Tree Section

The Tree Section is the block of Manhattan Beach north of Manhattan Beach Boulevard and west of Sepulveda Boulevard, running up to Rosecrans Avenue at the El Segundo line. On the west it meets the Sand Section along the Veterans Parkway greenbelt, then along Bell Avenue north of Marine Avenue. The city's General Plan describes it the same way and notes that the avenues east of Pacific Avenue are named after trees, which is where the name comes from. It lists Palm, Walnut, Pine, Elm and Oak. Maple and Laurel avenues run through the neighborhood too.

In the zoning code, this is Area District II. That district also covers the neighborhoods east of Sepulveda, but the Tree Section name stops at the highway, and that's how our map draws it. Brokers file it under MLS area 143. By the city's parcel map it has about 3,160 parcels, and almost all of them are zoned for single-family houses.

One corner is in dispute. The blocks around Grandview Avenue near Sand Dune Park show up in the General Plan as part of the Tree Section, but the zoning map puts them in Area District III with the beach blocks. Our map follows the zoning line, so those blocks are in our Sand Section guide.

Area District II allows 26 feet and two stories. Height is measured from the average elevation of the lot's four corners, and no part of the house can stand more than 20% over the limit, about 31 feet, above the ground beneath it. On a house lot of 4,800 square feet or less, floor area is capped at 0.7 times the lot, so about 3,250 square feet on a typical 4,650-square-foot lot. Up to 400 square feet of garage and any basement that's fully below grade don't count. The front setback is 20 feet. The code says the height and floor-area limits can't be raised without a citywide vote.

Trees get their own rule. In Area Districts I and II, a protected tree is any tree, other than deciduous fruit trees and Washingtonia palms, whose trunk sits at least partly in the front yard, or the street-side yard on a corner, and measures 12 inches or more across at 4.5 feet up. Removing or moving one takes a city permit and a tree plan, and any project that costs more than half of what rebuilding the whole house would cost has to plant at least one new 36-inch box tree. The city first adopted the rule for the Tree Section in 1993 and later extended it, and in May 2026 the council took up the question of fines for violations.

You can add units. Under the city's SB 9 rules, a single-family lot can have two main houses, and up to four units counting ADUs, with 4-foot side and rear setbacks and the same 26-foot height. Units built that way can't be rented for less than 30 days. The city also updated its ADU chapter in April 2025 to follow state law.

Veterans Parkway runs along the west side of the neighborhood. It's a 21-acre greenbelt built in 1986 on the old Santa Fe railroad right-of-way, renamed from Manhattan Parkway in 1998, and its running path goes about a mile and a half south to the Hermosa Beach line. Across Valley Drive, Live Oak Park dates to 1939 and has six lighted tennis courts, two fields, a dog run, a Scout House, and the Joslyn Community Center, and the city holds its Old Hometown Fair there every October. Sand Dune Park at 33rd Street takes online reservations to climb the dune.

The pier is under a mile from the middle of the Tree Section and about a mile and a half from the Rosecrans and Sepulveda corner. Groceries and errands are mostly on Sepulveda and at Manhattan Village, the shopping center across the highway, and Polliwog Park and the middle school are about half a mile past Sepulveda on Manhattan Beach Boulevard.

Some streets have permit signs. The city runs a Tree Section resident permit parking program for streets whose residents petition for it, with up to three hangtags per household. The whole neighborhood sits outside the Coastal Zone, so the city's ban on rentals shorter than 30 days applies here.

It all starts with the lot. I want the survey, the exact square footage, and the floor-area math, because on a lot under 4,800 square feet every square foot of land is worth 0.7 of a square foot of house. If the plan is to rebuild or add an SB 9 unit or an ADU, I check the setbacks and the four corner elevations early.

Then the trees. If a big tree sits in the front yard, find out whether it's protected before you plan around removing it, and budget for a replacement 36-inch box tree on a major remodel. After that, the school: get the assigned elementary school for the exact address from the district in writing.

And I walk the block with the buyer: how close it is to Sepulveda or Rosecrans, whether the street has permit parking, and how many houses nearby are under construction. I do this in English or Russian, and if you're abroad, I send you the walk on video.