Palm Springs, CA Parking Rules: Driveway Rules (2026)

00(C)(2), "Improvement of Parking Areas," sets the baseline surfacing standard for every off-street parking area in the city, whether it serves a house, an apartment complex or a commercial lot. The area must be graded so drainage flows through concrete gutters or swales, and the pavement itself must meet a minimum two-and-a-half-inch asphalt concrete section laid over native soil, or an engineered equal, with the pavement section designed using soils "R" values from a licensed soils engineer and submitted with the fine grading plan for city engineer approval.

That paving duty applies to a single-family driveway and parking pad just as it does to a shopping center lot; the only carve-out in this subsection is for the four-to-six-inch stall striping requirement, which single-family dwellings do not have to provide. Elsewhere in the R-1 zone standards, front and side front yards must stay majority landscaped, with only the remaining portion available for off-street parking, walkways and other paved surfaces, and any such parking area must sit at least five feet back from a property line adjacent to a street.

Together, these rules mean an unpaved dirt or gravel parking strip cut into a Palm Springs front yard does not meet the Zoning Code's improvement standard, regardless of whether the vehicle using it is street-legal.