Milpitas, CA Homelessness & Encampment Rules: Sit-Lie Rules (2026)

Milpitas Municipal Code Section X-9-1.00, adopted by Ordinance 228.1 in 2022, prohibits obstructing a street, sidewalk, or other public right-of-way by sitting, lying, sleeping, or storing, using, maintaining, or placing personal property, tents, or structures. Beyond the general ADA-passage rule, the ordinance sets specific buffers: no obstruction within 10 feet of an operational driveway or loading dock, none within 5 feet of a building entrance, exit, or emergency egress corridor, none within 5 feet of a fire hydrant or fire department connection, and none anywhere in the public right-of-way between 7:00 a.m. and 11:00 p.m. Motor vehicle lanes, bike lanes, and bike paths are off-limits to obstruction at all hours.

The City Council can also designate sensitive-use buffers, up to 500 feet from schools, day care centers, parks, recreation centers, libraries, and public buildings, and can restrict specific overpasses, underpasses, tunnels, bridges, or washes by resolution, but only after posting signage referencing the resolution's findings and waiting at least seven calendar days from the posting date before enforcing it.

The ordinance carves out real exceptions: a medical emergency, a wheelchair or walker used for a disability, a permitted sidewalk business or street event, a fixed public bench, waiting in a service line that does not block the sidewalk, and a child seated in a stroller. Critically, Subsection (g) bars any citation unless a peace officer first notified the person that their conduct violated the section. Violations are enforced under Section X-9-3.00, except that willfully resisting or delaying a City employee enforcing the section is punished under Section I-1-4.09-2.00, and any violation is also a public nuisance abatable under Section X-9-2.00.