Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: individual "sponsorship"

[TR Ruddick (truddick]

I'm trying to summarize this discussion, which has evidently generated more
traffic than anything else recently.

Some communities think that a person who wants to buy something
out-of-pocket for the community--conditional on the community approving the
purchase--ought to be thanked.

Others think that such a purchase destroys a little of the cohesiveness of
the community.

I have not seen anyone who suggested that the individual might, for
example, purchase the hot tub (or whatever) and install it on personal
dwelling space in the community, then invite everyone to use it at will.  

I'm aware that some communities are more liberal about what members do with
their own dwellings than others, and in some places an individual who wants
a hot tub would be denied the opportunity to install one under any
circumstances (unless it was indoor furnishing, I guess).  I personally
would find such an environment to be too controlling for my idiosyncratic
nature, but others might prefer regimentation at that level.

In the end what we're discussing here is an extension of the old tension
between individual autonomy and community control, aren't we?  I don't
think there's an absolute "right" or "wrong" in that dichotomy, just a
range of individual preferences.

TR Ruddick
Dayton Cohousing


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