Board recommends code change to allow artificial turf with design, installation and landscape safeguards

The Community Development Board on Jan. 21 recommended that city council adopt a text amendment to permit artificial turf under strict standards and to add a residential front‑yard landscape requirement that would require 25% of front yards to contain living plant material in certain scenarios.

Staff said the amendment is intended to legalize and regulate installations that have been done without permits, to set material and installation standards, and to protect trees, buffers and stormwater functions. Lauren Matzke, planning staff, explained the proposal’s scope: the amendment would allow artificial turf through a building‑permit process, spell out pile height and base‑weight minimums, require manufacturer specs and inspections, prohibit turf in required perimeter vegetative buffers and interior landscape islands, and treat professionally‑installed turf as pervious for stormwater…