National City, CA Right to Farm: Agricultural Zoning Protection (2026)

Section 18.30.240 of the National City Land Use Code (Title 18) is a set of use standards for urban agriculture, meant to locate and protect garden areas for local food production, community health, recreation, education, job training and green space. It sorts gardens into three types. A home garden is kept by residents of the dwelling on the property, is an accessory use, and cannot have on-site sales. A neighborhood garden is one acre or less and can sell or donate produce on site. A community farm is larger than one acre and can also sell or donate on site.

The permitted primary use is cultivation of edible vegetables, flowers, herbs, fruits and other plants in the ground, in raised beds and in greenhouses, with occasional sales on site. Sale of nonagricultural items is prohibited. Accessory structures allowed at both neighborhood gardens and community farms include benches, compost bins, seasonal farm stands, tool sheds, shade pavilions and buildings with composting toilets. Community farms alone can add greenhouses, hoophouses, coldframes, barns, cold storage, packing facilities and market stands.

The supplemental regulations set the numbers. Buildings must be set back ten feet from property lines of a residential district. The section prints two height limits, sixteen feet for any building or structure and twelve feet for buildings and other structures in the coverage paragraph. Combined building area, excluding greenhouses and hoophouses, cannot exceed fifteen percent of the lot for community farms and five percent for neighborhood gardens. Off-street parking is allowed only on sites exceeding 15,000 square feet, capped at fifteen percent of the lot. Signs are limited to four square feet per side and six feet in height. Interior plot fences cannot exceed four feet and must be open. Perimeter fences top out at six feet, must be at least fifty percent open above four feet, and be wood, chain link or ornamental tubular steel.

Retail sales and other public use begin no earlier than seven a.m. and end by seven p.m. every day. Synthetic insecticides and herbicides, composting of animal parts, intoxicating or poisonous plants and barbed wire are prohibited. Soil should be tested for contaminants such as lead before food is grown in topsoil, and the section sends water procurement questions to the Sweetwater Authority.