Re: Cohousing communities with Sociocracy enshrined in Declaration / Bylaws?
From: Diana Leafe Christian (dianaic.org)
Date: Mon, 30 Aug 2021 20:00:28 -0700 (PDT)
I attended the wonderful Cohousing Through Time Conference yesterday. In Jerry 
Koch-Gonzalez's session on applying sociocracy in existing communities, we 
learned that when Cambridge Cohousing switched from consensus to sociocracy it 
simply replaced the word "consensus" with the word "consent" in its ByLaws. So 
easy! 

Jerry also noted that there are three official documents many cohousing 
communities have: their ByLaws, CC&Rs, and a Policy Manual. A Policy Manual can 
include information about the group's governance and decision-making method. In 
which case the ByLaws can say about the group's governance, "See Policy 
Manual." So when a group changes from consensus to sociocracy they only have to 
change their Policy Manual, not their ByLaws. 

This is the same advice a cohousing lawyer gave me when I was writing Creating 
a Life Together. She also suggested creating a Policy Manual, and including the 
phrase in the ByLaws, "See Policy Manual" for anything the forming community 
might want to change someday. So any future changes would be simple, as 
compared to the hassle and expense required to change ByLaws.

Little things like this can make all the difference!

Diana Leafe Christian

> On Aug 28, 2021, at 7:08 PM, Lauren Lake <laurenlake161 [at] gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Green Grove Cohousing has Dynamic Governance written into our Bylaws. We 
> trained our original members (+ new arrivals) using courses and coaching from 
> Sociocracy for All.
> 
> Lauren Lake
> 
> ———————-
> Are you aware of any cohousing communities which use Sociocracy / Dynamic
> 
> Governance, are incorporated as a condominium and:
> 
> 
> 
> 1. who have included references to Sociocracy in the Condo Declaration,
> 
> CC&Rs, Bylaws and/or Strata Agreements; or
> 
> 2. who use Sociocracy without referencing it in the Condo Declaration,
> 
> CC&Rs, Bylaws and/or Strata Agreements
> 
> 
> 
> Our community is in the development phase (about to start pouring slabs!)
> 
> and our Development Company incorporates Sociocracy directly in the
> 
> Shareholders Agreement. This has worked well for us, and we plan to
> 
> continue using Sociocracy after move-in. Ideally we would like to learn /
> 
> borrow from other communities rather than reinventing the wheel but when I
> 
> searched the Cohousing-L archives, I didn't find any reference to cohousing
> 
> condo communities who have built Sociocracy into their legal agreements.
> 
> The discussions I found were Bylaws, the law and Sociocracy
> 
> <http://lists.cohousing.org/archives/cohousing-l/msg37048.html> (2014) and
> 
> a few others.
> 
> 
> 
> We are also exploring this with https://www.sociocracyforall.org but so far
> 
> have not had any pointers to communities who have included Sociocracy in
> 
> their legal documents.
> 
> 
> 
> Ideas and suggestions are welcome!
> 
> 
> 
> cheers,
> 
> Scott
> 
> Treehouse Village Ecohousing
> 
> Bridgewater, Nova Scotia
> 
> (Under development)
> 
> https://treehousevillage.ca
> 
> 
> 
> P.S. I did find one example of a community which has incorporated
> 
> Sociocracy into its legal documents: Cohabitat Quebec. Unfortunately the
> 
> legal system in Quebec is quite different from the rest of Canada and the
> 
> USA, so what they've done doesn't necessarily transfer well elsewhere. They
> 
> appear to be constituted as a condominium which delegates all management
> 
> authority to a co-op
> 
> <https://mk0sociocracyfo3pi1v.kinstacdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Cohabitat-Quebec-case-study.pdf>,
> 
> and the coop has sociocracy written into their bylaws. See
> 
> https://www.cohabitat.ca/rejoindre-cohabitat/ (and brush up on your French,
> 
> or use Google Translate) for regulatory documents for both the condo and
> 
> co-op.
> 
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