Toledo, OH Landscaping Rules: Water Restrictions (2026)

14 is the chapter's only lawn-watering or irrigation control. It does not set fixed days, times, or odd/even address rules the way some regional utilities do. Instead it is an emergency-powers mechanism: subsection (a) authorizes and directs the Mayor to declare an emergency relating to the City's available water supply and to impose restrictions on water use during that emergency. Subsection (b) requires the Director of Public Utilities and the Commissioner of Water to first conduct a thorough study covering water supply, water needs, waterworks facility conditions, weather, and health conditions; only after finding the remaining supply critically low do they recommend to the Mayor that use be curtailed and an emergency declared.

Subsection (c) makes noncompliance a violation: no person may use water in a manner inconsistent with restrictions the Mayor has imposed. Because the restrictions themselves are set case-by-case in the Mayor's declaration rather than spelled out in the ordinance, the specific limits, which days, which hours, which uses (lawn irrigation, car washing, pool filling), depend on the terms of that declaration, not on a standing schedule in the Municipal Code. The provision traces to 1952 Code § 27-6-16 and Ord. 623-52, and sits inside the Division of Water's broader regulatory chapter alongside meter tampering, hydrant use, and cross-connection rules, all enforced by the Department of Public Utilities.