Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Policy Committee & Condo law and Cohousing?

[Alan O'Hashi (adoecos]

 Annie, Phil, et al. - At my place we're updating our declarations and bylaws 
by cohousing-izing them, but compliant with state HOA laws. In a nutshell, we 
have a governing board as required by law called the steering team (ST). We 
have basically emasculated the ST into a body that coordinates and implements 
the actions of the community at large.


The ST consists of a representative of the standing operational teams that deal 
with the common house, parties, gardens, buildings, finances who each are 
approved by the community. Action items originate from the community that 
directs the ST to figure out the details and bring back the final products for 
three readings. The community approves the actions and the ST reaffirms 
community decisions. Nothing comes from the ST to the community without first 
originating in a standing team or from the community at large.


The Colorado state law - as does all the other states - talks a lot about 
voting and majorities and super majorities, etc. We took out all references to 
voting and changed those to decisions and make reference to our decision making 
community agreements, which are around consensus.


There are MANY subtleties around insurance, disclosures, conflicts of interest, 
how dues are determined, the super majorities and other esoteria, that I won't 
go into here. We've spent quite a bit of time - two years - and money - 
thousands - going through this with an HOA lawyer who also is comfortable with 
our work. This isn't typical intellectual property and as such, we're trying to 
figure out how to let others have access to the documents.


Thx,

Alan O

PS - if all HOAs operated like a cohousing HOA, there would be no need for all 
the state requirements around how to get rid of deadbeat HOA board members and 
their criminal behaviors!

PS2 - to Fred, I resent this because the first time, I forgot to delete the 
thread 'tail.'


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Alan O'Hashi - ECOS
EnviroCultural Organization Systems
 http://www.alanohashi.com/ecos
Colorado 303-910-5782
Wyoming 307-274-1910
Nebraska 402-327-1652
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