Is a "local" version of 3-SAT NP-hard?
$(3,k)\text{-LSAT}$ is in P for all $k$. As you have indicated, locality is a big obstruction to NP-completeness.



Here is a polynomial algorithm.

Input: $\phi\in (3,k)\text{-LSAT}$, $\phi=c_1\wedge c_2\cdots \wedge c_m$, where $c_i$ is the $i$-th clause.
Output: true if $\phi$ becomes 1 under some assignment of all variables.
Procedure:


Construct set $B_i$, the variables that appear in at least one of $c_i, c_{i+1}, \cdots, c_{i+k}$, $1\le i\le m-k$.
Construct set $A_i=\{f: B_i\to\{0,1\} \mid c_i, c_{i+1}, \cdots, c_{i+k} \text{ become 1 under} f\}$.
Construct set $E=\cup_i\{(f, g)\mid f\in A_i, g\in A_{i+1}, f(x)=g(x)\text{ for all }x\in B_i\cap B_{i+1} \}$ 
Let $V=A_1\cup A_2\cdots\cup A_{m-k}$. Consider directed graph $G(V,E)$. For each vertex in $A_1$, start a depth-first search on $G$ to see if we can reach a vertex in $A_{m-k}$. If found, return true.
If we have reached here, return false.




The correctness of the algorithm above comes from the following claim.

Claim. $\phi$ is satisfiable $\Longleftrightarrow$ there is a path in $G$ from a vertex in $A_1$ to a vertex in $A_{m-k}$.
Proof.
"$\Longrightarrow$": Suppose $\phi$ becomes 1 under assignment $f$. Let $f_i$ be the restriction of $f$ to $B_i$. Then we have a path $f_1, \cdots, f_{m-k}$.
"$\Longleftarrow$": Suppose there is a path $f_1, \cdots, f_{m-k}$, where $f_1\in A_1$ and $f_{m-k}\in A_{m-k}$. Define assignment $f$ such that $f$ agrees with all $f_i$, i.e., $f(x)=f_i(x)$ if $x\in B_i$. We can verify that $f$ is well-defined. Since $c_\ell$ becomes 1 for some $f_j$ for all $\ell$, $\phi$ becomes 1 under $f$.



The number of vertices $|V|\le 2^{3(k+1)}(m-k)$. Hence the algorithm runs in polynomial time in term of $m$, the number of clauses and $n$, the number of total variables.