Why the numeric definition was the important part

Every solar access statute has to answer the same question: when does an aesthetic restriction become a de facto prohibition? Massachusetts answers it today with the single word “unreasonably,” and leaves the rest to litigation.

H.3496 answered it with arithmetic. A restriction adding more than the lower of 10 percent or $1,000 to installation cost, or cutting efficiency by more than 10 percent, would have been unreasonable and therefore void by operation of the statute rather than by a judge's assessment.

That is a low bar for an association to trip. The routine restrictions in Massachusetts condominium practice — panels not visible from the street, ground-mount rather than roof, a particular mounting system, a screening requirement — frequently cost more than $1,000, or cost efficiency by moving panels off the optimal roof plane. Under the bill most of them would have been void, and the association would have paid the owner's attorney's fees for having defended them.

That is almost certainly why it did not pass, and it is a fair criticism of the drafting rather than of the objective: a threshold set at the lower of a percentage and a fixed dollar figure operates as a fixed dollar figure in nearly every real case.

The gap the bill leaves open

A right without a remedy is the honest description of where Massachusetts solar owners now sit.

§23C makes the covenant void. It says nothing about how long an association may take to answer, whether it must give reasons, what counts as unreasonable in any measurable sense, or who pays when an owner has to sue to establish the point. An owner facing a board that neither approves nor refuses has no statutory timetable to invoke.

The contrast with the EV statute is direct and instructive. c. 183A §10A, in force since 18 February 2025, gives an owner a 60-day deemed approval: a board that does not deny in writing within 60 days has approved the application. It defines reasonable restrictions narrowly, forbids any fee beyond standard architectural review, and expressly reaches homeowners associations and community associations as well as condominiums.

Massachusetts therefore has a strong, old, unenforceable solar rule and a newer, weaker-sounding but procedurally sharp EV rule. In practice the EV owner is better placed.

What an owner can actually do today

• Know that a flat prohibition is void. If the master deed says no solar, that provision does not bind you. Say so, in writing, citing c. 184 §23C.
• Separate the covenant question from the ownership question. §23C voids restrictions; it does not give you rights over property you do not control. Where the roof is common element — usual in a stacked building — installing on it is an alteration of common area, and that is governed by the master deed and c. 183A. In a townhouse-style condominium with unit or exclusive-use roofs, §23C does the work cleanly.
• Ask for reasons in writing, and diarise the silence. There is no statutory clock, but a documented record of an unanswered request is what a reasonableness argument is built from.
• Watch the incentive calendar. SMART 3.0 took effect on publication in the Massachusetts Register on 12 September 2025, with first-year applications opening 15 October 2025; final applications under the old SMART 2.0 rules are due 31 December 2026.

What a board can do

Adopt a solar policy before the request arrives, and start from the premise that you cannot prohibit. A board that has published what it will consider — mounting standards, structural review, roof warranty protection, insurance, responsibility for removal during roof work, and a stated decision timeline — is applying a standard. A board that improvises a denial is exercising taste, and under §23C taste that forbids or unreasonably restricts is void.

The Land Court's February 2026 decision in Feldman v. Sanctuary Condominium Association is the wider warning: a discretionary architectural denial that is arbitrary, internally inconsistent, or unsupported by facts gets no absolute protection from the business judgment rule.

What to watch next

A refile in the 195th General Court, convening January 2027, and whether the numeric test survives. The version most likely to pass would keep the 60-day clock and the written-reasons requirement — both modelled on the EV statute already in force — and replace the fixed-dollar threshold with something that does not void an ordinary screening requirement.