Unfortunately, when you live in most major cities, especially historic areas like I do you don't have a choice. As with hubby and me we have not only the HOA but the BAR (Board of Architectural Review) and the AHS (Alexandria Historical Society) to deal with no matter what we want to do to our house.
We recently sat through a four hour meeting of our HOA to get approval to have a second dog. HOA law says you can only have one. We already owned one toy breed and wanted another one. Keep in mind she weighs 5 pounds and her counter part would weigh the same. Meanwhile there are people in the HOA who fulfill their one dog limit by owning Mastiffs....LOL Both my dogs together don't weigh as much as the paw on a mastiff.