7
votes
How American HOAs became an unnecessary necessary evil
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- Title
- When your neighbors become your overlords
- Authors
- Emily Stewart
- Published
- Apr 20 2023
- Word count
- 2257 words
My HOA fees aren't nearly that high. I don't mind them in my community because they maintain a poolhouse and greenspace with a playground, and it covers snow removal and some lawn care.
If I was paying $300/mo and my HOA was run by busybodies who care too deeply about the exact breed of grass in my front yard then I'd be pretty upset.
Let me play devil's advocate:
You live somewhere reasonably nice in the suburbs, where, because of low taxes, the municipal government is drastically underfunded. But you personally want nice roads, code enforcement to deal with blight, security personnel, etc. So you make your own private organization to handle all of the things that government is good at, and then you hand it to a group of busybodies with no oversight, because you're busy.
And now you have an HOA. (Somewhat) effective local government, but only for people who can pay for it. Given how starved of revenue the city or county is, you probably get something better than you would otherwise, but it's a losing game for everyone in the long term. But the $300 in fees is replacing local taxation.