The following standards shall apply to all districts:
A. Preservation Of Natural Features: The preservation of natural features that enhance the development and will benefit the community including trees, scenic points, view corridors, historic buildings or locations, unique geological formations, and other community assets shall be preserved and incorporated into the overall landscape plan.
B. Parking In Landscaped Areas: Parking is prohibited upon any front, side, rear, or interior landscaped areas or areas intended for landscape.
C. Park Strips: The park strip standards in this section are intended to maintain design flexibility and safety of park strips while ensuring access to public facilities, promote water conservation, maintain aesthetic quality, and ensure pedestrian safety and accessibility.
1. Applicability: The requirements of this section apply to all park strips, defined as the area within the street right of way situated between the back of curb and the sidewalk or, if there is no sidewalk, back of curb and the right of way line. These standards apply to all properties that have street curbs. Owners of property on streets without curbs and gutters are not required to maintain formal landscaping within the public right-of-way.
2. General Landscape Requirements:
a. It is the property owner's responsibility to landscape all park strips adjacent to their property.
b. All park strip landscaping must be maintained in a safe and well-kept condition. Trash, debris, and noxious weeds are not permitted.
c. Sufficient water shall be provided for vegetative ground cover, annuals, perennials, shrubs, and trees to keep them in a healthy condition.
d. For surfaces with water meter lid, shutoff, or other utility or access, landscaping must not inhibit access for a radius of at least twelve (12) inches. For surfaces around a fire hydrant, landscaping must not inhibit access for a radius of at least three (3) feet.
3. Park Strip Ground Treatment:
a. Plant materials should cover twenty-five (25) percent or more of the park strip surface when plants have reached maturity. For lots with multiple street frontages, this standard shall be applied separately to each park strip. In new or replacement landscaping, it is recommended that water conserving plants are used. The use of drip irrigation rather than overhead spray systems is required.
b. Installation of weed barrier fabric under mulch is required to inhibit weed growth. Weed barrier shall not be visible and must be covered with soil, mulch, or gravel.
c. Organic mulch materials such as bark may be used as water conserving mulch for plants and may also be used as the only material in portions of a park strip. It is recommended to use organic mulch that is three (3) to four (4) inches in depth for weed control.
d. Gravel, rocks, and boulders may be used on portions of the park strip. Large diameter rocks and boulders shall be kept a minimum of thirty (30) inches away from street trees that are in the park strip. Organic mulch or gravel shall be used near existing street trees.
e. Paving materials, limited to poured concrete, brick pavers, concrete pavers, or natural stone pavers, may be used in portions of a park strip subject to the following:
(1) Paving materials shall be kept a minimum of thirty (30) inches away from existing trees. Organic mulch or gravel shall be used near existing street trees.
(2) In park strips that are thirty-six (36) inches or less in width, brick, concrete, or natural stone pavers may be used in (one hundred) 100 percent of the surface area. If concrete is used, it shall be stamped with a brick, stone, or other decorative pattern to distinguish it from the adjacent sidewalk. All hard surface sections shall be installed to be flush with both the sidewalk and curb and gutter. The use of water conserving plants in combination with paving materials is encouraged.
(3) In park strips over thirty-six (36) inches in width, paving materials, gravel, rocks, and boulders shall not exceed seventy-five (75) percent of the total park strip surface area. Poured concrete shall not be used except for pedestrian pathways as outlined below.
4. Pedestrian Pathways: For safe, convenient access to vehicles across park strips, pedestrian pathways (walkways through the park strip) are encouraged. The material used may be poured concrete, brick or concrete pavers, or natural stone pavers such as flagstone, or a combination of these. If poured concrete is used, the pedestrian pathway shall be not more than four (4) feet in width and shall be located to provide the most direct route through the park strip. The area of pedestrian pathway shall be included in calculating the percentage of inorganic surface in the park strip.
5. Park strip prohibited materials include:
a. Lawn;
b. Asphalt;
c. Concrete, except as allowed in subsection (3) above;
d. Thorn-bearing plants;
e. Except for trees, no plant, monument, boulder, or other object that exceeds three (3) feet in height at maturity is permitted within the sight visibility triangle.
f. Retaining walls, fences, steps, and other similar structural encroachments.
6. Flexibility Measures: The director may modify the standards of this section to better achieve its intent and address site-specific conditions such as, among other things, steep grades between the curb and sidewalk, the presence of canals or drainage channels, limited access to irrigation, and urban streetscape treatments.
D. Water Efficient Landscaping: The city finds that it is in the public's interest to conserve public water resources and promote water efficient landscaping. The purpose of this section is to protect and enhance the community's environmental, economic, recreational, and aesthetic resources by promoting efficient use of water in the community's landscapes, reduce water waste, and establish a structure for designing, installing, and maintaining water efficient landscapes throughout the city.
1. Applicability: The following standards shall apply to:
a. Front and side yards in single-family (R-1) and two-family (R-2) residential zoning districts.
b. In all other zones, these standards shall apply to the entire lot or parcel.
c. Lots or parcels in the open space zoning district are exempt from the standards in this section.
2. Landscaping Standards
a. Irrigation should be appropriate for the designated plant material to achieve the highest water efficiency. Each irrigation valve should irrigate landscaping with similar site, slope and soil conditions, and plant materials with similar watering needs.
b. Drip irrigation or bubblers in all landscaped areas except lawn areas are required. Drip irrigation systems are to be equipped with a pressure regulator, filter, flush-end assembly, and any other appropriate components.
c. Separate irrigation valves are to be used for lawn and planting beds.
d. Irrigation systems shall be controlled by a smart irrigation controller which automatically adjusts the frequency and/or duration of irrigation in response to changing weather conditions. Controllers that are equipped with automatic rain delay or rain shut-off capabilities are recommended.
e. Above-ground irrigation shall only be permitted between the hours of eight o'clock (8:00) P.M. and ten o'clock (10:00) A.M. to reduce water loss from wind and evaporation. Special exceptions may be granted by the Director when more frequent watering is necessary to establish newly planted landscape areas.
f. Lawn shall not be installed in park strips, paths, or on slopes greater than twenty-five percent (25%) or four to one (4:1) grade and be less than eight (8) feet wide at its narrowest point. Lawn limitations do not apply to small residential lots with less than two hundred and fifty (250) square feet of landscaped area.
g. Lawn areas in single-family (R-1) and two-family (R-2) zoning districts shall not exceed thirty-five percent (35%) of the total landscaped area of the front and side yards.
h. Outside of active recreation areas, in commercial, industrial, institutional, and multi-family development common area landscapes, lawn areas shall not exceed twenty percent (20%) of the total landscaped area of the lot.
i. At least three (3) to four (4) inches of mulch, permeable to air and water, are to be used in planting beds to control weeds and improve the appearance of the landscaping.
j. At maturity, landscapes are recommended to have enough plant material (perennials and shrubs) to create at least twenty-five percent (25%) living plant cover at maturity at the ground plane, not including tree canopies.
k. Plants selected for landscaping should consist of plants that are well suited to the microclimate and soil conditions.
(Ord. 12-15, 7-11-2012; amd. Ord. 22-08, 8-17-2022; Ord. 23-08, 6-21-2023)