Lake Elsinore, CA Water Use Rules: Turf Replacement Rebates (2026)

Chapter 19.08's applicability section, § 19.08.040, requires that whenever the City conditions a permit approval on CC&Rs for common area or open space landscaping, that condition must itself mandate low water use landscaping and prohibit water-intensive landscaping consistent with the chapter's planting, irrigation, soil management and grading standards found at §§ 19.08.070 through 19.08.100. The same subsection F requires any such CC&Rs to build in landscape irrigation system management and maintenance obligations, while making clear the chapter does not force landscaping of common areas or open space meant to stay natural.

Its final sentence is the operative anti-restriction clause: CC&Rs may not prohibit the use of low water use plants or the replacement of turf with less water intensive plant species, closing off a mechanism some homeowner associations elsewhere use to lock in high-water lawns. The requirement sits inside the broader Water Efficient Landscape Requirements ordinance (Ord. No. 1269, 2010, amended by Ord. No. 1351, 2016), which applies to new construction and rehabilitated landscapes for public agency and private development projects, developer-installed and homeowner-installed single and multifamily projects requiring a permit, plan check or design review, and new or rehabilitated cemeteries, parks and schools (§ 19.08.040(A) through (E)).

Existing single-family homeowners doing rehabilitation without triggering those permits are limited to compliance with the planting, irrigation and water conservation sections, §§ 19.08.070, 19.08.080 and 19.08.130. Historic sites, short ecological restoration projects, mined-land reclamation without permanent irrigation, and public botanical gardens are exempt under § 19.08.040(G).