Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Commercial use of common house space.

[Chris ScottHanson (chris]

It seems that most common houses in most cohousing communities are  
used only a small percentage of the time during a day, and generally  
only between 4:00 pm and 8:00 pm.  (with many exceptions, of course)   
The rest of the time they stand vacant - aging, decaying, waiting for  
human users to join them and make them useful.

It seems to me that the basic environmental principals of reduce,  
reuse and recycle would lead one to and understanding that we should  
use the common house in our communities as much and as often, for as  
many things as possible, so that other spaces do not have to be built  
to accommodate these uses.  Put another way, the financial and  
environmental cost of building a common house should be amortized  
over many uses, for as much of each day as possible during its lifetime.

I would suggest that, the more limited or specific the use of any  
common house, the more environmental cost, and the bigger the  
environmental footprint of owning that common house.

Should we allow social complexity, taxation issues, and concepts of  
interpersonal fairness  to add to the environmental cost of owning a  
common house?  Keeping them in perspective, I think we should be  
motivated to move past those social and intellectual concerns.

Chris


On Aug 26, 2005, at 11:28 AM, Stacia Leech and Gary kent wrote:

> Hi:
>
> We are a recently occupied cohousing community on the west coast of
> Canada - Roberts Creek Cohousing.  Our common house was finished in  
> May
> and we've been having regular meals since then and slowly moving into
> the space.  We have all the usual common house rooms - dining, kitchen
> (large open space), office, guest suite, pantry, multi purpose room -
> small, laundry, children's room.
>
> We have had a request from one member to use the large open space
> (dining, kitchen) once per week (mornings) for a business venture.  It
> will be for approx 1 hour and involve clients (approx 10) possibly  
> some
> from our community and the greater community.
>
> Her venture runs on a ten week schedule and we assume will run
> throughout the year.
>
> This request has brought forth many diverse opinions on the merits
> and/or challenges of tying up our community space for members  
> commercial
> ventures.  The office was designed to accommodate members who  
> needed an
> office space and either do not have the space at home or do not  
> have the
> right environment for a home office (noisy kids etc., ).  We  
> anticipated
> that this space would be used for members conducting 'business',  
> however
> we have never had a discussion about the larger open community space
> being available for business.
>
> Some of the area's of concern are:
>
> What percentage of time should be allotted to commercial use?
>
> Are there activities we don't want to see happening there?
>
> If so, how do we differentiate?
>
> What about parking, clean-up, use of equipment/facilities?
>
> How do we go about booking in a fair and equitable manner?
>
> What happens when community and commercial needs conflict?
>
> Do we charge/what do we charge?
>
> What is that money then used for?
>
> Any sage wisdom from you ancient cohousers?
>
> Cheers, Stacia (Leech)
>
> www.cohousing.ca <http://www.cohousing.ca/robertscreek> /robertscreek
>
>
>
>
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