Colorado Bans HOAs From Banning Home Businesses
This past Friday, Colorado Gov. Jared Polis signed a new law that forbids homeowner associations (HOAs) from prohibiting home-based businesses.
HOAs are still within their rights to regulate parking, noise, nuisances, and the aesthetic features of a home-based business. But they can no longer flatly ban them.
According to the governor, this is a good pro-business, deregulatory policy.
“Colorado is a state of entrepreneurs and small business people, and we should get the government and HOAs out of the way and let people succeed,” he said on X. “Now your HOA won’t be able to prevent you from running a home-based business in Colorado and our state is even more friendly for small businesses.”
“Colorado is a state of entrepreneurs and small business people, and we should get the government and HOAs out of the way and let people succeed. Now your HOA won’t be able to prevent you from running a home-based business in Colorado and our state is even more friendly for small… pic.twitter.com/o2ZJ6pEadJ
— Governor Jared Polis (@GovofCO) April 19, 2024
It’s a bipartisan attitude.
The law banning HOA home business bans passed through the Legislature with unanimous support in the Colorado Senate and a sole dissenting vote in the Colorado House.
Colorado’s law already prohibits HOAs from banning flags, political signs, and religious symbols. HOAs can still regulate the size and placement of these ornaments.
Libertarians would be forgiven for having mixed feelings about the new policy. HOAs manage to be simultaneously the most, and least, libertarian form of governance.
On the one hand, they are private, (theoretically) voluntary organizations created by property owners to make the commons a little less tragic, deal with collective action problems, and prop up everyone’s home values. They’re not quite the burbclaves from Snow Crash, but they’re not that far off.
On the flip side, HOAs have a well-earned reputation for enforcing petty and invasive rules against homeowners who just want to be left alone. If your grass grows too high or your trash bins are still at the curb after trash day, odds are the local HOA will slap you with a fine or even place a lien on your home.
That’s closer to Nineteen Eighty-Four than anything Neal Stephenson ever wrote.
Cer
Article from Reason.com
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