Santa Fe, NM Landscaping Rules: Native Plants (2026)

The city's Land Development Code, Chapter 14 SFCC 1987, treats native and drought-tolerant planting as the default landscape standard rather than an exception. 4(F)(1), Plant Material Selection, requires that plant material selection emphasize drought tolerant plant species and limit high water use species, and mandates that everything planted survive USDA Zone 5 cold, minus fifteen degrees Fahrenheit. 4(F)(4), Turf Limitations, backs that up with hard caps on thirsty cool-season grass: single-family lots are held to 1,000 square feet or 10 percent of the lot, whichever is less; multifamily common open space is capped at 20 percent; and commercial or industrial sites are limited to 1,000 square feet or 3 percent of required open space, whichever is greater.

Only public parks and commercial recreation fields are exempt, and even they may install only the minimum turf the active use requires. 4(B)(2), to exterior alterations on single-family lots even without a larger permit trigger. 1, formally recognizes 'primarily native landscape' as one of two acceptable Landscape Design Intents a project may declare, alongside an urban landscape approach built around street trees. 4(D) and reviewed by the land use director before a certificate of occupancy issues.