Long Beach, CA Business Licensing & Operations: Auto Repair on Residential Property (2026)

227 makes home automobile and motorcycle repair an allowed accessory use in every residential district, but it's tightly bounded. Only vehicles registered and licensed to residents of the property may be worked on, repairing a friend's or customer's car crosses into a commercial auto-repair use the residential zone doesn't allow. No repair work of any kind may happen in the public right-of-way, meaning driveways set back from the curb and garages are fine but the street itself is not. The repair area must be paved; dirt or gravel side yards don't qualify.

290, so a home mechanic can't run what amounts to a repair shop. Inoperable vehicles can't be left overnight where they block access to required parking spaces, and wrecked or disassembled vehicles can't be parked overnight on the property outside of a garage at all, a stricter rule than for merely inoperable vehicles. m. Trucks and related vehicles over three-quarters of a ton carrying capacity cannot be repaired at a residence under any circumstance, closing off heavy-duty and commercial-grade vehicle work entirely. 227 by name as one of the few Title 21 offenses that can never be prosecuted merely as an infraction.