Do you own your driveway?

I own my driveway.

And I never have and never will live where there is an HOA.

Yes we own the driveway. I will never ever live in another HOA as long as I can actively avoid it because of bullshit rules like this one.

We have an HOA and own our driveway.

I was standing at my kitchen sink one day when I looked out the window and saw a strange man walking around the top of our driveway, looking at our vehicles. My husband walked out to confront him---it was a guy from our HOA board, checking our cars to confirm they were registered. In talking to other neighbors, we've learned this was not an isolated incident.
Any future home we own will absolutely not be in a neighborhood with an HOA.

I have heard and read a lot of different things about HOAs, but this is the first I have ever heard of someone not owning their own driveway. Provided, of course, that we are talking about a community comprised of single family homes, and from the wording in the article, I believe this to be the case in this situation.

(Developments comprised of condos, townhouses, etc., can be a different situation in terms of what is considered owned by the home-owner and what is not.)

if the hoa wants my driveway they can plow it, they can resurface it, they can weedeat along the sides of it and they can pay taxes on those square feet

Now that you mention it, I do know of a few homes where the city probably owns about half of their driveways.  The city moved their road to change an intersection, and therefore had to extend (to the point of almost doubling the length in some cases) of the driveways for the houses closest to the intersection so that they would reach the new road.  They all now driveways that are now partially part of a chunk of city-owned land where the road used to be.

But that's not a typical situation at all, and it's only due to the fact that the road had to be changed.    (And the first amount of all driveways in town are owned by the town but used by the home-owner due to easements, but that's just for the town to do work, not for an HOA to throw around power.     )

Only the oldest (and a very small few developments) have sidewalks where I live, but it's the same way here.   The town owns the first "X" amount of all properties, so the sidewalk is automatically included in that amount.   So, if they need to be replaced due to wear and tear, the home-owner replaces them, but if the town digs them up, then obviously they replace them.

We do have an HOA, do not own the driveways or the parking areas, and do have parking regulations that govern what you can park in the common parking areas. It includes commercial vehicles which is defined as anything with a business name and/or logo on it. You can park those in garages but not in the commonly owned, or HOA governed, parking areas. This also applies to vehicles over a certain gross weight.

That truck would probably not be restricted under the covenants because it does not have a commercial logo or name on it, unless it exceeded the max weight, and I don't think it does.

Folks often seem to want to have us maintain those areas, especially when it snows, but want us not to tell them what to do with them. It doesn't work that way. It's also in the covenants before you purchase your home and the terms of the covenants give you a right of revocation of your contract to purchase if you receive them as part of a real estate transaction and you find that they are not acceptable. You agree to this before you purchase.

I'm on the board of our association and we tell people this over and over - the purpose of the HOA is the upkeep of the neighborhood, and the purpose of the covenants is to maintain the appearance and value of the homes in the neighborhood. It is not meant to be unduly restrictive or create hassle. Most homeowners find it to be no hassle. The ones who do either didn't read the covenants or act like they don't apply to them.

It sounds like the rule may also have been unevenly applied. His personal use truck is not a "passenger vehicle" but the SUV down the block is. HOAs have gone on a crazy power trip and it's time they started getting reigned in.

I am one that would never ever live where there was an HOA

In your garage, on county maintained streets in the neighborhood, or elsewhere.

I always feel bad for, like, the Verizon surveyor who drives a Ford Focus and can't park it in the common parking because it has the logo on the side, because he is not the person this policy is meant to target. But the covenants aren't written in a way to make that exception.

But what it does is keeps the guy next door from running a construction business out of his garage and parking seventeen company trucks all over the neighborhood - and I can tell you from experience that that benefits everybody.

In the city, we have to take care of the side yard and driveway plus the sidewalk running along the front and the 10 or so feet of grass between the front sidewalk and the street in front of the house.  There isn't much upkeep on the driveway and we can park in it.  

As as far as the side yard is concerned, we wanted to put a retaining wall there as its a slight hill that started to erode.  The city would only issue us a permit if we took out additional insurance on "their" part to the tune of twice what our house is worth in case some dumbass ran into it with his car and got hurt.  We said to hell with that and put down ground cover.

If we choose not to shovel the driveway then that only impacts us getting in and out of the garage.  The front sidewalk, however, is where there is some foot traffic.  I believe we can be ticketed if we don't shovel it.

Definitely different than where I grew up in Alabama but we chose to live in the city and that's part of it.  I don't really give it a second thought now that the ground has cover on it.

We have an HOA and own our driveway.

HOA - Yes
Own the driveway - Yes
We also have the rule that you can't park vehicles with Company signage on it in the driveway. It either has to be in the garage or parked outside the community gates, which for some homeowners can be quite a walk.