Re: Bylaws and investments
From: Jim Snyder-Grant (jimsgnewview.org)
Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2013 12:45:25 -0700 (PDT)
Some reflections on this question from New View cohousing (Acton MA), which
started meeting in 1988 and moved in in 1995.

1. In the beginning of a cohousing group's history, should it have a
substantially different set of bylaws for pre- and post- move-in times
(i.e. a non-HOA-type set before and more HOA-like bylaws after move-in?)

Well, we certainly did. We needed a document to describe how we were
sharing the risks & rewards of being developers together, and then we
needed a set of condo docs. In both time periods, we also had a set of
ad-hoc decisions that were about our life together that we decided didn't
belong in the formal docs (policy stuff, mostly, that we figured would
change over time); and procedural stuff that we rewrote for both sets of
docs (how to do consensus with a fallback to voting, for example)

2. How did your group handle allowing people who invest in developments
upfront to be paid back their initial investment such that founders and
non-founders ended up paying equal proportions of development costs? Was
this even identified as a concern in your group?

We needed variable investments by our members to bring in enough money to
keep things going while not freezing people out who could 'only' afford the
equivalent of  a down payment. Our development docs were written with these
features:
-Extra investments will be paid back as credits on the cost of a house,
with a small interest accumulating.
-If people wanted out, we would only get them there money back (without any
interest) when we had replacement household(s) that could put in enough
extra money to provide the payback [if we couldn't do that, households that
left would need to wait until the houses sold].
-Monthly or so payments that were needed from every household (in
proportion to household size) were also credited to down payments, but with
no interest. These paid for the ongoing soft costs, and the amounts to be
billed were approved at meetings (sort of a rapid budget cycle).
-If the adventure went south, losses were to be distributed in proportion
to investment (even if the bank came after one of us, we agreed to even out
the losses).

This worked out well.

I may not see any follow-up questions, so you might want to write or call
me directly if you want more info.
-Jim Snyder-Grant
978 266-9409

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