The provision that voided existing CC&Rs

AB 478 did not simply prohibit new restrictions. Its uncodified section 3.7 reached backwards:

“2. If, on the effective date of this act, any provision in a governing document of an executive board of a common-interest community or a plan approved pursuant to chapter 278A of NRS is more restrictive than the provisions of this act, such provision is void and unenforceable.”

Void, not voidable. No amendment required, no vote, no notice. A Nevada declaration that on June 4, 2025 restricted summer construction start times in a declarant-controlled community was, on June 5, carrying a dead provision. The same section did the same to non-conforming county and city ordinances.

The 5 a.m. rule

AB 478 also added matching new sections to NRS chapters 244 and 268, governing what a county or city ordinance may do:

“1. If the board of county commissioners adopts an ordinance restricting the hours in which construction work may begin, the hours for construction work on any project that is more than 300 feet from an occupied residential unit must be allowed to begin by 5 a.m. during the period beginning on April 1 and ending on September 30.”

“Residential unit” is defined to include a condominium, townhouse, duplex or other multifamily dwelling, and to exclude time shares under NRS chapter 119A. So the 300-foot measurement runs to the nearest occupied home of any of those kinds — which in a subdivision being built out in phases is often closer than it sounds.

Why Nevada wrote this

The policy is heat. Framing, roofing and concrete work in a Las Vegas or Reno summer is dangerous in the afternoon and merely uncomfortable at dawn, and every hour of work moved into the early morning is an hour not worked at 110 degrees. April 1 to September 30 is the season that produces the problem, and 5 a.m. is the concession.

What it costs is borne by the people who already live in the finished phases of a community that is still being built. The statute manages that by distance — 300 feet — rather than by consent.

The limit worth knowing

Every word of NRS 116.347 is confined to a declarant-controlled common-interest community. An association that has completed the transition out of declarant control is not covered by this section at all, and its governing documents' construction-hours provisions are unaffected.

That matters for two reasons. It means the burden falls on residents of communities where a developer is still building — precisely the residents with the least influence over the board, since the declarant appoints most of it. And it means an owner asking “can my HOA restrict construction hours?” gets different answers depending on a question about control that many owners cannot answer about their own community.

What a board can do

• Identify whether the community is declarant-controlled. This is the threshold question and it determines whether any of this applies.
• Stop enforcing a summer construction-hours provision if you are declarant-controlled and a local ordinance exists. The provision is void by statute; enforcing it is enforcing nothing.
• Check the ordinance, not the declaration. Where the section applies, the hours are whatever the county or city ordinance sets — the association's role is to not contradict it.
• Tell residents what changed. The most common friction is a resident who complains to the board and gets no explanation. “State law took this away from us in June 2025” is a complete and accurate answer, and it is better than silence.
• The October–March window is still yours. If the community wants restrictions, that is where they are enforceable.

A note on the record

AB 478 was sponsored by the Assembly Committee on Government Affairs and is reported to have passed both houses unanimously — 42–0 in the Assembly and 21–0 in the Senate.³ Those vote counts are as published by the Nevada HOA Reform Coalition rather than taken from the legislative journals. For a bill that voids provisions in recorded declarations across the state, it attracted no recorded opposition at all.