The city would adopt an architectural covenant of its own

The compatibility requirement is the provision boards will find most familiar, because it reads like a declaration:

“shall be of the same architectural style and constructed of the same materials as the principal dwelling”

There is also a privacy rule barring rooftop and second-storey decks unless oriented to the lot interior, with exceptions for side-street and alley lot lines and for landings under 36 square feet.

A Fargo architectural review committee would, under the draft, be enforcing a materials-matching standard alongside a city enforcing its own. Our North Dakota architectural review page covers where the committee's authority comes from.

How the two instruments would interact

The draft's conflict rule, § 20.1.1.6(C), settles it: whichever is stricter controls, and “The City does not enforce private agreements or maintain a record of such agreements.”

So for a Fargo association, four situations:

You are a cluster development. The city would not permit an ADU at all. Your declaration is irrelevant to the outcome; the answer is no either way.

Your declaration bars ADUs and you are not a cluster development. The declaration is stricter and controls. Owners will get city approval and still be refused by the committee — and they will be surprised, because a permit feels like permission. Our North Dakota ADUs and modifications page covers the covenant side.

Your declaration is silent. The city's rules would be the only rules, and a board that wants a say has to amend the declaration before the code is adopted, not after an owner has a permit in hand.

Your declaration permits ADUs more freely than the code. The code is stricter and controls — including the attached-only rule and the short-term rental prohibition.

Where a board stands while the draft is still a draft

Find out whether your community is a cluster development in the code's terms. It is a defined land-use category, not a description. If you are one, the ADU question is closed for your owners, and that is worth saying out loud before somebody spends money on drawings.

Decide your position on ADUs now. A declaration amendment takes a vote and a recording. An owner arriving with an approved permit is the worst moment to discover the board has no policy.

Note the short-term rental link. The draft would bar short-term letting of an ADU outright and separately cap short-term rentals at 25 percent of units in buildings of four or more. An association worried about transient use in an ADU would find the city already ahead of it.

Remember what you have to disclose. Since August 2025 an association must furnish, within ten days of a seller's request, the declaration, rules, and notice of leasing restrictions, along with the rest of the resale packet under N.D.C.C. § 47-10-02.3. An ADU policy that exists only in the minutes is not in the packet.

Where Bismarck already is

Bismarck has permitted ADUs since before this window, under § 14-03-08(4)(y), and its rules run the other way in several respects: owner-occupancy required and applied to subsequent owners, one per lot, between 300 and 800 square feet, an internal ADU capped at 40 percent of the home's floor plan, one extra off-street space on top of the two for the house, external ADUs barred on non-conforming lots, and a special use permit required before the building permit.

Bismarck's guidance is also blunt about covenants: “Private covenants may prohibit ADUs. The applicant is responsible for complying, and staff will not confirm or enforce private covenants.”² The city's planning FAQ puts it more generally: “The City of Bismarck is not involved in the creation of covenants, or the enforcement of any restrictions contained therein.”

What to watch next

Watch whether the cluster-development exclusion survives the next draft — it is the provision most likely to be challenged as inconsistent with the code's own housing goals. Watch for a Planning Commission hearing date, and watch the attached-only limitation, which is the difference between an ADU allowance that produces units and one that mostly produces basement conversions.