Tuscaloosa, AL HOA Rules: CC&R Enforcement (2026)

Sec. 25-10, in Division 2 of the zoning ordinance's general provisions, states plainly that private easements, covenants, and restrictions notwithstanding, all development, unless expressly exempted by the ordinance, shall comply with the ordinance's minimum requirements. That single sentence does two things at once. First, it tells homeowners inside a deed-restricted subdivision that City Hall will not step in to make a neighbor tear down a shed that violates the subdivision's covenants, repaint a house the wrong color, or remove landscaping the HOA dislikes: those disputes belong to the association's own governing documents and, if unresolved, to a civil lawsuit in Tuscaloosa County Circuit Court, not to a call to the Office of Urban Development.

Second, it tells a developer or homeowner that satisfying an HOA's design review committee is never a substitute for meeting the zoning ordinance's own setbacks, height limits, use tables, or lot standards found elsewhere in Chapter 25. A permit application that conforms to a subdivision's private covenants but not to the applicable zoning district's requirements will still be denied by the city, and a build that violates the covenants but meets every zoning standard will not draw a city citation. The section sits in Division 2, 'Relationship With Other Laws, Covenants, or Deeds,' alongside Sec.

25-8 and Sec. 25-9, which resolve conflicts between city ordinances and between city and state or federal law using the same 'more restrictive provision governs' logic, but Sec. 25-10 deliberately withholds that same conflict-resolution role from private covenants: the city simply declines to adjudicate them.