Vacaville, CA Fence Regulations: Height Limits (2026)

Section 14.09.200.050(A) sets out Vacaville's citywide fence, wall, and hedge height table, Table 14.09.200.B, which applies regardless of residential or nonresidential district. Anything within a front setback is capped at three feet. Within a street or corner side setback, the limit rises to six feet, except within five feet of the back of the sidewalk or the property line, where it drops back to three feet in residential districts (six feet in nonresidential). Interior side and rear setbacks allow six feet in residential districts and eight feet in nonresidential districts, and that eight-foot allowance extends to residential lots too wherever the fence or wall backs up to a nonresidential use, a parking lot with four or more spaces, open space or a creek way, or an arterial or collector street. Outside of any setback, walls and fences may reach six feet regardless of district.

Decorative posts, caps, and similar features can exceed the height limit as long as they make up no more than 10 percent of the fence's length, and fences or walls built for noise attenuation can exceed the table entirely if an acoustical study justifies the extra height. None of this overrides intersection safety: Section 14.09.200.050(B) requires every fence, wall, tree, or dense hedge to still comply with the City's sight-distance visibility standard at Section 14.02.030.140, so a technically code-height fence at a corner can still be cited if it blocks the sight triangle. Front-yard fences may extend into the right-of-way behind the sidewalk subject to the City's 30-day written notice removal right, and any fence in disrepair, missing boards, leaning, covered in graffiti, or rotting, is declared a public nuisance subject to abatement under Chapter 8.10.