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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We used to live in a painfully boring perfectly manicured HOA neighborhood. We now live in a decidedly non-HOA neighborhood where houses all look different, some yards are perfectly manicured and some are “bee friendly” weed fests, wildflowers and fruit trees are all over, and there are actual bumblebees wandering around to all the many flowering plants and bushes. Each yard looks different. I absolutely love it and am thrilled to death I no longer have to cough up $350/yr for the privilege of having to get approval to plant a local bush or receiving neighborhood-wide nasty notes about weeding or barking dogs.

HOAs are all about uniformity and conformity. My non-HOA neighborhood is eclectic AND has much higher property values than our former HOA ‘hood of nouveau riche.[/quote]

I'm in a very strict HOA and my yard is almost all native and pollinator friendly and I also have a native bee house. Actually, the HOA requires us to have at least 8 shrubs or trees on the property and  forbids planting invasive species, which is amazing. In my old non-HOA neighborhood, an idiot planted bamboo which invaded the whole neighborhood. It took us thousands of dollars each to control it, we could never eradicated it. [/quote]

It must be a relatively recent HOA document, in that it values things like native plants.  The old ones from the 80s and 90s all required just massove of amounts of grass.  [b]This is one problem with HOA documents—they are very hard to change so don’t keep pace well with changing tastes or norms.[/b]  Things like solar panels, which may be important to our future, or more environmentally friendly landscaping are good examples.  [/quote]

It is not true in my neighborhood. Each community has rules and documents and procedures for making changes. You may have a lazy board or you may be like many homeowners who won't do the work to make the hoa functional. You can't just go in and rewrite the rules with meeting and getting input and following a process.

I'm lucky in my neighborhood that there are homeowners who are very knowledgeable who have devoted a great deal of time to serving on the board. They enforce the rules not because they are controlling nuts but because they know why the rules are there. A lot of the rules neighbors complain about have very valid reasons for being in place. Our board listens to suggestions for changes and change the rules regularly to keep up. You can make your hoa better and more responsive but you need people who care and will give up their time. [/quote]

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