Gardena, CA Building Setbacks & Zoning: Structure Height Limits (2026)

Section 18.12.050 of the Gardena Municipal Code lists the property development standards that apply to every lot and building in the R-1 single-family residential zone, and subsection F states the height limit directly: the maximum building height shall not exceed twenty-five feet and shall consist of not more than two stories. That twenty-five-foot, two-story ceiling governs the primary dwelling on an R-1 lot; an attached accessory dwelling unit built above an existing garage may match that twenty-five-foot limit under Section 18.13.050(G)(4), but a detached accessory dwelling unit is instead capped at sixteen to eighteen feet under that same section.

The height standard sits alongside the zone's other numeric limits in Section 18.12.050: a minimum five-thousand-square-foot lot area, minimum fifty-foot lot width for interior lots and fifty-five feet for corner lots, a minimum eighty-foot lot depth, and a minimum eight-hundred-square-foot dwelling unit excluding the garage. Section 18.12.050(L) folds in the general provisions table found in Section 18.42.010 for any standard not separately stated here. The height limit was most recently amended by Ordinance 1873, section 1, adopted in 2024, part of a broader package of R-1 development standard revisions in Section 18.12.050 that also touched the accessory building setback and lot coverage rules in that same section.

Uses not listed as permitted or conditionally permitted in Sections 18.12.020 and 18.12.030 are expressly prohibited in the R-1 zone under Section 18.12.040, and any structure exceeding the height standard without a variance falls into that prohibited-use category.