Academy/Utilities & Infrastructure
Generators
Know which generators your board can regulate, which it cannot ban outright, and where that line depends on your state.
Most states have no generator-specific law, so review defaults to your declaration and design guidelines. Texas is the exception: it bars associations from banning a compliant standby generator outright, but the board can still regulate its screening, testing schedule, contractor licensing, and location, within statutory cost caps.
Portable or permanently wired, and why it matters
Only one state in this research base has a law written specifically for generators: Texas. It protects a defined category, a standby electric generator, meaning a unit powered by natural gas, LPG, diesel, biodiesel, or hydrogen, fully enclosed with sound attenuation, wired through a transfer switch, and rated at least 7 kilowatts.
A portable unit you roll out of the garage during an outage does not fit that definition, and this research base found no state statute that addresses portable generators specifically. Review of those is governed the same way as most other exterior items: your declaration and design guidelines, not a state generator law. Confirm which category your unit falls into before you assume a state protection applies.
Texas: a right to install, not a right to skip review
In Texas, an association cannot prohibit ownership, installation, or operation of a compliant standby generator. That does not make it a rubber stamp. The board keeps authority over code compliance, contractor licensing, visual screening, testing schedules, and location. It can also require the owner to absorb some added cost for those conditions: roughly 10 percent extra for location-related requirements, and 20 percent extra for electrical or fuel connection requirements. The owner asserting noncompliance with the statute's definition carries the burden of proving it.
Exact cost caps and what counts as a compliant unit are set by the statute itself. Confirm the current figures before citing them to an owner or a board.
Everywhere else: the declaration decides first
An architectural review committee's power over anything, generators included, comes from what the declaration actually grants it, not from the committee's own judgment. Outside Texas, this research base found no state statute carving out a standalone right to install a generator, so review defaults to the same order that governs everything else in this Course: the declaration first, then any published architectural guidelines adopted under it, then board discretion exercised in good faith where a state has legislated that standard.
Florida is a partial exception worth knowing about. Its hurricane protection definition bundles exterior fixed generators and their fuel tanks together with roof systems, storm shutters, and impact windows and doors, and state law generally limits how much an association can slow walk approvals that fall inside that bundle. Whether your state protects generators at all, and how, is worth confirming directly. Ask your board attorney or read your own declaration's generator language before you assume either way.
Check yourself
Answer before you read the explanation, recalling it is what makes it stick.
A Texas owner installs a natural-gas standby generator that meets the statute's enclosure, transfer switch, and 7 kilowatt threshold. The board wants to deny it because it "changes the look of the yard." What happens?
A homeowner in a state with no generator-specific statute wants to install a whole-house standby generator. Where does the board's authority to review it come from first?
A Texas board wants a homeowner to bury the generator's electrical connection, and the vendor says that adds 35 percent to the cost. Can the board require it?
Sources
- Texas Property Code Section 202.019, State of Texas
- Florida Statutes Section 720.3035, State of Florida
Utilities & Infrastructure
Next, see how this same protect but regulate pattern plays out for solar panels and EV chargers.
Whether your state has a generator-specific statute at all, what counts as a compliant unit, and how much added cost the board can require for screening or wiring vary by state and by your declaration.