Staff Report and WELO Ordinance - StopWaste.Org

ecommendations provided by StopWaste.Org to its member agencies, since staffincorporated some of their recommendations. These recommendations include a set ofprinciples called Bay-friendly landscaping, which generally promotes better soil health,water conservation, water quality protection, pollution prevention, and protection ofnatural resources in general and especially the San Francisco Bay watershed.The State Model Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance sections and 1992 City ordinancesections are re-ordered to correspond to the proposed amended City ordinance sectionsin order to allow for side-by-side comparison. In some cases, parts of a State ModelWater Efficient Landscape Ordinance section may appear more than once because aprovision may affect more than one proposed City ordinance section.ApplicabilityThe ordinance would apply only to development projects requiring a City approval. Itapplies to new residential and non-residential development projects and redesignedlandscapes meeting minimum size criteria. However, homeowners redesigning theirlandscaping would be exempt.An important difference between the 1992 and 2009 State model ordinances is that the1992 model exempted sites using recycled water from the ordinance, and the currentmodel does not. However, it does increase the amount of water allowed landscapesirrigated with recycled water, as compared to non-recycled water irrigated landscapes.For projects needing City approval, such as a design review or building permit, perproposed Section 13.25.030(B), the ordinance would apply to the following, which isconsistent with the new State model:"1. New construction and rehabilitated landscapes for public agency projects andprivate non-residential development projects with a total project landscapearea equal to or greater than 2,500 square feet;2. New construction and rehabilitated landscapes, which are developer-installedin single-family and multi-family projects with a total project landscape areaequal to or greater than 2,500 square feet; or3. New construction landscapes, which are homeowner-provided and/orhomeowner-hired in single-family and multi-family residential developmentprojects with a total project landscape area equal to or greater than 5,000square feet."It should be noted that "rehabilitated" landscapes mean those in which at least 50 percentof the landscape is being completely redesigned and does not refer to routinemaintenance, such as replacing plants like for like.The ordinance includes exemptions from its provisions per the State model for historicsites, ecological restoration projects, mined land reclamation projects, and plantcollections, such as botanical gardens. The ordinance also explicitly states that it is not83