Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: 1st Year's Budget and Waiting List

[Berrins (Berrins]

In a message dated 11/1/99 8:59:13 PM, zabaldo [at] earthlink.net writes:

<< 1. What was your process for creating your original budget; what was the
decision making process?
2. What is your "wait list" policy? >>

    1) At Pathways we are also under construction and are also dealing with 
setting things up for after move-in.  The process for setting up the after 
move-in budget was remarkably handled by our finance committe.  They came up 
with a budget that wowed everyone with its attention to detail and they 
offerred several different scenarios, complete with spreadsheets.  The 
committee includes a former superintendent of schools from a town near 
Hartford, who has a lot of experience setting up budgets and forecasting 
expenses.  It will probably be rearranged after we set up our after-move-in 
committee structure, but it does anticipate many long term needs, such as 
road and roof repair.
    We haven't considered hiring a management company, although we know they 
exist and may talk to a couple, just to get an idea of what our condo 
association needs to do tax-wise and legally.  For example, I just found out 
this week that our sewer rate is tied directly to our water use rate; this 
will impact how we get water to public places, in that we probably won't just 
run hoses from people houses unless we have to. 

    2) Regarding the waiting list, we are lucky and had committments for all 
of the units well over a year ago.  Those on the present waiting list had to 
go through the same requirements unit owners (aka "core" members) had to, but 
we are now discussing how to change the requirements so future waiting list 
folks won't have to do so much just to get on a list.

    Regarding "membership", our attorney advised us not to use that term in 
our by -laws for anyone except core members, because "membership" may infer 
some kind of rights regarding the legal association of unit owners (in our 
case, a condo association).  We don't have a better term yet.  Waiting list 
folks don't have any benefits or "rights", except the right to attend 
meetings (but not vote on consensus items).  However, some kind of benefit(s) 
could help keep waiting lists folks in touch and ready to buy when the time 
comes;  hmmmm.......
    Some neighboring lots are being sold by our builder and are being bought 
by waiting list folks who want to be associated with the community.  We used 
to call them associate members, but now have to come up with another new 
term.  Any ideas?  We are also discussing just what kind of relationship we 
will have with these neighbors.

    Since the waiting list is for resales, you will want to have a resale 
policy in place also.  For example, if you allow sellers to get the most they 
can, you needn't bother keeping a prioritized list, because several list 
members may be bidding on the house anyway.  However, if you set a price 
ceiling, then you can go through the list one by one until you get someone 
ready to want that house and meet that price.  Also, if you allow some folks 
to get bumped up on the list, like famly members or to increase your 
diversity, make sure the kind of prioritizing you do is legal.  Lastly, if 
you make a deal with local housing authorities to help lower income folks, 
you may have to make some compromises on how you set up your lists.  Good 
luck!

If you like, I will ask the group if I can send you a copy of our final 
initial budget ("final initial"- does that make sense?), probably minus the 
numbers, and our waiting list and resale policies.

    -Roger