Costa Mesa, CA Homelessness & Encampment Rules: Encampment Sanitation (2026)

Adopted by Ordinance No. 13-2 in April 2013 and amended in 2019, Chapter XIV of Title 11 declares that unattended personal property and camping in public areas create blight, obstruct rights-of-way and interfere with access to businesses and public property. Section 11-304 bans camping, defined in section 11-302 to include pitching camp facilities, sleeping or laying down bedding, or using camp paraphernalia such as tents, tarps, sleeping bags, cooking stoves, or mobile containers like shopping carts used to transport camp gear, on any street or alley, public parking lot, public area, or park, unless the parks and recreation commission has designated the location and the administrative services director has permitted it.

Section 11-306 separately bans storing personal property in a public area without the public services director's written approval and requires unauthorized property to be impounded under sections 11-308 through 11-328; bicycles are handled instead under Title 4, Chapter III, and anything left in a park at closing time is impounded immediately regardless of whether it's attended. Impounded property is held for at least 90 days while the police department tries to locate the true owner; if unclaimed and worth $250 or more, the city publishes notice in the Orange Coast Daily Pilot before title passes to the finder who paid for that notice, or the property is sold at public auction if it was found by a city employee. Property that is genuinely abandoned, perishable, contraband, or evidence in a criminal case can be disposed of immediately without the 90-day hold.