In Minot the City Attorney approves your association's common-area covenants
In Minot the City Attorney approves your association's common-area covenants
2026-09-15 · North Dakota · Regulation
Most North Dakota cities go out of their way to say they have nothing to do with your covenants. Minot goes the other way: in a planned unit development, the City Attorney approves the covenants before the association takes the common area.1
Minot's Land Development Ordinance was adopted April 5, 2021 and amended April 20, 2026. Section 2.23-7, on conveyance and maintenance of common open space, provides:
“All land shown in the PUD Plan as common open space must be conveyed to a homeowner's association or similar organization as provided in an indenture establishing an association… subject to covenants to be approved by the City Attorney which restrict the common open space to the uses specified in the final PUD Plan, and which provide for the maintenance of the common open space in a manner which assures its continuing use for its intended purpose.”
Three things are compulsory in that sentence. The common open space must be conveyed to an association. The association must be established by indenture. And the covenants must be approved by the City Attorney before the conveyance.
How this differs from the rest of the state
Fargo's draft code says “The City does not enforce private agreements or maintain a record of such agreements.” Bismarck's planning FAQ says “The City of Bismarck is not involved in the creation of covenants, or the enforcement of any restrictions contained therein.” West Fargo's short-term rental ordinance says interpretation and enforcement “is the sole responsibility of the private parties involved.”
Minot, on this one point, is a party to the document.
Minot's general conflict rule is different too
Section 11.1-8:
“This ordinance is not intended to repeal, remedy, or impair any existing easements, covenants, or deed restrictions. However, where this ordinance and another ordinance, easement, covenant, or deed restriction conflict or overlap, whichever imposes the more stringent restrictions shall prevail.”
Note what is absent. Fargo's equivalent adds an express disclaimer of enforcement and of recordkeeping. Minot's sets the priority rule and stops. It does not say the city will not enforce — and in the PUD context, § 2.23-7 shows it takes a hand in what the covenant says in the first place.
What this means for a Minot association
Your common-area covenants may not be amendable at will. Where the covenants restricting common open space were approved by the City Attorney as a condition of the PUD, amending them to permit a different use is not purely an internal matter. The restriction exists to hold the space to “the uses specified in the final PUD Plan,” and that plan is a city approval.
Practical effect: an association that wants to convert a common open space parcel — build on it, sell it, fence it for a different purpose — should assume the city has an interest, and should check the PUD file before putting the question to the membership.
The maintenance obligation is a city-facing promise. The covenants must “provide for the maintenance of the common open space in a manner which assures its continuing use for its intended purpose.” A Minot association that lets a PUD common area go is not only in breach of its own documents; it is in breach of a term the city required.
The conveyance is not optional. “All land shown in the PUD Plan as common open space must be conveyed.” An association that discovers a common area was never actually deeded to it has a title problem with a municipal origin — and, in a state where a plat notation may not create a right at all, no comfortable fallback.
What this means for a board
Pull the PUD file. The final PUD plan, the indenture, and the City Attorney-approved covenants. Most boards have the declaration and have never seen the plan it was approved against.
Confirm the deeds. Every parcel shown as common open space should be in the association's name at the Ward County Recorder. Check before you need it — at a sale, at an insurance renewal, or when someone builds on it.
Ask before amending anything touching common open space. A call to Planning is cheaper than a recorded amendment the city treats as ineffective.
Match the maintenance standard to the covenant. Budget for it. Our North Dakota budget approval and reserve studies pages cover how the money is planned.
The ADU and fence rules, briefly
Minot's ADU provisions require owner-occupancy — the unit “must be owned by the owner of the primary dwelling” — one on-site parking space, one ADU per residential site, a 300 square foot minimum, and reversible construction: “designed and constructed to allow conversion of the accessory dwelling unit back to single family residential space in the future.” Entrance-location restrictions apply where the ADU entrance differs from the principal dwelling's.
A fence amendment to §§ 3.1-9 and 3.1-11 circulated in an agenda packet, but the document located is an unexecuted draft reading “ORDINANCE NO: XXXX” with blank reading dates and unsigned clerk and mayor lines. Its adoption could not be confirmed, and no Minot fence ordinance number or date should be cited from it. The live Land Development Ordinance records its operative amendment as April 20, 2026.
What to watch next
Watch whether Minot's City Attorney approval requirement starts appearing in disputes about common-area use — it is the kind of provision nobody notices until an association tries to do something with the open space. And watch for the fence amendment to surface as an adopted ordinance with a number and a date.
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