Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: incorporation questions

[Lynn Nadeau (welcome]

There are a number of options, but you need to start with advice from 
someone familiar with Texas state laws on this stuff--every state is 
different. Here's one place where professional advice, like from a real 
estate lawyer, may be valuable. 

We're in Washington State. As a lot-development model, we couldn't be a 
co-op, and condo didn't seem right (though Sharingwood is an "air-space" 
condo, I believe), and we incorporated as a simple non-profit. Not the 
same as a 501c3 (the kind you can deduct contributions to) but a 
Washington State Miscellaneous Mutual Benefit Non-Profit Corporation, and 
then we included a Homeowners' Association. In our Bylaws, we defined a 
category of membership which described the situation of members who had 
committed money but had not purchased a lot yet, since for the first 
years our lots did not legally exist yet and could technically only be 
bought when we had gotten approval from the City for our Planned Unit 
Development proposal. 

I don't know if the "PUD" you refer to is different from that. Here, it 
is a method of replacing the existing platting with a new arrangement 
(including not only newly-defined lot lines and setbacks, but also 
approved emergency-vehicle access, street vacations, easements, utility 
placement, roads, parking, drainage, any areas defined as Commons, etc. ) 
It's what you have to do to build in some other way than the pre-ordained 
grid layout. A whole process of defining and documenting and defending 
what you wish to do, and getting that through City Planning and Building, 
Planning Commission, wetland stuff, Public Works, City Council, hearings 
with neighbors, etc. Our local authorities were actually very supportive. 
It took a while mainly because a few of us (like about 4) were doing the 
whole thing ourselves in our "spare" time while working and raising young 
children. A crash course in city planning jargon, but rather interesting, 
really. 

Lynn Nadeau
RoseWind Cohousing, Port Townsend WA
2 resales (the only way to join us now): one 800 sq ft, one closer to 
2800. 
website: www.olypen.com/sstowell/rosewind