conflicts between documents?
From: Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah (welcomeolympus.net)
Date: Mon, 14 Oct 2013 13:22:58 -0700 (PDT)
> Many feel the CC&Rs shouldn't have any power over our community since we 
> didn't approve them by consensus in any meaningful way, way back in the 
> development phase, or at least that consensed community agreements should 
> have priority over the CC&Rs.  Others feel the CC&Rs should be controlling, 
> no matter what.  Have you faced a similar situation regarding priority of 
> CC&Rs vs. later adopted community agreements and how have you dealt with it?

RoseWind Cohousing, Port Townsend WA, long built. We don't have any potential 
conflict between CC&Rs and community agreements. We are governed by our 
Articles of Incorporation (brief, standand legal item), Bylaws (mostly about 
how we govern) and CC&Rs (mostly about what we govern). Our CC&Rs and Bylaws 
recognize that we have the power to adopt various policies according to our 
community's due process, and that anything we adopt in such official process 
(notice, quorum, consensus) is called a "regulation"  and such rules and 
regulations have the same legal force as our other documented restrictions or 
requirements. The Documents define a hierarchy in the case that our documents 
conflict with each other. But if we change anything that's in our Bylaws or 
CC&Rs, say changing our quorum requirement, we do so as an amendment to the 
relevant document. For convenient reference, our document binder also has a 
print out of our major regulations -- pet policy, some financial policies, 
policies about use of common areas. However, ANY duly adopted policy has legal 
force, whether or not it is in the printed reference copy of the Regulations. 

Twenty-some years in, our documents challenges are more in the details. Much 
that we wrote up years ago, as diligent amateurs, albeit with a lawyer 
reviewing it, was about then-hypothetical situations. Now some of these 
situations have come up and we've encountered unintentional loopholes or 
confusing bits or lack of clarity in what we have to turn to. Example just now: 
pet policy says if you want an exception to the pet rules (like to have a third 
dog), you make your request to the Steering Committee. The way it's been 
handled till now has been to ask for objections, find none, allow the 
exception. But this time there is one household opposed to granting the 
exception. This is further complicated by the fact that this household has 
complained about almost everything for years, people are frustrated with them, 
they don't listen or compromise, and their objection to this doesn't seem to 
make sense. So does Steering have the right to override their objection? 
Nothing defines this in our documents. 

We have a document revision task force, and are in the process of trying to 
improve and update our documents, but the proverbial horse is sometimes "out of 
the barn" when we realize something in the documents isn't clear enough, or 
complete enough. Fortunately, most of our legal paperwork has been good and 
useful. If you haven't got CC&Rs that are consensus based, and fairly current, 
it is important that you get this happening. 

(We are neither coop nor condo, but -- for reasons lost in history -- a 
Miscellaneous Nonprofit Mutual Benefit Corporation, with a Homeowners' 
Association.)

Maraiah Lynn Nadeau
where it's still often sunny, the garden still full of vegetables, and the 
apples and pears are coming in



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