El Paso, TX Landscaping Rules: Rainwater Harvesting (2026)

The rainwater provision lives inside Chapter 18.44, the city's Grading Code (Ord. No. 17516, § 1, adopted March 29, 2011), which any developer disturbing land in El Paso must follow before a grading permit issues under § 18.44.050. Section 18.44.020, Purpose, lists among its goals the intent 'to encourage harvesting and preservation of rainwater within the project site, reduce dependence on groundwater, and reduce potential off-site flooding and erosion,' tying rainwater capture to the same policy goals as erosion control and drainage-path preservation. That purpose becomes an operative design option in § 18.44.200, Engineering controls for grading, subsection A.9, titled 'Rainwater (precipitation) harvesting': 'Grading plans may be designed to encourage harvesting and use of rainwater within the project site, to reduce surface runoff discharged from project site.' The same section separately allows 'water harvesting at the top of slope' to be 'considered and approved on a per project basis' under the retaining-wall and slope-design standards in subsection A.8(h), so a harvesting feature built into a hillside grading plan needs the permit official's case-by-case sign-off rather than following a fixed template.

Because the verb is 'may,' not 'shall,' rainwater harvesting is not an independent permit condition; it is an accepted technique a design engineer can fold into the Grading Site Plan (GSP) that every grading permit already requires under §§ 18.44.100 and 18.44.200(D), where it competes with -- and must be reconciled against -- the chapter's mandatory erosion, slope-stabilization and drainage requirements.