Cohousing-L Mailing List: Common Costs

[Heather (HS9981]

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Hello, fellow cohousers!  It's wonderful to have you all back.

I have a question that may have been dealt with before. (If so, could
someone let me know where I might find it in the archives?)

Our group (Capital District Cohousing Group - ALbany, NY)has decided to
put all our efforts into land search for a period of six months.  The group
has been together for three years now and has a very dedicated (but small)
core group.

In the meantime the group has decided to make a decision about how common
costs will be allocated.  We had a meeting devoted entirely to this
subject two weeks ago.  In that meeting we came to realize that:
    -we might not all be talking about the same things when we say "common
costs"
     -many of the members are interested in having some sort of
progressiveness built into the allocation of common costs
    - by progressiveness we mean not having each household pay equally for
everything  but we're not sure what - infrastructure? common house? land?...
    -the main reasons given for not wanting to split common costs evenly
  are affordability and diversity
    - we need more info.

We are very interested in hearing how other groups have handled this issue.
   -What ARE common costs?
   -How did your group divide them?
   -What was your rationale behind the decision?

 We are also interested in how the monthly or yearly fees are handled in those
communities that are up and running.  Looking forward to the replies.



Heather Sullivan-Catlin
hs9981 [at] cnsibm.albany.edu