Why the carve-out was probably drafted this way

Read charitably, section 85 protects owners rather than obstructing solar. The broadened §10(b)(6) lets an association require energy measures of its owners. Leaving solar inside that power would have let a board compel individual owners to install solar systems, or assess them for one, on the strength of §10 alone. Carving solar out and sending it to §18 puts a large capital installation back under the improvements regime, where large capital installations normally sit.

That reading is an inference from the section's structure, not something the act states. The effect is not in dispute: association-side solar is an §18 improvement, and §18 is a supermajority statute.

The three routes, with their actual vote thresholds

Route one: an owner's own installation. Protected by c. 184 §23C. A master deed provision forbidding it, or unreasonably restricting it, is void. The association may still apply reasonable requirements — structural review, mounting standards, insurance, responsibility for removal during roof work — but a prohibition is not enforceable.

The practical limit is not the covenant. It is ownership of the roof. Where the roof is common element, which it usually is in a stacked Massachusetts condominium, an owner-installed array is an alteration of common area, and that is a different question from whether a restriction on solar is void. In a townhouse-style condominium where the roof is unit property or exclusive-use, §23C does the work cleanly.

Route two: the association's array, at 75 percent. Costly to organise in an association of any size, and in a building with absentee owners or low turnout it is often unreachable. Where it works, the array is a common facility and everyone pays.

Route three: the association's array, at 50 to 74 percent. Underused, and worth understanding. At this level the improvement may proceed with only the consenting owners bearing the cost — which, for solar with net metering or an incentive structure that can be allocated to participants, turns the project into an opt-in among owners rather than an all-or-nothing vote.

What did NOT change, and what a dead bill would have added

H.3496, An Act ensuring solar energy access, was sent to study on 6 April 2026. It is frequently described as the bill that would have voided restrictive covenants. It would not have — §23C already does that. What H.3496 would have added is the enforcement machinery §23C lacks:

• A 60-day deadline for an association to act on a solar request, with written explanations for any restriction
• A numeric test for “unreasonable”: a restriction increasing installation cost by more than 10 percent or $1,000, whichever is lower, or reducing efficiency by more than 10 percent
• A private right of action with injunctive relief, damages, and costs and attorney's fees to the prevailing party

That is the real gap. An owner today has a void covenant and no timetable, no numeric standard, and no fee-shifting remedy — which means enforcing a right that exists on paper requires a lawsuit the owner funds. The contrast with c. 183A §10A, the EV right to charge, is instructive: that section does carry a 60-day deemed approval and a definition of reasonable restrictions.

The 10 percent buyout provision deserves a closer look

§18's dissenting-owner remedy — a Superior Court petition for a fair-market-value buyout where the improvement exceeds 10 percent of the then value of the condominium — is unlikely to be triggered by a solar array in a building of any size.

It matters in small associations. In a four- or six-unit Massachusetts condominium, which describes a large share of the state's stock, a substantial rooftop array plus electrical work can approach a meaningful fraction of total value. A board there should have counsel look at the threshold before the vote rather than after — and it is not a theoretical remedy: a Suffolk Superior Court ordered a condominium trust to buy out an objecting owner at $835,000 under the neighbouring casualty provision, §17, with judgment satisfied in January 2025.

The incentive clock

The economics run through the state's SMART programme, replaced mid-stream by SMART 3.0 at 225 CMR 28.00: emergency regulation filed 20 June 2025, final regulations filed 28 August 2025 and effective on publication in the Massachusetts Register on 12 September 2025, with first programme-year applications opening 15 October 2025.

Final applications under the old SMART 2.0 rules are due by 31 December 2026. An association still deliberating a project it began scoping in 2024 should establish which programme year it is in before counting on a particular incentive.

What to watch next

Whether the enforcement machinery is refiled in the 195th General Court, convening January 2027. And whether any Massachusetts court is asked to construe the §10(b)(6) carve-out, which as drafted says more clearly what solar is not than what an association may do about it — in particular, how §23C's void rule and §18's supermajority interact when the array an owner wants sits on a common-element roof.