New Hampshire HOA Water Conservation

Section 1: Overview — How water conservation interacts with HOA authority in New Hampshire

New Hampshire has no statute limiting an HOA's authority over water-efficient landscaping.¹ Unlike several Western and Southern states, it hasn't enacted protections for drought-tolerant plantings, xeriscape, artificial turf, native plants, rainwater harvesting, or graywater reuse against association restriction. For a New Hampshire community, water-related landscaping rules come from the recorded declaration and the association's architectural-control process, with the Condominium Act, RSA 356-B, supplying the framework for condominiums, the Voluntary Corporations and Associations Act, RSA 292, supplying corporate formalities for associations organized as nonprofits, and local water-utility rules supplying any practical outdoor-watering limits.^5,10

State water-resource law is a separate body of law. New Hampshire allocates water under the riparian doctrine of reasonable use, with large-withdrawal permitting and water-use registration administered by the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, and this governs who may withdraw water and how much, not whether an HOA may permit or forbid a landscaping change.⁸

Within the national picture, New Hampshire sits in the group of silent, CC&R-governed states, distinct from the drought-statute states such as California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, and Florida that limit HOA authority over water-efficient landscaping.¹¹ What follows sets out the statutory and regulatory framework, the operational obligations the framework places on associations, recent legislative and judicial activity, and the state's national positioning.

Section 2: The statutory and regulatory framework

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

A review of the New Hampshire 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.¹ The Condominium Act, RSA 356-B, is the chapter where such a provision would appear for condominiums. It sets out the required contents of a declaration, RSA 356-B:16, and bylaws, RSA 356-B:35, including use restrictions and the framework for architectural control, but it contains no water-conservation or drought-landscaping carve-out.⁵ Planned-community HOAs aren't governed by any comprehensive New Hampshire statute at all; they operate under recorded CC&Rs and, where organized as nonprofits, the Voluntary Corporations and Associations Act, RSA 292.¹⁰

The contrast with drought-statute states makes the absence concrete. California makes void and unenforceable any governing-document or landscaping-guideline provision that prohibits the use of low water-using plants as a group, and, under Cal. Civ. Code § 4735(c), an association "cannot issue a fine or assessment on a homeowner for reducing or eliminating the watering of vegetation or lawns during a state or locally-declared drought emergency."¹¹ Florida limits local government and, in defined cases, association interference with Florida-friendly landscaping, Fla. Stat. § 373.185, and Texas restricts association prohibitions on drought-resistant landscaping and water-conserving turf, Tex. Prop. Code § 202.007.¹¹ New Hampshire has adopted no equivalent to any of these. The verified finding is that no such statute exists in New Hampshire, and any water-related landscaping rule binding a New Hampshire owner is contractual or local rather than a matter of state HOA law.¹

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

New Hampshire's water-resource framework is background context and doesn't bear on HOA landscaping authority. Water use is allocated under the common-law riparian doctrine of reasonable use, under which a landowner may make reasonable use of water so long as it doesn't unreasonably harm other users.⁸ A large groundwater withdrawal, which NHDES defines as a withdrawal "from well/s installed after August 1998 of more than 57,600 gallons over any 24-hour period (equivalent to an average of 40 gallons per minute)," requires a permit under the Groundwater Protection Act, RSA 485-C, and facilities using more than 20,000 gallons per day averaged over a 7-day period must register under the Water Use Registration and Reporting program, RSA 488.^8,12 These regimes govern water withdrawal and reporting. They have nothing to do with whether an HOA may forbid a homeowner from replacing turf with gravel or native plantings.

New Hampshire experiences drought frequently despite its humid climate; NHDES states that "between the years 2000 and 2020, drought conditions occurred within 11 of those 20 years."⁶ Drought response is coordinated by the NHDES-led Drought Management Team, which NHDES describes as "comprised of 30 stakeholders," under the state Drought Management Plan.⁶ No state drought-declaration mechanism reaches private landscaping enforcement by an HOA. State and municipal authority in a drought runs to water-supply management: municipalities may restrict lawn watering under RSA 41:11-d, and community water systems may restrict non-essential use under the Safe Drinking Water Act, RSA 485.^7,13

New Hampshire has no statute addressing rainwater harvesting or graywater reuse as against HOAs. Rainwater harvesting for outdoor, non-potable use is legal and is actively encouraged by NHDES through its Soak Up the Rain program, but no statute bars an association from restricting rain barrels or cisterns.³ Graywater is addressed only in NHDES administrative rules governing mini-dry-well disposal, Env-Wq 1022.02, not in any provision limiting association authority.⁴

2C. Where water-conservation rules actually live in New Hampshire

For a New Hampshire community, any water-related landscaping rule originates in the recorded declaration and the association's architectural-control provisions.⁵ The declaration is a contract that runs with the land, and courts enforce its covenants as binding contracts subject to a reasonableness standard.⁵ For condominiums, the Condominium Act supplies the general use-restriction and architectural framework: RSA 356-B:16 governs the declaration's contents and RSA 356-B:35 governs the bylaws, and most of these matters may be shaped by the declaration itself.⁵ For planned communities, there's no comprehensive statute, so the operative framework is the CC&Rs plus the corporate formalities of the Voluntary Corporations and Associations Act, RSA 292, with the 2023 addition of RSA 292:8-m supplying super-majority and dissolution-hearing rules for homeowners' associations.^10,14

Local water utilities are the practical source of any owner-facing water-use rule. Pennichuck Water Works, founded in 1852 and described as "the largest investor-owned water utility in the State of New Hampshire, serving a population of over 120,000 people in 23 communities" across southern New Hampshire, publishes tiered water restrictions and may terminate service for non-compliance.⁷ The City of Portsmouth has imposed odd-even outdoor-watering schedules during past dry periods, limiting lawn watering to specified morning hours on odd-numbered days.⁷ Manchester Water Works serves the state's largest city and administers its own system.⁷ These utility measures operate independently of the HOA framework. The operational takeaway is that a manager searching for "New Hampshire HOA water conservation law" will find the rulebook in the declaration and the local water utility'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 changes are reviewed under the association's own architectural-control provisions. For condominiums, the declaration and bylaws established under RSA 356-B:16 and RSA 356-B:35 define the review process, and these provisions may be varied by the declaration.⁵ For planned communities, the review authority is entirely contractual, arising from the recorded CC&Rs rather than any statute, because New Hampshire has no comprehensive planned-community act.¹⁰

B. Drought response and watering restrictions

No state statute directs an HOA to relax landscaping enforcement during drought. Outdoor-watering limits reaching an owner come from a municipality under RSA 41:11-d or a community water system under RSA 485, or from a private water utility's tariff — local and statutory water-supply authority, not HOA law.^7,13 Where a utility watering restriction is in force and a CC&R simultaneously requires a green, irrigated lawn, the tension is a contract-versus-local-rule question resolved under general law, not under any water-conservation statute.⁷

C. Rule adoption and disclosure

For condominiums, rules and bylaws are adopted and amended through the procedures in RSA 356-B, and condominium declarants and associations are subject to registration and disclosure oversight by the New Hampshire Department of Justice.^5,15 For nonprofit-organized associations, corporate formalities for adopting rules, holding meetings, and dissolution come from RSA 292, including RSA 292:8-m.¹⁴ Any landscaping or water-use rule itself is a creature of the declaration.⁵

D. Enforcement limits and conflicts

Covenant enforcement in New Hampshire is subject to a reasonableness standard; a court may decline to enforce a CC&R that is applied in an arbitrary, inconsistent, or discriminatory manner.⁵ There's no water-conservation statute that overrides a CC&R, so a homeowner seeking to install xeriscape or artificial turf over an association's objection must look to the declaration's own terms and the reasonableness of the association's enforcement, not to a state landscaping-protection statute.¹ Federal overlays — fair housing, over-the-air-reception-device rules, and similar — apply regardless of state law but don't create a water-conservation landscaping right.

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

No qualifying bill turned up in the New Hampshire General Court's 2024, 2025, or 2026 sessions that would create or affect HOA authority over water-efficient landscaping, drought enforcement, rainwater harvesting, or graywater.⁹ The condominium-related legislation that did move addressed governance and instruments rather than water use. HB383, 2025, sponsored by Rep. Almy, Grafton 17, and titled "relative to the authority of condominium boards and unit owners to create and amend condominium instruments," would have provided that condominium rules and bylaws are treated as part of the condominium instruments if registered with the registry of deeds, but it didn't address landscaping or water and it died in the House on an inexpedient-to-legislate motion, voice vote, March 6, 2025.⁹ Separately, RSA 292:8-m, the homeowners'-association provision setting super-majority and dissolution-hearing requirements, was created by 2023 legislation effective January 1, 2024, and likewise doesn't touch landscaping or water conservation.¹⁴

B. Recent New Hampshire Supreme Court rulings

No qualifying New Hampshire Supreme Court ruling from the past 36 months turned up bearing on HOA landscaping authority, water-related use restrictions, or architectural-aesthetic covenant enforcement.¹⁶ HOA and condominium civil disputes are appealed directly to the New Hampshire Supreme Court; the state has no intermediate appellate court.¹⁷ The condominium opinions the court did issue in the window concerned governance and physical use of common areas rather than landscaping or water. In Moda v. Fernwood at Winnipesaukee Condominium Ass'n, 2024 N.H. 65, Docket No. 2023-0268, decided November 26, 2024, the court held that a unit owner's expansion into a limited common area "required compliance with RSA 356-B:19, I, which necessitates the consent of all adversely affected unit owners," and vacated summary judgment and an attorney's-fees award and remanded; the case is the closest of the recent decisions to architectural enforcement but didn't involve landscaping or water use.¹⁶

C. Active legislative debates

No active proposal that would change New Hampshire's treatment of HOA water-conservation landscaping turned up as of the last verification date.⁹

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

New Hampshire falls in the third of three groups under a water-conservation-specific clustering, which differs from the governing-statute clustering. The first group is states with statutes limiting HOA authority over water-efficient landscaping, concentrated in drought-exposed jurisdictions such as California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, Florida, and Utah.¹¹ The second is states with partial or emerging provisions, including several with bills introduced but not enacted. The third is silent, CC&R-governed states, which include most of the Northeast and New Hampshire.¹¹ For a multi-state operator, the practical implication is direct: a firm accustomed to California's or Nevada's xeriscape-protection rules shouldn't assume any equivalent applies in New Hampshire, where the declaration and the local water utility control. New Hampshire shows no legislative momentum toward such a statute, with no qualifying bill in the 2024 through 2026 sessions.⁹

HOA Weekly's New Hampshire water-conservation coverage updates quarterly as the legislature and the New Hampshire Supreme Court act. For New Hampshire communities, the practically controlling water rules are the declaration and the local water utility. Federal frameworks apply to New Hampshire 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. New Hampshire Condominium Act, RSA Ch. 356-B (New Hampshire General Court) — contains no water-conservation or drought-landscaping provision ↩
2. NHDES, "Xeriscaping: Natural Lawns Are the New Green" ↩
3. NHDES, Soak Up the Rain New Hampshire program (rainwater harvesting encouraged; no HOA-restriction statute in RSA Ch. 356-B) ↩
4. NH Code of Administrative Rules, Env-Wq 1022.02, Mini-Dry Wells for Gray Water ↩
5. RSA 356-B:16, Contents of Declaration; see also RSA 356-B:35, Contents of the Bylaws (New Hampshire General Court) ↩
6. NHDES, Drought program and Drought Management Team ↩
7. Pennichuck Water Works, Water Restrictions (utility rule); see also City of Portsmouth water advisories and Manchester Water Works ↩
8. NHDES, "Groundwater Rights and the Groundwater Protection Act" (RSA 485-C; riparian reasonable-use doctrine) ↩
9. New Hampshire General Court, bill status search, 2024–2026 sessions; HB383 (2025) ↩
10. RSA Ch. 292, Voluntary Corporations and Associations (New Hampshire General Court) ↩
11. Cal. Civ. Code § 4735 (California drought-landscaping protection); Fla. Stat. § 373.185; Tex. Prop. Code § 202.007 ↩
12. NHDES, "Large Groundwater Withdrawal" (RSA 485-C:21); Water Use Registration and Reporting (RSA 488) ↩
13. NHDES, Drought (municipal lawn-watering authority under RSA 41:11-d; community-water-system authority under RSA 485) ↩
14. RSA 292:8-m, Homeowners' Associations (New Hampshire General Court) ↩
15. New Hampshire Department of Justice, condominium registration under RSA 356-B ↩
16. Moda v. Fernwood at Winnipesaukee Condominium Ass'n, 2024 N.H. 65, No. 2023-0268 (Nov. 26, 2024); New Hampshire Supreme Court opinions, 2023–2026 ↩
17. New Hampshire Judicial Branch, Supreme Court (sole appellate court; no intermediate appellate court) ↩