Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Metering Common Systems

[Rob Sandelin (Floriferous]

There is a community called Riverlife which has 8 homes and one account for 
all utilities.  It works for them, but they have a very strong shared vision 
which guides their interaction. Everyone pays an equal share of all the bills. 
I asked a woman who lived there about that and about inequities and her 
response was that  because she cared about the group so much, she would feel 
really badly if she was using more than the average share of the utilities and 
so would not do that, or would offer to may extra on her share. Another person 
I talked with said the same thing. He could not imagine someone being a 
utilities hog and not offering to pay extra on their share. He said people 
have paid extra on their shares for things like computer use or house visitors 
and the extra goes  into an overflow account, which is used in the winter when 
the bills are higher.

Cedar Wind
Evergreen Eco-Village
NICA