Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Att: New York State Cohousers

[RAYGASSER (RAYGASSER]

EcoVillage at Ithaca is currently in the middle of trying to get a waiver
from the NY Atty General's office (a "no-action letter") that will allow us
to actively look for people to fill the remianing couple of slots we've got.
Last I heard (a week ago) it went like this: We sent in a proposal with
individual affidavits from 25 households saying that we've all been 
intimately involved in all of the planning & development and have been working
together for years to put this together as our own housing, and not as
a speculative development. We've actually had to tell a few people who want
to join that we cannot take their money or promise them houses until we get
the no-action letter.

The A.G. at first came back and said, basically, "We don't really know much
about CoHo and exactly what it is you're trying to do, and we're not really
sure how you got away with going as far as you did with the 25 households
without making an "offering plan" and/or prospectus. So maybe you should just
make the plan (for a cost of tens of thousands of dollars and mucho precious
building season time), and make life easy for us."

Our lawyer called him back, schmoozed for a while, filled him in a little
better, and then he said (I beleive), "Well, why didn't you just wait until
you had all 30 slots filled, and then we wouldn't need to deal with it (or
some similar stuff)."

In any event, they seem like reasonable people who are trying to figure 
out just what CoHo is and hwo to fit it into their models. You may get
some good insights by calling the EcoVillage office (607)255-8276 and
speaking to Joan Bokaer or Liz Walker. They may even be able to tell you
whom to send the No Action request to. Remember, if two people do it they 
may think it's a movement... 

Good luck with Westchester. I visited your group a couple of years ago,
and it seemd like a good and very dedicated group. And a nice area, though
a bit too pricey for us at the time.

Ray Gasser, Maplewood NJ
EcoVillage at Ithaca
raygasser [at] delphi.com