The “change in leadership” thing is the problem. The HOA board may all be your best buddies now, but eventually they’ll be gone and replaced by others. Do you really want to give as-yet-unknown people who may be at best very nice and reasonable and at worst incredibly petty and vindictive the power to slap a lien on your house over something as trivial as how often you mow your lawn?
Yes, HOAs are usually found in condominium and co-op buildings (where units within a larger structure are owned), but not exclusively. They are also present in many neighborhoods with single-family homes.
Houston is probably unique among large cities in that there are no zoning laws. There have been efforts in the past to implement zoning, but every time they’ve been put to a referendum, they have failed. Deed restrictions fill much if not all of the gap left by the absence of zoning, but there are still neighborhoods that have HOAs. Personally, I’d never live in an area subject to the whims of an HOA, after having heard too many horror stories that confirm the old saying about the road to Hell being paved with good intentions.
You’d probably get a better result from an appendectomy performed by Crank than by Rex.