Herndon resident upset with HOA's electric vehicle charging station restrictions

A Virginia who woman wants to buy an electric vehicle says her homeowners association won’t allow her to build a suitable charging station for the vehicle.

“I would like to have an EV,” Herndon resident Michaela Hamiary Janotova said. “I would like to be able to charge it here at home.”

She’s shocked by her homeowners association’s rules and resolutions about electric vehicle charging stations.

“The resolution is so restrictive that I actually cannot have a charging station,” she said.

Specifically, she’s not allowed to build the station close enough to her parking space because it’s common space.

“The law says that HOAs can make or can establish reasonable restrictions,” she said. “The question is what is reasonable. What’s reasonable to you doesn’t have to be reasonable to me.”

She says she could build the charging station on her property, but then the cable would likely have to go across a sidewalk, and the HOA has rules about cables going across common areas.

She likely would have to take out some insurance on the cable, and she says she’s not willing to do that.

“I shouldn’t be required to pay so much to have an EV,” she said. “I mean, I have a right to purchase a vehicle I like. I have a right to lead a sustainable lifestyle.”

Virginia state law does say HOAs can prohibit or restrict the installation of electric vehicle charging stations in common areas. Hamiary Janotova says she is working with lawyers and elected leaders to try to get the law amended, but that takes a lot of time.

She doesn’t know if she’ll get an electric vehicle.

“I don’t know, yet,” she said. “I’m going to try to fight this case and come to a point where I’ll actually be able to build an EV charging station right here.”

The neighborhood’s HOA has yet to respond to News4’s request for comment.