Thanks for the stats! I haven’t checked since I wrote my piece 2 years ago.
No I cannot effing imagine voluntarily adding yet another layer of interference to the already intrusive public authorities! But I think many people feel it’s worth giving up their own autonomy so they can infringe on their neighbors’ autonomy.
Interesting case in Pa: a HOA had amended their declarations to prohibit sex offenders from living there. Now, nobody is gonna vote against THAT—including the homeowner who subsequently became a sex offender! So after he was convicted, the HOA tried to kick him out. Defense couldnt use preemption cuz HOA is a private entity- so the court jumped atop that notoriously dangerous horse, “public policy”, to hold that the HOA’s covenant was invalid because the state legislature already had a comprehensive scheme governing where sex offenders could live, a private contract couldn’t override it.
Of course that’s a “hard case”; maybe it’d have been different if he had been trying to buy in, instead of being faced with forfeiture of his home.
But in my opinion, this is another knell for single family zoning. The fed gov’t wants to eliminate it. Some states already have. Eventually there’ll be a fed case which holds that the covenants restricting all lots to one residential dwelling are contrary to public policy. It will follow the same trajectory as the cases on racially exclusive covenants.
Sadly, that is not so different from low-grade politicians being in charge of zoning. In my neck of the woods, Far Left county commissioners pay themselves well to pass ever more intrusive & complex rules – but enforcement is a whole other issue!
One example is the “Dark Skies” ordinance – something which I personally support as a star watcher. According to the ordinance, outside lights have to be low power and shielded to prevent upward glare. But enforcement would require County staff to work at night (overtime!), and that simply does not happen. One of the worst offenders against this County ordinance is the County itself.
As with bureaucratic Far Leftists everywhere, there are now so many regulations that everyone is always offending against some ordinance. However, enforcement is very selective – and often politically driven. To make things worse, “democratically elected” County Commissioners are in reality selected by the small band of activists who vote in primary elections in this one-party County. We do not have democratic majority rule – we have rule by a rather small minority.
Home Owners Associations, County governments – cut from the same cloth. Practically, we will have to wait until the inevitable economic collapse and then try to put our surviving society on a more sustainable basis.
I can’t figure this out. The HOA can’t be “acquired” because individual homeowners own the property. Many of them do hire a management co to collect dues and assessments, if that’s what you mean.
The problem for the future (if you like 1 fam zoning) is not owners but the developers. It was they who brought about the cases on “exclusionary zoning” , like, for example, requiring all res lots to be 3 acres.
There’s a suit going on in Pittsburgh by a builders assn against an ordinance which sez developers have to build all units identically, but hafta sell some of them for an artificially low price and they can only be re-sold t that price for ( I think ):30 years. I cant figger out the present status; still in the motions and discovery stage, I reckon, though it’s been going on for 3 years. (If anybody lives there and knows more, please advise.) But IMHOmitbwill be resolved by the city agreeing to some compensation to the developers. That’s all; then, the developers will be all in for “economic integration”.
Yes, you are correct - they are not acquired, but instead hire a professional management company operating at scale. Usually, those firms have a “playbook” of initiatives they typically convince the board to submit to homeowners to adopt.
Case in point, and as a way to return to the initial topic, a recent fashionable idea is to adopt limitations restricting the ability of homeowners to list their properties as short-term rentals.
I don’t know what state you are in. In Pa, you can’t amend the declaration of covenants, easements and restrictions without approval of 67% of the homeowners. Up here in the Poconos it’s a laffriot: this is something people have always done, generally with no problems. But as soon as the municipalities passed ordinances regulating STRs, they began proliferating like crazy. Then the HOAs all felt they had get into the act. And of course it’s another chance for them to impose fees.
Welp—it’s happened now, no going back. My township is For Rent.