Yorba Linda allows 1 animal at 10,000 sq ft, rising to 6 at one acre, then two more per additional acre. It is a combined cap across horses, goats, sheep and cattle — not a horse limit — and 15,000 sq ft is the threshold for keeping them by right rather than by permit.
Two things that catch buyers: about 38% of the city is Planned Development, where that rule may not apply at all; and only about one home in six can keep a horse by right.
How many horses can you keep in Yorba Linda?
The answer is a table, and it is not the table on most real estate websites. Yorba Linda sets the number by lot size, in bands, starting at 10,000 square feet. A one-acre lot gets six — not eight, which is the number circulating on several local agent sites.
| Minimum lot size | Maximum animals |
|---|---|
| 10,000 – 15,000 sq. ft. | 1 |
| 15,001 – 17,000 sq. ft. | 2 |
| 17,001 – 20,000 sq. ft. | 3 |
| 20,001 – 25,000 sq. ft. | 4 |
| 25,001 – 30,000 sq. ft. | 5 |
| 30,001 sq. ft. – one acre | 6 |
Above one acre the code adds two more animals for each additional acre. Two acres is eight, three acres is ten. Below 10,000 square feet there is no band, because there is no permission — 10,000 square feet is the floor. (Yorba Linda Municipal Code § 18.20.630.E, Table 18.20-1.)
It is not a horse limit
This is the part almost everyone gets wrong, including the City's own FAQ page, which is headed “How many horses can I keep on my property?”
“Maximum Number of Equine and Cleft-Hoofed Animals”
Yorba Linda Municipal Code — the heading to Table 18.20-1
It is a combined cap. Horses, goats, sheep and cattle all draw from the same pool. On a 20,001 sq. ft. lot — four animals — three horses and two goats is five, and five is over.
Miniature horses cut the other way. Under § 18.20.630.A they are regulated the same as dogs and cats, so they do not touch the equine table at all — they count against the three-animal domestic limit, cumulatively with any dogs and cats.
15,000 square feet is the real threshold
Two different permissions hide in one sentence. Keeping horses is permitted by right in the R-A, RLD and R-E zones on lots of 15,000 square feet and larger. Between 10,000 and 15,000 square feet — or in the R-S or R-U zones at 10,000 square feet and up — it requires a conditional use permit approved by the Planning Commission.
That is a public hearing, a fee, and an outcome nobody can promise in advance. A 12,000 sq. ft. Yorba Linda lot is not a horse property; it is a lot on which you may apply to keep one horse. If a listing calls a sub-15,000 sq. ft. parcel “horse property,” the question to ask is whether a CUP was ever actually issued — and to ask to see it.
The 50-foot rule, and the arena carve-out
Section 18.20.650.A does three separate things that are easy to blur together.
- Animals may not be kept in any required front, side or street side yard, and not within 50 feet of any adjoining dwelling — your neighbour's house — measured from the edge of the structure to the closest edge of that dwelling, excluding the garage.
- Barns and stables must be at least 50 feet from any dwelling. The wording shifts here: not any adjoining dwelling. Read literally that includes the house on your own lot.
- Arenas are excluded from that barn-and-stable rule — but an arena closer than 50 feet to an adjoining dwelling may be used no more than two hours per day, and arena dust must be controlled by pre-watering or an equally effective method.
Two hours a day is a real constraint on a property being marketed as a training facility. It does not appear in listing descriptions. It does appear in the code.
On barn setbacks from a property line, this page will not give you a number, because the code does not. Section 18.20.660 routes barns to the general accessory-structure standards in § 18.10.120, then says the more restrictive of that or the zone district setback governs. A shade shelter and a 1,200 sq. ft. barn on the same lot face different figures. Anyone quoting you a single number for this is guessing. Take the actual barn footprint to Planning before you draw it.
Boarding: two is a staff decision, three is a hearing
Under § 18.20.670, boarding any animal other than equine is prohibited outright. Up to two horses that are not for the occupant's personal use may be boarded with approval from the Community Development Director — a staff-level sign-off. Three or more requires a Planning Commission conditional use permit.
The detail that catches people: boarded horses still count against your total under the animal table. If your lot allows four and you board two, you own two. Boarding income does not come out of a separate allowance.
Manure: the 24-hour rule is a safe harbour, not a mandate
You will read that Yorba Linda requires manure removal every 24 hours. That overstates it, and the difference matters if someone tells you you are in violation.
Section 18.20.680 sets a performance standard first: keep the animals and premises so as not to be detrimental to health, safety or welfare, “at least sufficient to keep dust, odors, flies and noise from having an adverse effect on any other property.” It then lists techniques that are “recommended to meet the maintenance standards … and shall be utilized if no other alternative techniques sufficient to meet the standard are utilized.”
Those techniques are the familiar ones — manure removed from ground and stalls at least once every 24 hours into a covered container, off the premises or composted at least every seven days, sprinklers for corral dust, fly control, float-activated waterers instead of standing troughs. So the binding obligation is the outcome. Those numbers are the default route to it, and the standard you will be measured against if you have no equally effective alternative.
The zones, and what they actually mean
Five residential zones permit horses in some form. The code's own descriptions are worth knowing, because they explain the character difference between neighbourhoods that look similar on a map.
| Zone | Minimum lot |
|---|---|
| R-A — Residential Agricultural | 1 acre |
| RLD — Residential Low-Density | 39,000 sq. ft. |
| R-E — Residential Estate | 15,000 sq. ft. |
| R-S — Residential Suburban | 10,000 sq. ft. |
| R-U — Residential Urban | 7,500 sq. ft. |
R-A is the only zone where horses can be the primary use rather than an accessory one. The code describes it as including “the keeping of equine, cleft-hoofed and other animals either as accessory to a residential use, or as the primary use, such as an equestrian centre.” Farms, ranches and wholesale nurseries are permitted uses. If you want a working equestrian operation rather than a house with horses, R-A is the zone to look in.
RLD the code calls out for “large estate and equestrian-oriented estates” as characteristic uses, while noting it “tends to be more residentially oriented than the R-A zone.”
R-E permits horses, but the code is explicit that agrarian uses there are “clearly incidental and accessory to the primary single-family residential use.” Fifteen thousand square feet, custom and semi-custom homes. This is where a lot of Yorba Linda horse property actually sits — and where the two-animal band starts.
R-S and R-U permit horses only by conditional use permit, and R-U's 7,500 sq. ft. minimum is below the 10,000 sq. ft. animal-keeping floor entirely.
The 38% of Yorba Linda that table does not cover
Here is the thing almost nobody knows, and it is the most important paragraph on this page.
Planned Development is the single largest zone in Yorba Linda — about 8,255 of 21,859 parcels, roughly 38% of the city, bigger than R-E, R-S or R-U individually. And the animal-keeping rule quoted at the top of this page does not mention it.
Section 18.20.630.E permits equine keeping in “any R-A, RLD and R-E zone” at 15,000 square feet and above, or “any R-S or R-U zone” at 10,000 with a conditional use permit. Five zones, named. PD is not one of them.
Three provisions stack to produce the consequence:
- § 18.16.110 — in the PD zone, permitted uses are “those uses designated on the development plan for the particular PD zone as approved by the City Council.”
- § 18.08.070 — “Uses not specified in the master list or within the tables for each zone are prohibited.”
- § 18.20.620 — animal keeping is permitted in residential districts “except as restricted… or as otherwise specified by a specific zoning district regulation.”
So on a PD parcel the base-zone rule does not automatically apply. The PD's own text controls — and where that text is silent, the default is not permitted until the City says otherwise.
Planned Development parcels of 15,000 sq ft or more — properties that look like horse property on size, whose animal rights cannot be determined from the zoning code at all.
And the City's own FAQ does not mention any of this
Earlier on this page we noted that the City's FAQ answer to “How many horses can I keep on my property?” describes a combined equine-and-cleft-hoofed cap as though it were a horse cap. It has a second problem: it recites only the five base zones and never mentions PD.
A buyer sitting on a 20,000 square foot lot in Vista Del Verde or East Lake Village, reading the City's own published answer, would conclude they may keep four animals. The published answer does not reach their property.
You cannot resolve this from home. That is the honest advice.
We went looking for the PD texts. They are not in the municipal code — Title 18 carries only the generic PD procedures. They are not on the City website. They are not in the open data portal, and the zoning map is a raster image.
The one published document is a 60-page “Planned Development Summaries” PDF, which says of itself that “for more detail on each Planned Development, the Planned Development Text and Ordinance should be reviewed.”
We searched that document for horse, equine, corral, stable, animal, livestock, barn and keeping. Not one of the 31 PD summaries contains an animal-keeping provision of any kind. Most are a single development-standards table with no permitted-use list at all.
Two exceptions are worth knowing, and they cut opposite ways:
- PD-26, West Bastanchury. Its District II states permitted uses are “Same as RA (Residential Agriculture) Zone.” This is the one PD where the public record affirmatively supports horses. About 188 parcels, 101 of them 15,000 square feet or larger — Southern Hills Way, Eureka Avenue, Catalina Court.
- PD-29, North Yorba Linda Estates. Its summary states permitted uses “shall be the same as for the Residential Suburban (R-S) zone.” R-S means horses are conditional use permit only, not by right — on a tract with a 15,000 square foot minimum lot size and 537 parcels, 173 of them at or above that size. A buyer there would very reasonably assume by-right horses and be wrong. That reading rests on the City's 2019 summary rather than the PD text itself, so treat it as a question to put to Planning rather than a settled fact — but put it.
Several large PDs reference base-zone development standards without adopting base-zone uses — Parkside Estates cites “RE Zoning Standards,” Yorba Linda Hills cites RS, RE and RLD standards by area, Dominguez Ranch and Travis Ranch both cite RS and RE columns. Whether a reference to standards carries the use list with it is genuinely unresolved in the public record. It is the single best question to ask the Planning Division, and this page cannot answer it for you.
The PDs where a large-lot buyer is most likely to be caught out, by count of parcels at or above 15,000 square feet: Vista Del Verde (230), Yorba Linda Hills (204), Dominguez Ranch (191), North Yorba Linda Estates (173), East Lake Village (153), Green Hills (124), West Bastanchury (101), Travis Ranch (85), Parkside Estates (81).
If a Yorba Linda property is in a PD, ask Planning one question before anything else: does the development plan for this PD permit the keeping of equine animals, and if it references a base zone, does that reference carry the use list or only the development standards? (714) 961-7130. Get the answer in writing.
Where the horse property actually is
About 3,077 Yorba Linda parcels can keep a horse by right — that is R-A, RLD and R-E land at 15,000 square feet or more. Set against roughly 19,500 residential parcels citywide, that is about one in six homes.
A further 242 parcels in those same three zones fall in the 10,000–15,000 band and need a permit, and roughly 3,350 R-S and R-U parcels are large enough to apply for one. But the by-right number is the one that matters, and it is smaller than the city's reputation suggests.
| Zone | Parcels ≥ 15,000 sq. ft. |
|---|---|
| R-E Residential Estate | 2,821 |
| R-A Residential Agricultural | 152 |
| RLD Residential Low Density | 104 |
| PD — rights not determinable from the code | 1,518 |
Note how few R-A and RLD parcels exist. There are 162 R-A parcels in the entire city — and R-A is the only zone where horses can be the primary use rather than an accessory one. If you want a working equestrian property rather than a house with horses, you are shopping a very short list.
The streets
The by-right parcels are not scattered. They fall into a handful of tight pockets, and the largest by far is the historic west and central belt — roughly west of Fairmont Boulevard, straddling Yorba Linda Boulevard — which holds about 2,090 of them and contains every RLD parcel in the city.
Inside that belt sits the tightest equestrian pocket in Yorba Linda, and you can find it by reading street signs. Cleveland Bay Lane, Trotter Lane, Red Roan Lane, Welsh Pony Lane, Paso Fino Way, Shetland Lane, Falabella Lane, Caballo Drive, Via Del Caballo and Winners Circle — roughly 157 parcels, and essentially every one is at or above 15,000 square feet. The tract was named by someone who knew exactly what they were building.
Other concentrations, with the number of by-right parcels on each corridor:
- West/central belt — Grandview Ave (78), Lakeview Ave (71), Highland Ave (65), Mountain View Ave (52), Buena Vista Ave (50), Oriente Dr (39), Ohio St and S Ohio St (74 combined), Avocado Ave (36), Kellogg Dr (24), Palm Ave (21), Heather Way (20), Berryhill Dr (20)
- Live Oak / Mirkwood — about 41 parcels and entirely R-A, the purest agricultural pocket in the city. Live Oak Lane (17), Mirkwood Run (9), Cassia Lane (8)
- Camino de Bryant and the “mountain” streets, far east — about 375 parcels, all R-E. Camino De Bryant (59), Big Horn Mountain Way (41), Smokey Mountain Way (31), Elk Mountain Dr (26), Blue Ridge Dr (24)
- The Paseo and Calle tract — about 309 parcels, all R-E. Paseo Panorama (31), Paseo De La Rambla (30), Paseo De La Cumbre (25), Calle Vista Alegre (21), Calle Vista Linda (20)
- Hidden Hills / Rolling Hills — about 266 parcels, all R-E. Hidden Hills Rd (40), Rolling Hills Ln (29), Mission Hills Ln (27), Green Crest Dr (26)
- Northwest, around Rancho Lane and Prospect Avenue — about 284 parcels. Rancho Ln (26), Prospect Ave (21), Rosebud Dr (16), Roxdale Dr (16)
- Casino Ridge — about 64 parcels, all R-E, and the staging area is right there. Casino Ridge Rd (25)
Two cautions on those numbers. They come from the City's own parcel layer, with lot sizes computed from parcel geometry rather than from the deed — so a parcel within a few hundred square feet of 15,000 needs checking against the actual recorded lot size. And a street appearing here does not mean every lot on it qualifies: Lamplight Lane, for instance, is RLD but most of its lots are under 15,000 square feet.
Riding out: over 100 miles, and three places to park a trailer
This is the part that makes Yorba Linda unusual, and it is the City's own claim, not a marketing line: an “ambitious Citywide system of over 100 miles of trails coordinated for use by hikers, bikers, and equestrians.”
What matters more to a buyer than the mileage is that you can get a rig to it. Yorba Linda has three staging areas that accommodate trailer parking:
- Casino Ridge Staging Area — direct route into Chino Hills State Park
- Quarter Horse Staging Area — direct route into Chino Hills State Park
- Gun Club Road Linear Park — indirect route connecting to Chino Hills State Park
Several trails are part of a regional system linking to Carbon Canyon Regional Park, Chino Hills State Park, the Orange County Santa Ana River Trail, and Yorba Regional Park. The governing document is the Riding, Hiking and Bikeway Trails Component of the General Plan — the Master Plan of Trails — approved by City Council in April 2005 and amended in 2024. The City publishes a trails map and a monthly Trails Route Spotlight.
Trail easements do not go away quietly
Yorba Linda has no equestrian overlay zone. Chapter 18.17 establishes three overlays — Affordable Housing, Congregational Lands and Mixed-Use — and none of them is equestrian. What exists instead is § 12.20.090, and it is worth reading before buying a lot with a trail across it.
Placing any structure or encroachment on a public or private trail easement is unlawful. Anything placed there after January 2, 2009 must be removed on order of the City Manager; pre-2009 encroachments come out on a schedule. Encroachment is a nuisance per se.
And § 12.20.090.B provides that a private trail easement “shall not be considered extinguished or abandoned, even if the owner(s) of such private trail easements agrees to extinguish or abandon such easement” — expressly “for purposes of this section.” Read with that limiting phrase intact, it means an informal agreement among neighbours that a trail “isn't really used anymore” is not something you can rely on.
Structures must also sit at least five feet back from any trail or ingress-egress easement, and where a lot carries a City easement, setbacks are measured from the edge of the easement rather than the property line — which quietly shrinks the buildable envelope.
What this page still cannot tell you
What any individual PD text actually says. The section above gets you as far as the public record goes: which PDs exist, how many large lots each holds, and the two whose summaries state a use list. It cannot get you further, because the PD texts and their adopting ordinances are not published anywhere we could find. The specific unresolved question — whether a PD's reference to base-zone development standards also imports base-zone uses — is one only the Planning Division can answer, and the answer decides whether several hundred large-lot properties are horse property or not.
CC&Rs. Private covenants are not in the municipal code and are often more restrictive than it. A lot can be R-E, be two acres, satisfy every section quoted here, and still carry a recorded restriction against livestock. In Yorba Linda the code does not override CC&Rs. (Norco is different on exactly this point, which is one of the real legal differences between the two markets.)
Verified September 8, 2026, against the Yorba Linda Municipal Code on eCode360, which includes legislation through Ordinance 2026-1129 (April 21, 2026). Ordinance 2026-1132, adopted August 18, 2026, amends Title 18 and is not yet codified; it is a Housing Element implementation amendment and does not touch the animal-keeping sections.
Confirm before you rely on it. For any specific parcel — and especially a PD-zoned one — check with the City of Yorba Linda Planning Division on (714) 961-7130. This page is written by a real estate broker, not by the City, and it is not a substitute for the City's determination on your property.
On the parcel figures. Zone counts are exact attribute counts from the City's own parcel layer, read on September 8, 2026. Lot-size bands are computed from parcel geometry rather than from recorded lot dimensions, so treat them as accurate to within a few percent — any parcel near the 15,000 square foot line needs checking against the deed. The match between PD numbers and PD names is our inference from street names, not a City-published crosswalk. And we could find no adoption dates for the PDs at all, so none are given.
What Sharon does with all of this
Reads it against the actual parcel before you write an offer. Lot size against the band. Zone against the permission. The barn against the setback it really faces rather than the one somebody quoted. The title report for trail easements that cannot be released. Whether the arena you are paying for can be used more than two hours a day.
If a property does not work, she will say so — which is cheaper than finding out after closing. And a good number of Yorba Linda horse properties change hands before they ever reach the portals, through the barns, the trainers and the neighbours. Those she hears about first.
Looking for horse property in Yorba Linda?
Equestrian properties in Yorba Linda are a small market, and a good number of them change hands before they ever reach the public portals. Sharon hears about those first — through the barns, the trainers and the neighbours, which is a network you cannot subscribe to.
- Tell her what you need — acreage, stalls, arena, ride-out access, turnout, water.
- She will send you what is on the market now that actually fits, not everything with a fence.
- And she will tell you about the ones that are not listed yet.
Selling in Yorba Linda
The buyer who will pay the most for your Yorba Linda property is an equestrian, and equestrians do not find properties the way ordinary buyers do. They hear about them at the barn, in the horse press, and from their trainer. That is the audience Sharon markets to.