Enforcing Lawn Maintenance

I am in a Hillsborough County, FL HOA. Presently due to drought conditions, watering is restricted to one day per week. I believe it is still possible to keep a lawn green, mine is proof. Lawns of many homes are completely dead or have large dead patches. My question is, how strictly can we enforce the lawn maintenance rule? Is it unreasonable to expect compliance and could the HOA lose any arbitration or possible suits if it ever came to that? Thanks

I would advise against cutting it short as you can harm the lawn even more. St. Augustine Grass (since you are in FL I am assuming that is what you have) should be cut at 4" regardless of the weather. Perhaps you can also advise your community of a trick I have done in the past. We can only water two days a week so I have watered just after midnight and then about 20 hours later just before midnight. It is effectively two waterings in a 24 hour period.

I am the President of a HOA in Orlando, FL and our Rules & Regulations for the Enforcement of Covenants has a clause that the Board of Directors can issue a community wide exception for up to a 30 day period. The idea was originally for hurricanes but such a provision can be added to your Rules & Regulations. In that manner you could then agree to issue an exception so that you are covered in the future.

In Florida, "the drought" is an ongoing condition and not something that just happened. Too many houses and golf courses were built and the watering restrictions only apply to homeowners and not businesses. My area has been under watering restrictions for six or seven years; it won't suddenly get better.

Also note that in Florida, most subdivisions built in the last 10 years use St. Augustine grass. Nurseries will tell you to water around 12:30am to 1:00am so that the water has time to soak into the ground and the leaves dry off before the sun comes up. Watering two hours before that is not much worse.

Your lawn may also be doing better because of soil/organic matter content etc which could be different from your neighbors so watering alone may not be the only reason for your superior 'green' skills.