Artificial turf in Butler Beach, FL, with no mowing while you're away.

Give the caretaker a clear routine.

Discuss leaves, blown sand and pet cleanup before choosing the area to convert. A property manager should know which surface was selected and what care it needs. An unattended turf yard should not be expected to look freshly maintained after months away.

A compact green near the porch can offer useful short putting practice. A side-yard lawn or pet area may make better use of the same space; compare them against how you use the home.

Work around the access the property needs.

Keep stairs, entry routes and service access available around a raised home. For a condo, confirm who controls the proposed ground and whether the association must authorize work or delivery through shared areas.

Butler Beach is unincorporated St. Johns County, separate from the City of St. Augustine Beach. Check county, community and any coastal conditions for the actual parcel before finalizing the boundary.

Every lot here sits inside the county's Coastal Area.

St. Johns County's code draws a district around this strip. Its Coastal Area is the unincorporated part of the county lying east of the west shoreline of the Intracoastal Waterway (St. Johns County LDC definitions). Butler Beach is all of that, so the code puts two extra bodies of rule on a yard here by definition: Chapter 161 and the state's coastal construction permitting, and the county's own Flood Damage Control Regulations, Part 3.03.00 (LDC Sec. 4.01.11).

That puts the flood map ahead of the layout. Filling, grading and excavation are development in this code, and all development wholly or partly inside a flood hazard area starts with an application to the Floodplain Administrator (LDC Part 3.03.00). The maps in force are FEMA's, dated 7 December 2018. Ask St. Johns County Floodplain Management which zone your parcel is in, and what it wants to see for a landscaping-only job, before a footprint is agreed.

A Zone V or Coastal A parcel still leaves room to build. Minor grading and minor quantities of nonstructural fill are allowed there for landscaping and for drainage under and around buildings. What the code limits is the shape: fill with finished slopes steeper than one unit vertical to five units horizontal needs an analysis by a registered professional, and altering a sand dune needs FDEP's approval on top of that. So we plan shallow edges tied into the ground that's already there, rather than a raised pad.

No city hall, so the county and your covenants decide.

Butler Beach is a census-designated place, not a city. There's no city building department, no city turf ordinance and no city impervious cap; St. Johns County's code and permitting apply, and nowhere in the county's Land Development Code do the words artificial turf appear (St. Johns County LDC). That sets it apart from St. Augustine Beach, the incorporated city just north, with a code of its own.

The approvals that count here are private: condo documents and subdivision covenants. HOA coverage is patchy on this unincorporated land, and a condo association's documents often matter more than a single-family HOA's. Where an HOA does govern, Florida law keeps it from restricting turf that can't be seen from outside the lot, meaning from the frontage, a neighbor's parcel, a common area or a community golf course (Fla. Stat. 720.3045).

State law also shields turf from local bans. Now that DEP has adopted its standard, the county can't prohibit compliant synthetic turf on a single-family property no larger than an acre (Fla. Stat. 125.572); the standard itself is in our Florida turf rules guide.

County water, and one day a week to use it.

The St. Johns County Utility Department supplies the water here (St. Johns County). The Phase III shortage order, in force since mid-May 2026 across St. Johns and five other counties, allows lawns one day a week: Saturday for odd addresses, Sunday for even, only before 8 a.m. or after 6 p.m., and no more than 3/4 inch and an hour per zone (SJRWMD).

The order reaches private wells and pumps as well as county water. Drip lines and a hand-held hose are exempt, and the county's water page lists no rebate for artificial turf.

Re-sodding isn't a quick fix right now, either. Under the district's Phase III order, the rules for watering in new sod and new plantings were tightened in mid-May 2026 (the district's declaration).