For an ordinary house, your front, side, and rear setbacks come from your parcel's zoning district — your city or county sets them, and California has no statewide number for them. Find them in three steps: (1) look up your parcel's zoning district on your city or county's zoning map or parcel lookup; (2) open that jurisdiction's zoning ordinance and read the development standards or yard requirements table for that district; (3) check for anything that can push the building line further in than the base district requires — overlay districts, corner-lot rules, creek or coastal setbacks, and recorded easements. Two statewide rules can override that baseline in specific situations, and both are covered below: the 30-foot Wildland-Urban Interface setback if your parcel is in a designated fire-hazard area (§ 1276.01(a); § 608.2), and the SB 9 limits if you are using the two-unit ministerial process in a single-family zone (§ 65852.21(b)(2)(B)). Outside those two contexts, the state code does not contain your setbacks.
When the 30-foot WUI setback applies
- Scope: Subchapter 2 applies to residential construction and certain approvals within State Responsibility Areas (SRA) and Very High Fire Hazard Severity Zones (VHFHSZ), as specified in § 1.12 [§ 1270.03].
- Requirement: “All parcels shall provide a minimum 30-foot setback for all Buildings from all property lines and/or the center of a Road” (§ 1276.01(a); echoed in § 608.2). Distances are measured along the ground (§ 1270.08).
- Reductions: A setback reduction may be allowed for practical reasons (e.g., parcel size, topography, density, habitat) if you use alternative methods to reduce structure-to-structure ignition, such as noncombustible block walls or fences; noncombustible materials extending 5 feet from the building; hardscape; fewer windows on the reduced‑setback side; or the most protective wildfire-resistant building requirements required by the local jurisdiction (§ 1276.01(b); § 608.2.1). The provided sections do not specify a minimum distance after a reduction.
SB 9 two‑unit setback limits
- In single‑family zones using the ministerial two‑unit process:
- No setback is required for an existing structure or a structure rebuilt in the same location and to the same dimensions (§ 65852.21(b)(2)(B)(i)).
- Otherwise, a local agency may require up to 4 feet from side and rear lot lines (§ 65852.21(b)(2)(B)(ii)).
- The provided sections do not state front setbacks under this statute.