livligkinkajouPennsylvania, USA is trying to stop HOAs from banning native plant gardens.
HOAs are such a fascinatingly American thing. They seem to cause no end of annoyance for those living in them, and have few to no positive effects (at least, we don’t hear about any positives), yet they persist.
Can those who are adversely affected not do anything about their local ones, or is it actually a case that they’re not too bad for most people most of the time?
There’s very little people can do. In order to fix things you usually need to get on the board, but the people who run HOAs are usually retired nimby assholes and they hold meetings while most in the neighborhood are at work so nobody can oppose them. They then reelect themselves to the board and the cycle continues. HOAs are usually a thing set up by the builders to make their lives easier for some paperwork and stuff. They absolutely suck 99% of the time.
Native plant garden bans aren’t just an HOA thing. Many counties or cities ban them too. Much of it stems for chemical manufacturers selling the white picket fence image after WWII to veterans receiving funding to buy a home. The chemical manufacturers pushed hard for that image so they could keep making as much profit as they made manufacturing for weapons during the wartime.
This means that trying to fight your HOA on yards is useless, you have to go higher and it’s a big big fight
If you like videos, you should definitely watch Climate Townś “America’s Dumbest Crop” when you have the time:
Your link doesn’t work for me, but in any case, none of what that person says is true. Maybe they have had anecdotal things happen like that, but the majority of it makes no sense. HOAs are built with boards, residents can vote out those boards. If those things actually happened the boards would get voted out and the HOA dissolved. HOA boards can’t reelect themselves (this should have been the first sign that what that user was saying was bullshit).