Cohousing-L Mailing List: smoking

(continued)

My 2 cents.  Do NOT put anything about smoking, or pet policy or 

anything vaguely like that into your CC and Rs! That's what "house 

rules" or "community agreements" or whatever you want to call them, 

are for.  They can be as restrictive (or not) as you want them to be, 

but remember that because you are a relatively small condo complex 

(not 200 or 400 units!), AND you have a completely different form of 

governance where everyone gets a say in making (and remaking) 

"policy," you need to keep those "rules" in a document that you can 

modify or adjust as you find parts of it that aren't working.

Remember, the reason most condo complexes do put all those "rules" 

into the CC and R's is because the are usually governed by a handful 

of people on an elected board with little or no input from the vast 

majority of people who live there. Also, in a typical new condo 

complex, the CC and Rs are prepared by the developer way before 

anyone anyone lives there.  And they are not at all easy to change. I 

think that the only things that differentiate our condo docs/CC and 

Rs from a conventional condo complex are 1) the absence of things 

like pet and  quiet hours and smoking and other "policies," 2) the 

fact that we make all our decisions by consensus, and a provision for 

"back-up" up voting, if consensus cannot be reached after X number of 

meetings (which, parenthetically, we should never or virtually never 

have to use--but that is  another discussion.)

Joani Blank
Swan's Market Cohousing
Oakland, CA

At 03:16 AM 9/20/2006, you wrote:

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Today's Topics:

   1. Smoking in the Co-housing Complex (wmlp [at] aol.com)
   2. Re: Smoking in the Co-housing Complex (Rob Sandelin)
   3. Re: Smoking in the Co-housing Complex (ken)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 19:23:02 -0400
From: wmlp [at] aol.com
Subject: [C-L]_ Smoking in the Co-housing Complex
To: cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org
Message-ID: <8C8AA59B01D80E0-BDC-11B6 [at] webmail-da15.sysops.aol.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

 Hello All-

This is a request for any recent info regarding smoking in a 

co-housing complex. I notice from the archives that it has not been 

chattered about for several years, so I thought I would stir the pot again.

We are Eugene Downtown Cohousing in Eugene, OR and anxiously 

awaiting completed construction drawings so we can get contractor 

bids and see if we can afford our dreams. In the meantime we are 

diligently working bylaws, CC&Rs and other paperwork.

In developing our CC&Rs, the subject of smoking is obviously an 

issue. We had already anticipated no smoking in the common house or 

adjacent areas such as guest rooms, library, etc. The complex 

configuration, when built, will be 24 townhouses and flats in a 

three story building on a 1/4 city block. The first floor will be 

some commercial spaces, storage, work shop. The 24 residential 

spaces on the 2nd and 3rd floors will surround a common courtyard 

with unit access directly from the courtyard. Each unit will have a 

small deck facing the outside of the complex.

Because of the configuration, there is a probability of second hand 

smoke being noted in other units if some members choose to smoke in 

their units or on the decks as would be their perceived right in the 

privacy of their own homes.

THE question is: would it be legal and practical to prohibit smoking 

anywhere in the complex and make that part of the restrictive 

documents that prospective buyers would have to accept.

Thanks for any input. There is a wealth of wonderful advice and 

counsel on the List Serve which greatly assists new co-housing 

communities and is much appreciated.

Lew Powell
Eugene Downtown Cohousing
Eugene, OR
wmlp [at] aol.com

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Message: 2
Date: Tue, 19 Sep 2006 18:18:16 -0700
From: "Rob Sandelin" <floriferous [at] msn.com>
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Smoking in the Co-housing Complex
To: "'Cohousing-L'" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Message-ID: <BAY0-SMTP0705F109634C7D95AB6A6FA3230 [at] phx.gbl>
Content-Type: text/plain;       charset="iso-8859-1"

This might not be something your group will get to decide, it will be up to
your mortgage providers. If they think this is too restrictive a clause and
would impede the  resale foreclosed units, then you will not be allowed to
do this when they review your CC&R's for funding and they will tell you to
pull it, and you will have to because you need their loans.

Rob Sandelin
Sharingwood cohousing, Snohomish, WA
Naturalist, Writer
The Environmental Science School
http://www.nonprofitpages.com/nica/SVE.htm
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Message: 3
Date: Wed, 20 Sep 2006 04:35:25 -0400
From: ken <gebser [at] speakeasy.net>
Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Smoking in the Co-housing Complex
To: Cohousing-L <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
Message-ID: <4510FD4D.7030701 [at] speakeasy.net>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1

Rob Sandelin wrote:
> This might not be something your group will get to decide, it will be up to
> your mortgage providers. If they think this is too restrictive a clause and
> would impede the  resale foreclosed units, then you will not be allowed to
> do this when they review your CC&R's for funding and they will tell you to
> pull it, and you will have to because you need their loans.

I would think, too, that proscribing what legal items/activities people
 may have/do on their own property crosses a line you may not want to cross.

--
"It is not knowable how long that conflict would last, it could last,
you know, six days, six weeks.  I doubt six months."
        --Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, 2/7/03

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End of Cohousing-L Digest, Vol 32, Issue 23
*******************************************

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

www.joaniblank.com 

smoking	<– Date –> <– Thread –>
From: Joani Blank (joaniswansway.com)
Date: Thu, 21 Sep 2006 13:27:41 -0700 (PDT)