Cohousing-L Mailing List: Discount for early member

[Gary Kent (garykent]

From: Roberts Creek Cohousing
Roberts Creek, B.C.
Canada.

Our project will have a common house, 25 single family homes and six duplex
on 7 acres of a 20 acre parcel.

We are at the stage in our development process where the equity members are
about to choose their lots.  We are hoping to start installation of the site
services and construction of the village street in June.

Our group was formed in 1999 and we have some members who have been involved
since that time.  Some of the members have done a considerable amount of
work to bring the project to it's current stage.

To date none of the members have been paid for any of the work.

We hired a project manager in October '01 who will see the project through
to move in.  In addition to the work of the project management some members
of the group were and are still, required to put in many hours of work per
week.  This work often requires the particular member(s) to have certain
skills and a willingness to take the time to familiarize themselves with
complex issues to do with planning, rezoning, land purchase, legal
documents, project financing, subdivision applications, etc.,

In the beginning there was an understanding that members would contribute
whatever they could to the development process.  The initial group of six
core members did not grow quickly and remained at six for about a year, then
a couple more joined, then about ten months later a couple more. We now have
sixteen equity members (five joining in the past four months).

In 2000 when we seriously started to pursue our dream It soon became obvious
that the people with the skills did not have the time and the people with
the time did not have the skills and many of the more detailed, complex
tasks fell to a small number of members.

Some members turned down offers of extra work from their day jobs in order
to accommodate the time required to keep the project moving forward.

Now three years down the road some of those original members find themselves
in a financial crunch as the costs of the project continue to rise.

There is no doubt that the work done by these members is deeply appreciated
by the group and there is a recognition that the work was significant in
keeping the project moving forward and perhaps even saving the project money
around issues related to planning, rezoning etc.,.  Some of the early
members are now asking the group for financial recognition of that
significant work.

This is proving to be a very sensitive topic for our group.  With members
divided along the lines of "all members are equal and contribute what they
can, therefore no one should get paid" and "there is no doubt these members
contributed a significant amount to getting the project this far, why not
provide compensation to ‘founding members’ if indeed there was an oversight
in the beginning".

So, after that longwinded ;o) piece of background information I have a
couple of questions.

1) Have other groups chosen to recognize significant work done by some
members, financially?
2) Have other groups offered discounts to members who have a long history
with the project?
3) During the development stage did the issue of "equality" of members time
and contribution come up and how was it handled?

I thank you for your time in advance.
Stacia Leech.

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