North Oaklanders gathered Saturday to hear about changes that would affect businesses and homeowners in Rockridge and Montclair neighborhoods as part of a citywide change in zoning.

The city is implementing new design standards and creating a new zone that would include the commercial districts of both Montclair and Rockridge, but city staff emphasized that most people won't be affected.

"We're not making any major changes," said city planner Neil Gray.

At the meeting, planning staff presented an overview of the new zones to an audience of around 100, and manned stations to answer individual questions. This proved contentious, however, as locals demanded a more general question-and-answer session that was not forthcoming.

Montclair Village, formerly zone C27, and College Avenue, formerly zone C31, now will be one zone called CN1. The new zone is "neighborhood center, mixed use," and will ban certain new businesses, including check-cashing, car rental, gas stations, veterinarians and "big-box" stores.

Under current zoning, a new building over 7,500 square feet is allowed in Montclair Village, but needs a permit on College Avenue. In the new zoning, all buildings over 5,000 square feet will require a permit for both areas.

"I am in some ways pleased, because they're not making radical changes, especially in Rockridge," said Stuart Flashman, chair of the Rockridge Community Planning Council.

The council delivered a

The new zoning will not affect the Safeway project, a bone of contention in Rockridge for its plans to build a two-level, larger store on the corner of College and Claremont avenues, which is already in the pipeline.

"What happened with Safeway shouldn't happen in the future," Flashman said.

The city is also proposing design standards for College Avenue and Montclair Village, including requiring a 15-foot ground floor with glass windows for transparency and putting limits on parking in front of buildings.

Rockridge residents will be either in a "detached residential" zone, or, along with Montclair residents, in a zone for hills called "hillside residential." Some of the changes include setbacks and minimum lot size. Lot coverage requirements will also apply to steep lots with more than 20 percent slope.

Eric Angstadt, interim deputy director at the city agency responsible for zoning, said that in general locals found the same two issues most pressing.

"It's mostly about height and uses on the ground floor," he said.

The new rule proposes that height limits not be standard across zones. Instead, individual neighborhoods could have different height restrictions, even if they had the same zone name.

Kate Dobbins, a longtime Oakland resident, voiced typical concern.

"I wouldn't want a 10-story building next to my house," she said.

But planners said the new rules should allow for a more community-sensitive approach to determining height.

"That gives us a lot of flexibility to factor the needs for a particular neighborhood," Gray said.

Oakland zoning hasn't been updated since the mid 1960s, Angstadt said.

"Zoning should be updated a little more often than that," he admitted.

The new zones fit a general city plan for development and growth set up under then-Mayor Jerry Brown in 1998. The rezoning process has included focus groups, staff planning and community outreach and will need eventual approval from the Planning Commission and the City Council.

"By no means is everyone going to agree with it," said Angstadt. "We know that."