IMO HOA's are good for one thing, keeping weeds under control and landscape maintenance. Covenants suck.
This is very odd it happened in Texas of all places. Texas Is a stand up for what is right state.

This HOA may still be under the developers control because I doubt it is governed by the homeowners especially in Texas. This could easily happen in a liberal town like Chicago or Boston. Our community is controlled by elected homeowners so there is a civilized discussion on every issue that arises. If that TX community is controlled by elected homeowners they need to vote out the <snip>.

The HOA is still under developer control. Seventeen Lakes is a newer development north of Ft Worth.

And yes, HOAs should be for landscape maintenance, but they also keep your slob neighbors from parking cars on their lawns and using their driveway as a junk yard. You want to junk your house up, feel free to move into an HOA free neighborhood. It's your choice.

Actually, I need to call the yard Nazis to come look at my neighbor's dead tree (60' loblolly pine) before it falls on my house..... They made me take 2 down that were not near as dead as the neighbor's.

Thanks for the update Piaceri as that is what I thought. HOA aren't bad once the developers transfer control to the homeowners.
If an issue arises in our community we generally have a civilized discussion with the board members which usually always gets resolved amicably.