Nebraska's new improvement districts count condo units as votes
Nebraska's new improvement districts count condo units as votes
2026-09-12 · Nebraska · Legislation
Nebraska created a new kind of taxing district this spring, and the statute that counts the votes to form one reaches inside condominium regimes to do it. LB 1114, the Community Improvement District Act, was approved by Governor Pillen on April 16, 2026 and took effect the same day under an emergency clause.1
What the Act creates
A community improvement district is a political subdivision. Property owners inside a city or village petition to form one, the municipal governing body holds a hearing and passes a formation ordinance naming five trustees and setting a maximum levy rate, and the district then finances, builds and maintains public infrastructure with a district property tax levy plus special assessments. The stated purpose is to spread infrastructure cost over time rather than front-loading it into the price of a lot.
Section 120 of the bill reads: “Since an emergency exists, this act takes effect when passed and approved according to law.”2 There was no waiting period.
How the formation vote counts a condominium
The threshold is a majority of owners, and the Act says how to count them where the ground is residential: “If the real property in a proposed community improvement district is currently zoned residential, a majority of the owners is determined based on the majority of the number of residential lots or condominium units in the proposed boundary of the community improvement district, regardless of lot size.”2
The trustee election provision goes further and treats a unit as a lot outright: “For purposes of voting for trustees, each condominium apartment under a condominium property regime established under the Nebraska Condominium Act shall be deemed to be a platted lot.”2 The bill makes the parallel amendment to the sanitary and improvement district statutes, which reach both the pre-1984 Condominium Property Act and the modern Nebraska Condominium Act.
The part that binds owners who never agreed
A community improvement district is not an opt-in arrangement for the people inside its boundary. The articles of association must list “the name and the description of the real estate owned by any such owner who does not join in the organization of the community improvement district but who will be benefited thereby,” and the signers “obligate themselves to pay the tax or taxes which may be levied against all the property in the community improvement district.”2
A dissenting owner's remedy under Section 5 is a written objection filed at least seven calendar days before the formation hearing. After that, the district exists, it has taxing power, and it does not expire when the developer leaves.
What this stacks on top of
For an owner in a Nebraska planned community or condominium regime, the practical result is a second recurring charge with a different legal character from the first. Association assessments are a contract obligation running from the recorded declaration, enforced by the association through the lien statutes. A community improvement district levy is a property tax imposed by a political subdivision with a five-member elected trustee board, collected the way other property taxes are collected.
The two are not connected. Paying one does not satisfy the other, an association has no authority over the district's budget, and the district's trustees answer to lot and unit votes rather than to the declaration.
What a Nebraska board can actually do with this
Find out whether your subdivision sits inside a proposed boundary. The formation ordinance is a municipal act with a published hearing, and the seven-day written objection window is the only procedural step an owner controls. A board that learns about a district after the ordinance passes has learned about it too late to object.
Count your own units. In a condominium regime the formation majority is measured in units, not in land area or assessed value. A regime with many small units carries proportionally more weight in that count than its acreage suggests, which cuts both ways depending on which side of the petition the owners are on.
Expect resale questions. Nebraska's mandatory seller disclosure form already asks a buyer's side whether any association has authority over the property and whether a private transfer fee obligation exists. A district levy is neither of those, so it will surface in the title work and the tax estimate rather than in the association's own resale statement.
What to watch next
Watch where the first districts form. Governor Pillen held a ceremonial signing in Blair on June 22, 2026 and framed the Act as a housing-affordability measure: “The rising cost of housing across the country has created a steep barrier for far too many people who want to achieve the dream of owning a home. LB 1114 tackles this problem head-on by paving the way for the development of hundreds of new homes at a more affordable starting price for Nebraska families.”3 Whether that promise is kept is a question about lot prices. The question for an association is narrower and arrives sooner: who else can now levy against the same rooftops.
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