Where the district court went too far

Having kept the strip inside the covenants, the Court then took apart the declaration that those covenants barred a road. It walked the provisions the district court had cited — building design, tree removal, residential use, and a general clause declaring any violation to be a nuisance — and found that none of them mentions roads. The nuisance clause “says nothing about the construction of roads and no other provision of the CC&Rs indicates that constructing a road is a nuisance.”

The governing canon is the same one running through Idaho's covenant cases: a restriction not clearly expressed will not be extended by implication. A board that dislikes a proposed use still has to point at language that forbids it.

But approval was still required — and never sought

The Court affirmed a separate declaration that Powers had not obtained the approval the covenants require. Article VII, section 2(a) provides that no building, structure, sign, fence, refinishing or improvement of any kind, and no excavation or other work altering a lot from its natural or improved state, may be done until plans, specifications, exterior material samples and colour selections have been approved in writing. A road is an improvement.

Powers complained that the covenants do not explain how to reach the Design Committee and that board members had not directed him to it. The Court was unmoved: the committee has a duty to consider and act on proposals submitted to it, its rules must be available to each lot owner, and the covenants put Powers on notice that he had to apply. The Court did flag the limit of that holding — if an owner asks board members how to submit a proposal and is refused, or if no Design Committee exists, “he may have an argument that it was impossible for him to comply.”

The Court also held the lot-split declaration should never have been made: with the strip still subject to the covenants, whether the boundary adjustment itself violated them was moot, and courts may not declare on hypothetical questions.

Injunctions, and the fee award that went away

Two procedural holdings carry beyond this case.

First, an injunction enforcing covenants does not require a showing of irreparable injury. Powers relied on Hood v. Poorman, 171 Idaho 176 (2022), but Hood did not involve an injunction requiring compliance with contractual obligations, and the Court followed Jacklin Land Co. instead.

Second, the injunction still failed. Under I.R.C.P. 65(d)(1) an order must state its reasons, state its terms specifically, and describe in reasonable detail the acts restrained. An injunction that forbids construction “unless and until” the covenants are amended “and/or” their approval procedures “are complied with, as necessary” does not tell the enjoined party what to do. It was vacated.

The district court had awarded Jordan $23,453.24 — $21,929.50 in attorney fees under Idaho Code § 12-121, $323.74 in costs and $1,200 in discretionary costs — after finding Powers had litigated unreasonably. Because the Supreme Court significantly modified the relief, it vacated that award and remanded, noting the prevailing-party determination may come out differently. Neither side received fees on appeal, since both partially prevailed.

What Idaho boards can do with this

• An amended plat is not an escape hatch, and a county approval is not a covenant ruling. An association that misses a land-use appeal deadline has not lost its covenants.
• Enforce the procedure you actually have. The association's strongest ground here was the unremarkable one: an architectural-approval clause, an improvement, and no application.
• Do not stack theories. The categorical-prohibition and lot-split declarations were reversed, and taking them cost the association's ally his fee award.
• Make the design committee reachable. The Court reserved the impossibility argument for an owner who asks and gets nowhere. Published rules and a named contact close that door.