• The ordinance could include a basic cap on how much irrigation can be installed and directions on the kind and amount of plants and grass to be used.
• It could also include incentives for homebuilders to install alternative water fixtures such as laundry to landscape and rainwater collection systems.
• The ordinance is a policy recommendation included in the city’s Water Forward plan and could be adopted by the city council in summer 2023.
Austin Water, Austin, Texas, has identified a “core set of potential water conservation actions for landscapes of new residential homes and new irrigation systems” that will be used in an ordinance due to be handed off to the city council for adoption sometime in the summer of 2023.
The ordinance is a policy recommendation included in the city of Austin’s water-related strategic plan called Water Forward meant to help Austin prepare to adapt to changing water needs over a 100-year period.
“The city council created a water corps task force in 2014, and the goal was to explore different conservation strategies and alternate water resources,” says Chris Charles, Austin Water conservation program specialist, who is leading the effort to generate the ordinance for eventual passage into city code.
“One of the conservation strategies in the plan was the landscape transformation ordinance. City council approved this plan in November of 2018, and one of the things they wanted was to require water-efficient landscapes to be installed for new single-family residential developments.”
Developing the code
According to Charles, the task force was directed to take a look at the existing commercial landscape code and take into consideration elements from that code to be used in the new single-family residential code. Two of those elements, Charles points out, include “implementing turf grass or irrigation area limitations.”
Ryan Skrobarczyk, director, legislative and regulatory affairs at the Texas Nursery and Landscape Association, says that’s concerning.
“We’ve been engaged in this process with them [Austin Water] for some time now as they started ordinance development back in February,” Skrobarczyk says. “We’ve been participating in their public meetings and trying to provide input to city staff. At this point, the city has identified a number of strategies that directly target the green industry.”
Skrobarczyk points out that two of the proposed conservation actions could have the greatest impact on the local green industry.
“The strategies that they’ve chosen, particularly the ones that would provide a basic cap on how much irrigation can be installed or what plants can be planted, or how much turf grass can be planted, I think, as an industry, concern us,” Skrobarczyk says.
The ordinance’s aim is to reduce the overall demand as well as expand water reuse in the city of Austin by “setting some sort of requirement for conserving water in irrigation systems and landscapes,” according to the city’s public forum webpage for the ordinance. The forum page also points out that nearly a third of residential water consumption is used for single-family residential landscape irrigation.
The specific set of actions that might be included in the policy thus far in addition to the turf and irrigation limits include soil depth and composition requirements, providing homebuilders with a list of required plants, aggregate restrictions, encouraging smart irrigation and incentivizing homebuilders to install alternative water fixtures such as laundry to landscape and rainwater collection systems.
Skrobarczyk says that the TNLA is opposed to restrictive plant lists and turf and irrigation limitations, but there are other positive things that could and should be included in the ordinance that won’t negatively affect the green industry.
“We’ve been talking with our members about how there are opportunities to introduce better technology, consumer education and incentivizing builders to install rainwater harvesting systems,” Skrobarczyk says.
He also suggests enforcing current standards such as quality soil, making sure mulch is put down to retain water and checking licenses.
“Those things are the things the industry can get behind,” he says. “Those are all things that the industry wants to help the city focus on as opposed to more punitive actions by the city just to say, ‘we can’t affect how consumers behave, so let’s just take away their ability to make the landscape that they want to make,’” he says.
For Austin Water, compliance has been a big part of the feedback that they’ve heard while canvassing during stakeholder engagement meetings. Charles says that when the issue was taken to the Central Texas Professional Irrigation Association, that was the key part of their conversation.
“Whenever we talked about limiting irrigation directly with them, the CTPIA feedback was increased enforcement. They were more concerned about non-licensed irrigators, putting in stuff and doing things the wrong way. Then, they also supported our ideas of high-efficiency irrigation systems. But whenever we talked about limiting irrigation area, no hands got raised,” Charles says.
What happens next?
Ultimately, Skrobarczyk says there are three areas he’d advocate that municipalities consider when developing this type of ordinance. Which direction would he point municipalities looking for input from the green industry?
“First and foremost, better incentives towards water conservation measures that allow the developers to take advantage of them. So that way, we’re not penalizing people or restricting them,” he says.
The second thing, Skrobarczyk says, is that cities need to enforce their current soil and irrigation standards. Without that enforcement, he says there’s a great risk of systems functioning improperly and wasting water.
“Thirdly, and this might actually be the most important, is more consumer education in when they install an irrigation system to make sure that they have their timer set correctly, to make sure that they’re aware of the seasonal variations so that they’re, they’re not wasting water in that way,” he says.
Can these objectives be achieved for this ordinance? Maybe, Skrobarczyk says, if everyone communicates.
“I think that we have to avoid having conversations about water and how it’s going to impact the green industry in silos,” says Skrobarczyk. “We cannot have the conversation about water in silos. We have to discuss supply at the same time we’re talking about what conservation measures we’re going to put in place.”
Skrobarczyk adds that it’s essential for all parties to recognize the economic impact of the green industry and how policies like this could affect it.
“I would say a lot of our industry feels like we are the low-hanging fruit that cities and utilities try to target. They see us as discretionary use, but there are jobs and businesses and economic contributions that are made by the green industry.”
Charles says that despite the fact that both turf and irrigation limits are possible parts of the ordinance, he doesn’t know if they’re both necessary. He adds that the lowest level of support for all of the proposed core set of actions was 57% — still a supporting number.
In documents published by Austin Water, it is noted that the ordinance is still in its pre-draft form and the organization is still receiving feedback from the public and key stakeholders.
According to the timeline published by Austin Water, it is aiming for the summer of 2023 to submit the final ordinance for council adoption.
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