These days, almost every subdivided community has open space, storm water management facilities or other facilities that need to be maintained by the community. A local government will insist that an HOA be formed as a condition of subdivision approval so there is a mechanism in place to collect funds for that maintenance. Local governments couldn’t care less whether those HOA’s have architectural controls. The architectural controls are included by the developers and builders so they can be sure that property values are preserved. I am a development attorney and have done the HOA documents for many such subdivisions.
In 2006 I was house hunting. Found a single house on 60 acres. A developer had bought it. I wanted to buy the single house on 10 acres. He was making the other 5 parcels into 10 acres each too.
His proposal was for 6 homes in the development, all under a HOA.
So I could not buy the existing 20 year old home, without HOA restrictions.
No deal.