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Senate committee reviews bill H.537 to protect renters’ and HOA residents’ right to grow gardens
Summary
The Senate committee considered H.537, sponsored by Representative Michelle Boslin, which would bar unreasonable HOA and landlord restrictions on growing vegetable gardens (including potted containers for renters), set enforcement and maintenance limits, and carve out an explicit exclusion for cannabis cultivation; the committee did not vote and asked for clarifications on definitions, retroactivity and deposit rules.
Representative Michelle Boslin told the Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs on March 31 that H.537 “is that people should have the right to grow vegetable gardens.” The bill, Boslin said, seeks to protect unit owners in common-interest communities from HOA rules that “prohibit or unreasonably restrict the installation or use of a vegetable garden in the areas designated for the exclusive use of the unit owner.”
The measure has two main parts, Cameron Lloyd of the Office of Legislative Council told the committee: protections for unit owners in common-interest communities and a new residential rental provision for tenants. Lloyd said the draft applies retroactively to common-interest communities that contain “12 or more units,” a threshold tied to existing statutory structure, and includes a plain-language definition of a vegetable garden as plants cultivated for personal consumption or donation.
Under the…
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