Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: private use of commons

[Racheli Gai (racheli]

IMO, whether all the common space should be used exclusively for
common purposes or not depends in part on how much space a community
has.  If the space is very limited, I'd say that all uses should be 
communal.
If there is a lot of room, and no over-riding reasons to keep much of it
out of use - such as in the case of having a nature reserve, then using 
some
of it for something like a CSA or the like might seem reasonable, even 
if it
doesn't serve the whole community.  To me it seems that if many members
of a community eat produce grown on site in a sustainable manner, it 
might be in
line with community principles (if those principles include an 
environmental
agenda).
If there are competing proposals for land-use, it would seem that 
communal
ones would come before "private" ones.

From Lynn's description it sounds like the problem wasn't only that of 
using
common land for uses which didn't benefit everyone, but that the process
was really faulty.  This is, of course, a separate issue.

R.

> I agree with you Lynn. Common space is common space. We at Nomad wanted
> a hot tub on our common deck. We went through all of theses
> configurations and it was decided that those who could would pay and
> those who chose not to wouldn't pay but all of us would (the community"
> use the tub. I paid for a share but have never used the tub. We are all
> happy with the situation
>
> Arthur Okner Nomad Cohousing CO