Denver Revised Municipal Code § 57-100 Prohibition on restrictive covenants requiring turf grasses.
Sec. 57-100. - Prohibition on restrictive covenants requiring turf grasses.
(a) Legislative purpose. The water demand of traditional landscaping can result in an extraordinary burden on the future water resources of the City and County of Denver. Traditional landscapes, improperly installed and maintained over unimproved soils and requiring irrigation systems that are often inefficient and poorly managed, have been documented as using between twenty (20) and fifty (50) gallons of water per square foot each year. This is far beyond the recommended eighteen (18) gallons of water per square foot of landscaping (or twenty-nine (29) inches of applied irrigation water) each growing season. By using water-wise principles in landscaping, Denver customers could reduce water use by at least twenty (20) percent.
(b) Prohibition. Any restrictive covenant or any amendment to a restrictive covenant that becomes effective on or after May 1, 2002, and that requires cultivated vegetation on property maintained by an individual property owner, shall not specify that any portion of the vegetation must be turf grass.
(c) Unenforceable. Any restrictive covenant adopted in violation of subsection (b) of this section shall be invalid ab initio and shall be unenforceable in a court of law.
(d) Definitions.
(1) Restrictive covenant shall mean and include any form of declaration of covenants, conditions, and restrictions or similar non-governmental mechanisms for controlling land use on private property, including rules, regulations, or guidelines implemented under the authority of restrictive covenants.
(2) Turf or turf grass shall mean continuous plant coverage consisting of hybridized grasses that, when regularly mowed, form a dense growth of leaf blades and roots.
(e) Construction. This section shall not be construed as to restrict the voluntary use of turf grass on individually owned residential property.
(Ord. No. 274-02, § 1, 4-8-02)