Evan Berrett the Assistant to the City Administrator for Eagle Mountain proposed changes to the Eagle Mountain Code that regulates Required landscaping (17.60.090) to the Planning Commission on July 12th, 2022. The suggested code removes several vegetation requirements and adds requirements for Water-Wise landscaping for parking strips, medians, and public right-of-way areas.
The Action Item, “Eagle Mountain Municipal Code Regarding Water Efficient Landscape Standards” was a public hearing. The packet documents had the following background introduction.
“Utah has been in a state of severe drought for the past two years, straining water resources. When the state is not in a drought period, water resources will still be strained due to limited sourcing and high growth. The Cedar Valley does not provide annual runoff or surface water sources. Underground aquifers provide reliable sources of water, if they are able to adequately replenish over time. Eagle Mountain is also at risk of enhanced water restrictions due to Utah’s “Doctrine of Prior Appropriation” which essentially means that those of earlier and consistent water acquisition has rights to water before those who acquire rights to water later.” [source]
The Central Utah Water Conservancy District in conjunction with the Jordan Valley Water Conservancy District developed a water efficiency standard they felt that cities should adopt. The proposal states this about their standards. “Eagle Mountain City staff reviewed the draft standard and found that while everything would indeed promote the ideal use of front yard and side yard spaces while maximizing water efficiency, there were some aspects that would be too burdensome to enforce, are unnecessarily specific or prohibitive, and also lacked some needed direction in other areas of concern. Consequently, Eagle Mountain City staff made several modifications to the draft standard and those modifications are seen in the draft code being shared with you.”
Here is a summary of some of the proposed changes from the Planning Commission agenda packet.
- Indoor Fixture Requirements: The standard requires water-sense labeled plumbing fixtures in new homes. This requirement will result in no change for most builders as many are already installing Water Sense labeled fixtures.
- Smart Irrigation Controller: All new homes will need to have a smart irrigation controller installed. Again, most new homes are already being outfitted with these controllers already.
- Prohibition of Non-Functional Turf: Similar to Las Vegas, NV, nonfunctional turf would be prohibited. Staff and City Council will need to expand on current efforts to reduce non-functional turf during plat and site plan reviews.
- Grass in Park Strips and on Slopes: Grass would be prohibited in park strips and on slopes greater than 25%. Park strips would still be required to have some plants, trees, etc. Lawns are also to be free of obstructions. For example, trees should not be planted in the middle of a grass area due to that tree either leading to obstruction of irrigation or adapting with over-irrigation to compensate.
- Limit of Grass in Front & Side Yards: Front and side yards would be limited to 35% of the total landscaped area. Properties that have back yards that are half the size of the combined square footage of the front and side yards or smaller would be permitted to have 50% of the front or side yards be lawn with the expectation that their front or side yards are providing activity areas that the back yard might not be able to.
- Irrigation Design: Irrigation must be appropriate for the type of landscape, irrigation types will be on separate valves, and so forth. This is an element that city staff is working to expand our capability to monitor.
- 50% Plant Cover and use of Mulch: Per Localscape design principles, we are not aiming for Zeroscape wherein residents would be simply converting to a sheet of gravel that could lead to weed management issues and potentially negative impacts on property values. 50% plant cover promotes the use of other mulches that, when properly installed, keep properties weed-free and add a positive impact to the neighborhood.
- Commercial and other Properties: Lawn space is limited to 20% of the total landscaped area.
The proposal then summarizes, “City staff believes that this draft code would be an effective way to reduce the overall water demand from new residential properties over the next 40 years. Enforcement apparatuses are being explored and we hope to assist residents any way possible to ensure they are successful with conversions. We also anticipate builders being satisfied with a potential reduction in the water rights allocation per property. Given the current water use data of properties, and the reduced water use these standards would promote, we believe that we can reduce the water rights allocation per property from 0.9 acre/feet to 0.75 acre/feet, saving developers about $2,700 per property. Those savings more than makeup the cost of installing landscapes that meet this standard instead of using turf grass throughout.”
Below is the complete staff report.
Below is the agenda item including background information
Planning Commission Decision
The planning commission tabled the item until the next Planning Commission Meeting which is scheduled for July 26.
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