How tall can a back fence in Walnut Creek be?
Seven feet in a required interior side or rear setback, or in the corner side setback of a corner lot, under Section 10-2.3.104, measured from the highest adjacent grade. The city's fence page carries the same figure and adds that lattice and mesh count toward it, since anything that increases the height counts. Three feet is the ceiling in a required front setback and in the street side yard of a reversed corner lot. Above the standard the route is a minor use permit, not a taller building permit.
Does a six-foot fence here need a permit at all?
Two city lists answer differently, which is worth settling before anyone orders lumber. Development Review Services, under work not requiring a permit, reads fences not over seven feet high. The Building Permit FAQ list reads fences up to six feet, or up to eight feet if the fence weighs ten pounds per square foot or less, and sends anything over six feet to a minor use permit. Planning staff resolve it for a specific yard, which is a short email rather than a trip to City Hall.
Can we put chain link along the back line?
Only where none of the places the code names can see it. Section 10-2.3.104 limits fences to wood, iron or steel, bars barbed wire, razor wire and electric fencing outright, and does not allow chain link where it is visible from the public right-of-way, a publicly accessible path, publicly accessible outdoor space or open space lands. With Shell Ridge, Lime Ridge, Acalanes Ridge and Sugarloaf together running past three thousand acres, that last phrase covers a lot of back fence in this city.
Is there anywhere a fence can go to eight feet?
Two situations in the code reach it. Residential property abutting a highway may carry a solid fence or wall up to eight feet along the interior property lines beside it, with a landscaped buffer once it passes seven. And where a single-family use abuts a multifamily, mixed-use or nonresidential use, a solid fence or wall up to eight feet is allowed on that line. When a new multifamily or mixed-use building goes up beside an existing house, that screening is required rather than optional, at least seven feet and no more than eight.
There is an oak growing into our fence line. Can it come out?
Not without a tree removal permit. The city requires one for any tree inside the city limits, dead or alive, unless it measures less than nine inches in diameter at four and a half feet above the ground, and it says leaves or needles alone are not a valid reason for removal. The City Arborist visits first and weighs disease, species, form, health, structure, danger of falling, utility interference and proximity to existing structures. Rebuilding the fence around the trunk needs no permit at all.
We already built a six-foot fence in our street side yard. What now?
There is a documented route for exactly that. Minor Use Permit Y24-093 covered an existing six-foot fence along the street side yard of a reverse corner lot on Las Juntas Way, where the code otherwise asks that six-foot fences sit twenty feet back from the property lines on both frontages. It was filed in November 2024, revised in May 2025, noticed to owners within 300 feet, and approved after a June 2025 hearing once the Zoning Administrator found it clear of the sight distance triangle.
