The collision

Now put a recorded declaration next to that order. A great many Arkansas subdivision bills of assurance require lots to be kept in a neat and well-maintained condition, some in terms that specifically contemplate a maintained lawn, and give the association power to enforce by notice, fine and ultimately a lien.

A Conway homeowner subject to both is being told two things at once. The utility order binds under threat of losing water service. The covenant binds under threat of fines and a lien on the home. And the homeowner cannot comply with the covenant by watering more, because doing so is the thing the ordinance punishes.

Arkansas has no statute that resolves this. That is the finding, and it is worth being precise about what it means. Other states legislated for exactly this situation:

• Texas — Property Code § 202.007 bars a property owners association from prohibiting drought-resistant landscaping or water-conserving natural turf.
• California — Civil Code § 4735 protects low-water landscaping and blocks an association from fining an owner for reducing or eliminating watering during a declared drought or a government-declared water emergency.

Arkansas has enacted no equivalent. No Arkansas statute prevents an association from requiring turf grass, banning native or xeriscape beds, refusing a low-water landscaping plan, or fining an owner for a brown lawn during a mandatory curtailment. This is consistent with the state's broader posture — Arkansas has no comprehensive planned-community statute, and the recorded instrument does most of the work.

What a homeowner actually has

Not nothing, but nothing statutory. The available arguments run through the instrument and general equitable doctrine rather than through a code section:

Read the covenant closely. A covenant requiring a lot to be kept “neat and orderly” or free of “weeds and rubbish” is not the same as one requiring a green lawn. Arkansas courts construe restrictive covenants strictly against limits on the free use of land — though, as the Court of Appeals confirmed in 2025, that canon is limited by the plain meaning of the words used. A restriction has to appear clearly in the recorded instrument to be enforceable.

Reasonableness of enforcement. Enforcement that is arbitrary, or that demands the legally impossible, is a different question from whether the covenant is valid. An association insisting on an outcome the homeowner can only achieve by breaching a municipal ordinance is on weak ground, but that is a doctrinal argument, not a statutory shield.

Ask the board for a written suspension. The cleanest route is not litigation. A board with rulemaking power can suspend or vary landscaping enforcement for the duration of curtailment, and doing so in a recorded minute protects the association from selective-enforcement problems later.

What boards can do now

Suspend, in writing, and date it to the order. An Arkansas board that keeps issuing brown-lawn violations through a mandatory curtailment is generating fines it may not want to defend and member anger it certainly does not need. A resolution tying the suspension to Conway Corp's published phase is simple, defensible, and self-executing when the phase lifts.

Do not create a precedent you cannot control. Selective forbearance — excusing some owners and not others — is how associations lose the ability to enforce later. A uniform, recorded suspension does not have that problem.

Watch the irrigation clause, not just the lawn clause. Some declarations require owners to maintain irrigation systems in working order, or require the association itself to irrigate common area. Phases 4 and 5 would prohibit outdoor water use entirely, which would put the association in breach of its own common-area maintenance obligation.

And treat this as a budget item. Common-area landscaping that dies during curtailment is a replacement cost that arrives after the drought, not during it. It belongs in the next budget and, for larger associations, in the reserve discussion.

What to watch next

Conway Corp says Phase 3 stays “until conditions allow for a change,” so the phase is worth re-checking rather than assuming. Beyond Conway, other central Arkansas systems have issued their own orders, and the Department of Agriculture's Natural Resources Division has renewed the push for the Arkansas Water Plan.

The legislative question is whether Arkansas ever adopts a Texas- or California-style landscaping protection. Nothing of the kind has been filed, and nothing can be until pre-filing opens on November 16, 2026 for the session convening in January 2027. A second consecutive summer of mandatory curtailment is the kind of thing that produces such a bill — but as of today, none exists.