Cohousing-L Mailing List: burning souls and money

[Paul Barton-Davis (pbd]

Given Kathryn's (and many others') acknowledgement that there is often
a "burning soul" involved in the initiation of a cohousing group, I
wondered if anyone has any opinions on the appropriateness of "burning
soul-ness" extending to the financial arena.

More specifically, how advisable it is for the money for outright
purchase of the land for a cohousing group to be made by a minority of
the group (perhaps a minority of *1*) ? On the one hand, it seems like
a "nice" thing to be able to do, and eases several problems during the
early part of the development process. On the other hand, it seems to
get perilously close to some of the problems encountered by communes
during the early 1970's, when a child of wealthy and "understanding"
parents arranged to buy the land, and ended up with numerous ego
problems within the group.

Just to make one thing clear: I'm not being precise about the exact
relationship between payment and ownership. The minority "payers"
could own and lease the land for 100 years to the group or to
individuals for trivial or realistic amounts. The "payers" could
simply give the funds to some legal entity representing the group, and
ownership would be with the entity. Etc. etc. etc. Would any of these
different arrangements (or others) ameliorate potential problems with
minority payment ?

--paul barton-davis
  isolated nuclear family dweller and @home father, bala cynwyd, pa