Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: Re: Dividing authority between the Board and theMembership of a HOA

[Rob Sandelin (floriferous]

 At Sharingwood the bylaws can and have been changed by adopted "house
rules" which are ratified by a majority percentage of the owners. This is
all written into the CC&R's for the condo. Anything not defined by a house
rule, or the CC&R's would by defualt be legally the boards decision.
However, in our case, the board has never made any community policy, it has
made small, and usually appropriate administrative type of decisions.
Sometimes the board is the arbitrator between teams, but usually teams make
their own policies in their domains, where appropriate these policies come
in front of the community for discussion and agreement. Broader agreement
propposals are brought to the communty meeting for discussion and decision.
How we operate suits us, and if it does not exactly match our bylaws we tend
not to care too much.   In our state, there is no governmental authority
which checks on housing boards, thus we can do whatever we wish as far as
who makes decisions.  I understand in some states, there is a state board
which reviews and can inspect your minutes, etc, so how you operate in that
situation might be more controlled than we have to deal with. 

I think a good question might to ask yourselves, who do we want to make what
kinds of decisions?  Sort this out first, then if you feel the need, modify
your house rules, bylaws or whatever. 


Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood.org
Naturalist, Writer
The Environmental Science School
http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm
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