Comment from Mary Radley, City of Chula Vista
Having read the draft report I have the following comments to offer:
1.Page 13 – Instead of describing the “local agency” use the term “local water purveyor” or “ local water agency” which is more accurate. An agency could be a city jurisdiction which is not necessarily the water provider for the area.
2.Page 14 – Regular irrigation audits of existing landscape every 3 years. Apart from recommendations to improve irrigation efficiency, will improvements be mandatory ? Are penalties envisioned and if so which entities would be responsible for administering them.
3.Page 18 – Reduction in “Special Landscape Areas”. Apply any reduction with caution. It will still be necessary to provide public parks with turf fields for athletic purposes.
4.Page 19 - Applying the ordinance to existing landscape will be difficult to administer because few stand-alone L&I projects come in to the City for review. (They only come into the City for review when they are associated with a building permit, civil construction or grading permit.)
5.Page 19 – High cost building renovations – Defining high cost building renovations in dollars can be problematic in that costs are subject to rapid changes and a threshold figure can quickly become out of date.
6.Page 19 – Reducing SLA ETAF from 1.00 to 0.8 – Check that this change would provide sufficient water to grow turf for athletic purposes.
7.Page 20 – Allow some turf up to 25%. 10% is too shallow.
8.Page 20 – Rain water retention and infiltration. These areas could be included in the list of SLA categories. This could act as an incentive to provide such feature that in turn function as BMP’s in storm water treatment.
9.Pages 35 and 36 – Inclusion of stand-alone landscape for commercial and large residential projects – Could generate additional unfunded workload for local jurisdictions and also require them to create new permits that do not currently exist.
Mary Radley
Landscape Architect # 4372
Development Services Department
City of Chula Vista
276 Fourth Avenue
Chula Vista, CA 91910
Phone: 619 407 3542
email: