Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: How big is too big (for a house)

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Mar 23, 2017, at 4:53 PM, Jessie Kome <jehako [at] me.com> wrote:
I
> n the early days we struggled with making decisions about money and projects. 
> So I also suggest that you start discussions about how to talk about money 
> early because it sounds as if you are going to have a range of incomes and 
> ideas about money. In my experience, you will need to create a common 
> understanding about how community projects will get funded. Do the people 
> providing the funds decide? Does everyone kick in to a common kitty and the 
> community decides ( as happens during development)? There are a lot of good 
> discussions on this listserv about budget games and other ideas.

To add to Jessie’s recommendations, another way to approach this is to simply 
do rounds on these questions. You can do this before move-in and continue 
later. With no expectation of a decision or policy emerging, everyone responds 
to a question — Should households with higher incomes pay more? What might 
happen if a household can’t afford to pay condo fees for months?

People’s answers will change over time and change in response to other 
opinions. Many of the questions will be ones that people haven’t thought about, 
or have idealistic assumptions about. One reason to explore these before a 
decision is required is to give people room to consider all the options and 
develop solutions that are supportive for everyone. 

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org