Hi Lemmy, My HOA sent out a email saying dogs are no longer allowed on any grass in common areas or front yards including grass between sidewalk and curb which is… everywhere except our own tiny backyards. The reasoning is some dog urine effected dead spots. Honestly I didn’t even notice them, it’s 95° here and all the grass looks sad.
It’s a walking town and we are not a gated community, non-residents walk their dogs here all the time, so this rule can only punish those who live here and has no ability to effect others.
Anyway, this seems like a ‘we have tried nothing and we are all out of ideas!’ moment so I wanted to see if anyone here had any suggestions I can pass on to maintain a “good” curb appeal ground cover-wise while allowing dogs to do normal dog stuff.
I can converse with the HOA board in good faith, but this rule is basically banning dogs from the neighborhood - which I super did not sign up for.
Pertainent info: PA, USA - Town Home style homes - small central common grass - owned for 8y.
Edit: it seems like people may have glossed over the question part and skipped straight to HOA bashing (which is warranted at times!) so I will rephrase:
What ground covering or neighborhood solutions to similar (perceived) issues have other communities employed?
I truly don’t understand how HOAs aren’t illegal. Or at the very least restricted.
Local governments love HOAs and they are only giving construction permits to HOA communities. Why they love it? Easy, they onload the government duties of maintaining infrastructure on the HOAs, who charge a “tax” that doesn’t risks the political career of the elected officials.
I’m pretty sure it’s a case of gradually increased powers, afaik basically everywhere has HOAs, the difference is just that outside of america they basically just maintain common infrastructure like roads and utilities and the only things they can really enforce is when you’re actually being a prick towards your neighbours, e.g. bright pink house or excessive blinking lights.