In the weeds: City of Greeley set to update landscape guidelines in an effort to conserve more water

By Kelly Ragan

We’re about to get into the weeds of Greeley’s city code. Come January, you can expect the city to update its landscape guidelines. 

The new language will encourage property owners to find ways to conserve even more water, as the demand for it grows as less falls from the sky. 

The last real update came in 2009, said Brad Mueller, Greeley’s Director of Community Development Department, at a city council meeting Tuesday. 

Since 2015, the city has introduced new programs to encourage better water use, such as water efficiency audits and water budgets to show how folks use water. These new guidelines go even deeper. 

“We knew all the low hanging fruit had been picked,” Mueller said. “We asked ourselves what we could do with the next generation of needs.”

To do better, Mueller said, residents don’t have to simply fill their yards with rock and mulch. But some additional steps toward water-efficient design could make a difference. 

The current policy requires single-family homes and two-family lots to have 50% of all yards (including front, side and back) to be landscaped with live plantings. Under the new policy, those same households would only need to have their front yards or any other visible yards meet that policy. 

Mueller said the idea is that front yards have the most impact on property values of the neighborhood. While backyards still couldn’t be dirt and weeds, he said, the new policy would allow people more flexibility and perhaps encourage more rock or drought-resistant plants. . 

Year-round, outdoor use, such as water lawns, accounts for 55% of our total water use  – and that goes up to 70% in the summer. 

Greeley’s Culture, Parks and Recreation Department has converted four parks to low water use landscapes, including Josephine B. Jones and Greeley West parks. 

Bittersweet Park is also in the process of being converted to a natural grass space. 

The work on Bittersweet aims to make irrigation and water conservation improvements, increase plant diversity and wildlife habitat, and enhance drought tolerance, according to a city news release. 

The Public Works Department has also been working to implement low water landscaping design principles, especially with street construction and corridor landscape enhancements. 

Greeley is projected to grow to more than 260,000 people in the next 50 years. And while Greeley is pursuing water projects, such as the Terry Ranch Project, water conservation and planning will have major impacts down the line. 

“How we use water impacts all of us,” Mueller said. 

To learn more

The first reading of the new policy will take place at city council Jan. 5, 2021. To virtually attend the meeting or learn more, go to https://greeleygov.com/government/council.