ELECTRIC VEHICLES (EV)
Accommodating electric vehicle (EV) charging in the condominium setting often requires a considerable investment of time and fiscal resources. While costs related to installing and using EV charging stations are almost always the responsibility of unit owners, there's a significant amount of work required to understand owner interest, measure the power supply, make available power usable in the right location(s), draft contractual language and (possibly) update governing documents.
If your association is considering infrastructure updates to meet the needs of EV charging, remember that the addition of power and infrastructure are capital improvements. Many states' statutes prohibit CICs from expending reserve funds for capital improvements and/or allow reserve loans requiring time-limited repayment. Your declaration may also impose restrictions requiring that Members (owners) approve capital improvements over a certain threshold.
Which states have statutes prescribing EV charging in community associations? 🔌
| Jurisdiction | Statute |
|---|---|
| California | Civil Code § 4745 |
| Colorado | CRS 38-33.3-106.8 (updated by HB23-1233 ) and CRS 38-12-601 (landlord-tenant provisions) |
| Connecticut | 47-261g and 47-90h |
| District of Columbia | Condominiums and community associations: D.C. Code § 6-1451.03c Effective March 7, 2025 |
| Florida | Condominiums: 718.113(8) |
| Hawaii | Condominiums and Townhouses: HRS 196-7.5 (read this from Hawaiian Electric) |
| Illinois | Condominiums (newly constructed after January 1, 2024) | Public Act 103-0053 | View article |
| Maine | SP457 Enacted June 12, 2025 |
| Maryland | § 11-111.4 and § 11B-111.8 and §2–303 | Updated by 2024 HB159 |
| Massachusetts | Condominiums: M.G.L. c. 183A § 10A |
| Michigan | HOAs: Homeowners' Energy Policy Act (MCL 559.305) Effective April 2, 2025 |
| New Jersey | § 45:22A-48.4 |
| New York | Condominiums: RPP Chapter 50, Article 9-B, Section 339-LL (see this article from 2022) |
| North Dakota | NDCC 47-04.1-16 (read the story about how HB1310 became Law in 2023) |
| Oregon | ORS 100.627 and ORS 94.762 |
| Utah | 57-8-8.2 and 57-8a-802 |
| Virginia | HOAs: § 55.1-1823.1 |
| Washington | Four community association statutes (see below) |
| Ontario, Canada | Ontario EV Charging Developments in 2024 |
N.B. This may not be an exhaustive list. Have additional examples? Please send them our way!
Are E-Bikes, EVs and Chargers a Greater Fire Risk? 🔥
The National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) says the risks are different than ICE cars. CWS says no. CleanTechnica says no. Some companies have designed equipment to isolate car fires. You can sign up for free access to NFPA documentation.
N.B. NFPA standards can be adopted in whole, part or not at all by each state and municipality. NFPA standards are not required unless adopted into code!
Are you concerned about e-bikes and scooters? Products that are UL-listed have a reasonable safety record. Others do not. Read this NFPA tip sheet.
- VIEW: proposed electronic device legislation
- READ: NYCHA's proposed electronic micromobility rules and view the Electric Micromobility Action Plan's engaging graphic (page 34).
- READ: Study: Hybrids, ICE Cars Far More Likely Than EVs To Catch Fire | No, Millions of Cars Are Not Catching Fire Every Year
Grants and Incentives 💰
Many states have programs to incentivize EV adoption. The Department of Energy's Alternative Fuels Data Center website and other resources below can help you identify opportunities for savings.
Bloomberg: The Biden administration proposed a landmark limit on tailpipe emissions that may compel automakers to ensure two out of every three cars and light trucks sold in 2032 are electric...
EV NEWS
- July 27, 2023: 1 in 6 new Washington cars are electric. The state aims for more
- April 12, 2023: Biden’s Toughest-Ever Car Pollution Curbs to Drive EV Sales
- January 27, 2023: Are EVs more expensive to operate than ICE vehicles? Only in certain circumstances. Read the comments!
- August 27, 2022: Electric vehicle charging time could fall to 10 minutes within 5 years
- June 20, 2022: Seattle Offers Utility Pole EV Chargers To City Residents
- March 25, 2022: Washington passes bill to target all EV sales by 2030 – for real this time
- March 21, 2022: Electric vehicles shouldn’t be just for rich folks
- March 9, 2022: $7,500 electric vehicle rebates fail in WA Legislature as climate proposals see mixed results
EV READING: SEATTLE, WA
- Seattle City Light (SCL) has a multi-family residential EV charging program
- View the EV Charging Summary (immediately below)
- Select the EV Solution Summary (right-most tab) for solution comparisons
- View the example EV Charging License Agreement (bottom of this page)
- Washington State: CIC-specific EV Charging legislation
(HB1793)
- Effective June 9, 2022. Read the summary (middle of this page)
CONDOMINIUM EV CHARGING STRATEGIES
The table below has detailed summaries linked in blue for three properties.
| Organization | EV Strategy | % of Parking Electrified | Payment System | Installer |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| General Comments: No organization surveyed has paid to pull more power from their electrical vault and transform it into usable service for EV charging. Doing so requires engaging the City and may be prohibitively expensive. | ||||
| Anonymous |
| Flat Fee | Coe Electric | |
| 5th & Madison | 5th and Madison (909 5th Ave) does not own our parking spaces - we have an easement to park on Floors B, C, and D from the owners of the parking garage - 901 5th Ave. The owners of the parking garage (901 5th Ave) installed 2 EVC on Floor F which is accessible, at a cost, to unit owners. | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Arbor Place | Owners are responsible for obtaining a licensed electriican to run wiring from the transformer to their parking space. |
| Individually metered via software. Pass-through actual costs. | McKinstry |
| Cristalla | At our monthly meeting two weeks ago I mentioned that Cristalla is going to build out the infrastructure to enable 40% of our parking stalls to have electric power. It so happens that we have an electrical "vault" at Cristalla containing unused power that has the capacity to support EV charging at all of our parking spaces. This was provided when Cristalla was built in anticipation that at least one of the two commercial sites on our premises would house a restaurant. As it is, the two are a furniture store and an education center. There are two phases of the project. The first is to install a main distribution panel near the vault and six sub-panels on each of our garage floors. The second step is to install individual branch circuits to "energize" individual stalls. There are two options presented in the executive summary above. Option 1 is being executed. Three other points about the Cristalla program. The first step of building out the infrastructure to get the power capacity from our electricity vault onto each of our garage floors is estimated to cost about $180,000. We're charging that cost to the condo owners on a per stall basis estimated at $840 per stall. We'll collect part of that in 2021 dues and borrow the balance from our Replacement Reserve. Then in 2022 we'll collect the balance of the project's cost in dues to replenish the Reserve. The second step is to build out the branch circuits from the garage floor sub-panels to transfer the power to each parking stall that its owner wants enabled. This cost would be paid by the stall's owner and is estimated to run between $4,000 and $8,000 per stall depending upon how many participate on the branch circuits. Once this is built out and owners begin charging, we'll flat charge monthly the central vault electricity bill among participants. We anticipate these monthly bills will average less than $20 based upon a survey of residents annual mileage (pre-COVID) If any of you want more information about our project, let me know and I'll connect you with Brian DeNault, a Cristalla owner who conceived this plan. |
| ||
| Escala | Background Started in 2015. The number of Escala unit owners who are using or would like access to electrical outlets in the parking garage to charge their electric vehicle (EV) or for their “trickle battery chargers” has rapidly increased. Hence the EOA Board of Directors approved the installation of a power distribution panel #2 on parking level 4, which is capable of safely providing additional outlets. It will give another 14 [240v] breakers to accommodate a 50-amp EV charging stations. This policy was created to provide guidelines for requesting such outlets. The Policy A one-time infrastructure charge of $2,100 per breaker will be assessed unit owners requesting charging stations. The cost was calculated by the number of breakers available on the EV panel (14) by the total cost of the panel #2 installation. A licensed and certified electrician must install EV chargers/outlets at the owner’s expense. A copy of the contractor’s certificate of insurance must be submitted to the Facility Manager before the work commencement. Unit owners must have the charger/outlet installed in their assigned parking space and draping of any cords across other parking spaces is not permitted. Owners who install charging stations/outlets will be assessed a utility fee of $20.00 per month. All requests for EV charging stations/outlets need to be forwarded to the Facility Manager. Any unit owner found not complying with this policy will be notified by the Board and subject to fines as outlined in the EOA General Fine and Remediation Policy. Rationale The interest and demand for such charging stations havegrown in recent years. The installation of the distribution panel #2 provides the appropriate safe method to give Escala unit owners/residents who own electric vehicles and battery chargers a means to charge them. Since not all unit owners require these stations, this policy outlines how the cost of installation will be the responsibility of the unit owner requesting it. |
| ||
| Mosler Lofts | Reference summary document |
| Flat fee per month, billed quarterly | Coe Electric |
| Newmark Tower | This was the process the Newmark used when we implemented EVCs in our garage: 1) Determine how to pay for the work. At the Newmark we did something still somewhat controversial – we borrowed funds from our reserves and paid them back based on sales of the EVC spots to homeowners. This made it more expensive than it had to be because we could theoretically support 70 parking spots but we got only ~ 25 takers. That meant that the cost per individual unit would have been less if more owners bought in. 2) Determined how much excess electrical capacity we had and figured out how many EVCs are possible based on this capacity. Some of the newer systems do intelligent switching which increases the numbers of possible EVCs available. 3) Created a plan on how to distribute the power throughout our garage. For steps 2 and 3 we used a company called VECA Electrical (https://www.veca.com/) to determine our capacity and design the layout and electrical equipment needs to power EVCs in our garage. 4) Implemented the wiring to the parking spaces for residents who paid for spots. We used HiTek (https://www.hitektelecom.com/) which did a great job for us. 5) Implemented administrative tasks related to EVCs once they were in place – for example note which units have paid for them (so they follow the unit if it sells – it’s like a limited common element) and figure out how to recoup the electrical cost – we did not meter individually we came up with an average monthly rate applied to all EVC owners (who actually use their spots). We found the cost of individual metering was not worth the expense. |
| ||
| Olive 8 | Each Condo. EVC Owner owns the Plug and the plug gets sold with the Condo unit. To do a Capital Improvement over $20,000 we dad to obtain Home Owners approval. We had lawyers draft up a document to get that approval but only the owners that want EVC plugs at their parking stalls would be paying for the capital improvement. $6000 for each plug. The capacity available to our building at the time only allowed 31 X 240 volt plugs. We contracted with ATS to supervise the project. (Pete Segall) A transformer was placed on each Parking floor (3 Floors) with different capacities for what would be required to service the number of plugs. Evergreen Electric did the installation and were great. I believe Josh was the person in charge. SkySpark is used to monitor the usage of each plug which delivers the data onto the Facility Managers computer and then the EVC owners get billed monthly or quarterly. The project was completed in 2018 so we had a lot of “teething“ agony but it is working well now. |
| Pay per use | ATS |
| Parc-Belltown | Opportunity for up to 48 chargers (2 transformers x 24 networked chargers each) using smart-metered charging via Evercharge |
| Evercharge costs a $15/month base rate per charging station plus a flat fee per KwH that we set based on rates from Seattle City Light. | ReSound Energy |
| The Vine | Phase 1: Community amenity Level 2 charger Phase 2: Limited Common circuit reservations and board approval for installations done at owner cost, 8 owners in phase. Circuits have a dedicated submeter to comply with declaration requirements. Phase 3: Depending on owner interest, will investigate broader approval for more infrastructure, funded by benefitting owners, or another small phase of chargers. Considering networked systems and other providers.. |
|
| Schneider Electric Edmunds |
| Site 17 | We’re fortunate enough to have our electrical rooms border all the garages in both the north and the south buildings. Inside these electrical rooms are the breaker switches for every apartment. The South building has 100A breakers, and the North building has 90A breakers. A DCC9 energy management system can be used to connect EVSE chargers directly to resident breaker switches. If their home energy consumption goes above a certain level, the DCC9 will power off the EVSE automatically. Thus, any electrical load will still be capped to the amount already allocated to each individual unit. Any EV electrical costs associated will be billed directly to the residents Seattle City Light account, rather than needing to be recovered by the HOA. Costs for the Association The association has already spent $1500 on load testing. In addition to this, a further expense of $8,646 is recommended which will be used to pay for concrete drilling between the 2 electrical rooms and 5 garages. Once drilled, junction boxes will be installed, which can then be used to pull wire from the electrical rooms to individual parking spaces. (Note that this is an unavoidable cost, regardless of which approach we use to install EVSEs). The costs above will be recovered from residents by charging a $300 installation permit fee. Once 33 EVSE’s have been installed, the initial investment will be paid for, and the remaining ~67 parking spaces will generate profit which can be used to invest in future projects. Costs for the Residents Northwest EV & Solar quoted me $3500 to install a DCC9 + Tesla charger. | Up to 100% based on adoption | N/A - Electricity comes directly from inidivual units' breaker boxes | Northwest EV & Solar |
| Illinois Condominium | 2024 IEEE Region 4 Newsletter - Issue# 04 - 121624 - EV Charging Pages 16 to 26 excerpted from IEEE Region 4 Newsletter - Issue# 04 The basic infrastructure was about $130K and the branch circuits cost about the same. We considered the basic infrastructure (about $1000/space) to be a necessary improvement to the building to maintain its status as a modern building and paid for it out of our “reserves”. The branch circuits were more tricky. While we have 136 limited common element parking spaces, we have only 83 individual units. The units are of varying size and the number of parking spaces owned by a unit is anywhere from 1-3. So, we assumed that we would never have an EVSE at every parking space, but perhaps in 10 years we might have 80. Connection to the system is by a one-time per space license fee arrangement with the condo based on recovering the cost of the entire branch circuit portion of the project eventually when 80 EVSE are installed. The license fee (now $1400) increases yearly by the T-bill rate until paid. The monthly usage fee is initially set at $25, based on an estimated monthly electricity cost of $15 and will be adjusted on a yearly basis so as to be no net cost to the condo (including maintenance). We need a 2/3 positive vote of the owners to do this, and this was achieved in about 60 days. The total cost for a space to have an installed charger, including the charger, is $3,200. | Available for at least one parking space per unit | $1,400 license, plus flat monthly charges for electric connection with a net positive cash flow to the Association. | |
Washington State
Concerning Electric Vehicle Charging and CICs
Example EV License Agreement
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