Working the test against a real community

Take the limbs in the order that disposes of most cases fastest.

Capacity first. Level 2 charging — the overwhelming majority of what associations install in resident parking — typically runs between roughly 7 and 19 kW per port. That is below the twenty-kilowatt floor, and a station below the floor is not a “charging station” under this section at all. No licence, no fee, no inspection, regardless of who uses it or how it is billed. DC fast charging is where the floor is routinely cleared.

Public access second. The statute asks whether the place is “accessible to general public vehicular traffic.” Chargers behind a gate, in a controlled garage, or in a lot posted and restricted to residents and their guests are not. Chargers in an open, unrestricted lot that anyone can drive into are a harder question, and the statute gives no gloss on how restricted access must be.

Retail sale third. This limb asks whether electricity is sold at retail to charge a vehicle. An association that recovers charging costs through assessments, or that runs chargers as an unmetered amenity, is not selling at retail. An association that takes card or app payment per kilowatt-hour from drivers is much closer to it.

The common association fact pattern — Level 2 ports, resident-only, cost recovered through the budget — fails all three limbs, not just one. The association that should take advice is the one running public-facing DC fast chargers on a per-kWh tariff, most plausibly a mixed-use or large urban condominium with commercial frontage. That association needs a licence in place before 1 January 2027 and should count ports, not stations, when it budgets the fee.

The bigger point: this is a revenue statute, not an EV-rights statute

It is worth being explicit, because charging legislation in other states often does two jobs at once and this one does not.

HB 757 creates no right to install charging equipment in a community association. It does not limit an association's authority to approve, condition, or refuse a charger under the architectural-review provisions of a declaration. It does not allocate the electrical cost, address panel capacity or metering, or say anything about limited common element parking.

Kentucky still has no EV-charging access statute for community associations, and no solar-access statute either. Where many states have enacted provisions voiding covenant restrictions on charging equipment or solar installations, Kentucky has not. An owner's route to a charger in a Kentucky community remains the declaration, the bylaws, and the board.

What a board can actually do before January

• Write down the nameplate capacity of every port you own. The twenty-kilowatt figure is the fastest disposal of the whole question, and it is a number on the equipment, not a judgment call.
• Decide, deliberately, whether the public may drive in. If the chargers are meant for residents, make the restriction real and visible — signage, gate, or posted lot rules. An association drifting into public use has drifted toward the definition.
• Look at how you bill. Recovering cost through assessments or a flat amenity charge is a different thing from selling kilowatt-hours. If you are moving to per-kWh billing, that decision now has a licensing dimension it did not have before.
• Do not confuse this with permission. An owner citing HB 757 as authority to install a charger is citing a licensing statute. The governing documents still control.

What to watch next

The Department of Revenue has to build the licence, the fund and the inspection programme before 1 January 2027, and the statute leaves the mechanics to the Department. Guidance or an administrative regulation defining how “accessible to general public vehicular traffic” is assessed would be the single most useful thing to emerge, and is the item to watch in the Kentucky Administrative Register this autumn.

Separately, HB 757's other effective dates are staggered — parts of the Act operate from 1 July 2026 and 1 August 2026, and parts reach back to 1 January 2020 and 1 January 2026. The charging-licence section is expressly the January 2027 one; do not read a date from elsewhere in the Act onto it.