Re: Handling Maintenance
From: R Philip Dowds (rpdowdscomcast.net)
Date: Sun, 2 Nov 2014 01:58:11 -0800 (PST)
Partly due to a general commitment to engagement and personal responsibility, 
partly to a belief that shared tasks build social cohesion, cohousing 
communities tend to have a self-reliant, do-it-yourself approach to property 
management and maintenance.  Instead of paying outsiders, coho members often do 
their own carpentry and painting, their own bookkeeping, and their own 
landscaping.  Although “saving money” is sometimes advocated as the rationale, 
there is no reason why cohousing should be notably cheaper than “ordinary” 
apartments, row houses, and condominiums — and indeed, it isn’t.

There are a couple problems with do-it-yourself.  One is that the membership 
may lack the skills and training.  At Cornerstone, we’ve done some pretty 
mediocre carpentry.  Another is an inadequate labor supply, especially as the 
average age of the membership increases (this a different and serious issue 
that challenges the entire community culture).  Again at Cornerstone, we’ve 
lost to age the services at least three of our traditional gardening 
workhorses, and you can see the consequences in our yards.  We started 
discussing hiring a local landscape service, which triggered a sudden burst of 
volunteer weeding and pruning, and things look a little better.  For now.

If the talent, interest and capability of your membership is depleted, you may 
want to consider hiring outsiders to do what you formerly did for yourselves.  
This is not shameful or failure, just realistic.  But I would argue against the 
all-purpose handy person approach:  Someone with real carpentry skills and 
tools won’t pull weeds for $15/hr, and you don’t want a gardener repairing your 
roof.  Landscaping can be planned and managed on a seasonal contract basis; odd 
jobs are best handled via a long-term relationship of trust between you and a 
local tradesman.  For my entire career as a homeowner, I’ve always had a 
"family plumber" and “family electrician” holding the keys to my house.  
Something goes seriously wrong, I make a call in the morning, and by evening, 
it’s fixed.  They know I pay rather than complain, so I get excellent service 
at a fair price.  Not a cheap price, but a fair one.  At Cornerstone, we’re 
working on developing the same kind of relations.

Some communities pay their most able members for extra effort and greater 
contribution, but I have mixed feelings about this, and cannot recommend it.

Do you have a long-term maintenance and replacement program, plus a reserve 
fund to pay for it?  (In California, you probably do …)

RPD
Cornerstone Cohousing • Cambridge, MA

PS:  Like everything else, copper pipe comes in a wide range of variance.  The 
heavy duty type K is usually preferred for slab embedment, but this entire 
practice is largely superseded by plastic tubes.  If you have the lighter duty 
L or M copper in or beneath your slabs, things will not get better on their own.

> On Nov 2, 2014, at 1:25 AM, Norman Gauss <normangauss [at] charter.net> wrote:
> 
> 
> I am searching for answers to some thorny maintenance problems we are
> experiencing at Oak Creek Commons Cohousing in Paso Robles, CA.  Perhaps I
> can learn how other communities handle keeping their places from falling
> apart.
> 
> We are ten years old, and original equipment is starting to break down.  In
> addition, we have experienced major failures of underslab copper pipes
> requiring repiping of several units.  At one time, we had a robust
> Facilities Committee, but gradually people moved away or became less
> vigorous over time .  At the moment we are operating with only one 79-year
> old full time member (myself) with the other technically oriented members
> available only occasionally for small tasks because of their day jobs or
> people serving in a non-technical clerical capacity (secretary).  We have
> lots of committees here at OCC, but the least favorite is Facilities.  Our
> complex consists of 13 buildings on 4 acres of landscaping.  We are losing
> ground in the maintenance effort.
> 
> Do other cohousing communities have similar problems?  Do others hire
> professional managers?  We are also looking for a handyman we can keep on
> retainer.  Do any cohousing communities hire handymen with monthly retainer
> fees or are successful in having professional management companies perform
> many of the tasks that we are not doing?
> 
> Our Board will be looking into these alternatives shortly, and it would be
> helpful to know what other communities are doing.
> 
> Norm Gauss
> Oak Creek Commons Cohousing
> Paso Robles, CA  93446
> 805-237-0102
> 
> 
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