Indiana bill would have fenced every HOA retention pond
Indiana bill would have fenced every HOA retention pond
2026-09-10 · Indiana · Legislation · Did not pass
What happened — and did not. Senator J.D. Ford filed Senate Bill 69 in the 2025 session. It would have obliged every Indiana homeowners association to fence the entire perimeter of any pond it owns or maintains. It was referred to committee on 8 January 2025, was never given a hearing, and died when the session adjourned.1
This is not law and never was. We are covering it because retention ponds are close to universal in Indiana subdivisions, and because a proposal of this shape tends to return.
The text
The bill would have added a new section to IC 32-25.5:
“A homeowners association shall erect a barrier that: (1) is at least four (4) feet in height; and (2) surrounds the perimeter of a retention pond or other pond or lake that is located on property owned or maintained by the homeowners association or owned in common by the members of the homeowners association.”
Read the second clause carefully. The obligation attaches to water “owned or maintained” by the association, or owned in common by members. That is broader than it first appears — it reaches ponds an association does not own but has assumed maintenance responsibility for, an extremely common Indiana arrangement where stormwater infrastructure was platted to the association after development.
How it died
Quietly, and in the most ordinary way available. First reading on 8 January 2025, referred to the Committee on Local Government, and no substantive action ever after. The legislature's own records carry it as dead. It received no hearing, no committee vote, and no amendment.
That is the fate of the large majority of bills filed in any Indiana session, and it carries no implication about the merits. A bill dies unheard because a committee chair did not schedule it, which can reflect opposition, indifference, a crowded calendar, or a decision to let a subject develop for a year.
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- What it would have cost, and why that probably decided it
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