Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Required public use of common house

[Muriel Kranowski (murielk]

The main thing I would suggest if you plan (or are required) to let 
external organizations use the CH is to decide in advance how to keep them 
accountable for how they use the property.

You can charge them enough to pay a cleaning service to come in after them, 
but what if they break or damage things?  What if they take up way too many 
parking spaces and leave incoming residents no place to park?  What if they 
stay too late while being too loud (holiday parties could have this 
effect)?  And so on.  There has to be a responsible person whom you deal 
with and some rules & consequences that are known to all users, because 
unlike most spaces available to groups, your CH is your extended living 
room and is right next to your private living spaces.

    Muriel at Shadowlake Village


At 02:38 PM 8/19/2010, you wrote:

> Sounds great to me! Many cohousing interested folks already work in community
> building in a variety of ways. I think it would be an advantage to know that
> their association with a cohousing community would enable them to use nice
> facilities.
>
>
> The question to me become "how far out" do you expand the capacity of this
> facility to be used? To someone who has no association with the community 
> (not a
> resident, not an associate member). Also you'll need rules for parking, 
> hours,
> etc.
>
>
> Mariana
> Berkeley Calif Cohousing
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Katie Henry <katie-henry [at] att.net>
> To: cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org
> Sent: Wed, August 18, 2010 9:07:57 PM
> Subject: [C-L]_ Required public use of common house
>
>
> A beautiful old private clubhouse in northern NJ just came on the market. In
> addition to various meeting rooms and private quarters, it's got a large full
> kitchen and a ballroom with a stage that is available to the community for
> nonprofit functions and to the public for rental for weddings and similar
> events. Much of the clubhouse, including the kitchen and the ballroom/dining
> room, could be used as a common house pretty much unchanged. The dwelling 
> units
> would be new construction on adjacent land.
>
>
> Most conventional development on this site would involve tearing down the
> existing building. I think the sellers would be more inclined to sell to a 
> buyer
>
> who would commit to preserving the building and keeping the public spaces
> available to the local nonprofits who have always used the club. I also think
> the local municipality would look more favorably on requests for zoning
> variances (which would be necessary for a cohousing community, because now 
> it's
> only zoned for about 15 units; need more like 22).
>
> So my question is ... How would people feel about joining a cohousing project
> that included a legal commitment to make parts of the common house (most 
> likely
> the kitchen and ballroom/dining room) available to specified local groups at
> regular intervals? (Maybe once or twice a month max, although it might be 
> mostly
>
> end-of-year holiday functions.) Cleaning concerns could be dealt with by
> charging a standard cleaning fee for each use and contracting with an outside
> cleaning service so it's not a burden on the community. I know that public 
> use
> of the common house is a hot-button topic. Would this be completely 
> unacceptable
>
> to anyone? A real deal-breaker?
>
>
> Katie Henry
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