Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Membership policy

[Diana Leafe Christian (diana]

Hello Terry and all,

I have some suggestions for you and Treehouse Village Ecohousing and others who 
may have similar questions. (And congratulations on soon finishing 
construction!) 

As you probably know, membership issues for those who buy into cohousing can be 
tricky in Canada and the US (although not, I'm told, in the UK), because of 
Federal Fair Housing Regulations in both countries. That is, the lawyers for 
most cohousing communities advise them to be exceptionally cautious and 
conservative about not saying Yes to someone who can pay the full purchase 
price and meet the terms of the sale, even if the incoming person raises  red 
flags about their behavior or otherwise seem like a bad fit for cohousing and 
for community life. Because to say "No Thank You" to a potential incoming 
member, even it if seems warranted, could potentially trigger the punitive 
fines imposed by the Federal Fair Housing law. (Even though the laws are 
designed to right historical wrongs, they have this unintended consequence for 
intentional communities in which people own their own units.) Nevertheless, I 
do have some handouts in a folder on my Google Drive for you and others about 
community membership levels, and the rights and responsibilities of owners and 
renters. 

The first handout, "Different Levels of Community Membership at Earthaven," 
shows how my community handles this in our rural ecovillage. While we're not 
cohousing (though we do have one cohousing neighborhood), our four kinds of 
residency and two kinds of membership may be helpful for Treehouse and other 
cohousing communities considering these issues.

The second handout, "Template: Rights and Responsibilities of Renters and 
Owners," shows how a community can make clear to incoming new renters, and to 
all existing property owners, what the Rights and Responsibilities are and are 
not of each category. I created this to try to help reduce or hopefully even 
prevent the kind of conflict that can happen in communities when it's not clear 
what renters can or can't do in their community. It's a docx format so you can 
fill in the blanks.

The third handout, "EXAMPLE: Rights & Responsibilities for Renters and Owners" 
shows how an urban shared group household community used this template to help 
their renters and owners avoid this kind of conflict. They tell me doing this 
has been very successful. I'm so glad!

The fourth handout is "How the “N St. Consensus Method” Helps Communities 
Thrive."

And a video, "Three Aspects of a Healthy, Thriving Community."

You asked whether renters should have or could have full decision-making rights 
in the community. In my experience, if the community uses classic, traditional 
consensus, renters should not have full decision-making rights, though I 
imagine it would be fine if they attended the business meetings and offered 
their opinions. But didn't actually have the right to approve, stand aside, or 
block decisions.

And if the community uses a modified form of consensus, like the N St. 
Consensus Method, I suggest renters do have full decision-making rights, since 
this method provides checks and balances against personal-preference or 
frivolous blocking. (And last I heard, N St. Cohousing in Davis offers its many 
renters full decision-making rights.)

And if a community uses sociocracy, as Treehouse does, I suggest renters also 
have full decision-making rights. Since if the community uses all the parts of 
sociocracy, and uses it accurately (that is, they don't modify it or leave out 
some of its parts), sociocracy system of checks and balances also reduces or 
even prevents personal-preference or frivolous objections. So there's not 
usually a problem if renters — who are first trained in sociocracy — are 
included in decision-making

The link to these four handouts on the Google Drive is 
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1tIsxCgPZm-UW0RAlqLiDUTZAHEa3Mb7G

I hope you find these helpful for Treehouse Village Ecohousing, and other 
cohousing communities interested in these issues.

Diana



> On Jul 7, 2022, at 11:47 AM, Terry Lavender <wetcoast [at] gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi everybody. Just joined this email list and looking forward to 
> participating in the discussions.
> 
> Our community, Treehouse Village Ecohousing<https://treehousevillage.ca/> in 
> Bridgewater, Nova Scotia, is just finishing construction and getting ready 
> for move-in in early 2023. As we prepare for this final stage, we’re trying 
> to decide on various policies, including membership – who can be a member of 
> our community, should there be different levels of membership and what rights 
> and responsibilities are associated with those categories?
> 
> Some of the questions we are wrestling with are the rights of non-resident 
> owners (e.g., owners who rent out their units); the rights of tenants; and 
> the rights of associate members (if we decide to have such a category). Do 
> they get to use common facilities? Do they pay a fee? Can they participate in 
> decision making?
> 
> We were wondering if other communities had any insights they could share on 
> this? What does your community do?
> 
> Thanks in advance!
> 
> Terry
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