Haverhill, MA Fence Regulations: Retaining Walls (2026)

Haverhill's zoning performance standards set a specific height ceiling for retaining walls built on multifamily, nonresidential, or mixed-use development sites exceeding 10,000 square feet of gross floor area or 10 dwelling units. Section 255-6.3.3(3)(e) caps retaining wall height at six feet. Where the site's grade actually changes by more than six feet, the applicant cannot simply build one taller wall; the code requires the wall be terraced and landscaped instead, stepping the elevation change down in stages rather than a single vertical face. Materials are also dictated by adjacency: any retaining wall facing a residential district must be finished in solid fieldstone or fieldstone veneer, or another similarly finished material, rather than bare concrete.

Vertical cast-in-place concrete or concrete block is barred outright unless the wall sits within a business district, where the aesthetic concern behind the fieldstone requirement does not apply. These standards sit inside the same Landscaping paragraph, Section 255-6.3.3(3), that also sets Haverhill's street-buffer, screening, and shade-tree requirements, so a retaining wall plan is reviewed together with the rest of a site's landscaping design. The SPGA, typically the City Council or Zoning Board of Appeals, checks retaining-wall design against these standards as part of the special permit or development-review process under Section 255-10.1.4, and the SPGA can require a berm instead of or alongside a wall where that better serves the section's screening goals.