What it would have done to covenants

This is the half that matters most to community associations, and it is where SB 1277 and SB 1354 chose genuinely different legal machinery.

SB 1277 would have used the void-and-fee-shift model. Section 1 would have amended Idaho Code § 55-618 — the 2023 provision voiding covenants against internal accessory dwelling units — to cover accessory dwelling units generally, to change its standard from “prohibits” to “prohibits or unreasonably restricts,” to move its trigger date from 1 July 2023 to 1 July 2026, and to repoint its definition from § 55-3212 to the new § 67-6541. Section 55-618 declares such covenants void as against public policy and makes anyone attempting to create or enforce one liable for the other party's attorney's fees, court costs and damages. It would also have deleted the one-internal-unit-per-homestead cap.

SB 1354 used the consent model instead. The enacted § 55-3212 makes an ADU-limiting covenant unenforceable unless the affected owner agrees in writing. There is no declaration of voidness and no damages remedy in that section.

The practical difference for a board is the exposure. Under the consent model, an association that enforces an ADU ban may find the covenant unenforceable. Under the void-and-fee-shift model, it may also owe the owner's legal fees for having tried.

A consequence of the choice

SB 1277 would have amended § 55-618 in the same act that removed the definition from § 55-3212. SB 1354 removed the definition and did not touch § 55-618.

The result is that § 55-618 remains on the books voiding covenants against “an internal accessory dwelling unit, as defined in section 55-3212, Idaho Code” — a definition § 55-3212 no longer contains.³ The bill that died would have prevented that. This column treats the resulting cross-reference problem separately.

Why the narrower bill was the one that moved

The Community Associations Institute's Idaho legislative action committee records opposing SB 1277 on the ground that it would have required associations to permit all ADU types, and records that amendments to the surviving bill reduced the number of allowable units and clarified association rule authority before it passed.⁴

That account matches the documents. The architectural-design item in the enacted § 55-3212(2) — permitting reasonable rules on “architectural design consistent with the primary dwelling” — appears in the engrossed version of SB 1354 and not in that bill as introduced.⁵ It is the clearest single trace of association input in the 2026 session's statute book.

What it means for boards

1. Do not plan against the bill that died. Two-per-lot allowances, 36 units per acre, 45-foot heights and four-foot setbacks are not Idaho law. Some secondary summaries of the session blur the two bills.
2. The rule-making authority you have was won at the amendment stage. Subsection (2) of § 55-3212 is the practical toolkit, and it exists in its current form because the bill was amended. Associations that never adopt rules under it have declined the thing that was bargained for.
3. Watch which template a future bill uses. Consent or void-and-fee-shift is the question that determines a board's downside. It is visible in the first paragraph of any draft.
4. Counties are outside the enacted zoning section. SB 1277 would have reached them. An association in an unincorporated subdivision sees no municipal change — but § 55-3212 applies to it anyway.

What to watch next

Idaho bills do not carry over. Anything from SB 1277 that returns will do so as a new bill in the session convening January 2027, and no interim committee is currently developing housing legislation. The most likely vehicle is a cleanup bill addressing the § 55-618 reference — which would give a sponsor an obvious opportunity to reopen the scope question at the same time.