Sacramento, CA Environmental Rules: Boat Dock Permits (2026)

300, describing it as "an open space zone" meant to "conditionally permit specified uses" near the rivers. 310 sets out three tiers of uses: permitted-by-right uses (a short list including temporary commercial buildings and city-owned solar systems), conditional uses, and accessory uses. "Boat dock; marina" is not on the by-right list. It sits in subsection B, the conditional-use table, alongside amusement centers, golf courses/driving ranges, restaurants, telecommunications antennas and high-voltage transmission facilities. The code states plainly that "the following uses in the F zone require approval of a conditional use permit," and the table's approval-authority column marks Boat dock; marina "PDC", meaning the Planning and Design Commission, one of the three named decision bodies (PDC, the Zoning Administrator, or City Council) that can approve conditional uses citywide.

A landowner who wants to build a dock or marina structure on riverfront property inside the F zone must therefore file a conditional use permit application reviewed by planning staff and voted on at a public PDC hearing, rather than simply pulling a building permit. " The same PDC-approval requirement for Boat dock; marina recurs in several other zoning districts' conditional-use tables throughout Title 17, confirming this is not an isolated F-zone quirk but the city's standard treatment of docks and marinas as a conditionally permitted, commission-reviewed land use wherever they are proposed.

Property owners along the American and Sacramento Rivers should budget for a CUP application, staff review, and a public hearing before any dock construction, separate from any state or federal permitting (such as from the California Department of Fish and Wildlife or the Army Corps of Engineers) that may also apply to in-water work.