Maximum residential driveway slope?

[Erica Sullivan]

Hello All,

I know this question has been answered before but I need some advice. I live in a gated community just outside San Antonio city limits (but still a San Antonio address). The problem is this.
Our HOA is cracking down on street parking which IMO is not a bad thing but I can say that it is not an excessive problem as of yet. However, as you can see by the pictures of my driveway it is not the easiest place to park even at the lowest point. Also, as you can imagine, getting into the car while parked on a slope come with its own problems (trying to keep open the heavy door against the natural tendency to fall into a closed door position.)

My son may be returning to live with us for awhile and I can imagine the street parking problem may become an issue as the HOA is now hiring off duty sherriff's to give out tickets-which they have done.


I want to attend the next HOA meeting armed with some info..
Basically, IS there a minimum safe slope established? or is just a locality thing?.. If it is a local thing, where would I find out what is our's? There are some CRAZY HIGH driveways in this very hilly area but I would estimate about 95% of the driveways are "normal". I would like to ask the board to grant exceptions on a case by case basis but I feel I need to have some info to take as backup.

When we chose our undeveloped lot the slope did not appear terribly significant at all but to make sure we had enough leeway we moved our house back an additional 10 feet. It is 20 feet for standard house setbacks here in SA, also, during build, we decided to pour the additional 3rd open slab (we have a renter that uses that slot).

Can anyone offer any suggestions.?..oh and BTW, I CAN post some more crazy high drives...and if it helps anyone my address is 24111 Seven Winds, San Antonio, Tx 78258.

[UrbaneSprawler]

Basically, IS there a minimum safe slope established? or is just a locality thing?.. If it is a local thing, where would I find out what is our's? There are some CRAZY HIGH driveways in this very hilly area but I would estimate about 95% of the driveways are "normal". I would like to ask the board to grant exceptions on a case by case basis but I feel I need to have some info to take as backup.

Can anyone offer any suggestions.?

It's a locality thing. The pictures don't appear to be as extreme as the famed one in Arkansas earlier in this thread. Is the concern steepness for walking on the driveway, or are there vehicular concerns, such as bottoming-out when you reach the street?

It would be beneficial for you to measure the slope just to know what grade you have. You'll see some postings earlier in this thread of what certain municipalities have as a requirement.

There's not much that can be redone at this point, since you're somewhat fixed by the street elevation and the garage floor elevation. You could gain at most about six inches in height towards the street by having the drive approach replaced with a mountable ("driveover") curb such that vehicles have to mount up over a rounded curb. 6 inch gain in height at the street side probably won't be enough to lower the grade the amount I suspect you want though.

Perhaps as a footnote: I'm surprised to see how the sidewalk along the street intersects at the driveway. The sidewalk doesn't appear to be ADA compliant with the cross slope of the sidewalk going across the driveway, and exposes the municipality with liability for allowing it. We've stopped that design over a decade ago and require redevelopment to redo these sort of driveway approaches for ADA compliance. You could use this as a tool to get a driveover curb installed which would be more ADA compliant.

[Suburb Repairman]

You said this was a gated subdivision, which I assume means these are private streets owned & maintained by the HOA... that does a lot of weird things when it comes to enforcement of local ordinances.

I noticed the same thing UrbaneSprawler did--that the sidewalk is clearly out of whack with ADA. That house doesn't look very old at all--at least for a public street that sidewalk wouldn't have passed.

As far as slope restrictions, I'm not aware of any around central and south Texas that would apply to residential driveways. For commercial driveways, most cities in the Austin area have a 15% maximum slope for driveways (not to exceed a certain distance)--perhaps that could serve as the basis of your argument. Does your vehicle have issues with approach & departure angles on the driveway (do you scrape or get stuck if you hit it at the wrong angle)?

I would recommend telling your HOA to enforce the restriction as they see fit, but create an equivalent to a variance to allow on-street parking if your driveway slope exceeds 15%. However, having mapped your property I would expect them to cite issues with line-of-sight coming around the curve and a vehicle on-street being a potential hazard.

Truthfully, it might have been better to construct a detached garage further back on the lot, if only to provide additional driveway length & reduce the slope. I get a little upset when developers don't do a good job of explaining the site characteristics of a property to potential buyers inexperienced with such issues. That is hardly what I would call a gentle slope.

By the way, once they get the on-street parking "problem" solved, the next problem will be speeding.

[UrbaneSprawler]

However, having mapped your property I would expect them to cite issues with line-of-sight coming around the curve and a vehicle on-street being a potential hazard.

Just looked on Google to see the overall layout. Not knowing if they're bounded by topography, but, ugh I hate when streets are laid out like that.

The overall layout of the subdivision just boggles my mind to think that they're cracking down on on-street parking that's: 1) in a gated community, 2) on streets looking plenty wide enough to park on both sides with two way traffic, and 3) has suburban type density (4 DU/acre maybe?) where being able to park only in front of your own home appears to be no problem whatsoever. First world problems.