Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Co-housing Sustainability

[Ed Lantz (elantz]

"Rob Sandelin" <floriferous [at] msn.com> writes

>Maggi asked the question that currently defines my life work: How can we
>support and encourage the same level of community bonding and trust for
>people who are moving into cohousing communities that are already built?
>
>This is, in my opinion, the key question of sustainability. If you can
>continue to build relationships, surf through the conflicts, do things for
>each  other to show that you care about each other, then your community, of
>whatever kind, will sustain itself. So what are the actions that build
>community bonding and trust? This is a great topic to brainstorm within
your
>group at a retreat setting. Each group will find its own answers, the key,
>is to ask the question.

I spoke to a friend that was raised in a Mormon cohousing community that
thrived for 30 years, and he had some very interesting insights that I had
not considered.  His parent's community was incorporated via a land trust.
Since everyone was of "like mind," things ran very smoothly.  The problems
arose when, years later, their children began inheriting property.  The
trust routinely screened new community members to maintain the character of
the community (the advantage of a trust).  Technically they could also deny
an inheritance as an un-approved transfer of ownership, preferring instead
to pay the inheritor what they believed to be "fair market value" for their
property.

Some community members, however, had invested substantially in improvements
to their dwellings before passing away, a factor that was not taken into
consideration by the trust.  Children that knew they did not fit in and
simply wanted to sell, clashed with the trust over financial issues and
ownership rights.  Some rogue children wanted to keep their dwelling even
though they had little in common with their parent's vision and the
community's values.  The lawsuits began to fly and eventually destroyed the
community entirely.

When planning a community it is difficult to think 30-years down the road,
but it is obviously necessary to do so.  I would be curious to know how
others have dealt with the issue of inheritance and the inevitable dilution
of original community values as the community ages and children replace
their parents.

Ed Lantz
elantz [at] spitzinc.com