Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Admitting cohousing members

[Berrins (Berrins]

In a message dated 8/18/2000 9:36:55 PM, pase6560 [at] pacbell.net writes:

<< Our cohousing group is in the design process and have formed a Limited =
Liability Company.  Our Operating Agreement needs to state how members =
are admitted.  At present, we automatically admit anyone who wants to =
become a member and can make a 5% down payment.  We don't want to =
discriminate against anyone, but what if a person who otherwise =
qualifies would be detrimental to the group for some reason?  How do =
other cohousing groups admit members? =20

>From Sonja Eriksson, Oak Creek Commons, Paso Robles, CA >>

Like Doug's group, we also wrestled with this issue.  We ended up as a condo 
association.  I do think, however, you can opt to not allow certain folks to 
become members as long as you don't break any discrimination laws. 

However, even though we had to consent to allow folks to join, we decided 
pretty much to let folks self-select in.  We could block consensus only if we 
had a real problem or conflict with the applicant(s).  By requiring that 
people attend several meetings for several months and doing our best to get 
folks to work on committees and get to the fun stuff before they could apply, 
we ended up with a great group of people, people who decided they liked us 
and cohousing.  We did have several families that didn't follow through, for 
various reasons.  Bottom line: self-selection, via a get-aquainted process, 
worked for us.

    -Roger
    Pathways
    Northampton, MA