Arkansas came one committee short of limiting HOA antenna rules
Arkansas came one committee short of limiting HOA antenna rules
2026-09-09 · Arkansas · Legislation · Did not pass
Arkansas has no statute limiting what a homeowners association may do about an amateur radio antenna. It nearly had one. SB404 of 2023 passed the Senate and then died in a House committee at sine die, and nothing has been filed since.1
We are reporting a dead bill and two stalled ones, and saying so up front, because antenna disputes generate more confident misinformation than almost any other covenant question. The operative Arkansas law today is a recorded covenant and one narrow federal rule.
What happened to SB404
SB404, “To Ensure Reasonable Regulation of Amateur Radio Service Station Antenna Structures,” was introduced by Senator Clint Penzo on March 9, 2023. It was read, referred to the Senate Committee on City, County & Local Affairs, heard on March 28, and cleared the Senate. On March 30 it was read in the House and referred to that chamber's City, County & Local Affairs Committee.
There it stopped. The legislature's own record carries a single line for its final disposition: “Died in House Committee at Sine Die Adjournment,” May 1, 2023. It never received a House committee vote.
It has not been refiled. It was absent from the 2025 regular session's committee referral lists in both chambers, and no equivalent measure appears anywhere in the 2025 session. Community Associations Institute, which opposes this class of legislation, describes fighting an Arkansas bill restricting community associations' regulation of ham radio towers — noting that because there is no active CAI legislative action committee in Arkansas, national staff attended a Little Rock hearing in person.2
What actually governs an Arkansas antenna dispute
Two things, and neither is a state statute.
The recorded instrument. In an Arkansas planned community, the bill of assurance or declaration and the architectural review machinery it creates are the governing law. Arkansas courts construe restrictive covenants strictly against limits on the free use of land — but the Court of Appeals confirmed in 2025 that the canon “is limited by the basic doctrine of taking the plain meaning of the language employed,” and that a broad term such as “structure” will be read broadly, using ordinary dictionary meaning where the instrument does not define it.
An owner arguing that an antenna or tower is not a “structure” because the covenant never says so is making the argument that failed in that case.
The FCC's OTARD rule, 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000. This one does preempt covenants, by force of federal regulation. It voids restrictions on covered antennas — direct broadcast satellite dishes one metre or less, wireless cable antennas, television broadcast antennas, and certain fixed wireless devices — and it says so in terms that name associations: it applies to “any restriction, including … any private covenant, contract provision, lease provision, homeowners' association rule, or similar restriction.”
The two limits that decide most OTARD arguments
It does not cover amateur radio. OTARD's list is about receiving video and fixed wireless broadband. A ham tower is not on it. Owners who invoke OTARD in an amateur radio dispute are invoking the wrong rule — which is precisely why the parity bills exist.
It stops at the boundary of exclusive use. OTARD reaches only areas within the owner's or renter's exclusive use or control — a balcony, a patio, a fenced yard. It does not reach common areas, roofs or exterior walls the association controls. In an Arkansas condominium regime, roofs and exterior walls are typically common elements, which is exactly where a resident would want to mount an antenna. So in the buildings where the dispute is most likely, the federal rule does the least work.
There has been no FCC action on OTARD in 2025 or 2026. The last substantive amendment was the 2021 order extending it to certain fixed wireless hub and relay antennas. Treat it as stable background law, not as something about to change.
The federal bills, and why “reintroduced” is not momentum
The Amateur Radio Emergency Preparedness Act — H.R. 1094 and S. 459 in the 119th Congress — would limit private land-use restrictions, HOA covenants included, that prohibit or impair amateur radio antennas. Both were reintroduced with bipartisan sponsorship in February 2025. The ARRL, the national amateur radio association, launched a grassroots letter campaign announced in September 2025.3
We found no evidence of committee passage or floor action in either chamber, and the ARRL's own HOA page has not been updated past September 18, 2025. A bill that has been reintroduced across multiple Congresses without a chamber acting on it is not close to passing, whatever its supporters or opponents say.
If it did pass, Arkansas associations would feel it more than associations in some other states, precisely because Arkansas has no state antenna-parity statute of its own to have already softened the ground.
What this means in practice
For an Arkansas owner: your position rests on the wording of your recorded covenant and, for satellite and certain fixed wireless equipment only, on OTARD within your exclusive-use area. There is no Arkansas statute to point at, no state agency to complain to, and no pending Arkansas bill. If your antenna is a ham tower, or your only mounting point is a common element, the federal rule is not going to help you.
For a board: the absence of a state statute is not a licence. An association denying an antenna request should check whether the equipment falls inside OTARD before refusing, because a rule that is void as to covered antennas is void whether or not the board knew it. Enforcing an unenforceable restriction is how associations end up funding litigation they cannot win.
The fee position also matters. Where an association sues only for an injunction — the standard remedy for ordering a structure removed — the Court of Appeals held in April 2026 that attorney's fees are not recoverable under Ark. Code Ann. § 16-22-308, “even when the underlying dispute arises from a contract.” An antenna enforcement action is likely to be exactly that kind of suit, and likely to be self-funded.
For anyone advising either side: the disability angle is worth checking separately. Where an antenna installation is tied to a medical or emergency-communication need, the analysis may run through fair housing accommodation rather than covenant construction — and the Arkansas Fair Housing Commission is the one state body with jurisdiction over an association, though only for discrimination.
Why the bill died is not something we can tell you
The record shows a Senate passage and a House committee that never voted. It does not show testimony, opposition, or a reason. CAI says it opposed an Arkansas bill of this kind and that the bill failed; that is CAI's characterisation of its own advocacy, and we have no independent record of what moved the committee.
The structural fact worth reporting is the one that keeps recurring in Arkansas: with no state HOA statute, no CAI legislative action committee, and no organised homeowner-advocacy campaign, association legislation in Arkansas tends to arrive as a single member's bill and to die quietly in the same committee — House City, County & Local Affairs — that buried the 2025 attempt to open large POA books to state audit.
What to watch next
Whether anyone refiles an Arkansas antenna bill for the 2027 session. Pre-filing opens November 16, 2026, and as of today no 2027 bill has been filed on any subject. And whether either federal bill sees a committee markup — that, not another reintroduction, would be the signal worth reporting.
Related Arkansas HOA Topics
- SB404 of 2023, “To Ensure Reasonable Regulation of Amateur Radio Service Station Antenna Structures” (Sen. C. Penzo) — bill record and status history; died in House Committee at sine die adjournment, May 1, 2023 ↩
- Community Associations Institute, state legislative roundup — CAI's account of opposing an Arkansas amateur radio tower bill, and of having no active Arkansas legislative action committee ↩
- ARRL, amateur radio and homeowners associations — H.R. 1094 and S. 459, 119th Congress (page last updated September 18, 2025) ↩
- Federal Communications Commission, Over-the-Air Reception Devices rule, 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000 ↩
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