Bieber: EV chargers should come with multifamily complexes

Heather Bieber | Phoenix

When I was looking for a condo in Phoenix and Scottsdale, having access to an electric vehicle charger was important to me. I was able to successfully convince my HOA board to install EV chargers, but the SRP rebates only covered a certain number of them for the building. The HOA didn’t want to favor some parking spaces over others so luckily, they decided to spend additional HOA funds to install enough EV chargers for the entire parking garage of our condo building. After they were installed, several neighbors quickly purchased EVs.

Before anybody accuses me of stealing electricity from my neighbors, the charging stations aren’t free. They’re operated by Chargie and we use an app on our phones to scan the QR code on the charging station and it bills each user directly. People who live in multifamily units or who rent single-family houses are often left out of the discussion on electric vehicles. All the discussion about the benefits of “charging at home” apply to users who own their own, single-family home.

The state government or city council should step in and address this. It doesn’t need to be any more complicated than a law requiring HOAs and multifamily properties to install charging stations, and in the case of single-family rentals, requiring the owners to allow tenants to install charging stations at their own expense. For multi-family properties, installing a handful of charging stations that are available for all residents to use would go a long way towards more EV adoption.