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If you build a house in the United States today, there’s a good chance you’ll be living under the dictates of a neighborhood homeowners association. Roughly two out of every three new homes are in an HOA, as are a third of existing homes.
Some of these HOAs have evolved to encourage environmentally friendly yards, particularly in the desert Southwest, but many more throw up barriers to sustainability, even in communities where water is becoming more scarce, wildlife is under threat and homegrown energy could reduce pollution.
Janet and Jeff Crouch ran into the second type. They spent over a decade turning their Maryland yard into bird and pollinator habitat, with native flowering plants and trees. Then their homeowners association ordered them to replace it with turfgrass.
The expensive legal battle that followed ended with the yard mostly unchanged, but it helped inspire Maryland lawmakers to pass a low-impact landscaping law in 2021. The state declared that requiring turfgrass or restricting pollinator gardens and xeriscaping — yards designed with drought-tolerant plants and mulch or rocks rather than grass — were “unreasonable limitations.”
California has developed even stricter protections, including voiding HOA rules that ban water-resistant plants or artificial turf or require turfgrass, although the associations still can exert control over many homeowner decisions.
In many other states, however, homeowners report continuing conflicts, including over xeriscaping in Utah, native wildflowers in Texas and habitat for monarch butterflies in Virginia. Others have run into conflicts over solar panels and electric vehicle chargers.
We are conservation social scientists interested in understanding people’s interactions with their environments. Our research on HOAs has found that these private, quasi-governmental organizations are an often overlooked but influential force in environmental policy. While HOAs often act as barriers to residential environmental sustainability, we believe they could be bridges instead. Cities and states can help.
HOAs have existed since the 1800s. As suburban development began to quickly spread across the U.S. in the 1960s and ’70s, these organizations expanded with it.
Homebuyers in areas covered by them automatically become members, pay dues and agree to follow their rules as a condition of owning a home there.
Those rules are often created by developers, who initially control the HOA. Then, as homes are sold, responsibility passes to a board that interprets, enforces and sometimes amends the rules.
Because amendments often require supermajorities of homeowners to approve, developer-written rules are difficult to amend and can shape HOAs for decades.
HOAs occupy a unique position between private property and local governments. They enforce rules, collect fees, assess fines and maintain shared spaces. They also often regulate house size, building materials, driveways, yards, trees, outdoor lighting and energy production.
Their rules tend to reflect strong preferences for aesthetic uniformity, believed by some to be associated with higher home values. HOAs have considerable environmental policy power, affecting how entire neighborhoods use water, generate energy, provide wildlife habitat and respond to climate change.
Turfgrass lawns, for example, a particular American obsession, require regular mowing, fertilizing and watering, increasing greenhouse gas emissions and water use. Turfgrass is notably poor at supporting biodiversity, particularly of pollinators and bird species.
Our research team analyzed the rules of 31 homeowner associations in Ingham County, Mich., home to Lansing, to get a sense of how they influenced sustainability. We looked at 18 provisions affecting building structure, landscaping and energy and found that HOAs mostly presented barriers to residential sustainability.
For example, around three-quarters of the HOAs imposed a minimum home size. Nearly half required lawn maintenance and impervious driveways. One-third limited household energy production, such as solar panels or wind turbines. And one-quarter prohibited outdoor clotheslines.
We found comparatively few provisions that supported sustainability. Only 29% of the HOAs limited outdoor-light wattage (a hazard to migrating birds and other wildlife), 19% required residents to maintain trees, 6% constrained use of fertilizers and 3% required native plants.
In short, we found HOA provisions that impeded sustainable choices were much more common than provisions encouraging them.
In a second study, we surveyed front yards in and around Madison, Wis. Six of the HOAs we looked at required native plants in front yards, and two restricted how much yard could be maintained as conventional, turfgrass lawns. We also compared those properties with nearby yards not governed by the same rules.
The differences were substantial. Yards subject to native-plant requirements averaged 29.5% native plant cover, compared with 6.9% in yards without those requirements. Turfgrass coverage was also significantly lower where associations restricted its use. Native plants require less water and maintenance and provide food and shelter for bees, birds, butterflies and other wildlife, connecting yards to their surrounding ecosystems.
HOAs are uniquely positioned to be leaders in residential sustainability. Unlike municipalities and townships, they govern at the scale where many environmental decisions are actually made: the household.
Reasonable covenants requiring native plants, limiting turfgrass and encouraging renewable energy can produce positive changes in neighborhood landscapes. States can help by establishing guardrails that allow renewable energy, wildlife conservation and water-saving landscaping.
The greatest opportunity, however, may come before the first homeowner ever moves in. Developers, city planners and conservation organizations can work together to create model rules and provide technical assistance to HOAs as they are forming. Future neighborhoods could treat environmental sustainability as the default.
Because millions of Americans already live under HOA rules, the question is not whether these organizations will shape residential sustainability. They already do. The more important question is whether they will continue reinforcing yesterday’s aesthetic norms at an environmental cost or become partners in creating more sustainable futures.
Daniel Kramer is a professor of conservation at Michigan State University, where Madeline Carr is a doctoral student in fisheries and wildlife. This article was produced in collaboration with the Conversation.
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Ideas expressed in the piece
The article argues that because a large share of new and existing U.S. homes fall under HOA governance, these private associations wield substantial, often underappreciated influence over environmental outcomes at the neighborhood level.
It describes HOAs as quasi‑governmental entities that collect dues, enforce covenants and regulate details such as house size, building materials, driveways, yards, trees, outdoor lighting and on‑site energy production, positioning them as key decision‑makers on water use, habitat, pollution and climate resilience.
The piece contends that many existing HOA rules act as barriers to sustainability, highlighting research in Michigan showing frequent requirements for minimum home size, manicured turfgrass lawns, impervious driveways, restrictions on household solar or wind energy and bans on outdoor clotheslines, with far fewer covenants that actively promote native plants, reduced fertilizer use or wildlife‑friendly lighting.[7]
At the same time, the article points to emerging examples of HOAs functioning as bridges to sustainability, noting that some associations have adopted covenants favoring native vegetation, pollinator habitat and energy‑saving practices, and that a number of communities in the desert Southwest now encourage xeriscaping and other water‑efficient landscaping.
It recounts cases where homeowner pushback and litigation against restrictive HOAs helped spur state‑level reforms, such as Maryland’s “low‑impact landscaping” law and California’s protections for drought‑tolerant plants and artificial turf, which are presented as early models for rebalancing HOA power toward environmental goals.
Drawing on a yard survey around Madison, Wis., the article reports that HOAs requiring native plants and limiting turfgrass produced dramatically different landscapes: front yards under such covenants had far higher native plant cover and significantly less turf than nearby properties without similar rules, illustrating the potential for HOA standards to reshape entire neighborhoods.
The authors emphasize that native plantings and reduced turfgrass can lower water use and maintenance needs while providing food and shelter for bees, birds, butterflies and other wildlife, effectively connecting individual yards to broader ecosystems and enhancing biodiversity.[19]
The piece suggests that HOAs are uniquely well‑placed to lead on residential sustainability because they operate at the household scale where choices about irrigation, landscaping, lighting and energy systems are made, an argument echoed by guidance for boards that encourages native plants, efficient irrigation, reduced chemical use and greener lighting across communities.[11][14][17][19]
Accordingly, the article urges states and cities to establish guardrails that protect homeowners’ abilities to install renewable energy systems, pollinator gardens and xeriscaping, while still allowing HOAs to shape neighborhood character, a direction consistent with national HOA and banking guidance that promotes integrating sustainability into association planning and operations.[11][12][15]
It further argues that the greatest leverage point is before residents move in, encouraging developers, planners and conservation organizations to collaborate on model HOA covenants that treat native landscaping, limited turfgrass and support for renewable energy as defaults in new subdivisions, a strategy echoed in planning and management resources that call for “sustainable HOAs” from the outset.[13][16][18]
Overall, the article maintains that since HOAs already shape residential sustainability, the central question is whether they will keep enforcing yesterday’s aesthetic norms at environmental cost or instead evolve into partners that protect wildlife, conserve water and facilitate cleaner energy while still supporting the traditional HOA goal of maintaining property values.[1][2][3][6]
Different views on the topic
In contrast to the article’s optimism, other analyses stress that many HOA covenants still prioritize aesthetic uniformity—particularly lush turfgrass lawns and standardized facades—over environmental considerations, leading to higher water use, fertilizer inputs and weaker support for pollinators and birds.[7][19]
The article itself acknowledges that homeowners across multiple states report conflicts with HOAs over xeriscaping, native wildflower plantings, pollinator gardens, monarch butterfly habitat, solar panels and electric‑vehicle chargers, reflecting a broader view that association rules often impede rather than enable household‑level sustainability efforts.
Research and industry commentary note that HOAs can have mixed effects on property desirability and values: while well‑managed communities with amenities and strong maintenance may command price premiums, poorly run associations, high fees or overly strict regulations can deter buyers and depress values, challenging the notion that HOA governance is reliably beneficial.[3][10][6]
Consumer and homeowner guides highlight significant trade‑offs of HOA living, emphasizing concerns about mandatory dues, special assessments, the risk of foreclosure for unpaid fees or fines, and limits on homeowner autonomy in areas such as exterior design, landscaping and home modifications, which many residents see as intrusive or inflexible.[4][5][8][10]
Some property‑value studies and summaries argue that any price premium associated with HOAs is modest and highly contingent on the quality of governance and services, suggesting that associations that focus narrowly on cosmetic standards while neglecting broader community needs may fail to deliver the economic benefits often promised.[1][3][6]
Planning and extension resources point out that HOA boards frequently lack ecological expertise, warning that rules drafted primarily by developers and interpreted by volunteers can inadvertently conflict with regional conservation goals or emerging state and municipal sustainability policies, thereby complicating efforts to mainstream native landscaping and greener practices.[16][19]
Critics also focus on the governance structure of HOAs, noting that covenants written by developers and difficult to amend—often requiring supermajority votes—can lock communities into outdated standards and make it hard for environmentally minded homeowners to modernize rules around turfgrass, lighting or renewable energy.[7][16]
Additionally, legal and consumer discussions underscore the potential for power imbalances and inconsistent enforcement within HOAs, with some residents reporting frustration over selective application of rules, contentious board politics and a feeling that associations can escalate neighborhood disputes rather than resolving them, complicating the claim that HOAs naturally foster cohesion and collective problem‑solving.[8][9][10]
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