Fence & Deck Repair in Mountain View

• Front yard (the first 20 feet from the front property line): 3 feet maximum — the strictest front-yard limit among neighboring cities.
• Side and rear yards: 6 feet. A 7-foot fence is possible, but only with a planning permit and written consent from the adjacent neighbors.
• Corner lots: nothing over 3 feet inside the 35-foot traffic visibility triangle. A street-side fence may reach 6 feet but must sit 5 feet back from the side property line.
• Where a rear yard meets a neighbor's side yard with a driveway alongside, nothing over 3 feet within the first 10 feet.
• Height is measured from adjacent grade to the top — including lattice and posts. Adding a lattice topper to a 6-foot fence is how people quietly end up over the limit.

Zoning says how tall the fence may be. A building permit is a separate approval, and the city answers it separately:

• A wood fence at or under 6 feet on a single-family lot needs neither. No planning permit, no building permit.
• Over 6 feet, both come into play — the planning permit with the neighbors' written consent, and, per the city's own fence page, a building permit as well.
• Any non-wood fence — metal, vinyl, stucco, masonry — needs a building permit at any height, and so does any retaining wall.
• Townhomes, condos and anything with an HOA need a planning permit whatever the fence is, and the HOA's approval before the city's.

There is a figure worth understanding rather than repeating: the state exemption list the city also publishes — the one that runs on Section 105.2 of the California Building Code — exempts wood fences of 7 feet or less, but only where they are "consistent with zoning requirements." Since Mountain View's zoning stops at 6 feet without a planning permit, the two rules agree. It is the reason 6 and 7 both appear in the city's own material, and it is not a loophole.

For a single-family home with a wood fence, repair is as simple as it gets: replace the rotted posts and broken boards, no paperwork, as long as the fence doesn't get taller or change material. Switching to vinyl or metal, or topping the run with lattice that pushes it past 6 feet, moves the same job into permit territory. The full comparison is in the fence rules and permits guide.

Mountain View's own exemption list confirms the statewide rule: a deck needs no building permit if it's under 200 square feet, under 30 inches above grade, detached from the house, and doesn't serve the required exit door. Repairs to an existing deck — board replacement, railing repair, fixing a soft spot — are the like-for-like case and don't normally trigger a permit. Structural changes or expansion do.

Same story as everywhere on the Peninsula: irrigated lawns rot posts at the soil line while everything above looks fine. Mountain View's smaller lots add one twist — fences often carry gates, trellises, and neighbor-shared runs, so one failed post can pull several structures out of true at once.

Send photos through the form — post bases, the lean, the gate that stopped latching — and get a repair estimate range before anyone visits.