Wetland Buffers and Conservation Easements: Where Turf Has to Stop

The planning decision: two rules, not one

A lot that backs to a marsh, a tidal creek or a platted preserve carries more than one line turf has to respect. A county upland buffer and a recorded conservation easement are different rules, from different authorities, and a layout has to clear both — not just the stricter-looking one.

The buffer comes from St. Johns County’s zoning code and applies countywide by default. A conservation easement, where one exists on your parcel, comes from a private recorded instrument and is enforced by whoever holds it. Confusing the two, or assuming a wide lawn behind the house means there’s no line to find, is the most common way a layout gets redrawn mid-project.

This is separate from the 10-foot waterbody setback that shows up on our St. Johns town pages for lakes and stormwater ponds. Wetlands and rivers carry their own, larger rule.

What St. Johns County’s upland buffer requires

Sec. 4.01.06 of the Land Development Code sets a minimum 25-foot natural vegetative upland buffer between developed areas and a contiguous wetland, measured from the wetland jurisdictional line set by the St. Johns River Water Management District or the Florida Department of Environmental Protection — not from the water’s edge and not from a fence line.

Next to the St. Johns, Matanzas, Guana or Tolomato rivers, and the tributaries and streams connected to them, the minimum rises to 50 feet.

The code allows the buffer width to be averaged, so long as averaging increases the overall protected width rather than shrinking it. Even with averaging, the buffer can never come in under 10 feet, except in areas adjacent to unavoidable wetland impacts such as a road crossing. Buffers have to stay in a natural vegetated condition, and native vegetation removed in violation of the code has to be replanted with comparable species.

A separate 25-foot setback applies outside the buffer itself. The code allows some accessory uses inside that setback — irrigation lines, utility lines, landscaping, fencing, a golf cart path, a stormwater structure — as long as nothing encroaches into the buffer, and as long as it isn’t a building on a permanent foundation.

The exemption for an already-platted lot

Many lots near preserves and wetlands in Julington Creek Plantation, Fruit Cove, Nocatee, South Ponte Vedra Beach and Fleming Island were platted before the current code took effect. Sec. 4.01.06 exempts a platted or legally documented lot of record, built as one single-family or two-family dwelling, from the general buffer and setback requirements for new development.

That exemption is not a blank pass, though. It still requires a minimum 25-foot upland buffer, unless one of three things applies: a vesting determination, an approved variance, or buffer averaging that brings the width down to no less than 10 feet while increasing the overall protected width elsewhere. Which of those applies to a specific lot is a determination the county’s Growth Management department makes, not something a plat alone answers.

An existing house and its accessory structures, built or permitted before the code took effect, are treated as a vested use for that footprint. That vesting covers the structure — it doesn’t extend the buffer exemption to new grading or landscaping work done later.

What a conservation easement adds on top

Where a conservation easement is recorded on a parcel, it runs alongside the county buffer as a second, separate restriction. Fla. Stat. 704.06 lets a government body or a qualifying charitable organization hold an easement that restricts construction, dumping, vegetation removal, excavation, surface use and activity detrimental to drainage, flood control, erosion control or wildlife habitat. The easement runs with the land and binds every future owner, and its holder — not the county — enforces its terms.

Because a conservation easement is a recorded instrument, its exact boundary and its exact list of restricted activities are set out on the document itself, not on the plat map or in the zoning code. A preserve tract shown on a plat and a conservation easement over that same tract are not automatically the same thing; a parcel can have one, both, or neither. Pull the recorded easement for your parcel, or ask the title company that handled your closing for a copy, rather than assuming the tree line on the plat tells the whole story.

What a professional install handles

On the free visit, we measure the yard and check the ground, including where it sits relative to any wetland line or easement boundary you can point us to. We draw a custom turf layout for you to approve, built around the buffer and easement lines rather than through them, then handle site prep, a base built for your soil, and the turf itself — laid, seamed and edged.

Locating the wetland jurisdictional line itself, and confirming whether a vesting determination, variance or easement applies to your specific parcel, are county and title-record questions. We do not submit applications to the county on a customer’s behalf; that determination has to come from St. Johns County’s Growth Management department, or from whoever holds a recorded easement on the property.

Questions to settle before the layout is final

• Where is the wetland jurisdictional line, exactly? It comes from an SJRWMD or FDEP determination, not a fence or the tree line.
• Is the lot inside the 25-foot buffer, the 50-foot river buffer, or neither? The river buffer applies near the St. Johns, Matanzas, Guana and Tolomato rivers and their connected tributaries.
• Was the lot platted before the current code, and does an exemption apply? If so, ask whether it rests on vesting, a variance, or buffer averaging — and what width that leaves.
• Is there a recorded conservation easement on the parcel? Check the county’s official records or ask your title company, separately from checking the plat.
• If an easement exists, what does its own text restrict? Its terms are set by the holder, and they can be stricter than the county buffer next to it.
• Does anything inside the setback area need county sign-off before it goes in? Ask St. Johns County Growth Management before material is ordered.

Book the free visit and we will build the layout around whatever lines you bring us. Call 303-349-2368.