Fence Rules in Menlo Park

Because of how the code names your front line. In residential districts a fence may be 7 feet in any yard, and 4 feet only in the required front setback (§16.64.020(a)). Which frontage counts as "front" is settled in the definitions: on a corner lot fronting two public streets, the front lot line is the one along the shorter street frontage (§16.04.400).

So the long street side is a side yard. It reads like a second front — it faces a street, it has a sidewalk, cars pass — and it is not one. That single definition is the difference between a 4-foot fence and a 7-foot fence along the same stretch of sidewalk, and it is the part neighbours most often get wrong on each other's behalf.

At the intersection, and it applies whatever the yard around it allows. Inside a triangle bounded by the right-of-way lines of the two intersecting streets and a line joining points 35 feet from where those lines meet, nothing — fence, wall, hedge or similar structure — may exceed 3 feet (§16.64.020(b)).

Inside the triangle, height is not measured the way it is measured everywhere else on your lot: it is taken from the lowest edge of the constructed roadway or shoulder (§16.64.020(b)). On a lot that sits above the street, that alone can turn a fence you measured at 3 feet into a fence the city measures taller.

From the right-of-way lines — not from the corner of your property, and not from the curb. This is the single most expensive mistake on a corner lot, because all three points look interchangeable on a drawing and are not the same point on the ground.

In Menlo Park the right-of-way commonly runs past the curb and sidewalk into what looks like your front landscaping. Step the 35 feet off your own corner and the triangle you draw sits inside the real one — the fence goes up compliant on paper and over-height in fact.

It is also not transferable between cities. Palo Alto builds its corner triangle on the curblines and measures height above the adjacent curb grade (§16.24.040 of that city's code), so the same 35-foot figure starts somewhere else and is measured against something else. A rule of thumb carried across the city line is not a rule of thumb.

The code allows a Front Lot Line Election (§16.04.405): on a lot fronting two public streets the owner may elect the longer street frontage as the front lot line. It is not a free choice. The election may be made only if, with it, the lot and the improvements on it will conform to the requirements of Titles 15 and 16 — and would not otherwise be conforming. It swaps the minimum depth and width requirements for the lot, has to be in writing, approved by the Director of Community Development, and recorded with the County Recorder, with a copy filed at the department. It can be revoked, by the same route and only if the lot still conforms afterwards.

So on most corner lots the default stands and the long side is a side yard. Where an election has been made and recorded, the answer inverts: the long side becomes the required front setback at 4 feet, and the short side becomes a side yard at 7. Because it is recorded, it is a matter of record on the property rather than something to assume either way.

A fence that was legal when it went up and does not meet today's limits is a nonconforming structure (§16.80.010; a structure counts, §16.04.480). The code lets it stay, and lets it be maintained, repaired, altered and expanded — but on conditions, and they are worth reading before ordering work (§16.80.030(A)):

• no increase in the nonconformity may result;
• all other applicable regulations still have to be met;
• and the cost of that work, as a percentage of the replacement cost of the existing structure, may not exceed the figure in the code's table for your zoning district and project type in any twelve-month period — otherwise a conditional use permit is required. For the R-E, R-E-S, R-1-S, R-1-S (FG) and R-1-U districts that figure is 75% for a single-story single-family project and 50% for a two-story or other project; in R-1-U (LM) it is 100%; in all other districts, 50%.

This is a cost test, not a count of boards. Which side of it a job falls on is a question for the city with the scope in hand, and it is the reason a like-for-like repair and a rebuilt run are not the same conversation.

The city's own guidance is blunt about this, and it is worth repeating: your neighbours' fences are not a guide. Neither is the back edge of the sidewalk.

The estimate the city describes starts from the Assessor's Parcel Map: take the right-of-way width and the lot dimensions from the map, measure the street gutter to gutter, subtract the street width from the right-of-way width, halve what is left, and measure that distance from the gutter toward your property. The same figure can be checked from the back: measured forward from a rear fence built on the rear property line, the lot depth should land on the same front line.

That is an estimate, and the city says so. A boundary survey by a licensed surveyor is the only thing that fixes the line for certain. Whether that is worth doing depends on how close to the line the fence is going and what is on the other side of the mistake — because the correction for a fence in the right-of-way, or over-height inside the triangle, is moving it, at the owner's cost, after it is built.

Two separate questions, and they are answered in two different places.

Planning. Exceeding the heights above is a use permit under Chapter 16.82 (§16.64.020(c)). Properties fronting Santa Cruz Avenue run under their own procedure and design criteria instead (§16.64.030, §16.64.035).

Building. The city's own page states that wood fences not over 7 feet are exempt from a building permit. That exemption is published in the city's guidance rather than as a local amendment in the municipal code — we looked for one and did not find it — so treat it as the city's stated practice and confirm it for anything unusual: a non-wood fence, a wall, or anything doubling as a retaining structure.

We work on fences in Menlo Park daily — fence repair, posts, gates and boards — and the rules above are the ones we design around before a post goes in. The wider picture for neighbouring cities is in the fence rules and permits guide.