Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: other kinds of membership..

[Rob Sandelin (Exchange) (Robsan]

At Sharingwood Renters are expected to participate at the same level as
home owners, and get charged a monthly assessment which is a subset of
the regular owners assessment.  We have a large and growing number of
"friends of Sharingwood" which has no structure at all other than folks
come and hang out as they want to.  They do have to pay for community
dinner at a slightly higher rate.  Last week was our first week of
dinners in our new, but barely usable commonhouse and one of the
neighbor kids from up the road came to dinner!  First time that's ever
happened. "Friends of Sharingwood" often come to random meetings,
sometimes they offer insites and advise. We encourage anyone to
participate, although only members can block consensus.

For our second phase, we created options, thus those 8 folks are option
holders. They are involved in the decision making, although technically,
if we ever have a vote, only home owners get a vote.  Majority vote
(2/3rds) is our fallback if consensus fails.  Haven't had one yet.

We have a waiting list, people who are interested in buying a phase 2
option can get on the waiting list by meeting our requirements and
paying $25. The date people meet the requirements and sign the papers is
used to determine their place on the list.

I have heard several communities which have a resident and owner level
of membership, where residents are folks who live onsite but have not
bought ownership shares.  Owners make decisions where money is
concerned, everybody makes decisions about everything else.  

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood