town's 2022 guidelines.

One of those five spots has already changed hands at the restaurant level. Cocina Hermanas closed after nearly seven years at Hartz and Church. Rancho Cantina began a soft opening in the same building on Monday, August 24, according to Bay Area Telegraph. The outlet reported that Danville residents Nico and Alice Tzikas, who took over Rancho Cantina's Lafayette location in April 2024, opened Danville as their second location. If the ordinance passes as drafted, Rancho Cantina keeps a Hartz Avenue parklet that no restaurant arriving after the vote could get.

The dates on the calendar

1. October 20, 2026. Second reading and vote on Ordinance No. 2026-04, along with the resolution adopting the Outdoor Seating Program Design and Development Standards. The ordinance was set for introduction on October 6. The documents reviewed for this post don't record the vote count from that meeting, so the ordinance should be treated as pending until October 20.
2. November or October, depending on the document. The end of the window in which three straight inactive months could cost a parklet its permit.
3. January 2, 2027. The expanded on-site seating program that the eight restaurants above have used expires. From then on, on-site seating larger than 25 percent of interior area, or larger than a prior approval allowed, is subject to the in-lieu fee.

The council's October 6 agenda links to the full staff report and draft ordinance for anyone who wants to read the text. Public notice for that meeting was published in a local newspaper.

At AJ Cohen, we track how changes like this shape daily life downtown. Seating on Hartz and Railroad is part of what makes these blocks feel the way they do. If you have questions about how downtown is changing, or what it might mean for your corner of Danville, let's connect.

This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.