Redlands, CA Landscaping Rules: Rainwater Harvesting (2026)

200, Stormwater Management and Rainwater Retention. The section frames stormwater capture as something the city encourages rather than compels outright: subsection A calls for implementing best management practices in landscape and grading design 'to minimize runoff and to increase on site retention and infiltration,' and subsection D says it is 'strongly recommended' that landscape areas be designed with capture and infiltration capacity sufficient to prevent runoff from a one-inch, 24-hour rain event (or the 85th percentile 24-hour event) from leaving the site. Subsection E lists specific techniques the city recommends incorporating, including grading impervious driveways to drain to vegetated areas, using pervious or porous paving, directing roof and paved-surface runoff into planting beds, and installing rain gardens, cisterns, and other rain harvesting or catchment systems, along with infiltration beds, swales, basins and drywells.

100(B) requires the landscape design plan submitted with a building or landscape permit application to identify the location, installation, and 24-hour retention or infiltration capacity of any stormwater best management practices used, and separately to identify any rain harvesting or catchment technologies and their retention capacity. 020. Applicants are directed to the city or the regional water quality control board for any additional applicable stormwater technical requirements. The chapter derives from Ordinance 2917 (2021), which updated the city's earlier water-efficient landscape ordinance adopted by Ordinance 2724 section 1 in 2009.