Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: home occupations/ use of common areas

[Tiffany Lee Brown (magdalen23]

thanks for the suggestion, lynn!

i envision staffing any events. the hope is that our community would encourage 
on-site businesses to sprout up that will also benefit from events and tourism. 
for example, if we built a serious catering kitchen, it could be used for X 
number of community gatherings per month... and rented out to a member/resident 
for their artisan kale-chip company or what-have-you during part of the week. 
or a catering company, which could then cater events on-site. intertwining 
these things could encourage community investment. maintaining rural land is 
difficult, time-consuming, and expensive. the more we all have invested in 
making it work, the more likely it would be to work -- that's my thought. :-)  
but none of this may be possible in Oregon. i have some ideas about how we 
could focus the community around artisanal agriculture, which might open up 
some Ag zoned land to us. i love how my state preserves farmland and open 
spaces. on the other hand, this means only people who raise animals and plants 
are allowed to have commercial activity on their land in many areas. 

i am partly inspired by an under-the-radar community that has successfully spun 
off two businesses, and kept itself going as a communal housing concern (albeit 
an un-permitted one) for some thirty years. i also like the idea that if your 
housing preferences change, you can still be part of the community through its 
business. some members moved to a nearby city and started a branch of the 
company there. (my BIG fantasy is having a very well organized urban/rural 
connection for the community, e.g., what if we owned a house in Portland 
useable by community members, rent it out via airbnb at other times, and also 
offered the chance for likeminded city dwellers to become active members in our 
rural community? some organic farms manage this; being able to designate their 
animals as collectively owned gives them maneuverability in an agriculture 
system dominated by factory farming and related regulations.) 

-tiffany





On Feb 28, 2016, at 9:30 AM, Lynn Nadeau / Maraiah wrote:

> 
> Remember that "someone(s)" will need to take care of maintenance, scheduling, 
> house rules, collection of fees, etc etc. In theory all users will have the 
> same standards and will leave common areas in as good condition as they found 
> them. In practice, it doesn't happen that way. If you allow things like 
> public events or big private events such as weddings, I strongly suggest you 
> require a member sponsor to be on site and responsible from start to finish 
> of each event. Such a sponsor offers information on where things are kept, 
> how the dishwasher works, maintaining emergency-exit aisles at a concert, 
> appropriate parking, keeping of house rules (like about alcohol use, 
> fragrances, dogs, etc). 
> 
> Maraiah Lynn Nadeau
> RoseWind Cohousing, long-built in Port Townsend WA
> 
> 
> 
> On Feb 28, 2016, at 3:16 AM, cohousing-l-request [at] cohousing.org wrote:
> 
>> the hope is that our community building would house not only community 
>> dinners, meetings, and yoga classes, but art studios and small offices for 
>> members to rent, and the occasional well-paying catered event, such as a 
>> wedding.
> 
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://www.cohousing.org/cohousing-L/
> 
> 

Tiffany Lee Brown
editor, plazm magazine
tiffany [at] plazm.com / magdalen23 [at] gmail.com