Cathedral City, CA Parking Rules: Overnight Parking (2026)

Section 12.28.040 sits in Chapter 12.28 (Stopping, Standing and Parking) of Title 12 and is titled Use of streets for storage of vehicles prohibited. Subsection A applies to anyone who owns or has possession, custody or control of a vehicle: that person shall not park the vehicle upon any street or alley for more than a consecutive period of seventy-two hours. Subsection B lets any member of the police department authorized by the chief of police remove a vehicle left in excess of that period, in the manner and subject to the requirements of the Vehicle Code.

Other Cathedral City rules stack on top of it. Section 12.28.020 says a parking time limit does not relieve anyone from more restrictive provisions of the Vehicle Code or the city's regulations. Section 12.32.010 enforces posted parking prohibitions and time limits set by council resolution or by the city traffic engineer. Commercial vehicles of any kind are barred from city streets between two a.m. and six a.m. under § 12.56.090, with exemptions for pickups and deliveries, construction, public utility and licensed contractor vehicles, and city-contract tow vehicles displaying a decal. Recreational vehicles, motorhomes, boats and trailers have their own street limits in § 12.28.160. Private business lots carry a separate seventy-two hour limit under § 12.28.170, with a seventy-two hour wait before re-parking within one-half mile, and violations there are a public nuisance abated under Title 13.

Section 12.28.150 lets a Cathedral City police officer, a Riverside County sheriff's deputy or a California Highway Patrol member impound an illegally parked vehicle where signs giving notice of removal are posted, with towing and storage costs charged to the owner and the driver.