Suggestions for defense against HOA anti-rental measures?

[Bob H.]

I own a rental property in a new neighborhood where the developer is starting to turn over the homeowners association to an elected board. Because of complaints about the relatively few rental properties in the neighborhood, the developer sent homeowners an anti-rental amendment to the neighborhood covenants. It would ban buyers from renting out homes for a year, would require that all leases be submitted to the HOA and would prohibit lease terms of less than a year. It was poorly worded and inadvertently, I think, prohibited buyers from having foster children or live-in nannies and caregivers or from buying a home to be occupied by elderly parents. Fortunately, no vote was taken at a meeting last week, and there is an 80% approval threshold that would make any change in the covenants difficult. Still, I expect that a modified anti-rental proposal will be coming in the future.

Do you have suggestions on how to combat this kind of discrimination against landlords and tenants? The main complaint is about "big companies" (the biggest in this subdivision owns 10 homes) that are unresponsive to complaints from the HOA. I think the HOA has a point: If a lawn never gets mowed or a smashed mailbox never is repaired, sending a letter to a company's mailing address often gets no results. Fines and liens are possible but not likely to work. The problem, of course, is that the HOA is trying to penalize all landlords for the failings of a few.

What do you suggest that the HOA do instead of going after all investors? Fines and liens are possible but not likely to work.