A Metropolitan Water District program that provides incentives to replace lawns with sustainable landscaping has helped fund the planting of 4,000 trees across Southern California, officials announced Thursday.
Metropolitan marked the milestone Wednesday at the California Institute of Technology, where a landscaping project is replacing nearly 100,000 square feet of unused grass and adding 59 trees.
The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California said it offers $100 for each eligible tree planted in addition to its rebate for replacing grass with water-efficient California-friendly and native plants. The turf replacement rebate starts at $2 per square foot of grass removed.
“By incentivizing the addition of trees to these projects, we have been furthering that mission — helping expand the region’s tree canopy, cooling communities and creating greener, more resilient neighborhoods,” Krista Guerrero, who leads Metropolitan’s Turf Replacement Program, said in a statement.
Metropolitan developed the tree rebate in partnership with TreePeople, the California Native Plant Society, the Theodore Payne Foundation and local water agencies. The agency said it also consulted data from the Sacramento Tree Foundation, the Urban Forest Ecosystem Institute at Cal Poly, UC Davis and UC Riverside to identify trees that use less water and are suited to Southern California’s climate.
The incentive was introduced in honor of Cindy Montañez, a former San Fernando City Council member and chief executive officer of TreePeople who died in October 2023, officials said. Montañez advocated for expanding Southern California’s urban tree canopy and helped champion the idea of providing incentives for planting trees as part of lawn replacement projects.
The Caltech project, developed with guidance from Pasadena Water and Power, is replacing swaths of grass along the western edge of the campus while preserving the school’s open spaces and pedestrian sightlines and expanding its tree canopy.
“This is more than just taking out grass and planting trees for us,” Delmy Emerson, Caltech’s director of buildings and grounds, said. “We are conserving water, but we are also beautifying our campus, providing food and habitat for wildlife and native pollinators, increasing how much shade we have here, and even creating new research opportunities for our students to study native ecologies.”
Among the trees being added to the campus are Engelmann, Valley and California live oaks.
“I think about how this campus will look in 50 years; it will be like a botanical garden,” Emerson said.
Over the life of Metropolitan’s Turf Replacement Program, the agency said it has helped fund the conversion of more than 235 million square feet of lawns, saving enough water each year to serve about 84,000 homes.