by Selina Alipour Tabrizi and Winston Sanchez
Editor’s note: This article was created in partnership with LADWP.
(Photo courtesy of LADWP photographer services)
The Landscape Efficiency Assistance Program, known as LEAP, is a free initiative by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power that transforms high-water-use and outdated front lawns into sustainable, drought-tolerant landscapes.
LEAP is offered to those who live in a single-family residence within disadvantaged communities as defined by the State of California Department of Water Resources. Potential customers are required to have 500 to 3,000 square feet of green grass in their front yard and be officially registered as the Owner of Record or receive written permission to transform their lawn from the Property Owner.
LADWP Customer Susanne Hall said her lawn was transformed through LEAP into a completely different landscape with more than 50 new and thriving plants.
“We already see bugs and bees,” Hall said. “The wildlife is finding its way to our yard.”
The program offers many free services to their customers, including installing a landscape design based on a customer-selected design template, installing a smart water use monitoring device and more. If customers aren’t ready for a complete transformation, they have the option to keep their original grass lawn and update their existing sprinkler system to be more efficient.
More than 50 new plants were planted in Susanne Hall’s yard in Los Angeles through LADWP’s Landscape Efficiency Assistance Program. The landscape is in its beginning stages as the plants just begin to thrive. (Photos courtesy of Susanne Hall)
LADWP Manager of Water Conservation Policy, Sarah Viramontes, said LEAP aims to promote water conservation, encourage sustainable landscaping and reduce the financial burden of high water bills in the neighborhoods that they serve.
“We want to help people see the beauty of this landscape as something they desire rather than something they should do to preserve water,” Viramontes said.
LEAP participants are required to maintain their new front lawn landscape for a minimum of five years to inspire others to “make this transformation in their community,” Viramontes said.
To apply for LEAP, homeowners must submit an application directly through their online LADWP account portal. The process requires applicants to verify that their property meets the eligibility for the program, detail their front yard measurements, upload recent photos of their lawn, irrigation valves and roof rain gutters and select from a variety of available design templates based on the water district they reside in.
After an application is approved, an assigned contractor visits the property to examine the front yard, take exact measurements and assess the existing irrigation setup. They go on to collaborate with residents to adapt a pre-approved water district template to the yard’s layout and ensure that plants with similar water needs are grouped in specific zones to maximize efficiency. When the blueprint is approved by LADWP, the contracting crew goes on to remove the grass, convert the existing irrigation system to drip irrigation and install the new landscaping.
“For us, the barrier was financial,” Hall said. “One thing this program accomplished was getting us to not [have grass] and [help] make our lawn drought tolerant.”
LEAP is fully funded by an Urban Community Drought Relief Grant from the Department of Water Resources. Having opened their applications for Los Angeles residents in August 2025, the program is set to continue until December 31, 2026 or until their funding runs out. In order to have adequate time to review every applicant and complete lawn transformations, LADWP plans to accept applications for LEAP until the fall of 2026.
“This is a customer participation based program,” Viramontes said. “As the program launched, [it] was a challenge to get people to see this as a benefit because people are [familiar with] grass lawns.”
Traditional grass lawns are increasingly viewed as outdated and wasteful because they demand heavy resource use while offering little ecological benefit. Because manicured turfgrass is non-native, it requires an immense amount of imported water to stay alive, making it the single largest contributor to residential water waste in Los Angeles. In Southern California, where severe, recurring droughts and a changing climate put a strain on the regional water supply, it is important to find ways to preserve water.
“These are decisions we make individually but they affect our community,” Hall said.
As of now, about 20 LEAP projects have been fully completed and close to 130 applications have been approved and are in progress. With their grant, LADWP is able to transform an estimated 700 lawns, but whether they do so depends on the number of eligible applicants.
While LADWP does not plan on continuing LEAP beyond the end of 2026, Viramontes said that what they learned about water saving benefits for the customers that participated in the program will go on to inform their future projects.
“Our region has unique needs,” Hall said. “This is the way Californians need to go forward.”
