Moreno Valley, CA Fence Regulations: Retaining Walls (2026)

070(B) sets Moreno Valley's retaining wall limits separately by yard. In a front yard, a retaining wall is capped at three feet, and an owner may add a fence directly on top: an open fence up to three feet where the wall faces outward toward the street, or either a solid fence up to three feet or an open fence up to six feet where the wall faces back into the owner's own yard. In side and rear yards the retaining wall limit rises to six feet, except where the wall sits exactly on the boundary line between two residential parcels, where it drops to three feet.

Whatever the yard, the code caps the combined solid surface of a retaining wall plus any wall or fence built on top of it at eight feet, and if an open, see-through fence is added above that, the total solid-plus-open height cannot exceed 12 feet, subject to community development director approval. A six-foot retaining wall can be pulled back three feet or more from the side or rear property line rather than built on the line itself, and where a series of retaining walls steps down a slope, each wall must be spaced at least as far from the next as the height of the taller of the two walls.

21 and the International Building Code, so a retaining wall that also functions as part of a graded slope needs to satisfy the engineering and permit requirements in those chapters as well as the height limits here.