New York HOA ADUs & Modifications

Section 1: Overview — ADUs and modifications in New York

New York does not govern its community associations with a single code. It uses several statutes at once. There is a Condominium Act, Real Property Law Article 9-B. There is a cooperative framework built on the Cooperative Corporations Law and the Business Corporation Law. And there is no comprehensive planned-community statute at all. Within that structure, the state bars a condominium association from prohibiting or unreasonably restricting an electric-vehicle charging station under RPL § 339-ll, while any condominium or homeowners-association solar prohibition-bar stays unverified, and accessory dwelling units (ADUs) remain a question of municipal zoning.¹ So the first analytical step in New York is to identify the ownership form. A condominium takes effect when an owner records a declaration under RPL Article 9-B. A cooperative is a corporation whose residents hold shares and a proprietary lease. A planned-community homeowners association runs on its recorded covenants, the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law if it is incorporated, common law, and the Real Property Actions and Proceedings Law. The Attorney General regulates the offering of condominium and cooperative interests under the Martin Act, and New York is not a Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act state.² The EV-charging provision voids any covenant or by-law that prohibits or unreasonably restricts a charging station in an owner's unit or designated parking space, subject to reasonable restrictions and the owner's responsibility for cost, insurance, and a licensed installer.³ ADU permissibility turns on municipal zoning plus the governing documents; no confirmed statewide statute overrides association documents.⁴ Four federal rules bind New York associations no matter what the state does: the U.S. flag statute, the OTARD antenna rule, the Fair Housing Act's reasonable-modification duty, and ADA Title III for qualifying common-area facilities.⁵ The sections that follow lay out the framework, the compliance obligations it creates, and the recent activity in the Legislature and the courts.

Section 2: The legal framework

2A. The condominium, cooperative, and planned-community frameworks

Start with the Condominium Act. RPL Article 9-B (§ 339-d et seq.) is the statutory framework for condominiums, and it reaches only property whose owner submits it to the Act by recording a declaration under RPL § 339-f.⁶ Cooperatives work differently. There, the resident owns shares in a cooperative housing corporation and holds a proprietary lease, and the Cooperative Corporations Law and the Business Corporation Law govern the corporation, together with the proprietary lease, the certificate of incorporation, and the by-laws.⁷ Planned communities get no comprehensive statute of their own. A planned-community homeowners association answers to its recorded covenants, the Not-for-Profit Corporation Law if it incorporated as a nonprofit, common law, and the RPAPL for covenant enforcement.⁸

The Attorney General, through the Real Estate Finance Bureau, regulates how sponsors offer condominium and cooperative interests. The Martin Act (General Business Law § 352-e) sets up a disclosure-and-registration regime that requires a sponsor to file an offering plan before it may sell units, and RPL § 339-ee treats condominium interests as cooperative interests in realty within the Martin Act.⁹ Once the Attorney General declares an offering plan effective, that office generally exercises no ongoing operational oversight, and New York does not license community-association managers.¹⁰

Courts review a board's decisions on architecture and alterations under the business-judgment-rule standard. In Matter of Levandusky v. One Fifth Avenue Apartment Corp. (1990), the Court of Appeals held that the business judgment rule is the right standard for reviewing a cooperative board's enforcement of building policy, including its authority to approve or reject structural alterations; the court defers to a board that acts in good faith, within its authority, and to further the association's purposes.¹¹ In 40 West 67th Street Corp. v. Pullman (2003), the Court of Appeals extended that deference to a cooperative's decision to terminate a tenancy for objectionable conduct.¹² The rule governs condominium boards of managers as well as cooperative boards.¹³ The authority to review architecture itself comes from the declaration and by-laws in a condominium, and from the proprietary lease, by-laws, and alteration agreement in a cooperative; cooperative alteration agreements commonly demand prior written consent, licensed contractors, insurance, and an engineer's sign-off.¹⁴

2B. EV charging and solar

The Legislature added the electric-vehicle charging provision, RPL § 339-ll, to the Condominium Act through Chapter 597 of the Laws of 2019 (S5157A), and it took effect the day the Governor signed it, December 6, 2019.¹⁵ The provision voids as unenforceable any covenant, restriction, or by-law that effectively prohibits or unreasonably restricts installing or using a charging station within an owner's unit or a designated parking space — a deeded space, an exclusive-use common-element space, or a space assigned to a particular owner.¹⁶ It permits reasonable restrictions, meaning those that do not significantly raise the station's cost or significantly cut its efficiency. It requires the board to decide an approval application in writing within sixty days, or the application is deemed approved. And it makes the owner responsible for installation and electricity costs, for using a licensed contractor, for carrying liability insurance that names the association as an additional insured, and for meeting health and safety codes and the association's architectural standards.¹⁷ By its text and its place in Article 9-B, RPL § 339-ll is a condominium provision: it speaks of the "unit owner," the "board of managers," and the "common interest declaration," and the statute does not establish that it reaches cooperatives.¹⁸

Solar stands on different ground. New York has enacted no verified provision barring a condominium or homeowners-association solar prohibition. A 2015 bill proposed adding an RPL § 339-ll to stop condominium associations from banning solar arrays, but that section number now holds the enacted EV-charging provision, which tells us the solar bill did not become law at that section.¹⁹ RPL § 335-b, the solar-easement provision, lets a property owner create and record a voluntary easement for solar access across a neighbor's property; it governs easements and recording, not association restrictions.²⁰ Absent a verified provision, the declaration and by-laws govern solar in a condominium or association, subject to the federal overlays. The practical effect is clear: EV charging is a protected category for condominiums, while solar and most other exterior modifications turn on the governing documents and get reviewed under the business-judgment-rule standard.

2C. ADUs and federal overlays

New York has no confirmed statewide statute that overrides association governing documents on ADUs. A proposed statewide ADU mandate, part of Governor Hochul's 2022 housing plan, would have required local governments to allow at least one accessory dwelling unit on owner-occupied lots. But Hochul pulled it from the executive budget on February 17, 2022, through a 30-day amendment that stripped the requirements on localities, after suburban lawmakers pushed back — among them Representative Tom Suozzi, who said the plan would "eviscerate local zoning control." The mandate did not pass.²¹ New York City has changed its own zoning to address accessory units through its City of Yes for Housing Opportunity initiative, which the City Council adopted on December 5, 2024 as Local Laws 126 and 127, with the ADU text amendment taking effect September 30, 2025; those changes permit ADUs of 800 square feet or less on the same lot as a one- or two-family home in low-density districts, subject to a 33 percent rear-yard coverage cap, an owner-occupancy requirement, and flood-zone and district exclusions, and they operate at the municipal-zoning level.²² So ADU permissibility is a two-layer question: municipal zoning must allow the unit, and the declaration or governing documents must not prohibit it. That posture separates New York from the HOA-preemption states. California's Civil Code § 4751, enacted by AB 670 (Chapter 178, Statutes of 2019, effective January 1, 2020), makes void and unenforceable any governing-document provision that "effectively prohibits or unreasonably restricts the construction or use of an accessory dwelling unit or junior accessory dwelling unit on a lot zoned for single-family residential use." Colorado's HB 24-1152, which Governor Jared Polis signed on May 13, 2024, makes any association prohibition on ADUs, or any restrictive design or dimension standard in a supportive jurisdiction, void as a matter of public policy. New York has enacted no comparable association-level preemption.²³

Four federal overlays bind every New York association, whatever the state framework says. The Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005 bars a condominium, cooperative, or residential real estate management association from restricting a member's display of the U.S. flag on property the member owns or has a right to use, subject to reasonable time, place, and manner rules.²⁴ The FCC's OTARD Rule, 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000, voids restrictions that impair installing, maintaining, or using covered antennas and satellite dishes in areas within a resident's exclusive use or control.²⁵ The Fair Housing Act, 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(A), requires an association to permit reasonable modifications of the premises for a resident with a disability, generally at that resident's expense.²⁶ And ADA Title III reaches common-area facilities that qualify as public accommodations, such as a leasing office open to the public.²⁷

Section 3: Compliance obligations created by the framework

A. Architectural review process obligations

A condominium board of managers draws its architectural-review authority from the declaration and by-laws under RPL Article 9-B, and a cooperative board draws it from the proprietary lease, by-laws, and alteration agreement. The source is the GOVERNING DOCUMENTS, read against the STATE STATUTE — Article 9-B for condominiums, and the Cooperative Corporations Law and Business Corporation Law for cooperatives — and it applies to CONDOMINIUMS and COOPERATIVES.²⁸ Courts review a board's approval or denial of a modification under the business-judgment-rule standard, so a board that acts within its authority, in good faith, and for a legitimate association purpose earns judicial deference; that is a matter of CASE LAW (Levandusky; Pullman), applying to CONDOMINIUMS and COOPERATIVES, and by analogy to incorporated PLANNED-COMMUNITY HOAs as nonprofit corporations.²⁹ Boards should issue written decisions and keep records; for EV-charging applications in particular, RPL § 339-ll requires a written decision within sixty days (STATE STATUTE; CONDOMINIUMS).³⁰

B. Modifications the association must permit

Several categories the association must simply permit. On EV charging, a condominium association may not prohibit or unreasonably restrict a charging station in an owner's unit or designated parking space, though it may set reasonable restrictions and hold the owner responsible for cost, insurance, and a licensed installer (STATE STATUTE, RPL § 339-ll; CONDOMINIUMS; cooperative reach not established).³¹ It must permit U.S. flag display, subject to reasonable time, place, and manner rules (FEDERAL, Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005; CONDOMINIUMS, COOPERATIVES, and HOAs).³² It must permit covered antennas and satellite dishes in areas within the resident's exclusive use or control (FEDERAL, OTARD, 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000; all forms).³³ And it must permit reasonable disability modifications, generally at the resident's expense (FEDERAL, FHA, 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(A); all forms).³⁴ A solar prohibition-bar remains unverified; absent an enacted provision, the GOVERNING DOCUMENTS control solar. In each protected category, the association may impose reasonable conditions, but it may not turn a condition into a prohibition.³⁵

C. ADU obligations and limits on HOA authority

An association carries no state statutory duty to permit an ADU against its governing documents; New York has no confirmed statewide ADU preemption (GOVERNING DOCUMENTS control; applies to CONDOMINIUMS, COOPERATIVES, and HOAs).³⁶ Municipal zoning, including New York City's City of Yes changes, binds the locality and decides whether an owner may build an ADU as a land-use matter, but a municipal authorization does not override a declaration that prohibits the unit (MUNICIPAL ZONING plus GOVERNING DOCUMENTS).³⁷ The practical rule holds that a member needs both municipal permission and governing-document permission.

D. Enforcement, dispute resolution, and appeal obligations

An association must follow whatever dispute-resolution or notice procedure its declaration, by-laws, or proprietary lease requires before it enforces against a member (GOVERNING DOCUMENTS; all forms).³⁸ Litigation runs through New York's courts, whose names invert the pattern most states use: the trial court of general jurisdiction is the Supreme Court, appeals go to the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court (organized in four departments), and the state's highest court is the Court of Appeals.³⁹ A member who challenges a board's architectural or alteration decision generally files in Supreme Court, often as an Article 78 proceeding, and carries the burden of overcoming business-judgment deference.⁴⁰

Section 4: Recent legislative and judicial activity

A. Recent legislation

New York's recent statutory activity on modifications centers on one provision, with a few offering-regulation changes around the edges. Here is the measure that matters most.

B. Recent appellate ruling

One recent appellate decision frames the current law on alterations.

C. Active legislative debates

Two bills show where the current governance debate sits, though both remain in committee. One is a residential condominium and cooperative owner's bill of rights (Assembly A1505, Rosenthal), which would require written, reasoned board decisions and access to records. The other is a cooperative and condominium ombudsperson program (Senate S7745), which would create a state complaint resource within the Division of Housing and Community Renewal. As of the January 7, 2026 re-referral, neither had advanced beyond committee in the 2025–2026 session.⁴⁵

Section 5: National positioning and related coverage

New York sits among the multi-statute states, and several features set it apart: the prominence of cooperatives, an offering-plan regulator in the Attorney General under the Martin Act, the business-judgment-rule standard for board decisions, and the absence of a planned-community statute — plus a condominium EV-charging provision (RPL § 339-ll) but no verified condominium or HOA solar mandate. On ADUs, New York contrasts with the preemption states: California's Civil Code § 4751 voids association bans on accessory units, and Colorado's HB 24-1152 limits association authority over them, while in New York ADU permissibility stays a municipal-zoning matter layered on the governing documents. For a multi-state operator, the practical implication is straightforward. In New York, the ownership form drives the analysis, board decisions receive business-judgment deference, condominium EV charging is protected, and ADUs remain a zoning-and-declaration question.

HOA Weekly updates its New York ADUs and Modifications coverage quarterly, as the Legislature, the Attorney General, and the New York courts act. The federal frameworks noted throughout — the Freedom to Display the American Flag Act, OTARD, the Fair Housing Act, and the ADA — bind New York associations no matter what the state framework does.

1. N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 339-ll (McKinney), Electric vehicle charging station installation ↩
2. N.Y. Real Prop. Law art. 9-B (McKinney), Condominium Act ↩
3. N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 339-ll (McKinney) ↩
4. Hochul Pulled Affordable Housing Bill After Meeting with LI Senators, N.Y. State Senate Newsroom (2022) ↩
5. Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-243, 120 Stat. 572 ↩
6. N.Y. Real Prop. Law art. 9-B, §§ 339-d, 339-f (McKinney) ↩
7. N.Y. Att'y Gen., Understanding & Dealing With a Cooperative Board of Directors ↩
8. N.Y. Real Prop. Law art. 9-B (McKinney) ↩
9. N.Y. Att'y Gen., Real Estate Syndications (Martin Act, N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 352-e) ↩
10. N.Y. Att'y Gen., Understanding & Dealing With a Cooperative Board of Directors ↩
11. Matter of Levandusky v. One Fifth Ave. Apt. Corp., 75 N.Y.2d 530 (1990) ↩
12. 40 West 67th St. Corp. v. Pullman, 100 N.Y.2d 147 (2003) ↩
13. Matter of Levandusky v. One Fifth Ave. Apt. Corp., 75 N.Y.2d 530 (1990) ↩
14. N.Y.C. Bar Ass'n, Model Alteration Agreement for Cooperative Apartment ↩
15. N.Y. S.B. 5157A, 2019 Leg., Reg. Sess. (N.Y. 2019), enacted as ch. 597, eff. Dec. 6, 2019 ↩
16. N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 339-ll(2) (McKinney) ↩
17. N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 339-ll(1), (2)(d), (2)(e) (McKinney) ↩
18. N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 339-ll (McKinney), within art. 9-B, Condominium Act ↩
19. N.Y. Real Prop. Law art. 9-B (McKinney), section list showing § 339-ll as EV charging ↩
20. N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 335-b (McKinney), Recording of solar energy easements ↩
21. Hochul Scraps Accessory Dwelling Unit Plan, Spectrum News (Feb. 18, 2022) ↩
22. N.Y.C. Dep't of City Planning, City of Yes for Housing Opportunity — Accessory Dwelling Units Guide ↩
23. Cal. Civ. Code § 4751 (West) (AB 670, 2019); Colo. H.B. 24-1152 (2024) ↩
24. Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-243, 120 Stat. 572 (4 U.S.C. § 5 note) ↩
25. 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000, FCC Over-the-Air Reception Devices (OTARD) Rule ↩
26. 42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)(3)(A), Fair Housing Act, reasonable modifications ↩
27. 42 U.S.C. § 12181 et seq., Americans with Disabilities Act Title III (public accommodations) ↩
28. N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 339-v (McKinney), Contents of by-laws ↩
29. Matter of Levandusky v. One Fifth Ave. Apt. Corp., 75 N.Y.2d 530 (1990) ↩
30. N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 339-ll(2)(d) (McKinney) ↩
31. N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 339-ll (McKinney) ↩
32. Freedom to Display the American Flag Act of 2005, Pub. L. No. 109-243, 120 Stat. 572 ↩
33. 47 C.F.R. § 1.4000, FCC Over-the-Air Reception Devices (OTARD) Rule ↩
34. U.S. Dep't of Hous. & Urban Dev. & U.S. Dep't of Justice, Joint Statement on Reasonable Modifications Under the Fair Housing Act (42 U.S.C. § 3604(f)) ↩
35. N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 335-b (McKinney) (solar easement; no prohibition-bar) ↩
36. Hochul Pulled Affordable Housing Bill After Meeting with LI Senators, N.Y. State Senate Newsroom (2022) ↩
37. N.Y.C. Dep't of City Planning, City of Yes for Housing Opportunity — Accessory Dwelling Units Guide ↩
38. N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 339-v (McKinney) ↩
39. N.Y. C.P.L.R. § 5701 (McKinney), Appeals to Appellate Division from Supreme and County Courts ↩
40. Matter of Levandusky v. One Fifth Ave. Apt. Corp., 75 N.Y.2d 530 (1990) ↩
41. N.Y. S.B. 5157A, 2019 Leg., Reg. Sess. (N.Y. 2019), enacted as ch. 597 of the Laws of 2019 ↩
42. N.Y. S.B. 8564 / A.B. 8809-B, enacted as ch. 696 of the Laws of 2022; N.Y. Real Prop. Law § 339-mm and N.Y. Gen. Bus. Law § 352-eeeee (2025) ↩
43. Avrahami v. 235 W. 108th St. Owners Corp., 2025 N.Y. Slip Op. 02126 (App. Div. 1st Dep't Apr. 10, 2025) ↩
44. Avrahami v. 235 W. 108th St. Owners Corp. (App. Div. 1st Dep't 2025) (FindLaw) ↩
45. N.Y. A.B. 1505, 2025 Leg., Reg. Sess. (N.Y. 2025) (owner's bill of rights); N.Y. S.B. 7745, 2025 Leg., Reg. Sess. (N.Y. 2025) (ombudsperson program) ↩