The two conditions read together

Subsections (b)(1) and (b)(2) are joined by “and,” and the second is phrased as “before the 60th day after the date a residential watering restriction… is lifted.” Read as a single protected window, the bar runs from the start of the restriction through the 59th day after it is lifted. The 60-day tail exists because turf does not recover the day the restriction ends; the drafting choice tracks the biology rather than the ordinance.

The reasonableness condition inside subsection (b)(1)

The restriction must be one “under which discolored or brown vegetation or turf could reasonably result.” That qualifier does real work. A restriction that bans car washing or ornamental fountain use, but leaves residential irrigation untouched, would not on its face satisfy the condition, because nothing about it makes browning a reasonable outcome. The section is keyed to restrictions on irrigation of residential vegetation or turf, and its definition in subsection (a) says so directly.

Who must impose the restriction

The definition names “a municipality, water utility, or other wholesale or retail water supplier.” In Texas that reaches a long list of entities beyond city halls — municipal utility districts, water control and improvement districts, water supply corporations, and river authorities operating as wholesale suppliers. What the definition does not reach is a voluntary conservation appeal. The restriction must be “mandated,” and it must be “temporary” and tied to “a period of drought.”

What the section leaves untouched

Section 202.008 suspends a fining power. It does not suspend the covenant, and it does not reach any other enforcement mechanism. An association's architectural standards, its landscaping specifications, and its other remedies operate on their own terms; what the statute withdraws for the protected period is the fine.

It is also confined to vegetation and turf condition. A covenant about fence maintenance, parking, or paint colour is outside the section entirely, and a drought does not extend the protection to those.

Where it sits among the 2025 landscaping bills

HB 517 was the narrow survivor of a broader effort. House Bill 3995, which would have gone further on landscaping and water-conservation practices, cleared committee on 2 May 2025 and went to the Calendars Committee on 10 May 2025 without ever being set for a floor vote.³ Several other turf and drought-tolerant landscaping measures filed that session also failed to reach the Governor. What became law is the fine prohibition, not a general right to replace turf.

What to watch next

Texas drought conditions are managed locally through drought contingency plans, and the stages within those plans differ from supplier to supplier. Because Section 202.008 keys to whether a mandated restriction makes browning a reasonable outcome, the question of which stage of which local plan engages the statute is answered by the terms of the restriction rather than by anything in the Property Code. No Texas appellate decision has yet construed the section.