Some of the exterior decorating plans, thoughts and feelings in these posts make me extremely happy that I live in a gated community with closely monitored association standards. Maybe that's the key word. Personal standards vary by individual and no one is forced to buy a house anywhere unless that's what they want.

I've lived with and without HOAs including one HOA where the minimum size was 5 acres with architectural and landscaping standards and another way in the midddle of nowhere Idaho's mountains on a lot of land with no restrictions, law enforcement or other signs of conventional society. In every case where there were no restrictions there was always a neigbor or two or three who collected dead cars (not for restoration purposes, simply because they died and were parked off their entry road and a different driver acquired) and/or accumulated junk and trash because they were too lazy to haul it off. Not pretty in a pristine setting, but their free choice. I'll take the HOAs.

In the case of an association forming after someone buys a home and they disagree with it, moving would seem to be the prudent thing to do. It took a majority of homeowners to form the association, and isn't majority rule a fact of life and a cornerstone of our form of government?

 

I think that sometimes people concentrate on their own personal freedom to the point that they forget other people have a right to be happy too. If it makes someone happy to be in a gated or controlled community let them do it. Georgedavila is right. If a HOA forms where you are living and you want to work on cars in your driveway and the HOA says you can't, then it's time for you to move somewhere else.

This also brings up the subject of getting involved. If there is going to be a HOA formed they will try to get everyone involved and find out what the community wants. If you are too busy putting a lift kit on your truck to attend then when they vote that you can't work on trucks and cars on the driveway it's too late for you to start yelling about it.

 

Most of the time the protective covenants are in place by the peson that subdivides the land. It takes a homeowners association to enforce them. The is good and bad to the HOA issue. I had a 2/3 acre lot in a recreational subdivision. I was about the fifth person in there. We were all in violation on some point or another but it was no big deal and no one cared. And then Lisa moved in. She was a good neighbor and minded her own business but she started raising pigs on her lot, and cows tykeys , chickens ect. She got all the beer cans from the bars to recycle and dumped them out in her driveway to smash them, She never fixed a car, she just left them by the drive with whatever door, hood or trunk open. And then would drag another pos home. She brought home every old couch, pickup canopy, used pallets, whatever. She was still our neighbor and we treated her like one, but I sure as heck wouldn't have chose for a mess like that and had there been a HOA we could have nipped it in the bud.
I personally like land without restrictions because I keep a few more unregistered cars around than most covenants allow, but I just hold my breath that a clan of hillfolk with 18 hunting hounds don't move in next door. Or people with crappier junk than me.