Maine Bars HOA Turf-Grass Mandates Under the Low-Impact Landscaping Law

33 M.R.S. § 1451, enacted as PL 2023, c. 376, is Maine's answer to the association rule that says the yard must be lawn. It is a planting-freedom statute rather than a drought statute, and reading it that way matters, because Maine has nothing that bars an association from acting on a brown or dormant lawn during a dry summer or during a water district's use restriction.

The statute defines low-impact landscaping in section 1451(1)(B) as landscaping techniques that conserve water, lower maintenance costs, provide pollution prevention and create habitat for wildlife, and then names three categories that count: gardens and other features designed to attract wildlife generally and pollinator species more specifically; rain gardens and other features that use natural biological principles to return rainwater to the soil and to filter rainwater of excess nutrients; and other forms of landscaping or gardening that reduce or eliminate the need for supplemental water from irrigation. A meadow planting, a native perennial bed and a downspout rain garden all sit inside that definition. Artificial turf does not, because the statute is written around cultivated vegetation and habitat value, so a Maine owner has no statutory right to replace a lawn with a synthetic one.

Section 1451(1)(E) supplies the test with real teeth. An unreasonable limitation includes a limitation that significantly increases the cost of low-impact landscaping, significantly decreases the efficiency of low-impact landscaping, or requires cultivated vegetation to consist in whole or in part of turf grass. That last clause is the operative one for most disputes: a declaration provision reading that all yard areas shall be maintained in grass is, on the face of the statute, an unreasonable limitation and cannot be applied.

The statute reaches a broad set of housing, not only condominiums. Section 1451(1)(A) borrows the definition of condominium from 33 M.R.S. § 1601-103(7), and section 1451(1)(C) adds real estate subject to common ownership, defined as residential real estate portions of which are designated for separate ownership with the remainder designated for common ownership solely by the owners of those portions, held as undivided interests. That description captures a conventional Maine planned community with a homeowners association and common land. Section 1451(1)(D) then defines a restriction to include any covenant, restriction or condition contained in a deed, declaration, contract, bylaw, rule or other instrument governing activities on that real estate, so a board rule adopted last year counts as much as a recorded covenant.

The protection has a defined footprint. Section 1451(2) applies to a portion of the property that is not subject to common ownership and that the owner has the right to exclusive use of. A shared green, a common entry bed or an association-maintained buffer strip is outside the section, and an owner cannot convert common land to a pollinator meadow on the strength of this statute. The protection is also conditional on upkeep: it holds as long as the owner maintains and regularly tends to the low-impact landscaping. A planting left to go to seed and weeds loses the statutory shield, which is the practical answer to the objection that the law legalizes neglect.

Section 1451(3) preserves two things for associations. A restriction relating to reasonable design and aesthetic guidelines regarding the type, number and location of low-impact landscaping features is still allowed, so a board may say where a rain garden goes and how many features a lot may carry, provided the guideline does not significantly raise the cost or cut the efficiency of the planting. And the section does not apply at all to a restriction on historic property that is listed in, or determined by the Maine Historic Preservation Commission to be eligible for inclusion in, the National Register of Historic Places.

Section 1451 sets no penalty and names no enforcing agency, so the question is always whether a restriction can be applied, not whether the association has broken a law. An owner who receives a violation notice or a fine for replacing lawn with a pollinator bed answers that the rule is an unreasonable limitation under section 1451(1)(E) and cannot be enforced against a portion of the property the owner has exclusive use of. If the association proceeds to fines and a lien, the owner raises the same defense in the collection action or asks a court for a declaration that the covenant is unenforceable as applied.

An association still has room to act. It can enforce a design and aesthetic guideline about the type, number and location of features under section 1451(3), and it can enforce against a planting the owner has stopped maintaining and regularly tending, because section 1451(2) makes that upkeep a condition of the protection. It can enforce ordinary restrictions on common ground without reference to this section. And on a property listed in or found eligible for the National Register by the Maine Historic Preservation Commission, section 1451(3) removes the protection entirely, so a historic district covenant requiring a traditional lawn remains enforceable there.