Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Costs for Shared Services [was Shared community internet service

[Kathryn McCamant (kmccamant]

Interesting.... Here at Nevada City Cohousing we take a different
approach. We moved in 8 years ago, and drew from the experience of many
other communities before us.

Community laundry, including laundry soap, is free to all members. Our
theory is that community laundry is the number one thing that brings
people thru the common house all times of the day and nite, and we want to
encourage people to use it. People can have their own laundry at home, but
use of the community laundry is always available, paid out of HOA dues.
I'm guessing at least half of the 34 homes use the common house as their
only laundry.

Our community internet system--two fast lines into a server in the common
house--then out to every house--is also part of our HOA dues. While
originally we had a few hold outs that didn't want this included in the
dues, we've found that everyone boast about it when it comes to resales so
it is now just included in the dues.

We are not charging for use of the common house guest rooms. I like the
idea of a suggested donation for their use.....maybe someday we'll get
around to talking about that....especially as a way to pay for new sheets
and occassional deep cleanings.

Katie 
Nevada City Cohousing
Previously of Doyle St Cohousing
-- 
Kathryn McCamant, President, Architect
CoHousing Partners, LLC
241 Commercial Street
Nevada City, CA 95959
T.530.478.1970  C.916.798.4755
www.cohousingpartners.com





On 4/1/14 6:50 PM, "Muriel Kranowski" <murielk [at] vt.edu> wrote:

>
>We do charge for using the CH laundry equipment - 50 cents for the
>washer, and the dryer cost was just raised to 80 cents IIRC, to
>encourage people to hang up their clothes to dry. The charge is
>supposed to be just enough so machines can be replaced when they
>fail. I believe that a minority of our residents use the CH laundry
>room, though it can be handy at times as Liz says even if you have
>your own W&D as most of us do.
>
>We also charge for use of the guest rooms and I'm glad we do. Some
>people use them a great deal, because their parents and/or siblings
>live close enough to visit frequently; others of us scarcely use them
>at all. I think it's fair to ask people to pay for this amenity to
>defray the cost of using the rooms. We employ a cleaning person to do
>serious cleaning in the guest-room area once a month, and we need to
>replace bed & bath linens every so often. My neighbors who are barely
>making it financially shouldn't have to subsidize much better off
>members who heavily use the guest rooms, IMO.
>
>We have a community-wide internet arrangement via a T-1 line, but I
>don't know how it works from a technical standpoint. I think at this
>point all the homes are hard-wired for it - I recall the front yards
>being dug up to lay conduit a few years ago. The T-1 started as a
>private initiative rather than a community good, as just a subgroup
>wanted it at first, and we still treat it that way in the way we pay
>for it, by each household that wants it. It started when a resident
>who needed high-speed and reliable internet service as a telecommuter
>arranged to get it and share it with those who wanted it. The cost
>has dropped over time to be really cheap. Last year it cost $36 for
>the year; this year, in order to pay for a piece of equipment, it was
>raised to $72 for the year. Most outages (rare as they are) are due
>to factors outside our control, but someone is always on top of it -
>I think we have 2 tech-gurus at this point. They help newbies as
>needed, and also help non-techies who need to install a new router or the
>like.
>
>We don't offer our own ISP - we did at one point, but it was not
>universally used. When the guy who was running it moved away, the
>next techie-in-charge closed it down. About 10 people still have an
>email account related to that ISP but are actually getting their
>email through a Google service (a grandfathered arrangement), the
>rest of us are on our own.
>
>    Muriel at Shadowlake Village, Blacksburg, VA
>
>_________________________________________________________________
>Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
>http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
>
>