What a Property Setback Actually Is

A setback is the part of a lot that zoning keeps open between a property line and a building. Austin’s development glossary describes it as the space between a lot’s border and the area where a building can go, where typically nothing can be built. The Los Angeles zoning code calls the same strips yards: a front yard, side yards and a rear yard, each with a minimum depth.

Setback, yard, easement

A setback and a yard are one rule under two names, and both come from zoning. An easement is something else: Austin describes it as part of your property that a government body or a neighbor can use, build on or change. It comes from a property right rather than the zoning table, and one strip of a lot can be both. The easements guide covers what you may build in one, and the zoning variance guide how a lot can be allowed to depart from a setback.

The lines on a typical lot

The front setback runs along the street the lot faces and the side setbacks along the neighbors. On a corner lot, the side facing the second street is a street side, which Austin’s SF-1 to SF-3 districts set three times deeper than an interior side. The rear setback faces the back line; on a through lot, with a street at each end, Austin holds the rear yard to front-yard rules.

Austin: the SF-3 figures

Austin’s site development table sets setbacks for every zoning district. In SF-3, a family residence district, they are 25 feet at the front, 15 feet on a street side, 5 feet on an interior side and 10 feet at the rear; SF-1 and SF-2 use the same four figures. An accessory building of one story or 15 feet may sit 5 feet from the rear lot line in SF-3.

A required yard has to stay open from the ground to the sky, with named exceptions. Eaves, chimneys, sills and bay windows may reach 2 feet into it, uncovered steps or a stoop no more than 3 feet above ground may reach 3 feet, and parking and landscaping may sit in it.

Los Angeles: the R1 figures

In the R1 one-family zone, the front yard is 20 percent of the lot’s depth but need not exceed 20 feet, unless the front yards along the block set a different average. Side yards are 5 feet for a house of up to two stories, down to 10 percent of the width but never under 3 feet on a lot less than 50 feet wide, and wider for taller houses. The rear yard is 15 feet.

Backyard buildings follow rules of their own. An accessory building goes on the rear half of the lot, though it never has to sit more than 55 feet back from the front line. It may stand in the required rear yard, keeps 10 feet from the house in most layouts, and stays 10 feet from the center of an alley.

Exempt from a permit, not from a setback

The model code’s list of work that needs no permit opens by saying the exemption authorizes nothing that breaks another law or ordinance, and Austin’s list says exempt work must still meet the city’s codes. A shed small enough to skip the permit still has to stand where zoning puts it. The shed setbacks guide walks through that for sheds, and the permit checker prints Austin’s and Los Angeles’s placement lines beside its answer for a shed.

Finding your own numbers

Setbacks are set district by district, and overlays, specific plans and subdivision approvals can change them, so start with the lot’s zoning. In Los Angeles, the city’s ZIMAS map gives a parcel’s zone and overlays; in Austin, the lot’s zone picks the column of the site development table. For the line itself, a survey beats a fence or a neighbor’s memory.