Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Quorums - value of

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On Oct 1, 2007, at 2:45 PM, O3C11N6G wrote:

>  Conventionally, more than 50% of
> the total membership is required for consensus, including absentee
> owners.

Conventionally, consensus is not used by HOAs. They use majority  
vote. So if the quorum is 51%, the decision can be made by 25.5% of  
the membership. Since some use percentage voting, they can actually  
have 25.5 votes available. In many large associations the quorum can  
be lower than 50%.

> Whether this is frequently seen in cohousing is a question I have.
> Another question I have is whether justice is being done by
> ignoring any concerns of members not able to attend the business
> meeting.

Hypothetically ignored people are hard to address. The issue is have  
people actually been ignored? If the board backs up the membership  
meeting vote, then these homeowners would not be being ignored just  
because they missed one meeting. They can still go to the Board.

In our community, we have delayed issues if there are members who  
request it because they cannot attend. We rarely decide anything in  
one meeting so people have ample time to weigh in. I can't imagine a  
consensus decision being made when people  knew someone objected but  
couldn't be at the meeting. There would have to be other circumstances.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing,Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org