Cohousing-L Mailing List: Any communities have a paid common house manager? Or have considered it?

[rzberrymom [at] yahoo.com (rzberrymom]

Hi all,

I'm new to this list but did a listserv search and didn't come up with much on 
this issue.

Our community (Vashon Cohousing near Seattle) is considering whether or not to 
hire a paid manager for our common house--I'm wondering if any other 
communities currently do this or have considered it? I've put all the info down 
below about our community and our unique situation, but really I'm looking for 
input from other communities that may have tried this idea. Pros and cons? Why 
you would or wouldn't do it again?


Our common house generates a good deal of income from outside the community 
(workshops, kitchen rental, retreats, etc.), and it also houses a number of 
cottage industries that are run by community members (a preschool, physical 
therapy/exercise business, office spaces,
 etc.) There's a great deal of work with bookings, upkeep and maintenance, and 
this
 has begun to overwhelm our common house committee and other community members. 
We've occassionally lost tenants/renters and/or haven't collected the proper 
amount of money from events due to these huge management issues. The community 
has done the best it can so far, but people are starting to notice things 
falling through the cracks.

So, at a workshop last week, several community members suggested that there 
needs to be a paid or unpaid common house manager. Some things we've discussed:

- Some folks are worried about a slippery slope--we're a community that (in 
general) has not paid for labor or commitments to our common spaces. This has 
been a strong value in this community, and some worry that paying a manager 
could lead to attempts to exchage payment for work party hours, committeee 
work, etc.

- There's concern about how we would pay for it--some feel that the extra 
income we'd gain from better management would help pay for the
 position--for example, we've had a workshop over the last six weekends where 
folks were supposed to pay for guest room rental, and there's been little 
oversight of that. We're also less likely to lose disgruntled renters, and 
we're more likely to charge and collect the proper amount for rentals/event 
bookings with a manager. Some have suggested marketing our common house guest 
rooms (especially during the summer) and marketing our commercial kitchen to 
help pay for the manager. We currently don't charge community members for guest 
room use, and some have suggested a nomimal fee for the guest rooms to help pay 
for the position. Some have suggested that we *not* pay the manager, but rather 
have a community member act as manager in exchange for not doing any other 
committee work and not attending work parties (there's been concern that this 
may not be the best idea for building community).

- There's concern that we're vastly underestimating the
 amount of time it would take to manage the house, and that the employee will 
either be grossly overburdened with work or the community will be overburdened 
with paying greater and greater amounts of money for the management.

There are probably other issues, but those are the main ones I can think of for 
now. Thanks so much for any input!!

Katie