Banned is maybe too far, but why should we as a country allow people to have petty power over meaningless things their neighbors do? Could we ban HOAs from being included in house sales, and every time it’s sold the new owners have to opt in?
For the most part, I’m wondering about this in the context of single family homes since for homes like condos, you could make the case that HOAs are useful for shared things like roofs and whatnot. Maybe limit mandatory HOA involvement to things like what’s truly necessary and shared and not how tall your grass is?
I don’t want to live in a neighborhood where you can leave a car to rot on the front lawn, where you can have cows shitting all over, or you can build a 20 foot tall Jesus statue in your front yard.
If your HOA sucks, then get involved and make it better. Mine is fine.
city odanances usually can prevent the first two, however requre elected leaders or direct voting to let it happen reducing the chance that a cowless minority could ban them.