Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Covenants guidelines

[Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah (welcome]

RoseWind Cohousing, Port Townsend WA, 25 years in.

 I second the advice to think carefully about your documents. It's so 
complicated, it's tempting to just plug in a bunch of legal boilerplate, to 
satisfy authorities. But the time will come when it is the pivotal bottom line, 
as you may deal with a cranky estate, senile member, difficulty achieving a 
quorum, someone who claims to have a "dispute" with the Association. Maybe it 
doesn't seem to matter now -- when the people are known and trusted -- to have 
a policy about cutting down trees on the commons, unattended campfires, 
weapons, pets, pesticides, and all that. 

Look too at what it will take to change your documents. Are there some things 
you want to make very difficult to do (like dissolving the Association; going 
to a vote)? Things you want more flexibility about, as they might be more 
likely to evolve? This can be reflected in where you put things. "CC&Rs" might 
take a different quorum/notification requirement to change. We have CC&Rs, 
Bylaws, and "Regulations". The latter are comprised of any duly-adopted 
policies. These are less set in stone, as we can easily agree to change them. 
We also define various types of decisions. Class One are things like budget, 
expenses (over $1000) outside of the annual budget , major policy changes. 
These require a quorum and ten day notice. Other decisions can be decided 
without a quorum or notification: yes, Susie can plant an apple tree on the 
commons by her house, let's take $300 from our unallocated funds and build a 
roof over the cob bread oven. 

Find some examples from the state you live in, for the legal form you choose 
(coop, condo, nonprofit, LLC). I found a set for a gated community near here 
that, while very different from our less controlling attitude, was useful as a 
checklist. No, we don't want to control what plants people have on their 
porches, but what's this legalese here? Is it something we should include? They 
had obviously spent a lot of money of lawyers, and had thought of everything 
there was to regulate, so it was a good thing to consult, along with documents 
from many other sorts of communities. We did our own work, and, on a limited 
budget, only had a lawyer check it over when we had done all we could 
ourselves. 

And about every seven years we've needed to do a thoughtful overhaul to remove 
obsolete references, clarify items, add things that have come up.  

Maraiah Lynn Nadeau
www.rosewind.org
Full tilt spring, new crops of spinach, beets, etc coming up, lettuce in the 
greenhouse, planting flowers around the edge of the garden fence