Scranton, PA Parking Rules: Driveway Rules (2026)

City Code § 445-42G, the general regulations for parking facilities, spells out the surfacing standard directly: off-street parking areas and driveways and access ways must be graded for proper drainage and surfaced so as to provide a durable and dustless surface of concrete or bituminous concrete constructed in accord with accepted standards to assure durability. A dirt track or a bed of loose gravel does not satisfy that standard, regardless of lot size or use.

The front-yard limit sits in a different part of the same chapter. Section 445-17B lists the encroachments the zoning code allows inside a required yard setback without a variance, twenty-three items ranging from sidewalks to bird feeders to rain barrels. Item six covers parking: parking spaces for dwellings of three or fewer units, or for uses and districts the chapter otherwise exempts, are allowed as encroachments everywhere in a required yard except the front yard. In practice that means a duplex or triplex owner can extend a driveway parking pad into a required side or rear setback, but cannot push one into the front-yard setback on the strength of this encroachment list, and any yard-area parking still cannot push the lot's impervious surface or lot coverage past the maximum the underlying zoning district allows.

Both rules run through the same permitting channel: applications for a zoning permit go to the Zoning Officer under § 445-74, and the Zoning Officer can deny an application that does not conform to the chapter's requirements, stating the reasons in writing and advising the applicant of the right to appeal to the Zoning Hearing Board.