And a second study indicates that having utility scale solar projects in neighborhoods doesn't negatively affect real estate value.
People Are Okay With Wind & Solar Installations In Their Neighborhoods, Studies Say::More neighborhoods than ever are accepting the role of solar and wind power installations near their homes and towns.
HOAs still place restrictions unfortunately. Perhaps not an outright ban in most places, but limited installations and possibly in not the best place on the house for solar production.
They make sense in communities with shared facilities (pool, playgrounds, walls, roofs, or whatever) and common areas so that everyone helps maintain things. The list of what they get away with should be really, super limited though.
What a strange take, how do you organize or run the community without it? Everyone just does whatever without any coordination or some other type of model?
You can have municipal regulations and be free to decide what to do with your own property aside from that. Most of the world does it and things work just fine, with the added benefit of no HOA troubles.
Municipal regulations affecting very small level stuff like that might become a huge clusterfuck. In Finland HOA type stuff is usually seen as good because it gives the option for people to decide stuff about their own immediate area or even just their own apartment building (so more local democracy) and it's easier to organize a lot of stuff closer to people.