Commercial turf in northeast Florida, planned around your site's stormwater permit.

Adding turf can change your stormwater permit.

On a site that already has an environmental resource permit, a turf area can count as a change. Rule 62-330.020 requires a permit for any modification or alteration of a previously permitted project. On any site, it also requires one for a project that, alone or with work done after October 1, 2013, totals more than 9,000 square feet of impervious and semi-impervious surface, or more than 4,000 square feet of it used by vehicles. Its exceptions include listed exemptions and the 10/2 general permit for upland stormwater systems.

The statewide ERP Applicant’s Handbook, Volume I, adopted by DEP in Rule 62-330.010 and used by the St. Johns River Water Management District, defines impervious as surfaces that don’t let water through, or barely do. Semi-impervious means surfaces that partly restrict it, such as gravel, limerock and certain compacted soils. Neither definition mentions turf, so get the reviewing agency’s answer on how it counts the turf and its stone base before you set a budget.

If your site has a permit, the handbook weighs an increase of more than 10 percent or 0.5 acres of impervious and semi-impervious surface, whichever is less, in deciding whether a change is more than minor, unless the site was permitted with enough stormwater treatment and flood attenuation for it. Before the grass comes out, take the permit number, the approved drainage plan and the turf’s drainage data to the agency that issued the permit. Our impervious surface guide lists the questions to ask.

Keep turf out of the planting your code requires.

Three local codes name synthetic turf or lawns outright. In unincorporated Clay County, Sec. 18.5-51 sets landscaping standards for the paved ground areas of nonresidential buildings, and Sec. 18.5-53 says synthetic or artificial turf shall not be used in lieu of the plants that section requires. Jacksonville’s zoning code, in Sec. 656.1601, and Jacksonville Beach’s land development code, in Sec. 34-300, both define landscaping as grass, ground covers, shrubs, hedges, trees, rocks, pebbles, decorative mulch, walls or fences, but not paving, synthetic plant material or synthetic lawns. Where Jacksonville’s landscape rules define a term differently, Sec. 656.1203 applies the more restrictive definition.

Elsewhere, the rules name artificial plants or mulch rather than turf. Nassau County’s Sec. 37.05 says synthetic or artificial trees, shrubs, groundcovers or vines are not acceptable substitutes. St. Johns County’s LDC Section 6.06.02.A.5 says artificial plants can’t meet any landscaping requirement, and Fernandina Beach’s LDC 4.05.03 doesn’t allow artificial mulch in required planting areas. If your plan counts turf toward required landscaping in any of them, get the reviewer’s answer in writing first. In St. Johns County, commercial plan review sits with Development Review.

Know what brings an older site under today’s code.

In Jacksonville, the landscape rules reach the rest of an existing commercial site only when renovations within two years total at least 60 percent of the assessed value of the lot improvements, or the building grows by 60 percent. That’s the test in Sec. 656.1209. If your turf job needs a building or paving permit, Sec. 656.1217 requires an approved landscape plan first, so ask the Planning and Development Department whether it needs either.

In Nassau County, a site built under earlier landscaping rules has to meet Sec. 37.05 only when you redevelop, reconfigure, expand or change its use. Even then it doesn’t if the site has 7,500 square feet of impervious area or less and adds 750 or less, or has more and adds under 2,000 square feet and under 10 percent of its existing impervious area. Ask the county how it counts turf against those figures.

In Atlantic Beach, the city inspects the base first.

Atlantic Beach’s turf installation guidelines apply to all artificial turf installations in the city. To count as permeable for lot coverage, the system must drain at least 100 inches per hour, over a free-draining stone base at least 4 inches deep. The city reviews product specifications, permeability test results, installation details and a site plan, and inspects the base before turf covers it.

Turf can go in a privately owned retention or drainage area only if the basin keeps its designed storage and function, with drainage structures, overflow paths and maintenance access left clear. The city may ask for engineering documentation showing the drainage still works. Our Atlantic Beach page covers the city’s impervious cover limit.

Bring the site’s permits to the free visit.

Bring the parcel address, the approved site plan and landscape plan, and any stormwater permit number. Mark the required planting, retention areas, swales and drainage structures. We measure the area, check the ground and draw a custom layout you approve before work starts, then give you a written price.

If a reviewer wants product specifications, drainage data or a base cross-section, agree who gathers and submits them before you set a start date. See the commercial turf service for surface options, and the northeast Florida page for everything else we install here.