Chandler, AZ Water Use Rules: Turf Replacement Rebates (2026)

Section 35-1906(6)(e) of the Chandler Zoning Code, titled Limitations on use of turf, sets a ceiling on grass as a percent of total landscape area. Street rights-of-way get 0%. Commercial, office and institutional sites get 10%, and industrial sites get 10%. Multi-family residential and common open space or retention basins get 40%. For single-family residential developments, and for parks, schools, golf courses and cemeteries, the table sets no percentage and points instead to limitations based on the ADWR Fifth Management Plan. Section 35-1906(7) adopts that plan by reference, together with the Phoenix AMA Low Water Use Plant List, both on file with the City Clerk. Landscape extensions of residential lots are excepted from the turf limitations.

Two footnotes carry extra weight. Turf is prohibited in all rights-of-way, and non-functional turfgrass is prohibited in the multi-family and common open space categories. Section 35-1906(3)(e) defines non-functional turfgrass to include narrow strips with any single dimension of ten feet or less and grass on slopes steeper than 4:1, or twenty-five percent. The definition goes further: grass with no paved pathway access, grass closer than ten feet to a street or in front entryways to residential neighborhoods or subdivisions without other recreational amenities, grass dedicated to drainage, storm basins or erosion control, and grass that is primarily aesthetic or ornamental. For residential arterial and collector rights-of-way, Section 35-1906(6)(c)1.b excludes turf unless reclaimed water is utilized.

Under Section 35-1906(2) the standards apply to new developments that need a site development plan or subdivision plat, except single-family, duplex, triplex and fourplex dwellings, and Section 35-1906(6) extends them to modifications of existing developments. Landscape plans must break landscape area into turf, shrubs/ground cover and inorganic materials, with square footage and percent of site (35-1906(4)(b)). Model home complexes follow their own cap under (6)(g): combined turf and water surfaces cannot exceed twenty percent of the landscapable area on each lot, with swimming pools exempt from the calculation. The current text reflects Ord. No. 5142, adopted 11-13-25.