Gilroy HOA Guide: Local Rules for Boards and Owners

Gilroy’s western edge is wildfire country, and the city has two sets of rules that boards there need to know. The first is the fire hazard map. On June 16, 2025 the City Council adopted the State Fire Marshal’s updated Fire Hazard Severity Zone map by Ordinance 2025-05. The legend of the city’s 2025 map shows High and Moderate zones and no Very High zone. The city’s pages do not list which neighborhoods fall in each zone, so we do not name any here. The city has an online map you can search by address, and Fire Prevention at (408) 846-0451 can confirm a parcel.

For homes in the mapped zones or in hillside zoning, the city’s home hardening guidance describes three defensible space zones:

• Zone 0, from the wall out to 5 feet: keep it noncombustible. No woody mulch, shrubs or stored combustibles. Combustible fencing should stop 5 feet from the structure or switch to noncombustible material there.
• Zone 1, from 5 to 30 feet: break up plant groupings, limb up trees, remove ladder fuels and keep roofs and gutters clean.
• Zone 2, from 30 to 100 feet: thin and separate fuels and keep grass mowed. Stop at the property line unless you have permission.

Building permits filed on or after January 1, 2026 fall under the 2025 California Wildland Urban Interface Code, which governs roofing, vents, siding, decks and fences. If your architectural guidelines still require wood fences attached to houses or bark mulch against walls, they now point owners the wrong way. The city’s wildfire page also asks that dry grass be mowed before 10 a.m. and never on a Red Flag Warning day. That belongs in your landscape contract.

The second set of rules is about fireworks. Chapter 10A of the city code allows ‘safe and sane’ fireworks to be sold from 9 a.m. on July 1 through 10 p.m. on July 4, from no more than 16 booths run by local nonprofit youth groups. Each booth must post a sign saying the fireworks are not allowed elsewhere in Santa Clara County. Inside Gilroy the limits include:

• No fireworks may be possessed or used in hazardous fire areas, which the fire chief defines in the Fire Department’s discharge policy.
• No fireworks within 10 feet of a residence or other structure, and none fired onto another person’s property.
• Hosts are strictly liable. Under section 10A.15 a property owner, tenant or party organizer answers for violations on the property and on the adjacent street, whether or not they knew or were present.
• In multifamily housing, tenants are not liable for violations in the common area unless they hosted or organized the gathering.
• An administrative citation is $1,000 for a first violation and $2,000 for a later one, with no warning required.

The code does not say how the host rule applies to an association that owns a common area, so ask your attorney. In practice, decide before June whether your rules allow fireworks on common area at all, ask Fire Prevention whether your community is in a hazardous fire area and tell residents in writing.

Gilroy still has working farmland inside its limits, and Chapter 3A of the city code protects it. When a home in a building of one to four units is sold close to a commercial farm or agricultural processing operation, the seller must give the buyer the city’s agricultural disclosure statement. The form warns of noise, odors, dust, machinery, manure handling and chemical application.

Complaints about farm operations do not go to the association. Chapter 3A sends them to the Planning Commission, sitting as a grievance committee. A written complaint must be filed within 30 days of the event, the committee meets within 30 days and its decision is not binding.

In the Hecker Pass area the specific plan goes further. New homes must sit at least 50 feet from agricultural commercial land, nothing may be built within 115 feet of the existing centerline of Hecker Pass Highway, and trails are limited to walkers and cyclists. The plan describes its agricultural land as intended to be permanent, so the farm next door is part of the design, not a temporary condition.

If your community was built with permanent stormwater treatment, such as planted basins, swales or rain gardens, Chapter 27D puts the upkeep on you for the life of the project. Section 27D.8 names the property owners, an owners’ or homeowners’ association or another entity the city approves as the party that must keep the facilities in good condition. The duties are specific:

• A recorded operation and maintenance agreement with the city binds every later owner and bars changes to the facilities without city approval.
• Facilities must be inspected at least twice a year, in fall before the wet season and again in winter, by a certified qualified stormwater practitioner.
• Records of all inspections, maintenance and repairs are due to the city engineer by April 15 each year.
• If maintenance is neglected, the city can give 30 days’ written notice, do the work itself and recover the cost.

Ask your manager or the city’s Engineering Division at (408) 846-0223 whether an agreement is recorded against your community and who has been filing the April report. If your landscaper wants to fill a basin or swap its plants for lawn, stop and check first.

Everything that enters a Gilroy storm drain flows untreated to Uvas Creek or Llagas Creek, then to the Pajaro River and Monterey Bay. The city asks anyone who sees something other than rain going into a drain to call (408) 846-0424. Flood rules are in Chapter 27E, the Floodplain Management Ordinance. We could not confirm from the city’s pages how much of Gilroy lies in a FEMA flood zone, so we do not quote a share. An engineering letter the city posted in 2024 describes land beside Llagas Creek as a Special Flood Hazard Area on FEMA’s 2009 map. If you have creek-side common area, look up the address on FEMA’s flood map and ask the city what its floodplain rules require before you build or grade there.

Since April 1, 2023, Chapter 19B has banned smoking inside every unit of a multi-unit residence, which the code defines as two or more attached units and which expressly includes condominiums and attached single-family homes. Detached houses are not covered. The rule reaches further than many boards expect:

• A private balcony, porch, deck or patio counts as part of the unit, so smoking is banned there too.
• Smoking is banned in common areas, enclosed or not, such as halls, lobbies, pools, parking garages and laundry rooms.
• Smoking is banned within 25 feet of any doorway, window, opening or vent of the building.
• Whoever controls a common area may set up a designated smoking area, but only if it is unenclosed, has a clearly marked perimeter, signs and a receptacle and sits 25 feet from children’s and activity areas and from openings into nonsmoking areas.

The ordinance puts a duty on the association. Section 19B.6 names HOA officers, along with owners, operators and property managers, as the people who must post no-smoking signs and notify residents or tenants of the rule. Those who do so are not responsible for violations by residents or guests. Owners who rent out a unit must also put the required no-smoking terms in the lease.

A violation is an infraction or an administrative citation matter, and the code calls it a public nuisance. Whether and how your association enforces it through its own rules is a question for your attorney.

Gilroy’s street rules are hard on large vehicles. They are in Chapter 15 of the city code:

On the lot, the zoning code (section 30.33.30) lets an owner store an RV, boat or trailer only at the home where the owner lives, on a paved or approved all-weather surface. It may go in the front yard only when there is no room or access at the side or rear, parked perpendicular to the curb, clear of the sidewalk and limited to one per home. It may not be lived in or hooked up permanently to utilities. Chapter 5C separately bars parking any vehicle on an unpaved part of a front yard. Your CC&Rs can be stricter than all of this, and many are.

Section 15.62 is written to cover private streets as well as public ones. Do not assume the police will patrol inside your gates, though. Ask the Police Department what it will enforce on your streets. To cite or tow from private property under the city code, section 15.99-2 requires signs stating the parking conditions at every entrance, and the Police Department must approve their wording and placement. State towing law applies as well. Section 15.99-6 makes a person who has a rightfully parked vehicle towed liable for the towing and storage charges, so get the signs and the paperwork right first.

Gilroy runs its own water and sewer utility, and the city says most of its water is pumped from underground aquifers. When we checked, the city’s water conservation page listed this watering schedule, with no watering between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. and no more than 15 minutes per station on a watering day:

The city’s flyer puts properties with no house address on the even schedule in summer and exempts drip systems, soaker hoses, bubblers and high-efficiency nozzles from the 15-minute limit. The water shortage code (sections 27.95 to 27.100) works in levels. At Level 0, which always applies, the day and hour limits are voluntary. They become mandatory when the City Council declares Level 1 or higher. The city’s page does not say which level is in effect, so ask the water conservation hotline at (408) 846-0412 and give the answer to your landscape contractor in writing.

Some rules are mandatory at every level: no runoff onto sidewalks, streets or gutters, no watering within 48 hours after measurable rain, no hosing down paved surfaces, no fountains that do not recirculate and a cover on every pool, new or existing. Fines for repeat violations within 12 months run up to $100, $200 and then $500.

Two points matter for the budget. First, the city points residents to Valley Water for rebates. Valley Water’s Landscape Rebate Program pays a base rate of $2 per square foot to convert high-water-use lawn, and $1 per square foot for its lawn-to-mulch option on commercial, institutional and multifamily properties of five or more units. The cap for commercial sites and multifamily sites of five or more units is $100,000, against $3,000 for a single home, and Valley Water says funding lasts until June 30, 2027 or until it runs out. You must apply, pass a pre-inspection and receive a written Notice to Proceed before any work starts. Ask Valley Water which category your common-area account falls in. Second, a state law passed in 2023 (AB 1572) will bar the use of drinking water on nonfunctional turf in HOA common areas starting January 1, 2029. A board with decorative lawn can use the rebates to pay for part of a conversion it will have to make anyway.

The city’s landscape code adds two things. Common interest developments may not use their architectural guidelines to prohibit low-water-use plants (section 30.38.120), which matches Civil Code section 4735 on owners’ lots. And landscaping approved with a project must be kept up in line with the approved landscape plan for the life of the property (section 30.38.40), so a redesign of common-area planting may need a call to Planning first.

Gilroy protects native trees on private land, and a Protected Tree Removal Permit from the Planning Division is required to take one out. Size is measured as the circumference of a single trunk four and a half feet above the ground:

• Protected tree: a tree native to the Gilroy region with a trunk of 38 inches or more. The city lists all oaks, California bay, big leaf maple, madrone, California sycamore, California buckeye and alder.
• Heritage tree: a tree of any species with a trunk of 90 inches or more.
• A community of protected trees, which the city’s permit page lists as a third category.

The bar is high. To approve a removal the city must find that the tree is dead, diseased or in danger of falling and that no tree management technique can save it. The application needs a site plan and a report from an ISA-certified arborist, and the fee was $342 when we checked. Non-native species and orchard, fruit and nut trees are outside the protected tree definition. The landscape code also bars structures, excavation and paving in a protected tree’s root zone without a mitigating design, and parking or storage under its dripline. Code Enforcement lists illegal tree removal among the things it investigates.

Street trees are a separate matter. Under Chapter 26, nobody but the city may cut, trim, prune, plant or remove a tree in a public street without a written permit from the city, and the work must be done by the owner, the city, a utility or a licensed tree business. Paving within three feet of a street tree needs written permission too. The Operations Division at (408) 846-0424 runs the street tree program. Call before your vendor starts if you are not sure whose tree it is.

The RH Residential Hillside District (Zoning Ordinance Article IX) covers land that generally slopes more than 10% and less than 30%. These are city rules, so they apply alongside your architectural guidelines, and an approval from the committee does not replace a city permit:

• Height: 30 feet, measured from grade to the roof ridge. The limit drops to 15 feet where the roof peak is within 20 feet of the hillside ridge line.
• Structures may not silhouette against the skyline when seen from the valley floor.
• No building may cover a part of a parcel where the average slope is over 30%. Slopes over 15% need a special foundation design based on soils tests.
• Existing trees may not be removed except under the project’s planned unit development or architectural and site review approval.
• A hillside lot created for one home cannot be split or resubdivided.

Setbacks, parking, signs, landscaping and fencing are set by the planned unit development approval for each project, and the City Council has adopted hillside development guidelines on top of the code. That means the city’s conditions for your tract may already say what kind of fence or planting is allowed. Before the board approves a change to hillside fencing, grading or common-area planting, ask Planning at (408) 846-0440 for the conditions of approval.

Chapter 12 of the city code makes owners and occupants responsible for weeds and refuse on their property, on the sidewalk next to it and on the adjoining street or alley out to the centerline. The fire chief runs the abatement process. If the city does the work, the City Council confirms the cost, which becomes a lien and is collected with property taxes.

Gilroy also takes part in the Santa Clara County Weed Abatement Program, and its date is later than most cities’. Gilroy parcels in the program must meet the county’s minimum fire safety standards by May 15 and keep meeting them through October 31. For 2026 the county lists a $296 initial inspection fee for each parcel in the program. A parcel leaves the program after three consecutive years of compliance. Associations that own undeveloped lots or open space should budget for mowing or discing before May.

For individual homes, Chapter 5C treats several front-yard conditions as blight: trash left in view outside an approved container for more than 72 hours, inoperable vehicles, appliances or indoor furniture left out for more than 72 hours, vehicles parked off the pavement and repair work that runs past 72 hours. These overlap with rules in many CC&Rs. You can enforce your own rule and also point the owner to the city’s.

We found no short-term rental permit program in Gilroy’s zoning ordinance. Its list of articles has none on the subject, and the residential use table has no entry for short-term or vacation rentals. The closest listed use is a bed and breakfast of one or two rooms, which needs a conditional use permit in residential zones. So we cannot point you to a city permit rule, and you should ask Planning at (408) 846-0440 how the city treats a particular rental.

What the city does have is tax. Gilroy’s transient occupancy tax is 9% on stays of less than 30 days, and a 2% tourism district assessment brings the combined rate to 11%. The city says that from August 1, 2026 Airbnb collects and remits both for bookings made on its platform. Measure B on the November 2026 ballot asks voters to raise the tax to 11%, with the City Council able to adjust it up to 13%, and its text names short-term rentals among the lodging covered. Check the result before you quote a rate. One firm rule does exist: an accessory dwelling unit may not be rented for less than 30 days (section 30.54.20).

For a board, this means your CC&Rs are the main control. California Civil Code section 4741 limits how far an association can restrict rentals generally, but it does not stop an association from prohibiting rentals of 30 days or less. Paying the city’s lodging tax does not override your CC&Rs.

The city’s ADU rules are in Zoning Ordinance Article LIV, last amended in November 2025. A detached ADU may be up to 1,000 square feet. Detached units are generally limited to 16 feet in height, or 18 feet within half a mile of a major transit stop, with 4-foot side and rear setbacks. A junior ADU may be up to 500 square feet. Before the final inspection the owner must record a deed restriction covering the 30-day minimum rental term and the limit on selling the unit separately.

The article also allows ADUs on duplex and multifamily lots: up to eight detached units, not more than the number of existing homes on the lot, plus conversions of non-living space inside the building, up to 25% of the existing homes. In a condominium the land and the building shell are usually common area, so nothing of the kind happens without the association. The city’s ADU permit page lists an approval letter from the homeowners association among the documents an applicant may be asked for, so expect owners to come to the board for one.

For boards, the state rule matters more than the city one. Civil Code section 4751 voids CC&R provisions that prohibit or unreasonably restrict an ADU or junior ADU on a lot zoned for single-family use. An association can still apply reasonable restrictions through its architectural review process.

Section 16.38 of the city code sets the hours for construction, repair work and related deliveries. They are 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Saturday. None is allowed on Sundays or on New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving or Christmas, unless a city permit sets different hours. A resident working on their own single home may also work from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Sundays and those holidays. Put the hours in your construction and landscape contracts. Your own rules can set shorter hours.

Section 16.31 bars loud or disturbing noise from gatherings between 10 p.m. and 7 a.m. The zoning code (section 30.41.31) limits fixed outdoor equipment installed after July 1, 2007, such as air conditioners and pool or spa equipment, to 60 decibels on a day-night average or 70 decibels for more than 10% of the time, measured at the property line. That is worth adding to your architectural standards for equipment placement. We found no separate leaf blower rule in either chapter.