San Ramon, CA Parking Rules: Driveway Rules (2026)

Section D3-37 of the Zoning Ordinance governs how a house connects to the street. Every single-family parcel gets one driveway unless it sits in the RC or RE zone with 200 feet or more of frontage, in which case the owner may build two separate driveways or one circular driveway as long as the curb cuts stay 100 feet apart, a distance the City Engineer can shorten based on lot topography and traffic safety. The driveway itself must be at least 20 feet long, measured from the back of the sidewalk or the edge of the right-of-way where no sidewalk exists, and at least 10 feet wide.

The throat, the paved section nearest the garage, tops out at 12 feet for a one-car garage, 24 feet for a two-car side-by-side garage, and 36 feet for a three-car or larger side-by-side garage; tandem configurations are measured by the number of side-by-side spaces with unobstructed access, not the total car count. Separately from those width and length standards, the code caps how much of the front yard can be paved at all: driveway and parking area together cannot exceed 50 percent of the required front setback, so a homeowner cannot convert the whole front lawn into a parking pad even if the driveway itself meets the width rules.

Multi-family and nonresidential driveways follow a different table, Table 3-13 (Minimum Driveway Widths), and are capped at 30 feet wide exclusive of any median. Every driveway also needs City Engineer sign-off on its location, width, and length before construction.