Salinas, CA Homelessness & Encampment Rules: Encampment Sanitation (2026)

Article XIV, first enacted by Ordinance No. 2599 (NCS) in 2017 and amended by Ordinance No. 2694 (NCS) on February 24, 2026, declares camping in public areas a public health and safety hazard while acknowledging that people without private space must sleep somewhere. 020 defines "camp facilities" broadly to include tents, sleeping bags, blankets, huts, yurts, vehicles set up for camping, and other sleeping or sheltering materials, and "camp paraphernalia" to include bedrolls, air mattresses, tarps, cots, and hammocks. 030 bars camping on any public property, on or near "critical infrastructure" (a category the city manager designates by resolution, covering things like fire stations, bridges, and stormwater facilities), within twenty-five feet of such infrastructure, on rights-of-way that must stay clear for first responders, in designated wildfire risk areas, and on any private property, improved or unimproved.

It also bars camping within two hundred feet of a posted notice to vacate issued under Sec. 040 or other signage restricting sleeping, sitting, lying, or storing property. Exceptions exist for consensual overnight residential camping by up to six people with on-site toilet and refuse access, mobile home and special occupancy parks, city-permitted special overnight events under Sec. 040, and authorized day use. A companion article, Sec. 030, separately bars storing tents, bulky items, or other personal property on city property and lets the city remove and discard unattended items after 48-hour pre-removal notice, or immediately where there is an imminent safety threat, near critical infrastructure, ADA-blocked passageways, or posted closure times.

080 authorizes the city council to approve, by resolution, a notice-and-closure procedure for cleaning accumulated garbage, refuse, and hypodermic needles off public property, capping any single day's sidewalk closures for cleaning at one-quarter of the city's total sidewalks.