What this means for a Pennsylvania board

If HB 2186 becomes law, an association's restriction on accessory dwelling units survives it. A board does not need to do anything, and an owner cannot rely on the statute to override the declaration.

But the practical picture is more interesting than that, and it is one a board can see coming.

The bill would remove the municipal layer of prohibition. In most covenanted Pennsylvania subdivisions there are currently two barriers to an ADU: the township's zoning, and the association's covenants. Owners rarely reach the second, because the first stops them first, and a zoning refusal is impersonal and free.

Remove the zoning barrier and the association becomes the only obstacle, and a visible one. The board is no longer agreeing with the township; it is the party saying no, to a neighbour, about something the Commonwealth has just declared permitted by right. That is a materially different conversation, and associations in high-cost areas — suburban Philadelphia above all — should expect to have it.

The open questions for a board before that happens

The worst time to develop an ADU position is in response to a specific application from a specific owner with a specific relative who needs housing. The questions worth answering in advance:

• Do the documents actually prohibit it? Many Pennsylvania declarations restrict lots to "single-family residential use" without defining the term, or limit the number of dwellings per lot without contemplating a subordinate unit. Whether that language prohibits an ADU is a real question of construction, not an obvious yes.
• Is the concern the structure or the occupancy? These come apart. An association may be relaxed about a converted garage housing a parent and concerned about a short-term rental. Those call for different rules, and a single blanket prohibition addresses both badly.
• What are the physical consequences? Parking, sewer and water capacity, stormwater from added impervious surface, and setbacks. These are the grounds on which a reasoned position rests.
• What does the architectural review process actually do? A documented process with defined criteria and a timely written decision is what survives a challenge — as the Superior Court's reasoning in Pauletta v. Riverview Manor this March illustrated, where an association prevailed because it had never granted a comparable request and had made reasonable inquiries before refusing.

The wider legislative context

ADUs are one of the few housing subjects moving in Harrisburg. A separate Senate bill, SB 1346, sponsored by Sen. Rothman and amending the Municipalities Planning Code, received first consideration on 12 July 2026 — making it the ADU measure actually progressing in the Senate. Like HB 2186 it is a zoning preemption bill and does not override private deed restrictions.

A Senate resolution, SR 211, directs a study of the Municipalities Planning Code with recommendations due in mid-October, which is the vehicle through which a broader rewrite would come.

Nothing in any of it reaches association covenants. Pennsylvania's legislature has considered the interaction and has consistently chosen to leave private restrictions alone — which, alongside the fact that Title 68 was not amended at all in this session, is a reasonably clear statement of where the Commonwealth's attention is.

What to watch next

The session ends 30 November 2026 with no carryover, and HB 2186 has been in Senate Urban Affairs and Housing since June. That is the same committee holding the House-passed solar bill, the House-passed clothesline bill and the House-passed manufactured-housing bill, none of which it has reported.

If a future Pennsylvania ADU bill does reach private covenants, that would be a genuine change and this publication will treat it as one. Nothing pending does.