Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: HOAs in Cohousing

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

To remove the notion of community from cohousing, renders it something
entirely different than what it is. This was one of the concerns which
originated the trademarking of the word cohousing, which has since been
lifted, since the word was NOT hijacked by developers who were selling
condos not community.  Without the community, cohousing has no point.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood Cohousing Community
Snohomish County, WA 

-----Original Message-----
From: Marta Vanegas, Concordia Organizer
[mailto:admin [at] concordiacohousing.org] 
Sent: Thursday, September 01, 2005 8:57 AM
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Subject: [C-L]_ HOAs in Cohousing

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
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