Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Financing CH, shared facilities?

[JoycePlath (JoycePlath]

At Marsh Commons in Arcata. ca., we have a common house that includes 4000 sq
ft of community space and 3000 of rented office/shop space.  We made the
common house and its parking lot into a separate lot and created a separate
for profit partnership to own it.  This partnership will lease space to the
homeowners association.  In this way we have been able to cut the purchase of
the commonhouse ($32000 per household) from a couple of our members innitial
investment to help them qualify for their houses.  
We choose to make the partnership for profit because it is a good income tax
deduction.  WE were advised to avoid the costs of incorporation and just buy
a lot of liability insurance.  The homeowners assoc will be non profit.
This worked for us partially because we have some members with immpressive
financial statements and others just skooting by.  The bank looked at out
combined financial  strength when deciding to finance the common house.