Gardena, CA Parking Rules: Commercial & Oversized Vehicles (2026)

Section 10.28.440 targets the heavy commercial rigs that residents complain block sightlines, chew up pavement and crowd narrow residential streets. The threshold is unladen weight, not gross weight: any bus, motor truck, semitrailer, trailer coach or truck tractor that weighs more than ten thousand pounds empty may not sit on a street or alley within a residential district for any purpose. The section allows only two exceptions: the vehicle is actively making a pickup or delivery, or it's parked while performing a service to, or in aid of, a property located in the same block.

A driver parked on a residential street simply because that's where a job site happens to be, without an active delivery or on-site service underway, is not covered by either exception. The code defines a residential district by cross-reference to the city's zoning provisions, so any zone classified residential under the zoning map triggers the ban, not just single-family neighborhoods. Because § 10.28.440 itself states no fine, a citation is enforced through the general penalty schedule in § 1.16.010, and the Gardena Police Department can tow a vehicle blocking a street under Vehicle Code § 22651.

The rule sits within Chapter 10.28's broader parking scheme, alongside the preferential-district permits and the front and side yard parking ban, which the traffic authority and police department enforce together on residential blocks.