I've lived in city areas, rural areas, and now in HOA area.
All have their pros and cons.
My current subdivision is large in terms of acreage; the smallest lot is 2ac, the largest is 11ac. I have 7.5ac. We only have 17 lots total in our sub-division, and more than 1/2 of the lots don't even have a dwelling on them yet after 19 years of establishment. It's very "rural" in our subdivision.
- Our HOA has strict rules about home size, construction type, materials, etc; this protects us from having a mobile home next door and drawing down our property values.
- We have are all pro-gun, and we all hunt, but we have also have a "no shooting or hunting clause", because it keeps future homeowners from doing stupid things around our own homes.
- We have clauses against running a business out of your home/garage, to keep commercial traffic out. Etc.
- We have a "no livestock" clause so some fool doesn't try to put 30 head of hogs next to my house. Etc.
- and so on ...
It's all there to protect a desired way of life. I knew about the HOA prior to buying. I read the C&Rs before buying and building my home there. I agreed to those terms because I agree with them in principle and find that they have more benefit than distraction for me.
I live there now because I used to live on 8ac in an unincorporated part of the county on a long private easement (sort of like a sub-division in layout but not any formal rules at all). And while I lived 15 years in the same place, my next door neighbors changed FOUR TIMES in the same 15 years. Some were nice; some were complete white-trash idiots. There were times when they'd start shooting at night, or into the creek that separates our properties. Or they'd be riding 4-wheel'ers at 6am Sunday morning, or leave their trash in their front lawn as I had to drive down the easement to get to my place. Or shooting off fireworks not only on July 4th, but the 3rd, the 5th and just about all week, even though I have to get up at 4am to head to work. They also had no sense of fair shared maintenance of the private easement; I'd plow it every winter all the way back to my house, and would by default clear past their driveway, but they'd never offer me any money for the fuel for my tractor, etc. They would pour their used oil on the ground (and we all live on water wells!). They let their dogs run loose and they would extract my garbage out of the cans onto my driveway. At one time one set of neighbors had horses, and they'd ride their horses on the shared easement driveway, and the horses would defecate on the driveway, and no one would clean it up. You get the idea.
There are times when HOAs and their C&Rs are beneficial. I knew what I was moving into, and I'm now happy to be there. The HOA C&Rs where I live are very fair, reasonable and offer a great balance between what it "normal" for me and not "offensive" to others.
