As I read the article, the HOA was formed before he bought the house. Yes, it was a duesless HOA, but....
I don't think so.
Historically, there were 17 sections. Each section had covenants. Dues were only a part of two of these (in the rest, dues were "voluntary" iow, not a part of the covenant). In 2009, the sections voted to created a unified "covenant"-aka-hoa and impose mandatory dues.
Now, to be fair, I have not looked at this body of law in detail in about three years, but I'm pretty sure it's established law that you can't do that. The previous covenants could certainly vote to unify for various functions, but they cannot transform the entire nature of the covenant including change the membership and rules and create a new entity and still require participation from prior landowners.
It didn't convert from non-dues paying hoa into a dues-requiring hoa. It converted from seventeen neighborhood covenants into one dues-requiring hoa.