Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Re:rules and regulations

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Aug 29, 2005, at 10:52 PM, Evdavwes [at] aol.com wrote:

> Are there any co-housing
> communities that struggle with the tension around how  things look and 
> the
> different standards held by members?  How have other  communities 
> resolved issues
> related to the physical appearance of common areas  and areas visible 
> to all?

I can't say we have resolved this issue but we have improved conditions 
just by talking about them. Doing a round in a community meeting and 
listening to how everyone feels about this has been very helpful in 
cleaning the place up a bit. It raises awareness.

The tension point that remains is people using indoor furniture 
outdoors (old upholstered furniture on balconies) and using areas 
intended for outdoor furniture as storage like attics or basements.

The strollers get a bit out of hand since some households have several 
but in general everyone likes having the kid stuff around. Just talking 
about it has resulted in neater storage of strollers.

Talking about this in a group allows you to sort out points like "Well, 
I would hate to live in a community where a parent can't roll their 
stroller up to the door and take the baby inside" by pointing out that 
"Some of these strollers haven't been used in two years. Several are 
only used in the summer and have been out all winter."

The commitment to living in smaller spaces and reducing personal 
"stuff" never quite sunk in for some households and they use the size 
of the unit as justification for using commonspace for storage. Making 
everyone more aware of what is commonspace and what is private space 
has helped. "Shared" does not mean it is yours to take.

I would say, however, that just sharing is best -- rules and regs are 
too hard to write and as soon as you do the circumstances change. Just 
listening to how people feel is very effective.

BUT I recommend a community meeting for this, not a one on one. It's 
interesting that people want to live in community but they want to 
identify problems as personal problems. What is community if everything 
is a personal problem with a personal solution?

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org