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Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer has signed a new law ensuring Michigan homeowners can install a variety of energy efficiency improvements on their homes, including EV chargers, solar panels, heat pumps and more.
Many homeowners will be aware of the oft-draconian measures that can sometimes be imposed by homeowners’ associations (HOAs).
In the name of “preserving the nature of a community,” an HOA might go beyond the relatively reasonable idea of ensuring that houses do not fall into disrepair and instead start limiting entirely reasonable and unintrusive things like EV chargers or other energy efficiency improvements.
In some cases, it’s gotten bad enough to require legislation, and Michigan just became the latest state to act.
The law is called the Homeowners’ Energy Policy Act, and it passed through Michigan’s statehouse by a party-line vote, with Democrats supporting and Republicans opposing the measure that secures the freedom of homeowners to make energy efficiency improvements to their property. It was signed by Gov. Whitmer on Monday and will go into effect in 90 days.
The law covers a large number of energy-saving improvements, from as simple as a clothesline to as high-tech as solar panels and heat pumps. Each improvement listed in the law had been denied by at least one HOA within the state prior to it being included in the list.
It doesn’t just ensure that homeowners can install these improvements but requires that HOAs approve reasonable projects quickly and restrict them from imposing additional roadblocks like post-installation reporting or extra fees.
Michigan joins several other states with similar rules, though not all of them are quite as sweeping. California first passed a Solar Rights Act back in 1978, and there are some other states with similar laws – though each has its specifics.
There are also several states with “right-to-charge” policies, ensuring that homeowners can install EV chargers, a list which Michigan joins with this new law. Some of these states also require that renters be allowed to install chargers, but Michigan’s new law does not include a provision for renters as far as we can tell.
Electrek’s Take
This is great news, though it’s unfortunate that such a sweeping law didn’t include assurances that renters would be able to install EV chargers.
Among a huge number of perceived problems with EVs that are not actual problems, one actual real problem is the comparative difficulty of charging for apartment dwellers as opposed to those who live in single-family households (though SAE’s new NACS carry-along cable certification might help solve that). And one way to fix that is to implement “right-to-charge” laws that cover renters, not just homeowners.
Michigan’s law didn’t go so far as to do that, so while the state took a baby step towards right-to-charge by at least stopping HOAs from restricting the installation of chargers, it could have (and should) gone further.
But, regardless of that, this is a good law that can hopefully become a model for other states right now – NIMBYs be damned.
Source: electrek
