Madera County, CA Water Use Rules: Turf Replacement Rebates (2026)

56. Where CC&Rs are required for such a permit, the county requires the project approval to incorporate a condition prohibiting the use of water intensive landscaping and requiring the use of low water use landscaping for common area and open-space landscaping, along with CC&R provisions covering irrigation system management and maintenance. The same subsection protects individual homeowners directly: covenants, conditions and restrictions shall not prohibit use of low-water use plants or the replacement of turf with less water intensive plant species. In other words, an HOA operating under a covered permit cannot use its CC&Rs to block a homeowner from swapping out lawn for drought-tolerant planting.

The section also clarifies the ordinance is not a mandate to landscape everything: it shall not be construed as requiring landscaping of common areas or open space that is intended to remain natural. 010(E) sets that water budget at no more than seventy percent of reference evapotranspiration, or a stricter figure if state law requires it. 030's thresholds: public agency and private commercial projects with 2,500 square feet or more of landscape area needing a permit, plan check, or design review, and new single-family or multi-family homes, whose new landscape area is capped at 4,500 square feet. 050(A) and (B). 060.