What that means for the three association types

A condominium. The unit is defined by the master deed, and the common elements belong to all owners. An owner cannot create a new dwelling unit inside a condominium without doing something the master deed almost certainly does not permit — altering unit boundaries, appropriating common area, or changing the percentage interests, each of which has its own amendment threshold under c. 183A and the instrument. Zoning by-right does not supply any of that authority.

A homeowners association with recorded covenants. A covenant barring a second dwelling unit, or barring rental, or imposing architectural review, remains a private contract running with the land. Massachusetts has not preempted it. The association enforces it in the ordinary way.

A planned community with an architectural review committee but no express ADU restriction. This is the harder case, and the one decided by what is in place before the application arrives. An ARC applying general aesthetic or use standards to an ADU application is on firmer ground if it has published criteria in advance than if it improvises a denial.

The gap this leaves, said plainly

Massachusetts made ADUs by right against towns and left them entirely subject to private restrictions. In a state where a large share of newer single-family housing sits inside a homeowners association with recorded covenants, that is a meaningful limit on the policy — and no bill was filed in the 194th General Court to close it.

It is also an unstable equilibrium. The same session's records, elections and reserve bills all died, but the ADU covenant question is the one where state housing policy and private governance point in opposite directions, and that is the kind of gap legislatures eventually revisit.

Meanwhile, the Attorney General is striking town bylaws

The contrast is instructive. While private covenants stand untouched, municipal ADU restrictions are being disapproved. The Attorney General's Municipal Law Unit, reviewing bylaws under G.L. c. 40 §32, issued a cluster of disapprovals in October 2025:

• Hanson (16 October 2025) — a special permit requirement struck as conflicting with c. 40A §3 and 760 CMR 71.00
• Sudbury (14 October 2025) — a requirement of “at least one additional off-street parking space” struck under 760 CMR 71.03(2)(b)
• Dover (October 2025) — a definition limiting ADUs to accessories of a “single-family” dwelling struck
• Hull (decision dated 17 October 2025, case no. 11904)

An association whose members are pressing for ADU rights should understand that these decisions are about what a town may require. None of them reaches a master deed or a covenant.

Operationally, for a board

• Read your own documents before answering an owner. The answer is in the master deed or the declaration of covenants, not in c. 40A. A board that tells an owner “state law now allows it” has given advice that is wrong in the association context.
• Decide the association's position deliberately. Some associations will want to permit ADUs — they add value and, in a condominium, potentially assessable interests. That is a decision to be made by the owners through whatever amendment process the documents require, not by the board improvising case by case.
• Watch the short-term rental interaction. The statute lets municipalities prohibit ADU use as a short-term rental. Where an association also restricts short-term rentals, an owner faces two independent restrictions, and satisfying one says nothing about the other.

What to watch next

Whether EOHLC's supplemental guidelines under 760 CMR 71.00 ever address private covenants — the regulation's text suggests the protection stops at zoning — and whether a bill preempting covenant-based ADU bans appears in the 195th General Court, which convenes in January 2027. Neither has happened yet.