Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: heiring homes for inappropriate purposes

[Susan Sweitzer (ssweitzer]

At Cobb Hill co-housing we have by-laws, which don't specifically forbid
non-resident owners, but they do lean in that direction.  We also have Common
Rules and Agreements which state:

4. The community needs a full complement of residents to accomplish the shared
tasks of the community. We will therefore seek and prefer owners and renters who
can be full participants in the work of community living.

9. When owners' absence exceeds two years, they will meet with community members
to review their long-term plans for absentee membership.

And we are currently working on the expectations for owners which include things
related to amount of work contributed for the heating unit (requires hourly
feeding of logs 19 hours/day in winter), working on monthly work days, cleaning
the common house with a team twice a year and cooking and cleaning for a certain
number of community meals per quarter.  

We are slowly coming to face the realities of living on a Vermont Farm, on a
hillside, with experimental energy systems.  None of us want to be gentlemen
farmers or hire all our work done for us.  None the less, with single parents
and aging members, the folks who are available and able to do the heavy lifting
can get sort of stretched.  If you can and will throw 50# bales of hay, drive a
tractor, move 30" firewood logs, shovel snow, shear sheep, milk cows, shovel out
composting toilets and cook, clean, garden, can and make music you are
considered a community treasure!!  Of course if you are wise, patient, happy to
entertain children for hours, willing to do the paperwork needed to keep things
going and show visitors around you are also a community treasure!  We just have
to keep a balance and it can get dicey from time to time.

Susan Sweitzer
Cobb Hill Co-housing
3 Linden Road
Hartland, VT 05048
802-436-1277
-----Original Message-----
From: Dave & Diane [mailto:coho [at] theworld.com] 
Sent: Friday, February 11, 2005 8:06 AM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ heiring homes for inappropriate purposes

Hi Ruth,
Since you offered to allow us to re-title your thread, I have called it 
"heiring homes for inappropriate purposes."

> [C-L]_ 'nother thread: heiring homes [feel free to re-title
>       this    thread]

We will be a condominium association and here are some of the things we 
are looking into:

o  In section 15.1 (Renting), the maximum absentee ownership is not 
hard-wired at 30%.  Rather, it is a figure to be set by the 
Association, initially set at 30%.

        o  An owner cannot carry out an absentee rental of more than a year, 
whether to a single tenant or a series of tenants, without the approval 
of the Association for each year beyond the first.

This is will be a very emotional topic to address, because parents 
naturally want to be able to leave property to their offspring. 
However, if the use of the property conflicts with the stated 
objectives of the group, you will no longer have a cohousing community 
after a period of time if everyone does this. What you as a group are 
able to do about this will depend on how you are organized and what 
powers you have in your bylaws and master deed.

Good luck, and let us know how things work out!

--Diane(:^]

DIANE SIMPSON--MARKETING FACILITATOR
JP COHOUSING  617-524-6614
P.O. BOX 420 BOSTON MASSACHUSETTS
HTTP://WWW.JPCOHOUSING.ORG

On Friday, February 11, 2005, at 06:16 AM, Ruth J . Hirsch wrote:

>
> Message: 1
> Date: Thu, 10 Feb 2005 11:40:02 EST
> From: HeidiNYS [at] aol.com
> Subject: [C-L]_ 'nother thread: heiring homes [feel free to re-title
>       this    thread]
> To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
>

> We are wondering if you have worked out a way to address the situation 
> of
> Co-Ho homes being inherited by wonderful folks who'd use the home for
> weekends/vacations/rentals. At this time, there are three households 
> who have a plan in place to leave their home to grown offspring who'd 
> not live here full time, ie use for own vacations/rental income.
> We've recently grown from 12 households to fifteen, our max is perhaps 
> 18, so we are a fairly small community. We'd be concerned about losing 
> involved, active households for many, many reasons.
>


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