Gainesville, FL Environmental Rules: Stormwater Management (2026)

Section 30-6.13 of the Gainesville Land Development Code opens with a prohibition: no one may change the contour, topography, use or vegetation cover of land unless the resulting stormwater runoff and sedimentation are controlled under this article, with narrow exceptions for active agriculture (excluding silviculture), home gardening and routine landscape maintenance, and permitted tree removal. No one may discharge stormwater runoff or sedimentation into creeks, watercourses or water bodies without the applicable governmental authority's consent.

Subsection B.1 sets the design standards. Every drainage facility needs a positive outfall to an existing watercourse, water body, wetland or storm sewer system unless it is proven to be a closed system, and the property owner remains fully responsible for compliance with county, water management district, state Department of Environmental Protection, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and EPA rules. Dry basins must drain completely within 72 hours of a storm event unless the city manager or designee approves a longer period. All development must provide on-site stormwater quality treatment for the first inch of runoff, and on-site stormwater quantity control designed for the 100-year critical duration storm, with a detention system whose controlled outlet keeps the post-development peak flow off the site from exceeding the natural predevelopment flow. Fill slopes for purposes other than landscaping or buffering cannot be steeper than three-to-one and must be stabilized by vegetation or another approved method, and excessive erosion of any cut or fill slope requires remediation by the property owner. Within the Hogtown Creek Basin, systems must retain any increase in runoff volume above the predevelopment volume for a 72-hour period, a stricter local standard layered on top of the citywide rule.