>Much like owning a home without an HOA attached, it is becoming harder and harder to meet this requirement.
The near universal proliferation of owner's associations and management groups and whatnot for developments larger than ~1ac (the EPA threshold, some states/towns have lower) is something you can lay at the feet of the Clean Water Act and it's implementation and precedents over the following decades.
The exact area of the buildings, the driveways, the community park and gazebo, etc, etc, are necessary features of the site plan that makes the math that is required to meet stormwater/environmental requirements. And and some legal entity has to be responsible for that in perpetuity. Enter the HOA. This is also why HOAs often won't allow you to expand your driveway or add a non-permeable patio, it could (prob not, but still) ruin the environmental calculations they're responsible for enforcing as a condition.
I'm not nearly as familiar with car regulatory stuff but I would bet a lot of money that they're using OTA telematics to check some sort of compliance box...
There’s no reason that sort of compliance needs an HOA. Most places already have building codes enforced by mandatory government inspections for major renovations.
I believe it was Strongtowns reporting a few months back that HOAs are generally being driven by developers, the only folks with (a) land to build in bulk; (b) capital, relationships, and experience to get fully through permitting in bulk; (c) building a substantial fraction of SFH.