Merced | Parking, Setbacks and Height

Merced, California Parking, Setbacks and Height: Yards, Lot Coverage, Building Height, Accessory Structures, Fences and Off-Street Parking by Zone

This page collects the rules that set how big a building can be and where it sits on a Merced lot. A setback, or yard, is the open space a building must keep from a lot line. Lot coverage is the share of the lot that buildings may cover. Merced's Zoning Ordinance sets these in Tables 20.08-2 and 20.08-3 for the residential zones, measures height in Chapter 20.24 and setbacks in Chapter 20.26, and sets parking in Chapter 20.38. One feature of the Merced tables is easy to miss: they speak of "exterior yards", which face a street, and "interior yards", which face a neighbor, and they set one interior yard larger than the others, so the owner picks which side or rear yard takes the larger figure. The Merced overview has the summary.

Single-Family Zones

Source: Merced Municipal Code 20.08.030, Table 20.08-2.

Cul-de-sac lots have their own front yard: 30 feet in R-R and R-1-20 and 15 feet in R-1-10, R-1-6 and R-1-5, with a 20-foot minimum in front of a garage. On a corner lot, a street side yard that faces the front yard of the next lot counts as a front yard; otherwise it is a street side yard. Driveway length is measured "from the garage/carport to the back of the sidewalk or front property line whichever is furthest from the street."

Take a 5,000 square foot R-1-5 lot, 50 feet wide and 100 feet deep. Buildings may cover 50 percent of it, or 2,500 square feet (VanPlex arithmetic). With a 15-foot front yard, a 10-foot interior yard on one side and five-foot interior yards on the other side and rear, the space left for building is 35 feet wide and 80 feet deep. A two-story home of 35 feet fits under the height limit.

Multi-Family Zones

Source: Merced Municipal Code 20.08.030, Table 20.08-3.

Note [2] of Table 20.08-3 sets the R-4 rear yard at a minimum of 10 feet "for structures over twenty-five (25) feet in height, an additional one (1) foot per each additional five (5) feet in height." A 40-foot R-4 building therefore needs a rear yard of 13 feet (VanPlex arithmetic: 15 feet over 25, divided by five, plus 10). Only R-2 sets a driveway length, 20 feet. The R-MH mobile home district sets a 25-foot front yard and 10-foot interior yards.

Other zones set their own figures. In the R-OV and R-IV urban village districts, exterior setbacks are 15 feet and zero, rear setbacks 10 feet and side setbacks five feet, with heights of 35 and 40 feet. Small houses under Table 20.08-1A use a 10-foot front yard, 18 feet to the garage, eight-foot interior side yards and five-foot street side and rear yards (six feet in R-4), 60 percent coverage, and 35 feet and two stories. The interior side yard of a small house is larger than its street side yard, the reverse of the main tables.

Changing a Front Yard and Small Changes to Any Yard

Section 20.08.030(E) lets the Director change a required front yard with a minor use permit "if at least fifty (50) percent of the homes are already constructed on the same block with front setbacks that are different." The new front yard may not exceed the average of the block or of the two lots on each side, may not exceed the next lot on a corner, and must be between 10 and 50 feet.

Section 20.68.040 allows a minor modification, decided by the Director with no hearing, of "a maximum ten (10) percent deviation" from a height, setback, lot coverage or parking space dimension. It may not change lot area, width or depth, the number of parking spaces, or density. The Director must make seven findings, including that the change is "necessary due to unique characteristics of the subject property."

Section 20.26.010 says something different: "Minor modifications of no more than twenty-five (25) percent of the required setback may be approved by the director of development services through the minor use permit process." One section says 10 percent through a minor modification and the other 25 percent through a minor use permit. Ask the Planning Division which path it uses before you design to the larger figure.

How Height and Setbacks Are Measured

Section 20.24.010 measures height "from the average contact ground level at the front wall of the structure to the highest point of the structure, excluding chimneys, vents and other similar projecting features." Spires, chimneys, flagpoles and similar features may exceed the limit if they cover no more than 15 percent of the building footprint, and "Height exceptions are not permitted within the airport environs (/AE) overlay zone."

A setback is the distance between the property line and "the nearest point of the structure along a line at a right angle to the property line" (Section 20.26.010). Table 20.26-1 lets features reach into a required yard:

• Eaves, canopies, covered patios. Up to five feet, keeping at least half the required setback, if they add no floor area.
• Bay windows, balconies, fireplaces. Up to 1.5 feet, and no more than one-third of the wall width in total.
• Open entry porches and stairs. Up to six feet, on the ground floor, with railings no higher than 30 inches.
• Wheelchair ramps and uncovered patios. Allowed in required yards with no limit.

Accessory Structures, Rear Homes and Fences

Table 20.28-1 lets accessory structures such as garages and sheds reach 35 feet and sit three feet from an interior lot line, or five feet for garages off an alley and for any accessory structure over 120 square feet. In exterior yards they follow the main building's setback. A home over a garage may sit three feet from a rear line on an alley, with the garage itself five feet back. Guest houses go on the rear half of the lot and may have no kitchen.

A home behind another home on the same lot must meet "all the lot area, setback, open space, and off-street parking requirements" of the zone, and needs a driveway. Section 20.08.040(C) sets that driveway at "ten (10) feet for driveways serving two (2) units, and twenty-two (22) feet for driveways serving three (3) or more units." Section 20.28.020(C) sets it at 10 feet for two homes and "twenty (20) feet for lots with three (3) or more dwelling units." The two sections disagree by two feet, so plan for 22 feet until the City says otherwise.

Fences in residential zones may be four feet tall in a required exterior yard, or six feet if mostly see-through with a minor use permit, 2.5 feet in a driveway vision triangle, and seven feet elsewhere. In multi-family zones the seven-foot limit may rise to eight with a minor use permit (Table 20.30-1).

Parking

Sources: Merced Municipal Code Table 20.38-1 and 20.40.050.

Section 20.08.030(F) adds three placement rules. In R-1 and R-2, "required off-street parking spaces may not be located within any required exterior setback area, except for required parking spaces for accessory dwelling units." In R-3 and R-4, spaces may sit in exterior setbacks when the project needs more than four. And an uncovered space for a single-family home or duplex "shall be located and designed so that it may later be covered by a garage or carport structure." The single-family design standards in Section 20.46.020 also ask each unit for "at least two hundred (200) square feet of off-street parking outside of required setback areas."

All parking spaces must be at least nine feet wide, other sizes follow the City's Standard Designs of Common Engineering Structures, up to 25 percent of required spaces may be compact, and tandem spaces must belong to one home. Parking lots of six or more spaces need landscaping under Section 20.38.070. Reductions for transit, shared parking and mixed use are on the three or more homes page.

Single-Family Design Standards

Section 20.46.020 applies to all single-family homes and mobile homes unless a minor use permit grants an exception. Walls must be stucco, wood, brick, stone, glass or decorative concrete block, with "No tin or other metallic exterior wall material." Roofs need a pitch of at least four inches of rise in twelve inches, with eaves at least 12 inches deep. Each home must be at least 20 feet wide, face a street or an access easement at least 10 feet wide, and have front yards landscaped with drought-tolerant plants and irrigation before occupancy.

These standards meet two state limits. For an ADU, Government Code 66314 caps side and rear setbacks at four feet and parking at one space per ADU or per bedroom. For an SB 9 two-unit project, Government Code 65852.21 lets the City require side and rear setbacks "of up to four feet" and parking "of up to one space per unit", and bars standards that would keep either unit below 800 square feet. Where the Merced tables ask for more, such as the 10-foot interior yard in R-1-5, the state limit controls for those projects. The ADUs and SB 9 page has the details.

Where to Go Next

Related on VanPlex: the Merced overview, the California ADU law page and the California SB 9 page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Official sources (checked October 2026)