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Nope! That's 100% within an HOA's power. We had a case here several years ago about house color. A guy put siding on his house in a color that didn't meet the HOA criteria so the HOA sued him to change it and won in court. He had them OK several colors of house siding as a replacement for the siding they were making him take down, just to make sure he was abiding my the color rules. He then proceeded to have the siding installed - all four colors, in alternating strips! Wasn't a damn thing the HOA could do about it, either, they tried - took him back to court and lost because he was within the HOA guidelines. Served those HOA bastards right! LOL!But when it comes to dictating what color one may paint his house, what kind of landscaping one may have in his yard, what decorations one may display, and such, then I think that's out of bounds. We wouldn't think of letting a state or city government dictate such things; I don't see why a neighborhood-level of government should have that power either.
We also had another case where the HOA didn't allow anything but shake shingles. Timberline asphalt shingles had just come out and a homeowner used them instead of shakes. The HOA sued and the homeowner took it up the ladder through the courts claiming TImberlines didn't subtract from the looks and asphalt had a much better safety record than shakes. (very true!) The homeowner eventually won and kept his Timberlines, after which most HOA's around here allowed Timberline or similar as an acceptable replacement for shake shingles.
HOA's can be a PITA if you get some anal retentive idiots running them.