National City, CA Water Use Rules: Turf Replacement Rebates (2026)

Section 18.44.070 opens by stating that turf lawn is the landscape element which requires the most water and maintenance, so the use of turf must be limited to functional areas such as playgrounds, entertainment areas, picnic areas, employee areas, and play areas. Turf cannot exceed twenty percent of the total landscaped area, and decorative cool season turf cannot exceed fifteen percent of the landscaped area. Turf is not allowed in parking lot islands or strips, and it cannot be planted in areas with a width of less than six feet.

The chapter's standards are used when preparing landscape and irrigation plans for multi-family residential, commercial, industrial, and institutional projects (§ 18.44.020). Projects with a total landscaped area of five hundred square feet or less, private yard areas for single-family dwellings, and registered historic sites are exempt from the chapter's water efficiency requirements. Section 18.44.190(C)(3)(f) reaches replacement work: when an existing industrial, commercial, institutional, public agency, or multi-family site receives a building or discretionary permit and the applicant is installing or modifying two thousand five hundred square feet or more of landscaping, the full water efficient landscape regulations apply. Under § 18.44.190(N), turf on a covered project gets only low volume or subsurface irrigation on a slope greater than twenty-five percent grade whose toe is adjacent to impermeable hardscape, or where any dimension of the landscaped area is less than eight feet wide. No turf is allowed on a center island median or parking lot island in roadway improvement, commercial, industrial, institutional, or multi-family projects, or anywhere the area cannot be efficiently irrigated to avoid runoff or overspray.

What goes in place of the lawn is regulated too. Section 18.44.080 requires a minimum of two to three inches of mulch in each non-turf area and states that gravel or crushed rock for use as mulching is not permitted. Section 18.44.110(A)(7) prohibits paving within required front and exterior setbacks in residential zones, except driveways, walkways, and porches approved through site plan review or a landscaping plan. Plant materials must be selected for low water demand and drought tolerance and grouped in hydrozones (§ 18.44.060).