Santa Fe, NM Landscaping Rules: Rainwater Harvesting (2026)

Section 7-1.9 SFCC 1987 amends the Uniform Plumbing Code as adopted locally in Section 7-1.1(A)(10), replacing UPC Section 1602.1 with city-specific language requiring that the installation, construction, alteration and repair of rainwater catchment systems intended to supply uses such as water closets, urinals, clothes washers, trap primers, irrigation, industrial processes, water features and cooling tower makeup be approved by the authority having jurisdiction, with additional design information found in ARCSA/ASPE 63. The same section also rewrites UPC Section 1602.9.1 to govern outside hose bibbs on a catchment system: they are allowed on rainwater piping, but each one supplying rainwater must carry a warning marked "CAUTION: NON-POTABLE WATER, DO NOT DRINK" along with the code's Figure 1602.9, and it must be fitted with a lock so the non-potable water cannot be mistaken for the drinking-water supply.

Because this approval sits inside the adopted plumbing code rather than a separate landscaping ordinance, a catchment system installed as part of a broader urban farm or irrigation project must also meet the water-source rules in Subsection 14-6.2(H)(14), which lets urban farms use captured on-site rainwater alongside gray water, well water or municipal water, provided any constructed catchment structure still meets Planning and Land Use Department permitting requirements. The land use director administers that overlap between the plumbing and land-use codes.