Nebraska HOA Water Conservation

Section 1: Overview

Nebraska has no statute limiting an HOA's authority over water-efficient landscaping. No provision in the Nebraska Revised Statutes protects drought-tolerant or xeriscape landscaping, native or low-water plantings, artificial turf, or water-efficient irrigation against an association's restrictions.² What governs instead is the recorded declaration and the association's architectural-control process. For condominiums, the Nebraska Condominium Act, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-825 et seq., supplies the general framework for those created on or after January 1, 1984, and the predecessor Condominium Property Act, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-801 et seq., governs those created before that date.¹¹ Because most Nebraska associations are incorporated as nonprofits, the Nebraska Nonprofit Corporation Act, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 21-1901 et seq., supplies corporate formalities.¹² Nebraska's water-resource law is a separate subject: surface water runs under prior appropriation and groundwater under correlative reasonable-use administered by Natural Resources Districts, doctrines that govern who may withdraw water, not whether an HOA may restrict a homeowner's landscaping.⁹ Nationally, Nebraska sits with the silent, CC&R-governed states, unlike drought-exposed jurisdictions such as California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, and Florida that have enacted HOA landscaping-protection statutes.¹³ What follows details the statutory framework, what the framework requires of HOAs, and recent legislative and judicial activity.

Section 2: The statutory and regulatory framework

2A. Statutory limits on HOA authority over water-efficient landscaping

A review of the Nebraska Revised Statutes identifies no provision restricting HOA authority over drought-tolerant or xeriscape landscaping, native or low-water plantings, artificial turf, or water-efficient irrigation. The Nebraska Condominium Act, which governs condominiums created on or after January 1, 1984, addresses declarations, bylaws, assessments, and the powers of the unit owners association, but contains no landscaping or water-conservation mandate.⁶ The predecessor Condominium Property Act, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-801 et seq., which continues to govern condominiums created before January 1, 1984, likewise contains no such provision.¹¹ Planned-community HOAs, the most common form outside the condominium context, have no comprehensive Nebraska statute at all; they operate under recorded CC&Rs, the Nebraska Nonprofit Corporation Act for corporate formalities, and common law.¹² If Nebraska had a landscaping-protection statute, it would appear in Chapter 76, real property, including the condominium acts; it doesn't.² The contrast with drought-exposed states makes the absence concrete. California's Civil Code § 4735 makes void and unenforceable any governing-document provision that prohibits the use of low water-using plants as a group and bars an association from fining an owner for reducing or eliminating watering during a period for which the Governor has declared a drought state of emergency; Colorado's Rev. Stat. § 38-33.3-106.5, as amended in 2023, bars associations from prohibiting xeriscape and nonvegetative turf grass; and Texas Property Code § 202.007 prohibits associations from banning water-conserving landscaping.¹³ Nebraska has adopted no equivalent, and none should be read into its statutes.²

2B. Related water law, drought response, rainwater and graywater

Nebraska's water-resource framework is background context that doesn't bear on HOA landscaping authority. Surface water is allocated under prior appropriation, and groundwater is managed under correlative reasonable-use principles through locally governed Natural Resources Districts and, at the state level, the Department of Water, Energy, and Environment, which absorbed the former Department of Natural Resources effective July 1, 2025.⁷ That framework governs who may withdraw water and in what quantity; it has no application to whether an HOA may forbid replacing turf with drought-tolerant plantings.⁹ On drought response, the Governor's drought-related emergency declarations are issued under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 81-829.40 and address matters such as burn bans and mobilization of state resources; no state drought declaration reaches private HOA landscaping enforcement.⁵ On rainwater and graywater, a search of the statutes identifies no provision addressing either as against HOAs. Rainwater harvesting is lawful and is regulated only for system construction under Section P2912 of the state Residential Code, and untreated graywater discharge to land is prohibited under state onsite-wastewater rules; neither speaks to associations.³

2C. Where water-conservation rules actually live in Nebraska

For a Nebraska community, any water-related landscaping rule is set by the recorded declaration and the association's architectural-control process. For condominiums, the applicable condominium act — the modern act for post-1984 regimes or the pre-1984 predecessor depending on the recording date — supplies the general governance framework.¹¹ For planned communities, there's no comprehensive statute, so the framework is the CC&Rs plus Nonprofit Corporation Act formalities.¹² The practical source of any owner-facing water-use rule is the local water system, not state HOA law. The Metropolitan Utilities District, which serves the Omaha area, publishes conservation guidance and maintains a water conservation and alert plan with odd/even and watering-day restrictions that can become mandatory during supply emergencies.⁸ The Lincoln Water System publishes outdoor-watering guidance and has, in past droughts, moved from voluntary conservation to a designated-day watering schedule.¹⁴ The operational takeaway: a manager searching for "Nebraska HOA water conservation law" will find the rulebook in the declaration and the local water system's rules, not in an HOA-specific water statute.¹

Section 3: What the framework requires of HOAs

A. Landscaping approval and architectural review

Landscaping-change authority rests on the declaration. Where CC&Rs establish architectural-control or design-review provisions, an owner must generally obtain approval before altering the property, and courts enforce these restrictions as written. For condominiums, the Nebraska Condominium Act frames the unit owners association's rulemaking and the primacy of the declaration under Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-860 — a provision that applies to post-January 1, 1984 condominiums, with specified subsections reaching pre-1984 condominiums, and that may be varied by declaration.⁶ For planned communities, architectural review is contractual, arising from the CC&Rs, because Nebraska has no planned-community statute.¹²

B. Drought response and watering restrictions

No Nebraska statute requires an HOA to permit reduced watering or dormant lawns during a drought. Any binding watering limit comes from the local water system: the Metropolitan Utilities District can impose mandatory watering restrictions under its water rules during supply emergencies, enforceable by service shutoff, and the Lincoln Water System can move to designated-day watering.⁸ These are utility rules operating independently of the HOA framework.¹⁴

C. Rule adoption and disclosure

For condominiums, rule adoption, recordkeeping, and resale-disclosure duties are set by the Nebraska Condominium Act — recordkeeping and resale provisions apply to both pre- and post-1984 condominiums to the extent specified in Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-826.⁶ For incorporated planned communities, meeting, notice, and records duties arise under the Nebraska Nonprofit Corporation Act.¹² Any water-related landscaping rule itself is contractual, drawn from the declaration.¹

D. Enforcement limits and conflicts

Restrictive covenants are enforced as contracts and may be defeated by defenses such as waiver, which the Nebraska Supreme Court in Pine Tree Neighborhood Assn. v. Moses held requires "substantial and general noncompliance," with enforcement denied "only when noncompliance is so general as to indicate an intention or purpose to abandon the condition."¹⁵ An HOA also cannot enforce a landscaping restriction its declaration doesn't actually contain, as the court held in Estates at Prairie Ridge Homeowners Assn. v. Korth.¹⁶ A genuine conflict can arise where a declaration requires a green, irrigated lawn while a local water system imposes a watering restriction; that's a contract-versus-local-rule tension resolved under general law, not under any water-conservation statute.⁸

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

No qualifying bill affecting HOA authority over water-efficient landscaping, drought enforcement, rainwater, or graywater turned up in the Nebraska Legislature in the past 24 months. The closest measure was LB137, 2025, which addressed solar energy devices and pollinator gardens, not water-efficient landscaping, and didn't pass.

B. Recent appellate rulings

No Nebraska appellate ruling in the past 36 months turned on HOA authority over water-efficient landscaping specifically. The most relevant recent decision on covenant enforcement is Pine Tree Neighborhood Assn. v. Moses, which bears on how landscaping and use covenants are enforced.

C. Active legislative debates

No active Nebraska legislative debate on HOA authority over water-efficient landscaping, drought enforcement, rainwater, or graywater turned up.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

On a water-conservation-specific clustering, states fall into three groups. First are states with statutes limiting HOA authority over water-efficient landscaping, concentrated in drought-exposed jurisdictions including California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, Florida, and Utah.¹³ Second are states with partial or emerging provisions, such as those where conservation-landscaping bills have been introduced but not enacted — for example, Virginia's HB 528 and New York's S7358.¹³ Third are the silent, CC&R-governed states, which include most Great Plains states and Nebraska.² For a multi-state operator, the practical implication is direct: a firm accustomed to Colorado's or Arizona's xeriscape-protection rules shouldn't assume any equivalent applies in Nebraska. Nebraska shows no legislative momentum toward such a statute, and no qualifying bill has been introduced in the past 24 months.¹⁰

HOA Weekly's Nebraska water-conservation coverage updates quarterly as the legislature and the courts act. For Nebraska communities, the practically controlling water rules are the recorded declaration and the local water system, not a state HOA statute. Federal frameworks apply to Nebraska associations regardless of state law — the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act among them.

Footnotes

1. Nebraska Condominium Act, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-825; Nebraska Nonprofit Corporation Act, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 21-1901 et seq. (neither contains a landscaping or water-conservation provision) ↩
2. Neb. Rev. Stat. Chapter 76 (Real Property), including the condominium acts (no landscaping or water-conservation provision) ↩
3. Nebraska Residential Code § P2912 (Nonpotable Rainwater Collection and Distribution Systems); University of Nebraska–Lincoln Extension, "Harvest the Rain" ↩
4. University of Nebraska–Lincoln Water, Graywater Use in Nebraska (state onsite-wastewater rules) ↩
5. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 81-829.40 (Governor's emergency powers); Executive Order No. 26-06 (drought/burn-ban) ↩
6. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-860 (powers of the unit owners association) and § 76-861 (declaration and bylaws), Nebraska Condominium Act ↩
7. Nebraska Department of Water, Energy, and Environment, created by LB317 (2025), effective July 1, 2025 ↩
8. Metropolitan Utilities District, Water Rules and Regulations (Part 12, Water Conservation Plan) and Water Safety/Conservation and Alert Plan ↩
9. Nebraska Ground Water Management and Protection Act and related statutes ↩
10. Nebraska Legislature, LB137 (109th Legislature, 2025), indefinitely postponed April 17, 2026 ↩
11. Neb. Rev. Stat. § 76-826 (applicability; Condominium Act applies to condominiums created after January 1, 1984; predecessor §§ 76-801 to 76-824 continue to govern earlier condominiums) ↩
12. Nebraska Nonprofit Corporation Act, Neb. Rev. Stat. § 21-1901 et seq. (corporate formalities for incorporated associations; no comprehensive planned-community statute) ↩
13. Comparative statutes: Cal. Civ. Code § 4735; Colo. Rev. Stat. § 38-33.3-106.5, as amended by SB23-178; Tex. Prop. Code § 202.007 ↩
14. Lincoln Water System, Outdoor Water Conservation (City of Lincoln, NE); designated-day watering schedule announced during the 2023 drought ↩
15. Pine Tree Neighborhood Assn. v. Moses, 314 Neb. 445 (filed June 9, 2023) (No. S-22-284), Nebraska Supreme Court ↩
16. Estates at Prairie Ridge Homeowners Assn. v. Korth, 298 Neb. 266, Nebraska Supreme Court ↩