What North Carolina law actually says on each of the three

Because the bill did not pass, the existing rules govern — and they are very different for each of the three subjects. Treating them as one topic, as the bill did, obscures that.

Solar is already partly protected, and has been since 2007. G.S. 22B-20 voids a deed restriction that would prohibit the installation of a solar collector on a dwelling. But the protection has a significant exception: subsection (d) preserves restrictions on collectors visible from the ground of an adjoining lot or a public street or common area, and subsection (c) allows rules on location and screening subject to a reasonableness standard. In a community with a street-visibility restriction, the statute frequently does not reach the roof the owner wants to use. A separate 2025 bill, HB 856, would have repealed subsection (d) and imposed a hard test — location and screening rules could not reduce operating efficiency by more than 10% of specification — and it too died in House Rules, on April 10, 2025.

Gardens have no statutory protection at all. There is no North Carolina analogue to the edible-landscaping or pollinator-habitat statutes adopted in other states. A covenant restricting vegetable gardens, raised beds or front-yard planting is enforceable on ordinary covenant principles, subject only to the general requirement that a restriction be clear and unambiguous.

ADUs have no protection, and the General Assembly has just confirmed that deliberately. Section 44 of the Regulatory Reform Act of 2026 creates a new G.S. 160D-917 requiring certain cities to permit accessory dwelling units — and expressly provides that it does not disturb the validity or enforceability of private covenants on dwelling-type restrictions. In the same biennium that HB 1212 failed, the legislature enacted a municipal ADU mandate and carved associations out of it.

What this means for a board

For associations, the operative point is that a covenant restricting gardens or ADUs remains enforceable, and a solar restriction remains enforceable to the extent it fits the G.S. 22B-20(d) visibility exception rather than operating as a flat prohibition.

The distinction that does the work on solar is between a covenant that prohibits collectors — void under the statute — and one that regulates where they may be placed and how they must be screened. Associations relying on a blanket prohibition have been exposed since 2007 regardless of what happened to HB 1212, and a 2025 or 2026 bill failing does not improve that position.

What to watch next

Two things cut in opposite directions for 2027.

Against: the sponsor profile. A minority-party bill sent to Rules without a hearing, twice over (HB 856 in 2025, HB 1212 in 2026), has not demonstrated the institutional support that moves legislation in this chamber.

For: the framing is shifting. Liu's argument is housing supply, not consumer protection, and housing-supply arguments have had markedly better luck in this General Assembly — the municipal ADU mandate in S.L. 2026-59 is itself evidence of that. A future bill that reached only ADUs, and argued them as housing rather than as owner rights, would be a materially different proposition from a three-subject accessory-use bill.

Nothing can be filed before the 2027 long session convenes on January 13, 2027.