Decorative grass strips along Fallbrook parking lots and street medians are about to go thirsty. The Fallbrook Public Utility District board voted 5-0 on October 26 to prohibit potable water use for irrigating what it calls nonfunctional turf, amending the district's administrative code to add new definitions and restrictions aimed at cutting back on landscaping that nobody actually uses.
What the New Rule Targets
The restriction applies within the FPUD service area, as reported by Village News. It covers nonfunctional turf on commercial, industrial, and institutional properties, excluding cemeteries, and extends to common areas owned by homeowners' associations, common interest developments, and community service organizations. Single-family homes are exempt, except for the common property of an HOA within a common interest development, and lawns and gardens are carved out entirely.
The district defines turf simply as a living ground-cover surface of mowed grass. Functional turf, which remains fair game for sprinklers, is grass in a recreational-use area or community space — think parks, sports fields, or neighborhood green spaces people actually walk on. Nonfunctional turf, by contrast, includes grass sitting in street rights-of-way and parking lots, or turf boxed in by barriers that permanently block recreational or assembly access, the kind of ornamental strip that exists purely to look green.
A Rolling Set of Deadlines
Compliance doesn't hit all at once. Local or regional government properties have to stop watering nonfunctional turf with potable water by January 1, 2027. Other commercial, industrial, and institutional properties get until January 1, 2028, while covered common areas belonging to HOAs, common interest developments, community service organizations, or similar entities have until January 1, 2029. Local or regional government properties located in a disadvantaged community get more breathing room: under the restriction, their deadline is the later of January 1, 2031, or whenever state funding becomes available to help convert the land to climate-appropriate landscaping.
Even those dates aren't necessarily final. A compliance deadline may be postponed by up to three years if a property owner can demonstrate potential health and safety impacts or a critical business need. The rule also leaves room for irrigation that's necessary to protect trees and other perennial, non-turf plantings, or to address an immediate health and safety concern.
Part of a Statewide Push
Fallbrook's move mirrors a broader state mandate. California's Assembly Bill 1572 created the legal framework now showing up in local codes across the state, and Fullerton took nearly identical action less than a week earlier, when its city council voted 5-0 on October 20 to approve Ordinance No. 3360 adding the state ban to municipal code, according to the Fullerton Observer. That ordinance brings Fullerton into compliance with California Water Code section 10608.14, the statute AB 1572 created, and the outlet reported the same phased schedule showing up in Fallbrook: local government properties first in 2027, then commercial, industrial, and institutional properties in 2028, with HOA common areas following in 2029.
The stakes behind these rules are substantial. Outdoor landscaping still accounts for half of urban community water use in California, according to Pacific Institute chief research and program officer Heather Cooley, speaking to KneeDeep Times. The Pacific Institute estimates that AB 1572 could cut urban water use statewide by more than a fifth, building on a 2022 institute report that found converting landscapes to more efficient layouts could save up to 1.5 million acre-feet of water annually. A similar law in Nevada, passed in 2021, has been projected to save 25,000 acre-feet a year in the Las Vegas area, per the same outlet.
Fallbrook's version of the rule took shape at the district's October 26 board meeting, where the agenda called for revising Administrative Code Article 10 to add a new section prohibiting potable water use for nonfunctional turf irrigation, alongside a recommendation to adopt Resolution No. 5012, according to the Fallbrook Public Utility District. The California State Water Resources Control Board's own guidance similarly identifies commercial, industrial, and institutional properties as subject to the restriction, with cemeteries excluded — language that lines up with how FPUD structured its local rule.
