Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Monthly fees

[Lynn Nadeau (welcome]

At first blush, I looked at Cambridge Cohousing's $270 a month, and 
thought it huge (since ours is under $50 a month). But then I noted what 
is included. If I figure that we may each individually spend $200 a month 
on heat, electricity, water. trash, and so forth, not to mention 
maintenance and repair on our homes, (and have NO snow removal to deal 
with!) ---then what you are getting for the remainder of the fee is 
pretty impressive, doubtless because of economies of scale, and careful 
planning and management. Bravo!

At RoseWind, we have the interesting challenge of budgeting for 
common-house operations that will commence at an unknown point in the 
year. Now under construction, the pace (remember, we're the SLO-O-O-track 
folks) will depend on how much volunteer energy we have happening, but we 
expect we'll be in by next summer. We still don't know how we'll be 
charged for trash, water, etc or how much heat we will use, between 
intermittent use, great insulation, but lots of windows and doors. 
Mostly, right now, we are just excited to see the walls up and the roof 
trusses in place, and several volunteers and a couple of paid workers out 
there making progress 5 days a week. 

Lynn Nadeau
Port Townsend WA