Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: rental units

[Ann Barbarow (abarbaro]

At Muir Commons (Davis, California) we have found that renters fall in
several different categories with different expectations from and toward the
community.

If an entire house is rented, the renter(s) is expected to participate as an
owner. But when financial discussions might involve changes in homeowner's
dues, the owner has to provide a proxy if needed for consensus.

In roommate situations, things have been fuzzier. Many people who don't have
such roommates feel that the roommates should be considered on equal footing
with owners in both rights and responsibilities. But in practice, the
roommates participate to the extent they wish. We have had
super-participaters and non-existent roommates. 

Gray areas abound. What about a romantic interest who starts spending more
and more time in the community - at what point do tasks assigned by
individual get assigned to that person? What about a 6 week sublet? What
about an adult child of an owner?

Being your typical big disfunctional family, we handle these by hoping
people will do What is Right, with undercurrents of irratation when the gray
areas are hit. In fairness to the community, we are begining to discuss
these touchy subjects (after 5 years of living together).

My personal feeling about renters is that they can be a tremendous asset to
the community and bring in age and financial diversity that would be
otherwise impossible. I get uncomfortable when people start talking about
limiting the number of renters without talking about what the potential
problems are that would be solved by limiting the number of renters.

It has been suggested that when a condo development has over a certain
percentage of renters it becomes hard to finance when new people try to buy
a unit.

Ann Barbarow