The penalties for getting it wrong

Two provisions supply teeth, and one of them is criminal.

“C. Effective January 1, 2015, local municipal authorities or local parish authorities shall not impose or collect any civil or criminal fine, fee, or penalty as a result of an image produced by an automated speed enforcement device in violation of this Section.”

“C. In addition to any other remedy provided by law, the use of handheld, manned, or unmanned automated speed enforcement devices or mobile speed cameras that can be mounted in a vehicle or deployed at various locations to monitor and record the speed of passing traffic for the purpose of issuing a citation of an alleged violation by mail intentionally inconsistent with R.S. 32:43 et seq. shall be punishable as provided for in R.S. 14:134.”

R.S. 14:134 is malfeasance in office. That provision is aimed at public officers rather than at a homeowners association, but it tells you how seriously the Legislature meant the prohibition.

There is also a signage regime for the school zones where the devices remain lawful: 48-inch by 48-inch bright yellow signs with the bottom at least seven feet off the ground, placed no less than 500 feet and no more than 1,000 feet before the device, reading “Photo enforcement devices at use”; a two-foot-wide yellow stripe with “Entering School Zone” in twelve-inch white lettering at each entrance; and “School Zone Ahead” 200 feet before it. R.S. 32:43(A)(4) carries one narrow population-based exemption, for a municipality of more than fifteen thousand and fewer than sixteen thousand within a parish of more than seventy thousand and fewer than ninety thousand.

What an association is left with

Two categories of tool, both of which it already had.

Physical measures. Speed tables, chicanes, narrowed entries, signage and gate placement on roads the association owns. These are common-area decisions under R.S. 9:1141.20(A)(2)(f) and (i) — the powers to regulate the use of the common areas and to grant servitudes — and they are capital projects, which puts them inside the budget-ratification sequence of R.S. 9:1141.34 rather than in the board's unilateral gift.

Covenant enforcement. A rule about speed on association roads, adopted under R.S. 9:1141.37 with notice and comment, enforced by a reasonable fine under R.S. 9:1141.20(A)(2)(l). Note the limits that ride with that: subsection (F) forbids the association being “arbitrary or capricious in its decision to pursue or decline enforcement,” and paragraph (A)(2)(q) forbids denying an owner access to the owner's own lot.

What a board cannot do is convert a camera image into a covenant fine through a vendor. The images may not lawfully be produced in the first place.

The evidentiary problem nobody talks about

Even setting the statute aside, a fine based on an automated image raises the procedural question every Louisiana fining decision now raises. The Planned Community Act requires the association to “[e]stablish reasonable procedures for addressing and resolving written complaints from lot owners,” and a fine imposed on machine evidence with no hearing route is a fine an owner will contest on exactly that footing. HB 817 of 2026 would have written a notice-and-hearing requirement into the statute; it died in committee, so the standard remains “reasonable,” tested case by case.

What a board can do

• Do not sign a camera-enforcement vendor contract for private streets. The authorising provision an association would need does not exist, and R.S. 32:43(A)(1) says the opposite.
• Budget physical measures properly. Traffic calming on association roads is a capital item, and R.S. 9:1141.34 puts a special assessment for it in front of the owners.
• Write the speed rule to implement the declaration. R.S. 9:1141.37(E) limits rules affecting use of or behaviour on residential lots to those implementing a declaration provision or addressing behaviour that violates it or adversely affects others' use and enjoyment.
• Check who owns the street. If the road was dedicated to the parish, none of this is the association's problem — and none of it is the association's authority either.

What to watch next

Nothing pending. Automated enforcement has been a recurring Louisiana legislative subject — R.S. 32:43 has been amended in 2014, 2024 and now 2025, and R.S. 32:47 in 2024 and 2025 — so the settled position may not stay settled. The next opportunity is the 2027 Regular Session, convening April 12, 2027.