New York HOA Water Conservation

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

New York has no statute limiting an HOA's authority over water-efficient landscaping. Searches of the Real Property Law, including the Condominium Act, Article 9-B, Real Property Law § 339-d et seq., return no provision addressing drought-tolerant or xeriscape landscaping, native or low-water plantings, artificial turf, water-efficient irrigation, rainwater harvesting, or graywater reuse.¹ For New York communities, water-related landscaping rules come from the recorded declaration and the association's architectural-control process, with the comparatively thin Condominium Act supplying the framework for condominiums, the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law supplying corporate formalities for planned-community associations, and, for cooperatives, corporate law and proprietary leases.¹¹ New York has roughly one million households belonging to some form of community association, so the practical reach of these governing-document rules is wide.¹² Any practical, owner-facing water-use rule is far more likely to originate with a local water utility than with state law.⁷

State water-resource law is a separate body of law: New York's riparian doctrine and the Department of Environmental Conservation's water-withdrawal permitting govern who may take water and in what quantity, and they have no bearing on whether an HOA may regulate a homeowner's landscaping.⁹ Nationally, New York sits with the silent, CC&R-governed states of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, not with drought-statute states such as California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, and Florida that limit HOA authority over water-efficient landscaping. What follows sets out the statutory framework, where water-conservation rules actually live, what the framework requires of associations, and the recent legislative record, including a 2025 bill that would have changed this answer but was vetoed.

Section 2: The statutory and regulatory framework

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

A review of the New York Consolidated Laws identifies no provision restricting HOA authority over drought-tolerant or xeriscape landscaping, native or low-water plantings, artificial turf, or water-efficient irrigation. The chapter where such a provision would appear if it existed is the Real Property Law, and the HOA-relevant portion of that law is the Condominium Act, Article 9-B, Real Property Law § 339-d et seq., whose sections address declarations, by-laws, common elements, common charges, liens, and unit-owner compliance, but not landscaping, drought, or water use.¹ New York has, by contrast, enacted HOA-specific carve-outs in adjacent areas: the Solar Rights Act, Real Property Law § 342, voids HOA restrictions that effectively prohibit or unreasonably limit rooftop solar, and a parallel provision addresses electric-vehicle charging stations.¹³ The existence of these targeted statutes, and the absence of any equivalent for water-efficient landscaping, confirms that the silence is a deliberate feature of the current law rather than an oversight.

An HOA-restriction statute, where a state has one, expressly bars associations from prohibiting specified water-saving landscaping. California's Civil Code § 4735 prevents an HOA from prohibiting low-water or drought-tolerant plants, Florida's Statutes § 373.185 protects Florida-friendly landscaping, and Texas's Property Code § 202.007 limits bans on drought-resistant landscaping, rain barrels, and efficient irrigation. New York has adopted no counterpart to any of these. The verified finding for New York is that no such statute exists, and none should be inferred from the general use-restriction or architectural-control provisions of the Condominium Act, which don't mention the subject.¹

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

New York allocates water under the riparian doctrine, overlaid with a water-withdrawal permitting program administered by the Department of Environmental Conservation under the Environmental Conservation Law, Article 15, Title 15. That law requires all non-agricultural water-withdrawal systems with the capacity to withdraw 100,000 gallons per day or more, the "threshold volume," to obtain a Water Withdrawal Permit, implemented through 6 NYCRR Part 601.⁹ This body of law governs who may withdraw water and in what quantity. It's background context only and doesn't bear on whether an HOA may regulate a homeowner's landscaping; it shouldn't be read as constraining or empowering HOA landscaping authority.

New York manages drought through the DEC-led State Drought Management Task Force, which issues advisories at four levels: watch, warning, emergency, and disaster. There are no statewide mandatory water-use restrictions at the watch or warning levels; residents are encouraged to conserve voluntarily, and the advisories are directed primarily at public and private water suppliers.⁵ Individual localities may also declare their own watches: New York City, for example, has directed city agencies to develop water-conservation measures during a citywide drought watch.¹⁴ No state drought-declaration mechanism reaches private landscaping enforcement or suspends an HOA's ability to enforce its own rules against dormant or unwatered lawns.¹⁵

New York has no statute addressing rainwater harvesting or graywater reuse as against HOAs. Rainwater and graywater systems are addressed through the state plumbing code, which the Department of State administers and local building inspectors enforce; this is a building-code matter, not an HOA-authority provision.⁴ The search for any HOA-specific rainwater or graywater provision in the Real Property Law returns nothing.¹

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

For a New York community, the primary source of any water-related landscaping rule is the recorded declaration and the association's architectural-control provisions. For condominiums, the Condominium Act supplies the general use-restriction and architectural framework, requiring unit owners to comply with the by-laws and rules and permitting the board to enforce them, but the substantive landscaping standards themselves are set in the declaration and by-laws, not in the statute.¹ For planned communities, there's no comprehensive New York statute, so the operative framework is the CC&Rs plus the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law, which supplies corporate formalities for associations organized as nonprofits.¹¹

Local water utilities are the practical source of any owner-facing water-use rule. The New York City Department of Environmental Protection, for example, imposes year-round water-use restrictions providing that "the use of a hose, automatic sprinkler or other means to water lawns or gardens is prohibited between the hours of 11:00 a.m. and 7:00 p.m.," and, from November 1 through March 31, prohibiting lawn and garden watering with City water "except for the watering of non-turf plants with a hand-held container."⁷ Utilities elsewhere in the state impose their own measures, including odd/even day irrigation schedules.⁸ These are utility rules, not state statutes, and they operate independently of the HOA framework. The operational takeaway is that a manager looking for "New York 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.

Section 3: What the framework requires of HOAs

A. Landscaping approval and architectural review

A New York association's power to approve or reject water-related landscaping changes derives from its declaration and, for condominiums, its by-laws, not from a state water-conservation statute — contractual authority, and, for condominiums, statutory authority under the Condominium Act, which requires unit-owner compliance with by-laws and rules but leaves the substantive standards to the declaration.¹ For planned communities, architectural review is contractual, because New York has no comprehensive planned-community statute.¹¹

B. Drought response and watering restrictions

Any mandatory watering restriction a homeowner faces comes from a local water utility or municipality, not from the HOA statute or a state drought rule — for example, the NYC DEP outdoor-watering restrictions.⁷ State drought advisories are voluntary and impose no enforceable landscaping mandate on associations or owners.⁵ Where a CC&R requires a green, irrigated lawn while a local utility restricts outdoor watering during a dry period, the conflict is a contract-versus-local-rule tension resolved under general law, not under any water-conservation statute.⁷

C. Rule adoption and disclosure

An association adopts and amends landscaping rules through the procedures in its own governing documents and, for nonprofit associations, the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law.¹¹ For condominiums, by-laws and rules are filed and enforceable under the Condominium Act, and rules must be consistent with the declaration and by-laws.¹

D. Enforcement limits and conflicts

New York courts review association enforcement decisions under the business judgment rule articulated in Levandusky v. One Fifth Avenue Apartment Corp., which shields a board's action so long as it acts within its authority, in good faith, and in furtherance of the association's purposes.⁶ There's no water-conservation statute that overrides a validly adopted CC&R landscaping restriction, so a homeowner seeking to install xeriscape, native plantings, or artificial turf against a contrary CC&R has no state-statutory protection to invoke and must rely on the governing documents and the business-judgment framework.^1,6

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

Low Impact Landscaping Rights Act, A1890/S7358, 2025-2026 session.

Following the veto, Senator Rachel May reintroduced the measure in the Senate in February 2026 as S9133, which adds a new Article 9-F to the Real Property Law with substance materially similar to the vetoed bill; the Assembly companion is A10102, Glick.¹⁰ Both note the prior-session history as "2025: A.1890 Veto memo 37."¹⁰ As of the last verified date neither had passed either house, so the reintroduction doesn't change the current answer.¹⁰

A separate bill, S1690, the New York native plants program, which defines xeriscape and directs the DEC to promote native plants, applies to state and municipal public land and doesn't address HOA authority; it was in the Senate Finance Committee as of May 2026 and is noted here only to prevent confusion with the HOA measure.¹⁶

B. Recent appellate rulings

No New York appellate ruling within the past 36 months turned on HOA authority over water-efficient or drought-related landscaping specifically. The controlling appellate authority on association enforcement generally remains Levandusky v. One Fifth Avenue Apartment Corp., Court of Appeals, 1990, which established the business judgment rule for cooperative and condominium boards and continues to govern challenges to landscaping and architectural enforcement.⁶ Trial-level HOA disputes in New York proceed in the Supreme Court, the trial court of general jurisdiction, appeals go to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court, and further review lies with the New York Court of Appeals.

C. Active legislative debates

The reintroduced Low Impact Landscaping Rights Act, S9133/A10102, is the only active proposal that would change New York's treatment of HOA water-relevant landscaping; it remained in committee as of the last verified date.¹⁰

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

On water conservation specifically, states cluster differently than they do on general governing-statute coverage. The first group has statutes that limit HOA authority over water-efficient landscaping, concentrated in drought-exposed jurisdictions such as California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, Florida, and Utah. A second group has partial or emerging provisions. A third group is silent and CC&R-governed, and it includes most Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states and New York.¹ For a multi-state operator, the practical implication is that a firm accustomed to California's or Nevada's xeriscape-protection rules shouldn't assume any equivalent applies in New York, where the governing documents and the local water utility control. New York shows some legislative interest but no enacted momentum: the one bill that reached the Governor's desk was vetoed in 2025 and reintroduced in 2026, and no water-conservation landscaping statute is in force.^2,10

HOA Weekly's New York water-conservation coverage updates quarterly as the legislature and the courts act. For New York communities, the practically controlling water rules are the recorded declaration and the local water utility. Federal frameworks apply to New York 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 York State Senate, Real Property Law Article 9-B (Condominium Act) ↩
2. New York State Senate, Assembly Bill A1890 (2025-2026) ↩
3. New York State Senate, Senate Bill S7358 (2025-2026) ↩
4. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Potential Reuses of Greywater and Reclaimed Wastewater in New York State ↩
5. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Drought ↩
6. New York State Unified Court System, Levandusky v. One Fifth Ave. Apartment Corp. (1990) ↩
7. NYC Rules, § 20-08 Water Use Restrictions and Fire Hydrant Use (NYC DEP) ↩
8. Liberty Utilities (New York Water), Irrigation Guidelines ↩
9. New York State Senate, Environmental Conservation Law Article 15, Title 15 (Water Supply / withdrawals) ↩
10. New York State Senate, Senate Bill S9133 (2025-2026) ↩
11. New York State Senate, Not-for-Profit Corporation Law ↩
12. New York State Assembly, Assemblymember Deborah J. Glick newsroom (statement on veto of A.1890) ↩
13. New York State Senate, Real Property Law § 342 (Solar Rights Act) ↩
14. City of New York, Mayor Adams Issues Citywide Drought Watch (NYC DEP) ↩
15. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, Current Drought Conditions ↩
16. New York State Senate, Senate Bill S1690A (2025-2026) ↩