Kennewick, WA Building Setbacks & Zoning: Setback Rules (2026)

010(A)(2), the Table of Residential Site Development Standards, sets Kennewick's yard requirements by zone: RS (5,500 to 8,000 sf lots) carries a 15-foot front/street setback, 20-foot garage setback, five-foot side yard, and 15-foot rear yard; the same 15-5-15 pattern applies in RL, RM, RH, RTP, and RMH. 80's design standards while allowing a zero-foot side yard and a five-foot rear yard. The footnotes attached to the table give the measurement rules the bare numbers don't: street-facing setback lines are measured "from the back of the sidewalk" where one exists, or from the right-of-way line where there is none or inside the UMU district.

A side-entry garage facing a non-street property line may reduce its setback to 15 feet from the back of the sidewalk if the street-facing facade carries windows, modulation, and matching landscaping. Side yards run five feet from the nearest side property line, except single-family attached and zero-lot-line housing, which has no side setback on the shared or zero-lot-line wall (end units still keep a five-foot setback on the outward side). Rear yards are measured from the existing lot line or an abutting alley. Minimum lot widths range from 24 feet for RM/RH townhouse lots up to 50 feet for standard RS lots, and minimum lot sizes run from 3,500 square feet in RH to 8,000 square feet in RS, with a full one-acre minimum in the RTP district. Where no street frontage exists, the Planning Director sets the setback and frontage lines during site plan or plat review.