Oregon forces counties to approve rebuilds, but not your HOA
Oregon forces counties to approve rebuilds, but not your HOA
2026-09-15 · Oregon · Legislation
From January 1, 2027, an Oregon local government must approve an application to rebuild a dwelling destroyed by fire, flood or other involuntary cause if the application meets a specified checklist. Senate Bill 1561 passed 28–0 in the Senate and 45–0 in the House and was signed March 31, 2026 as chapter 89, Oregon Laws 2026.1
The mandate
“(1) The local government shall approve an application to restore or replace a dwelling damaged or destroyed by a natural or involuntary event if: (a) The former dwelling: (A) Had intact exterior walls and roof structure; (B) Had indoor plumbing consisting of a kitchen sink, toilet and bathing facilities connected to a sanitary waste disposal system; (C) Had interior wiring for interior lights; (D) Had a heating system; and (E)(i) Was authorized by building permits or other regulatory approval process by the appropriate authority; or (ii) Was assessed as a residential dwelling for purposes of ad valorem taxation for the tax year beginning on July 1, 10 years before the date of the application…”2
And the proposed dwelling must:
“(A) Not exceed the floor area of the former dwelling by more than 25 percent; (B) Be adequately served by water, sanitation and roads; (C) Be located wholly or partially within the footprint of the former dwelling unless necessary to comply with local flood regulations or to avoid a natural hazard area…; and (D) Comply with applicable building codes that were in effect on the date the dwelling was damaged or destroyed.”
And the local government may not add to it
“A local government may not add conditions to the approval or siting of a dwelling under this section except as necessary to maintain participation in the National Flood Insurance Program under 42 U.S.C. 4001 et seq.”
The deadlines: the application must be filed within three years of the event; construction must commence no later than four years after; and the damaged dwelling must be removed, demolished, incorporated into the replacement or converted to non-residential use within three months after the replacement is certified for occupancy.
The point every rebuilding owner needs to understand
Senate Bill 1561 binds the local government. It says nothing about covenants, nothing about architectural review, and nothing about associations. A rebuilding owner who clears the county still faces the architectural committee, on exactly the terms the declaration sets.
That is not an oversight. The Legislature has been legislating about private covenants in the same sessions — Senate Bill 1551 on fire hardening in 2026, House Bills 2138 and 3144 on density and manufactured dwellings in 2025 — and it knows how to reach a declaration when it wants to. It did not reach one here.
Where the two regimes meet
On the same rebuild, if it uses fire-hardened materials.
Senate Bill 1551, in force since June 5, 2026, voids a planned-community governing-document provision that limits the design, dimensions, placement, maintenance or external appearance of fire-hardened building materials in a way that has the practical effect of prohibiting them, or requires materials costing substantially more than similar-quality alternatives. And it gives the application a 90-day deemed-approval clock.
So an Oregon owner rebuilding after a wildfire, in a planned community, has:
- a mandatory county approval under chapter 89 if the checklist is met, with no added conditions except flood-programme ones;
- a voided covenant under chapter 86 to the extent it blocks hardened materials, retroactively, whatever the declaration's vintage;
- a 90-day architectural clock on the hardening component, after which the application is approved by operation of law.
That combination of chapter 86 and chapter 89 of the 2026 Laws is the single most useful thing an Oregon reader in a fire-exposed community can know this year.
What it does not give them is any relief from ordinary architectural review on everything else — the footprint, the roofline, the colours, the landscaping. A board still decides those, subject to the good-faith duty the Court of Appeals described in Santoro v. Eagle Crest in May 2026: discretion must be exercised in an objectively reasonable manner, measured against the expectations the CC&Rs themselves create. Our Oregon architectural review page covers that framework.
The 25 percent number, and why it matters after a fire
A replacement may not exceed the former dwelling's floor area by more than 25 percent. That is generous for a straight rebuild and tight for a household that wants to rebuild differently — adding an accessory dwelling unit for a displaced relative, or building to a modern layout on a smaller footprint with more storey area.
Note the interaction with the density statutes. From January 1, 2027, the same day chapter 89 takes effect, House Bill 2138's amendments to ORS 94.776 become operative and the date gate that kept pre-2020 declarations outside the statute is deleted. An owner rebuilding in 2027 who wants to add an ADU is operating under both, and they answer different questions: chapter 89 governs what the county must approve, ORS 94.776 governs whether the covenant restricting it is void.
What a board can do
Decide, before a fire, what the association's posture is on rebuilding. The worst time to work out whether the declaration's design standards can accommodate ember-resistant vents, a metal roof and a non-combustible fence is while owners are in temporary housing.
A board in a wildfire-exposed Oregon community can do three useful things now: identify which of its standards would block hardened materials and acknowledge in writing that those are void; set an internal service standard well inside 90 days for hardening applications; and pre-approve a palette of compliant materials so that an application after a fire is a formality rather than a fight.
What to watch next
January 1, 2027, when chapter 89 and the House Bill 2138 amendments both become operative. And whether the 2027 session extends Senate Bill 1551's section 4 machinery — the substantive test and the 90-day clock — to condominiums under ORS chapter 100, which were left out.
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