What a covered city must allow, and what it may not require

Subsection (2)(a) sets the baseline: either one internal accessory dwelling unit within the single-family dwelling, or one detached accessory dwelling unit per lot in the rear yard or subject to the setbacks required of the primary dwelling. Note “either… or” — the introduced version would have required both, and the amendment made it a choice.⁴

The remaining paragraphs are ceilings on municipal requirements:

• Parking (b). No off-street or guest parking may be required — unless the principal dwelling has no off-street parking, or the street is unpaved and not designed or constructed for on-street parking, or the principal dwelling is within one-fourth mile of transit, an employment area, or commercial services.
• Impact and connection fees (c). May not exceed those imposed on other single-family dwellings.
• Size (d). A city may not cap an accessory dwelling unit below 1,000 square feet or 75% of the primary dwelling — whichever is more generous, since each is a floor on what must be permitted.
• Owner occupancy (e). A city may not require the owner to live in either unit. This removes the single most common conditional-use condition in ADU ordinances.
• Height (f). No height limit lower than the height of an existing single-family primary dwelling on the lot.
• Dimensional parity (g). Setback, lot-size, coverage and building-frontage restrictions may not be more restrictive than those applied to single-family dwellings in the same zoning district.

One provision from the introduced bill did not survive: a flat four-foot side and rear setback cap. Setbacks are now handled through the parity rule in (g) and the rear-yard language in (a) instead.

Administrative, as of right, and on the clock

Subsection (3) provides that a project meeting the jurisdiction's established land-use requirements “shall be approved administratively and as a matter of right, without the need for discretionary approval.” Subsection (4) requires approval standards, special conditions and procedures to be clear and objective, and bars them from having the effect — “either singularly or cumulatively” — of discouraging accessory dwelling units through unreasonable cost or delay. Subsection (5) allows a city to be less restrictive; nothing allows it to be more.

That is the operative shift for associations. Where an accessory unit previously needed a conditional-use permit — a hearing, a discretionary decision, and a forum where neighbours and the association could be heard — a conforming application in a covered city now moves over a counter.

Subsection (7) preserves laws protecting public health, safety and welfare: building codes, fire safety standards and flood-plain regulation; water, sewer, storm drainage, road access and utility service laws; environmental-hazard, aquifer-recharge, steep-slope and critical-habitat protections; and setback rules for rights-of-way and easements.

What it does not do

Section 67-6541 imposes no duty on a homeowner's association and says nothing about covenants, deed restrictions or short-term rentals. Its role in association law is indirect but real: it supplies the definition that § 55-3212 borrows, so the reach of the covenant rule moves with this section.

It also does not touch counties or smaller cities. An unincorporated subdivision, or one in a city under 10,000, sees no change in municipal process — while § 55-3212 applies to associations statewide regardless of where they sit.

What boards can do before February

1. Confirm whether your city is covered. Ten thousand is the line, and in a fast-growing state a city under it at one estimate may be over it at the next.
2. Comment while the ordinance is a draft. Covered cities must act by 1 February 2027, so most are drafting now. Subsection (4) leaves cities little room, but the choices they do have — how “employment area” and “commercial services” get mapped for the parking exception, for one — matter locally.
3. Expect no municipal hearing on the individual unit. Once an ordinance conforms, the city's decision is ministerial. Whatever review the association conducts will be the only review.
4. Benchmark your own rules. An association rule capping an accessory unit at 600 square feet can sit beside a city that must permit 1,000. That is permissible under § 55-3212(2) if the rule is reasonable — but reasonableness is measured against something, and these floors are now the visible measure.