Oregon HOA Water Conservation

Oregon is a statute state for HOA water conservation, not a silent one. ORS 100.023, condominiums, and ORS 94.779, planned communities, void association irrigation requirements during drought triggers and let associations require xeriscape.

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

Oregon, unlike most Pacific Northwest states, has enacted statutory provisions that reach HOA authority over water-related landscaping. Two parallel sections, ORS 100.023 for condominiums and ORS 94.779 for planned communities, make any governing-document, landscaping, or architectural-guideline provision that imposes irrigation requirements on an owner or the association void and unenforceable while a drought trigger is in effect, and they authorize associations to adopt rules that reduce irrigation or replace turf with xeriscape.^1,2 These provisions were added by 2017 Oregon Laws chapter 423 and amended by 2022 Oregon Laws chapter 86, Senate Bill 1536, whose changes apply to governing-document provisions adopted before, on, or after the 2022 Act's effective date of March 23, 2022.¹¹ They're narrower than the drought-landscaping protections in California, Colorado, or Texas: they suspend irrigation mandates during drought and empower associations to require xeriscape, rather than granting owners an unconditional right to install water-efficient landscaping over an association's objection. Outside those provisions, water-related landscaping rules come from the recorded declaration, the association's architectural-control process, the Condominium Act or Planned Community Act framework, Nonprofit Corporation Act formalities for incorporated associations, and local water-utility rules.¹²

Oregon's prior-appropriation water-rights system, administered by the Oregon Water Resources Department, governs who may withdraw and use water and has no bearing on whether an HOA may regulate a homeowner's landscaping.⁸ Nationally, Oregon sits among the states with a limited, drought-conditional statute, between the full drought-landscaping-protection states — California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, Florida — and the fully silent, CC&R-governed states.¹³ What follows sets out the statutory text, the related water and drought framework, and where the operative rules actually live.

Section 2: The statutory and regulatory framework

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

A search of the Oregon Revised Statutes confirms that Oregon does address HOA authority over water-efficient landscaping, through two mirror provisions. ORS 100.023(1) provides that a provision of a condominium's governing document or landscaping or architectural guidelines that imposes irrigation requirements on a unit owner or the association is void and unenforceable while any of four conditions is in effect: a Governor's declaration of severe, continuing drought in the political subdivision where the condominium sits; a Water Resources Commission finding of such drought; a local ordinance requiring conservation or curtailment of water use; or a rule the association itself adopts to reduce or eliminate irrigation.¹ ORS 94.779(1) applies the identical rule to planned communities.² Subsection (2) of each section then authorizes associations, notwithstanding any contrary governing-document irrigation requirement, to adopt rules that reduce or eliminate irrigation, permit or require replacement of turf or other landscape vegetation with xeriscape, require prior review and approval of xeriscape plans, and require best practices to minimize irrigation of common-element turf.^1,2

The design of these provisions is worth stating precisely. They do two things: they suspend HOA power to compel watering when drought triggers are active, and they empower associations to move toward xeriscape. They don't, by their terms, grant an owner an affirmative, all-weather right to install drought-tolerant landscaping over an association's objection when no trigger is active. That distinguishes Oregon from the affirmative-protection states. California's Civil Code section 4735(a) makes a governing-document provision "void and unenforceable" if it "prohibits, or includes conditions that have the effect of prohibiting, the use of low water-using plants as a group or as a replacement of existing turf" or the use of artificial turf, and section 4735(c) bars fines for reduced watering once "the Governor has declared a state of emergency due to drought."¹³ Colorado's Senate Bill 23-178, 2023, amending C.R.S. section 38-33.3-106.5, bars associations from prohibiting "the use of xeriscape, nonvegetative turf grass, or drought-tolerant vegetative landscapes," forbids unreasonably requiring hardscape on more than 20 percent of a landscaped area, requires allowing an option that consists of at least 80 percent drought-tolerant plantings, and requires associations to develop at least three preapproved garden designs.¹³ Texas Property Code section 202.007(a) provides that an association "may not include or enforce a provision in a dedicatory instrument that prohibits or restricts a property owner from ... using drought-resistant landscaping or water-conserving natural turf," and section 202.007(b) makes a violating provision "void."¹³ Oregon hasn't adopted an equivalent owner-side entitlement. Its statute is drought-conditional on the enforcement side and association-empowering on the design side.

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

Oregon allocates surface water and groundwater under the prior-appropriation doctrine, administered by the Oregon Water Resources Department under ORS Chapters 536 to 540. This is water-allocation law and doesn't bear on HOA landscaping authority; it's included here only as background.⁸ The Governor declares county drought emergencies under ORS 536.740 on the recommendation of the Drought Readiness Council, which unlocks emergency water-management tools such as expedited permit review.⁶ A Governor's drought declaration is one of the triggers that voids HOA irrigation requirements under ORS 100.023 and 94.779, so the drought-declaration mechanism connects to HOA enforcement, but only through those two sections; the declaration itself doesn't otherwise reach private landscaping.^1,14

On rainwater and graywater, the search result is that Oregon permits and regulates the systems but doesn't shield them from HOA rules. Rooftop rainwater harvested from an artificial impervious surface is exempt from the water-rights permit system under ORS 537.141, and the Building Codes Division regulates the systems through plumbing and building requirements.³ Graywater reuse is legal and permitted through the Department of Environmental Quality under Oregon Administrative Rules chapter 340, division 53, in three tiers.⁴ Neither body of law, by its terms, limits an HOA's authority to restrict or prohibit rainwater-collection or graywater structures on an owner's lot. These are systems-regulation regimes, not homeowner protections against associations.

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

For most Oregon communities, the operative water-related landscaping rules come from the recorded declaration and the association's architectural-control process, now overlaid by the ORS 100.023 and 94.779 limits. The Condominium Act supplies the general use-restriction and architectural framework for condominiums; non-condominium planned communities fall under the Planned Community Act, whose declarations commonly include architectural controls over fencing, landscaping, and materials under ORS 94.580.⁵ The statutory irrigation-and-xeriscape provisions sit on top of that contractual layer and override conflicting governing-document irrigation mandates when triggered.^1,2

Local water utilities are the practical source of any owner-facing water-use rule. The Portland Water Bureau operates a curtailment framework under Portland City Code Title 21.80 and a seasonal conservation program; per its 2025 Seasonal Water Supply Augmentation and Contingency Plan, "the city last imposed mandatory restrictions in the summer of 1992 when the CSSWF was not available for use."⁷ The Eugene Water and Electric Board runs an annual, mandatory summer Conservation Season.¹⁵ The City of Salem manages outdoor use through its Drought Management Plan and Water Management and Conservation Plan.¹⁶ These utility measures operate independently of the HOA framework, but a local ordinance requiring water conservation or curtailment is itself a trigger that voids HOA irrigation requirements under ORS 100.023 and 94.779. The takeaway for a manager searching for "Oregon HOA water conservation law" is that the rulebook is now three-layered: the two ORS sections, the declaration, and the local water utility.

Section 3: What the framework requires of HOAs

A. Landscaping approval and architectural review

An Oregon association may require prior review and approval of an owner's plan to replace turf or other vegetation with xeriscape. This power is granted by statute, ORS 100.023(2)(c) and 94.779(2)(c), and operates notwithstanding contrary governing-document irrigation requirements.^1,2 General architectural controls over landscaping, fencing, and materials continue to derive from the recorded declaration, with the Planned Community Act contemplating such controls at ORS 94.580.⁵

B. Drought response and watering restrictions

An association may not enforce a governing-document, landscaping, or architectural-guideline provision that imposes irrigation requirements while a Governor's drought declaration, a Water Resources Commission drought finding, a local water-curtailment ordinance, or an association irrigation-reduction rule is in effect — a mandatory rule under ORS 100.023(1) and 94.779(1) that a declaration cannot vary.^1,2 An association may also adopt its own rules requiring reduction or elimination of irrigation and best-practice reduction of common-element turf, under ORS 100.023(2) and 94.779(2).¹

C. Rule adoption and disclosure

Associations organized as nonprofit corporations must observe the meeting, notice, and recordkeeping formalities of the Nonprofit Corporation Act, ORS Chapter 65, and the governance procedures of Chapters 94 and 100 when adopting or amending landscaping rules.¹⁷ Any xeriscape or irrigation rule an association adopts under ORS 100.023(2) or 94.779(2) should be adopted through the association's standard rulemaking process so that it's enforceable against owners.¹

D. Enforcement limits and conflicts

The most common conflict arises when CC&Rs require a green, irrigated lawn while a local utility imposes a watering restriction or the Governor declares drought. Under ORS 100.023(1) and 94.779(1), the CC&R irrigation requirement becomes void and unenforceable for the duration of the trigger, so the local rule prevails.^1,7 Where no trigger is active, a green-lawn or anti-lawn-removal covenant remains a matter of contract enforceable under general law, subject to the association's standard notice and hearing procedures.¹²

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills (past 24 months)

One bill in the July 2024 to July 2026 window touched the two water-conservation sections. HB 4080, 2026 regular session, the "balcony solar" bill, would have amended ORS 94.779 and 100.023 to add portable solar photovoltaic devices to the list of items associations may not prohibit; it didn't change the irrigation or xeriscape provisions.⁹

B. Recent appellate rulings (past 36 months)

No qualifying Oregon appellate ruling addressing HOA or condominium authority over water-related landscaping, xeriscape, turf, or irrigation turned up in the July 2023 to July 2026 window. Oregon architectural-enforcement litigation does reach the Court of Appeals — for example, disputes over an architectural review committee's discretion under recorded CC&Rs — but no published opinion in the window turned on the water-conservation sections. Oregon trial-level disputes proceed through the Circuit Courts, with appeals to the Oregon Court of Appeals and discretionary review by the Oregon Supreme Court.¹⁸

C. Active legislative debates

No active proposal to broaden Oregon's HOA water-conservation landscaping provisions into a California- or Colorado-style owner-side entitlement turned up as pending in the 2026 session record.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

In a water-conservation-specific clustering, which differs from the governing-statute clustering, Oregon occupies a middle position. The first group comprises states with statutes that affirmatively limit HOA authority over water-efficient landscaping, concentrated in drought-exposed jurisdictions such as California, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado, Texas, Florida, and Utah. The third group comprises fully silent, CC&R-governed states, which include most of the Pacific Northwest. Oregon sits in the second, partial group: it suspends HOA irrigation mandates during drought triggers and empowers associations to require xeriscape, but it doesn't grant owners an unconditional right to water-efficient landscaping. For a multi-state operator, the practical implication is that a firm accustomed to California's Civil Code section 4735 or Nevada's drought-landscaping rules shouldn't assume the same owner-side entitlement applies in Oregon; the Oregon provisions are narrower and drought-conditional. Oregon showed no legislative momentum toward a broader owner-side statute in the 2026 session.

HOA Weekly's Oregon water-conservation coverage updates quarterly as the legislature and the courts act. For Oregon communities, the practically controlling water rules are the two ORS sections, the recorded declaration, and the local water utility. Federal frameworks apply to Oregon 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. ORS 100.023, Void and unenforceable provisions of condominium governing document, Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 100 ↩
2. ORS 94.779, Unenforceability of certain requirements and restrictions, Oregon Revised Statutes Chapter 94 ↩
3. Oregon Building Codes Division, Smart Guide: Rainwater Harvesting; ORS 537.141 ↩
4. Oregon DEQ, Graywater program (OAR chapter 340, division 53) ↩
5. ORS 94.580, declaration and architectural-control provisions ↩
6. Oregon Water Resources Department, Governor Drought Declaration Process (ORS 536.740) ↩
7. Portland City Code Title 21.80, Water Curtailment Policy; Portland Water Bureau 2025 Seasonal Water Supply Augmentation and Contingency Plan (utility rule) ↩
8. Oregon Water Resources Department, water-rights administration (background) ↩
9. HB 4080 (2026 regular session), measure overview, olis.oregonlegislature.gov ↩
10. HB 4080 measure history (public hearing Feb. 5, 2026; in committee upon adjournment Mar. 6, 2026) ↩
11. ORS 94.779 source note (2017 c.423 §7; 2022 c.86 §3; applicability from March 23, 2022) ↩
12. Oregon Planned Community Act, ORS Chapter 94 (declaration and governance framework) ↩
13. Colorado SB 23-178, C.R.S. 38-33.3-106.5 (comparison); see also Cal. Civ. Code 4735 and Tex. Prop. Code 202.007 ↩
14. Governor's Office newsroom, 2026 county drought declarations ↩
15. Eugene Water and Electric Board, water conservation program (utility rule) ↩
16. City of Salem, drinking water and Drought Management Plan (utility rule) ↩
17. Oregon Nonprofit Corporation Act, ORS Chapter 65 ↩
18. Oregon Judicial Department, Court of Appeals opinions ↩