Base district · single family · City of Mesa AZ
Residential Single Dwelling 15; designator is minimum lot size in thousands of sq ft. Multiple Residence prohibited; Middle Housing permitted where Section 11-31-38 eligibility is met
Every verdict below is the base-district answer read out of the ordinance of record, with the section that says so. A use with no row is shown as unknown rather than folded into “no”.
Not allowed
Not listed in the district use table; the table preamble states 'Use classifications not listed are prohibited'
Not allowed
Expressly prohibited in the RS column. Small multifamily reaches RS only through the Middle Housing row - see the middle-housing rows in this file
Not allowed
Not listed for this district. Note that in the commercial districts the row is absent entirely, unlike Mini-Storage which is listed with explicit values
Permitted by right
This is the small-multifamily route into Mesa's single-dwelling districts and it is by right, not discretionary. Eligibility under 11-31-38(A) is narrow: either the lot is within ONE MILE of the downtown area (Figure 11-31-38.A.1), or it sits in a new single-residence development of more than 10 contiguous acres where middle housing takes no more than 20% of net area and no more than 20% of the lots. Maximum building coverage may rise to 50% and lot coverage to 60%. Notes 13 and 14 remove the use inside AOA 1 and AOA 2. Added by Ord. No. 5989, 12-8-25
Allowed, but only with a discretionary approval
DERIVED. Mesa does allow micro-commercial inside residential districts, but only by Special Use Permit and only where the site is coterminous with the intersection of an arterial street and a local or collector street: offices capped at under 2,000 sf aggregate GFA (note 10), and retail, restaurants and personal services capped at under 1,500 sf with no drive-thru or pick-up window (note 11). Section 11-31-9 governs. This is not a mixed-use entitlement in the ordinary sense
Allowed, but only with a discretionary approval
A different, narrower use than Boat and Recreational Vehicle Storage. Note 20 requires the previous establishment of a PAD Overlay District, and Section 11-31-35 restricts the SUP to lots where RV storage has HISTORICALLY taken place as part of a residential neighbourhood, with an 8 ft grouted masonry wall (or a 6 ft wall plus a 15 ft landscape buffer at 20 ft on centre), arterial or collector access, and LC-district landscaping. Not a route to a new storage yard
A blank cell means this dataset carries no number for that standard — read it as “go and look”, not as zero.
| Standard | Value | Field |
|---|---|---|
| Floor area ratio (FAR) | — | far |
| Maximum height | 30 ft | max_height_ft |
| Maximum site coverage | 50% | site_coverage |
| Minimum lot area | 15,000 sf | min_lot_area_sf |
| Minimum lot width | 110 ft | min_lot_width_ft |
| Minimum lot area per dwelling unit | — | min_lot_area_per_du_sf |
| Maximum density | 2.9 du / acre | max_du_per_acre_derived |
| Front setback | 22 ft | setback_front_ft |
| Street-side setback | 10 ft | setback_side_street_ft |
| Interior side setback | 7 ft | setback_side_interior_ft |
| Rear setback | 30 ft | setback_rear_ft |
Dimensional standards from MZO 11-5-2 / 11-5-3 (Table 11-5-3.A.1).
Standards notes. Minimum lot depth 120 ft (120 ft abutting an arterial street). Maximum building coverage 40%. Interior side aggregate of 2 sides 20 ft. Front setback shown is for enclosed livable area, porches, side-entry garages and porte cocheres; front-facing garages and carports require 30 ft. Rear abutting an arterial street is 30 ft. The units/acre figure is the code-stated maximum for a Planned Area Development (PAD) Overlay; conventional subdivisions are governed by minimum lot size and Title 9 off-site/right-of-way requirements instead
No district in this dataset publishes a floor area ratio: intensity in this code is governed by lot coverage, height and — for residential — density or minimum lot area per dwelling unit. See the metro page for the provenance note on that.
Run the envelope this district allows, free, in about a minute — lot area, FAR or height, and the residual land value it supports.
The quick screen is free and needs no account. The sample study is the seven-page deliverable the Feasibility Desk produces.
base district only; overlay geometry not checked — an Airfield or Form-Based Code designation can flip answers
This is a base-district reading of the ordinance text, transcribed from the source below. It is not a Zoning Verification Letter, not a determination by the jurisdiction, not legal advice, and not a substitute for asking the planning department about a specific parcel. Overlays, recorded plan conditions, rezoning stipulations and parcel geometry are not checked here, and any one of them can change the answer on this page.
Verify locally before you spend money. Call the planning counter, pull the parcel's zoning-map designation and its case history, and confirm the section cited above still reads the way it reads here.
Full provenance, the source hashes and the known limitations for City of Mesa AZ →