What Minnesota courts said about design covenants in the same period

While the Legislature declined to limit architectural covenants, the Court of Appeals was reading them broadly. Warner v. Pines of North Oaks Home Owners' Association, No. A25-1129, decided 17 February 2026, is the most useful recent Minnesota authority — and it is nonprecedential, persuasive only, under Minn. R. Civ. App. P. 136.01, subd. 1(c).²

The owners bought the last undeveloped lot in a 99-lot North Oaks subdivision. The board rejected their design three times as inconsistent with the neighbourhood's one-storey villa character. They argued the board could apply only the written architectural standards.

The court held the written standards were not necessarily the exclusive criteria. The covenants made them a floor — the association “shall establish the criteria for approval, which shall include and require, at a minimum” — and required “compatibility of color, size, location, type, and design in relation to existing improvements and topography,” with the subdivision to “be administered and operated as a homogenous residential community.” Reading the documents as a whole, the board could deny for incompatibility even where the written standards were silent.

The court's own limit is worth quoting: “The board does not have unfettered discretion and nothing in our opinion should be interpreted as granting the board such powers.”

So the year's net movement on architectural control in Minnesota was: the Legislature declined to narrow covenant scope, and a nonprecedential decision read a compatibility covenant generously while expressly refusing to endorse unlimited discretion.

The one real constraint that did arrive

From 1 January 2027, Chapter 82 provides that association “[r]ules and regulations adopted must be reasonable,” and requires 21 days' notice and comment before any rule is adopted, amended or revoked.

That reaches rules. It does not reach the declaration or recorded covenants, which are amended by owner vote under the governing documents and Minn. Stat. § 515B.2-118, not adopted by the board.

The practical significance is where a Minnesota association's design requirements actually live. Where the substantive standard is in the recorded declaration, Chapter 82's reasonableness standard does not directly touch it. Where the board has built out detailed design guidelines as rules — which is the common pattern — those are rules, and from January they must be reasonable and must be changed on notice.

Boards with guidelines they have never reviewed should know which category each requirement sits in before January.

The ADU half of the bill also failed, twice over

S.F. 3418's accessory-dwelling-unit mandate was one of several. S.F. 4123 (Sen. Port, with Sens. Rasmusson, Fateh and Boldon) would have required municipalities to allow at least one ADU as a permitted use on any residential lot containing a single-family home, “regardless of lot size, street frontage, or connectivity” to the primary dwelling, subject to the Minnesota Residential Code and the smallest setback in the district. Introduced 4 March 2026, referred to State and Local Government, never heard.³

The confirmable bottom line: Minn. Stat. ch. 462, the municipal planning chapter, was not amended at all in the 2025 regular session, the 2025 special session, or the 2026 session. Minnesota enacted no statewide ADU mandate.

One part of S.F. 4123 did become law by another route. Its prohibition on municipalities requiring the creation of an HOA as a development condition passed as section 14 of Chapter 82, creating a new Minn. Stat. § 515B.5-101, effective 1 January 2027 for communities created on or after that date.

The trap worth naming

Four separate dead bills in this biennium had their policy enacted anyway through S.F. 1750. A reader tracking a bill number would conclude the Legislature rejected the idea; the chapter says otherwise.

The reverse error is equally available here. S.F. 3418's covenant provisions did not survive in any form — not in Chapter 82, not in Chapter 61, not anywhere. An owner told that Minnesota has limited what HOA covenants may require about home size, materials or fencing has been told something untrue.

The rule for reading this session: check the chapter, not the bill, in both directions.

What to watch next

The 94th Legislature adjourned sine die on 18 May 2026. S.F. 3418 and S.F. 4123 must be reintroduced with new bill numbers in the 95th, which convenes 12 January 2027.

The organised push most likely to carry the ADU and design-standard provisions forward is the Starter Homes Act coalition, whose 2026 bill was voted down 7–5 in a House committee on 23 March 2026 — in a committee, not on a floor, which makes the November 2026 election the variable.⁴

This describes filed bills and a nonprecedential decision. It does not predict any outcome.