Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Rental Percentage? Participation Levels?

[Fred-List manager (fholson]

Melanie Mindlin <sassetta [at] mind.net>
is the author of the message below.  It was posted by
Fred, the Cohousing-L list manager <fholson [at] cohousing.org>
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Our community agreed on a rental limitation policy before move-in for
reasons that I cannot recall.  The limits are no more than two homes
(of our 13 homes) can be rented at any one time and that you can’t
rent for more than 2 years.

I believe that this policy has served as well so far.  As one would
expect, exceptions have been made, but when an exception is requested
it gives the community an opportunity to consider how well the tenant
is participating in the community and whether the long-term plans of
the owner are reasonable.  We have pressured owners who are not
willing or able to live here to sell their home, but that pressure has
been social, not legal.  We have allowed extensions when the tenants
are particularly involved in the community, and when the owners were
having difficulty selling their home.

All of our renters have been at least a little less involved in
maintenance and decision-making than owners.  However we have had some
wonderful people, who have contributed greatly to the community.  Some
of these come back and join us for meals occasionally.  One decided to
buy a home in our larger neighborhood and has become our only
“off-site member”, paying some dues and participating in our
committees and decisions.  This is nice for our smaller community.

Hope this helps,
Melanie Mindlin
Ashland Cohousing Community


> On Mar 22, 2016, at 3:16 AM, cohousing-l-request [at] cohousing.org wrote:
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sun, 20 Mar 2016 09:44:47 -0700
> From: Susan McFee <susan.mcfee2020 [at] gmail.com
>
> What is your percentage of rental homes?
> How are your participation levels in comparison to that amount?
> Our community had a discussion when we were close to 10% full suite rentals
> and there was no consensus around capping it. Now that we are at 26%
> rentals and inching closer to 70% home owners there are a few questions
> being raised about participation and parking, especially since other
> stratas cap their full suite rentals at 10% or follow rules such as "first
> home owner of a unit may rent - when the unit is sold, future home owners
> may not rent".
> We haven't compared the mix of owners who participate and owners who don't
> to the renters who participate and renters who don't - so that may be a
> step prior to community discussion.
> We are also in a transition phase between consensus and Sociocracy, and the
> new levels of transparency appear to be encouraging action in a wider
> variety of areas.
> Thank you for any insights, stories or suggestions you respond back with,
> Susan McFee
> WindSong Cohousing
> susanmcfee2020 at gmail dot com
>