By Khalida Sarwari
The Saratoga City Council recently took steps toward adopting a more user-friendly, water-efficient landscaping ordinance.
Upon the recommendation of the planning commission in September, the council on Oct. 15 adopted an amended ordinance designed to make it easier for applicants to comply with and the city to implement and enforce.
“It benefits the city in multiple ways,” said Cindy McCormick, a city planner who worked on the ordinance. “It reduces the water usage–ultimately, that is the goal–and then it also makes it easier for staff to implement, and it makes it easier for the residents to understand.”
The main change in the ordinance, which has been cut down from 41 to four pages, is that it gives residents the option of switching to a simplified plant restriction as opposed to a water budget, “which makes it a lot less intimidating,” McCormick said.
One aspect of the ordinance did not receive the council’s approval. In order to have the ordinance apply to more properties than the previous version, therefore resulting in more water-efficient landscape designs, city staff had recommended that it be applicable to 2,500-square-foot or greater landscaped areas instead of the 5,000-square-foot minimum threshold in the existing ordinance.
This would mean that applicants choosing the plant restriction option as opposed to a water budget would be required to demonstrate that at least 80 percent of the plants in the landscape area are native or use little water, and that the turf area does not exceed 1,250 square feet or 25 percent of the total landscape area, whichever is less.
None of the council members were in favor of lowering that number, citing concerns about the impact it could potentially have on residents. Vice Mayor Howard Miller said, “It’s yet another requirement that we, the government, are placing on the people, and it’s that balance of
encouraging people to have water-efficient landscaping versus the onerous requirement forcing the people to have it.”
Miller argued that lowering the threshold to 2,500 square feet would potentially add costs to people’s projects because they would have to re-landscape. After much discussion, the council eventually passed his motion.
Earlier this year, the Santa Clara Valley Water District board of directors recommended that local agencies implement mandatory measures to achieve a 20 percent reduction of water use levels through the end of the year. From that, the city created a water conservation ordinance adapted from the regional model to replace the ordinance the city has had in place since 2010.
The new ordinance also includes water budget and landscape parameters and values that are similar to those in the previous ordinance, such as establishing slope and width restrictions for turf, limiting irrigation times and establishing minimum mulch requirements.
Link: City moves toward user-friendly, water-efficient landscaping plan
