Bill was introduced in Sep/25, but I only got a whiff of it in the last couple of weeks
See House Bill HB1878: https://fastdemocracy.com/bill-search/pa/2025-2026/bills/PAB00038963/
Are there any other states/countries taking similar initiatives?
Summary:
Pennsylvania homeowners deserve the right to choose native plant species they desire for landscaping around their homes. However, work is needed to remove bottlenecks for homeowners to select native vegetation for their desired landscaping.
This legislation will prevent homeowners associations (HOAs) from unreasonably prohibiting the use of native plants for landscaping on private property. This ensures homeowners residing within an HOA the same ability to choose native landscaping as other homeowners.
Native plants provide many beneficial functions that many homeowners desire. These include being aesthetically pleasing and providing habitat for pollinators while being adapted to the site and typically requiring lower maintenance than non-native plants. [...]
Kinda funny how Americans call their country "land of the free" but can't even do certain things on THEIR OWN PROPERTY because of the HOAs.
Should we go down the list of things Americans can't do but the rest of the world can? The irony of holding up freedom as their cornerstone while keeping the largest inmate population over bullshit without even a trial.
Number one on that list is health insurance being tied to your job. As in, some people literally die if they quit their job. Very freedom, much America.
I used to work in healthcare and bad news, the last 10 years the shit show has become even shittier in a way that feels like an acceleration. I left because I just couldn't deal and feel better working for a tech company that is at least transparent what they do. However, somewhere in the middle of my career I had a patient with an aggressive brain cancer that took him from being a middle class working guy to basically unable to move without assistance. However, when I met him he was not receiving chemo or radiation or any specific care because he was diagnosed with cancer after collapsing at work. He was diagnosed and directly lost his job. He had to wait for a new month to be covered by the insurance his family purchased through the ACA market place. He had already earned too much that year to qualify for Medicaid. He sat around for three and a half weeks loosing function and possibly metastasizing because no one would treat him.
When you're in an HOA, you've contracted away some of your rights to property.
But that's the devil's game of "property rights". So many people think they've gained sovereignty because money changed hands. They don't ask how property originates and why it was up for sale to begin with.
That's not a contradiction. HOAs suck but they're a contractual relationship that you enter voluntarily.
"voluntarily"
Somehow I've managed to avoid being forced to buy a house at gunpoint.
and you've never run afoul of an HOA in a property you rent? my first time getting an HOA infraction was in an apartment i was renting for $400 a month because i put my clothes out on a drying wrack while i was at work because i couldn't afford to run the drier
it's just that any development built after Clinton requires you to enter that contract or the bank won't approve your loan
Which is needed in developments since the houses are closer together and it just takes one person turning their front yard into a used car lot to drive down property values and annoy everyone else.
Sane countries handle this with local public authorities.
If your garden becomes a tip in the UK the council will step in
Your example of a sane country is the UK? One of the largest surveillance states in the world...
A. Thats what zoning board is for.
B. If you dont want bad neighbors, dont buy near neighbors
If you don't want an HOA don't buy in an HOA.
somehow my point has been again lost so let me state it more clearly this time:
most people subject to HOAs are so because being picky about housing is a privilege it's rare to have access to
Oh no, not the poor upper middle class homeowners who were forced to buy in a neighborhood that has a strict HOA whose primary purpose is to keep property values high.
and the lower middle class homeowners, and the lower class renters. any development after around '98. you will deal with an HOA.
yes. HOAs primarily exist to serve capital, but they don't always act as rules enforcement against the homeowner. often who gets the rules enforced against them is someone who picked that neighborhood based on it was what they could afford near enough their work for their whole life to be affordable.