Sometimes conservation efforts fly in the face(or language) of HOA covenants with regards to maintaining the yards visible to traffic. I understand some areas of the Southwest have companies doing a brisk business spray-painting dead lawns a nice shade of green.
This HOA rule you refer to shouldn't be needed because an HOA cannot weaken municipal laws/restrictions, they can only strengthen them.
They cannot force you to risk being fined for watering your landscape.
But the phrase you describe should indeed be inserted into all HOA covenants because, as you say, some are run by the least qualified.

I appreciate the sentiment and the "should" - however, denying a landscaped front yard and stating that anything that is not high water turf is not something that "should" be visible to traffic is an archaic viewpoint and totally counter to conservation and in many states, public policy. Therefore, such HOA policies do not 'strengthen'
city laws, they merely serve an outdated real estate industry.

Perhaps 'strengthen' is the wrong word I used. The HOA's can take a local law make it stricter as it applies to properties subject to HOA covenants.
The front yard issue is also dictated by lenders, many of which require foundation plantings and either sod or seeded and hayed lawns before agreeing to close the loan.

If HOA's did not have enforceable (by lien) rules, which are recorded documents, people would be people and do things to suit themselves not necessarily for the benefit of property values.
I understand your ire but until all of us begin to appreciate water conservation and zeriscaping, HOA's and lenders will not simply allow homeowners to let their lawns die.

Dottie - You are correct - there is "ire" on this end. Property values are not determined by "sod" but rather the "landscaping". There are too many examples of irrational HOA boards abusing both the rules in general and the lien process to start mentioning them. I was on a CBS Morning Show re HOAs, plus USA Today plus many other national, regional and local media outlets.
Please forward me the names of the lenders requiring sod.

If we wait for "all of us" to appreciate necessity of conservation it will probably be too late. In the meantime HOAs prevent those who want to conserve from behaving rationally.
By the way - there is not a booming business in painted lawns in the West - a fabricated, exaggerated story.
My main point is that no HOA should stop anyone from "landscaping" and removing sod. We are now getting lots of people from the east attending the Water Conservation Conference in Abq each Feb. Drought is a nationwide issue - no longer just a western problem. Slowly some are learning.