Santa Clara, CA Parking Rules: Driveway Rules (2026)

Title 18 of the Santa Clara Zoning Code regulates how residential parcels may use their front yards for parking. Section 18.10.040(A)(6) states that, except as expressly allowed elsewhere in the chapter, required parking cannot be placed in the required front or side corner setback at all. Where parking in the front setback is permitted, Section 18.10.040(A)(7) (Parking Surface) requires it to be a "continuously paved or all-weather surface (i.e., concrete, asphalt, brick, pavers, stone, or gravel), which are directly accessible from the driveway approach," and specifically excludes loose landscaping ground cover: "All-weather surfaces do not include landscaping ground cover materials, such as, mulch, wood chips, or bark." That means gravel and crushed granite qualify as a legal driveway surface in Santa Clara, but bark or wood-chip parking pads do not.

Section 18.10.040(A)(8) (Pavement Limitation) caps how much of the front setback can be covered at all: in the R1-6L, R1-8L, and R2 zones, "not more than 65 percent of the required front setback of any parcel [may] be paved with asphalt, cement, pavers, brick, gravel, crushed granite, or any other all-weather surface," preserving at least 35 percent of the front setback as permeable landscaped area on those lots.

The zoning code's citywide off-street parking chapter adds a separate, general standard that applies beyond just the front setback: Section 18.38.060(A)(4) (Unpaved Surface Parking Restriction) requires that "all parking areas are required to be mud-free and dustless," covering any parking area on the parcel, not only the setback itself. Section 18.10.040(A)(3) further limits the minimum driveway apron length rule to driveways serving a garage for a single dwelling unit or a two-dwelling unit, so wider multi-unit driveways are governed elsewhere in the chapter.