Roseville, CA Fence Regulations: Retaining Walls (2026)

20, Grading: no person may perform any grading without first obtaining grading plan approval, unless a listed exemption applies. Subsection (B) lists those exemptions, and item 3 covers retaining walls directly: excavation for pools, fish ponds, basements, footings, or retaining walls, or demolition of buildings, is exempt from grading plan approval when authorized by a valid building permit. That phrasing means the exemption only applies if the retaining wall construction already has its own building permit; a retaining wall built without one does not qualify for the grading exemption and would need both a grading plan and a building permit.

The same subsection closes by making clear that an exemption from a grading plan does not waive the separate grading permit requirement: prior to any grading activity, a grading permit must still be obtained from the public works department under the city's improvement standards unless the activity is specifically exempt from that requirement too. 020 layers on the underlying building-code standard: all grading must conform to the city's improvement standards, and where this grading chapter conflicts with the Uniform Building Code as adopted by the city, the more restrictive requirement controls, which pulls retaining wall engineering back to the adopted Building Code provisions rather than a separate local height table.