2026-09-10 · Kansas · Legislation · Did not pass

The bill that would have ended rooftop solar bans in Kansas covenants is dead, and it died without a committee vote. Senate Bill 144 was introduced by Senator Cindy Holscher in February 2025, referred to the Senate Committee on Local Government, Transparency and Ethics, and stayed there for the rest of the biennium. It received a single hearing on January 28, 2026 and was never reported out.¹

Because the 2025-2026 biennium has adjourned, the bill is finished. Any revival requires a new bill and a new number in 2027.

What the bill said — the whole operative text

SB 144 was two sentences long. Section 1(a): “On July 1, 2025, any provision of a restrictive covenant that limits or prohibits the installation of solar panels on the rooftop of any residential property is hereby declared to be void and unenforceable.”²

Section 1(b): “After July 1, 2025, a homeowners association may adopt reasonable rules concerning solar panels, except that such rules shall not prohibit the installation of solar panels on the rooftop of a residential property.”

Its title was equally direct: an act “declaring current restrictive covenants that limit or prohibit the installation of solar panels on the rooftops of residential properties to be void and unenforceable; allowing homeowners associations to adopt reasonable rules concerning solar panels that do not prohibit rooftop installation.”

The hearing

The January 28, 2026 hearing drew eighteen testimony filings. Proponents included the Sierra Club's Kansas chapter, individual homeowners and municipal representatives; the recorded opposition came from association management companies. The Community Associations Institute did not oppose outright — it sought amendments, asking that attached units and condominiums be excluded and that existing restrictions be grandfathered.³

None of that mattered. The committee never voted.

1. SB 144 bill history and hearing record, Kansas State Legislature ↩
2. Senate Bill No. 144, as introduced — full text ↩
3. Kansas 2026 End of Session report, Community Associations Institute ↩
4. K.S.A. 58-4609, Board of directors — Kansas Office of Revisor of Statutes ↩