Ohio HOA Water Conservation

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

Ohio has no statute limiting a homeowners association's authority over water-efficient landscaping. A search of the Ohio Condominium Act, ORC Ch. 5311, and the Ohio Planned Community Law, ORC Ch. 5312, returns no provision addressing drought-tolerant or xeriscape landscaping, native or low-water plantings, artificial turf, water-efficient irrigation, rainwater harvesting, or graywater reuse.¹ What governs instead is the recorded declaration and the association's architectural-control process, with the Condominium Act supplying the framework for condominiums, the Planned Community Law supplying it for planned communities, and the Ohio Nonprofit Corporation Law, ORC Ch. 1702, supplying corporate formalities.¹¹ Any practical limit on outdoor watering is far more likely to originate with a local water utility than with the state.⁷

State water-resource law is a separate body of law from HOA landscaping authority: Ohio's riparian reasonable-use doctrine and its water-withdrawal registration program, administered by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Water Resources, govern how water may be withdrawn and used, not what an association may require of an owner's yard.⁸

This places Ohio in the large group of silent, CC&R-governed states, distinct from drought-exposed jurisdictions such as California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, and Florida, which have enacted statutes restricting HOA authority over water-wise landscaping.¹² What follows sets out the statutory and regulatory framework, what that framework requires of associations, and the recent legislative and judicial record.

Section 2: The statutory and regulatory framework

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

A review of the Ohio Revised Code finds no statute that restricts an Ohio association's authority over drought-tolerant or xeriscape landscaping, native or low-water plantings, artificial turf, or water-efficient irrigation. The two chapters where such a provision would appear are the Ohio Condominium Act, ORC Ch. 5311, and the Ohio Planned Community Law, ORC Ch. 5312, and neither contains one.¹ The operative provisions instead direct owners to comply with the declaration, bylaws, and rules: ORC 5311.19 for condominiums and ORC 5312.13 for planned communities each make covenants, conditions, and restrictions enforceable through a civil action for damages, injunctive relief, and attorney's fees.¹³ Those statutes protect the enforceability of recorded restrictions; they don't carve out water-wise landscaping from an association's reach.

That the Ohio legislature knows how to create a landscaping-adjacent carve-out is clear from its solar-access provisions. Substitute Senate Bill 61 of the 134th General Assembly, signed by Governor Mike DeWine on June 14, 2022, and effective September 13, 2022, added ORC 5311.192 and ORC 5312.16. Under ORC 5312.16, "[u]nless specifically prohibited in the declaration, any owner may install a solar energy collection device on the owner's dwelling unit or other location within the owner's lot," while the association retains authority to set "reasonable restrictions concerning the size, place, and manner of placement."¹⁴ No comparable provision exists for water-conserving landscaping. The absence is therefore a considered silence, not an oversight to be read around.

For contrast, several states have enacted the kind of provision Ohio lacks. Colorado's Common Interest Ownership Act, as amended by Senate Bill 23-178, signed by Governor Polis in 2023, amending C.R.S. § 38-33.3-106.5, provides that "an association may not prohibit the use of xeriscape, nonvegetative turf grass, or drought-tolerant vegetative landscapes to provide ground covering to property for which a unit owner is responsible," and it bars unreasonably requiring hardscape on more than 20 percent of the landscaped area.¹² Florida's Florida-friendly landscaping statute, Fla. Stat. § 373.185, and California's drought-landscaping protection, Cal. Civ. Code § 4735, operate similarly. Ohio has adopted nothing of the kind, and no primary source shows otherwise.

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

Ohio's water-resource framework is administered by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Division of Water Resources, under ORC Ch. 1521. Any owner of a facility able to withdraw more than 100,000 gallons per day must register with the Division under ORC 1521.16, but the registration is not a permit and imposes no restriction on withdrawals.⁶ Ohio follows a riparian reasonable-use doctrine, codified at ORC 1521.17, which weighs the interests of competing users under factors drawn from the Restatement (Second) of Torts.⁸ This body of law governs water withdrawal and allocation. It doesn't bear on an association's authority over an owner's landscaping and is presented here only as background.

No state drought-declaration mechanism reaches private landscaping enforcement. Ohio experienced its most intense drought in 25 years in 2024: per NIDIS, "[i]n August 2024, parts of Ohio reached Exceptional Drought (D4)," the first time Ohio had areas of D4 on the U.S. Drought Monitor since it began in 2000, and by September 24, 2024, 87.7 percent of the state was in drought.¹⁵ The USDA Farm Service Agency designated 22 Ohio counties as primary natural disaster areas on September 3, 2024.¹⁶ The state response consisted of USDA disaster designations and ODNR requests that residents conserve water voluntarily; nothing in that response suspended or altered HOA enforcement against dormant or unwatered lawns.¹⁶

Ohio also has no statute addressing rainwater harvesting or graywater reuse as against HOAs. Rainwater collection is lawful and encouraged by the Ohio EPA as a stormwater practice, while private water systems, including cisterns used for potable supply, are regulated for public-health reasons by the Ohio Department of Health under Ohio Administrative Code Chapter 3701-28.⁴ None of that framework limits an association's power to regulate the appearance or placement of rain barrels or cisterns under its CC&Rs.¹

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

For an Ohio community, the rulebook for water-related landscaping is the recorded declaration and the association's architectural-control provisions. The Planned Community Law authorizes an owners association, through its board, to adopt and enforce rules regulating the maintenance, modification, and appearance of property "as the declaration provides," and to enforce all covenants, conditions, and restrictions.⁵ The Condominium Act supplies the parallel enforcement and rulemaking framework for condominiums.¹⁷ Both statutes are silent on water conservation, so whether xeriscape, artificial turf, or native plantings are permitted is a question of what a given declaration says.¹

Local water utilities are the practical source of any owner-facing water-use rule. The City of Columbus tells customers there are no citywide outdoor-watering restrictions under normal conditions but issues conservation calls to action during dry periods.⁷ Greater Cincinnati Water Works, which "supplies more than 43 billion gallons of water a year to about 240,000 residential and commercial accounts, representing more than 1.1 million customers," issues voluntary or mandatory conservation advisories when Ohio River flows drop.¹⁸ These are utility rules that operate independently of the HOA framework. The operational takeaway: a manager searching for "Ohio HOA water conservation law" will find the controlling rules in the declaration and in the local utility's conservation program, not in an HOA-specific water statute.

Section 3: What the framework requires of HOAs

A. Landscaping approval and architectural review

An owner who wants to install xeriscape, artificial turf, native plantings, or a rain barrel must look to the declaration and any design-review procedure, because the statutes require compliance with recorded restrictions but don't create a landscaping right. The Planned Community Law confirms the association may adopt and enforce appearance rules the declaration provides, ORC 5312.06, a power that may be shaped or limited by the declaration.⁵ For condominiums, the board's rulemaking and enforcement authority runs through ORC 5311.081.¹⁷

B. Drought response and watering restrictions

Any binding outdoor-watering limit an owner faces comes from the local water utility, not from state HOA law. Columbus issues drought-period conservation requests, and Greater Cincinnati Water Works issues advisories tied to river flows.⁷ The Ohio Condominium Act and Planned Community Law contain no drought provision, so an association isn't statutorily required to relax lawn-appearance enforcement during a drought.¹

C. Rule adoption and disclosure

Amendments to a declaration or bylaws generally require the consent of 75 percent of owners unless the governing documents specify otherwise, and no amendment is effective until recorded, ORC 5312.05 — a default rule the declaration may vary.¹⁹ The Condominium Act supplies default enforcement-assessment procedures, including written notice and an opportunity to cure or be heard, before a charge is imposed, ORC 5311.081(C).²⁰

D. Enforcement limits and conflicts

Where a declaration requires a green, irrigated lawn while a local utility imposes a watering restriction, the tension is between a private contract and a local rule, to be resolved under general law and the governing documents, not under a water-conservation statute, because Ohio has none.¹ The Planned Community Law provides that where a governing document conflicts with the statute, the governing document controls, and the statute fills gaps only where the document is silent, ORC 5312.15.²¹ Some consumer-facing websites assert that an Ohio statute — for example, a misattributed ORC 5311.18 — bars HOAs from enforcing lawn-appearance rules during utility conservation orders; the Revised Code doesn't support that assertion, and ORC 5311.18 in fact governs liens for common expenses.²²

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

No bill in the past 24 months turned up that would create or affect HOA authority over water-efficient landscaping, drought enforcement, rainwater harvesting, or graywater reuse. The closest landscaping-adjacent enactment is House Bill 364 of the 135th General Assembly, which concerns noncommercial native-seed sharing and doesn't touch HOA authority.

B. Recent appellate rulings

No Ohio appellate ruling in the past 36 months turned on water conservation, xeriscape, drought, or lawn-watering enforcement by an association specifically. One in-window decision bears on association landscaping and architectural enforcement generally.

C. Active legislative debates

No active bill directed at HOA authority over water-efficient landscaping, drought enforcement, rainwater, or graywater turned up in the current General Assembly. Trial-level HOA disputes proceed in the Ohio Courts of Common Pleas, with appeals to the Ohio Courts of Appeals, twelve appellate districts, and discretionary review by the Supreme Court of Ohio.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

On water conservation specifically, states cluster differently than they do on governing-statute structure. A 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 Great Lakes and Ohio Valley states, among them Ohio.¹² For a multi-state operator, the practical implication is direct: a firm accustomed to Colorado or Florida water-conservation landscaping mandates shouldn't assume any equivalent applies in Ohio, where the declaration and the local utility control. Ohio shows no legislative momentum toward such a statute; no qualifying bill turned up in the past 24 months.⁹

HOA Weekly's Ohio water-conservation coverage updates quarterly as the legislature and the courts act. For Ohio communities, the practically controlling water rules are the recorded declaration and the local water utility. Federal frameworks apply to Ohio 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. Ohio Revised Code Chapter 5311 (Condominium Property) and Chapter 5312 (Ohio Planned Community Law), which contain no provision on water conservation or water-efficient landscaping ↩
2. Ohio Revised Code Chapter 5312, Ohio Planned Community Law (no xeriscape, artificial turf, or drought-landscaping provision) ↩
3. Ohio Revised Code § 5312.06 (powers and duties of owners association; no native-plant carve-out) ↩
4. Ohio Administrative Code Rule 3701-28-12 (private water systems; rainwater cisterns), Ohio Department of Health ↩
5. Ohio Revised Code § 5312.06 (adopt and enforce rules regulating appearance as the declaration provides; enforce all covenants, conditions, and restrictions) ↩
6. Ohio Revised Code § 1521.16 (water-withdrawal facility registration, ODNR Division of Water Resources) ↩
7. City of Columbus, Division of Public Utilities, High Bills & Outdoor Seasonal Watering (utility rule, not a statute) ↩
8. Ohio Revised Code § 1521.17 (reasonableness of use of water; riparian reasonable-use doctrine) — background only ↩
9. WOSU Public Media, "New Ohio law makes it easier to collect and share native plant seeds" (House Bill 364, signed Jan. 8, 2025) ↩
10. Ohio Revised Code Chapters 5311 and 5312, reviewed via codes.ohio.gov as of July 20, 2026 ↩
11. Ohio Revised Code § 5312.03(B) (owners association organized as a nonprofit corporation under Chapter 1702) ↩
12. Colorado General Assembly, SB23-178 (Water-wise Landscaping in HOA Communities), amending Colo. Rev. Stat. § 38-33.3-106.5 — comparative example ↩
13. Ohio Revised Code § 5311.19 (compliance with deed restrictions, declaration, bylaws); see also § 5312.13 (compliance with covenants; action for damages) ↩
14. Ohio Revised Code § 5312.16 (solar energy collection devices) and § 5311.192, added by Sub. S.B. 61, 134th General Assembly, signed June 14, 2022, effective Sept. 13, 2022 ↩
15. NIDIS/Drought.gov, "Early Warning in Action: 2024's Record Drought in Ohio" (Aug. 2024 D4 Exceptional Drought; 87.7% of state in drought Sept. 24, 2024) ↩
16. USDA Farm Service Agency, "Twenty-Two Ohio Counties Declared a Primary Natural Disaster Area Due to Drought" (Sept. 3, 2024) ↩
17. Ohio Revised Code § 5311.081 (powers and duties of the board of directors; enforcement) ↩
18. Greater Cincinnati Water Works, Water Quality Reports (service-area volume and customer figures; utility conservation advisories) ↩
19. Ohio Revised Code § 5312.05 (amendments to declaration or bylaws; 75 percent consent; recording) ↩
20. Ohio Revised Code § 5311.081(C) (notice, hearing, and cure before enforcement assessment) ↩
21. Ohio Revised Code § 5312.15 (construction of chapter; governing document controls a specific conflict, statute controls if document is silent) ↩
22. Ohio Revised Code § 5311.18 (lien for common expenses; not a landscaping-enforcement limit) ↩
23. Francis v. Signature of Solon Home Owners Assn. Bd. of Trustees, 2024-Ohio-6017 (Ohio Ct. App., 8th Dist. Dec. 26, 2024) ↩