HOAs in America vary between "Really good" (no one talks about these) and "authoritarian hell hole" (there's a lot of talk about these).

One of the very worst examples I've seen was an HOA that required you to grow a single species of grass on almost every square foot of your land (As bad as, If you have a tree, that means you can't have bushes across the whole front of your house), cut it to stay very short, and keep it green. That species of grass browns when there's a drought. It browns more easily when it's cut short. The area this HOA was in is prone to droughts. Watering your lawn in a drought is illegal.

The HOA would give people fines for not breaking the law.