Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing communities within larger condo associations

[Fred H Olson (fholson]

Joani Blank <joani [at] swansway.com> is the author of the message below.
It was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
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Response from Swan's Market Cohousing:

When we were in development we were, as many groups are, an LLC, our
(collective) equity contribution was structured as a loan from the
LLC to the non-profit developer with which we were working.   When
the project was finished, the non profit sold our part of the
building to us, we each got credit toward our units in the amount we
each had put into the "loan" plus interest, the LLC was dissolved and
replaced by our homeowner's association.  The rest Swan's Market
continues to be owned and managed by the non-profit and consists of
18 affordable rental apartments and commercial rentals (Two or three
non-profit organizations are among the tenants).   We have no
ownership connection with them, but we pay into a shared reserve for
eventual replacement of the roof that we share with the commercial
building, and our HOA insurance is a subset of a policy that we each
own part of. Four of our units share walls with commercial tenants,
and on the ground floor we own just the ground floor of our Common
House. our garden and our parking garage.  The main floor of our CH
and all our units are "air rights"condos.

Since there aren't any other condos in Swan's Market, our experience
will not be very helpful to you. Perhaps someone from Mosaic Commons,
now under construction in Massachusetts will have some ideas for you.
They and Camelot Cohousing are building two cohousing communities on
a piece of land they purchased together.  I know that at this time
they have three LLC's. Each community has one, and there is a master
one (is that the right word) that I think is called Sawyer Hill LLC
or somesuch.  I have no idea how the two condo associations will
relate to each other once the place is built but perhaps someone from
there can shed light on that situation.

I know that there are a few cohousing communities that have a condo
association within a larger condo association, but at the moment I
can't name them.  I hope that they will see your posting, Joelyn, and
respond.  And I hope they respond to the whole list like I am doing
so we can all benefit by hearing what they have to share.

Joani Blank
Swan's Market Cohousing
Oakland, CA

Joani Blank
land line (preferred): 510-834-7399
cell: 510-387-1315
joani [at] swansway.com
http://www.joaniblank.com