Yorba Linda, CA Fence Regulations: Material Restrictions (2026)

Section 18.26.090 opens by setting when fences and walls are required rather than optional: they must go up between a single-family lot and an adjoining lot developed with higher-density residential uses, and between institutional, commercial or industrial uses and a neighboring residential use, while fencing between two single-family lots is simply permitted. The material restriction sits in the next paragraph: barbed wire, electrified fence or razor wire used on any fence, wall or hedge, or standing alone, is prohibited within any residential zone unless federal, state or City law or regulation requires it, which covers the rare case such as a utility easement with its own security mandate.

Chain link gets its own rule rather than an outright ban: six-foot chain link is allowed at the property line of a vacant lot or building, but once the lot is occupied the owner has to take the chain link fence out of the front yard and any other spot next to a public street, and a developed property cannot use chain link in the front yard or along a property line facing the public right-of-way at all. Height is capped separately from materials: outside the required front yard, fences and walls top out at six feet on the side facing an adjoining property and nine feet on the side facing the subject property, retaining walls cannot exceed nine feet, and anything in the front yard setback is limited to 36 inches.

Estate fences defined elsewhere in the code are the one carve-out from those height caps, and only with a conditional use permit. The chapter also requires a 20-foot corner sight-visibility triangle at street intersections and a 10-foot triangle at driveways where no fence, wall, hedge or obstruction can block a driver's view.