Ken Ritter / Associated Press
Sprinklers water grass near a street corner Friday, April 9, 2021, in the Summerlin neighborhood of northwest Las Vegas. A desert city built on a reputation for excess wants to become a model for restraint with a first-in-the-nation policy limiting water use by banning grass that nobody walks on. Las Vegas area water officials are asking the state Legislature to pass a law banning “non-functional turf.”
Sunday, June 27, 2021 | 2 a.m.
The city of Henderson in January rolled out a grass replacement rebate program for commercial property owners, yet no businesses that qualify have taken advantage, officials say.
“I’m sure that will change as we begin to garner more awareness along with the passing of the ornamental grass bill,” city of Henderson spokesperson Madeleine Skains said Friday in an email.
Henderson launched the grass replacement rebate program at the beginning of the year, before Gov. Steve Sisolak signed Nevada Assembly Bill 356 into law in June. AB 356 prohibits the use of water from the Colorado River to irrigate “nonfunctional” turf not being used for recreation “on any property that is not zoned exclusively for a single-family residence,” which basically means grass that no one uses, such as in parking lots, streetscapes and medians of commercial properties.
The law applies to areas served by the Southern Nevada Water Authority — the cities of Henderson, North Las Vegas and Boulder City, plus the Las Vegas Valley Water District and the Big Bend Water District in extreme Southern Nevada — and requires the affected properties to replace their grassy areas. It sets a deadline of 2027 to comply.
Henderson’s rebate program is targeted at businesses, homeowner associations, apartment complexes, churches and schools with larger grass areas, said Tina Chen, conservation and customer care supervisor for the city of Henderson.
Businesses, homeowner associations and apartment complexes in Henderson haven’t exactly been rushing to take advantage of the city’s offer, Chen said.
“If we could supplement some more money to entice those sectors to convert, to further incentivize, that might help make them convert turf quicker,” she said.
Henderson’s grass replacement program supplements rebates already provided by the SNWA, which currently pays $3 per square foot to replace up to 10,000 square feet of grass. If the project is larger than 10,000 square feet, the rebate drops to $1.50 per square foot. Henderson’s program kicks in when a grass replacement project exceeds 10,000 square feet and offers an additional $1.50 per square foot to maintain the $3 per-square-foot rebate for projects up to 40,000 square feet.
The city has seen increased interest in the rebate program after coverage of AB 356, but not a dollar of the $1 million allocated from the utilities department has been used, officials said.
The grass replacement rebate program will be available for as long as the money lasts.
“If all of a sudden in the next month we have 500 applications and they’re all 40,000 (square feet) each, the funding would be depleted a lot sooner,” Chen said.
Although Henderson’s rebate program wasn’t a result of the new state grass replacement law, it will assist businesses in following the law, Chen said.
“We hope our program will help them come into compliance and they enroll sooner rather than later,” she said.
There are ways to make landscapes colorful using trees, bushes, art installations and artificial turf, and Henderson has development codes that govern grass replacement, Chen said.
“If someone wanted to do a conversion and they just said, ‘I’m going to tear out all the natural turf and put in concrete,’ that would most likely be denied by the city,” she said.
