My home sits in a weird zone in Maryland that has a somewhat antiquated voluntary HOA. Because I'm well aware that joining an HOA is effectively signing over legal rights, I am not a member and refuse to join. Roughly a third of the neighborhood is not a member, but most of the older neighbors are.
Occasionally the HOA will send out snarky letters, chiding those who maybe left their trash cans out for too long or had a tree removed but left a stump, that sort of thing. One of the neighbors at the entryway to the neighborhood, who is technically in the adjacent neighborhood, not subject to our HOA -- nor even eligible to join it, received a letter complaining about the somewhat scraggly looking trees on the edge of her property. She, a lady of few words, went out and ripped out the trees, prompting the HOA to send her another letter about the unattractiveness of the lot's now-barren edge.
She responded back with some variant of "I did what you asked. If you want to plant some trees there, go ahead." They responded back with some version of "Well, it has come to our attention that the property in question is not associated with the HOA, so we cannot allocate funds for this effort."
The neighbor across the street from her is friendly with all parties, but has the misfortune of having a property that looks out onto her lot, which is now significantly less attractive than it was when he moved in just a couple of years ago.
Because his and her homes bracket the entryway into the neighborhood, he went door to door, asking for donations of $20 in a flyer promising to "beautify the entryway" (but while making plain his actual stance in person to non-HOA members.) I donated $214 (which was how much money I might have paid to the HOA had I been a member for the years I'd lived here) and in exchange, he put me in touch with his arborist that he'd negotiated an extremely discounted rate on trees for, so we're now lining our lot with a couple of trees for the low price of $20.
Unrelated to the above story, the vacant lot across from mine is also across from the neighbor who sits caddy-corner from me. It's a green-space, effectively, but requires some occasional mowing and leaf-blowing, which he and I alternate taking turns to maintain. I have no idea if he's a member of the HOA or not, but that has never had any bearing on either of our willingness to keep the space that we look out onto looking attractive.
So, to the answer of the question "how do you achieve communally-owned goals without an HOA?" I posit that the answer might be to just work as a community, whether or not there is an HOA monetarily binding you into acting neighborly.
Occasionally the HOA will send out snarky letters, chiding those who maybe left their trash cans out for too long or had a tree removed but left a stump, that sort of thing. One of the neighbors at the entryway to the neighborhood, who is technically in the adjacent neighborhood, not subject to our HOA -- nor even eligible to join it, received a letter complaining about the somewhat scraggly looking trees on the edge of her property. She, a lady of few words, went out and ripped out the trees, prompting the HOA to send her another letter about the unattractiveness of the lot's now-barren edge.
She responded back with some variant of "I did what you asked. If you want to plant some trees there, go ahead." They responded back with some version of "Well, it has come to our attention that the property in question is not associated with the HOA, so we cannot allocate funds for this effort."
The neighbor across the street from her is friendly with all parties, but has the misfortune of having a property that looks out onto her lot, which is now significantly less attractive than it was when he moved in just a couple of years ago.
Because his and her homes bracket the entryway into the neighborhood, he went door to door, asking for donations of $20 in a flyer promising to "beautify the entryway" (but while making plain his actual stance in person to non-HOA members.) I donated $214 (which was how much money I might have paid to the HOA had I been a member for the years I'd lived here) and in exchange, he put me in touch with his arborist that he'd negotiated an extremely discounted rate on trees for, so we're now lining our lot with a couple of trees for the low price of $20.
Unrelated to the above story, the vacant lot across from mine is also across from the neighbor who sits caddy-corner from me. It's a green-space, effectively, but requires some occasional mowing and leaf-blowing, which he and I alternate taking turns to maintain. I have no idea if he's a member of the HOA or not, but that has never had any bearing on either of our willingness to keep the space that we look out onto looking attractive.
So, to the answer of the question "how do you achieve communally-owned goals without an HOA?" I posit that the answer might be to just work as a community, whether or not there is an HOA monetarily binding you into acting neighborly.