Milpitas HOA Guide: Local Rules for Boards and Owners

Milpitas regulates short-term rentals in Zoning Code section C.10.200. Rentals of fewer than 30 nights were not allowed at all until the City Council adopted the program in March 2020. An operator now needs a city short-term rental permit and a business license. The main limits:

• Hosted rentals only. The owner or operator must be living in the home and present during the stay. Unhosted rentals are prohibited.
• The host must live in the unit being rented. In a multi-unit building a resident may register only the unit they live in, and a new resident must have lived there 60 consecutive days before applying.
• No short-term rentals in an ADU or junior ADU, an accessory structure, a recreational vehicle or a below-market-rate unit.
• Occupancy is capped at two people per bedroom plus one more person, day and night. Weddings, parties and corporate events are not allowed.
• One off-street parking space for the rental, and a backup contact who can respond in person within 60 minutes at any hour.
• At least $500,000 in liability insurance, from the operator or the hosting platform.

One step is aimed squarely at associations. If the home is subject to CC&Rs, the applicant must send the association’s board a letter about the plan to operate. The board can answer that the CC&Rs prohibit short-term rentals. The code says that answer is not determinative, but the Planning Director may consider it. So reply in writing, quote the section and keep a copy.

The city’s transient occupancy tax is 14% on stays of fewer than 31 days, and its short-term rental page lists penalties of at least $1,000 per day per unit for violations. A city permit does not override your CC&Rs. 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.

Since January 1, 2022, Chapter V-215 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. The rule covers tobacco, cannabis and electronic smoking devices, and it 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, indoors and out, including halls, paths, courtyards, pools, parking lots and landscaped areas.
• Smoking is banned within 25 feet of any door, window, opening or vent that can be opened.
• Whoever controls a common area may set up a designated smoking area, but only if it is unenclosed, clearly marked, signed, has a receptacle and sits 25 feet from children’s areas, athletic facilities and nonsmoking enclosed areas.

The ordinance puts a duty on the association. Section V-215-1.45 names officers of homeowners’ associations, along with owners 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.

The code treats a violation as a public nuisance and lets any person bring a civil action to enforce it. Whether and how your association enforces it through its own rules is a question for your attorney.

The city’s ADU rules are in Zoning Code section C.10.030, last amended in September 2025. A detached ADU may be up to 1,200 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. No ADU or junior ADU may be rented for a term shorter than 30 days, and a junior ADU requires the owner to live on the property.

The section also allows ADUs on multifamily lots: up to eight detached units on a lot with existing multifamily housing, not more than the number of existing homes, plus conversions of 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.

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.

Street parking rules are in Chapter V-100, with two more in the zoning and property maintenance codes:

Milpitas has no separate time limit written for RVs, boats or trailers on the street. They fall under the same 72-hour rule, and on signed streets a vehicle six feet or taller may not park within 100 feet of an intersection. The Police Department also issues resident permits on streets posted for permit parking.

The 72-hour rule is written for public streets. If your association owns its streets, parking is governed mainly by your own rules and by state towing law. The city adds its own sign standard in section V-100-10.14: to have a vehicle removed from private property, signs at least 24 inches wide and 18 inches high must be posted in plain view at every entrance, with the Police Department’s business phone number and a statement that vehicles will be removed at the owner’s expense. Confirm with Milpitas Police what the city will and will not enforce inside your gates.

Milpitas runs its own water utility. Unlike many cities, its water conservation code (section VIII-6-3.00) limits landscape watering all the time, not only in a drought. Watering is allowed only between 6 p.m. and 9 a.m., on no more than four days a week, set by address:

While the city is at water shortage level 0 or 1, the day and hour limits do not apply to drip irrigation, hand watering or zones run by an activated weather-based controller. Other rules apply at every level: no runoff into gutters or onto pavement, no watering during or within 48 hours after measurable rain, no hosing down paved areas and no running a system with broken sprinklers. Fountains must recirculate. Higher shortage levels cut the watering days further. Ask Public Works at (408) 586-2600 which level is in effect and which schedule applies to a common-area meter with no street address, and give the answer to your landscape contractor in writing.

Recycled water changes the picture. The same section makes it a violation to irrigate with drinking water where recycled water is available, and the chapter’s limits do not apply to irrigation systems that run on recycled water. Milpitas is a retailer for South Bay Water Recycling, which serves commercial sites close to its purple-pipe mains where the retailer has capacity. If your community is near a main, ask the city whether your common-area irrigation can connect.

Two points matter for the budget. First, 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.

On owners’ lots, Civil Code section 4735 prevents an association from banning low-water plants or artificial turf as a replacement for lawn.

Under Chapter X-2, a permit from the Public Works Department is required to remove a street tree, a protected tree or a heritage tree. Size is measured as trunk circumference four and a half feet above the ground, and the threshold depends on the property:

• Developed residential property: 56 inches or more.
• Developed commercial or industrial property, and vacant or undeveloped land: 37 inches or more.
• Any tree that was a specific subject of the property’s zoning or subdivision approval.
• Heritage trees and groves, which the City Council designates by resolution at any size.

The third item is the one associations miss. Trees shown on the landscape plan the city approved with your subdivision can be protected whatever their size, so do not assume a common-area tree is too small to need a permit. Public Works can require at least two replacement trees for each protected tree removed, or payment of the tree’s appraised value. Pruning a city street tree also needs a permit. A protected tree may be removed without review only in an emergency, meaning an imminent threat to people or property.

In the hillside district the grading rules add that trees with a trunk six inches or more in diameter should not be removed, with five replacements for each one where removal is authorized. If you are not sure whether a tree is a street tree, the city asks you to submit a service request or call Public Works at (408) 586-2600 before your vendor starts.

East of Piedmont Road, Evans Road and North Park Victoria Drive, the ‘H’ Hillside Combining District (Zoning Code Chapter B.22) sits on top of the normal single-family zoning. Where the two conflict, the hillside rules win. They are city rules, so they apply alongside your architectural guidelines, and an approval from the committee does not replace a city permit:

• Height: main buildings west of the crestline are limited to 17 feet and one story. East of it the limit is 27 feet and two stories.
• Fencing must be kept to a minimum and be of an open type, except around each house.
• Grading is prohibited on natural slopes steeper than 40%. Grading of 500 cubic yards or more goes to the Planning Commission, and 1,500 cubic yards or more goes on to the City Council.
• Additions and expansions to single-family homes in the district go through the city’s site development permit process.

The open space is the part that lands on the association. In a hillside planned unit development the common land outside the lots is placed under a city open space easement. In other hillside subdivisions at least half the gross area must carry one. The code allows an easement to be reconfigured only after a City Council hearing, and abandoned only with voter approval. Before the board approves a trail, a structure or new fencing in that land, read the recorded easement and call Planning at (408) 586-3279.

Chapter V-202 makes it unlawful to let weeds, rubbish or refuse build up on a parcel, on the sidewalk next to it or on the adjoining street out to the centerline. If the city does the work, the cost is confirmed by the City Council, recorded as a lien and sent to the county by August 10 each year to be collected with property taxes.

Milpitas also takes part in the Santa Clara County Weed Abatement Program. Parcels in the program must meet the county’s minimum fire safety standards by April 1 and keep meeting them through October 31. For 2026 the county lists a $296 initial inspection fee for each parcel in the program, and far higher charges if its contractor has to do the work. 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 April.

On wildfire, the city adopted the 2025 Wildland Urban Interface Code in September 2025 (Chapter II-16). We could not confirm from the city’s own pages which Milpitas addresses sit in a state fire hazard severity zone, so we do not describe one here. Look up your hillside common-area addresses on the State Fire Marshal’s map, and ask the Fire Department at (408) 586-3380 what vegetation standards apply.

If your community was built with permanent stormwater treatment measures, such as planted basins or swales that filter runoff, section XI-16-7 makes the property owner, and it names any homeowners association, responsible for keeping them working as designed for the life of the development. The duty is recorded against the property, and the city may ask for proof of maintenance and may inspect. It is unlawful to alter or remove a treatment measure without written city sign-off. If your landscaper wants to fill in a basin or swap its plants for lawn, stop and check first.

The city also says about one quarter of Milpitas lies in a FEMA Special Flood Hazard Area, generally near Calera, Penitencia, Berryessa, Los Coches and Tularcitos creeks. Building in those areas is regulated by FEMA and the city’s Floodplain Management Ordinance. Engineering’s land development staff at (408) 586-3355 can tell you whether a common-area building is in the zone and whether the city has an elevation certificate on file.

The noise ordinance, Chapter V-213, limits construction and related deliveries to 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., weekdays and weekends, with none on New Year’s Day, Memorial Day, Independence Day, Labor Day, Thanksgiving or Christmas. In residential zones, noise may not exceed 65 decibels at the property line or raise the level more than 3 decibels above the surrounding background, whichever is stricter. We found no separate leaf blower rule in the code, so landscape equipment falls under those general limits. Put the hours in your landscape and construction contracts. Your own rules can set shorter hours.

Odors are a regular complaint in Milpitas, and they are not a city code matter. The Bay Area Air District takes odor complaints around the clock at 1-800-334-ODOR and sends an inspector to trace the source. In August 2026 the district announced a Hearing Board order requiring stronger pollution controls and odor monitoring at the Newby Island landfill. When residents ask the board to do something about a smell, the useful answer is to have each household report it to the district with the date, time and a description.

Three chapters of Title XII apply to owners who rent out their homes. They bind the owner as landlord, not the association, but a board that deals with tenants should know they exist:

• Rent review (Chapter XII-2): rent may be raised only once in 12 months, and landlords must give tenants written notice of the program. An increase above 5% can be taken to the city’s Rent Review Board, whose decision is not binding.
• Just cause (Chapter XII-4): after a tenant has lived in the home for 12 months, the owner needs one of the listed causes to end the tenancy, and for a no-fault ending owes one month’s rent in relocation help or a waiver of the last month’s rent.
• Tenant protections (Chapter XII-3): refusing to rent because of a tenant’s source of income, including a housing voucher, is unlawful, and so is retaliation.

Both the rent review and just cause chapters exempt housing with a certificate of occupancy issued in the previous 15 years. They also exempt a home that can be sold separately, such as a condominium or single-family house, when the owner is not a corporation, a real estate investment trust or an LLC with a corporate member and has given the tenant the required written notice. Many rented condos will be exempt and some will not. If the association is pressing an owner to remove a tenant over rule violations, the owner’s attorney will need to work within these chapters.