Cohousing-L Mailing List: Defining Membership

[DCS (cdm]

> Date: Wed, 02 Jun 1999 14:23:12 -0700
> From: Jeff Hobson <jhobson [at] igc.org>
> 
> How do other groups define "members": as individuals or as "households"?

Dear Jeff:

I imagine there will be lots of comment on this one.

We haven't officially adopted a new policy regarding membership yet
because we were in the middle of discussing it several months ago when
something else important came up, so it's still hanging. 

However, we seemed to be moving towards (and what is currently the de
facto "unit" of membership) the household constituting one unit of
"membership".

In day to day dealings, we operate by consensus and do not distinguish
in meetings between persons who are the only "voice" in their households
(i.e., people who live alone) and those who share a household with
others. 

If a huge issue ever came up that we just couldn't handle by consensus,
and there was a call for a vote and the call was approved according to
the manner prescribed in our by-laws, then each household gets one vote.
My husband and I could vote differently, but my "yes" vote would only
count .5 towards the vote tally, and his "no" vote would only count .5
towards the vote tally. If six adults lived in a household, then it's up
to them to either consense on a full vote, or vote separately at their
1/6 rate.

Hopefully, we will never have to face a vote, and as long as we don't
face a vote, every adult in our neighborhood has equal say, and equal
blocking power. We have a few people living here who do not own the home
they live in, and so far, the de facto policy is that those people are
members who contribute to the community and so they have a voice equal
to the homeowners. I think that what may happen as large financial
issues come up is that those individual households will have to figure
out how they want to handle issues internally and let the group respect
that.

Now, I can see how the situation becomes complicated for your group
because you are on the other end of development - new group and so you
don't have the (perhaps) rather natural gauge of who is in fact living
in your community.

I have to say that the idea of splitting up households into individuals
and charging membership based on individuals doesn't make a whole lot of
sense to me (and was one of the things we batted around back during
development.) The best analogy I can make is that builders charge the
same for a two bedroom house regardless of whether one person or two
people buys the house. If you had a unit left to sell in your
development, would you have two rates, one for single people without
partners and another for couples? 

In my household, I stay home and raise kids, a job for which I receive
no monetary compensation; we are a one-salary household. I concede that
both of us receive benefit from the community (lets call it "two units
of community benefit") whereas the houses with only one adult receive
only "one unit of community benefit" each, even though both they and we
pay the same per household membership dues. But, what we give up is that
if things ever come down to a vote, because we pay just one "unit" of
fee, we only get one vote for both of us, whereas our single neighbors
get one vote for the one of them.

It's not graceful, but it's a complicated issue. These are just some
thoughts for you to consider.

christine della maggiora
eno commons cohousing neighborhood
durham nc