2026-09-10 · Kentucky · Compliance

What happened. On 1 July 2026, a Kentucky statute passed fifteen months earlier finally took effect. House Bill 160, signed by the Governor on 1 April 2025 as 2025 Ky. Acts ch. 154, carried an unusual instruction in its final line: “Section 2. This Act takes effect July 1, 2026.”¹

The Act amends KRS 100.348 and strips local governments of the power to zone qualified manufactured homes out of residential districts. It does not touch private covenants — and it says so in terms.

What local governments may no longer do

“Except as provided in subsection (4) of this section, a local government shall not adopt or enforce any zoning regulation, ordinance, or other requirement that: (a) Excludes qualified manufactured homes from any residential zone where single-family residences are permitted; (b) Discriminates against qualified manufactured homes; or (c) Imposes foundation requirements on manufactured homes that: 1. Conflict with the structural engineering of the homes; 2. Conflict with KRS 227.570; or 3. Require more than one (1) type of permanent foundation system.”

And the enforcement mechanism is blunt: “Any zoning regulation, ordinance, or requirement that violates this section is void and unenforceable.”

Local compatibility standards survive but are cabined. Where a local government applies architectural compatibility standards to qualified manufactured homes, those standards “must be equivalent to, and not more stringent than, those standards applied to other single-family residential structures in the same zone,” and are limited to roof pitch, square footage of livable space, type and quality of exterior finishing materials, foundation skirting, and the existence and type of attached structures.

The savings clause — the sentence that decides this for associations

Subsection (6) of the amended statute reads:

“This section shall not be construed to affect, modify, or abolish restrictions contained in recorded deeds, covenants, or developers' subdivision restrictions.”

Worth a note of precision, because it is easy to over-report: that carve-out is not new. It existed in the prior version of KRS 100.348 as subsection (4). HB 160 renumbered it to (6) and struck the opening words “Nothing in”; the protection itself was carried forward, not created.

What “qualified” now means

The definition was also revised, and it widened the pool. A qualified manufactured home must be manufactured within five years of installation, be placed on a permanent foundation meeting KRS 227.570, measure at least twenty feet at its narrowest width (or be two storeys with the main entrance facing the street), and contain at least 900 square feet. The old exclusion for homes “located in a manufactured home land-lease community” was deleted.

1. 2025 Ky. Acts ch. 154 (HB 160) — enrolled Act amending KRS 100.348, with the 1 July 2026 effective date ↩
2. HB 160, Kentucky General Assembly 2025 Regular Session — bill record and action history ↩
3. Interim Joint Committee on Local Government, agenda for 15 September 2026 — HB 160 implementation update ↩
4. KRS 381.791, Amendment of declaration — Termination of declaration and association ↩