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. […]

  • mushroommunk@lemmy.todayEnglish
    622·
    3 days ago

    There’s very little people can do. In order to fix things you usually need to get on the board, but the people who run HOAs are usually retired nimby assholes and they hold meetings while most in the neighborhood are at work so nobody can oppose them. They then reelect themselves to the board and the cycle continues. HOAs are usually a thing set up by the builders to make their lives easier for some paperwork and stuff. They absolutely suck 99% of the time.

    Native plant garden bans aren’t just an HOA thing. Many counties or cities ban them too. Much of it stems for chemical manufacturers selling the white picket fence image after WWII to veterans receiving funding to buy a home. The chemical manufacturers pushed hard for that image so they could keep making as much profit as they made manufacturing for weapons during the wartime.

    This means that trying to fight your HOA on yards is useless, you have to go higher and it’s a big big fight

    • grue@lemmy.worldEnglish
      28·
      3 days ago

      HOAs are usually a thing set up by the builders to make their lives easier for some paperwork and stuff.

      Builders are encouraged by the local government to set up HOAs because it lets said government shirk its responsibility to maintain infrastructure and services.

      If your subdivision is gated, its streets are private and the homeowners are responsible for repaving them, for instance.

      (Of course, that’s only a motivation cities caught onto relatively recently. The original reason for HOAs – at least for neighborhoods of single-family houses, as opposed to condos that have legitimate shared maintenance – was to help keep black people out.)

      • mushroommunk@lemmy.todayEnglish
        8·
        3 days ago

        Good input. I was definitely doing some “draw the rest of the owl” for brevity about their history and impact.

      • mushroommunk@lemmy.todayEnglish
        21·
        2 days ago

        I’m always down for conscious rebellion but that’s a great way to get a lien on your house if you’re caught for those who don’t know.

        Growing any food in our front yard is illegal in my city. Guess who’s currently growing sage in the front garden.

        • tyler@programming.devEnglish
          2·
          2 days ago

          I made my case in a different comment because responding to a user that claims board members can reelect themselves completely disqualifies them from having an actual conversation about the topic. Everything they said is made up from someone who has read too much online from other people that have no clue what they’re talking about.

          • ozymandias@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
            4·
            2 days ago

            All they had to do is qualify with some hoa’s do that… There’s a million different types of them, each state will have different limits.
            I’ve heard horror stories about some, I’m sure a lot of them are fine… I would never move somewhere with an HOA personally

            • tyler@programming.devEnglish
              2·
              2 days ago

              Exactly, maybe 1 in a thousand is as bad as they say, but they literally would not exist if they were that bad across the board, because HOAs are pitifully easy to dissolve.

        • tyler@programming.devEnglish
          2·
          2 days ago

          Your link doesn’t work for me, but in any case, none of what that person says is true. Maybe they have had anecdotal things happen like that, but the majority of it makes no sense. HOAs are built with boards, residents can vote out those boards. If those things actually happened the boards would get voted out and the HOA dissolved. HOA boards can’t reelect themselves (this should have been the first sign that what that user was saying was bullshit).