Virginia's HOA ham-radio antenna bill died on the table
Virginia's HOA ham-radio antenna bill died on the table
2026-09-19 · Virginia · Legislation · Did not pass
A bill that would have stopped Virginia associations from banning amateur radio antennas is dead. HB 2542 was tabled in the House General Laws housing and consumer protection subcommittee on January 23, 2025, left in the full committee on February 5, and died when the session adjourned on February 22, 2025.1
A dead bill is news for the people who were counting on it. Virginia amateur radio operators in covenanted communities are in exactly the position they were in before it was filed.
What it would have done
The bill would have prohibited condominium, property owners' and cooperative associations from banning installation of an amateur radio antenna “on the roof of the unit owned by the unit owner or on a roof appurtenant to the unit owned by the unit owner or, in the case of a property owners' association, a lot owner's property”, with an effective date of July 1, 2025.
It was not an unqualified right. Associations would have kept the power to impose reasonable restrictions — installation plans, building code compliance, safety maintenance, and screening of ground equipment — and to deny an installation that was not technically feasible or presented structural safety concerns.
The law that already exists, and the law that does not
Virginia has an amateur radio antenna statute. It is § 15.2-2293.1, and it binds localities rather than associations:
“Any ordinance involving the placement, screening or height of antennas shall reasonably accommodate amateur radio antennas and shall impose the minimum regulation necessary to accomplish the locality's legitimate purpose.”2
The section then sets population-based height floors: in localities with a population density of 120 persons or less per square mile, no local ordinance shall restrict amateur radio antenna height to less than 200 feet above ground level; in denser localities, not less than 75 feet.
Every word of that is directed at ordinances. Nothing in it reaches a recorded declaration, and HB 2542 was the attempt to close that gap.
The federal position is the same shape. The FCC's limited preemption of local antenna regulation for amateur service, and its separate Over-the-Air Reception Devices rule for television and broadband antennas, operate against governmental restrictions and private covenants respectively — and OTARD has never covered amateur radio. No FCC rule change on this was located in 2025 or 2026.
The pattern this fits
Virginia has repeated the same drafting choice several times, and 2026 made it explicit twice. Both § 15.2-2292.4 (accessory dwelling units, effective July 1, 2027) and § 15.2-2288.7 (small portable solar devices, effective January 1, 2027) remove a power from localities and then carry an identical sentence declining to supersede “recorded declarations and covenants”, condominium instruments, cooperative instruments or a property owners' association declaration.
Read together with the fate of HB 2542, the Virginia position on rooftop devices is consistent: the General Assembly is willing to bind counties and cities, and reluctant to bind declarations.
Where it went instead
The subcommittee did not simply kill the bill. The patron agreed to further study, and the subject was referred to a Virginia Housing Commission work group, which took testimony from operators, associations and managers. Reporting describes the discussion as contested on covenant preemption and scope.
No dated work-group recommendation resolving the question was located, and no successor bill appeared in the 2026 session. The Commission's 2026 work groups do not include a common interest community group.
What an operator in a Virginia association faces today
The declaration governs. Architectural review provisions, height limits, restrictions on roof attachments and general aesthetic clauses apply to an antenna as they would to any other exterior installation, subject to Virginia's rule that restrictive covenants are construed strictly against the party enforcing them and cannot be stretched beyond their recorded text.
The conditions that change the answer
This bill is dead, not pending. It did not carry over and no successor was filed in 2026.
Section 15.2-2293.1 does not help against a board. It is a limit on local ordinances.
Reporting on the subcommittee vote is inconsistent. Accounts of the January 23, 2025 tabling vote differ on the tally, and no official vote count was verified for this piece.
What to watch next
Virginia prefiling for the 2027 session opens toward the end of 2026. Whether the subject returns is the question; nothing located so far indicates that it will.
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