Waukee, Iowa Pays Up to $5,000 for a Rain Garden or Native Landscaping Project
The short version
- Waukee's Stormwater Grant Program pays 50 percent of qualifying expenses, up to $1,000 per best-management practice and $5,000 total per single-family or townhome property (waukee.org).
- Eligible practices include rain gardens, bio-retention cells, and native landscaping.
- Soil quality restoration (lawn aeration and compost) is a separate program, the Healthy Lawn Grant, and does not count toward the $5,000 landscaping figure.
- Grants must be approved and awarded before any work starts.
The City of Waukee, in the Des Moines metro, pays 50 percent of qualifying project cost for a rain garden, bio-retention cell, or native landscaping project, up to $5,000 per single-family or townhome property.
Key takeaways
- Waukee's Stormwater Grant Program pays 50 percent of qualifying expenses, up to $1,000 per best-management practice and $5,000 total per single-family or townhome property (waukee.org).
- Eligible practices include rain gardens, bio-retention cells, and native landscaping.
- Soil quality restoration (lawn aeration and compost) is a separate program, the Healthy Lawn Grant, and does not count toward the $5,000 landscaping figure.
- Grants must be approved and awarded before any work starts.
How the Waukee rebate works
Waukee's Stormwater Grant Program pays 50 percent of qualifying expenses for rain gardens, bio-retention cells, and native landscaping, with a $1,000 cap per individual best-management practice and a combined maximum of $5,000 per single-family or townhome property. Adjacent property owners can also work together on a larger, shared project, for example tiling several backyards, which raises the grant limit by $5,000 per additional property owner up to a $20,000 project maximum.
Get approval before you start
Stormwater grants must be approved and awarded before any work has started. Reimbursement requests are submitted online through the City's Stormwater Grant Program page. Soil quality restoration, lawn aeration and a compost topdressing to improve an existing lawn, is handled through a separate application, the Healthy Lawn Grant, and its funding does not reduce the $5,000 available for rain gardens and native landscaping.
Who this program is for
Waukee sits in the western Des Moines metro, alongside Clive, Johnston, Windsor Heights, and Pleasant Hill, each of which runs its own version of a BMP cost-share program instead of a single shared county rate. At $5,000, Waukee's cap is the largest of this cluster, making it worth checking directly for a larger native-landscaping or rain-garden project.
See the Iowa rebates pagefor the current application link and Waukee's program details alongside other Des Moines metro and statewide rebates.