Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: limited-access events in common space

[Muriel Kranowski (murielk]

At 11:31 AM 2/21/2010, Sharon Villines wrote:
> <snip> So if I were a member of a group that
> decided it only wanted the "six of us" and no one else was allowed to
> join and we met in the CH, it would be very obvious and hurtful to at
> least some other members.

One of the selling points I've often seen about cohousing is that you can 
live a pleasant life in a much smaller house because you have access to 
nice common elements, the largest being the CH.

Once you have made this one of your marketing points, as we did, then it 
seems unfair to say "No, it's really a COMMON house and you can't use it as 
though it were your living room."  Of course the community will want to 
impose rules on the use of common spaces, but if these rules are obeyed, 
then I don't understand what is wrong with an exclusive "living room" use 
as long as it is clearly scheduled.  All the more so if a community has 
some chagrin in seeing its CH be underutilized.  If there is already lots 
of use and small-group use would make most of the CH unavailable to others, 
then a permission process could be set up.

Sharon mentions one thing that's wrong with this, namely that other 
community members will feel hurt at being excluded.  This may be true, but 
I can't help but think that if the affinity group decided to squeeze into 
one another's homes for their weekly get-togethers instead of using the CH, 
this would soon become known ("Oh, sorry, I can't do xyz at that time - 
that's when a bunch of us get together") and some people would feel quite 
hurt at not being allowed to join.

  Muriel
  Shadowlake Village Cohousing, Blacksburg, VA