Impact of Homeowner Association (HOA) landscaping guidelines on residential water use

Abstract

The association between increasing water intensive land-cover, such as the use of turf grass and trees, and increasing water use is a growing concern for water-stressed arid cities. Appropriate regulatory measures addressing residential landscaping, such as those applied by Homeowner Associations (HOAs), may serve to reduce municipal water use, joining other water-use reducing measures under consideration by arid cities. This research assesses quantitatively the role that Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions (CCRs) applied to landscaping by HOAs play on water consumption. Statistical comparisons and models of n51973 parcels in Goodyear, Arizona, USA, reveal that: HOA yards have less vegetation cover and those households use less peak-season water (July) than those households in non-HOA neighborhoods. This hold true even though the HOA CCRs regulate only the minimum required front-yard vegetation and most residents maintain more than the minimum vegetation level. Furthermore, front-yard landscaping tends to be mimicked in the backyard such that total yard landscaping tracks best with total household water use. Results of the study suggest that HOA landscaping regulations have the potential to reduce peak-season water use by up to 24% if CCRs were to set maximum vegetation regulations rather than minimum and if compliance were enforced. Lowering residential water consumption in this way potentially involves tradeoffs with the cooling effects of vegetation and its consequences on the urban heat island effect, on energy use, and on home values.

Assessing the Cooling Benefits of Tree Shade by an Outdoor Urban Physical Scale Model at Tempe, AZ

“…They will provide ample shading to multiple houses and improve the overall living environment in the neighborhood. In Wentz et al's recent research [19], they mentioned that the homeowner association only provided a minimum landscaping guideline in Goodyear, AZ. Our research results will be useful to providing landscaping suggestions in the homeowner association guidelines for arranging trees wisely in the residential neighborhood.…”

Optimizing green space locations to reduce daytime and nighttime urban heat island effects in Phoenix, Arizona

“…The well-known consequences of extreme summer temperatures in the Phoenix area include human health (Harlan et al, 2006), increased demands on energy for cooling and water for landscaping (Wentz et al, 2016), and impacts on year-round tourism favored by the commercial sector (Gober et al, 2009). Perhaps less known are the nighttime UHI effects.…”

“…Green spaces, such as the turf grass assumed in this study, require substantial water in desert cities. All turf grass and nonnative vegetation in Phoenix is irrigated, and outdoor water application currently accounts for a majority of residential and neighborhood water use in the metropolitan area (Balling, Gober, & Jones, 2008;Gober et al, 2009;Wentz et al, 2016). As a result, adding more green space may increase water demand, but the rate of use might be lowered by incorporating mixed vegetation.…”

On the association between land system architecture and land surface temperatures: Evidence from a Desert Metropolis—Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A

“…Interestingly, the SUHI effect relative to the ambient rural temperature is greater at night than day (Hawkins, Brazel, Stefanov, Bigler, & Saffell, 2004). Overall the SUHI in the greater Phoenix area raises a series of issues about water consumption-a highly constrained resource, the largest urban uses of which are irrigated, parcel-level vegetation and swimming pools-energy use, and public health (Harlan, Brazel, Prashad, Stefanov, & Larsen, 2006;Silva, Phelan, & Golden, 2010;Wentz et al, 2016). For these and other reasons, the City of Phoenix (2010) plans to respond to the UHI, in part, through greening its urban landscape.…”

“…The UHI effect increasingly captures the attention of administrators and decision makers concerned with mitigating urban temperature extremes and their impacts on energy and water use, human health, and thermal comfort (e.g., City of Phoenix, 2010; Kleerekoper, van Esch, & Baldiri Salcedo, 2012;Shashua-Bar, Pearlmutter, & Erell, 2009, Shashua-Bar, Pearlmutter, & Erell, 2011Solecki et al, 2005;Wentz, Rode, Li, & Tellman, 2016). This concern, in turn, has drawn insights from UHI research undertaken in the subfields and approaches discussed above as well as in remote sensing (e.g., Gago, Roldán, Pacheco-Torres, & Ordoñez, 2013;Hart & Sailor, 2009;Oke, 1981;Taha, 1997).…”