Buena Park, CA Landscaping Rules: Rainwater Harvesting (2026)

Buena Park's Guidelines for Implementation of the Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance (Municipal Code Title 13, Chapter 13.30) actively promote rainwater and graywater. The soil-and-stormwater section recommends design elements to "improve on-site stormwater and dry weather runoff capture and use," including grading impervious surfaces to direct flow into planting areas and incorporating "rain gardens, cisterns, and other rain harvesting or catchment" features. Under the applicability rules, "new or rehabilitated projects using treated or untreated graywater or rainwater capture on site" that meet the parcel's entire Estimated Total Water Use from those sources are subject only to limited prescriptive provisions, an incentive to maximize alternative water. The guidelines define a "graywater" system as untreated wastewater from bathtubs, showers, and similar sources, note that such systems "are encouraged to assist in on-site landscape irrigation," and require they "conform to the California Plumbing Code." California law (Health & Safety Code) also broadly permits residential rain barrels and simple laundry-to-landscape graywater without a permit, so homeowners can typically install rain barrels and basic systems while larger systems need plumbing review.