Colonie, NY Landscaping Rules: Water Restrictions (2026)

Chapter 188, Article I of the Town Code exists to protect the water supply of the Latham Water District, not to impose a permanent watering calendar. Under § 188-3, the Town Board can declare an emergency only when a shortage is caused by drought, a pumping or filtration breakdown, a power failure, a civil defense alert, or a similar occurrence. Once that finding is made, § 188-4A lets the Board direct the Superintendent of the Water Department to prepare a proclamation that either bans lawn, shrub, tree and garden sprinkling and vehicle washing outright, or instead confines those uses to certain hours of the day or certain days of the week.

Section 188-4B goes further for a local or limited emergency, letting the Board target a single customer, a class of customers, or a specific area of the district, and folds in pool filling and air-conditioning use alongside lawn watering. Any restriction has to specify its own duration under § 188-5 if practical, or it stays in force until the Board formally declares the emergency over. A general emergency proclamation must run in two or more newspapers of general circulation and be posted in at least 10 public places within the district under § 188-6; a local emergency can skip publication and simply be served on the affected customers per § 188-7.

Because the whole mechanism is contingent on a declared emergency that the Town Board has to vote to create, there is no everyday rule telling residents which days they may run a sprinkler, and none of these hour or day limits take effect until a proclamation is actually published or served.