Ada County, ID Trash & Recycling: Dumpster Rules (2026)

Ada County Code 8-3-7(E)(3) requires every trash dumpster serving a commercial, industrial, or multi-family development that goes through master site plan review to be fenced or enclosed and screened from public view. The sight-obscuring screen has a mandated height band: at least six feet but no more than ten feet, so both a low pallet fence and an oversized compound fail the standard. The section allows one side of the enclosure to go unscreened, but only if the dumpster still cannot be seen from a public roadway or an abutting property from that open side, which in practice means the gap has to face away from the street and the neighbor.

Subsection (E)(1) narrows what counts as an acceptable screening material: deciduous or evergreen trees, berms, solid fences, walls, and sound walls all qualify, but cyclone or chain-link fencing does not count as screening even with slats woven through it, so a chain-link dumpster corral does not satisfy the rule on its own. The same general screening standard also reaches outdoor storage areas under (E)(4), which need the identical six-to-ten-foot enclosure, and loading areas under (E)(5), which must be screened and, if they abut a residential district, buffered with a sound wall or berm and plantings.

Applicability is set by 8-3-7(B): the landscaping and screening chapter applies to projects requiring a master site plan, while principally permitted and accessory uses in the rural base districts, RP, RR, RUT, and similar, are exempt, so a farm's own trash cans are not swept into the commercial dumpster-screening rule. Chapter 8-3, including this section, was re-enacted under Ordinance 1002, effective October 28, 2025.