What a board may do, notwithstanding its own documents

ORS 94.779(2) is the other half of the statute, and it is a grant of power rather than a limitation:

“(a) Require the reduction or elimination of irrigation on any portion of the planned community. (b) Permit or require the replacement of turf or other landscape vegetation with xeriscape on any portion of the planned community. (c) Require prior review and approval by the association or its designee of any plans by an owner or the association to replace turf or other landscape vegetation with xeriscape. (d) Require the use of best practices and industry standards to reduce the landscaped areas and minimize irrigation of existing landscaped areas of common property where turf is necessary for the function of the landscaped area.”²

A board in a declared county can mandate xeriscape conversion without amending the declaration. That is a significant power, and paragraph (d) makes clear the Legislature expected some turf to stay — the standard for common property is minimising irrigation of areas where turf is “necessary for the function of the landscaped area,” not eliminating it.

Note also paragraph (c): the board keeps architectural review over an owner's xeriscape conversion. The statute suspends irrigation requirements; it does not suspend the review process for landscape changes.

What the statute does not do

Three limits worth being precise about.

It voids provisions imposing irrigation requirements. It does not void a general standard requiring a lot to be maintained in a neat and orderly condition, nor a prohibition on bare dirt or weeds. An owner who stops watering under paragraph (a) is protected as to the watering; an owner whose yard becomes a fire hazard or a weed bed is not obviously protected as to that.

It is time-limited by its own terms — “while any of the following is in effect.” When the drought declaration expires, the covenant revives. It is not repealed, amended, or permanently unenforceable. A board that has been telling owners the clause is gone should be telling them it is suspended.

It is geographic. The trigger is a declaration covering “a political subdivision within which the planned community is located.” Fifteen Oregon counties are not under a declaration, and associations there are unaffected unless a local curtailment ordinance applies.

Local curtailment is the underused trigger

The City of Vernonia issued a mandatory water curtailment notice on August 20, 2026, triggered when Rock Creek streamflow falls to 12 cubic feet per second or less. Its terms:

“Irrigation, sprinkling, and/or watering is only permitted by residences west of State Avenue on even-numbered calendar days” — and on odd-numbered days east of State Avenue. The notice also bans vehicle, boat and aircraft washing except at commercial recycling facilities; washing driveways, sidewalks and hard surfaces; filling pools and hot tubs; decorative fountains and ponds; serving free tap water at restaurants and hotels; and “irrigation of golf courses except tees and greens.” It runs “until streamflow has increased above trigger levels for a continuous 24 hours.”⁴

The decorative-pond and golf-course clauses land directly on association common property. And the odd/even geographic split is the kind of rule a landscape contractor working a fixed weekly schedule will breach by default — which is the association's contract, and the association's problem.

Bend's standing rules run on the same pattern: “Even addresses are allowed to irrigate on even-numbered calendar days. Odd addresses are allowed to irrigate on odd-numbered calendar days,” with no irrigation between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. and no runoff into streets or storm drains.⁵

A board's options

Check whether the county is under a declaration or the city under a curtailment ordinance, and put the answer in the minutes with the date. Then stop enforcing irrigation requirements, and tell owners why — because an association that fines an owner for not watering during a declared drought is enforcing a provision the Legislature has declared void. Our Oregon water conservation and Oregon fining authority pages cover both halves of that.

What to watch next

The interaction with the State Fire Marshal's defensible space model code. Suspending irrigation requirements and requiring a five-foot noncombustible zone push in the same direction on landscaping, and Oregon now has statutes producing both effects without any provision reconciling them.

And be careful with one widely repeated claim. House Bill 4080 in the 2026 session is often described as a drought-irrigation bill for governing documents. It was not. It amended ORS 94.779 and ORS 100.023 to add a single new subsection on portable solar photovoltaic devices; Oregon reprints an entire section when a bill amends it, and the irrigation and xeriscape subsections appear in that bill unchanged because they were already law. The drought provisions described here have been on the books for years and did not depend on House Bill 4080, which died in committee at sine die on March 6, 2026 without a vote.