House committee advances bill to bar HOAs from requiring flammable materials, allow ignition‑resistant construction

The House Commerce & Economic Development Committee voted 10‑0 to give House Bill 220 a do‑pass recommendation after testimony that the measure would reduce home ignitions in wildfire‑prone areas.

Representative Tara Lehi, the bill sponsor, told the committee the measure would allow New Mexico homeowners who live in homeowners associations (HOAs) to adopt ignition‑resistant construction standards and prevent HOAs from imposing covenants that increase wildfire risk.

The bill aims to limit HOA rules that require combustible fences, dense revegetation against homes, or other features that create continuous fuel pathways between properties. "HOAs can be a force for incredible good for risk‑reducing action, or they can have rules that set the entire neighborhood back and put it at risk," said Michael Newman, general counsel for the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety, who testified by video about research on home‑to‑home fire spread.

Melissa Robertson, identified in testimony as a property and casualty bureau chief at New Mexico's Office of Superintendent of Insurance (OSI), and Elizabeth Johnson, OSI associate counsel, said HOAs in fire‑prone areas have had covenants that require wooden fences and dense screening that raise wildfire risk and complicate residents' ability to obtain homeowners insurance or mortgages. Robertson read multiple HOA covenant examples into the record showing requirements such as revegetation to match surrounding density and a mandate that gates be constructed of wood.

Public commenters who described personal experience with HOA rules supported the bill. Steve Robinson, who said he lives in a Firewise community, said he had sought HOA permission for mitigation projects and received threatening letters. "I support this bill," Robinson said. Jim Jenkins, another homeowner from a Firewise‑designated HOA, told the committee his association remained developer controlled and that developer aesthetics had encouraged plantings and fencing that increase fire risk.

Committee members asked how the bill would be enforced, whether it would be retroactive and how it relates to building codes. Sponsor Representative Lehi said the bill is prospective, not retroactive, and that it would make covenants that conflict with the statute noncompliant after enactment. The bill defines "ignition‑resistant construction" by reference to standards developed by the Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety (IBHS); the sponsor said the definition was adapted from a Colorado law and IBHS standards.

The committee voted to recommend the bill to the full House. The motion passed on a roll call vote of 10 yes, 0 no.

Next steps: HB220 now moves to the House floor for further consideration; the bill text references IBHS standards as the technical basis for the ignition‑resistant definition and delegates implementation detail to that standard rather than enumerating every construction element in statute.