Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Rental policies

[Howard Landman (howard]

>> If you spend a bunch of energy in "might be" type discussions,
>> you have great potential to lose members over things which may never pass.

Catya replied:
> Interestingly, this is rather opposite some of the other advice I've seen
> here, which is to tackle some of the more controversial issues early on, so
> that people have clear understandings and agreements coming into the group.
> (e.g., tackle the pet policy well before move-in, which a lot of people
> seemed to think was a very good idea not too long ago)

I think both can be true, depending on the issue.

One example of an issue which which took up a lot of discussion time and
provoked heated disagreements before move-in, but turned out not to be
an issue at all after move-in, was whether members would be *allowed*
to pay other members for services.  Apparently this pushed some people's
hot buttons re equality, haves vs have-nots, etc.  One aspect was people
"buying out" of community duties.  Despite the brouhaha, since move-in
it has been fairly routine for e.g. one person to sell massage services,
another to do paid landscape consulting, another to do construction, etc.
I haven't noticed this causing any problems or resentments.  And yet,
in the abstract, without an actual community in place, many people got hot
under the collar just imagining it.  So there are issues which can be far
more controversial in the abstract than in the concrete, and time can be
wasted on them.  It's also true that people tend to be more uncertain and
less comfortable about cohousing before they've actually lived in it for
a while, and can tend to want more reassurance.  A lot of this pre-move-in
angst dissipates once people start being in community, though it can take
a while (maybe 1 to 2 years for us?).

On the other hand, I think basic issues of finance (e.g. dues structure)
need to be in place before move in, or chaos will ensue.

Even having absolutely clear policies with excellent reasoning behind them
is no guarantee that people won't get upset.  In our pet policy, we were
somewhat forced by Fort Collins city law, which requires all pets outdoors
to be "restrained" (either they come when you call, or they're on a leash).
Our community policy is similar.  And yet we had people who were upset by
this and actually proposed that we have a written community policy which
contravened city law!  (This could threaten the very legitimacy of the
community!)  There was a fairly sharp division on this topic, and it was
probably only the ecological considerations (and the fact that some of
our un-leashed cats had been seen with dead birds in their mouths, so that
the owners did not have "plausible deniability") that carried the day.

        Howard A. Landman
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