Overland Park formally asked the Legislature to limit HOA solar bans
Overland Park formally asked the Legislature to limit HOA solar bans
2026-09-10 · Kansas · Regulation
Kansas cities generally leave homeowners associations alone. Overland Park went to Topeka to ask that association authority be cut back. The city adopted platform language into its 2026 State Legislative Program stating that “the City supports legislation that limits the ability of homeowners associations to ban or restrict reasonable use of residential solar panels.”1
The position was approved in mid-December 2025 and reported in January 2026.
What the city said it wanted
Not an end to association review, but an end to the veto. Lara Isch, the city's sustainability manager, described the intended effect: “They'll still have some level of control over how they go in, where they go in, what they will allow, but they can't keep people from putting solar panels on their house.”2
That is precisely the structure of the bill the platform supported. SB 144 would have declared void any covenant provision limiting or prohibiting rooftop solar, while allowing associations to “adopt reasonable rules concerning solar panels” that do not prohibit rooftop installation.
What happened to it
Nothing. SB 144 sat in the Senate Committee on Local Government, Transparency and Ethics, received one hearing on January 28, 2026, and was never voted out. The 2025-2026 biennium ended and it died.3
A companion measure in the House, HB 2669, never received a hearing at all.
What a legislative platform is, and is not
It is a statement of the city's lobbying priorities, adopted by the governing body, used by city staff and the city's lobbyist in Topeka. It has no legal effect on anyone. It does not change Overland Park's own code, it does not bind any association, and it does not create any right for a homeowner.
What it does is put a large Kansas city's institutional weight behind a change in private law — which is unusual enough to be worth noting on its own.
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Related Kansas HOA Topics
- Overland Park backs state law limiting HOA solar restrictions — Johnson County Post, January 5, 2026 ↩
- Overland Park backs state limits on HOA bans of residential solar panels — KCTV5, January 10, 2026 ↩
- SB 144 bill history and hearing record, Kansas State Legislature ↩
- K.S.A. 58-4608, Association powers and duties — Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes ↩
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