PHOENIX — State senators voted Wednesday to ensure that if you like to hang your clothes out on the line, you have a choice of new homes to buy.

Ditto parking your car on the street all night – or even painting your house chartreuse.

The legislation prohibits cities and counties from requiring home builders to establish “planned communities” as a condition of getting the requisite permits and zoning for a new development. Instead, that would be an option decided solely by the developer.

Nothing would preclude a requirement to ensure that residents in a subdivision contribute to maintaining common areas, walls or even privately owned streets.

But it would bar any mandate to set up homeowners associations with all of their rules about everything from parking to the size of flagpoles. More to the point, it means no one getting cited for putting the trash out too soon or leaving the garage door open all night.

The issue, according to Sen. Gail Griffin, R-Hereford, is choice – a choice she said does not exist in some rapidly growing cities.

Nothing in what is now HB 2518 would preclude a developer from establishing a planned community, complete with an HOA board –and all of the rules and regulations – for buyers who want that kind of structure. Read More……