New York HOA Limits: Solar, EV Charging & Flags

Section 342 covers a "solar power system," defined narrowly as a photovoltaic system on a rooftop rated at 25 kilowatts or less; ground-mount arrays and solar thermal or hot-water systems fall outside this specific section. The law reaches any "restriction on use," a term covering a deed, contract, homeowners' association by-law, association rule or regulation, security agreement, or any other instrument affecting the transfer or sale of real property or an interest in it. Subdivision 2 draws a bright line: a restriction that effectively prohibits installation or use of a solar power system is unenforceable and void as contrary to public policy outright.

Short of an outright ban, a restriction is still an unreasonable limitation, and therefore unenforceable, if it significantly decreases the system's efficiency or specific performance, or if it increases installation or maintenance costs by an amount estimated at more than ten percent of the total initial installation cost, including labor and equipment. Subdivision 3 carves out one exception: an association may still adopt or enforce a rule prohibiting solar installation on property the association itself owns, or on property owned in common by its members, such as a shared clubhouse roof or common green space.

Subdivision 4 sets a procedural check on any denial: a homeowners' association that rejects a homeowner's solar installation must put the rejection in writing with a detailed description of the exact basis for the denial and specific examples of the association's concerns. Subdivision 5 keeps the system subject to ordinary law, requiring it to still meet local, state and federal health and safety standards and the requirements of state and local permitting authorities; the Solar Rights Act overrides private HOA paperwork, not the building or electrical code.

The statute is the entirety of Article 9-C: New York's parallel Condominium Act, Article 9-B, has no matching solar provision, so unit owners in a condominium regime are not covered by this specific section. The text contains no penalty schedule, fine amount, or private right of action; its remedy is that a noncompliant restriction is simply unenforceable, leaving a homeowner free to proceed once the association's stated basis fails to hold up.

There is no fine or citation scheme built into section 342 itself. The operative consequence is that a restriction violating the cost-increase test or the outright-ban rule is void and unenforceable as a matter of law, so a board cannot use it to block, fine, or force removal of a compliant rooftop system. An association that denies an application without the written, detailed, example-backed basis required by subdivision 4 has not issued a valid denial under the statute. A homeowner facing a noncompliant board rule has grounds to proceed with installation or to challenge the restriction, typically through a civil action asserting the rule is void, since the statute supplies no administrative complaint process of its own.