The municipal deadlines, corrected

There is a persistent claim that Maine municipalities had until 1 July 2026 (council-form) and have until 1 July 2027 (town-meeting form) to update their ordinances. The codified text says otherwise.

30-A M.R.S. § 4364(1-A) — the “implementation date” definition that both § 4364-A and § 4364-B cross-reference — reads:

“A. January 1, 2024 for municipalities for which ordinances may be enacted by the municipal officers without further action or approval by the voters of the municipality; and B. July 1, 2024 for all other municipalities.”

Those dates were set by P.L. 2023, c. 192, § 3 — and they are 2024, not 2026 and 2027. We could not substantiate the later pair. If a 2026 or 2027 date applies to a particular town, it comes from something other than this definition, and the town is the place to confirm it.

A related caution: the Revisor's online statute pages carry a data-extraction stamp and reflect amendments only through a chapter number well below the 2026 session's. P.L. 2025, c. 733 (reported as LD 2173, An Act to Update the Laws Regarding Housing Developments and Accessory Dwelling Units, signed in April 2026) was not retrievable in its enacted form, so we are not asserting what it changed. If you need to know, pull the chapter itself from the Revisor rather than relying on the codified page.

The state says the same thing the statute does

The Maine Office of Community Affairs publishes a Housing Legislation Guidance document, dated March 2026, covering P.L. 2021 c. 672, P.L. 2023 c. 192, P.L. 2025 c. 385, P.L. 2025 c. 374, P.L. 2025 c. 364 and P.L. 2025 c. 495. In every density and ADU scenario table it publishes, “Homeowners association regulations” and “Deed restrictions” appear under a heading reading “PRIVATE, STATE, AND LOCAL STANDARDS MAY APPLY.”

Its statutory-comparison section states it directly:

“LIKE 30-A MRS § 4364-A, private parties are permitted to restrict the number of housing units on a lot, including ADUs, in a private easement, covenant, deed restriction or other agreement provided the agreement does not violate state or federal rights such as equal protection.”

That is the State's own published position, which makes it the most useful single document to hand an owner who arrives convinced the Legislature has overridden the declaration.

The practical shape of the problem

Maine has created a genuine two-permission regime, and owners discover it in the wrong order.

You can win the municipal right to build and still be barred by the recorded declaration. The town must now allow three units on a lot where a single-family dwelling is the principal structure; it may not require owner-occupancy; and for four units or fewer it cannot even require planning-board review. An owner can therefore be holding a valid building permit with nothing from the association.

The removal of planning-board approval makes this worse for boards, not better. Planning-board review was, incidentally, a notice mechanism — a public process in which neighbours and associations learned what was proposed. Remove it for projects of four units or fewer and the first an association may hear of a project is when work starts.

What a board can do

1. Read what the declaration restricts, precisely. Many Maine declarations restrict use — single-family residential — rather than unit count. An ADU occupied by a family member may not breach a single-family use clause on its text. That is a question about the words, not about zoning.
2. Check the architectural-review provisions work as a notice trigger. With planning-board review gone for small projects, the declaration's own modification and approval process is the association's only reliable advance warning. If it does not require submission before work begins, that is now a real gap.
3. Resist tightening by board rule. In a Maine condominium, adding or changing a use restriction requires unanimous owner consent under 33 M.R.S. § 1602-117(d). A rule adopted to catch up with a statute is the kind of rule that gets tested.
4. Think about what three units does to shared systems. Septic, well, private road, parking allocation, and the common-expense formula were sized for a different density. The covenant carve-out protects your restriction; it does not size your drainfield.
5. Keep the Office of Community Affairs guidance on file. It is the citation that ends the argument.

What to watch next

Implementing rules adopted under the Housing Opportunity Program in January 2026, and the municipal-compliance grant rounds reported for 2026, which are what actually move town ordinances. And whether any future bill proposes reaching private covenants directly — none of the 2021 to 2025 enactments has, and the dead LD 1272 did not either. This column does not predict that it will.