City Of Novi Alternate Day Lawn Watering Ordinance

Mandatory Lawn Watering Ordinance

We appreciate the excellent cooperation our citizens have given us in the past in adhering to the Alternate Day Lawn Watering program. As part of the City’s ongoing efforts to reduce our water usage during peak hours, City Council has approved an amendment to the Lawn Watering Ordinance which will help to lower the water rate we pay to Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (our water provider). The Ordinance now requires, in addition to alternate day watering, that automatic, programmable underground sprinkler systems only operate during non-peak hours of 11:00 pm and 5:00 am. We ask for your support by programming your sprinkler system to operate between the hours of 11:00 pm and 5:00 am on an alternate day basis.

Section 34-24 Alternate day lawn watering; water supply emergencies, (a),

"It shall be unlawful for any person to utilize water from the City of Novi Water Supply System for the watering of lawns or landscaping except on an alternate day basis. An alternate day basis of watering permits the watering of lawns and landscaping on even-numbered days for properties with an even-numbered address and on odd-numbered days for properties with an odd-numbered street address. Further, for those properties in the City of Novi that utilize water from the City of Novi Water Supply System and are serviced by an automatic, programmable underground irrigation system, outdoor watering, including the sprinkling of lawns and landscaping, shall only be done during non-peak hours of 11:00pm to 5:00am.”

To determine if an address is even or odd numbered refer to the last number in the street address. Even-numbered addresses end with a 0, 2, 4, 6, or 8 and odd-numbered addresses end with a 1, 3, 5, 7, or 9.

Why do we have the alternate day lawn watering program? There are two reasons:

1. The City of Novi is a wholesale customer of the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD). Two of the major factors that DWSD uses to establish our wholesale water rate are Peak Day and Peak Hour purchases. If we adhere to the alternate day water cycle and shift our peak hour usage to the exclusionary period (11:00pm to 5:00am) we can level out our Peak Day and Peak Hour factors, which result in lower wholesale water rates.

2. During the high demand periods of May through September we routinely experience low system pressures in some sections of the city. The Alternate Day Lawn Watering program helps us ensure that we can provide water pressure to meet the domestic and fire flow requirements of all of our customers.