Salinas | Parking, Setbacks, Height

Salinas Parking, Setbacks, Height and Flood Floor Rules

Three sets of numbers decide how much building fits on a Salinas lot: the parking spaces each home needs, the setbacks (the open yards a building must keep from each lot line), and the height limit. This page gives the Salinas figures from Chapter 37 of the Municipal Code, the 2026 change that ends the garage rule for houses, the rules for wider driveways, and the raised floors required in flood zones. See the Salinas overview for the whole guide.

Parking Spaces by Home Type

Sources: Salinas Municipal Code 37-50.360, as amended by the Phase 1 ordinance from October 1, 2026.

Section 37-50.360 sets parking by use. Until September 30, 2026 the schedule required houses, attached houses and duplexes with four bedrooms or fewer to have "2 per dwelling unit (2 garaged*)," and condominiums "2 per dwelling unit (2 covered)." The Phase 1 ordinance strikes the garage and covered words for those uses and for mobile home parks. The staff report describes the change as "Remove garage/covered parking requirement for certain residential uses," adding that it "does not change overall number of spaces required." Homes with five or more bedrooms still need three spaces, and the "3rd space may be tandem," meaning parked behind another car.

The same ordinance changes where spaces may go. "Required front and corner-side yards and open space areas of a site shall not be used to meet off-street parking requirements, except for driveways." Before October 1, 2026 the exception was "ADU replacement parking." ADUs and SB 9 homes follow their own sections; the ADUs and SB 9 page covers them. In the new urbanism, mixed use, downtown core and focused growth areas, "on-street parking may be counted towards the required off-street parking requirement" if it meets the district rules.

Shops and homes together follow a third rule. In the commercial districts, a mixed use building with no more than three homes of two bedrooms or less needs one space per home plus one per 400 square feet of shop floor area. A larger mixed use development provides parking "equal to the sum of the requirements prescribed for each residential and nonresidential use," so the homes count at the apartment rates in the table above.

Parking Reductions and Transit

• City planner, up to 20 percent. "a reduction from zero to a maximum of twenty percent subject to the approval of a site plan review."
• City planner, 20 to 30 percent. A reduction "to a maximum of thirty percent subject to the approval of an administrative conditional use permit."
• Planning Commission, more than 30 percent. Through a conditional use permit with the same findings.
• Accepted reasons. An unusual site shape or size, a trip reduction plan under Section 37-50.330, "Multiple uses with different peak parking hours" sharing spaces, or survey data.
• Historic buildings. Up to 50 percent for structures in the area of historic and architectural merit on the general plan's Figure COS-3, when converted to a use with more parking.

State law can remove the minimum entirely. Government Code 65863.2 says a public agency "shall not impose or enforce any minimum automobile parking requirement" on a project "within one-half mile of public transit," and defines public transit as "a major transit stop as defined in Section 21155 of the Public Resources Code." A city may keep a minimum only by making written findings "within 30 days of the receipt of a completed application." Salinas has no list of its major transit stops in the code, so ask the Planning Division whether your lot is within one-half mile of one before you design the parking.

Driveways

The Phase 1 ordinance rewrites the driveway table in Section 37-50.450. For a home on a lot with one or two homes, a driveway serving "1 garage or uncovered parking space" may now be "20 ft. Max." wide, up from 10 feet, and one serving two spaces may also be 20 feet. Three spaces allow 28 feet. A driveway may use no more than 50 percent of the street frontage, and a lot may have no more than two. The driveway must also be long enough to park in: R-L, R-M and R-H set a minimum "Driveway Length" of 20 feet from the street line, "increased to twenty-three feet if roll-up garage doors are not provided."

A house driveway may be widened "a maximum of ten (10) feet into the adjacent side yard" on the side of the garage away from the front door. Before October 1, 2026 that took a minor conditional use permit with notice to neighbors. Under the new text it needs no use permit if the work meets five conditions, including an encroachment permit for work in the street, construction runoff controls, no parking on patios, walkways or landscaping, a taper back to the existing width at the property line, and no access across the planting strip between sidewalk and curb.

Yards, Height and Open Space by District

Sources: Salinas Municipal Code 37-30.070, 37-30.120 and 37-30.170. The district tables print no lot coverage limit for homes.

Height is measured "from the average contact grade level of the building grade to the highest point of the coping of a flat form," or to the middle of a sloped roof, "the mean height level between eaves and ridge for gable, hip, or gambrel roofs." Section 37-50.080 lets "Towers, cornices, spires, cupolas, and similar architectural features, chimneys" and similar items go above the limit, and the airport overlay sets its own heights.

• Front yard averaging. Where neighboring lots on the block face have homes, the front and corner side yards "shall be the average of the front or corner side yard depths for the dwellings located on the adjoining lots." Additions may keep an existing shallower yard.
• Porches. "Unenclosed porches and architectural entry features may encroach a maximum of five feet into required front and corner side yards."
• Distance between buildings. Six feet in R-L and R-M-3.6, and five feet per story in R-M-2.9 and R-H, up to twenty feet.
• Side yards next to houses. In R-M-2.9 and R-H, side and rear yards grow to ten feet per story when the lot abuts R-L-5.5 or R-M-3.6, up to twenty feet in R-M-2.9 and thirty in R-H.
• R-M-3.6 small lots. One side yard may be removed if the other is ten feet, with a five-foot easement on the neighboring lot, and the rear yard may be five feet along one-third of the lot width if fifteen feet is kept along another third.
• Garages. Front-entry garages "shall be recessed a minimum of five feet behind the street facade," and garages should not take up "more than fifty percent of any street facade."

Infill Limits in Established R-L Neighborhoods

Section 37-50.110 adds limits for new houses and second-story additions in "established (built-out) single-family residential neighborhoods." The front yard is the average of the "neighboring block face," the houses within 150 feet, leaving out the smallest and largest. A house taller than the tallest on the block face needs interior side yards of "five feet for the first twenty feet in building height with an additional two and one-half feet of yard required for each additional five feet."

Size is capped at ".40 FAR; or two thousand five hundred square feet; or twenty percent more square feet than the existing or pre-existing dwelling unit, whichever is greater." Height may not exceed "the height of the highest roof peak on the neighboring block face, or thirty feet, whichever is more," with "A maximum of two stories." These projects need a conditional use permit for a residential design review, which the fee schedule effective July 1, 2026 prices at $1,001.25 when decided by the city planner and $2,670.25 when it goes to the Planning Commission.

Raised Floors in Flood Zones

Salinas adopts the federal flood maps in Section 9-06.08: the "Flood Insurance Study for the City of Salinas," dated May 4, 1981, and the flood insurance rate maps "dated November 4, 1981, and all subsequent amendments and/or revisions." A special flood hazard area is land those maps show at risk from a 100-year flood, and the base flood elevation is the water level that flood is expected to reach. "A development permit shall be obtained before construction or development begins" in one, and the city engineer serves as floodplain administrator.

Section 9-06.34 requires new homes and substantial improvements to have the lowest floor "elevated two feet (minimum) above the base flood elevation" in A zones and other zones, and in AO zones two feet above the depth number on the map. An engineer or surveyor certifies the elevation "both prior to pouring the foundation and immediately after such foundation pour." Enclosed areas below the floor may be used only for parking, access or storage and need flood openings of one square inch per square foot. The zoning code's flood overlay, Section 37-40.020, applies these rules to all land marked "F" on the zoning map. A flood zone also blocks an SB 9 project unless FEMA conditions are met.

Where to Go Next

Related on VanPlex: the Salinas overview, the duplex to fourplex guide and the energy code page.

Frequently Asked Questions

Official sources (checked October 2026)