Jacksonville Beach, FL Building Setbacks & Zoning: Setback Rules (2026)

Section 34-611(e)(1)c of the Land Development Code sets the minimum yards for a single-family dwelling in the RS-1 zoning district. The front yard is twenty-five feet. Side yards are ten feet on each side, except on a corner lot, where the side yard on the corner is twenty percent of the lot width or ten feet, whichever is greater, and is never required to exceed twenty feet. The rear yard is thirty feet for the primary structure and twenty feet for unenclosed covered patios and enclosed screen rooms. The same subsection sits beside a minimum lot area of nine thousand square feet and a minimum lot width of ninety feet at the building line.

The other residential districts print their own numbers. RS-2 and RS-3 each require a twenty foot front yard, side yards totaling fifteen feet with no side yard less than five feet, and the same thirty foot and twenty foot rear yards as RS-1. In RM-1 a single-family lot has a twenty foot front yard, a five foot side yard and a twenty foot rear yard, while RM-1 multi-family dwellings need ten foot side yards. The corner-lot formula of twenty percent of lot width or ten feet, capped at twenty feet, repeats in each of those sections.

Accessory structures follow a different line. In the residential districts they sit only in a side or rear yard, not forward of the dwelling along a street frontage, and at least five feet from any property line or principal or accessory structures.

Section 34-723 controls what can intrude into a required yard. Every part of a required yard must be open from its lowest point to the sky, except chimneys, flues, eaves or architectural embellishments, which cannot encroach into the required setback more than twenty-four inches, or thirty inches in the case of eaves. On double frontage lots the required front yard is provided on each street. Fire escapes, stairways and balconies can intrude two feet into required front or rear yards, and into a required side yard only where there is at least a ten foot required side yard setback.