A.R.S. 33-1818: HOA Authority Over Public Roadways in Arizona

A common HOA overreach is treating a public street like its own private road, posting parking rules and issuing fines on pavement the city actually owns. A.R.S. 33-1818 shuts most of that down. If a street has been dedicated to or is held by a government, a typical Arizona HOA has no authority to regulate it. The rule turns on two dates: when your community's declaration was recorded, and a one-time member vote that had to happen by mid-2025. Here is how it sorts out.

The clean rule for newer communities

For communities formed after 2014, the answer is simple: hands off public roads. If your declaration was recorded after December 31, 2014, the HOA has no authority over and may not regulate any roadway whose ownership has been dedicated to or is otherwise held by a governmental entity.

For a planned community whose declaration is recorded after December 31, 2014, an association has no authority over and shall not regulate any roadway for which the ownership has been dedicated to or is otherwise held by a governmental entity.

This is a bright line. A public street is the city's or county's responsibility, including its parking and traffic rules, not the HOA's. A board in a newer community cannot ticket your guest for street parking on a public road or post its own speed limits there.

The 2025 vote for older communities

Communities recorded before January 1, 2015 got a transition path. They could keep regulating public roadways, but only if they passed a one-time membership vote by June 30, 2025. The vote required a quorum to be present, with a majority of that quorum voting to continue, and the result had to be recorded with the county recorder.

If a majority of those members present at a meeting at which a quorum is present votes to continue regulating those public roadways, the planned community retains its authority to regulate those public roadways.

The flip side is automatic. If an older community did not hold the vote by the deadline, or the vote failed, the association no longer has authority to regulate public roadways and its existing roadway regulations expire. Because that deadline has now passed, an older HOA that wanted to keep this power needed to have already secured and recorded that vote. If it did not, control over those public streets has reverted to the government.

For example, a Cave Creek HOA recorded in 2008 that wanted to keep enforcing parking on its public streets had to hold a member meeting, reach quorum, win a majority vote, and record the result with the Maricopa County Recorder by June 30, 2025. If it skipped that step, its street-parking rules on public roads are no longer enforceable.

What it does not reach

This statute is about public, government-owned roads. It does not strip an HOA of control over genuinely private roads inside a gated community, which the association still owns and maintains. It also specifically excludes one-way streets and privately owned roadways from its provisions. So the dividing line is ownership: if the government holds the road, this statute limits the HOA; if the association owns it, the HOA keeps its authority subject to the CC&Rs.

How it connects to the rest of the law

Whether the HOA can enforce a roadway rule overlaps with the parking carve-out for marked service vehicles in A.R.S. 33-1809 , and any vote to keep this authority had to follow the ballot and quorum rules in A.R.S. 33-1812 . The recorded confirmation of that vote is the kind of document you can pull under your records right in A.R.S. 33-1805 . The HOA's authority in the first place comes from the recorded CC&Rs defined in A.R.S. 33-1802 . If you are buying a lot, knowing who controls the street out front matters as much as how HOA design review affects building a custom home .

Full text and source

Read the current section, including the exact dates and recording requirement, on the legislature's site: View A.R.S. 33-1818 on azleg.gov .

If your HOA is still ticketing cars on a public street, find out whether the road is government-owned and when your declaration was recorded, because those two facts decide whether the HOA has any authority there at all.