But the city has to defend its need for robustly mixed-use building types. Our guess is that Saratoga is sufficiently desirable place so that developers can be disciplined to do the right thing. Above all, our downtown needs upper story apartments. We never ceased to be amazed at the cluelessness of the developers. Anyway, this illustrates the shortcomings of design guidelines compared to design ordinances.
Guidelines are only suggestions, with the strong implication of being optional.
Hence, developers often opt to ignore them. City authorities can ignore them, too, depending on how they feel, or to whom they are wired politically. Guidelines leave the city open to lawsuits by disgruntled developers who claim that the rules are arbitrary and legally unenforceable. Ordinances clearly state community standards and require compliance without ambiguity. Ordinances eliminate confusion on the part of city authorities.