Glendale, CA Fence Regulations: Retaining Walls (2026)

070. Any exposed retaining wall or cribwall visible from surrounding properties or streets must be finished in stone, textured poured concrete, or textured decorative colored masonry block, with grout colored to blend with the natural hillside; plain gray block is not compliant. For walls whose toe sits within 15 feet of a street front or street side property line and that run roughly parallel to the street, the base height cap is five feet at any point along the wall. A property owner can add two more feet, for a seven-foot wall, if the extra height is faced with decorative masonry or stone and the director of community development signs off.

Glendale also limits how many of these walls can stack on a slope: no more than two successive walls are allowed, they must sit at least five feet apart, and the grade between them cannot exceed a 2:1 horizontal-to-vertical slope. These are the standards for the specific 15-foot-from-the-street condition; walls hidden from public view behind an upslope structure, walls elsewhere on the lot, and cribwalls each fall under their own separate height figures in the same code section, so a hillside property should confirm which subsection actually covers its wall's location before assuming the five-foot number applies. 070's setback-based height restriction rather than replacing it, a wall can be non-compliant under one section even if it satisfies the other.