Desert landscaping project along San Rafael Drive coming together; budget concerns persist

Plans to replace a strip of grass along San Rafael Drive with more desert-appropriate landscaping are taking shape, according to an update provided at Thursday’s Measure J Oversight Commission meeting. 

The turf conversion project would replace grass on city-owned property bordering San Rafael Drive between Mountain Shadow Drive and Sunrise Way. Turf along other portions of San Rafael west of Mountain Shadow Drive isn’t on city-owned property and is not part of the project. 

The project will convert the area from green grass and occasional pools of water caused by irrigation into something closer to “what’s appropriate for a desert space,” said Michael Madsen with consultant Kimley-Horn at the meeting. Plans include native desert plants, shade trees, crush rock mulch and decomposed granite, and some low-voltage lighting. 

San Rafael Drive’s new landscaping is an “opportunity to create a community example of what can be done as far as a water-wise landscape space, so folks can look at this and actually apply this to their own yard,” said Madsen. 

The project was first approved back in 2022 with a budget of $150,000, but in the years since the estimated budget has increased to about $236,000. 

The Measure J Oversight Commission opted to hold off on making any decisions about additional funding for the San Rafael Project until hearing a presentation on the 2025-2026 budget in September. The turf conversion project will return to the commission again for discussion then. One commissioner called it “premature to start giving our money away until we know how much we have.”

Final plans could be submitted as soon as early November, with a construction schedule set shortly after that, according to a timeline presented by Kimley-Horn. 

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