Cohousing-L Mailing List: HOAs in Cohousing

[Marta Vanegas, Concordia Organizer (admin]

In many ways, the idea is that cohousing is just a minimal deviation from the 
conventional condominium.  The more "minimal" you can put the deviation in 
terms of our PR, the better off we all are.  If we realize that cohousing is a 
sub-category of condominium development, we can totally bring the concept into 
the mainstream.  And the mainstream likes the idea of, say, recycling, healthy 
building materials, reducing individual consumption while not reducing the 
standard of living.  Oh, but you start to put out these big words like 
Permaculture, or Sustainability, and people start to assume that we are 
tree-huggers and weirdos forming a commune.  (Not that that would be a bad 
idea, I'd be open for it, especially if I were ten years younger, uhm, and 
single, LOL!)
 
Anyways, I now live in a condo community (more non-community, coz people are 
quite private here), which is superbly managed by a resident Manager (paid by 
the HOA dues) and of course there are lots of conflicts -- because people 
disobey the rules.  Sound familiar?  Different standards, pet issues, parking, 
pool privileges, storage at premium, etcetera.  Of course, if we had MORE 
common facilities, a little friendlier set-up and the cars would be parked on 
the side somewhere, to keep our children safe... it would be darn close to 
cohousing.  (My husband indeed insist that I go ahead and propose some changes 
to this effect at our next HOA meeting, usually attended by a few retired 
residents.  Hah!)
 
Yours, mrv
 
 


Marta R. Vanegas
Community Organizer
Concordia Cohousing
admin [at] concordiacohousing.org
www.concordiacohousing.org

"Be the change you wish to see in the world" - Mahatma Gandhi

Cohousing - Building an Old Fashioned Neighborhood in a New Way