Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Defining "the cohousing principle"

[Fred H. Olson (fholson]

Howard A. Landman  River Rock Commons howard [at] polyamory.org
is the author of the message below ( on Apr 3 ) but due to a problem 
(posted from address other than subscribed address),
it was posted by Fred the Cohousing-L list manager:  fholson [at] cohousing.org

Note: Sorry for the delay in forwarding this.  Fred

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> I think we have de-emphasized a very
> important piece:  affordability.  Creating cohousing in the USA requires a
> strong group of committed people who have between them a great deal of time
> and a great deal of money (I imagine there are exceptions?)

Yes, this always seemed rather self-contradictory to me.  Our group spent
vast amounts of effort on the "affordability" issue and on trying to
recruit lower-income members.  But the price of our units is not particularly
low, partly because we also insisted on environmentally-friendly materials
and practices, and most of the lower-income community members had to drop
out because, when it came time to actually put money down, they didn't
have it.  Or because they looked at how much cheaper a similar-sized
non-coho house cost, and decided that as much as they liked the idea
of cohousing, they weren't willing to pay the difference for it.

There's also a conflict which tends to arise when you have both moderately
wealthy and moderately poor families in the same cohousing development.
The wealthier folks will frequently want to make the community "nicer"
by doing something which requires spending money, but then the financial
situation of the poorer folks constantly has to be considered.  This
seems to usually settle out as only being able to do that which the
poorest members of the community can afford.

There are also issues that arise when "affordability" and "equality"
cross paths.  For example, our cheapest unit is a 2nd & 3rd story
unit called an A'.  It has no land connected to it, and was cheaper
partly because of that - it's price was set based on the idea that
it had no yard.  Yet many of the people who bought A' units have come
back to the community asking for something like a yard, since everybody
else has one and it's "unfair" for some people to have a yard and
others not to.  We even had one dog-owner buy an A' and then complain
that their dog *needed* a yard.

I get really uncomfortable when people cannot assess their own needs
and means, fail to evaluate whether a particular cohousing unit
purchase will work for them, and then expect others to foot the bill
for fixing whatever problems this causes for them.  This does not
seem to cause most of my fellow cohouser's any discomfort.

I understand that we need to - and I *want* us to - make accomodations
for each other's unique needs and desires.  Often this is simple and
straightforward once we know what those needs and desires are; other
times there are real conflicts of interest that need to be worked out.
That's not what bothers me.

What bothers me is when people take the egalitarian principle so far
that they expect to get things that they did not pay for but others
*did* pay for.  And call *that* "equality" and "fairness".

Partly, this is a product of vagueness in the chousing concept itself.
We're more than a condo - we've agreed to pool some of our wealth to
better our common lives (in the form of a common house, common grounds,
etc.) - but less than a commune - we haven't agreed to pool *everything*.
The exact line between private and common public seems to be drawn
differently in different minds.  We lost several members over conflicts
about this: one dropped out because he thought the community was giving
away too much public land to appease private desires, and another because
he didn't feel the community was giving in to his private desires enough.
At times it felt a bit like the community was being blackmailed ("give
me this or I leave"), and yet, it was also an honest statement of
perceived needs ("we have a large dog, so we need a yard twice as big
as what comes with our unit, and if the community can't guarantee us
that, we won't be able to live happily here").

        Howard A. Landman
        River Rock Commons