Texas HOA Water Conservation

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

Texas limits association authority over water-conserving landscaping through Tex. Prop. Code § 202.007, which provides that a property owners' association may not include or enforce a dedicatory-instrument provision that prohibits or restricts an owner from composting vegetation, installing rain barrels or a rainwater-harvesting system, implementing efficient irrigation, or using drought-resistant landscaping or water-conserving natural turf; a provision that violates that rule is void.¹ A separate provision, § 202.008, added in 2025, bars fines for brown or discolored turf during a residential watering restriction.³ Texas is a drought-exposed state whose water posture is shaped by hybrid surface-water and groundwater scarcity, which explains the policy climate but is not itself the HOA-authority rule.⁸

Section 202.007 is not a blanket exemption from review. The same statute expressly preserves the association's power to require an owner to submit a detailed description or plan for approval, to regulate for aesthetic compatibility, and to regulate related items such as gravel, irrigation visibility, and rain-barrel location, provided it does not effectively prohibit the protected practice or unreasonably deny approval.¹ That water-allocation regime, meaning state-owned surface water allocated by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and groundwater under the rule of capture, is separate from § 202.007 and does not govern what an owner may plant.⁸ In its protective posture Texas sits alongside California, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah, in contrast to silent, CC&R-governed states where the recorded covenants control landscaping outright. The sections that follow set out the statutory scope, the water-supply background, where the operative rules live, the obligations the framework imposes, and the recent legislative and judicial record.

Section 2: The statutory and regulatory framework

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

The operative rule is Tex. Prop. Code § 202.007, titled "Certain Restrictive Covenants Prohibited."¹ Subsection (a) provides that a property owners' association may not include or enforce a provision in a dedicatory instrument that prohibits or restricts a property owner from: (1) implementing solid-waste composting of vegetation, including leaving grass clippings uncollected; (2) installing rain barrels or a rainwater-harvesting system; (3) implementing efficient irrigation systems, including underground drip; or (4) using drought-resistant landscaping or water-conserving natural turf.¹ Subsection (b) states that a provision violating subsection (a) is void, which makes the statute a limit on association authority that a covenant cannot override; a prohibitory covenant is unenforceable to the extent of the conflict.¹

The statute is not a blanket exemption from association review, and this is the point for Texas. Subsection (c) lets an association restrict the type of turf a homeowner plants in order to encourage or require water-conserving turf.¹ Subsection (d) preserves several association powers: regulating the size, type, and location of a composting device; regulating the installation of efficient irrigation, including visibility limitations for aesthetic purposes; regulating the installation or use of gravel, rocks, or cacti; regulating yard and landscape maintenance so long as the rule does not prohibit water-conserving design; imposing location, size, and appearance limits on rain barrels and rainwater devices; and, under subsection (d)(8), requiring an owner to submit a detailed description or plan of the proposed drought-resistant landscaping or water-conserving natural turf for review and approval to ensure aesthetic compatibility.¹ Subsection (d-1) then bars the association from unreasonably denying or withholding approval, or from unreasonably determining that the installation is aesthetically incompatible.¹ A narrow exemption in subsection (e) removed certain large associations in certain municipalities from the section's reach; that exemption was repealed by HB 3995, effective September 1, 2025, on the terms of the enrolled bill.⁹

Rainwater harvesting is protected inside § 202.007 itself, at subsection (a)(2), not in a separate rainwater statute; § 202.019 of the Property Code addresses standby electric generators and does not concern water. Editors should note that § 202.019 is not the rainwater provision, a common section-number error.⁵ The association may impose reasonable location, color, and appearance restrictions on a rain barrel or rainwater-harvesting system under § 202.007(d)(6) and (d)(7), so long as it does not prohibit economic installation where sufficient area exists.¹ The 2025 drought-emergency limit sits at § 202.008, which is addressed in Section 2B. This page does not address the coastal windstorm (WPI-8) inspection program, which is a building-inspection and insurance matter and not a water-conservation provision.

2B. Water supply, drought response, rainwater and graywater

Background, not HOA law: Texas water law is hybrid. Surface water is owned by the state and allocated by prior-appropriation permits administered through the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, while groundwater follows the common-law rule of capture, moderated by local groundwater conservation districts, with statewide planning by the Texas Water Development Board.⁶ This body of water-allocation law explains why Texas is water-conscious, but it does not govern an association's authority over a homeowner's landscaping; that authority is set by Chapter 202.¹

Municipal and retail water providers, not associations, impose the watering schedules most homeowners experience. The San Antonio Water System entered Stage 3 drought restrictions on June 25, 2024, for the first time in its 30-year history, under which "landscape watering with an irrigation system, sprinkler or soaker hose is allowed only once a week from 5 – 10 a.m. and 9 p.m. – midnight on your designated watering day, as determined by your address."⁷ Austin Water applies Conservation Stage rules with designated watering days, and Houston Public Works and Dallas Water Utilities run their own drought contingency schedules.¹⁰ These are utility measures. They matter to HOA enforcement because § 202.008 now bars an association from fining an owner for brown or discolored turf while a residential watering restriction is in effect and until the 60th day after it is lifted, closing the gap in which an owner could face both a utility limit and an HOA greenness rule.³

Rain barrels and rainwater-harvesting systems are protected against a prohibitory covenant under § 202.007(a)(2), subject to the reasonable location and appearance limits in § 202.007(d)(6) and (d)(7); the HOA-authority question is answered directly by the statute rather than left to the covenant.¹ Graywater is different. Its reuse is regulated as a system by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality under 30 TAC Chapter 210, Subchapter F, and by the state plumbing code; under 30 TAC § 210.83(a), "an authorization from the commission is not required for the residential use of graywater and alternative onsite water from a graywater reuse system or a combined reuse system when the total combined average is less than 400 gallons per day and the water is used in accordance with this subchapter."² No Property Code provision limits an association's authority over a graywater system; Chapter 202 is silent on graywater, so an association's power over a graywater installation is governed by the recorded covenants and reasonable architectural standards, not by a § 202.007-style protection.¹

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

Even with § 202.007, the recorded restrictive covenants and the association's architectural-control process remain central, because the statute limits what a covenant can prohibit rather than eliminating the review process. The association may require a plan and apply reasonable standards, but a covenant that prohibits protected water-conserving landscaping is unenforceable to the extent of the conflict.¹ The order of precedence runs from the statutory limits in § 202.007 and § 202.008, then to the restrictive covenants and architectural standards to the extent they are consistent with those limits and reasonable, then to rules adopted under the covenants.³

At the corporate level, an association organized as a nonprofit corporation is also subject to the Texas Business Organizations Code, Chapter 22, which governs its corporate governance but not its landscaping authority.¹¹ The practical source of any owner-facing water-use rule is the local retail provider: Austin Water, the San Antonio Water System, Dallas Water Utilities, and Houston Public Works set drought stages, watering schedules, and turf-conversion rebates that operate independently of the HOA framework.⁷ The operational takeaway is that a Texas manager must read § 202.007, § 202.008, the restrictive covenants, and the local water provider's rules together: the association may adopt and enforce reasonable standards and require a plan, and it may not enforce a covenant that prohibits a protected practice.

Section 3: What the framework requires of HOAs

A. Landscaping approval and architectural review

Under § 202.007, an association may require an owner to submit a detailed description or plan of proposed drought-resistant landscaping or water-conserving natural turf for review and approval under subsection (d)(8), but it may not unreasonably deny approval or call the design aesthetically incompatible under subsection (d-1).¹ The association cannot enforce a covenant that prohibits or restricts the protected practices, yet it may regulate gravel, rocks, and cacti, set irrigation visibility limits for aesthetics, and require water-conserving turf types; the reasonable-standards line falls where a rule effectively prohibits the protected practice.¹ Associations with 40 or more lots must also maintain an architectural review process meeting the Chapter 209 procedural requirements when they review landscaping submissions.⁴

B. Drought response and watering restrictions

Under § 202.008, the association may not fine an owner for brown or discolored vegetation or turf during a residential watering restriction imposed by a municipality or water supplier, or before the 60th day after that restriction is lifted.³ Drought-stage watering schedules, allowed watering days, and enforcement fees come from the retail provider — for example, the San Antonio Water System's Stage 3 rules — not from the association.⁷ And a covenant that requires a green or high-water lawn is void to the extent it prohibits water-conserving landscaping, so the association cannot use a greenness rule to compel a traditional turf lawn.¹

C. Rule adoption and disclosure

Under subsection (c), the association may adopt a rule restricting the type of turf to encourage or require water-conserving turf, but not a rule that bars water-conserving landscaping outright.¹ An association organized as a nonprofit corporation must adopt and amend its governing documents through proper corporate procedure under the Texas Business Organizations Code, Chapter 22 — a matter of process, not landscaping substance.¹¹ Associations must also file dedicatory instruments and management information as Chapter 209 and related provisions require, and 2025 legislation directs certain filings to the Texas Real Estate Commission, which licenses real-estate professionals and receives these filings but does not regulate ongoing HOA operations or landscaping.¹²

D. Enforcement limits and conflicts

A covenant provision that violates § 202.007(a) is void under subsection (b), so any enforcement action resting on such a provision is unenforceable to the extent of the conflict.¹ Section 202.007 applies to all restrictive covenants regardless of when they were created, under § 202.002(a), so an older covenant does not escape the limit.⁵ And an enforcement action for discolored turf during and shortly after a watering restriction is barred under § 202.008; a manager should suspend such actions when a provider restriction is in effect.³

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent bills

A second 2025 measure, HB 3995, repealed the § 202.007(e) exemption for certain large associations, effective September 1, 2025.⁹

B. Recent appellate rulings

No qualifying published opinion from a Texas Court of Appeals or the Supreme Court of Texas construing or applying Tex. Prop. Code § 202.007 or § 202.008, or addressing association authority over water-conserving landscaping in a water-conservation context, was identified for the period from roughly July 2023 through July 2026.⁸ Because § 202.007(b) makes a conflicting covenant automatically void and the statute permits plan pre-approval, most disputes appear to resolve at the association-hearing or trial-court level without generating appellate opinions. Trial-level disputes proceed through the Texas District Courts; appeals go to the Texas Courts of Appeals, which since September 1, 2024 comprise fourteen geographic appellate districts plus the Fifteenth Court of Appeals with statewide civil intermediate jurisdiction; and final civil review rests with the Supreme Court of Texas. The separate Texas Court of Criminal Appeals hears criminal matters and is not the forum for HOA landscaping disputes.⁸

C. Active legislative debates

During the 2025 regular session, HB 2269 proposed to amend § 202.007 to bar associations from requiring an owner to plant, install, or maintain living grass or turf, but it died in committee without further action.¹⁴ The proposal signals continued legislative interest in strengthening owner landscaping rights, which HOA Weekly will track in the next odd-year session.

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

Within a water-conservation-specific clustering, Texas belongs in the first tier: drought-exposed states with statutory owner protections bearing on water-efficient landscaping, alongside California, Nevada, Colorado, Arizona, and Utah, and distinct from states with partial or emerging provisions and from silent, CC&R-governed states where the recorded covenants control. Texas's distinctive posture is a Chapter 202 restrictive-covenant protection at § 202.007 that voids a prohibitory covenant yet expressly preserves reasonable association standards and plan review, a qualified protection stronger than a silent state's default but short of a blanket exemption.¹ For a multi-state operator entering Texas from a silent state, the practical implication is direct: the assumption that a covenant controls landscaping outright does not hold, because § 202.007 bars a prohibitory covenant, though the association may still apply reasonable standards and require a plan.¹

HOA Weekly's Texas Water Conservation coverage updates quarterly as the legislature and the Texas courts act. Texas operators must apply § 202.007 and § 202.008, distinguish a prohibitory covenant from a reasonable standard, and read the restrictive covenants and local water-provider rules alongside the statute. Federal frameworks apply to Texas associations regardless of state law — the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, and the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act among them.

1. Tex. Prop. Code § 202.007, Certain Restrictive Covenants Prohibited (Texas Legislature, statutes.capitol.texas.gov) ↩
2. 30 Tex. Admin. Code § 210.83(a), Residential Use of Graywater; TCEQ, 30 TAC Ch. 210, Subch. F ↩
3. Tex. Prop. Code § 202.008, Limitation on Fines During Residential Water Restriction (Texas Legislature) ↩
4. Tex. Prop. Code Ch. 209 (Texas Residential Property Owners Protection Act), architectural review committee provisions ↩
5. Tex. Prop. Code Ch. 202 index and § 202.002 Applicability (§ 202.019 addresses Standby Electric Generators, not rainwater) ↩
6. Texas Water Development Board (state water planning); TCEQ surface-water permitting (background) ↩
7. San Antonio Water System, Stage 3 Watering Rules and Drought Restrictions (utility measure) ↩
8. Texas Judiciary opinion search (search.txcourts.gov); Texas Judicial Branch, About Texas Courts: Courts of Appeals (fourteen geographic districts plus statewide Fifteenth Court of Appeals) ↩
9. HB 3995, 89th Legislature, R.S. (2025), repealing Tex. Prop. Code § 202.007(e); bill history (capitol.texas.gov) ↩
10. Austin Water, WaterWise Landscaping Rebate; Houston Public Works Drought Contingency Plan (utility/municipal measures) ↩
11. Tex. Bus. Orgs. Code Ch. 22, Nonprofit Corporations ↩
12. Texas Real Estate Commission (licenses real-estate professionals; receives certain POA filings; no dedicated ongoing HOA regulator) ↩
13. HB 517, 89th Legislature, R.S. (2025), bill history (capitol.texas.gov) ↩
14. HB 2269, 89th Legislature, R.S. (2025), bill history, died in committee (capitol.texas.gov) ↩