Millbrae bans new artificial turf

Millbrae City Council passed an ordinance that bans the installment of artificial turf and synthetic grass and mandates proper maintenance of existing turf if it was installed legally.

The prohibition is a more permanent continuation of the moratorium enacted by the city in 2021 that paused all new synthetic turf installations after negative environmental impacts began to surface.

“We’re concerned about the health and safety of synthetic materials. There’s plastics, nylon, different kinds of materials in there,” said Community Development Director Andy Mogensen. “And we are concerned with its impact on our stormwater, aquatic life and things of that nature,” he said.

During the staff presentation to the council Tuesday, Oct. 24, Mogensen also explained the draft ordinance would require residents to replace turf currently in place by Jan. 1, 2028. But several councilmembers, such as Angelina Cahalan and Anders Fung expressed concern that a fixed time limit would place undue burden on those who installed it in good faith.

“Before people learned more, they probably put these in because we were going through years and years of drought, and they thought they were being environmentally mindful, trying to do the right thing,” said Cahalan. “But this is also really expensive. Doing landscape projects is not a small amount of money, and to ask people to completely change something they may have recently put in and then start fining them for it if they can’t afford to do so puts people in a really difficult financial situation.”

In 2016, the state prohibited jurisdictions from enacting ordinances that limited residents’ ability to install drought-tolerant landscaping, but the recently passed Senate Bill 676 updates the language to allow local governments to enact more restrictions on artificial turf and synthetic grass, as statewide concern about their environmental damage continues to grow.

“I strongly believe that there will be legislation coming down federally and state wise that holds cities accountable for microplastics entering waterways, because it's entering into our food system. And then these highly carcinogenic — full of PFAS, or forever chemicals — are getting into our food supply, so it’s a ticking time bomb,” said Mayor Ann Schneider.

Staff updated the ordinance to allow residents to maintain synthetic grass or artificial turf if it has already been legally installed, as long as it adheres to certain maintenance requirements. Councilmembers also discussed the possibility of revisiting a time limit for all turf installations if and when funding could be secured to financially help residents replace the material. Once revisions were made, the council approved the resolution unanimously.

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