The two provisions that would have changed how boards process applications

These are the teeth, and no other New York association bill this session had them.

A sixty-day deemed approval. Subdivision 4:

“If approval ... is required by a homeowners' association, the application for approval shall be processed and approved by the association in a manner prescribed by the association and shall not be willfully avoided or delayed. The approval or denial of an application shall be in writing. Any denial of a homeowner's application shall include a detailed description of the exact basis for the denial and shall include specific examples of the homeowners' association's concerns, if applicable. If an application is not denied in writing within sixty days from the date of receipt of the application, the application shall be deemed approved, unless that delay is the result of a reasonable request for additional information.”

Read the structure: a written-reasons duty, a bar on willful delay, and a hard consequence for inaction. A New York architectural review committee that meets quarterly and lets an application sit would have approved it by operation of law.

One-way attorney's fees. Subdivision 6:

“In any action by a homeowner requesting to have a central air conditioner or heat pump installed and seeking to enforce compliance with this section, the homeowner shall be awarded reasonable attorney's fees if such homeowner prevails.”

The homeowner recovers fees on winning; the association does not on winning. That single sentence changes the economics of every marginal dispute, because the cost of being wrong becomes asymmetric. It is also the provision most likely to have drawn opposition.

Read alongside what actually happened to this family of bills

Four separate bills in the 2025–2026 session would have voided a New York HOA covenant restricting something on an owner's own lot. Their fate is the story:

Low-impact landscaping — passed both houses in 2025, vetoed; a redrafted version passed both houses again in 2026 and sits undelivered.

Pesticides and sprinklers (S7432) — cleared Senate Judiciary 14–2, reached third reading, sent back to Rules in June 2026. No Assembly companion.

Central air conditioners and heat pumps (A9523 / S8570-A) — reached the Assembly third-reading calendar, never called.

Beekeeping (S6908, Harckham) — never moved in either year, no Assembly companion, no sponsor's memorandum. Its operative text: “A homeowners' association may not adopt or enforce any rules or regulations that would effectively prohibit, or impose unreasonable limitations on, the installation or use of an apiary on property owned or leased which is subject to the covenants, conditions, and restrictions of such homeowners' association where (i) the colony is maintained for the purpose of the production of honey, and (ii) the beekeeper is in compliance with the provisions of article fifteen of the agriculture and markets law.”²

And a drafting detail that tells you how unfinished this whole effort is: the landscaping bill, the pesticide bill and the beekeeping bill all claimed Real Property Law Article 9-E — which existing law already uses for solar access at § 342. Three competing Article 9-E drafts, none enacted. The landscaping bill was eventually renumbered to Article 9-F; the heat-pump bill also claimed 9-F.

The Governor has already said why none of them passes easily

Veto Message No. 37 of 2025, on the landscaping bill, gives the objection in one sentence: the bill “would unduly encroach on private agreements between property owners.”³

That is a principled objection to the central mechanism all four bills share — declaring a recorded covenant void as against public policy. It is not a drafting complaint that a better draft fixes. Any of these bills that reaches the Governor's desk has to answer it, and the heat-pump bill's careful 10 percent test does not, because its remedy is the same flat voiding.

What a bill that died tells a New York board

Two things, and neither requires the bill to pass.

The sixty-day clock is coming from somewhere regardless. New York City co-op boards are already on a statutory decision clock for purchase applications as of July 2026. The landscaping bill that passed both houses carries a written-reasons duty. The direction of travel on New York association decision-making is toward deadlines and stated reasons, and a board whose architectural review process has neither is going to meet one eventually. Adopting a written turnaround target and a reasons template now is cheap; being told to by statute is not.

Heat pumps are arriving whether or not there is a right to them. A New York City board is being pushed toward electrification by Local Law 97, whose beneficial-electrification credit halves for equipment that comes online on or after January 1, 2027. An owner in a Long Island or Hudson Valley HOA who wants to replace a failing gas furnace with a heat pump is making an ordinary equipment decision, not a political one. A board with no policy on outdoor condensing units — location, screening, noise, setback — is going to be improvising against an applicant who has already paid a deposit.

Our New York architectural review page covers how to structure that approval, our EV charging page covers the adjacent electrification question New York has actually legislated, and our solar rights page covers the two areas where New York does already limit association restrictions — Real Property Law § 342 for solar and § 343 for EV charging.

One correction, because it will be reported wrongly

A separate bill that passed the Senate twice in this session will be mistaken for the landscaping bill. The “Garden Protection Act” (S879-A, May / A2122-A, Kelles) passed the Senate 54–3 in 2025 and 50–12 in 2026, and died in Assembly Agriculture both times. It does not bind homeowners associations. Its binding clause reaches municipalities only:⁴

“1. Notwithstanding any other law, rule or regulation, any person may cultivate home vegetable gardens, native plant gardens, and/or pollinator gardens on their own property ... in any county, municipality, or other political subdivision of this state. 2. A municipality in the state shall not regulate gardens in a manner inconsistent with this section.”

There is no HOA-facing provision in it. The only bill that would have overridden covenants on gardens was the landscaping bill, and that one was vetoed.