‘Good citizen’ rules turn condos and co-ops into no-speech zones

A small but consequential shift is taking place in co-ops and condos, and it deserves far more scrutiny than it’s getting. Habitat Magazine recently reported that more buildings are adopting “good citizen rules” that ban “any verbal or physical conduct that is threatening, harassing, or otherwise offensive to anyone else.”

The language is framed as common sense. Who could oppose civility, respect, and peaceful use and enjoyment? But rules built around offense, rather than conduct, carry real risks. They subordinate clear standards to individual feelings and give boards broad authority to police speech according to subjective judgments. That is a recipe for abuse of power, not harmony.

Housing boards already hold substantial power. They influence renovations, sublets, refinancing, repairs, staff relations, and budgets. Many boards operate with wide discretion and experience little turnover. Introducing vague speech rules into that structure gives them the ability to treat normal friction as a disciplinary matter. And because so many residents interact with boards only when they need something — approval for a project, help from staff, or timely maintenance — there’s a built-in incentive to stay silent or ingratiate oneself, rather than speak honestly.

This dynamic already strains trust. Adding emotional speech policing only tightens that pressure.

Imagine coming home exhausted. There’s a minor misunderstanding with a staff member. Nothing malicious, just the kind of exchange that happens in real life. Under these new rules, that interaction can be recast as “offensive” or “harassing.” A resident may find themselves facing a warning, a fine, or a note in their building file based not on what they did, but on how someone felt about it.

Some will argue that co-ops, condos, and HOAs are voluntary associations. People choose to buy in and agree to the rules. All of that is true, but it does not resolve the underlying problem. The voluntary nature of a community does not give its governing bodies a free pass to adopt rules that undermine basic norms of fairness, accountability, and expressive freedom. Americans belong to countless voluntary institutions — schools, congregations, workplaces — and we still expect those institutions to maintain appropriate boundaries.

What’s happening in these buildings reflects a broader drift in American culture. Universities pioneered the idea that discomfort is a form of harm. Now that logic is migrating into everyday life. This is not a healthy trajectory for a democratic society. Once the distinction between offense and misconduct erodes, so does the culture of open exchange that self-governing communities depend on.

The consequences inside these buildings are easy to predict. Residents will think twice before raising legitimate concerns, particularly if those concerns might irritate a board member or staff. They will avoid difficult conversations, lower their voices, and steer clear of situations where tone or frustration could be misinterpreted. The result is not civility, but exactly the opposite of what strong communities need.

Bury the ‘words are violence’ cliché

Real misconduct is already defined by real standards: threats, targeted harassment, intimidation, and sustained disruption. Those categories protect both individuals and community life. “Offensive” does not. It empowers boards to act on subjective interpretations that will inevitably track social dynamics, grievances, and biases rather than principled judgment. If housing boards can police feelings, they can police anything. Once that becomes normal in our own homes, the rest of civic life inevitably shifts in the wrong direction.

A community that hands its governing body the authority to punish subjective offense is laying the groundwork for a broader culture of overreach, one in which institutional power expands and individual freedom contracts. This is not a trivial matter of neighborhood etiquette. It’s a meaningful step toward making emotional discomfort a basis for formal sanction. And once you accept that principle in housing — where boards already hold enormous discretionary power — you weaken the norms that sustain openness, tolerance, and free exchange everywhere else.

People should be able to expect that their homes, of all places, are free from this kind of creeping, feelings-based regulation. Allowing boards to monitor and discipline expression according to subjective offense sends the wrong signal about what a free society should tolerate. It normalizes a level of scrutiny that is corrosive to both community life and civic culture.

This is a boundary that should not be crossed; not in well-functioning buildings, not in self-governing communities, and certainly not in the private spaces where free people should feel most secure.