Cohousing-L Mailing List: Cohousing HOAs

[Joani Blank (joani]

All except two or three cohousing communities in the US (which are 
cooperatives) are structured as condominiums or planned unit 
developments with HOAs.  In my community, Swan's Market Cohousing 
(and Doyle St. Cohousing where I used to live), both in California 
every resident, actually every household is/was on the board of 
directors of the HOA. Our monthly community meetings are "official" 
meetings of the board of the HOA.  In some other communities, a few 
people are chosen (usually by consensus, I think, as we cohousers are 
not big on elections or voting) to be on the Board and therefore are 
Directors while all the other households of the HOA and hopefully 
participate in as many regular community meetings as they can.  Our 
communities are self maintained and managed, the Board of Directors 
(whether it is made up of everyone or of a smaller group of the 
residents and our communities are quite small compared to some condo 
complexes, so everyone knows what's going on most of the time., so 
conflict between the HOA and it's board (if that's as subgroup of our 
neighbors instead of all of us) is rare.

Joani
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Joani Blank
510-834-7399
Cell: 510-387-1315
joani [at] swansway.com
www.joaniblank.com