Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Off-site members

[IAN_HIG (IAN_HIG]

Cascade Cohousing currently has three classes of off site members, owners
who are yet to build, owners who are renting out their houses but do not
participate in common activities (they are overseas) and one owner who is
renting out her flat but is actively involved in the community.  It is
conceivable that in the future will will also neighbours or other friends
involved in common meals/activities but we don't have that yet.

It is hard to advise a group on what you should or shouldn't do becasue there
are so many contingencies, so I won't try.  I will describe how we handle
the finance side.

The running costs of Cascade Cohousing are split into two catagories, the
"capital" costs which are levied on owners of units in proportion to their
"unit entitlement" and the "community chest" which is levied on resident
households.  The community chest includes such things as garden maintanence,
common house power and heating, group maintenance costs (conflict resolution,
meetings etc) and other things that are consummed by residents.  The community 
chest is currently levied by dividing half the total equally between resident
households and half the total between resident persons.  We have streched the
definition of a resident person to include non residents who participate 
in common activities.  I think such non residents can nominate the proportion
of a full resident they want to be based on how much they participate.  We 
calculate the per person amount at the beginning of the year being conservative
about the expected number of "residents" and thus don't have to change anything
during the year if the nukmber of "residents" changes.
This turns out to be a quite simple system with a graded community chest levey
depending on how much a person uses the facilities.  

Thus an owner who is non resident and dosn't participate pays only the capital
running cost.
An owner who is non resident but participates pays the capital running cost
and some part of comminity chest.
An owner who is resident pays the capital running cost and the community chest.
A renter pays only the community chest.
And presumably if we had a non-owner, non-resident participating they would 
just pay the appropriate part of the community chest.

This system works for us and may give you some ideas.

On precedents
We have made a number of decisions, mostly involving money, that we considered
to be one off and not set precedents.  For example the group allowed one couple
who had almost no downpayment, but an income that could just support the loan
they wanted to borrow to borrow as part of our joint loan.  The group was 
in effect underwriting part of their loan.  We decided that the group could
afford to do this for one loan only.  Thus approving this loan did not set
a precedent.
May be in your case you can think about the maximum number of people your 
common house can cope with, then you could enough non residents to bring you
up to that number.  Thus once you work out why you are restricting non members
you can word a more general agreement around that that does not set precedents.
I feel that precedents are only set by adhoc decissions.

Regards
Ian Higginbottom
Cascade Cohousing
(Resident owner)