San Luis Obispo County, CA Water Use Rules: Recycled Water Rules (2026)

040 governs the content required in a landscape plan submitted with a land use permit application. Subsection D covers required landscape plan content, and the fourth required component is the Irrigation Plan. Within that irrigation plan requirement, sub-item d, Recycled water irrigation systems, states that in the event standards for the installation of greywater systems are adopted through state law, local ordinance, or local guidelines approved by the Board of Supervisors, the installation of recycled water irrigation systems, meaning dual distribution or greywater systems, shall be required to allow for the use of recycled water.

The section further requires that once triggered, these systems be designed and operated in accordance with all local and state codes, tying the county standard directly to whatever detailed technical rules the state or Board later adopts rather than setting county-specific plumbing specifications itself. The same subsection gives the Planning and Building Director authority to grant a modification, or exemption, from the recycled-water requirement where physical site constraints or functional difficulties would make installing a recycled water irrigation system impractical, so a developer facing an infeasible retrofit or an isolated site without a dual-distribution main available can seek relief without a formal variance hearing. 4, which separately require an annual irrigation schedule, sprinkler head selection standards, and use of CIMIS evapotranspiration data where feasible.