Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Secrecy vs Right to Privacy? Sharing vs Hiding?

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

Thanks to Ann for posting a balancing view. I also had an off-line discussion 
with Kathleen explaining the issues that arise in cohousing since she is a 
newbie. She also has expertise in understanding relationships and things like 
trust so her comments were very helpful. 

I didn’t mean to infer that there is a huge crisis going on at Takoma Village 
or even in the south wing of Takoma Village. I personally experience it at 
Takoma Village but that doesn’t mean that Takoma Village experiences it at all. 

Ann is right in pointing out that I speak in hyperbole what people often hear 
as literal. I’m speaking fiction and others speak facts. I argue that fiction 
is truer than facts because the facts easily hide feelings—but I have yet to 
win that argument. Ann and I are definitely friends and regularly yell at each 
other over ground breaking decisions about commas and majority voting since we 
often serve on policy making groups together. 

One regular argument I have in cohousing is over forms. Some people like 
life-on-a-form. Information on a form is organized and complete and easy to 
file. I see forms as the scourge of bureaucracy and a means to avoid talking to 
people — to avoid collecting people information. (Read David Graeber’s The 
Utopia of Rules. You can see how easy it is to live with me. Fortunately I live 
alone in a highly populated summer beach town of cohousing.)

My question was/is have people seen over the course of 10-20 years of living in 
a cohousing community changes in how much people are willing to share or think 
should be shared about things that affect the whole community. Not “should” be 
shared but what affects the neighbors and co-owners if they don't know about 
them. Things like changing households — moving in, moving out, splitting up, 
etc. A change in the degree to which they are aware or willing to be aware of 
what they do affects everyone. Changes in the plumbing. Decisions to grind 
coffee in the bedroom when people are sleeping on the other side of the wall? 
How a unit is described in the local newspaper when it is for sale. What things 
are handed out labelled with the community’s name is if the community approved 
them or they represent the community in some way. 

Topics like this quickly get isolated as emotional issues that can’t be 
discussed on email. Firstly, any issue that is isolated as “emotional" has had 
all its other parameters stripped. Emotions are evoked by things that are 
tangible and describable to which one has been exposed. Why not discuss that? 
Why focus on the emotion as the “real” issue?

Secondly, if it is an emotional issue, does it mean it can’t be discussed in 
writing? In public? In a forum in which readership is not controlled? That it 
can’t be discussed in a larger forum because it is a F2F issue? If things that 
affect people F2F can only be discussed in a F2F setting, we would have to 
close down writing. Close down any long distance communication.

I’ve been rereading Piketty’s work on inequality and ideology. I don’t 
encourage anyone else to read this second book because it is much too long and 
repetitive but I find it very comforting. He is an optimist and as a historian 
he is data-driven. He looks at the common knowledge about countries and 
economies and then looks at the numbers. Given Covid and the economic 
recession, you ask how could that be reassuring? 

I find it reassuring that the issues are larger than the United States. Larger 
than my city. The move to conservatism is global. What we see as our own 
socio-economic problems are occurring almost everywhere. The forces are larger 
than personalities or specific governance methods. There is a movement toward 
radical conservatism in the form of autocratic governments that is growing 
stronger all over western civilization. That doesn’t make the truth of Donald 
Trump any less disturbing or threatening but it makes it understandable. This 
isn’t a personality blip or “personal issue”. 

I probably shouldn’t find that reassuring — that it is a problem even larger 
than one person or even one society and therefore even less controllable. But 
it does help understand the question as larger than a particular community or a 
particular resales practice or requirement.

Takoma Village is very good shape and busy doing all the things cohousing 
communities are expected to do. I’m just putting tiny issues in a larger 
context — and questioning if that context exists.

Sorry if that caused confusion. 

Sharon


> On Jul 29, 2022, at 9:14 PM, Ann Zabaldo <zabaldo [at] earthlink.net> wrote:
> 
> Hello all —
> 
> As many of you know, Sharon is my neighbor here at Takoma Village in 
> Washington, DC.  She is a prolific contributor to this list.  She is also a 
> major contributor to our life here at TVC.
> 
> She is my friend.
> 
> And, as in all friendships, we have disagreements.  Sometimes … several 
> concurrent ones.
> 
> Sharon’s post about issues of secrecy and privacy prompted me to remember for 
> myself that postings here on this list are the viewpoint of one person.  And 
> one person only:  the writer.  In all these posts we read and respond to, we 
> don’t know how others in the community view an issue. 
> 
> It is easy to fall into assumptions with posts that are written with 
> certitude, confidence and even … inquiry.  Exaggerations and terms such as 
> always, never, no one, everyone, etc. can give a mistaken impression about a 
> concern.  Etc., etc.
> 
> I’m not going to comment further on Sharon’s email as it is an issue that 
> does not lend itself to an email format, IMHO.
> 
> And, also, it’s Friday night … 
> 
> Best —
> 
> Ann Zabaldo
> Takoma Village Cohousing
> Washington, DC
> Ex. Dir. & Mbr. Board of Directors
> Mid Atlantic Cohousing
> Principal, Cohousing Collaborative, LLC
> Falls Church, VA
> 202.546.4654
> zabaldo [at] earthlink.net
> 
> If I’m ever on Life Support unplug me. 
> Then plug me back in.  
> See if that works.  (T-shirt humor)
> 
> NOTE:  Please use zabaldo [at] earthlink.net for email.
> 
> 
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> 
>> On Jul 29, 2022, at 2:04 PM, Sharon Villines via Cohousing-L <cohousing-l 
>> [at] cohousing.org> wrote:
>> 
>> I have been flummoxed recently by one or two stoutly stated claims that 
>> information about sales and new residents does not have to be shared with 
>> anyone except the Board because it is a violation of the right to privacy. 
>> Sharing the asking price of a unit is unacceptable and no one’s business 
>> unless they are making an offer. New resident information is made available 
>> after the unit is sold, even after closing. It is confidential.
>> 
>> When we recently discussed the policy on architectural review and worked on 
>> clarity about what needed review and what didn’t and how to record this, 
>> right to privacy was raised. Who could see this information? What right did 
>> people have to ask?
>> 
>> The legal question here is easier to answer — by law the condominium has to 
>> sign a document swearing that no changes to the unit have been done that 
>> violate any of the condominium rules so it should have some protection 
>> against liability. And if you start rearranging the plumbing it affects this 
>> whole wing of the building. But where does this idea come from that people 
>> want to keep everything secret and it has nothing to do with living in a 
>> community?
>> 
>> Legally a condominium owner can sell to whomever they please within the 
>> zoning codes, etc., but does that mean they should/could/can/might keep a 
>> sale secret until someone notices they are moving out and someone else seems 
>> to be moving in? Or no one is moving in and the unit seems empty? 
>> 
>> But we have an exclusive rights in our bylaws so that the Association can 
>> always purchase a unit rather than having it go up for auction. How do we 
>> exercise this right if the sale is none of our business?
>> 
>> Certainly the community spirit of "we all in this together," "what you do 
>> affects all of us," and "we can only do this if everyone is on board” 
>> develops more strongly in the development phase when things are touch and 
>> go. When units are selling for half a million dollars and there is a bidding 
>> war, “its my money” is a stronger argument than when everything is at risk. 
>> But is it inevitable that selling units will be just like selling houses on 
>> the open market?
>> 
>> Why would I want to live in cohousing if I wanted to do whatever I pleased, 
>> no questions asked, and no information shared? And why would I even live in 
>> a condominium — a shared ownership scheme.
>> 
>> Is this sentiment increasing in other communities?
>> 
>> Sharon
>> ----
>> Sharon Villines
>> Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
>> http://www.takomavillage.org
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
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