Giving Up Your Rights to Live in a Planned Community? Yes, It Started in Orange County
Before the 1960s, if a developer built a community amenity such as a swimming pool, golf course or park, they usually turned it over to a municipal government to administer. In the early 1960s, when Black and Latinx people gained access to public swimming pools and public parks through the Civil Rights movement, developers designed a new privatized form of shared ownership. They called it a planned-unit development or common-interest development with automatic membership in a homes association. We now call it a homeowners association or HOA.
The company Kaufman & Broad pioneered this new HOA idea in the 74 townhomes they built here in 1963, after personally lobbying the Federal Housing Association to insure their novel "townhouse-on-the-green" plan. They wanted the efficiency of shared amenities without the burden of integration in public spaces. Their solution sold so well that the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development published a how-to booklet with sample legal documents, illustrated with the College Green development in Fullerton and Treehaven West in Tustin. Two of the largest HOAs are now in Aliso Viejo and Irvine.
Explore some of the spaces in Orange County shaped by land rights. Click on the starred map points to read more in-depth stories.
HOAs offer one vote per household, not one vote per adult. Larger households and renters are frequently disenfranchised, while rule changes require a supermajority of 75% of all owners, not just 75% of those voting. As is typical for HOAs, Huntington Continental Townhomes limits freedom of speech (no signs are permitted other than "for sale"), freedom of assembly (residents cannot “congregate” on neighbor's porches) and freedom of expression (only certain paint colors and curtain styles are allowed, and residents cannot hang towels outdoor to dry.) Residents are encouraged to accept these limits for the sake of vague theories of property values. These limits are considered constitutional because courts have ruled that HOAs are business entities which consumers voluntarily choose to engage with rather than governments.
By 2010, half the housing in Orange County came with mandatory HOA membership, so many consumers have little choice. Orange County's HOAs collect at least $1 billion a year in fees, money that might have otherwise been public taxes paying for public parks for all but instead is directed to these privatized communities.
To learn more: McKenzie, Evan. "Privatopia: Homeowner Associations and the Rise of Residential Private Government." Yale University Press, 1994.
