That makes it sound like covenants that run with the land are something you could simply implement via contract law, binding the first purchaser to them via contract and requiring that they only sell to people who sign a contract agreeing to being bound and the propagating the covenant.
In fact, covenants that run with the land are stronger than that. The contract approach might work as long as the land was only conveyed through contractual arrangements between the conveyor and the conveyee. But there are other ways land can be conveyed.
My land could be seized by the state because I stopped paying taxes and then sold at auction, for instance. Or I might die intestate and with no close relatives, and the land ends up with some distant relative I've never met or had contact with. Or I go bankrupt and the bankruptcy trustee sells my land to pay my creditors. These and many other ways could result in my land ending up owned by someone else with no contract between me and them, and hence no way for me to impose the restrictions on them.
A covenant that runs with the land would still work after all of those. I've not looked into the history of it, but I'd guess that the need to have a way for arrangements to stick no matter how the land is conveyed is why covenants that run with the land were developed.
Try that with townhomes with shared walls and ceilings and you'll see negative side effects pretty quick.
Hell, “terraced” or “mews” housing is incredibly common in the UK and HOAs are effectively unheard of.
If you made the rule you suggest, all it would change is that new HOAs would all be on long term land leases (and you'd have a lot of chaos in the current ones that didn't do this because with existing laws it was not necessary).
And if you did that, stuff like making a pool would no longer be possible.
And a voluntarily financed pool makes a certain amount of sense. Why should someone who doesn't want to be involved be forced to contribute against their will? That's not easy to justify.
It isn’t popular on the internet, but many people prefer their hoa. So you would be solving a problem that many people don’t believe exist.
You make a choice to live in a neighborhood with an hoa. If you don’t like it, leave or don’t buy. Not sure why we should pull the rug out from under those who choose to live their because others would prefer not to.
And I say this as someone who does not live in a neighborhood with an hoa.
I wonder if the love/hate opinion on HOAs boils down to that, i.e. some like forcing others to their way of thinking, and others are very opposed to such things.
Some people want to live in Bohemia; some people want to live in vibrant cities; some people want to live in places where all the lawns are nicely manicured and Billy Bob down the street can't have his car up on blocks and Jennifer next door can't have a stream of cars showing up for her private pilates class.
The world is filled with many different kinds of people, with many different visions of the good life. Just because one particular vision doesn't match mine doesn't mean it should be banned or destroyed, or that they are terrible people.
You mean the people that actually vote, right?
You may think you belong to the majority view on this, but I believe you're incorrect.