Hayward, CA Special Events & Permits: Block Party Permits (2026)

Sec. 10, Temporary Use of Sidewalk or Roadway, gives the City Council blanket authority to grant temporary use of any sidewalk or roadway for any purpose it deems appropriate, at whatever locations and conditions it sets. For the recurring, lower-stakes uses residents actually apply for, the section delegates that authority to the City Manager, who can grant temporary use and closure of a sidewalk or roadway for a parade, footrace, street fair, carnival, block party, motion picture production, or similar use, again at locations and under conditions the City Manager sets.

The one carve-out: uses inside the Downtown Redevelopment Project Area that would run longer than seventy-two hours fall back to the City Council rather than the City Manager. The section frames the underlying standard as safety-driven: roadway and sidewalk closures may be authorized where the City Council or City Manager decides it is necessary to protect people using that stretch of roadway or sidewalk during the closure. Because the ordinance treats a block party as functionally identical to a parade or street fair for permitting purposes, organizers apply to the same office, the City Manager's, and face the same location-and-conditions discretion rather than a separate block-party-specific checklist.

That single-provision, single-office structure is why Hayward does not run a separate ordinance track for block parties versus parades or street fairs; all three sit inside this one section.