The two categories of request a Missoula board can expect

1. A second unit that is now zoning-legal and covenant-restricted. An owner who can get an administrative approval for a duplex or an accessory dwelling will assume the question is settled. Whether the declaration permits it is a separate question, and it is the board's to answer. The pattern is the same one Montana's ADU statutes created at state level: public permission expanded, private restriction untouched.

2. Parking spillover. This is the one boards underestimate. The city no longer requires off-street stalls for residential uses, but private parking rules — guest parking limits, on-street prohibitions, assigned spaces, RV and trailer restrictions — still bind. A parcel that adds a second unit with no required parking puts cars somewhere, and in a covenanted subdivision that somewhere is governed by the declaration.

Missoula has one related requirement worth knowing about, though we could not open the page directly: the city's guidance indicates an ADU applicant must submit a notarised statement that the ADU does not violate neighbourhood covenants, while the city “does not keep, nor enforce neighborhood covenants.” If accurate, that puts the covenant question in front of the applicant at permit stage — useful for an association, and a reason to make sure owners know what the declaration actually says before they sign something. We flag it as reported rather than verified.

The enforcement problem this creates, and it is a real one

An association whose declaration restricts lots to one dwelling is about to find out how consistently it has enforced that restriction — because Montana changed the test in 2025.

House Bill 147, effective May 5, 2025, defines “enforcement action” on a covenant as enforcement that was “equally and consistently enforced under whatever method an association uses to enforce covenants on all properties subject to the covenant over at least a 2-year period.” And Senate Bill 143, effective October 1, 2025, cut the limitation period that the abandonment defence keys to from eight years to six.

So a Missoula association facing its first wave of second-unit applications is facing them with a shorter dormancy clock and a statutory definition of what counts as having enforced. An existing tolerated accessory unit, a long-standing basement apartment, a shed converted years ago — each is now evidence about the covenant rather than a private accommodation.⁴

What a board can do that is proportionate

• Establish what the declaration actually says about number of dwellings, occupancy, kitchens and rental of part of a dwelling. Many Montana declarations say “single-family residential use” and nothing more, which is a weaker document than boards assume — and whether that phrase alone bars a second unit is unresolved in Montana.
• Write down the enforcement history for that covenant, per property, going back at least two years. This is the record HB 147 now tests.
• Decide before the first application, not during it. An association that answers its first request one way and its second another way has created the inconsistency the statute penalises.
• Leave the zoning argument alone. It is gone. And the district court ruling that the 2023 state housing statutes could not displace stricter covenants was vacated by the Montana Supreme Court on March 17, 2026 — so that is not available either. The argument is the document.

One detail we could not pin down

We could not retrieve the adopting ordinance number for Missoula's Unified Development Code. The February 2, 2026 unanimous adoption, the 30-day effective period and the 120-day election window are from contemporaneous reporting we opened; the ordinance number is unverified and we are not guessing at one.³