Requiring the Use and Preservation of Appropriate Native Vegetation.

Passion flower, incense (Passiflora x ‘Incense’)

Developed by the Area IV Water Conservation Committee

Represented by:
Seminole Soil and Water Conservation District
Lake Soil and Water Conservation District
Volusia Soil and Water Conservation District

The Area IV Water Conservation Committee offers this model ordinance to the communities of Florida. We encourage those communities to promote and utilize the ordinance for the public good.

In 2008, appointed board members of Volusia, Seminole and Lake Soil and Water Conservation Districts began monthly meetings as the Area IV Water Conservation Committee. The committee utilized the Florida Native Plant Society's Model Native Plant Ordinance and combined that model ordinance with its own research on ordinances throughout the State of Florida and outside of Florida to create the Area IV Water Conservation Committee's Model Landscape Ordinance Requiring the Use of Preservation of Appropriate Native Vegetation.

1. Applies to all newly developed and renovated public, commercial and private developments
2. Allows for exemptions including single-family homes, bona fide agriculture and ommunity recreation areas
3. Requires:
   • A landscape permit from the local Department of Environmental Management prior to obtaining a builder’s permit;
   • On-site surveys by local Department of Environmental Management and landowner;
   • Submittal of a Landscape Plan by Landowner;
   • Landscaping with one hundred percent appropriate native canopy trees;
   • Seventy-percent appropriate native understory;
   • Preservation of existing priority native plant habitat;
   • Protective buffers;
   • Diversity in landscaping;
   • Removal of nuisance non-native plants;
   • Management plan for restored habitat, priority natural areas, buffers and permanent
     conservation;
   • Education of residential subdivisions;
   • The Department of Environmental Management to conduct Native Plant Community Certification courses;
   • Landscape designers, landscape architect, irrigation contractors and landscape contractors to be certified by the Department of Environmental Management
4. Offers incentives for single-family homes, planting with one hundred percent appropriate native plants, planting with endangered and threatened plants and restoration of native habitat.
5. Creates a Landscape Advisory Committee
6. Creates a Native Plant Trust Fund
7. Allows for enforcement and appeal