Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing-L Digest, Vol 207, Issue 35

[Ty Albright (tmalbright]

Concerns about participation in community and the desire to have a mechanism
to eject people who do not participate brings up a fundamental issue /
challenge for all coho communities.

Its about the law - personal property law - fair housing laws ......

There are various laws on the books that prohibit you from interfering with
people's behavior or access to their home.

The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination because of race, color,
national origin, religion, sex, familial status, and disability.

Plus other laws protect homeowners rights for various other things .....
such as the right to bear arms and honkey tonk all night long.

So despite all best efforts to have "like minded" cooperative people
involved in a community ..... you can not legal stop people you don't want
from moving in.

This is a challenge for example for people who seek a community of people
who all belong to a particular faith .... 

Also - if you have a community of tree hugging pacifists .... nothing stops
a good ole boy with a 4 wheel drive truck with a gun rack and a bass boat
from moving in.

Persuasion and cooperation and "setting expectations" as part of your
marketing strategy is all you have.

Ty

Ty Albright Project Management
Little Red Hen LLC
214-336-7952
tmalbright [at] verizon.net
www.linkedin.com/in/tmalbright

-----Original Message-----
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Sent: Friday, April 23, 2021 5:16 AM
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Subject: Cohousing-L Digest, Vol 207, Issue 35

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Today's Topics:

   1. Re: other type of members - aka associate members thread
      (Diana Carroll)
   2. Re: Looking for a communications tool (Sean Davey)
   3. this is a test please ignore (Ann Lehman)
   4. Looking for a communications tool (Pare Gerou)
   5. Community Conflict Resources (Melanie G)


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Message: 1
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2021 10:23:40 -0400
From: Diana Carroll <dianaecarroll [at] gmail.com>
To: Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ other type of members - aka associate members
        thread
Message-ID:
        <CAAJBS=8ZNx4+D6L-W-n1EU3=GSwgOZrxh-9mPC6+1PqnGGoPUg [at] 
mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

Oh, as to nearby cohousing...haha, yes, about 50 feet away: Camelot
Cohousing.  Funny story -- both our groups were looking for land in the
area. We were vaguely aware of each other's existence but hadn't really
interacted.  Then they found land that was too big and too expensive for one
group, so they contacted us, and we jointly built two subcommunities under
one umbrella condo association.  The communities are quite distinct, with
different bylaws and cultures, but we share a lot of costs (big stuff like
our water treatment system, insurance, road maintenance), have a lot of
cross-group friendships, have some shared social events, etc.

Diana

On Thu, Apr 22, 2021 at 10:17 AM Diana Carroll <dianaecarroll [at] gmail.com>
wrote:

> For all procedural details, take a look at our website:
> https://mosaic-commons.org/membership
> https://mosaic-commons.org/affiliates
>
> All members of the cohousing group pay dues, both affiliates and 
> resident members. Every year we come up with a budget for the 
> following year, and affiliates and members choose how much to pay
following our "sliding scale"
> policy: https://mosaic-commons.org/slidingscale
> Most affiliates pay near the bottom end of the range (which seems 
> sensible to me.)
>
> Why would we want to remove an affiliate? Well, an overt removal has 
> never happened, but people have expressed a desire to have a process 
> to do that in case an affiliate is, for example, regularly breaking 
> community rules, breaking the law, harassing someone, etc.  We also 
> accounted for a much more common thing, which is people who just 
> become less active in the community over time. If someone just stops 
> coming and no one has seen them in a year, are they or aren't they 
> still affiliates? This happened a lot before we came up with our most 
> recent policy, and it was confusing and distressing. This is one of 
> the reasons we require sponsors and the sponsors must "re-up" once a 
> year, so that only *active *affiliates remain in the group.
>
> regarding this comment "one concern many cohousing communities have is 
> about renters or re-sale people moving in for the house but not the 
> cohousing aspects". We too were very concerned about this before we 
> moved in, and tried to come up with policies to prevent this while 
> still honoring letter and spirit of anti-discrimination housing laws, 
> but it turned out that our worries were completely off-base. In the 
> real world, 1) people move here *because* they want cohousing, and 2) 
> even people who want cohousing often have periods where they withdraw 
> from active participation in the community for personal 
> reasons...including founders and original buyers. (Example: my partner 
> died and while I worked through my grief, for a couple of years I was 
> basically non-existent.) Renters or resale owners are no more or less 
> likely to be involved than original owners...AND it turns out our 
> community is resilient, and having some folks around who aren't 
> engaged does not ruin our community.  So it turned out to be a big fat
non-issue after all our worries.
>
> Mosaic Commons has 34 homes and approx 100 residents in 
> townhouse-style buildings in a semi-rural suburb.
>
> Diana
>
> On Thu, Apr 22, 2021 at 9:40 AM CJ Q <homeschoolvideo [at] gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Hi Diana,
>> I am very interested in your different types of memberships. So 
>> anyone who lives there is part of the HOA like any condo and I assume pay
those dues.
>> So, if they choose to be a member of the cohousing community (meals, 
>> common house furnishing, etc like you mentioned) is there another 
>> dues for those costs?
>> Those who don't want to be a part of the cohousing then just live 
>> there? I assume they still get to know and talk to their neighbors?
>> It's very interesting all that you've been saying. How many 
>> households are there on the property? And is the other cohousing at 
>> the same property or near by?
>> I think you also mentioned, or someone did, ways to ask a member to
leave.
>> Why would anyone want to do that? If they are violating cohousing 
>> agreements or something? I"m curious.  I know one concern many 
>> cohousing communities have is about renters or re-sale people moving 
>> in for the house but not the cohousing aspects so I wonder how that 
>> works with your different tiers.
>> Thanks in advance,
>> Carol
>> _________________________________________________________________
>> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
>> http://L.cohousing.org/info
>>
>>
>>
>>


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Message: 2
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2021 07:46:46 -0700
From: Sean Davey <sean [at] sonoracohousing.com>
To: Cohousing-L mailing list <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Looking for a communications tool
Message-ID: <9FEE50B4-EB1A-4772-A4CF-35E04A1A9299 [at] sonoracohousing.com>
Content-Type: text/plain;       charset=us-ascii

For those of you who like Slack, can you please describe what it is that you
like about it? The community software that I work on, Mosaic, currently
supports email lists, Facebook-like news feeds, forum-like discussions, and
I'm thinking of adding a Slack-like option. I'm very interested in hearing
what others like and dislike about the software they use.

Slack is similar to a Facebook-like news feed except that new posts are at
the bottom instead of at the top. Does the direction of posts going back in
time feel more natural going up or going down?

Slack channels are the main difference from Facebook but are also similar to
"topics" in forum-like discussions. If Facebook had channels, in what ways
would you still prefer Slack?

Many conversations are temporary and don't need to be kept so I think that's
something interesting about the free use of Slack, old history will
eventually be deleted. But some conversations result in information that
should be kept. It would be good if our software supported ways to convert
conversation info into a more permanent structure and format.

What things do you wish Slack or Facebook or Discourse did that they don't
currently do?

Lastly, I have to admit that I have mixed feeling about online
communication, especially in cohousing. I understand that it's just a tool
and many people enjoy using it. But I always have the concern in the back of
my mind that more online communication means less in-person communication
and how does that affect our community experience?

thanks in advance for your thoughts,
  Sean

------------------------------

Message: 3
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2021 07:48:28 -0700
From: Ann Lehman <ann [at] zimmerman-lehman.com>
To: Cohousing-L <Cohousing-L [at] cohousing.org>
Subject: [C-L]_ this is a test please ignore
Message-ID:
        <CAEJbfBSQTiSp==QXwwgM9tMpM9uViGeNbVeTMc7zK49RXqn+9g [at] 
mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

..just a test

*Ann Lehman, she/her
**Zimmerman Lehman
Board Governance Specialist
**https://zimmerman-lehman.com/ <https://zimmerman-lehman.com/>
**510.755.5701*

*Yoga Instructor
Slow Yoga for Savvy Bodies
**https://zimmerman-lehman.com/slowyoga.htm
<https://zimmerman-lehman.com/slowyoga.htm>*


------------------------------

Message: 4
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2021 08:20:54 -0700
From: Pare Gerou <paregerou [at] gmail.com>
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: [C-L]_ Looking for a communications tool
Message-ID:
        <CAP+GJ3jr+uwxF7WKiXqstGYe17WXd-G9mD9x09RC4U34u9umOg [at] 
mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

We use Slack as well at Greek Village Cohousing.  We are a forming group and
have found the Asana App on Slack (a project management tool), used together
with Slack, to be useful.  Asana provides us a place more fluid for drafts
and set up better for "to do" lists and notifications. It seems an
improvement over simply using Google drive files of documents for to do
lists and drafts. I am working on using them all together and also adding a
travel planning app.

I am wondering what other forming groups use in their circles or teams for
their project management work and lists?

Happy communicating!
Pare Gerou
GreekVillageCohousing [at] gmail.com
www.GreekVillageCohousng.com
https://www.facebook.com/Greek-Village-Cohousing-100948052091127


------------------------------

Message: 5
Date: Thu, 22 Apr 2021 21:42:33 -0400
From: Melanie G <gomelaniego [at] gmail.com>
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: [C-L]_ Community Conflict Resources
Message-ID:
        <CAGc4LX87HW3gHha5LbbCd5GbfTRpKxyq03k-uEsf4w9V6gOoVw [at] 
mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8"

https://www.restorativecircles.org/

Hey Jaffe, in case you have not already heard of the work of Diminic Barter,
here is as good a place to start as any.

Also, Kay Pranis is a good resource.  Kudos for doing this work!

fellow seeker,
melanie

--
 "The *animals* of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made
for humans any more than Black people were made for Whites or women for
men." - Alice Walker


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