The gap the agency admits

Having explained the standard, the Center then names the problem with it: “the statute does not contemplate what might be considered adequate ‘proof’.”

It suggests owners and boards consult counsel, and offers examples — photographs or video showing the irrigation system running on permitted days and times. That is a suggestion from an information office, not a rule, and it does not resolve the question.

So both sides are operating on an undefined evidentiary standard: the board writing the violation letter, and the owner answering it. We are not going to pick a side on what proof suffices in any particular case. What we can say is that this is a genuinely unresolved point of Colorado law and both parties should treat it that way.

A board's options this season

Say what proof you will accept, in advance and in writing. A board that publishes an accepted-evidence list — a dated irrigation-controller screenshot, a photograph with a timestamp, a water-district usage record — before it issues violation letters converts an undefined standard into a knowable one for its members. That is defensible. Improvising the standard in response to each appeal is not.

Check the restriction before the covenant. The provision keys to “restrictions or guidelines from the local water district or similar entity.” The board needs the current restriction in front of it, by district, because the permitted days and the maximum watering set the ceiling the owner is measured against.

Distinguish a brown lawn from a dead landscape. The statute is about failure to adequately water. Where a covenant requires a living green lawn as an aesthetic standard, and the district's maximum permitted watering cannot maintain one, the association is asking for something the restriction forbids — and the fine is exactly what the provision is aimed at.

And do not confuse this with the xeriscape rules. Colorado has separately provided, in the water-wise landscaping provisions of C.R.S. 38-33.3-106.5 added by SB23-178, that an association “may not prohibit the use of xeriscape, nonvegetative turf grass, or drought-tolerant vegetative landscapes to provide ground covering to property.” A board enforcing a must-maintain-living-turf covenant against an owner who wants to convert is on the wrong side of long-standing state law, and that has nothing to do with drought phases.

The direction the rest of Colorado law is moving

The drought advisory sits inside a broader shift that runs one way: away from turf.

HB25-1113, signed May 20, 2025 and effective August 6, 2025, extended the SB24-005 prohibition on installing nonfunctional turf, artificial turf or invasive plant species. Under that regime, from January 1, 2026, local entities may not install or allow installation of nonfunctional turf on commercial, institutional or industrial property, common interest community property, or a street right-of-way, median or transportation corridor — and from January 1, 2028 the regime extends to multifamily residential premises with more than twelve dwelling units, with local development regulations to be amended by that date.

Two things about that law get misread constantly. It is a duty on local entities, not a direct command to a board. And no existing turf must be removed — the prohibition is on new installation in new or redeveloped projects.

The practical consequence for a board planning a common-element replant is nonetheless real: check whether the local government's regulations now bar the bluegrass the landscape architect just specified.

What to watch next

The Center has run two water-and-landscaping forums in eighteen months — a March 4, 2026 session on lawn conversion resources and water-wise landscaping with a Colorado State University Extension guest, alongside this advisory. Its forum calendar is a leading indicator of what the state is hearing about, and water is on it.

Denver is also drafting a citywide Resilient Landscapes zoning text amendment that would ban planting nonfunctional turf, with council review anticipated in 2026. The city's own materials are explicit that the rules “would apply to new development and some redevelopment sites only” and that “this will not be a requirement for existing property.” Twenty-three complaints reached the state in 2025 in its xeriscaping and landscaping category. That number is unlikely to fall.