Cohousing-L Mailing List: Non Participating Households

[Victoria (victoria]

We are currently talking about doing this to help with issues of unfairness
around volunteerism:

Currently our 'condo fees' are artificially low because we do a lot of the
work ourselves.  If we hired out all the work, the fees would be higher.  So
we propose (1) figuring out what the higher rate would be without our sweat
equity (2) set the 'condo fees' to that higher rate (3)  if we've
contributed around 10 hours or more during a particular month then we get a
'rebate', and pay the former fee rather than the new higher fee.  This is up
to each individual's conscience, and would not be policed, though of course
our financial records are public.  This is a controversial notion and it
will be interesting to see if it passes muster.  I for one like it much
better than charging extra for those who don't volunteer.  It seems hard for
an individual to decide to volunteer extra fees, while working with your
conscience when writing out that monthly check seems do-able.

Vicky Leary
Trillium Hollow
Portland, OR