Cohousing-L Mailing List: Special Assessment to complete Common House

[LOU & Joan BURRELL (bljoan]

Thanks, Joani for your ideas.  I think we're heading in the direction you 
recommend, I.e. a smaller assessment now and the rest to be borrowed from a 
bank or member and paid over time through monthly dues.  Unfortunately, some in 
our community have strong feelings about the contractor we chose last year and 
think his costs are out of line.  As a result, they have emotionally charged 
reasons for not wanting to come up with the assessment. Sort of an "I told you 
so" mentality. But whether or not we made a mistake back then, the building is 
up, it's beautiful and we need to figure out how to pay for it.

We've also discussed borrowing at least some from our reserve fund, however the 
available amount won't come near to the required amount .

Any ideas about using sweat equity would also be welcome.  It's one thing for 
people to say, "Sure, I think we should do sweat equity" and another to arrange 
a system where ALL MEMBERS will come forward and give their time, energy and 
skills to complete the project.

We DO subscribe to Coho/US and it gets forwarded to all in our community.  
Fantastic work by all of you!

Joan Burrell
Manzanita Village Cohousing
Prescott AZ