Fairfield, CA Landscaping Rules: Rainwater Harvesting (2026)

18, "Stormwater Management and Rainwater Retention," sits inside the Water Efficient Landscape Ordinance and mixes one hard requirement with several encouraged practices. The mandatory piece is subsection (c): all planted landscape areas in a covered project must have friable, easily crumbled soil to maximize water retention and infiltration, a standard verified through the soil analysis report required elsewhere in the chapter. Everything else in the section uses softer language. " Subsection (d) is the most specific target in the section: it is "strongly recommended," not required, that landscape areas be sized to capture and infiltrate runoff from either a 1-inch, 24-hour rain event or the 85th-percentile 24-hour rain event, plus any additional capacity a separate local, state, or federal regulation requires.

Subsection (e) lists concrete techniques a project may incorporate, including grading impervious surfaces toward vegetated areas, minimizing paved area, using permeable pavers, directing roof and paved runoff into planting beds, and installing rain gardens, cisterns, infiltration beds, swales, or basins. 8(b)(11) requires the landscape design plan to identify any rain harvesting or catchment technology a project does include and its 24-hour retention or infiltration capacity, so once a project chooses to build a cistern or rain garden, that choice must be documented and reviewed even though building one in the first place is not compelled.