Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: divorce in cohousing

[Jenny Guy (jenstermeister]

Hi Doug, it sounds like you have a type of membership for people who don't
live on-site and aren't owners, and a former resident/owner who is
transitioning to living off-site and not being an owner. The questions in
my mind are: what is the approval process for off-site members, and should
the person moving out have to be approved? And the bigger picture for me
is: is working things out with off-site members as crucial as working
things out with the people who live there? If an off-site member is part of
a conflict, do they have the same expectation of community support with
conflict resolution as residents? Do renters? I guess there would be 4
categories, resident owners, resident non-owners, non-resident owners and
non-resident non-owners.

I don't have an opinion on whether it should be equally important, and the
strength of relationships with off-site community members probably varies a
lot in different communities. I was just thinking that those are some
things that might need clarifying in your situation: rights,
responsibilities, expectations and status of different categories of
membership.

Jenny
Kingfisher Cohousing on Brookdale, Oakland, CA


On Thu, Feb 13, 2014 at 8:58 PM, Doug Huston <huston [at] ashlandcoho.com> 
wrote:

>
>
> For me, the idea of this proposal originated when a community member moved
> out during a trial separation. The person who moved offsite announced they
> had every expectation that they would continue to be a fully participating
> member.
> Another event (about which I'm not being transparent out of respect to
> others) brought up for our community a struggle about what are 'personal
> issues' and what are 'community issues.' One of the members involved did
> live 'offsite.'
>
>