The bowl-shaped common space at the Mall III Homeowners Association property in Lake San Marcos was once a pricey, turf-heavy problem for its HOA board. After a water-smart landscape upgrade, it’s now a point of pride that’s easier on the budget.

The transformation, made possible in part by incentives offered through a San Diego County Water Authority rebate program, is one that local officials hope will inspire other similar communities.

The 49-home property has an intimate feel, with homes in a horseshoe around the common area that extends to the tip of the lake and its dock. But like many other common areas in HOAs across the county, it had turf that required a lot of water and fertilizer to keep it green. That presented a two-pronged problem: Not only was that water expensive, the runoff from rain and irrigation was polluting the lake.

For at least 10 years, the board had tried to remodel the area and, more recently, tried to take advantage of rebate programs. The struggle, said board member Mike Kesler, was that the homeowners couldn’t agree on change.

Mike Kesler, president of Mall III Homeowners Association, stands in the common area at Lake San Marcos.

(Alejandro Tamayo / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

“A lot of people love the grass,” he said, “and others couldn’t agree on what to do with the space if the grass was removed. They’re older, and that’s what they grew up with.”

But by 2022, the five-member board was determined to act. They had solicited ideas from fellow residents to understand what was important to them. One thing that stood out was the tree issue: The people at the top of the horseshoe didn’t want more trees, said Kesler, because they wanted to keep their view of the lake; others did want trees. No one wanted all the grass removed.

A kangaroo paw plant blooms in the common area.

(Alejandro Tamayo / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

A lead from regular caretaker WatersEdge Landscape linked them to Megan Chery at Environmental Incentives, a business that focuses on conservation and sustainable landscapes.

Environmental Incentives, which is contracted with San Diego County to provide a “landscape optimization service” (LOS), helps applicants with large landscapes — think HOAs and commercial properties — navigate the rebate application process and identify qualified vendors. Instead of HOAs having to apply for the many potential rebates offered, Chery and her colleagues can take that on, and the county pays for the assistance. Scott Norris, land use planning manager with the county of San Diego Land Use and Environment Group, refers to LOS as a “concierge service.”

A river rock swale in the formerly grass-covered common area acts as a filter and allows water to soak into the ground, rather than flowing into the lake.

(Alejandro Tamayo / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

The board made several presentations to the homeowners on the design plan, a collaboration with Chery and Environmental Services partner Monarch Environmental. With some compromises on turf, the plan kept a stretch of grass on the bottom, a big stretch of grass and golf greens at the top, and a border of grass on the outside rim. Mall III already had a bit of a natural retention feature, given the common area’s bowl shape. The landscape designer expanded it, making it longer and wide so that water can soak into the ground instead of flowing into the lake.

A Mexican bush sage plant is part of the low-water native plant life that replaced grass in the Mall III Lake San Marcos landscape renovation.

(Alejandro Tamayo / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

“There are 49 member households and each household gets two votes,” said Kesler. “Out of 98 votes, we got 86 yes votes, so it was very well received. And because we negotiated the work and the rebates so there would be no out-of-pocket costs for the members, it was a pretty easy decision for everybody.”

The board got six bids from landscape contractors suggested by Chery and selected O’Connell Landscaping. Rains delayed the project until March 2023, but by mid-May, it was complete. The rebates — totaling about $96,000, the cost of the project — each came in by mid-October. Not only that, the HOA’s water bill has dropped from $12,000 a year to about $6,000.

Native plants, turf-free walkways and a swale river rock are part of the water-saving renovations at the Lake San Marcos community.

(Alejandro Tamayo / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

Now, the common space is outlined by a lawn, but the center — where 5,000 square feet of turf was removed — is filled with low-water plants like Siskyou blue fescue, pine muhly, rosemary, Mexican sage, blue-eyed grass, bottlebrush ‘Little John,’ Berkeley sedge and Ceanothus ‘Joyce Coulter.’ Mulch blocks weeds and lets the plants absorb water without runoff. Intersecting composite paths make it easy to navigate the common space. The design also includes areas with river rock. All that’s missing, said Kesler, are benches and a barbecue — something the HOA plans to install.

There are more than 6,700 HOAs in San Diego County, with almost 2 million residents, according to the California Association of Community Managers. The holistic WaterScape Rebate Program that Mall III participated in is part of a partnership between the county’s Watershed Protection Program and the San Diego County Water Authority and its 24 member agencies — in this case, the Vallecitos Water District. But it’s strictly for HOAs and commercial properties in unincorporated areas of San Diego County. According to Norris, the program launched in 2021.

“One of the elements of it is what we call the landscape optimization service (LOS), or turf replacement, for HOAs,” he explained. “We look for areas where there’s unused turf grass, and we go in and we replace that with low-water-use plants. And that helps for a multitude of reasons. One, it saves on irrigation costs for the HOA, as we all know water is very expensive right now and only going to go up. Two, that prevents the runoff from going into the storm drains. It can carry pollutants. I care about it most importantly because I work in the stormwater department for the county. We also include incentives for native plants. We’re trying to get more native plants out there to increase local wildlife habitat.”

Norris noted that water running over surfaces like streets, lawns and roofs can carry pollutants such as dog poop, car brake dust, soap from car washing, and lawn fertilizers that go straight into storm drains. And storm drains, he pointed out, aren’t treated like water in our plumbing. All that untreated water goes directly into creeks and lakes, and eventually, into the ocean. It’s what Norris calls “urban drool.” The point is to limit both the amount of pollutants being transported as well as the amount of water transporting them.

By partnering with the county water authority, they could collaborate on their existing program that offered some incentives to HOAs for turf removal, rain barrels and smart irrigation controllers.

“What we did at the county was couple that with a customer service element — Environmental Incentives. That’s really the success of the program so far. Our goal is to help HOAs efficiently apply and work through the process of being rebated. After all, HOA boards are volunteer. They don’t need to go beyond their regular jobs to figure out the details of the program to apply for it, then figure out landscaping plans, making sure they’re meeting all the requirements, then making appointments with their city or the county water authority for follow-ups to verify that the installation has gone correctly or to manage the contractors that are doing that. That’s a lot of work. And so what we do is help by what we call a concierge level of service. We help them by giving them a representative that talks them through all elements of that process.”

Chery explained that their services run from soup to nuts. “We work with participants from the very beginning to help make this entire process easier for individuals and their HOA communities. We help them as experts to do the things they don’t have the capacity to do, from that day-to-day management to accessing information so they can confidently invest in these projects. We make sure their money is well spent, even analyzing and mapping out the long-term financial benefits to give them a clear business case to succeed. And we help them assess all the available rebates from multiple programs so that they get the most money back possible per square foot and enhance their projects where possible.”

Even with compromises over the amount of grass removed, the landscape renovation at Mall III has had a big impact — less runoff into Lake San Marcos and a water bill that has been halved.

(Alejandro Tamayo / The San Diego Union-Tribune)

She also recommends that HOAs with limited reserves or competing demands start with a pilot project that demonstrates to homeowners the value of a conversion project.

“Several of our pilot program participants are already considering their next conversion project,” she said, “and now have the resources and the relationships with contractors and confidence to move forward on their own.”

Incentives available for HOAs through the Waterscape Rebate Program include rain-saving rebates, watersmart edgescaping, turf replacement, rain-friendly pavement, septic rebate program, and smart irrigation controllers. In addition, HOAs who have completed a rebate program and want to do another project can do so the following year.

So far, 14 HOAs have participated. That also includes El Norte Park HOA in Escondido. Built in 1990, it has 73 single family homes. Fred Johnson joined the board in January 2022 and serves as its treasurer. He had a turf replacement project in his mind to investigate for feasibility. He’d served on a different board in another community for seven years and did a turf replacement there. It was successful at that time, he said, but they got little help.

“It was all on your own to find it, to register for it, to execute it and then wait for the rebate check,” he recalled. “I learned about the Waterscape Rebate Program in a newsletter in winter 2022 that came with my water bill and called Megan Chery, whose name and contact information was listed in the story. She was able to find our community on Google Earth. Between that and my description of the property, we roughly decided on areas where turf could be removed, and it came to about 10,000 square feet. I got the plan on the board meeting agenda in July and we signed an agreement to move forward.”

Like Mall III, they had to solicit bids from landscape contractors, including their own, and chose MSC Landscape. The project — including turf removal, new valves and drip lines, and planting — started last April and was completed in May. The HOA spent $45,000 on the project and with the rebates, Johnson said, “We net spent about zero to get everything done.”

While this is great news for HOAs in unincorporated parts of San Diego, the cities in the county offer a collection of rebates but not the kind of program Norris and his colleagues have put together with the LOS. HOAs should check with their city as well as the San Diego County Water Authority to determine what’s available in their municipality.

According to Andrew Funk, senior planner for the city of San Diego’s stormwater department, the city offers a variety of water conservation rebates through its Water Conservation Rebates program, which is offered via a partnership between the public utilities department and the stormwater department/Think Blue program. These include turfgrass replacement, rain barrels and cisterns, downspout redirects and rain gutters. Funk said both HOAs and individua l units within HOAs are eligible to apply for the rain barrel, rain cistern, downspout redirect and rain gutter rebates. The city offers an option for an HOA to apply for the community as a whole by filling out one application. There are also turf replacement rebates through the Metropolitan Water District’s SoCalWaterSmart program. HOAs are eligible for these rebates ($2 per square foot of turf replacement) in common areas.

Debby Dunn, the water authority’s water resources specialist, suggested that any HOA in San Diego County check out the SoCal WaterSmart website (socalwatersmart.com) for potential rebates. The water authority, she explained, helps member agencies with rebates and programs and also offers classes to teach people how to upgrade their landscapes to become water smart.

Turf removal project checklist

Here is a list of steps an HOA could take when implementing a turf removal project, according to Debby Dunn, the San Diego County Water Authority’s water resources specialist.

• Visit the turf rebate program website at socalwatersmart.com to understand the rules and guidelines. Do all your homework before you begin your project.
• Scope out the various sites throughout the HOA complex that have nonfunctional turf. Note: If the only person walking on the grass is the person mowing the grass, they probably don’t need that grass.
• Work with the HOA board and the other homeowners to get consensus on the needs and the style of the new landscape design. Do they want more trees, walking paths, sitting areas, etc.
• Create a plant palette and a draft plan (or two) for the various locations. For information on plants, check out SDCWA’s newly updated Nifty 50 and Happy 100 plant lists (due to be released this winter).
• Create an irrigation plan for the new landscapes. Rebate rules state, “Convert over-head sprays to drip, bubblers or rotating nozzles, whichever is applicable.”
• Decide where to place your dry streambed or swale to catch rainwater runoff.
• Take photos of each of the sites (even the “maybe” sites). At least six photos of each site from all angles to submit for the rebate.
• Start the rebate process at socalwatersmart.com Reread the program details on the site.
• Submit the before photos, your water bill and a landscape plan.
• You’ll have six months to complete the project. Questions are welcome in the chat box on the SoCalWaterSmart site.

Other local success stories

More than 20,000 square feet of landscape around an HOA building at San Diego Country Estates Association in Ramona was upgraded through the rebate program.

(San Diego Country Estates Association via Environmental Incentives)

San Diego Country Estates Association in Ramona replaced 21,689 square feet of grass with low-water-use landscaping, native plants and California wildflowers. This project upgraded the landscape around an HOA building to provide an example of sustainable landscaping to homeowners and converted the parking lot planters in front of the golf course clubhouse for a more inviting entrance. They are currently working on their next project to convert even more grass and have applied for rebates on their own.

The Panorama HOA in Lake San Marcos replaced large areas of grass with native plants and landscaping that minimizes water use. A new walking path for residents also offers lake views.

(Panorama HOA via Environmental Incentives)

Panorama HOA in Lake San Marcos replaced 25,916 square feet of grass with low-water-use landscaping and native plants. This project converted decorative grass in several intersections along the main road through the community to reduce irrigation runoff, revitalized a gathering space around the clubhouse, and incorporated a walking path for residents behind homes to provide scenic views of the lake.

Source: Environmental Incentives

Golden is a San Diego freelance writer and blogger.