Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Your community social fabric and HOA dues

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

> On Oct 30, 2017, at 8:32 AM, Alan O'Hashi via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] 
> cohousing.org> wrote:
> 
> My next question, involves community social fabric and HOA dues. This starts 
> getting into the conversation about dealing with social class in a community.

I think the most interesting think is the lack of correlation between social 
class and economic abilities. Everyone has college educations, drinks wine, and 
values education. Social class is essentially equal, though some come from 
privileged backgrounds and others come from poverty.

The economic class is different but has caused no problems that I’m aware of. 
We all benefit from each other’s experiences. No one lords it over anyone and 
those with lesser means don’t expect to be propped by others on a long term 
basis.

Economic circumstances are also deceptive. The apparently least well off might 
own property elsewhere or have a trust fund. They are independently wealthy as 
long as they live within their means.

> Another way to put it, does your community accept an assessment structure 
> where the larger units pay their fair share or a regressive one in which the 
> smaller homes subsidize the larger homes?

We do have a structure in which the smaller units pay proportionately more but 
not hugely. The difference between an 822 two bedroom and a 615 one bedroom 
with a den is almost nil. I considered downsizing but it wasn’t worth it. The 
smaller unit sells at almost the same price and the condo fees are almost the 
same. I stayed put.

But I think in cohousing the apportionment of costs is difficult. All our units 
have one parking space and thus also have equal responsibility for the parking 
gate and maintaining the parking lot. We all attend events in the CH and larger 
units do not have more residents than small.

> On the social class topic, if you have "camps" that form in your community 
> around house size, how does your community bridge those differences?

We don’t have any of this. The only thing I see and this is true everywhere is 
that heterosexual partners are more likely to socialize privately with other 
heterosexual partners but even that is not a divisive or separating activity.

Cohousing is not necessarily subject to the same socio-economic dynamics as 
people assume it will be. I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how often 
socio-economic expectations have been wrong.

Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org