Fountain Valley, CA Sidewalk & Pedestrian Rules: Obstruction Rules (2026)

Section 11.08.050 of the Fountain Valley Municipal Code lists appurtenances that shall not be allowed in the public right-of-way: basketball poles, tetherball poles and similar structures in the parkway or other right-of-way; planter boxes, fences or other structures which unreasonably obstruct access, sight distance, or the right of free travel; and signs, as more specifically prohibited in Chapter 18.28 of the code.

The broader rule sits in § 11.08.010. No person can construct, place, affix or occupy any portion of the city's street right-of-way, which includes the sidewalk and the unpaved parkways or underground utility easements, with any appurtenance, fixture, structure or object, except as the chapter provides. Overgrown landscaping is covered separately by § 12.04.100: an owner of property abutting a public street cannot let hedges, trees, shrubs or plants encroach on the sidewalk, curb or street, or let branches overhang them so as to impede vehicular or pedestrian traffic, drainage flow or maintenance, or create a hazard.

News racks have their own placement standards in § 11.12.030. A news rack cannot rest on a public sidewalk when it endangers safety or unreasonably interferes with pedestrian or vehicular traffic. On a sidewalk it must sit at least eighteen inches from the edge where parking is not permitted and thirty-six inches where parking is permitted, cannot exceed four feet in height or two feet in thickness, and cannot stand within twenty feet of a marked crosswalk, fifteen feet of a fire hydrant or twenty feet of a driveway. The news rack chapter defines a sidewalk as the part of a public right-of-way provided for the exclusive use of pedestrians, and a parkway as any area between a sidewalk and a curb.

An object that sits in the right-of-way in violation of Chapter 11.08 is declared a nuisance under § 11.08.070 and can be abated under Government Code § 38775.