Conservation
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Native Plant Requirements for Premium Rebate
Preserve 30 percent more of your landscape area in native habitat and get a premium rebate.
You can qualify for a premium bonus rebate if you are able to preserve 30 percent or more of your landscape area in native habitat. We provide the premium rebate for this step because it is an excellent way to conserve water.
Established native trees and their preserved understory plants require no supplemental watering to thrive. They also look beautiful and provide wonderful habitat for urban wildlife. For this reason, they are becoming an attractive trend in home development in San Antonio.
In order to qualify for the native habitat premium rebate, please review the following requirements:
- Soil in native areas must be undisturbed. If it has been scraped to remove plants, it will not qualify.
- Undesirable plants like poison oak should be removed selectively by methods that do not require scraping off native soils.
- Additional native understory plants may be added to the preserved native areas if the majority of soil is left undisturbed.
- Area left native cannot have been compacted during home construction by activities such as parking vehicles under trees or throwing construction debris into area. It is best to protect native plant areas during construction by putting up temporary fencing.
- There should not be an irrigation system installed in the native area because it should not require supplemental irrigation. However, irrigation in other landscape areas will not disqualify a site from the preserved native premium rebate amount.
- Areas that have been cleared in past years and left vacant will not qualify for the preserved native premium rebate. The plant material should represent a stable “climax vegetation” state. If there is dispute as to whether an area is in this state, it will be settled by a horticulture expert on staff at the San Antonio Botanical Garden.
