Santa Cruz County, CA Landscaping Rules: Grass Height Limits (2026)

There is no county ordinance setting a maximum grass or lawn height (such as a 6- or 12-inch limit) for the unincorporated areas. Instead, grass and weed height matter only where it creates a fire hazard. Most of the unincorporated County sits in a State Responsibility Area or Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zone, where California Public Resources Code 4291 requires 100 feet of defensible space around each structure. CAL FIRE guidance calls for keeping annual grasses mowed to roughly 4 inches and removing dead and dying grass within the defensible-space zones, especially Zone 1 (0 to 30 feet). The County adopts the California Fire Code (Santa Cruz County Code Title 7, Chapter 7.92) and supports the State defensible-space guidelines through its 'Living with Fire in Santa Cruz County' program. The County stresses that defensible space is 'separating and reducing fuel within 100 feet of a structure,' not clearing all vegetation to bare soil, and that clearing to bare soil can violate the Erosion Control Ordinance (16.22). So a homeowner with naturally tall meadow grass far from any home is generally not violating any height rule, but tall dry grass next to a house can trigger a fire-hazard abatement notice.