Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: renter's role in decision making

[Fred-List manager (fholson]

Mary Vallier-Kaplan <marycvk [at] gmail.com>
is the author of the message below.  It was posted by
Fred, the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
after saving the "attached" document at:
http://l.cohousing.org/MembershipAgreement2014-06-04.pdf

--------------------  FORWARDED MESSAGE FOLLOWS --------------------

Greetings

Our community after our first five years of experience recently
revised and agreed to a new Membership Agreement which addresses who
is a Member and their rights and responsibilities.  We based it on
input from many of you, our experience to date, and our overall
values.  Not easy task.  I have attached it for your use.

Basically the following folks have the same functional rights and
responsibilities: anyone who is a unit owner, a spouse or domestic
partner of the unit owner who is in residence and any tenant whose
intent is to be in the community more than 90 days.  We have found
that tenants of less than 90 days are not hear to participate
meaningfully in the community.  As you can see, the issue of other
adults living in one's home was a bit more challenging.  However at
the end of the day the unit owner is ultimately held accountable for
whatever our community attributes to units.

Our Bylaws also talk about the rights and responsibilities of Unit
Owners. It defers to this Membership Agreement as to rights of Members
which includes tenants.  Our Unit Owners unlike tenants attend the
annual meeting, participate in what ostensibly is a ratifying vote on
annual budget, election of Steering Team and changes to the ByLaws.

I would say that unit owners in residence in general participate more
in fulfilling the responsibilities of the community than even than
some of the long term tenants but some of the long term tenants do
more than a few of the unit owners in residence.

Hope this is of value.

Mary Vallier-Kaplan
Nubanusit Neighorhood & Farm
Peterborough, NH


On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 8:18 PM, Susan Adams <sadams430 [at] gmail.com> wrote:

>
> Hi all,
> We are a forming community, and are working on our rental policy.  We are
> discussing the role of renters in community decisions.   We are a consensus
> seeking group.  We would love to hear what has worked for you and what has
> not worked.
>
> Thanks,