Rhonda Ahrens knew something needed to be done about her front lawn last summer.
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“I was really trying to be more conscious of water,” Ahrens said.
This year, she was motivated to change to water-wise landscaping. Especially after the Town of Erie, where she lives, started voluntary water cuts in May. The town asked customers to reduce watering to two days a week.
Ahrens planned to remove 1,565 square feet of sod and replace it with drought-tolerant plants. She sent her plan to both her HOA and the town.
“We got approval because obviously HOAs can’t decline this right now given water restrictions,” she said.
Within three days, Ahrens’ water woes were gone, along with the grass in her front yard. However, not all HOAs are so accepting of water-wise landscaping.
Like Erie, communities in Boulder County and across Colorado enacted watering restrictions earlier this year, prompted by the low-snow winter and drought conditions that spanned the state.
Reducing urban irrigation is a measurable way for municipal utilities to conserve water, but in the eyes of local HOAs, watering restrictions are no excuse for lawns to go brown. Despite the hot and dry summer, HOAs up and down the Front Range continued to expect homeowners to maintain lush lawns.
This spring, the City of Lafayette asked residents to cut their water use. A few months later, in a letter sent to homeowners in one Lafayette neighborhood, the HOA said, “During our recent site inspection of the community, we noticed that some owners have either not begun watering their lawns or may have issues with their sprinkler system.”
The letter acknowledged statewide restrictions, but reminded Lafayette homeowners that “front yards must be maintained,” and some individuals received courtesy letters about dead or brown lawns.
According to Colorado Senate Bill 23-178 and the Colorado Common Interest Ownership Act, HOAs cannot administer violations for dead or brown lawns that are a result of local watering restrictions. While HOAs may remind homeowners of neighborhood aesthetic guidelines, they cannot prohibit brown lawns that are a result of watering restrictions or water-wise landscaping.
The HOA president who sent the above letter declined to comment.
Lafayette implemented Stage 1 watering restrictions on April 10 to conserve water.
The restriction is a voluntary, two-days-per-week watering schedule aimed at reducing water use by 10%. Under the restriction, the city reduced its use by 13% as of Aug. 31.
“It just seems to be relentless,” Lafayette water resources manager Cari Bischoff said of the drought. “We are really proud of our community for the efforts."
For many, those efforts mean turning to water-wise landscaping or gardens, replacing thirsty, non-native turf grass with pollinator-friendly plants that require less water to maintain.
This year, nearly 10,000 Coloradans across 70 communities have gone water-wise via Resource Central’s Garden In a Box program, according to Neal Lurie, Resource Central’s president and CEO.
“I think it’s safe to say that at this point, water-wise yards are the new norm in Colorado,” Lurie said. “People can feel the summers are hot. They can see the impacts on their yard. They hear about the drought, and they want to do something about it.”
Water-wise lawns are becoming popular throughout the West in an effort to relieve some of the strain on the Colorado River and local water utilities. Cities in California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah offer rebates on lawn removal to promote water-wise landscaping at the local level.
But watering restrictions are not necessarily a death sentence for maintaining grass lawns.
Taylor Dollarhide—founder of Saturday Yard Co., a lawncare service based in Erie—knew the restrictions would be a challenge, especially for himself and his clients who live in neighborhoods with an HOA.
“I think a lot of people are getting nasty-grams from their HOA,” Dollarhide said.
His lawncare service has seen an influx of customers looking to diagnose their lawn problems, and Dollarhide attributes the trend in part to local restrictions.
“If you live in an HOA neighborhood, you signed agreements saying you have to take care of your lawn,” he said. “You can quickly tell who knows what they’re doing versus who is overwhelmed.”
Dollarhide managed to keep his own lawn lush through the summer with a secret method: the soak-cycle-soak. He runs his sprinklers for 15 minutes at 5 a.m., turns them off for 45 minutes, then runs them again for a final 15 minutes, twice a week.
Neighbors routinely ask for his secret, which Dollarhide is happy to share.
“If your whole neighborhood has lawns that are beautiful, it looks really highly on your neighborhood,” he said.
As the western water crisis continues, municipal utilities across Colorado remain focused on securing enough water for the future.
On Aug. 26, Denver Water amended its existing drought resolution, indefinitely banning all lawn watering for its 1.5 million customers starting Oct. 1. Amending the early-spring Stage 1 resolution is an effort to maintain existing water supply in preparation for what communities across the state can only hope will be a plentiful winter.
Watering restrictions are still in effect for both Erie and Lafayette. Erie is actively encouraging customers to turn off their sprinkler systems before Oct. 1, in anticipation of the first hard freeze. According to Bischoff, Lafayette’s water resources manager, there is still time for the community to conserve water.
“We hope that there isn’t another dry year, but you always want to prepare like there could be,” Bischoff said.
Regardless of what the drought conditions might be next year, one thing remains certain.
“Water usage is part of our codes. The HOAs have to abide by the code,” Bischoff said. “They can’t require residents to follow anything contrary to the code.”