Oregon Voids HOA Irrigation Mandates During Drought (ORS 94.779)

The trigger, not the calendar, controls. ORS 94.779(1) lists four switches, any one of which voids an irrigation requirement while it is in effect. The first is a declaration by the Governor that a severe, continuing drought exists or is likely to occur in a political subdivision within which the planned community is located. That declaration power comes from ORS 536.740, which lets the Governor declare a severe, continuing drought upon finding that statewide coordination of water conservation measures by municipal and other political subdivisions is needed to minimize problems caused by a severe water shortage. The second switch is a finding to the same effect by the Water Resources Commission, which under ORS 536.750 gains additional powers once a severe, continuing drought is declared. The third is an ordinance adopted by the governing body of a political subdivision within which the planned community sits that requires conservation or curtailment of water use, so a city or water district curtailment order does the work without any state action at all. The fourth is a rule the association itself adopts under subsection (2) to reduce or eliminate irrigation water use.

What is voided is narrow. The statute reaches provisions that impose irrigation requirements on an owner or on the association. It does not, by its terms, void a covenant that requires live turf, and it does not create an owner's right to install artificial turf or to convert a lawn to gravel and native plants over the association's objection. Read subsection (2) carefully: the power to permit or require replacement of turf or other landscape vegetation with xeriscape belongs to the association, not to the individual owner, and paragraph (2)(c) expressly lets the association require prior review and approval by the association or its designee of any plans by an owner or the association to replace turf or other landscape vegetation with xeriscape. An Oregon owner who wants to xeriscape still submits plans. What the owner gains during a drought trigger is the defense that the watering rule behind the violation notice is unenforceable.

The association's affirmative water powers. ORS 94.779(2) operates notwithstanding any governing document or landscaping or architectural guideline imposing irrigation requirements. Under it the board may require the reduction or elimination of irrigation on any portion of the planned community, permit or require xeriscape replacement on any portion of it, require prior review of replacement plans, and require the use of best practices and industry standards to shrink landscaped areas and minimize irrigation of existing landscaped common property where turf is necessary for the function of the landscaped area. In a condominium the same paragraph, ORS 100.023(2)(d), is written against the general common elements instead.

A separate Oregon rule on pesticides. Landscaping in an Oregon planned community also runs into ORS 94.763, added in 2021, which has no counterpart in the Condominium Act. An association must, on an owner's request, tell the owner the dates and times it plans to apply a pesticide to the owner's property and how the owner may exclude the property from the application. The association may not require an owner to apply a pesticide, and must allow an owner to opt the property out of association landscaping activities that include pesticide application, except where a pesticide or other pest management practice is necessary to manage or prevent a pest issue that could harm ecological or public health. Opting out is an assumption of the landscaping responsibility by the owner, and ORS 94.763(4) lets the association then enforce reasonable landscaping standards that allow for consistent appearances within the community. A governing document provision inconsistent with that section is declared void and unenforceable as against the state's policy to support public health, safety and welfare.

History and coverage. ORS 94.779 came from 2017 c.423 and has been amended by 2022 c.86 and 2025 c.2; ORS 100.023 came from the same 2017 act and was last amended by 2022 c.86. Under ORS 94.572(1), a Class I or Class II planned community created before January 1, 2002 that was not created under the Oregon Planned Community Act is subject to ORS 94.779 only to the extent the statute is consistent with that community's governing documents, and ORS 94.573 supplies the amendment route to fix an inconsistency, needing a majority of owners for bylaws and 75 percent for other governing documents where the documents prescribe no procedure of their own.

Nobody at the state issues a citation here; the statute works as a defense and as a private claim. If the board fines an owner for a brown lawn while a Governor's declaration, a Water Resources Commission finding, a local curtailment ordinance or the association's own reduction rule is in effect, the underlying irrigation requirement is void and unenforceable, and the owner raises that at the hearing the association must hold before imposing a fine. 783 cause for a suit or action to remedy the violation or recover actual damages, with reasonable attorney fees and court costs to the prevailing party.

780(3). 023. 763 should note the trade: excluding your property transfers the landscaping responsibility to you, and the association may hold you to reasonable standards for consistent appearance after that.