Arizona forces cities to allow casitas. Your HOA can still say no
Arizona forces cities to allow casitas. Your HOA can still say no
2026-09-10 · Arizona · Compliance
Arizona law requires larger cities to permit accessory dwelling units by right, and since last year requires every county to do the same. Neither statute touches a recorded covenant.
This is the single most persistently misunderstood point in Arizona community association law right now. Owners read that the state has legalised casitas, conclude their CC&Rs are overridden, and build. The statutes say the opposite, in terms.
The carve-out, verbatim
A.R.S. § 9-461.18(C), the municipal provision:1
This section does not prohibit restrictive covenants concerning accessory dwelling units entered into between private parties. The municipality may not condition a permit, license or use of an accessory dwelling unit on adopting or implementing a restrictive covenant between private parties.
A.R.S. § 11-810.01(D), the county provision, is the same with one addition:2
This section does not prohibit restrictive covenants or shared well agreements as provided by state law concerning accessory dwelling units entered into between private parties. The county may not condition a permit or license or the use of an accessory dwelling unit on adopting or implementing a restrictive covenant between private parties.
Both sentences do two things at once. They preserve private covenants against the mandate. And they stop the government from pressing covenants into service as a permitting condition — a city may not make you record a restriction to get your permit.
The part that makes this genuinely odd
Section 9-461.18(B) lists what a municipality “may not do.” Paragraph 4 is the striking one. A city may not:
Require that an accessory dwelling unit match the exterior design, roof pitch or finishing materials of the single-family dwelling that is located on the same lot as the accessory dwelling unit.
So the legislature took exterior-design control over casitas away from cities — and, in subsection (C), left it exactly where it was with private associations.
The result is a two-lock system on the same door. The city must issue the permit and may not dictate the roof pitch. The architectural committee may still refuse the design outright, on precisely the grounds the city has been forbidden to use. An owner needs both locks open, and the state has only opened one.
Fifteen counties and an overdue deadline
The county mandate is newer and much less discussed. HB 2928, enacted in 2025, created § 11-810.01 and extended the ADU requirement to counties — with no population threshold, so it reaches all fifteen.
The deadline has passed. Subsection (G) provides:
If a county fails to adopt development regulations as required by this section on or before January 1, 2026, accessory dwelling units shall be allowed on all lots or parcels zoned for residential use in the county without limits.
That is a self-executing default, and it is severe: not a fine, not a lawsuit, but ADUs permitted “without limits” on every residentially zoned parcel in a non-compliant county. The date is more than eight months behind us.
We have not audited all fifteen counties' compliance and do not assert which have adopted regulations. What matters for an association in unincorporated county land is that the question is worth asking, because the answer determines whether the county's own standards apply or the statutory default does.
And in either case, subsection (D) preserves the covenants. A county falling into the “without limits” default does not enlarge what an association must permit by one square foot.
What the law leaves to boards
Read your own declaration before answering anyone. The statutes preserve covenants; they do not create them. If a declaration is silent on accessory dwellings, or its language reaches only “single-family dwelling” use without addressing a detached secondary unit, the association may have less authority than it assumes — and the state law will not supply the gap.
Do not rely on architectural review to do the work of a covenant. Refusing every application on design grounds when the documents contain no ADU restriction is the fact pattern that produces a complaint. From September 12, 2026 that discretion is exercised under an express statutory duty to act reasonably — neutrally, fairly, without favoritism and in a nonarbitrary fashion. A pattern of blanket denials without recorded reasons is the opposite of that.
Write the standards down now, in advance of an application. An association entitled to regulate casitas is on far stronger ground applying published guidelines than improvising a refusal. Guidelines also let owners find out before they spend money on plans.
Say so at resale. An ADU restriction is the kind of thing a purchaser needs to know, and the resale disclosure package is being expanded on September 12 — including a new duty to disclose outstanding unresolved violations cited against the unit. An unpermitted casita is exactly such a violation.
What this means for owners
A city permit is not permission from your association, and an association's approval is not a permit. The two run on separate tracks and an ADU needs both.
Nor does the association's authority here depend on the city's. Section 9-461.18 constrains municipalities; it says nothing about what an association may require, beyond confirming that its covenants survive. An owner whose city has just liberalised its ADU rules has gained nothing against their HOA.
What to watch next
The ADU bill will be back. HB 4028 would have gone further against municipal control — deleting the setback cap and barring administrative use permits and municipal elevation criteria — and it carried subsection (C) forward untouched. It failed in House Appropriations 8–9–1, reported February 23, 2026, the only association-adjacent bill this session defeated on a recorded vote rather than shelved.3
Notably, no version of the ADU legislation introduced this session proposed removing the covenant carve-out. The pressure has been on cities, not on associations.
County compliance. The “without limits” default is a live question in unincorporated Arizona and nobody appears to have surveyed it.
Whether the asymmetry draws attention. A legislature that has decided roof-pitch matching is an unreasonable barrier when a city imposes it may eventually ask why it is reasonable when an association does.
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