Cohousing-L Mailing List: No Subject

[Berrins (Berrins]

> Hello--
>
> I am a member of a relatively new cohousing group in Hartford, CT.  We are
> currently 12 households and have been meeting since July.
>
> Up until now there has been no membership dues but that is about to change
> and the membership committee has set up some guidelines for what they think
> would be a fair monthly dues (to cover basic expenses, no land yet).
>
> My group wants to attract as diverse a crowd as possible and think that this
> dues schedule should support economic diversity as well.  Anyway, this is 
the
> schedule proposed:
>
> a.  Unit income up to $40,000 is charged $1.00 a meeting.
> b.  Unit income from 40,001 to 80,000 is $5.00 a meeting
> c.  Unit income from 80,01 to 100,000 is $20.00 a meeting
> d.  Unit income over 101,000 is $30.00 a meeting.
>
> I should add that we meet twice a month for general meetings.
>
> I am not sure if I like this.  I would be paying 40 dollars a month while
> another household would be paying 2.  I wanted to check with the list and 
see
> if there was an income scale for dues in other communities or if it was just
> a flat fee a month.
>
> Let me add that I too want our community to be as diverse as possible.  I do
> not have a problem paying the money and frankly would put up much more but I
> feel slightly resentful of the wide gap in dues.
>
> Two dollars a month does not seem like much of a commitment.  Any help from
> the list would be appreciated.
>
> Shelly DeMeo
> Greater Hartford Cohousing


Hi Shelly-
    I am a member of Pathways Cohousing, under construction about an hour 
north of you in Northampton MA.
    Our dues structure was simple: Once a person or household became 
interested in coming to meetings regularly (an "associate" member) and before 
they became a member of the group (a "core" member), they paid a one-time 
flat rate of $50 to cover mailings and had to pay $15 to get a copy of the 
ever-expanding archives.  This was much simpler and less stressful than 
collecting money at every meeting and no one said this was a problem.
    However, once the big expenses started up and you became a core member, 
you had to come up with $6,000 bucks!  This covered large ongoing expenses 
such as hiring an architect, lawyer and development coordinator and having 
enough money on hand for a possible down payment on land.  Since it took a 
minimum of about 4 or 5 months to go from being an associate member to being 
accepted as a core member, you had that much time to get the down payment 
together.
    $6,000 bucks must have put a damper on some folks expectations, but the 
bottom line in our community was that you had to be able to afford a house, 
because no one had any extra money to give away.  However, like in David 
Mandel's community, the $6,000 was applied to the down payments when it came 
time to fork those over, so all the big costs eventually went into the house 
price and became potential mortgage material.
    As David Mandel described in his post, you could try and self finance to 
avoid the big up-front hit on those with lower incomes, maybe set a sliding 
scale.  This is an admirable idea, but you'll need a rather exhaustive study 
of all potential and ongoing costs to be sure you have enough on hand so the 
financial committee doesn't have to go begging to the community for more. 
    David also suggested you could offer an incentive of a small bit of 
interest (or none) for those paying more than their share to generate some 
"internal revenue" to keep enough development operating expenses on hand.  
Otherwise, those needing to pay less may have to come up with an alternative 
source- your cohousing group can certainly attempt to put together some 
information and guidelines for access to alternative funding sources.  We 
talked to the local public housing authorities, but they would have put too 
many restrictions on the units (which had nothing to do with money or 
diversity).

    The bottom line, however, is the bottom line.  Somehow, everyone joining 
has to eventually get the money to pay for a house and also be able to pay 
whatever monthly fees (e.g., condo fees) you set up for community members.  
I've thought of a possible "housing fund" that would scrape the dividends 
from an investment set-up the community could put together, with donations 
from the community, tag and bake sales, and a bit from the operating budget 
every month.  It would be there for those who need on an on-going or 
temporary basis (like a job loss). 

    Good luck with your community, Shelly, and feel free to drop on up to 
visit!

    -Roger